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Christians in Silicon Valley

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A good article by Andy Crouch in Christianity Today on how Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are taking a leap of faith to create technology that makes you more human.

It turns out that there are lots of Christians in Silicon Valley, and it is very encouraging to see how they are thinking about things and what they are doing.

Here’s a key part that gets at the essence of what Crouch has found:

Like the other Christians profiled in this story, Saber and Munro are not in the least interested in starting or running a “Christian company.” And also like the others, they relentlessly ask how their Christian faith shapes the company they have founded and run.

That’s a conjunction that I find very interesting. These Christians have a holistic perspective. They realize that the gospel matters for all of life, and yet also realize that the gospel calls us to avoid being spiritually weird (for example, promoting yourself as a Christian company while doing bad work, and not realizing the mismatch). The gospel is to shape the things we do in real ways, not artificial ways.

This is a much better testimony to the gospel than the guy who hands out tracts at the water cooler but who nobody wants on their team because he doesn’t realize that God wants him to actually care about his job.

Here’s another great quote:

We see business as a powerful instrument for aligning the human experience with its original design….Poverty, sickness, environmental degradation—we think God cares about these things and wants to be involved. So we believe he will be present when we ask.

Well said!

Is There a Christian Way to be a Bus Driver?

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Justin Taylor gives a great answer to this question, which helps us all understand how any area of life or occupation we have — whether bus driver, marketing director, CEO, web designer, programmer, custodian, or anything else — relates to our faith.

Justin shows that the single question of whether there is a “Christian” way to do seemingly “secular” things actually breaks down into several questions. These are the questions he answers, using a bus driver as the example:

  • Does the Bible teach how to be a bus driver?
  • Does the Bible teach how to be a Christian bus driver?
  • Can a non-Christian be a good bus driver?
  • Can a non-Christian be a better bus driver than a Christian?
  • Is there a distinctively Christian way to think about the particulars of each vocation?

Here’s what it comes down to: the gospel changes three chief things concerning the way we go about work that is chiefly in the arena of common grace:

  1. Our motive
  2. Our standards
  3. Our foundation (source of strength)

That is a slightly different way of stating it than Justin, but it is based on the same principles and comes down to the same thing.

As Justin points out, the gospel does not chiefly change our methods. For example, the Christian bus driver doesn’t have to put on special glasses before hopping into the drivers seat, still stops at red lights rather than green lights (let’s hope), and turns left by steering the wheel to the left and not right.

Read the whole thing.

Pastorum 2013

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In a couple of weeks, there is a very exciting conference occurring in Chicago — Pastorum 2013. If you are able, I would encourage you to make the trip to Chicago to attend this time of learning and connecting with other teachers, pastors, students, and scholars. Speakers include Mark Futato, Ed Stetzer, Lynn Cohick, and many more. The conference begins the morning of  Thursday April 11, and runs through the afternoon on Friday April 12.

Sessions at Pastorum begin with Bible Backgrounds, then move to Old Testament and the Intertestamental Period. On Friday, session 3 walks through the New Testament and then the conference wraps up with session 4 – Connecting the Dots. There are also panel discussions “where speakers and attendees collaborate and share ideas for applying academic subjects to the local church.”

The folks at Pastorum have been kind enough to offer free registrations to ten readers of What’s Best Next. To win one of these registrations (a $100 value!), be one of the first ten readers to email contact@whatsbestnext.com and I will send you further instructions. Note: you will be responsible for providing your own transportation to and from Chicago, as well as your lodging and meals while attending the conference.

Pastorum 2013 is sponsored by Logos Bible Software and hosted by Park Community Church.

 

How Then Should We Work?

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I’m really looking forward to Hugh Whelchel’s recent book How then Should We Work?: Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of Work. I’ve had a chance to dip into it a bit, and one of its stand-out features is a very helpful, succinct, and clear history of the different views on work and calling through the ages. I especially love his summary of Luther’s recapturing of the biblical view, especially his points that:

  • Vocation is the specific call to love our neighbors. That’s the essential meaning of the doctrine of vocation.
  • We live out this calling in the world, not by retreating from it. “Accord to Luther, we respond to the call to love our neighbor by fulfilling the duties associated with our everyday work.”
  • “We can only truly serve God in the midst of everyday circumstances, and all attempts to elevate the significance of the contemplative life are false.”

Hugh is executive director of the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics, whose mission is to equip Christians with a biblical theology of work and economics. They are doing excellent work, and I highly recommend them and their work.

"Religious Leaders Speak Inadequately About Business"

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A good point from Michael Novak:

Worse still, experience teaches, religious leaders speak inadequately about business — more so than about almost anything else they preach on. Their professional vocabulary, for the most part, so misses the point that it is painful to listen to them….Those whose religious and moral vocation in life is played out in one of the many fields of business get little enough help, then, from those they would normally turn to for instruction.

Let’s change this!

Come to the Gospel at Work Conference This Weekend

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One of the most important conferences of the year is happening this Friday and Saturday at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The conference is The Gospel at Work, and it’s about helping Christians live extraordinary, gospel-centered, faith-filled, fruit-bearing lives in their workplaces.

The reason it’s one of the most important is because the subject of faith and work goes to the very heart of the biblical vision for how Christians transform their communities, cities, and the world. Yet there are almost no conferences and hardly any (good) books on this subject (with some very notable exceptions, of course, including some excellent recent books I hope to blog on in the near future).

The Gospel at Work conference is a great way to be encouraged, connect with other believers also interested in how the gospel relates to our work, learn more about the biblical vision of how our faith and work relate, and gain some helpful practical tips as well.

Speakers

Speakers include:

  • Os Guinness: Work As Calling
  • Mark Dever: Work as Worship
  • Bob Doll: Work as Discipleship
  • Eric Simmons: Work as Faithfulness
  • Michael Lawrence: Theology of Work

My Seminar

And, I will be doing a breakout session on productivity and the gospel. My chief thesis is that the key to productivity in the workplace is highly counterintuitive and surprising — namely, to pursue the good of others before yourself.

In other words, the Golden Rule applies not just in our personal lives, but also in our work lives. Very often we think that we are to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” at church and in our personal lives, but that our work lives are to play by different rules. I’m going to argue that this is an unbiblical dichotomy. We are to put others first both in our personal lives and in our work lives. This is not about hijaking a true biblical principle and forcing it into an out of context reality for our own ends. Rather, it is the right and biblical thing to do. It is the way we ought to treat people because they are in the image of God.

Further, and counterintuitively, the best business thinking is showing that this is what actually leads to the greatest effectiveness in your work and for your organization.

Here’s another way to put it. What does it mean to make God supreme in your work? The chief and first thing it means is to seek the good of others by putting them before yourself in your work itself. This gives great meaning to our work no matter what we are doing, is an essential implication of what it means to love God, and, paradoxically, leads to the greatest effectiveness.

Registration

Standard registration ended yesterday, but you can still register at the door.

Would be great to see you there!

Don't Forget!

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Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;

maintain the right of the afflicted and destitute.

Rescue the weak and needy;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

— Psalm 82:3-4

What Are Christian Values?

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I just read a quote from someone who said that Christian values should become a vital element in the overall moral and cultural discourse of the nation. I think that’s probably true, but what are Christian values?

Most of the time when we think of “Christian” values, frankly, our thinking is pretty lame. We limit ourselves to the avoidance ethic — what we don’t want to see people doing. Christian values have become reduced simply to safety, security, movies that don’t swear too much, and “good family time.”

I’m all about good family time. But the Christian ethic is not simply about avoiding evil, but proactively doing good. And being radical and energetic in it. The question is not what can I spare to serve others and reach the world, but what will it take? 

How about if we model for the world a more complete picture of Christian values, which would include things like this:

  • Radical generosity. Just like Jesus, who did not merely tithe but gave everything he had (2 Corinthians 8:9).
  • Love. Ditching the self-protective mindset and putting others before ourselves, making their good our aim in all things.
  • Risk. Making the good of others a higher priority than our own safety, security, and comfort, and taking risks to bring benefit to them.
  • Creativity. Christians are to be creative! And to be a boring Christian is a sin (that’s an implication of the term “salt” in Colossians 4:6).
  • Excellence. Slack work is a form of vandalism (Proverbs 18:9). Christians are not to be clock-watchers in their work, but to do things well and with competence.
  • Initiative. Taking ownership for making things better, rather than sitting around watching and complaining.
  • Leadership. Instead of criticizing, leading and setting a good example.
  • Humble authenticity.
  • Global and multi-ethnic vision.
  • Ambition. Not for our own comfort, but for the good of others.

These are all Christian values. But would the world know to name even one of these as Christian? We have a lot of work to do.

If God Can Protect Those Who Go To Hard Places as Missionaries, He Can Protect Those Who Go in to Culture-Shaping Vocations As Well

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This is a great point I just came across in some of my notes, from I think the book Fearless Faith:

I’ve always wondered why we could be so quick to sacrifice our children to become missionaries but stand in the way of their becoming broadcast journalists, film and television actors, photographers, and painters. It’s almost as if we believe God is strong enough to take care of his own only as long as they stay within the safety of the Christian ghetto.

I’m all about missions and taking the gospel to unreached people groups. I think that, in addition to this, we also need to realize that the gospel also spreads through the vocations of all Christians, wherever they are (as long as we understand the proper relationship between faith and work — which most don’t!) — and that more Christians are needed in culture-shaping vocations.

In other words, the recovery of a robust doctrine of vocation is just as essential to the completion of the Great Commission as embracing the challenge of going to hard places to bring the gospel to those who have never heard.

(And, beyond that, as people come to faith through the vocations of every Christian, there will be more who in turn go to the unreached.)