A few short notes today.
My article on engagement -- employees or leadership -- is posted this morning at InsideWork.net. If you're interested or concerned about faith in the workplace, Inside Work is a good place to visit. Currently, it's featuring articles on public education, a different philosophy of success, causing God pain, charitable giving, and dealing with annoying people.
I've completed a short review on L.L. Barkat's Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Difficult Places and posted it on Amazon. This is the book I had with me at the hospital when I had my ribs and lung attended to. The author is a writer and poet and writes for several print and online publications. If you're interested in exploring her work, a good place to start is her web site.
Currently I'm reading Faces in the Fire by T.L. Hines. He's written several books; this is the first of his I've read. It's an edgy, gritty supernatural thriller -- four interlocking stories about a man with no memory, an email spammer, a tattoo artist/heroin addict and a hit man. It's unlike any Christian fiction I've ever read -- Hines grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go.
Finally, I continue to mend after my bike crash. The last four days had been marked by doing very little except resting, reading and writing. The pain and soreness are lessening; I'm relying less on the prescription and more on over-the-counter stuff like Aleve, which is good. I plan to return to work on Tuesday; I have a check-up with the doctor on Wednesday. Thanks for your notes and prayers.
Showing posts with label Inside Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inside Work. Show all posts
Monday, August 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Shrinking the Camel and Inside Work
I’ve written before about a blog called Shrinking the Camel that I follow closely. It’s done by a business executive named Bradley Moore, who lives and works “somewhere in the northeast U.S.” In addition to his own blog, he also posts on a site called Inside Work, which is all about the practice of faith in the workplace. And yes, I follow that site closely as well, and not only for Bradley’s posts. There is a whole group of terrific writers and thinkers – and they write about faith and business. They don't write about the application of business practices to the church -- an affliction in the church in America for more than two decades. Instead, the writers at Inside Work look at the practice of faith in the workplace.
Yesterday on Inside Work, Bradley posted an article called “How God Saved My Life through Writing.” And he talks about how he came to start writing the Shrinking the Camel blog in 2008. It’s honest writing, writing from the heart.
How I happened across Bradley’s blog, as well as the Inside Work site, is one of those stories about how the web works. I was reading a blog post on a writing web site, and saw an interesting comment by a guy named Marcus Goodyear, an editor and poet who's actually written a poem for his wife about the Large Hadron Collider -- and had it published. I clicked on his name, and landed at his web site, Goodwordediting.com. One of the things he does is serve as an editor at a site called HighCallingBlogs.com, a collection of blogs that look at the entire world as a place to practice faith, including the culture (a shocking notion, I know). One of those links took me to Inside Work, where I found an article written by Bradley – and I clicked through to Shrinking the Camel (cool name for a blog, by the way).
And this process continues. At the High Calling site, I read a post about poetry by a writer named L.L. Barkat -- clicked through to her blogs (there are three, including Seedlings in Stone), and am now getting ready to start her book Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places.
In his latest article at Inside Work, Bradley writes about how he began writing – disillusionment with evangelical Christianity, a sudden skepticism about the Bible, angst and burnout with his career – and he discovered that God was creating a new work in him through the whole process (my words, not Bradley’s). Reading those words evoked a powerful sense of identification. I’ve gone through a long period of skepticism, not about the Bible, but about the contemporary American church. Having gone through a disastrous experience with a church that embraced every business fad found on the bestseller list, and wrecked anything in its path that might stop its quest for cultural relevance, I pulled back, and pulled back hard. And angst and burnout with my career? Yes, I've known that, too, a couple of times at least.
About three years ago, I started writing a novel, and actually finished it, along with a sequel and a plan for a series. Some of the partially completed “volumes” in the series have as many as 40,000 words or more. And I learned something, the same thing that Bradley has. Writing has been a means for me to begin coming to grips with what happened to my church, and what happened to my faith. In an odd way, writing is like having a conversation with God.
I’m still on that road. Finding the Bradley Moores of this world is like having a fellow pilgrim come alongside.
Yesterday on Inside Work, Bradley posted an article called “How God Saved My Life through Writing.” And he talks about how he came to start writing the Shrinking the Camel blog in 2008. It’s honest writing, writing from the heart.
How I happened across Bradley’s blog, as well as the Inside Work site, is one of those stories about how the web works. I was reading a blog post on a writing web site, and saw an interesting comment by a guy named Marcus Goodyear, an editor and poet who's actually written a poem for his wife about the Large Hadron Collider -- and had it published. I clicked on his name, and landed at his web site, Goodwordediting.com. One of the things he does is serve as an editor at a site called HighCallingBlogs.com, a collection of blogs that look at the entire world as a place to practice faith, including the culture (a shocking notion, I know). One of those links took me to Inside Work, where I found an article written by Bradley – and I clicked through to Shrinking the Camel (cool name for a blog, by the way).
And this process continues. At the High Calling site, I read a post about poetry by a writer named L.L. Barkat -- clicked through to her blogs (there are three, including Seedlings in Stone), and am now getting ready to start her book Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places.
In his latest article at Inside Work, Bradley writes about how he began writing – disillusionment with evangelical Christianity, a sudden skepticism about the Bible, angst and burnout with his career – and he discovered that God was creating a new work in him through the whole process (my words, not Bradley’s). Reading those words evoked a powerful sense of identification. I’ve gone through a long period of skepticism, not about the Bible, but about the contemporary American church. Having gone through a disastrous experience with a church that embraced every business fad found on the bestseller list, and wrecked anything in its path that might stop its quest for cultural relevance, I pulled back, and pulled back hard. And angst and burnout with my career? Yes, I've known that, too, a couple of times at least.
About three years ago, I started writing a novel, and actually finished it, along with a sequel and a plan for a series. Some of the partially completed “volumes” in the series have as many as 40,000 words or more. And I learned something, the same thing that Bradley has. Writing has been a means for me to begin coming to grips with what happened to my church, and what happened to my faith. In an odd way, writing is like having a conversation with God.
I’m still on that road. Finding the Bradley Moores of this world is like having a fellow pilgrim come alongside.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Inside Work
The Sabbath was originally a day of rest from one's labors, so I suppose some thinking on Sunday about work may be a kind of contradiction in terms. But it's been on my mind a lot lately, for a lot of varied reasons.
I've been spending some time exploring a web site called Inside Work. Here's what it says in the site's "About Us" section: "InsideWork® infuses business innovation with biblical insight to stimulate change in our work, organizations and marketplace." The articles are thoughtful and thought-provoking, challenging and sometimes provocative -- and never dull. I'm so used to experiencing business beliefs flooding the church that it's actually refreshing to read about biblical beliefs addressing the workplace.
Right now the current articles featured on the site are about corporate strategic vision (it's not about technology or change; it's about character); defending one's self in the workplace (David and Psalm 69); what it means to really love the customer (a short treatise about Starbuck's); why God love commerce; and the idea of a mission statement.
One regular contributor is a business executive named Bradley Moore, who works in the northeast U.S. and has a blog always worth reading called "Shrinking the Camel." (The name of the blog alone speaks volumes about its content.) (If you're not biblically inclined, it has to do with the statement in the New Testament that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.) Brad writes about the practice of faith in the workplace -- not so much talking about it as doing it. He's written the current article on Inside Work on loving the customer at Starbuck's.
Inside Work has become one of my favorite web sites about work. Take a look.
I've been spending some time exploring a web site called Inside Work. Here's what it says in the site's "About Us" section: "InsideWork® infuses business innovation with biblical insight to stimulate change in our work, organizations and marketplace." The articles are thoughtful and thought-provoking, challenging and sometimes provocative -- and never dull. I'm so used to experiencing business beliefs flooding the church that it's actually refreshing to read about biblical beliefs addressing the workplace.
Right now the current articles featured on the site are about corporate strategic vision (it's not about technology or change; it's about character); defending one's self in the workplace (David and Psalm 69); what it means to really love the customer (a short treatise about Starbuck's); why God love commerce; and the idea of a mission statement.
One regular contributor is a business executive named Bradley Moore, who works in the northeast U.S. and has a blog always worth reading called "Shrinking the Camel." (The name of the blog alone speaks volumes about its content.) (If you're not biblically inclined, it has to do with the statement in the New Testament that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.) Brad writes about the practice of faith in the workplace -- not so much talking about it as doing it. He's written the current article on Inside Work on loving the customer at Starbuck's.
Inside Work has become one of my favorite web sites about work. Take a look.
Monday, May 4, 2009
When Work Isn't Work
I've been discovering a whole raft of online conversations going on right now about work and faith. Inside Work, for example, is an entire web site devoted to the subject of faith in work and business, and contains some of the most intelligent conversation I've run across on the subject. Another site (or blog, to be specific), Red Letter Believers, had a post about it yesterday, asking the provocative question, does work matter? A blog I particularly like is Shrinking the Camel, written by a business executive in the northeastern U.S., and it's all about work, with an occasional digression about family and children. Which is also work, come to think about it, the most difficult work/mission we can encounter.
The workplace can be a tough mission field, but likely no tougher than anywhere else. I've learned that, like most situations, what you do at work matters vastly more than what you say. So you have to be conscious of what you say and how well it connects to what you do, but the doing is the critical part. When people see something different in the workplace, they want to know why. So they watch, and sometimes they ask.
I've found this works in two ways. First, if people think you're serious about your faith, they expect you to be different. They don't expect the same profanity and politicking they experience with everyone else. This is where I've seen business people trip up -- it's almost as if they deliberately keep their faith out of the workplace because "you have to play the business game to be successful." I've heard some Christian business people actually articulate this. And I've been on the receiving end a few times -- surprised (walloped, actually) by actions and words I never would have expected from a fellow believer. I'm older now, and have to keep reminding myself that God continues to work on me, too.
But second, there's a more positive sense of how faith can operate in the workplace. Work has been hard from the beginning; God never told Adam that it would be a slam dunk. But He also gave us the ability to create and innovate, to encourage others to create and innovate, and possibly to provide air cover so people can create and innovate. I've found that most organizations tend to reject creativity and innovation until circumstances force them to accept it. (I also have a theory about this -- that change comes to a profession primarily from outside the profession, because it's too threatening to one's notions of expertise and control. And it is threatening. Look at newspapers; they're dying because of the change coming from outside traditional journalism.)
But what might be accomplished if I, as a believer in the workplace, help people create and innovate? Might people see a glimpse of the ultimate Creator?
I figure it's worth a shot.
These online discussions about work have also prompted me to look at what I'm doing with my writing. Up until now, I haven't thought of my writing as work. There's no question that it's hard, frustrating and often a struggle. But have I thought of it as work?
I realized that writing is exactly that -- work. And the same rules that apply to my job at the office apply to my writing. Am I doing what everyone else is doing? Is it the same old rut? Or is it creative? Does it offer a fresh voice? Is it purposeful?
And most of all -- does it please God?
The workplace can be a tough mission field, but likely no tougher than anywhere else. I've learned that, like most situations, what you do at work matters vastly more than what you say. So you have to be conscious of what you say and how well it connects to what you do, but the doing is the critical part. When people see something different in the workplace, they want to know why. So they watch, and sometimes they ask.
I've found this works in two ways. First, if people think you're serious about your faith, they expect you to be different. They don't expect the same profanity and politicking they experience with everyone else. This is where I've seen business people trip up -- it's almost as if they deliberately keep their faith out of the workplace because "you have to play the business game to be successful." I've heard some Christian business people actually articulate this. And I've been on the receiving end a few times -- surprised (walloped, actually) by actions and words I never would have expected from a fellow believer. I'm older now, and have to keep reminding myself that God continues to work on me, too.
But second, there's a more positive sense of how faith can operate in the workplace. Work has been hard from the beginning; God never told Adam that it would be a slam dunk. But He also gave us the ability to create and innovate, to encourage others to create and innovate, and possibly to provide air cover so people can create and innovate. I've found that most organizations tend to reject creativity and innovation until circumstances force them to accept it. (I also have a theory about this -- that change comes to a profession primarily from outside the profession, because it's too threatening to one's notions of expertise and control. And it is threatening. Look at newspapers; they're dying because of the change coming from outside traditional journalism.)
But what might be accomplished if I, as a believer in the workplace, help people create and innovate? Might people see a glimpse of the ultimate Creator?
I figure it's worth a shot.
These online discussions about work have also prompted me to look at what I'm doing with my writing. Up until now, I haven't thought of my writing as work. There's no question that it's hard, frustrating and often a struggle. But have I thought of it as work?
I realized that writing is exactly that -- work. And the same rules that apply to my job at the office apply to my writing. Am I doing what everyone else is doing? Is it the same old rut? Or is it creative? Does it offer a fresh voice? Is it purposeful?
And most of all -- does it please God?
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