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Archives for August 2013

Is Competence Christian?

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Most of us immediately recognize that the answer, of course, is yes. But there is no shortage of overspiritualizers out there today who like to rain on the parade of common grace, and sometimes (strangely enough) the quest for competence can be wrongly labeled as idolatry.

Hence, it is important — not to mention interesting — to see the biblical foundation behind truths that are very clear simply from the light of nature alone. Competence is one of them.

One of the most fascinating passages here is Proverbs 2:2-4, where competence is said to be a component of wisdom, and we are exhorted to seek it diligently.

You don’t see this directly in many translations, because they tend to translate the term for “competence” here simply as “understanding” (and, obviously, there’s a relationship). But Tremper Longman brings this out most clearly in his more precise translation of the passage in his commentary on Proverbs:

My son, if you grasp my speech and store up my commands within you, bending your ear toward wisdom, extending your heart toward competence — indeed, if you call out for understanding, shout for competence, if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure…

So, to everyone who has an innate desire to do good work and be effective at what you do: be encouraged. This desire is not unspiritual, but is a reflection of the image of God in you. It is a very spiritual thing to be competent; indeed, God exhorts us to it.

The Best iPad Case I've Found So Far

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Finding a good iPad case has been quite a challenge for me. I don’t tend to like Apple’s overly minimalistic smart covers. On the other hand, many cases overdo it.

However, I found out the hard way that it is very important to have a good case. Last fall I bought a new case, only to discover a few months later that the thing that holds the iPad into the case was not very durable. As a result, it quickly broke and my iPad would no longer stay in the case.

So I decided to go without a case, at least for a while. Would you believe that shortly thereafter my screen cracked from falling — of all places — off the side of my bed? It hit the bed frame just wrong and cracked right in the corner.

This was frustrating. It is also an example of actually doing good quality work and creating products (in this case, iPad cases) with good design. Sure this was my fault. However, the fact that it is so hard to find a decent iPad case was a major contributor to the situation. If the case I had obtained hadn’t broken so quickly, for example, this likely wouldn’t have happened.

A poor quality product, in other words, caused harm to come to another product. This is annoying.

I’ve finally found an iPad case that I like, and the interior-thing that holds the iPad in place seems to be based upon a new design that looks robust and relatively unobtrusive. I think they may have hit the mark here. Here’s the case:

And, if you prefer a case that is able to hold business cards, this one looks good:

How the Gospel Affects Our Work

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Matt Heerema recently preached an excellent sermon on how the gospel affects our work. This is the first message in a series his church is doing on the doctrine of vocation.

Here’s a great section where Matt summarizes why it is so important to understand God’s design and purpose for our work:

If we don’t get this right then we will sense, as I’m guessing many of us do, a disconnect between our spiritual life and our work life, and we will fall into one of several traps.

If we consider our daily work as eternally meaningless then some of us might put zero thought and effort into a potential career in the marketplace that could very well be one or five or ten of the talents that our Heavenly Master is entrusting into our care!

Or some of us might buy into the World’s system of doing work, according to the world’s philosophies of how to conduct business and treat each-other, and if you are a believer this will likely cause you a great amount of guilt or confusion and distance from God.

Or perhaps you will simply resign yourself to the drudgery of a “meaningless” work life, gritting your teeth against the inherent worldliness and worthlessness of it all.

And in every case we will miss the joy, pleasure, and power we can experience when we realize our daily “mundane” and “secular” tasks can glorify God and expand His kingdom in real and ways. And I’m hoping that as a result of this series, we’ll learn to be encouraged that our daily work matters to Him and will count for something eternal.

And most of all, because of that, we’ll become equipped to live every moment or our life with a constant awareness of His presence, His help, His concern, and His pleasure with and for our work, and let us do all that we do for His Glory!

You can both read and listen to the sermon online.

The Global Leadership Summit is Next Week!

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The Global Leadership Summit is next Thursday and Friday, August 8-9. Speakers this year include Colin Powell, Mark Burnett (executive producer of The Apprentice, Survivor, and the recent Bible series on the History Channel), Patrick Lencioni, Liz Wiseman, and many more.

In case you aren’t familiar with the Summit, here’s a summary:

The Global Leadership Summit is a two-day, world-class leadership event experienced by more than 170,000 leaders around the world, representing more than 14,000 churches. It’s telecast LIVE from Willow’s campus (near Chicago) every August. Throughout the fall, Summit events take place in an additional 300+ cities, 92 countries—and translated into 42 languages. This event is crafted to infuse vision, skill development and inspiration for the sake of local church transformation.

I recommend the Summit for every leader. The on-site campus is sold out, but you can still attend through a host site (and there is likely one in your area).

I’ll also be blogging the Summit again this year, and am looking forward to it!

My Gospel at Work Message

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Here’s the audio from the breakout session I did on productivity and the gospel at the Gospel at Work conference at Covenant Life in January.

I talk about three main things:

  1. Why we need to be theological and practical as Christians.
  2. A new vision for the things we do every day: how understanding our work and lives in light of the gospel changes the way we go about everything and gives us new purpose, direction, and meaning.
  3. A new understanding of how to be truly productive: I argue that love — that is, putting the other person first and treating people the way you want to be treated — is actually the way to be most productive, both before God and in this world (usually!).

And in the midst of this I answer a bunch of questions about motivation, leadership, the world of work, and other things. (Wait — it sounds like the questions are not included; very sorry!)

It was a fantastic conference and I’m grateful for the opportunity to have been a part of it. (You can also watch the keynotes and listen to the other breakouts on their site.)