Thursday, August 03, 2006

Free for All Friday

Every now and again, I'll be running what I've decided to call a "Free for All Friday". Here's how "Free for All Friday" works - on a given Friday, I will post a quote or pose a question or briefly raise a provocative topic....then wait for comments. The idea is I'd like to hear your thoughts on a topic or quote so please, please, please don't leave me hanging.

For the first "Free for All Friday", I'd like to draw your attention to Chapter 8 of John Piper's book, Don't Waste Your Life entitled "Making Much of Christ from 8 to 5". He makes six points on how to make much of Christ in our secular work but never mind about his points for now...we'll cover those later. I'm interested in your answer to the following questions:

How can a Christian worker in the marketplace make much of Christ from 8 to 5?

or to personalize it...

How do you make much of Christ from 8 to 5?


Please share your thoughts.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great question Andre. This is my first blog post BTW. First, I think you need to add pgatour.com to your favorite links to be taken seriously as a business executive.

I was given the book Total Truth for fathers day. I found chapter 2 very helpful in my life and I think it very much helps answer todays question. In my work experience, it was always difficult for me to explain God’s joy that I felt working and knew that it was more than a paycheck or being a good example to others. I found this chapter helpful in understanding how I was created. One of the tenets of the book is that the Christian message does not begin with “accept Christ as your savior”. The message begins with God created the heavens and the earth. God has created me for His glory and in my daily work life, I am fulfilling His culteral mandate as a business executive. The pdf version of chapter 2 can be found on the link below.

www.gnpcb.org/sites/total.truth

Every Square Inch said...

First off, you're absolutely right - the conspicious absence of pgatours.com immediately detracts from my credibility as a business executive. :-)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how daily engagement in the marketplace begins not with us but with God. Also, thanks for the link to the Total Truth excerpt.

Every Square Inch said...

Tom,

Thanks for taking the time to post a comment. You're right in drawing our attention to giving as a way to glorify God through our careers

Anonymous said...

How do I make much of Christ from 9 to 5? One of the ways is to love my fellow co-worker. In doing so, I hope that I am the "aroma" of Christ which may lead others to repentance and faith.

Practical ways I seek to love the coworker are:
(1) Providing quality service and work products for them to enable them to do their job more effectively;
(2) Getting to know them beyond the workplace (i.e. - going out to lunch, learning about their family, hobbies, etc.)
(3) Act like Christ - integrity, kindness, humility, etc.
(4) Sharing the gospel. I have had several occasions to do this in the past year; both with Muslims.

Of course, doing these things involves much grace and dependence on God since I experience many sinful temptations to do the opposite.

Aiming to do these things I hope brings God pleasure and glory.

Mike

Anonymous said...

How do I make much of Christ from 9 to 5? One of the ways is to love my fellow co-worker. In doing so, I hope that I am the "aroma" of Christ which may lead others to repentance and faith.

Practical ways I seek to love the coworker are:
(1) Providing quality service and work products for them to enable them to do their job more effectively;
(2) Getting to know them beyond the workplace (i.e. - going out to lunch, learning about their family, hobbies, etc.)
(3) Act like Christ - integrity, kindness, humility, etc.
(4) Sharing the gospel. I have had several occasions to do this in the past year; both with Muslims.

Of course, doing these things involves much grace and dependence on God since I experience many sinful temptations to do the opposite.

Aiming to do these things I hope brings God pleasure and glory.

Mike

Every Square Inch said...

Mike

Thanks for your outstanding comments. Point #2 about getting to know them beyond the workplace strikes home for me. I'm not always take the time to do that, yet it's vital part of "incarnating" the gospel to them. It also says "you're an individual created in the image of God and you are more then the sum of your production/contribution".

Great comment.