God's Week Has 7 Days
| Recent Articles... | |
| · | A Parable Of Rude Awakening (Dec 26) |
| · | Do You Hear What I Hear? (Dec 19) |
| · | Oom-Pah-Pah (Dec 12) |
| · | What's The Real Cost? (Dec 05) |
| · | What If . . . ? (Nov 28) |
| · | Explosive Profit (Nov 21) |
| · | Blueprint From Above (Nov 14) |
| · | A Hand Of Welcome (Nov 07) |
| · | (Oct 31) |
| · | The CEO As Pastor (Oct 24) |
| · | A Hiding Place Of Gray (Oct 17) |
| · | The Monday Connection (Oct 10) |
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More God's Week Articles... Preface / Forward About the Author |
Blueprint From Above
Nov 14
This time of year the Manitoba chill starts to bite, and we all get ready to hunker down for winter. Some of us procrastinators are finally getting around to checking our furnaces and sprucing up the weather-stripping around our doors and windows. Winter here is long and harsh.
I ponder my dwelling and its ability to withstand temperatures of minus 30. I'm reminded of Perry Bigelow, a Chicago housebuilder who puts up highly energy-efficient homes so his customers don't have to pay an arm and leg for heating fuel. His company guarantees that heating bills will not exceed $200 a year. That gives me a sense of comfort. I've worked in Chicago and felt its icy blasts.
Bigelow sees his work as a form of Christian mission. He often imagines a construction company managed by Jesus, and then tries to manage his company accordingly.
For one thing, he strives to capitalize his business responsibly so that his employees have steady work. He sees this, too, as following what Jesus would have done. By aiming for careful, sustainable growth, Bigelow's company was able to withstand the last dip in the housing cycle without laying off anyone, a time when other builders were cutting staff by 50 to 70 percent.
I once heard the late Marlin Miller, a seminary president from Indiana, tell a convention of builders that they were in an excellent position to be Christian peacemakers. He said the biblical vision of peace went further than mere avoidance of conflict. The Hebrew word shalom also meant justice and righteousness. People in the construction industry, he went on, could work toward peace in the following ways:
By seeking harmony with the natural environment. The King James rendering of have dominion has often been misunderstood to mean
license to conquer, Miller said, when in fact it more correctly means to be a steward and caretaker. For builders to be peacemakers means to establish and maintain peace with God's created order. The implications are far-reaching, such as avoiding the temptation to overbuild.
By caring about the poor. Scripture often measures justice by what is happening to the needy. Christian builders can use their power and resources to obtain justice for the poor in the area of housing.
By considering the welfare of the wider human community. This can mean studying the social impact of housing styles. High apartment density, for example, can cause psychic trauma to local dwellers. A builder concerned with biblical justice might refuse a sardine-can project.
By seeking peace in their workplace. They monitor their use of power in employer-employee relationships. They create the kinds of work situations that make peace possible. Bigelow casts this same theme in the Bible's language of body. In his company, he says, each person's work is integrated and interrelated with the work of others, and there is a high level of respect for each person's contribution.
Both Bigelow's and Miller's concerns address the same basic issue: How would Jesus function in my business? In my work, I can pose a similar question: What kind of magazine would Jesus edit?
You can ask the same in your field of work.
God's Week | Preface | Forward | About the Author
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