358: Honoring God in Your 9-to-5: Integrating Faith and Work

Are you wondering if it's possible to integrate your faith and work in a marketplace context? Whatever you do, you can find a purposeful life that honors God and points people towards Jesus. Learn more from Dr. Al Erisman, the board chair of the Theology of Work Project. 

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In this episode:

• Haddon Robinson, the former president of Denver Seminary; and Gordon Conwell; and Tom Phillips, who is the chairman of Raytheon, asked "Does the Bible really speak into this care about daily work?" (04:59)

• The danger is if you don't think about your work, then you're ignoring the part of your life where you spend most of your time. (06:02)

• The reach of Bible Commentary on theolologyofwork.org (08:36)
• Ruth Bancewicz. She wrote a book called God in the Lab, and she made this comment, "It's true that I want to bring my faith into the work I do in science, but actually, science is a window into an understanding of God." (15:00)
• What are some differences between leaders who are following Jesus and those who might have other motivations? (17:45)
• Max De Pree was a Christian former chairman at Herman Miller Furniture, and he wrote a number of books, and one of them was Leadership Is an Art. And in that book, he makes this interesting comment. He said, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. We're not going to kid people when things are bad. We're going to be very clear. We're going to paint a picture of where we're trying to go, give people a sense of purpose.” And then, at the end, he says, “The role of a leader is to say thank you to the people doing the work, and in between, to be a servant.” (19:07)
• Some of the key lessons on workplace culture that Al learned from his study of ServiceMaster and Bill Polland and his predecessors (22:23)

• James Heskett, who was a professor in the business school at Harvard said, “ServiceMaster has cracked the code on the service industry by giving people a sense of purpose and meaning in their work, that has changed the very fundamentals of the profitability of a company.” And he said, “I attribute their great performance in the marketplace to this idea of getting purpose and meaning for their people.” (25:19)

• Understanding the difference between end goals and means goals (30:58)
• The purpose in the business world and how to define success in the workplace (45:38)
• How traveling to several countries to speak about ethics impacted Al's perception of doing business, not only in the United States, but in these different cultures (51:25)

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