Author: conscious

• On Success
  • The Christian’s life shouldn’t be about success or failure but about responding to God’s call for our lives. (Genesis 1)
  • The idea that we are responding to God, the ‘caller’, is very contrary to popular culture’s idea to respond to your ‘inner voice’. Jesus’ death could be viewed as a ‘failure’ but was the ultimate success from a Gospel standpoint.
• On Responding to God’s Calling
  • Calling is more about an active journey than a destination driven by our intimacy with God.
  • In the ambiguity and unknown of calling, our faith becomes something real.
  • God’s calling to the world is ‘flourishing’.
• On ‘Exile’
  • God’s response to human sin is exile, and it is also God’s way of realigning His people to His calling.
  • God called Israel to seek the prosperity of a kingdom that is not their own, Babylon. (Jeremiah 29: 4-7)
  • God often calls Christians into organizations that, from a Christian perspective, don’t often deserve to flourish.
• On Working in a Job You Don’t Like
  • What would Babylon look like if God’s people weren’t there? Christ is the example of the ultimate exile and entered a world not created for Him.
  • The very reason we want to quit our jobs is often the very reason God has put us there.
  • Work is about bringing light to dark places.
• About the Center For Faith and Work
  • It’s not about ‘do you bring your faith to your work’ but ‘which faith do you bring to your work?’.
  • God’s work of redemption includes individuals, communities, and the world itself (including organizations we work for).
• What Does God Say About Our Careers?
  • We have to be able to discern God’s voice in the ‘grey’ of the dark places of the world where we need discernment. Esther as an example.
• Why Is Having An Exile Mindset Good?
  • Christians are resilient workers. When everyone left the city during the Black Plagues, Christians were resilient and stayed to take care of the sick.
• On Identity
  • Work can easily become the ‘source’ of our identity rather than the ‘reflection’ of our identity.
  • Work should not be the thing that brings security to our lives.
• Final Thoughts
  • Flourishing of the gospel is as much for organizations as it is for individuals.
  • Work is a massive opportunity to experience the glory of God.

• Not right to think you have a ‘right to win’ because you are a Christian in the marketplace.
• Why your faith helps you relate better to your coworkers and clients:
  • Being a Christian does mean you have God with you, which helps you to understand your customers and coworkers in a unique and positive way.
  • CEO of public company that had as its corporate objectives: To honor God in all you do, to help people pursue excellence in all they do, and to grow profitably.
  • When retired was doing over $7 billion yearly revenue in 45 countries. Over 200,000 employees.
  • Peter Drucker. “Leadership is not something that should be sought after. Leadership is just a means. To what end is the question. For me, the end of leadership is the developement of those who follow, the direction they’re going, and who they are becoming. “
• Corporate Goals:
  1. Honor God First Two – end goals of the business
  2. Develop People
  3. Pursue Excellence – Means Goals of the business
  4. Grow Profitably
• People serving have to also be growing in their role.
• Virtue of Profit
  a. Comes from the parable of the talents (NEED SOURCE)
  b. They were criticized because he didn’t produce anything positive. Profit means being productive.
  c. God wants us to produce more than our lives which is to invest in other people, which is what our faith is all about.
  d. John 3:16 – God so loved the world – not evangelicals or Christians.
• Each career decision he had his doubts, but there is a comfort knowing that the Spirit of God is with and in you. Doubt is a hard reality you go through during those changes, but a reminder we serve one who knows all.
  • Don’t fixate on which industry you should be in.
  • Realize the opportunity there is in the marketplace.
• Billy Graham’s explanation that the marketplace is the greatest mission field in the world today rather than pastors focusing only on the Sunday services.
• There is no distinction between people who are serving the Lord in ministry versus serving the world that he so loved.
• Story on how God uses circumstances in the marketplace to share our faith:
  • Problem solving cross-culturally with Japanese business partners.
  • How his hubris almost cost him a great opportunity to love the world.
• We are called to get to know people at our jobs.

 

Music by John Norman
Facebook Group: “Daniel Dinners”
Email: joshballantine@hotmail.com

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” -Martin Luther King Jr.
-I went a little longer with Brian. We had a ton to catch up on him being an old family friend. Started chatting about his current role as ‘street sweeper’ in his community, his role with Mustard Seed Foundation, and business lessons from his Uncle former CEO of a Fortune 100 comapny.
-“Don’t say you love people, show them”
-Get up every morning and pray for your neighbors
-How to be available to your neighbors
-How to be a “pastor on the block”
-in the moment, how am I living with God?
-How are we doing with our neighbors?
-We want to hear from churches, not para-church ministry – bi-vocational pastors, etc.
-White organizations do not give money to black organizations many times. This is a justice issue.
-How can business leaders empower their employees?
-Why borrowing money to give away can be a good idea.
-Why Art Institute turned down his mural projects.
-What things are you not willing to let go of?
-Don’t set out to be famous, set out to be faithful
-How to empower younger generation in generosity and responsible giving.
Recommended Resources:
-“Joy at Work” by Dennis Bakke
-“Toxic Charity” by Robert Lupton
-“When Helping Hurts” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
-Forbes Magazine Article “Disinherators”
-Chalmers Institute Videos: https://www.chalmers.org/media/

Music by John Norman
Facebook Group: “Daniel Dinners”
Email: joshballantine@hotmail.com

*Note: Apologies on the echo in the beginning. I didn’t have my microphone muted correctly, but I fixed after a while!

Jonathan Good (jgood@ijm.org) is the Church Mobilization Director for International Justice Mission for the Midwestern States and the Chicagoland area. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister and resides in Minnesota.

Although he is not a specifically secular job, he had some great ideas on how to discover the calling for your life.

-What does IJM do?
-When law is not enforced, the poor are those that are affected.
-“Let Your Life Speak” by Parker Palmer (Vocation is that which I can’t not do.)
-There are seasons to life, and it is important to recognize that seasons will pass.

Music by John Norman
Facebook Group: “Daniel Dinners”
Email: joshballantine@hotmail.com

*NOTE: Apologies for some of the cutouts in audio on this one. There were some internet connectivity issues, but stick through the choppy parts because it evens out.

Philippians 2:14-15 “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like the stars in the sky.”

Justin Currie, CEO, Royalty North, is Vancouver based entrepreneur currently serving as CEO of Royalty North Partners (www.royaltynorth.com). Royalty North is a public company providing non-dilutive capital to private business owners for growth, succession, and acquisitions. Justin is also an owner of TVE Industrial Services Ltd. (www.tveltd.ca), an industrial construction and maintenance contractor.
Previously he was the EVP and Chief Operating Officer of Cascade Aerospace, a $120M revenue, 700 employee aerospace services firm. He successfully built the management team, helped secure over $400M in multi-year government contracts and facilitated a successful sale of Cascade to a strategic acquirer in late 2012. He is also committed to making a meaningful change in our local community and around the world and works actively with several not-for-profit organizations.
Justin is incredibly fortunate to be supported in his calling by his wife Marie. Together they are the proud parents of three children aged 20, 17 and 12.

-$35 Million to $200 Million in two years.
-Having Christ-like principles gives you stronger leadership abilities because people have a respect for you, regardless if they love the job or not.
-Influence versus authority when it comes to accomplishing things in the workplace.
-You should be able to point to the fact that you do have “informal influence” from suborniates, peers, and people above you in order to create change in an organization.
-Very few decisions are made through the formal chart of authority in a business or organization.
-How do you deal with difficult work situations such as layoffs?
-If you’re not being faithful with your resources at twenty, you won’t be when you’re forty.
-Three things to consider in order to discover your vocation:
1) What gives you energy?
2) Does it translate into economic gain or is there a market?
3) Affirmation from those you love and trust
-How to center a company around the people and relational interaction.
-“Win-Win” approach to problem-solving in business.
-Importance of having a long-term view.
-Philippians 2:14-15 – How are we showing up different in the workplace?

Music by John Norman
Facebook Group: “Daniel Dinners”
Email: joshballantine@hotmail.com

Biography: BA (Geneva College), MA (Goddard College), PhD (Pennsylvania State University)
Dr. Steven Garber is the Professor of Marketplace Theology and Leadership, Regent College. Formerly the Principal of The Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation and Culture in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Visions of Vocation: Common Grace for the Common Good (InterVarsity Press, 2014) which won numerous awards from Christianity Today and other publications

Steve is married to Meg. They have five grown children and several grandchildren.

Notes From our Interview:
-Daniel: He was extruded into more responsibility. His job was right in the middle. Interesting thing isn’t the fun stories about lions dens and fiery furnaces in the first part of the book, but the second half of the book where Daniel “couldn’t sleep at night” and was “perplexed”.
-Baseball analogy: Batting .300% is seen as a huge success. Speaks to how difficult this world is.
-Daniel, as a person of faith, was seen to be a faithful man.
-Marriage can be both glorious and ruinous.
-Bring together character and competence.
-Long lasting teams versus short term teams.
-Healthy Social Ecology – “we belong to each other.”
-Clapham Credo: “Choose a neighbor before you choose a house.”
-How do you deepen your commmitments in life versus disgarding them?
-How do you create staying power? Develop “habits of heart” coming into fulness of adulthood.
1) Form set of convictions about who God is, who I am that makese sense of what I do (worldview).
2) Find mentors that have made this word become flesh. Come to understand there are people who actually live like this.
3) Community – find kindred spirits of people who choose to do life together that are like-hearted and like-minded.
-St Augustine, “It’s not what you believe, but what you love.”
-Enchirdion of Augustine: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/augustine_enchiridion_02_trans.htm
-Community gives endurance. “I’m still at this. I hope you are. I need you to be.”

Albert M. (Al) Erisman is the executive in residence and past director for the Center for Integrity in Business at Seattle Pacific University.  He teaches business ethics and business and technology both at the undergraduate and the graduate level, and is also co-teaching a doctor of ministry cohort at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary on the theology of work.  Al is co-founder and executive editor of Ethix magazine (www.ethix.org), the co-author of several books in technology and mathematics, and co-chair of the executive committee for the Theology of Work Project.

Music by John Norman
Facebook Group: “Daniel Dinners”
Email: joshballantine@hotmail.com

This is the best place to start listening to this podcast. Austin Mayfield and Joshua Ballantine explain what this Daniel Dinner group and the purpose of this podcast is.

-How should we process making big career moves from God’s perspective?
-Why are secular professions considered bad compared to ministry or non-profit positions? Two tiers of Christianity
-What’s at stake if we don’t engage intentionally with this issue of work and faith?

Music by John Norman
Facebook: Daniel Dinners
Email: joshballantine@hotmail.com

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