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You are here: Home / Archives for 8 - Christian Living

Is Calling Some Jobs Essential a Helpful Way of Speaking?

April 23, 2020 by Matt Perman

Yesterday the governor of my state, Andrew Cuomo, said this:

 You want to go to work? Go take a job as an essential worker.

As someone who works professionally in the field of career development, I have something to say about this.

However, first of all, I want to say this: It is getting tiring to see the predominant ethic of shame on social media. If someone says something others don’t like, that person is shamed and silenced rather than respected. But the foundation of a free society is allowing people to say things you don’t agree with, and treating them with respect. Instead of shaming a person, the thing to do is express your disagreement by using reason and argument — and doing so in a gracious and respectful way. And you need to assume the best of a person. A society is healthier when all sorts of different views are able to be presented without threat of social stigma and social harm (shame is a form of social harm), and we treat one another fairly. Beyond this, if you resort to shame it is an almost immediate tip off that you might not actually have actually formulated good reasons for your position.

To apply this to Cuomo’s statement means this: This is probably one of those things he wishes he had said differently. Sometimes we all say things in the moment that come across differently than we mean. In this case, his comment seems very insensitive. I think he would probably prefer to revise it.

Now, to focus on the issues, his statement raises two broader issues that often come up in many other ways as well. First, the comment raises the issue of job choice. And the answer it implies is the wrong one (albeit somewhat common). The problem is that it goes against the nature of what it takes to build an effective career. To build an effective career, you have to give concern to what kind of jobs are a good fit for you. You cannot only say “this is available, this is easy to get, this is what I will do.” That is a reductionistic approach to career management that does not take skill and job satisfaction into account — things which are very important (even if they don’t always feel urgent — on which, see below). This approach is less effective — not only for you, but also for the positive impact you will be able to have on others. Even temporarily, it is a risky approach to choosing jobs. It is also inefficient. Should the sales manager at a car dealer, whose work is on hold right now, really set aside his career in order to take a job in an Amazon warehouse for three weeks? This implies that switching jobs is easy and can be done at the drop of a hat. Further, maybe it’s better for the sales manager to be getting ready to get back to work and taking this time to sharpen his skills and do professional development. Beyond this, it is not up to the government to tell people what jobs they should and should not be pursuing.

Second, it raises the issue of whether it is most helpful to speak in terms of “essential workers.” Here, productivity comes into play. What we are dealing with here is not actually the categories of “essential” and “non-essential,” but “urgent” and “important.”

What we really mean when we speak of “essential” work is urgent work. Almost all jobs are, I would say, essential in one way or another. Or, to put it in productivity terms, important. The issue is that some jobs that are important deal with urgent needs, and some jobs that are important deal with non-urgent needs. The fact that something is not-urgent does not mean it is not important. It just means you can delay dealing with it for a time. But if you delay dealing with it indefinitely, there is a price to pay — that is just as bad as ignoring urgent needs. In fact, if you don’t do the non-urgent but important work, it causes the urgent and important work to build — it’s why so often we are putting out fires.

Here is an example. Drinking water is urgent and important. If I go more than a day without drinking any water, I will start to experience many negative effects and fairly soon, my health will be at risk. Exercising, on the other hand, is not urgent. I can skip running for three days, or even a week, and not experience negative health ramifications. But if I never go running (or regularly exercising in some other way), I will experience significant long-term health issues. Exercising is important, but not urgent. As you can see, the fact that it is not urgent does not mean that it is not important, and it does not mean that I can put it off indefinitely.

So it is with “essential” and “non-essential” workers. The “non-essential workers” are doing things that are important and must be done. They are, in other words, doing truly essential things. They are just not doing things that are as urgent as those in the category being called “essential.”

Out of respect for all types of work, and all types of lawful careers, I would therefore suggest a better term is “urgent” workers, rather than “essential” workers.

Filed Under: Work

Gratitude and Productivity

November 27, 2019 by Matt Perman

What does gratitude have to do with productivity?

In a very real sense, gratitude is the completion of our productivity.

If we work and produce, but never appreciate the fruit of our labors, we never really benefit from them. We are always just on to the next thing. And then, what’s the point?

But even better than finding satisfaction in the work we have done is recognizing the source of our ability to achieve and the source of any success we have accomplished. And that is the grace of God. This is true in our spiritual and economic endeavors. “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). “You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18).

Without gratitude, we are not truly being productive because we are not ultimately being honest. We are overlooking God, who deserves the credit and recognition for all of the good things in our lives — including the things that have come about through our efforts in productivity.

So be truly productive this week by enjoying a break, feeling a deep sense of gratitude to God, and giving him thanks.

Filed Under: Character, Knowing God

4 Big Ideas on Work

July 23, 2019 by Matt Perman

One of the best books on the doctrine of work is Leland Ryken’s Redeeming the Time: A Christian Approach to Work and Leisure. I highly recommend it.

Here are four big ideas from his book that go to the heart of the biblical and Reformation understanding of faith and work. If you reflect on these ideas, you begin to see how truly transformative they are.

  1. One of the chief insights of the Reformation is that we can (and must) find God in everyday life, not just in spiritual contemplation and devotion.
  2. We can find God in everyday life because he created it and is Lord of all life.
  3. This means that daily work is not a hinderance to the Christian life, but a necessary ingredient of it. We can find God in our work and work with him in it, as co-workers.
  4. God will judge your work.

Filed Under: 8 - Christian Living, History, Work

We Don’t Work to Earn God’s Favor: Message from RightNow Media’s Work as Worship Conference

July 23, 2018 by Matt Perman

This goes back a couple years. I just came across online the message I gave at the 2015 Work as Worship Conference.

Here is a summary of the message I gave and, I believe maybe if you log in, the audio.

Here’s the message description:

Business leaders hold a critical place in the world because work serves as one of the chief means God uses to change culture. Because of this, work carries tremendous value in the life of every Christ follower. In this 29-minute session from the 2015 Work as Worship Conference, Matt Perman, author and founder of WhatsBestNext.com, speaks on the significance of accomplishing work in a gospel-centered way.

Filed Under: Conference Messages, Vocation

How Productivity Practices Help You Pray

April 25, 2018 by Matt Perman

How often has someone emailed you requesting prayer while they are on a missions trip? Or for a period of time over the next week or so that will be especially stressful?

This is exactly what people should be doing, and it is a privilege to pray with them.

But the productivity challenge is this: how do you remember to keep praying for them?

So often we say we will be praying, but then forget.

It’s easy, of course, to pray for them when you first receive the email that they will be going on the mission trip. In my case, a friend just emailed that he would be teaching overseas  on certain dates, and requested prayer through that time. So I prayed for him upon receiving the email.

But how will I remember to pray for him tomorrow, and four days from now, and a week from now?

Here is a simple productivity tip that solves the issue: Create an all-day-event in your calendar for the time the person will be gone, with the prayer requests in the note. Then, when you look at your calendar through that time, you will be reminded to pray for them and have their requests right at hand.

Certainly there are other ways to remember to pray as well. But if, like me, you often just try to rely on your memory when people have requests for a period of time, this is a simple way to make sure you will be more devoted to prayer for them throughout that time.

And so we also see that productivity practices can not only help us do our work better, but live other aspects of our Christian lives more effectively and fruitfully as well.

Filed Under: Prayer

What is the Meaning of “Spiritual Formation”?

April 9, 2018 by Matt Perman

I like the term “spiritual formation.” We often use it as another term for discipleship. It is an essential thing, therefore, for every Christian.

So what is it? I was at a retreat a few months ago that defined it perfectly and in a very engaging way. They said: “Spiritual and emotional formation at its core is learning how to love God, others, and yourself well.”

Spiritual formation (and discipleship), in other words, is about love. Love for God first, love for others, and indeed, loving ourselves well. (For if we don’t love ourselves well, we often don’t love others well–just as if you don’t take good care of your car, it won’t help others get around much either.)

Note two things from this definition.

First, we are to love well. Have you thought of discipleship and spiritual formation in that way before? As learning to love well?

Often we speak of love as central to the Christian life, but don’t make the connection that we can love in better or less helpful ways. Perhaps that’s why Paul speaks the way he does in Philippians 1:9: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent [what’s best next!]” (see also the parallel prayer in Colossians 1:9-12).

Second, note that there is a tie between spiritual and emotional formation. For a long time as Christians, we tended to see these two issues as separate. But as Peter Scazzero points out in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, you cannot be spiritually healthy unless you are emotionally healthy. For they overlap.

And so learning emotional intelligence, it turns out, is a key part of our Christian maturity and thus discipleship and spiritual formation. This is something we have not given much focus to, but need to.

So love God and love others — realizing that our call is not just to do it, but to do it well, and that affirming and learning how to connect emotionally is central to doing this.

Filed Under: Discipleship

How Management Training Can Help Address Global Poverty

March 22, 2018 by Matt Perman

This is an excellent post by Joe Carter, called How Managers Can Help Save the World.

He notes that most short-term missions trips do not empower those being served or lead to lasting impact because they simply give a fish, so to speak, rather than each how to fish.

Together with this, he notes that one reason for the productivity gap between poor countries and wealthier countries is often overlooked: management practices.

Hence:

A potentially more productive short-term service project would be to use the time to help teach businesses in developing countries how to be more productive. Many of the millions of Americans who go on mission trips have some experience in management, or could at least be trained to teach basic management skills. In many countries the productive gap is so large that almost any knowledge we could pass along could be transformative.

Christians long ago recognized that for long-term spiritual success, missionaries had to train up pastors and teachers from within a country. Perhaps it’s time we applied that same thinking to improving the long-term material success of countries in need. By sharing our abundance of managerial knowledge, we could teach others how to be more productive—helping them create wealth for themselves and their neighbors.

Well said! Read the whole thing. And as a starting point in learning good management practices, the book The First Time Manager is very helpful with many of the nuts and bolts. For a slightly more advanced look, see my article Management in Light of the Supremacy of God.

Filed Under: 4 - Management, Poverty

What Does it Mean to Glorify God?

March 14, 2018 by Matt Perman

Most Christians agree that our purpose in life is to glorify God.

However, we can also struggle with having a clear idea of what that means. Which makes it hard to apply and give direction.

Hence, it is helpful to understand more precisely what it means to glorify God. There are lots of ways to do this. One that I’ve found helpful recently is this: To glorify God means to give him weight. To give him ultimate significance and centrality in your life and actions.

In other words, to glorify God means to act in ways that show he matters most in each decision you make. It is to have ultimate regard for him in all that you do, coming from love for him.

I’d like to give some examples here, but what might be most helpful to illustrate this is for each of us to ask ourselves: what is something we did recently that gave God weight? And then ask: how can we do more things like that?

Filed Under: Knowing God, Mission

Winning at Work

March 10, 2018 by Matt Perman

This is an excellent message by Chip Roper, one of the best current thinkers on faith and work, delivered recently at the New York City chapter of the New Canaan Society.

It’s called “Winning at Work.” In it, Chip hits on two different types of work we do. First, there is work we do simply because we have to. This is work as a means to an end. Second, there is work we do because we want to. This is work as an end in itself.

Many of us have much of the first kind of work in our jobs and in our lives. There will always be some of that. But to be most effective (and fulfilled) in our work, we need to move our roles to consist more and more of the second kind of work.

Here is a great summary from the New Canaan Society newsletter:

Chip asked us to remember when the idea of work became real for us. For Chip it was the chores he was assigned as a child: that was work as a means to an end, work you have to do to get what you want.  But there was other “work” Chip voluntarily embraced growing up—constructing forts, putting together pushcarts, building treehouses.  Lots of sweat and effort, but no obligation.  This is work as an end in and of itself, work you want.  What if you think of your work on this continuum, somewhere between the chores and the treehouse?  Where are you most days?  When Chip found himself stuck on the chores end of the spectrum, it was a signal that he wasn’t winning at work anymore, and that he needed to consider significant change.

And as an aside, I recommend the New Canaan Society for Christians in the workforce (there are many chapters throughout the country, and especially on the east coast).

I also recommend the excellent organization that Chip leads, the Voca Center. You can read his blog at Marketplace Faith.

Filed Under: Work

Changing the World Through Gospel-Driven Productivity

November 6, 2017 by Matt Perman

That’s the title of the message I gave at The Summit Institute this spring. They are a fantastic ministry of Summit Church (North Carolina) that equips Christians to more effectively engage in the mission of God, especially through their work.

Check them out! You can watch the video on their site at the first link above, or here:

Gospel and Work | Matt Perman from The Summit Institute on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Conference Messages, j Productivity in Society, Work

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What’s Best Next exists to help you achieve greater impact with your time and energy — and in a gospel-centered way.

We help you do work that changes the world. We believe this is possible when you reflect the gospel in your work. So here you’ll find resources and training to help you lead, create, and get things done. To do work that matters, and do it better — for the glory of God and flourishing of society.

We call it gospel-driven productivity, and it’s the path to finding the deepest possible meaning in your work and the path to greatest effectiveness.

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About Matt Perman

Matt Perman started What’s Best Next in 2008 as a blog on God-centered productivity. It has now become an organization dedicated to helping you do work that matters.

Matt is the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done and a frequent speaker on leadership and productivity from a gospel-driven perspective. He has led the website teams at Desiring God and Made to Flourish, and is now director of career development at The King’s College NYC. He lives in Manhattan.

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3 Questions on Productivity
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Productivity is Really About Good Works
Management in Light of the Supremacy of God
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Business: A Sequel to the Parable of the Good Samaritan
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