Daniel Im's Blog, page 12

To Develop or Not To Develop?

As the calendar year comes to an end, you’re either looking for ways to spend the rest of your development budget, or you’re planning on how to use it next year.

If you don’t have a budget set aside for development, then make sure you get one next year! If it’ll help, consider sharing this article with your boss. After all, leaders are learners, aren’t they?

But what if you’re the one approving proposals for development?

What if you’re the one who sets the budget? Have you ever considered that the types of proposals coming in, the amount given to each team member, and how your team looks at development reveals a lot about your culture?

If you’re leading a team, here’s the tension that you face as it relates to development:

On the one hand, if you develop your people, they might outgrow their job, realize the weaknesses on your team, and/or now have a new set of skills that’ll set them up for another role somewhere else.

On the other hand, if you don’t develop your people, their performance can stagnate, they might not innovate, and you’ll essentially be cultivating a culture of mediocrity, maintenance, or at best, incremental growth.

So what are you to do? To develop or not to develop?

Ken Robinson, in his book Out of Our Minds: The Power of Being Creative, puts it well.

Many organizations are finding it difficult to find the people they need. When they do find them, they often have trouble keeping them. Executives say there is an increasing shortage of the people needed to run divisions and manage critical functions, let alone lead companies. This problem has been building for some time. One of the consequences is that organizations are fighting a war for talent.

The corporate consultancy company, McKinsey, worked with the human resources departments of 77 large US companies in a variety of industries to understand their talent-building philosophies, practices and challenges. Their original study included nearly 400 corporate offices and 6,000 executives in the “top 200” ranks in these companies. It also drew on case studies of 20 companies widely regarded as being rich in talent. Three-quarters of companies had said they had insufficient talent sometimes, and all were chronically short of talent across the board. The study concluded that executive talent has long been an under-managed corporate asset. Companies that manage their physical and financial assets with rigor and sophistication have not made their people a priority in the same way. Few employees trust employers to provide useful opportunities for professional development. Most take a short-term view of training needs. Only a third of employers provide training beyond the job. In a rapidly changing environment, they worry that their best talent will be poached by other companies. They are wary of investing in developing their own talent since they fear it will primarily benefit their competitors. Staff turnover is often high and vacant posts are filled with outside talent. According to search professionals, the average executive will work in five companies; in another ten years it may be seven.

Most companies choose to develop powerful recruitment and retention processes to get the “right people” on board. The problem with the short-term model is that “it does nothing to prevent the exodus of the rest—those whose talents are undeveloped. It assumes a world with an unlimited supply of talent…that does not mind working in businesses where development is not deemed a priority.” Even so, according to McKinsey, companies are engaged in a war for senior executive talent that will remain a defining characteristic of the competitive landscape for decades to come. Yet most are ill prepared, and even the best are vulnerable.

Organizations are fighting a war for talent. – Ken Robinson
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Few employees trust employers to provide useful opportunities for professional development.
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What culture of development have you cultivated on your team?

Are you the one that suggests development opportunities, or does your team initiate themselves? When you suggest opportunities, is it met with surprise? Skepticism? Or a sense of gratitude?

If the 70:20:10 principle is true (if you haven’t heard about it, click here), then what are you doing to provide the best of the best learning opportunities for the 20% and 10%, so that the 70% of on the job development is maximized?

And here’s the thing about the tension as it relates to development:

If you cultivate an engaging culture of development, you don’t need to worry about other teams or organizations poaching your people. They won’t want to leave! And if they do leave, they’ll want to come back because they’ll quickly realize that teams and organizations that emphasize ongoing learning and development are few and far between.

So back to the original question, to develop or not to develop?

5 Things I’ve Learned About Writing

As much I enjoy writing, I never thought I’d be a published author in my thirties.

So to see my name on two published books, four eBooks, and another published book on the way is humbling. This is not a humble brag—I’m just seriously floored and surprised by the way that God has led my wife and I to this point. All glory be to God!

In my twenties I had a wonderful plan for my life.

I literally wrote out a plan until my wife and I were in our eighties. Several years later, am I ever glad that this wonderful plan didn’t come to pass because God’s ways are always higher, deeper, and better than ours. We unfortunately had to learn that the hard way post-Korea, which is another story for another time. You can read more about it here.

God’s ways are always higher, deeper, and better than ours.
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So to celebrate the one year anniversary of my book, No Silver Bullets, being on the bookshelves, I wanted to share 5 things I’ve learned about writing.

If God has placed a dream on your heart to write, I hope that this will be an encouragement to you. And by the way, I’m also going to be giving away 5 signed copies of No Silver Bullets at the end of this article, so be sure to enter!

1. Don’t write to go viral. Just write.

There’s no formula for going viral—even the best marketers haven’t cracked the nut. Sure, your article or book needs to be timely, it needs to hit a felt need, and it needs to be written well, but there’s that intangible “share-ability” nature to everything that goes viral that’s hard to figure out. In fact, a pursuit for the next viral article can cause you to chase rabbits and trends, rather than write on topics that you’re personally passionate about and have something to say on.

A pursuit for the next viral article can cause you to chase rabbits and trends.
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So stop obsessing over SEO hacks and keywords for your title, and instead focus on honing your writing skills. I’m not telling you to ignore SEO and keywords, since they do help the “share-ability” of your content. I’m just saying that it may not be the best way to spend your time as a writer. What’s most important is practice, since the only way to get better at writing is by writing.

What’s most important is practice, since the only way to get better at writing is by writing.
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2. Knowing God was J.I. Packer’s 9th book.

We love overnight success stories. When we see people pop, or their book go on the New York Times bestseller list, we get jealous—especially if we’ve never heard of them before. But when you dig deeper, most of these overnight success stories aren’t overnight success stories. J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter pitch was rejected twelve times, Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Peter Rabbit was self-published, Madeleine L’Engles’ A Wrinkle in Time was rejected 26 times, and on and on it goes.

Don’t get caught up in hacks to get famous or to make your book pop. Like Dory in Finding Nemo, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.”

Don’t get caught up in hacks to get famous or to make your book pop.
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The theologian and professor J.I. Packer is probably best known for his book Knowing God. It’s been a classic for over 40 years, one of the top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals, received a platinum book award from the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association, and has sold over one million copies. When Knowing God popped, I’m sure most people thought that Packer was an overnight success—unbeknownst to them, this was his ninth book!

Don’t give up. Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing.

3. Know your “why.”

Why are you writing? Who are you writing to? And ultimately, who are you trying to serve through your writing? While the kosher thing is to say that you’re serving others, there are many writers who are basically serving themselves by standing on the backs of others. The reason they want a platform is so that they can stand on others, rather than serve others.

So never forget your “why.”

Do you want a platform to stand on others? Or serve others?
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4. You’re going to want to give up. Don’t!

Ups and downs are a natural part of the writing process. There are going to be days where everything clicks and your ideas flow, and then there will be every other day. More often than not, you will get writer’s block. You will want to give up. And you will question the effectiveness of it all. However, if God has given you a dream to write, don’t give up.

Keep putting your hours in, writing for the right reasons, and seek to serve rather than be served.

5. Your idea has probably been written on, but your version is going to be different.

If there’s a book idea that you feel ready to work on, one of the steps in putting a proposal together is to compare it with other similar books out there.

If you can’t find other books like yours, you haven’t looked hard enough.

There’s no way your idea is going to be completely original. Now, the way that you package it, write on it, and present it will be unique because only you’ve lived your own story. However, there are going to be other similar books out there. So instead of ignoring them, read them! Study them, learn from them, and write your version rooted in your story.

There’s no way your idea is going to be completely original.
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If by chance you honestly can’t find anyone who’s written on a remotely similar topic as you, then you’re either a genius or you’re trying to write on something that no one cares about.

Conclusion

Above all else, cultivate your own voice. No one has lived the same life as you, so while it’s important to learn from others, you need to write in a way that’s unique to you. And honestly, the only way to learn how to do that is by writing.

Just keep writing, just keep writing, just keep writing.

Giveaway instructions:

As I mentioned earlier, my book, No Silver Bullets: Five Small Shifts that will Transform Your Ministry has been out for over a year now! To celebrate the impact that it’s had and is continuing to have in churches and ministries globally, I wanted to give away 5 signed copies of my book. You can enter the giveaway by clicking the button below.

Enter the giveaway

Don’t Be Dead Weight

Your church or organization is like a train.

There are things you’re doing that are causing the train to move (the coal).

There are things outside of your control that are either speeding up the train or slowing it down (hills and air resistance).

And there are things within your control that are slowing the train down (baggage and needless weight).

The next time you gather your team together:

Try identifying what’s core to your team and what needs to happen to keep things running, like casting vision, celebrating, or having the right metrics.

Then, identify the things outside of your control that are moving your team forward or slowing you guys down, like neighborhood growth/decline, market growth/decline, change in leisure activities, or time of year.

And then identify what’s within your control that could be slowing your team down, like toxic team members, a weak culture, or a lack of planning.

And for you personally, reflect on whether or not you want to be on the train that you’re on.

Is it time for a career change? Are you feeling a push away from your current team? Or a pull toward another one?

If you’re feeling like it’s time for a move, check your motives:

Are you feeling the way you’re feeling just because others are leaving?
Because of a conflict with your boss or someone on your team?
Because you’re bored or not being challenged?

You’re either helping the train move forward or slowing it down. So don’t be dead weight. Find your place and give it your all—either on the train or off of it.

You’re either helping the train move forward or slowing it down.
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Don’t be dead weight.
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Find your place and give it your all—either on the train or off of it.
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Don’t be dead weight

Your church or organization is like a train.

There are things you’re doing that are causing the train to move (the coal).

There are things outside of your control that are either speeding up the train or slowing it down (hills and air resistance).

And there are things within your control that are slowing the train down (baggage and needless weight).

The next time you gather your team together:

Try identifying what’s core to your team and what needs to happen to keep things running, like casting vision, celebrating, or having the right metrics.

Then, identify the things outside of your control that are moving your team forward or slowing you guys down, like neighborhood growth/decline, market growth/decline, change in leisure activities, or time of year.

And then identify what’s within your control that could be slowing your team down, like toxic team members, a weak culture, or a lack of planning.

And for you personally, reflect on whether or not you want to be on the train that you’re on.

Is it time for a career change? Are you feeling a push away from your current team? Or a pull toward another one?

If you’re feeling like it’s time for a move, check your motives:

Are you feeling the way you’re feeling just because others are leaving?
Because of a conflict with your boss or someone on your team?
Because you’re bored or not being challenged?

You’re either helping the train move forward or slowing it down. So don’t be dead weight. Find your place and give it your all—either on the train or off of it.

You’re either helping the train move forward or slowing it down.
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Don’t be dead weight.
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Find your place and give it your all—either on the train or off of it.
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The One Thing Husbands Need to Know About Their Wives

The following is a guest post written by my wife, Christina Im, on the one thing that she wants every husband to know. I pray that it encourages you as much as it has encouraged me.

Marriage is hard.

Marriage takes work.

Marriage isn’t always what we thought it would be.

Marriage takes sacrifice.

Daniel and I have recently entered our 12th year of marriage. During our engagement, if someone were to have had told me any of the above statements, I would have scoffed at them. “Actually, marriage is going to be amazing because I can finally have sex,” is what I would have wanted to say. But honestly, I would have NEVER had the audacity to be that abrupt.

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Don’t miss the giveaway valued at $200 at the bottom of this post for your wife!

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On a perfectly sunny August day, I married my best friend. And, we lived happily ever after, right?

Well, like you always hear from those who have gone before us, the first year of marriage was difficult—we had A LOT of “iron sharpening iron” moments. However, nothing could have prepared me for the agony and the deep soul searching that awaited me.

I can recount two times where I cried out to God, “Hey…I think you’ve forgotten me.” The first time was when Daniel felt a strong calling to leave everyone and everything behind and move to South Korea. I was just entering my second year at a job that had GREAT potential and I was toying with the idea of going back to school to get my Masters of Social Work. Moving to Korea was not on my radar, and while I begged God to change my husband’s heart…God changed mine instead.

Have you ever felt put on the sidelines…by God?
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The second time I felt that God had put me on the sidelines was the moment I saw the blue double lines appear on the pregnancy test. “Oh God, we are living in Korea with no family around. We are BOTH just about to start our second semester of school. We don’t have time to be pregnant.” In the end, Daniel and I chose to put my schooling and career on hold while I became a full-time stay-at-home mom.

I never wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

I wanted to wear heels during the day and slippers at night while I rocked my precious children to sleep. However, with Daniel working full-time, writing part-time, and the cost of having three kids under five in daycare, it didn’t financially make sense for me to go back to work. So, life tumbled on.

A year ago, a theme began to appear in my life.

Whether it was the latest Bible study I was doing, or the new hit song that would play on the radio—the theme was “SEEN.” Slowly, God’s past whispers of “I have not forgotten you,” turned into billboards screaming, “THE UNSEEN IS SEEN.” Suddenly, through one event catapulting to another, my dormant dreams, passions, and aspirations emerged from their cocooned state.

What is unseen to you is SEEN by God.
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Husbands, I share my story with you because we have something in common.

We all have dreams, passions, aspirations, and a God-given calling that we need to step into.

What we don’t have in common is that 9 times out of 10, the woman takes the hit for the whole team.

Even if your wife is working outside of the home, studies show that women earn 20% less than their male counterparts. Not to mention, the societal stress put on women to excel both outside and inside of the home, is enough to cause your wife to throw in the towel. The world screams, “YOU ARE UNSEEN.” And, sadly, sometimes the church whispers, “Your husband is more important than you are. Help him succeed, and you will too.”

I honestly don’t know of any loving husband that wishes for his wife to feel forgotten, unseen, and not as important.

Life just has a way of tumbling along; you both desperately hold on until the next season and sometimes the end result is that your wife’s dreams get left behind.

Until now.

Perhaps it’s time to take a purposeful pause in the tumbling of your every day lives.

Perhaps it’s time to take a purposeful pause in the tumbling of your every day lives.
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Husbands, I want to encourage you to ask your wife about her current dreams, aspirations, and desires.

I want to urge you to pray WITH your wife about what her God-given callings are.
I want to compel you to CALL OUT the “unseen” in her life to the surface.
Remind your wife that God SEES her by taking the time, energy, and finances to invest into her next step.
And just maybe, the next step for her is to learn, grow, and rediscover her strengths, gifts, and talents.

So this week, how can you serve her in that way?

For me, I am entering into a job that has nothing to do with my undergrad. I feel excited, yet apprehensive. While talking to Daniel about my fear of failing, he recommended I attend the Business Boutique conference happening in Nashville on Nov 1-3, 2018. It sounded like EXACTLY what I was looking for! Business Boutique empowers women to step into their God-given gifts and overcome fear while learning to take their business to the next level.

But, who will take care of the kids?! Who will pack their lunches and drive them to school? Who will make sure their agendas are signed and their homework done?

My gracious husband rearranged his work schedule to ensure that the kids’ schedule will not be disrupted AND that I am able to go to this conference.

If you think this conference would be beneficial for your wife, Daniel and I are giving away two free tickets valued at $200.

Perhaps this might be just the right experience and next step for your wife?

Enter the giveaway

What’s Wrong With This Statement? “I want to do great things for God”

“I want to make my life count. I want to do big things for the kingdom. I only want to do things that have an eternal significance.”

Have you ever prayed such prayers? I know I definitely have.

In fact, when I was getting serious about my relationship with Christ, this is what I regularly prayed for because I wanted my life to count. I wanted to make a difference in this world. I didn’t want to live for what was temporal—my fame and my glory—but for what was eternal.

I wanted to be like the great missionary, William Carey, who famously said, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.”

If I wanted to see great things from God, I figured that there was only one way to get there—by doing “great” things for God. Not small and insignificant things, but rather, big, significant, and influential things.

“Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” – William Carey
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My intentions were right; the only problem was my heart—my prideful and self-centered heart.

I judged doing “great” things for God and kingdom significance according to size. Here’s what I thought:

Pastoring at a small church = Small impact
Speaking at a small conference = Not significant
Having a small platform = Lack of the right gifting

So to do “great” things for God, I had to do. I had to be the pastor. I had to be the speaker. I had to be the preacher. I had to be the hero.

I wonder what would’ve happened if I knew earlier that God wanted me to be a hero-maker, rather than the hero? I wonder if I would’ve gone through as much heart break and sorrow?

Years later…

After God broke me and stripped away everything I had, I realized my ambitions weren’t as pure as I made them out to be.

Sure, I said that I wanted to make a big impact for the kingdom, but that was contingent upon me making the big impact for God. Yes, I obviously wanted to do things that had an eternal significance, but only if I could share that eternal significance with God. I wanted to be the hero; not the hero-maker.

God doesn’t want you to be the hero, he wants you to be a #heromaker.
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Though I tried to sanctify my ambition with the right words; it was all a sham.

Now to be fair, I wasn’t doing it intentionally; it was just that my heart was deceived. I thought that if I said the right things and did the right things, I would eventually believe the right things, but boy, did I ever have it backwards.

Isn’t that why it says in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?”

Friends, you can’t accelerate maturity or spiritual growth.

We try to sanctify ourselves, when in fact, it’s God who does the sanctifying in us as we lay ourselves before him. So instead of focusing on doing “great” things for God, what do you think would happen if we instead focused on worshipping our great God? And then let him take care of our opportunities and legacy?

Don’t you think he’d take care of us like he said he would?

25 “Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? 27 Can any of you add one moment to his life-span[k] by worrying? 28 And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these. 30 If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you—you of little faith? 31 So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God[l] and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. 34 Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matt 6:25-34, CSB)

Friends, you can’t accelerate maturity or spiritual growth.
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Why Every Church Planter Should Plant Pregnant

Planting a church is like having a baby.

It’s hard to know when you should start trying. During pregnancy some babies thrive, and others have more of a difficult time. When the baby is delivered, it’s messy and painful, but in the end a beautiful life is born, the labor is forgotten, and we often want to have another.

Planting a church is like having a baby
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In the same way it’s difficult to know when you should start plans for a daughter church; after all, there always seems to be a countless number of reasons to put it off:

“We aren’t even two years old, and I’m the only staff member.”
“When we begin to hit budget, I’ll consider starting a daughter church.”
“We’re too small. If we start a daughter church, that’ll cannibalize our people and finances.”
“Isn’t that the denomination’s responsibility anyway?”
“I’m barely keeping my head above the water, and you want me to add something that big onto my plate?”

Sound familiar? If you’ve found yourself saying similar things, you’re not alone.

However, once you get past those initial hurdles and decide to plant a daughter church, sometimes the assessment, training, and preparation of the planter goes well; however, other times the process unfortunately ends prematurely.

And when that daughter church is finally ready to be launched, it’s painful because everything changes.

You lose leaders, people, tithes, and your sense of normal.

However, after planting, our experience is that God not only replaces those congregants you sent out with the plant, but he often adds more to your flock as well. After all, didn’t Jesus say that “whoever is faithful in very little is also faithful in much, and whoever is unrighteous in very little is also unrighteous in much”? (Luke 16:10).

So ditch the birth control and start having babies.

Yes, giving to church planting is important, but don’t limit your church’s involvement just to money.

Go and plant churches. Partner with other churches, partner with seminaries, partner with your denomination, and partner with networks. Choose not to become a cul-de-sac on the Great Commission Highway. Since God likes to surprise people, get in a place where he can surprise you and the rest of the world.

Dear church planter, ditch the birth control and start having babies.
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What would happen to church planting in our cities if churches, denominations, networks, and seminaries stopped working in silos?

What if they came together with a map of their city in hand, started with prayer, and then strategically plotted out each of their roles, much like a general would in wartime? Would we see God’s kingdom more fully realized?

We believe the answer is a large resounding yes!

So let’s stop working in silos. Let’s stop being afraid of working with one another. And let’s start partnering together for the sake of the gospel and the kingdom.

Then and only then, perhaps we’ll see a church multiplication movement in our generation!

Giving to church planting is important, but don’t limit your church’s involvement just to money.
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*This was a modified excerpt from the book that I co-authored with Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches: Your Guide to Starting Churches that Multiply (2nd ed). 

Top Quotes on Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller

As many of you know, this year I’ve committed to reading/listening to as much of Timothy J. Keller as possible.

It hasn’t gone as well as I thought. Partly because I’m writing my next book (I wasn’t anticipating this), and also because I like reading broadly. So instead of one year of Keller, it might end up being a few years of Keller.

In any case, I previously listed my favorite quotes here for Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters.

I’ll do the same for Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, my latest Keller read.

“The Bible begins talking about work as soon as it begins talking about anything—that is how important and basic it is.”
“In the beginning, then, God worked. Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture later, or something human beings were created to do but that was beneath the great God himself. No, God worked for the sheer joy of it.”
“The book of Genesis leaves us with a striking truth—work was part of paradise.”
“Work is as much a basic human need as food, beauty, rest, friendship, prayer, and sexuality; it is not simply medicine but food for our soul.”
“Without meaningful work we sense significant inner loss and emptiness. People who are cut off from work because of physical or other reasons quickly discover how much they need work to thrive emotionally, physically, and spiritually.”
“According to the Bible, we don’t merely need the money from work to survive; we need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives.”

We need the work itself to survive and live fully human lives.
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“Work—and lots of it—is an indispensable component in a meaningful human life. It is a supreme gift from God and one of the main things that gives our lives purpose. But it must play its proper role, subservient to God.”
“Work has dignity because it is something that God does and because we do it in God’s place, as his representatives. We learn not only that work has dignity in itself, but also that all kinds of work have dignity.”
“Work is our design and our dignity; it is also a way to serve God through creativity, particularly in the creation of culture.”

Work is a way to serve God through creativity, particularly in the creation of culture.
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“The question regarding our choice of work is no longer “What will make me the most money and give me the most status?” The question must now be “How, with my existing abilities and opportunities, can I be of greatest service to other people, knowing what I do of God’s will and of human need?”
“If the point of work is to serve and exalt ourselves, then our work inevitably becomes less about the work and more about us. Our aggressiveness will eventually become abuse, our drive will become burnout, and our self-sufficiency will become self-loathing.”
“But if the purpose of work is to serve and exalt something beyond ourselves, then we actually have a better reason to deploy our talent, ambition, and entrepreneurial vigor—and we are more likely to be successful in the long run, even by the world’s definition.”
“Parents give their children what they need—character—through the diligence required for the chores they assign them.”
“The gospel frees us from the relentless pressure of having to prove ourselves and secure our identity through work, for we are already proven and secure.”
“You should expect to be regularly frustrated in your work even though you may be in exactly the right vocation.”
“In a world where people have on average three to four different careers in their work lives, it is perfectly natural that changing careers may be necessary to maximize fruitfulness. God can—and often does—change what he calls us to do.”

God can—and often does—change what he calls us to do.
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“Work can convince you that you are working hard for your family and friends while you are being seduced through ambition to neglect them.”
“Without the gospel of Jesus, we will have to toil not for the joy of serving others, nor the satisfaction of a job well done, but to make a name for ourselves.”
“Personal idols profoundly drive and shape our behavior, including our work.”

“Idols of comfort and pleasure can make it impossible for a person to work as hard as is necessary to have a faithful and fruitful career.”
“Idols of power and approval, on the other hand, can lead us to overwork or to be ruthless and unbalanced in our work practices.”
“Idols of control take several forms—including intense worry, lack of trust, and micromanagement.”


“To be a Christian in business, then, means much more than just being honest or not sleeping with your coworkers. It even means more than personal evangelism or holding a Bible study at the office. Rather, it means thinking out the implications of the gospel worldview and God’s purposes for your whole work life—and for the whole of the organization under your influence.”
“Those in the helping professions (and that includes pastoral ministry as well as medicine) are tempted to feel superior because our work is so noble and so draining.”

Personal idols profoundly drive and shape our behavior, including our work.
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“As Jesus says, to be fully human boils down to loving God and loving our neighbor. Everything else—our accomplishments, our causes, our identity, and our feelings—is a distant second.”
“For many of us, being productive and doing becomes . . . an attempt at redemption. That is, through our work, we try to build our worth, security, and meaning.”
“The very definition of a Christian is someone who not only admires Jesus, emulates Jesus, and obeys Jesus, but who “rests in the finished work of Christ” instead of his or her own.”
“A Christian is able to rest only because God’s redemptive work is likewise finished in Christ.”

Be sure to pick up a copy of  Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work today. It’s a wonderful theological reflection that helps us connect our work to God’s work.

God is NOT Anti-System

In 1995, astronomers thought there were were only 3000 galaxies.

Close to 10 years later, they realized there were 10,000. And now, through the Hubble telescope, they are estimating 100 billion!

Consider the vastness of our solar system, and how intricately connected it is to each other and to other systems in the universe. If the sun were to die out, it would blow away half of its mass, inflate itself, and swallow the earth. After that, this would push Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune way out and off their orbit. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg…

Don’t you find it fascinating that one of the first things God created was in fact, a system? The solar system? The system of the universe?

This goes to show us that He is not anti-systems in anyway.

One of the first things God created was a system—the solar system.
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I recently came across another system that you might not have heard about…

I learnt about it from a TED talk on how trees talk to each other—the system is called a mycorrhizal network.

To put it simply, underground, forests are connected via fungal roots…by mushrooms.

This system is “so dense that there can be hundreds of kilometers of [these fungal threads called] mycelium under a single footstep.”

“And not only that, the mycelium connects different individuals in the forest, individuals not only of the same species but between species, like birch and fir, and it works kind of like the Internet.”

In other words, everything is so interconnected into a system that if one tree is not getting enough sun or nutrients, other related trees can pass on nutrients to them via this underground system!

I wonder if this is what Paul was talking about when he said in Romans 1:20 that God’s “invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made.”

If that’s the case, then God reveals himself to us not only through what he’s made, but also through the systems that he made that interconnect what he’s made to one another.

I feel like this nuance of God’s character and attributes is often skipped over.

We focus heavily on Romans 1:16 at the neglect of Romans 1:20.

1:16 – For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.

1:20 – For his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what he has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that we stop verbally proclaiming and preaching the power of the gospel.

I’m not exchanging verse 20 for verse 16. It’s not either/or issue, it’s both/and.

In other words, I believe that…

The power of the gospel is communicated through the preaching of the word
The power of the gospel is communicated through discipling one another
The power of the gospel is communicated through praying, fasting, and laying hands on one another
The power of the gospel is communicated through evangelism, church planting, missions, and social justice

But if God not only created the trees, plants, mushrooms, but also connected them together in an intricate system (just like he did with the solar system), shouldn’t the power of the gospel also be able to be communicated through systems?

And more specifically, through discipleship systems?

What is a discipleship system anyway?

It’s not a newfound program or curriculum that I’m unveiling to you like a tech conference unveiling their latest products and research.

A discipleship system is the way discipleship happens in both conscious and unconscious ways, or intentional and unintentional ways—and how they relate to and affect one another.

A discipleship system is the way discipleship happens in both intentional and unintentional ways.
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So consciously, when you meet at Starbucks for your discipleship group, and unconsciously, what you’re subtly communicating about God’s word when you use Greek and Hebrew in a sermon.

And intentionally, when you announce to your church that you’re going to have small groups or mid-size communities, and unintentionally, when two guys are texting one another for accountability.

Discipleship is happening in each of those instances in ways that you want it to and also in other ways that you don’t want it to.

To uncover the discipleship systems of your church, and learn how discipleship happens in both unintentional and intentional ways in your church, check out the Influences Matrix from chapter 1 of my book, No Silver Bullets (also diagrammed below).

You can learn more about discipleship systems and the Influences Matrix by clicking here to download the first chapter of my book for free!

 

Should Christians Have a Side Hustle?

Though half of all working millennials are side hustling—according to a multi-year study on freelancing in the U.S.—this isn’t just a millennial thing.

Approximately a third of both Gen Xers and boomers are also hustling on the side.

Just think about the people you know. How many of your friends drive for Uber or Lyft? Rent out their place on Airbnb when going on a vacation? Or have ever sold something on Etsy or eBay?

They’re a part of the growing freelance or gig economy that 57.3 million Americans were a part of in 2017—that’s more people than the total combined population of Canada, Liberia, and Puerto Rico! In fact, based on trends, by 2027, more than half of all working Americans will be a part of the freelance economy.

Side hustles are the new normal

To continue reading, click here.

I wrote this article originally for Tithe.ly. It’s adapted from my upcoming book that will be released Nov 2019. If you want to be among the first to hear about it and get a ton of extra bonuses, I’d be honored if you clicked here to sign up.