Hope you enjoyed Laurie Beth Jones. It’s really tricky to engage the corporate world in a conversation about Jesus; it means that you think like a missionary: you study the culture, learn the language, and translate scripture into understood colloquialisms. Not easy. As a result, I think some of her writings have been maligned by a few evangelicals because of her attempt to communicate to a very different group than “church people”.
What are your thoughts?Btw, if you weren’t at the last celebration—Sunday 11:30 a.m.—you really should check it out at https://www.vineyardcincinnati.com/lastweek.php and bump ahead about 33 minutes to see what we gave Laurie Beth as a gift after we introduced her.
I think we were a little loopy…
The work place is a place that life happens in great concentration. It's almost like marriage in that people see you act and react in great detail - there is nowhere to hide. And the next day is a building upon what you did and said the day before.
ReplyDeleteThe skill that one needs is to strike the balance between providing value to the employer (after all they are paying you) and building relationships.
Of course we are working for God - so we do the absolute best that we can...we overachieve, we produce, we provide value - we show our character by reflecting God's attributes. The output of this is a reputation. And it is this reputation that prepares the soil for conversations.
We then seek to build relationships with peers and bosses and employees in a strategic fashion - we look for those times where we can peel back the thin layer of humanity to reveal God's nature, love. And we demonstrate this with action.
I was SO impressed with Laurie Beth Jones! She said so many powerful things; I look forward to reading some of her books.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to pick the one thing she said that made the biggest impression on me, it was the question she periodically asks herself to check her focus:
"If I only had six healthy months to live, would I be doing what I’m doing now?"
loopy is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy non vineyard speakers but most of them really do not hold my attention like the vineyard speakers, I get bored and fall asleep.
ReplyDeleteI did read one of her books, Jesus ceo? I liked most of it but when an example talks about an animal or some non human experience, it turns me off. Why can't this speaker have an example from real life? I see this a lot and wonder, if I give you the time, give me a real life experience to back up what your saying.