God's World Whole Life Stewardship - Reflections

Reflections

SOME WONDERFUL NORTH AMERICAN STIRRINGS: PART 2
By Pete Hammond, Summer 2002

Part 2 of 2

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This parish dynamic of marketplace stirrings on the local level must become rooted in core of our congregational life and worship. This is a one trend in the movement that deserves much more coverage and resourcing. It is strategic while being economical and has the added benefit of being contextualized to each city and regions culture.

Other types of events include organizations holding gatherings of peers. International small- business startups among the predominantly non-Christian nations are served by the ten year old Tentmakers Association and its Intent newsletter, website and annual meeting. Then there is the yearly International Christian Chamber of Commerce convention based in Europe. A variety of ministries to senior executives offer special outings and gatherings every year such as the Business Executives for Economic Justice in Chicago, the De Pree Center for Leadership in Pasadena, California, the Trinity Forum in Virginia and the Executive Leadership Foundation in Atlanta. Some denominations are engaging the topic for the first time in their annual men's and women's gatherings or other conference programs. Some of the guilds of Christians in various industries now gather at their annual professional conventions for a prayer breakfast or a pre-convention seminar on faith issues in their field.11 Local small groups on these topics are also growing quickly. Bible studies, prayer times, problem-solving studies and fellowship meetings are happening before work or at lunch break. Recently an ABC news story profiled this phenomena as they filmed a group of orthodox Jewish business leaders studying the Torah in New York City and then focused in on a group of Christian business owners studying the New Testament in Ohio during the workday. It is in this kind of covenental relationships that personal agony and failure on the job can be processed. Ethical dilemmas can be unpacked and next steps can be discerned. Our deep seated loneliness is being addressed by the regular local gatherings. Here we might find Christians being much more beneficial to our economy as they gain strength to be more loving, intentional and salty on the job.12

While adult believers are wrestling at these gatherings, the movement is gaining traction among students and their faculty mentors in our Christian educational institutions.

The Education Industry
The education industry is also engaging this new phenomena. Just about the time many Americans have slipped into the crass pragmatism of viewing college and degrees as certificates to better jobs and more money, foundational values and ethical concerns are getting back on the agenda. A few symptomatic initiatives illustrate good changes here that promise to equip our young successors while also lending scholarly depth and reflection to the movement.

There are currently more than two dozen associations of Christians who are networked throughout American higher education. They connect with other believers in their field to wrestle with the application of a biblical faith to their teaching and research. We see this phenomena in such diverse academic areas such as forestry, medicine, the arts, engineering, history, nursing, literature and physics.13

Both Canada and the United States now have Christian guilds for public school teachers with the Christian Educator's Association, Int'l from Pasadena, CA growing under the leadership of a former California school principal. Few areas of our culture need the salty help from believers more than our troubled public school systems. Churches need to affirm more than just their church-school volunteer educators. Some clergy are beginning to move beyond the traditional September dedication ceremony for Sunday school teachers and now feature all members who serve in the education industry. A few are even inviting public school leaders to the ceremony and that sends a much better message than the polarizing shouting matches at school board meetings.

Another bright spot are ministry efforts in professional schools. Student Christian fellowships and campus ministries are beginning to function at law, medicine and business colleges.14 One that I am personally involved in is at the leading MBA schools. Now in its ninth year of work on over a dozen leading campuses, InterVarsity's Professional School ministry was founded by John Ratichek who is a Harvard based senior staff member, Harvard B-school graduate and son of a New England manufacturing company. John Terrill, graduate of the Kellogg Business School, is the national director. The older Christian guilds in law, medicine and nursing now have campus staff in their professional schools. The fastest growing edge in InterVarsity's six-decade work in higher education is its Graduate Student & Faculty Ministries with over eighty veteran staff led by Cam Anderson who has an Master of Fine Arts degree. I have hopes of the old liberal arts vision of universities producing educated critical thinkers and moral leaders might be recovered in the midst of our slide into schools dominated by certification and careerism interests.

In the historic Christian colleges several new things are happening. A new line of textbooks has been developed that deal with faith integration and foundations for the arts, literature, psychology, the sciences and business. One volume is Business Through The Eyes of Faith by business professors Richard Chewning, John Eby and Shirley Roels. Some of these Protestant colleges are beginning to parallel their annual emphasis on world missionary careers with a focused program on the ministry in the secular careers of their students. I have participated in a variety of these on campuses including Azusa-Pacific in California, Belhaven in Mississippi, Bethel in Minnesota, Houghton in New York, King in Tennessee, Westmont in Californian and Wheaton in Illinois. Many of the students from this network of campuses are preparing for leadership in government through the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities' "American Studies Program" by studying and working during their junior year in Washington, DC or at CCC&U's new film study center in Hollywood. Similar developments are happening at several Roman Catholic colleges such as Loyola in Chicago led by professor Bill Droel and at St. Thomas College in the Twin Cities. Maybe a new generation of college graduates will be able to view themselves as first class Christians even if they do not pursue pastoral or missionary careers!

In the world of professional training for pastors and religious leaders, we are seeing several new efforts on these issues. Several seminaries and Christian graduate schools now offer classes on how to affirm and support the ministry of the pew-sitter in the world. It could be argued that the leading seminary here is Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Several years ago they endowed a chair of the laity and appointed Robert Banks from Australia who has produced a half dozen books in the field. Since then much has been accomplished including courses and degree concentrations as well as a focus on developing pastors who understand and are committed to affirming, equipping and mobilizing their people in workplace ministry. InterVarsity veteran Scott Young collaborates in Fuller's course offerings on campus and in extension education around the greater Los Angeles area. The FTS new laity chair is Mark Lau Branson while Banks is back home launching the Center for Christian Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia. Another rich source at the graduate level is the reconstituted Auburn Seminary in New York under the pioneering leadership of former Dean Robert Reber. They have concentrated on this area for several years. Other encouraging college and graduate level initiatives are seen in the work of Regent College in Vancouver, Canada, Regent University in Virginia and Yale Divinity School in New Haven, Connecticut. The first in thsi list has British roots among the Brethren while the latter is part of the modern charismatic movement. I helped Gordon-Conwell in Boston launch its new Mockler Center which is now led by director Episcopal pastor Will Messenger. One of the oldest study programs is the School of Theology extension program of the University of the South (Episcopal) in Tennessee. It has helped hundreds of everyday believers with its extension studies programs.

Another area of growth in the educational industry is the multiplication of new or expanding non-degree granting study centers. These are primarily focused on integrative and applied learning for the laity. Some are attached to colleges and graduate schools, while others are based in a denominational network. Independant ones are serving diverse constituencies.15

This recovery of academic discipline to the practice of faith in culture will produce a stream of younger leaders to take the movement into its next iteration. Another benefit is the reflection and scholarly research that is needed to develop a foundation of Biblical, historical and theological roots. That asset will help in the next area of the movement focused on systemic realities.

Changing Structures
Not everything in a renewal or paradigm shift is brand new. Older institutions sometimes reflect, adjust and ad to the new concerns, practice and dynamic too. The expanse of this stirring among Christians has led to the development of several structures or renewal of old ones that work on these issues.

Several Protestant denominations now have centers or offices focusing on work and faith applications. Current ones include the Presbyterian (USA) in Louisville, Kentucky, the American Baptist Church in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America directed by Sally Simmel in Chicago, Illinois, and the United Methodist Church led by Alyne JoAnn Eslinger in Nashville, Tennessee which publishes Links: All God's People in All Places, and In All Times, Are Called to Love And to Serve. Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church eliminated its office on lay ministry. Sometimes it is quite hard for professional clergy to make this a priority. Reid Harden has led a diverse team of Southern Baptists in its Home Mission Board with their "Marketplace Evangelism" conferences and curriculum development in the 1990s. The Anabaptist denominations in Canada and the United States are being well served by the expanded work of the Mennonites for Economic Development Association. They have an annual conference, a website, an excellent magazine and economic development agency offices in eight nations on three continents - Africa, Latin America and in Russia.

Then there are several coalition or network type structures. Protestant leaders, denominational executives, activists and educators in this movement are connected through the eight year old Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life. It is a volunteer network of ecumenical activists in the mainline Protestant system and a few Roman Catholics who work for the connection between faith and work, especially within congregations. We meet annually and publish a quarterly newsletter which probes issues and describes resources and leaders. Another emerging national force is the Gospel & Our Culture Network, led by professor and missiologist George Hunsberger based in Holland, Michigan. GOCN is an ongoing process of research, work groups, seminars and conferences along with a newsletter focused on how the church can best function in post-Christian culture. A good way to check them out is via their newsletter by the same name. The National Center for the Laity in Chicago will soon celebrate twenty-five years of service to this vision. This network emerged from the changes unleashed by Vatican II in 1963-65. They convene interest groups for consultations on workplace issues like ethics, money, power and downsizing. They publish a great newsletter Initiatives edited by Loyola professor Bill Droel which is full product referrals, leaders, reflections on Catholic teaching, congregational initiatives and helpful organizations. Several new books and papers have been generated by this coalition. The Leadership Foundation in Tyler, Texas serves the large evangelical congregations (1,000 or more) with seminars, invitation-only gatherings, research and a hot newsletter on trends. It takes very seriously the mobilization of every member in ministry.

Another aspect of change for structures and systems are the centers for ethics. These are sometimes attached to research universities, colleges or seminaries, while others are independent. A variety of events, studies, services and publications deliver their learning to the larger public, both religious and non-sectarian. Leaders of this process come from across the church and they reflect a new generation who can see and dream of different ways to apply the faith in society.

New Leaders
Every new movement has its leaders. They are people who see what-is-not-yet and work toward its realization. Sometimes they are seen as a threat to the status quo, but without their dreams the church would slide into perpetuating outdated traditions while suffering from increasing detachment from the hopes, needs and fears of their core membership and those outside who would believe if they saw more fruit and relevance. This movement now has a second generation of change- agents that include pastors, business executives, elected politicians, journalists, new missionaries and educators who are learning while they lead. They are building on the pioneering work of earlier authors like Hendrick Kraemer's The Theology of the Laity [Westminister, 1958], Mark Gibb's God's Frozen People [Westminister, 1964], and his God's Lively People [Westminister, 1970] with Ralph Morton and Hans Rudi-Weber & Stephen Neil's Christian History of the Laity [Westminister, 1963]. One of the most prolific and effective pioneers was Elton Trueblood who gave us a half dozen volumes in the mid- and late-20th century.

We are also seeing the emergence of a new generation of outspoken lay advocates of faith in the workplace among senior leaders in business, government, and education. With years of tough learning on the job under their belt, they are now speaking out. I think of recent business authors like Mark Ritchie, seminary graduate, former commodities trader in Chicago and author of God in the Pits: Confessions of a Commodities Trader [MacMillan]; Art Miller & Ralph Mattson, Fortune 500 consultants and authors of The Truth About You [Ten Speed Press] and Finding A Job You Can Love [Thomas Nelson]; Bob Slocum, CEO of Potalomic Inc and author of Maximize Your Ministry [NavPress], Tom Chappell - CEO of Tom's of Maine and author of The Soul of a Business: Managing for Profit and the Common Good [Bantam]; Janet Hagberg who is a business consultant and author of Personal Power in Organizations and The Critical Journey; James Autrey - retired president of the Meredith Corporation and author of Love and Profit: The Art Of Caring Leadership [Morrow]; and television executive Bob Buford's Half Time [Harper Collins/Zondervan]. These modern marketplace writers are building on the earlier legacy of industry leaders like Herbert J. Taylor of Club Aluminum described in God's Man In The Marketplace [InterVarsity], John Wanamaker [Eaglecrest] and A Christian In Big Business [Moody] about Henry Parsons Crowell of Quaker Oats fame. Other authors in this vein include Jimmy Carter, Wes Pippert, Bill Pollard, Cal Thomas and Andrew Young.

These stories have a reality element that no religious professional or academic can bring to the discussion. Works by or about veteran practitioners are great additions to the process and they also add to the rich perspective of some of the authors of and leaders in the Bible whose faith was refined in the workplace. I think of Moses as a community organizer, David in government, judge Deborah, Matthew in the tax industry, minority advocate Esther, public project builder Nehemiah, and medical doctor Luke. I'm not suggesting that these modern authors are writing at the same level as scripture, but they offer similar real-life richness as they reflect on life-long immersion within a career.16

There are also a growing number of pastors and priests getting behind this expansion of Monday-to-Saturday faith into life too. Ed White of the Alban Institute is an excellent consultant on the subject after serving as a denominational executive for years. He launched the CMDL's Laynet newsletter. Pastor Craig Barnes of National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC is leading his congregation in grasping this dimension of its ministry in the most power oriented city in the world. Pastor and educator Greg Ogden of California has written The New Reformation [Zondervan] and now leads extension education at Fuller Seminary. Pastor Lowell Sykes from Lynchburg, VA did his M.Div degree at McCormick seminary of re-structuring an old downtown church toward a workplace ministry focus. Possibly the best pastoral team for the cause is Harry Heinz and Kate Kotfila of First Presbyterian Church of Brunswick, New York who have worked together on this for almost two decades. Their congregation has banned the use of the word laity because its is so demeaning and unbiblical. Pastor Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback church in southern California, probably has the largest congregation focused on these issues. Davida Foy Crabtree of the United Church of Christ has invested years in congregational development around this issue and her Connecticut parish's case study story is told in The Empowering Church [Alban]. Anglican leader George Carey is the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury and tells his pastoral story on this issue about his parish in downtown Bristol, England in The Church In The Marketplace [Morehouse]. Possibly the most prolific pastor, writer and teacher in this area is John R. W. Stott from London. Check out his writings in a new collection Authentic Christianity [InterVarsity Press]. The section on "Living as a Christian" has special appeal here. I thoroughly enjoyed a pastoral voice from troubled Poland with the release of its national church leader Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski's All Who Labor [Sophia Institute Press] with a appreciative foreword from the nation's revolutionary past-president Lech Walesa whom Wyszynski pastored.

In the highly visible world of elected politicians, we encounter folks like Rep. Tony Hall, democratic senator from Ohio who joins the long tradition of national legislators who openly apply faith to their work. Notable names include leaders like Mark Hatfield from Washington, Bill Armstrong from Colorado, Bill Bradley from New Jersey, HUD cabinet leader Jack Kemp from New York, John Ashcroft from Missouri and many other national legislators who openly demonstrate faith-based values in government and politics. A few others in the public eye include former U.N. Ambassador, mayor of Atlanta and the 96 Olympics chair Andrew Young with his new book A Way Out of No Way: Spiritual Memoirs [Nelson]; Jimmy & Rosalyn Carter, authors of Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life [Fawcett Books] and his Living Faith; and former pastor and mayor of Indianapolis William Hudnut's Minister / Mayor [Westminister]. Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop demonstrated his faith convictions for the whole nation and they are profiled in a autobiography Koop [McMillan]. Those who serve in the public eye of government share risks that are similar to Hebrew national leaders in scripture like Joseph in Egypt, Esther, Daniel & Nehemiah in Babylon, David, Deborah & Hezekiah in Israel and the Ethiopian treasurer of Acts.

There is also a new breed of cross-cultural missionaries in this movement. The western Catholic and Protestant missionary movement has a commendable track record of delivering agricultural, health care, educational and linguistic advances and resources to the under developed nations of the world. Now there are many initiatives in missions in the area of economics and business. New variations on North American Christians serving in other cultures includes micro-economic enablers bringing loans and business training into troubled economies and empowering poor believers to become productive citizens. One new network of business Christians is The Business Professional Network led by John Warton from Portland, Oregon. Other economic empowerment ventures include the Mennonites for Economic Development Association, Opportunity Int'l, Tentmakers, World Concern, World Relief, and World Vision Int'l. Another less noticed but potentially very powerful dimension of this is the major corporations who are exporting Christian executives, managers and technology experts into cultures where traditional professional missionaries can no longer go. Also electronic travelers connect internationally on a daily basis, and relationships emerge that lend themselves to much more than business-as-usual. Christians in military, tourism and service industries are moved around regularly with opportunities to live their faith among other peoples without all the costs or limitations incurred by traditional missionaries. I see Jesus' "cup of cold water offered to these little ones in his name"17 now taking the form of agricultural, economic and business know-how further into the global economy. Once upon a time we offered educational and medical gifts to others. Now we have a new gift to give in the name of the one who loaned it all to us in the first place. One of my favorites is Austrian Peter Drucker who insights into management have world-wide use. His personal journey and application of faith is instructive. The challenge for westerners will be to offer these things in ways that are transferrable and do not violate the receiving culture or transport the American way inappropriately.

Recently, a new element of this venture has begun. After decades of grassroots activism, experimentation and networking, some are doing scholarly work on the history, theology and interpretation of core issues and foundations. This sinking of roots and applying critical evaluation bodes well and might help us avoid the danger of marketplace ministry being a just one more passing fad among Christians. Some of this work circulates in new books. French Catholic Yves Congar's Called to Life [Crossroad] and Lay People in the Church [Westminister Press] explored many theological issues in this field. Yale's Miroslav Volf probes core issues in his Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work [Oxford University Press]. Historical analysis was helped by Alexander Faivre's, The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church [Paulist Press], Leland Ryken's Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were [Academie/Zondervan] and Nathan Hatch's The Professions in American History [University of Notre Dame Press]. In the field of ethics we have Jan L. Womer's Morality and Ethics in Early Christianity [Fortress], Alexander Hill's Just Business: Christians Ethics for the Marketplace [InterVarsity Press] and Lewis Smedes' Mere Morality: What God Expects from Ordinary People [Wm. B. Eerdmans] and Max L. Stackhouse, Dennis P. McCann, Shirley J. Roels and Preston N. Willams, On Moral Business: Classical and Contemporary Resources for Ethics in Economic Life [Wm. B. Eerdmans]. One of the most recent and very helpful works is Robert Banks and Paul Steven's wonderful Complete Book of Everyday Christianity [InterVarsity Press] with its exploration of the spiritual implications of such everyday responsibilities as owning a car, credit cards, accountability and partying. I look forward to more scholars weighing in with papers, research projects and books that surface in the classrooms of our key educational centers to produce more leaders, pastors and reflective practitioners for this mobilization of all Jesus' followers as ministers and kingdom agents.

As you might sense in this survey, this grass roots renewal or reformation with its product development, new organizations, changing structures, and emerging leaders is broad, diverse and quite mixed. I've not even touched all the activity around ethics, money, power and values in the public square. I've only noted the high points elsewhere. But, taken as a whole, I have no question that a new wind is blowing through western Christianity.

This phenomena is also being noticed by the public media. New attention is being given to faith, religion, ethics and values in all of American life. One of the most visible changes is the American Broadcasting Company's recent initiative with Peggy Wehmeyer appointed as a full-time religion reporter for Peter Jennings' nightly news. She was the first full-time national television religion reporter in the industry. Now Public Television has added a weekly report on religion and ethics. In addition, you might have noticed that the Wall Street Journal is covering religious issues in business much more frequently. Major magazines, newspapers and television programs now attempt to acknowledge a faith-factor in its profiles of people, exposes` of failure, or analysis of trends. It is sometimes poorly done, but the appetite seems to be there in new ways. One pacesetting model is the addition of the first weekly religion section in a major newspaper in the Dallas (Texas) Morning News. Even National Public Radio and Public Television are cautiously dipping into the previously forbidden territory of stories of Christian faith in the workplace. Another leader is Bill Moyers who served in President Lyndon Johnson's White House before becoming a journalist and social critic. He is a child of Texas Baptist roots. One of the premiere journalism schools, the Missouri School of Journalism's Washington, DC campus, is guided up by veteran UPI bureau chief Wes Pippert who is an InterVarsity alum and outspoken believer. Another intriguing symptom is Harvard Business School's study of evangelical CEO's in business which resulted in Dr. Laura Nash's book Believers in Business [Thomas Nelson] and her sequel with Scotty McLennan Church on Sunday, Work on Monday: The Challenge of Fusing Christian Values with Business Life [Jossey-Bass]. The first work by Nash is a benchmark study of over sixty evangelical senior executives in large companies and their faith/work struggles. I fully expect many more studies and much more coverage to happen in the years to come. This increased public scrutiny will be mixed and sometimes very harsh, but in the long run, it adds accountability while inviting others to get in the process.

A basic window into all this is the cluster of repeated questions I hear being asked in many sectors of American religious life. Here's a collection of the most frequently asked ones I've heard:

  • Where is the Church on Tuesday?
  • What does the Lordship of Jesus Christ mean in the workplace or on the job?
  • What does biblical justice look like in government, education, finance, health care, agriculture, manufacturing or sales?
  • What does the Holy Spirit have to do with the building trades, food service, communications, transportation, law or the arts?
  • Do Christian laity have anymore to do in building the kingdom of God than just praying, paying and obeying?
  • Is there a difference between the ministry of the laity and the ministry of the clergy?
  • Is evangelism the special responsibility of only those who are gifted or called into it as a profession, or is it the calling and privilege of every believer?
  • Is work a result of the curse and destined to be consumed by fire as chaff?
  • What dimensions of witness go beyond a few gospel tract-like formulas?

Asking the right question is a doorway into a much richer and more personal faith at the grass roots. The disciplines it forces will hopefully get us past the all-too-scary images of professional athletes giving God adrenaline laden credit for their victories on national television. The gospel has so much more to offer our culture and the world if the church continues looking for more inclusive and diverse paradigms of the church than just the longstanding western institutional church gathered on Sunday to be led through a few formulaic worship ceremonies.

This is really fun! The people of God are gaining new muscle and spirit as long-term pewsitters are breaking out of their Sunday-only church membership and its sadly compartmentalized faith which has seldom connected with their work. I find great encouragement here while realizing how many centuries of neglect we have inherited. Undoing several hundred years of almost exclusive focus on religious professionals and institutions will take many more initiatives and several decades. But the Spirit is blowing in some previously dormant souls and silent sufferers, and they are moving out. All the doomsayers who wring their hands about the troubled church in the west should take note. God's Spirit is stirring and many believers are responding. Let's help all we can.

Another rich dimension to the restoration of ministry to every believer and this renewal of applied Christianity is a similar story that is happening outside the west. I have begun collecting stories and materials from Asia, Africa, Eurasia and Latin America. Believers in these contexts are learning lessons that could be very instructive for the church of the west, if we can become students rather than imperial westerners who tend to assume we do it right and they need to follow our lead. That spirit contradicts the servant leader model of our faith and limits the ability of the church to collaborate and produce Jesus' hope for "the Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven" and "bearing much fruit."18

We are still a long way from this understanding of the kingdom of God on earth being broadly owned and practiced across the American church. But the diversity of both the resources and who is developing them encourages me. Any renewal of long-lost or neglected biblical truths takes more than the blood, sweat and tears of one enlightened generation of activists. Turning around the western church's neglect of the priesthood of all believers, the creation mandate to be stewards of all the earth, a theological understanding of calling and work, the application of justice and mercy to systems and infrastructures, and a recovery of an ecclesiology that combines the church gathered and scattered will take several generations. I'm glad to be a part of it at this early stage.

Thanks for wandering through this stirring among God's people.

May the Lord be with you every day in every place!

Pete Hammond is a husband, daddy, and grandpa. He is also an active Presbyterian elder. He is senior veteran of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and is the leader of its Ministry-In-Daily-Life work. He is the creative developer of the Word In Life Study Bible. He also led in the production of The Marketplace Annotated Bibliography. He and Shirley live in Madison, WI and travel to Chicago to see their children and grandchildren at the drop of a hat.


Footnotes

  1. See Jesus' comments about change issues using this image in Luke 5:37-38.
  2. Part of my inspiration for this kind of presentation comes from the unique work done by Stephen Charles Neill and Hans-Ruedi Weber in The Layman In Christian History, Westminister Press, Philadelphia, 1963. No other church history, in my experience, has focused on the everyday practice of faith by non-religious professionals. That is one reason why the saltiness of the church in the west is quite anemic. I sense this might be changing and want to tell the story as broadly as I can to enable the enrichment of the Christian witness in the west.
  3. For a more complete survey see Hammond, Pete with R. Paul Stevens and Todd Svanoe, Marketplace Annotated Bibliography, InterVarsity Press, 2002 which critically reviews over seven hundred books in this field.
  4. Another way to access the constant flow of new works is listing at InterVarsity's website: www.ivmdl.org
  5. A very helpful source for Roman Catholic writings is Leonard Doohan's The Laity, A Bibliography, Michael Glazier, Wilmington, Delaware, 1987, paperback, 159 pages. This was published to help celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Gonzaga university in Spokane, Washington where Doohan teaches.
  6. We are developing a new version of this style product this year. It portrays academics and professionals in the greater Atlanta, Georgia metroplex discussing their faith on their job locations. It will be available in early 2003.
  7. Currently this work is out of print after total sales of about 750,000. Negotiations with a new publisher are underway.
  8. See our directory current "Periodicals Focusing on Ministry in the Workplace" at www.ivmdl.org.)
  9. This community was the work of a priest based upon Roman Catholic social doctrine in the 1940s in the Basque region of Northern Spain. He dealt with the economic disparities from a faith based approach which sought to dignify the role of labor and democratize the workplace. This venture was studied at the Harvard Business School, but my copy is undated with no author named.
  10. Another dimension to our group's journey includes international marketplace events ranging from Singapore to Kiev, Ukraine and London to Seoul. That is another story to be told elsewhere with voices from sister nation's churches being heard.
  11. I have received reports of these gatherings in the homebuilders, counseling, engineering, insurance, nuclear and government sectors. I sense there is much more to learn about what is going on in this area.
  12. Bill Diehl told his honest and very personal experience of one group in Emmaus, Pennsylvania his book The Monday Connection, HarperCollins, 1991.
  13. Bill Diehl told his honest and very personal experience of one group in Emmaus, Pennsylvania his book The Monday Connection, HarperCollins, 1991.
  14. A great precedent for this was set by the British InterVarsity movement decades ago when they launched professional societies for their graduates in library science, medicine, agriculture, education, engineering, etc. In recent years these have declined and we could probably learn some helpful lessons from both the beginnings and the current malaise.
  15. See our MP Directory of "MP Study Centers" at www.ivmdl.org.
  16. See our "Marketplace Bibliography of CEO Books" at www.ivmdl.org.
  17. See Jesus teachings on this in Matthew 10:40-44.
  18. Matthew 6:10 and John 15:2-8
 
 
 

God's World

 
 

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us."

2 Corinthians 5:18-20 (NIV)

 
 

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