Biblical Business Radical: Witness Through Public Show or Not?

 In certain Christian business circles, there’s strong encouragement to publicly announce your faith. Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby are two examples. ServiceMaster used to be one too. I know several other small businesses that are quite vocal about their faith to their customers—Christians and non-Christians alike. Some of them might be questioned how genuine their faith is based on some of their values, policies and practices. Some have even been hauled into court over cultures of harassment and prejudicial promotion and hiring practices: definitely not in the “love your neighbor” vein of a Christian walk.

Recently I was in Europe at a religious site known for miracles and supernatural visitations. A whole religious and commercial community has built up around the phenomena—not unlike how businesses crop up around popular tourist sites to support the attraction’s business and patrons—to accommodate all the “tourists.” I declined an invitation to enter the local church to see the shrines. I replied that my faith was pretty simple in terms of religious trappings and I’m not impressed by ostentatious displays. 

I was reminded of words from Christ’s most famous sermon, paraphrased: your righteousness needs to be greater than the Pharisees who love to show off their religious zeal by praying in the streets and publicly demonstrating how miserable they are while they’re fasting. (Matt. 5.20; 6.1-8, 16-18).

When we pronounce our faith to our customers, are we looking for the applause of people? How much is God impressed by this faith expression if we don’t have the “love your neighbor” actions to back the pronouncement?

Biblical Business Radical: Motivating the Aesthetics on Your Team

 According to TTI Success Insights (tm), there are 6 intrinsic motivators: Theoretical (Knowledge), Utilitarian (Utility), Aesthetics (Surroundings), Social (Others), Individualistic (Power),  and Traditional (Methodologies). Some of these we’ll easily understand. We’ve heard the clichés related to them: “What’s in it for me?” “I’m okay, you’re okay.” “What have you done for me lately?”

We’ll deal with each in time. We’re going to start with Aesthetics and their surroundings. Beauty and form influence their experience. The environment has to augment the experience. You’ll see people paying attention to room setup for meetings, lighting, colors of folders, etc. They’ll look for opportunities to be creative artistically—whether it’s artwork, music or presentations. TTI describes two continuums regarding Objectivity and Harmonious. Those deep on the Objectivity spectrum will want to reorder the elements creating chaos till it all fits a unified whole. It might be a project that’s collapsing. They can see the “beauty” and usefulness of each element and want to figure out how they connect with the other elements to achieve the goal. Harmonious people look for the “beauty” in the whole and how the whole is presented to the “audience.” 

Maybe this is where we see God motivating us collectively. Not only are we attracted to the beauty in creation but we’re reminded through Paul in various scriptures (1 Corinthians most notably) that individually we’re an “element,” a part of His body and we need to remember we cannot accomplish the goal or create an attractive draw for the “other Gentiles” if we don’t work together. It’s not good to have chaos—like in Acts when the Greek widows weren’t getting fed from the shared resources or disorganized teachings from various teachers (1 Corinthians 1). Or Christ noting that the whole chaotic, if/then, now/not now of the Law is fulfilled simply when we love God and love our neighbor. And others will know we are His when we love one another.

How are we doing with this in our organizations? How well do you know your Aesthetics and how much are you inviting them in to help you create beauty from the parts towards a unified experience for your customers?

Biblical Business Radical: Motivation With a Compelling Vision

 In their book, Lead Like Jesus, Blanchard, Hodges and Hendry describe Christ's primary leadership key as having a compelling vision, communicating it and implementing it. They cite the Great Commission as one compelling vision--go into all the world to make disciples, teach and baptize them. This comes out of Christ's own mission to seek and save the lost (Luke 19.10; Matthew 28.18-20). 

We can see something similar in the vision God gave to Abraham: you will be a great nation and have as many descendants as there are stars (Genesis 26.4). Moses, Joshua and many others were given a vision and mission for what they were going to accomplish.

Businesses often have a vision statement, a mission statement or a combination of the two. In a Harris poll some number of years ago, very few people on the team know the company’s goals—revenue increase, improved profitability, new customers, etc.— and how they can help achieve them. That’s the goals. Not to mention the vision or mission. When you review the probabilities, chances are only one person on a football team knows what to do—get the ball in the opponent’s goal or past the goal line (depending on the form of football) and that they know what they need to do in their offensive position in order to accomplish this. [This is bad news for most businesses; the only good news is that our competition suffers from the same chaos.]

How does Christ keep this in front of us? We have nice mission/vision “plaques” in scripture. We have ambassadors that keep it in front of us—teachers, preachers, missionaries. How are we doing this in business? What methods would appeal to employees? If 80% would rather be somewhere else—mismatched skills, toxic work culture, burnout, stress, etc.—businesses are already on an uphill climb in getting people excited by the vision.

In Christ’s kingdom, we can get excited because we see new people entering His kingdom. We can see the citizens of the kingdom doing exactly what the King desires. We can taste parts of the vision, join forces with like-minded people. Having some small successes hint at the accomplishment of the greater vision.

Thus, it’s important for businesses and employees to enlist ambassadors, spy out our small successes that conform with the vision/mission, and capture those opportunities to celebrate. We can then affirm and continuously communicate what our businesses are trying to do.

Biblical Business Radical: Inherit the Land

You don’t have to look too far to find the “prosperity gospel.” It’s the belief that God promises and delivers prosperity to His people, from His abundant love and desire to give His children the best things. You can find verses that sound like this. In the Beatitudes, Christ says, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5.5).

 

In this verse, Christ is quoting Psalm 37.11—“But the humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.” How cruel this may have sounded to His audience at the time, who were humbly waiting for God to fulfill His promises. True, they were living in the land of their forefathers but it wasn’t theirs to fully own or govern. We too might be wondering when our labor will be rewarded. How long must I serve others—even those who don’t appreciate it—before I am promoted or see a pay increase? Maybe I should take matters into my own hands. (Quoted from Jesus on Monday Morning, volume 1)

 

You might be tempted to shout, “You tell ‘im, Jeremiah!” Because Jeremiah just delivered a message of woe—a call to become pure in heart, no idols, consecrated and dedicated hearts—he complains to YHWH, “Alas, Sovereign Lord, how completely you have deceived this people and Jerusalem by saying, ‘You will have peace’ when the sword is at our throats [souls, very lives]!” (Jeremiah 4.10) 

 

In order to experience the promise, we are told to soften our hearts, be humble. Jeremiah 4.3–just before Jeremiah’s complaint—and Hosea 10.12 use the imagery of unplowed ground, a hard surface in which seed nor water can penetrate. It’s a call to God’s people to not be hard hearted. We need to be softened so that the seed can be planted. Jeremiah (and Christ) also warn not to sow the seed among the thorns, which Christ teaches His disciples to understand this as sharing God’s promise with those so enamored or worried about the same things as unbelievers. These people seek riches. The good news gets choked out. Instead, Hosea asks us to sow righteousness (and God will shower righteousness on us). When we do this, we will reap unfailing love. (The Word through Jeremiah is one of punishment if we don’t soften our hearts and sow righteousness.) 

 

If we think we’re so good, so moral, so blessed that we ignore opportunities of showing righteousness and love to others and humbly learning from God, then we are just like unplowed ground. If we break our routines, values, goals into smithereens, we can jettison what the world would advise us to do. We can stop worshipping business idols and currying favor or emulating the ones we think are best. We can be humble, admitting we are only so talented, so lucky, so connected, so courageous that the fruits of our labors are enough. We don’t need to “prosper” more. We can receive the seed of righteousness and the Living Water, so our land grows abundant crops/fruit of love, peace, joy. Enough to feed ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors and share the rest in the marketplace.

  

Teaching About Islam But Confusion with Jefferson and Ehrman

 Dr. Brewton provides a valuable and comprehensive understanding of the keys to Islam. His focus is on Sharia law and its implications for Muslim countries and maybe for Western countries with significant Muslim populations. His best chapters on that law, Sharia finance and the religion’s relationship with democratic principles. Having studied some of the Qur’an and its history and some of the sectarian battles, I kept waiting for the author to cover some of the controversies—such as why internecine fighting will occur first if a true Holy War ever breaks out (one Druze adherent told me that their sect would be the first attacked by everyone else). The “brotherhood” of Islam is not as strong as it appears from the outside. He does get to all of the controversies by the penultimate chapter.

The strong tie between politics and religion is not explicit here but is well demonstrated when it shows how Muslim countries are using Islamic law for many issues and adapted more globally accepted legal systems for international relations, business and so on. Only in America do we really try to keep politics and religion separate. Many in the world today are aware of other countries’ struggles with politics and religion melding leading to internal polarizations—think Ireland and its long struggles between loyalty to England and separatism and Catholicism or Protestantism. In the first part of the book, the more militant adherents of Islam are mostly discussed (ISIS, Taliban, et al.); it’s not until the second half of the book do we see more discussion of the cultural Muslim practices, Qur’anic or orthodox practices in comparison with what we would call Islamists and jihadists. Another scholar—an Arab Christian—has said that three aspects separate these main bodies of believers in Islam: the definition of jihad, what it means to be separate from the world and what it means to follow in the footsteps of the Prophet.

The author’s tone in the beginning seemed fearful and protective of “American exceptionalism.” This moderates in the second half as he realizes that the American system is more robust to withstand any religion’s usurpation of judicial and legislative power. He also opines on the growth of democracy and capitalism under Christianity, but wouldn’t under Sharia law, and how those have benefited the world. However, this is not the purpose of the book: to assuage our fears. The purpose is the help us understand the “mechanics” behind the Islamic faith.

The author succeeds at this but there are many distractions along the way. In the first few chapters, Brewton follows a rabbit trail with Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Qur’an and his study of the faith, and how many new Congressional members used it to be sworn in. This lengthy discussion doesn’t help us understand the Muslim Mechanics. Nor did an inordinately long rendition of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s critique of New Testament manuscript studies. Ehrman has been refuted by other scholars and only one paragraph is given to that perspective. Likewise, Brewton covers The Gospel of Barnabas and its contradictory “evidence” of Jesus escaping death on the cross. He states that reprints of this “gospel” are very popular in the Muslim world. He does not show that Muslim scholars have recognized the gospel as fraudulent; it’s full of historical, geographical and linguistic inaccuracies. Additionally, there’s no mention that this gospel appears in Spain and Italy in the 16th century just before the Moors are expelled from Spain and the Spanish Inquisition reaches its pinnacle of influence as it starts to combat heresies—including Protestantism and other reformation movements. Strangely, though interesting, he analyzes Christianity and Islam from some business model perspectives that don’t illuminate any of the mechanics; they merely lead into his prognostication for Islam.

Brewton devotes a chapter to several issues, like homosexuality and honor killings. Why he chose these particular issues is not clear, nor do they really add to the discussion of understanding why Muslims behave this way.

I found one serious gap or faulty presumption on the part of the author. He seems to only have approached Islam (and Christianity) from a Western/European paradigm of righteousness, which is mostly legalistic. We tend to spend most of our time talking about guilt and making amends or atonement. Middle Eastern cultures, including Israel’s Judaism and therefore Christianity’s roots, deal mostly with honor and shame. Even Greek scriptures (New Testament) shows this wherein our righteousness is not altered by sinful acts. “Therefore, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus” because our sinful acts do not impute shame. We are redeemed and valued and honored through Christ, by Christ. Our corrupt (shameful) selves are changed, born anew, transformed through His saving grace and mercy. If not, no amount of good deeds can atone for the corruption in our soul (greed, envy, divisiveness, etc.). Brewton ignores just how infused all monotheistic religions are with honor and shame and fails to understand how honor killings are a rational outcome from this perspective. Shame brought on the umma (family, community, faith) is punishable in all three religions and many cultural systems (e.g. southern US families, military combat groups, and so on). We can better understand Muslim Mechanics when we can empathize with how important honor to the umma is.

Like the lack of analysis of the cultural, political and religious context surrounding the Gospel of Barnabas, the author mentions a “golden age” in Spain when Islam, Judaism and Christianity collaborated and thrived together under Islamic rule. He fails to mention that this was also a period when the Classical Greek philosophers were being discovered by key theologians of the three monotheistic religions. The main Greek philosophy these theologians adopted is that the spiritual realm is good and immune from strong evil influences while the physical realm is “bad” and drags us away a relationship with God. This tainted all three religions and transformed how they viewed their faith’s truths. This is especially important given the importance of the four schools of Islamic law and when they came to prominence and which ones prevail today. Brewton does spend time on abrogation—the supersession of some scriptures by later ones—agreeing that those scholars desiring this will prevail, which would lead Islam to become more militant, just as it’s led many Christian leaders to ignore Hebrew scripture (Old Testament) dicta in favor of the more broad, abstract, principled but less accountable teachings of Christ.

I have also heard Muslim teaching that Caliphs were also qualified because they never sinned. Thus some of the spiritual forefathers revered by all three Abrahamic religions have different stories in the Qur’an. Adam and Eve may have sinned and been forgiven. Noah never got drunk and naked in the Qur’an. Abraham didn’t sin either. His foibles in Genesis—e.g. lying twice about his relationship with Sarah—are not mentioned. David was warned before having an adulterous affair with Bathsheba in the Qur’an while the Hebrew Scriptures have a fallen David restored. Some of these differences between the Bible and the Qur’an are not discussed.

Money in the Light of Eternity, a book by Art Rainer

 Art Rainer certainly covers a lot of dimensions to generosity: stewardship, gratitude, trust, worship. He even talks about the messiness of being generous. However, I kept wondering why the book was written. Who’s the audience that’s going to pick up the book? Believers who already understand they are but stewards who are to manage resources according to the Master’s desires don’t need to read this. Those who accept with humility God’s good gifts—living a modern version of Deut. 6.10-12 (you didn’t build this, don’t forget the Lord)—don’t need to read this. Those who look at everyday life and apply Micah 6.8 don’t need to read this—“But what does the Lord require? To do right, to love mercy and walk humbly with God.” Or James 1.27–pure religion is taking care of widows and orphans and not letting the world corrupt you i.e. don’t let the world’s standards or perspectives persuade you to keep up with the Joneses. Potential readers would be new to generosity and they would want a “how to” book. Those who are not interested in generosity, have not been persuaded by sermons or even tax regulations encouraging generosity probably wouldn’t pick up the book. So I’m left with the audience of those who are only dipping their toes in the waters of generosity. Church-goers are no more generous than the rest of society, donating roughly 2% of their income. Those people will benefit from Rainer’s exhortation to dive into the deep end and go all out.

I do wonder at the title of the book. It implies that we can earn our way into heaven by being generous. Rather being generous is a response of gratitude as Rainer says. It’s obedience to His commands to help others, including loving our enemies. It’s recognizing that we don’t own these things but have been generously endowed with physical, financial, intellectual, relational, spiritual and historical (heritage, legacy) resources. No one is a self-made success: they didn’t build the roads, schools, hospitals, armed forces, police, courts, etc. on which our society rests. They didn’t come fresh into a faith that’s entirely new but has a legacy of thought and application in everyday life.

For those who are wondering if it makes sense to be more generous, Rainer’s book is a good resource. If you need encouragement, this book is good.

Testimony, a Compelling Read

 Note: I’m not a relative of the author.] Jon Ward and his family has participated in or been at the heart of many of the major Christian movements since the Jesus Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. As a young believer, he participated in many of the religious movements. As a journalist, he watched the rise of the Religious Right. Though he was in it or of it, he still felt like a “border-stalker”—not really part of those tribes. He struggled with the inconsistencies and the power-grabs that he walked away from the faith and politics for a while. Ward encourages us to ask questions, without fear, and wrestle with our doubts and the hypocrisies we might observe. His book encourages anyone who wonders if doubt, questions, annoyance and more at what’s happening in organized political and religious movements has love, joy, peace, patience….at its core.

Ward’s testimony here is an archetype for spiritual formation: we start out believing what our parents believe, then what the “cool kids” believe (i.e. those to whom we want to attach ourselves) and it’s not until we have a crisis of faith—doubt, disappointment—that we can truly own our own faith. This is not just a story of Jon Ward’s faith journey but he seamlessly weaves in cultural and political and religious events happening around his story.

I was intrigued at how he analyzed the rise of “nones” or “nonverts”—those who claim no religious affiliation though they once had it—since the early 1990’s. Another author’s recent book claims the rise of the “nones” happened with the fall of the Soviet Union: that Christianity and patriotism were so woven together, the fall of a great enemy meant we had no need for a religion. I believe that in the early 1990’s with the rise of marriage of conservatism and Christianity, many people were turned off of religion. George H. W. Bush’s Compassionate Conservatism fell out of favor. Anger politics and anger religion took over with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and others. Ward agrees that a new enemy was needed to replace the Soviet Union and so the zealotry turned inward to the US culture. Anger is not attractive; no one likes hanging out all the time with a friend who’s always angry. They don’t make us feel better. But it is entertainment and slowly the anger politics and anger religion seeps into our brain until that’s how we think. What’s the old adage? Show me your five closest friends and I’ll tell you what you think and how you behave. 

I listen to Jon Ward’s podcast, The Long Game, and find his in-depth interviews illuminating of the world of Washington, D.C. and beyond. His book, Testimony, is a welcome addition to the telling of his story and how we all should take politics with a grain of salt—or a whole shaker of salt in some cases—and he exhorts us to dig deeper than the Sunday School answers of how we should live in accordance with Christ’s words.

A Church That Reflects the Multitudes in Heaven

 Amen and amen. Not in the sense of “it is finished” but in the real sense of “I have faith” and “let it be so.” Williams and Jones in their upcoming book, In Church as it is in Heaven, build a guide on the shoulders of giants from Augustine, Martin Luther, Howard Thurman and more well-known and obscure Christian writers and thinkers of all backgrounds. For newbies to the racial barriers found in the US church and others who have hoped and worked to make a difference, the authors provide an excellent toolkit and role model for changing our heads, our hearts and our dirty hands—both in the sense of past sins but also in the sense of “getting down to business” by doing something rather than just talking. Let’s walk the walk. If you have done more reading and practice in this area, you’ll find some additional ideas beyond what you might find in Jamar Tisby’s “Color of Compromise” or Chalmer Center’s “Are You a Good Neighbor?”—and other comparable works and curricula.

Full of scripture and perhaps some new takes on familiar passages—e.g. how many of us catch onto the ideal of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 beyond our measly Eucharistic celebrations?—Williams and Jones take us on their own journey of understanding how the vision of many tribes and tongues worshiping the Lord can be seen here on earth. Each chapter ends with practical steps we can all implement. For some they’ll be baby steps; for others, they’ll feel like landing-on-the-moon journeys. In every way though, we need to be curious. But with grace and mercy, as our Lord too provides such, the authors understand us who hesitate to step forth. 

If there’s a drawback in the book, it’s that the authors struggle with coaching us how to identify subcultures within ethnicities. One might understand this just from the title of Bryan Loritts’ “Right Color, Wrong Culture: The Type of Leader Your Church Needs to Become Multiethnic.” As a person who has made mistakes, like asking a Nicaraguan what part of Mexico they’re from or assuming West Africans think and behave like East Africans or thinking one person’s story leading to poverty is indicative of others I meet downtown, I’ve had to remind myself to be more curious than assured in my knowledge. In any regard, this will be a reference I pull out and to which I’ll refer many others interested in starting this journey.

Biblical Business Radical: Transformation Means Difference

 Recently I previewed a novel, a thrilling novel of a former military, FBI operative combating a plot to “ruin” the world. Here’s an excerpt from my review:

We also get a glimpse of the protagonist’s, Redd’s, devotional life as he tries to live up to what he learned from his adoptive father, JB. Unfortunately, Redd is not an aspirational character when it comes to his faith. Like most of us, we don’t see our beliefs impacting our vocations. I’ve seen it with customer service people, CEOs, everyone, myself included. Redd behaves in his work no differently than his colleagues. His faith is not in evidence. There’s one quick sentence or two, where Redd contemplates “turn the other cheek” (from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount). But it’s not a deep dive as he dismisses it because of an attack on his family. There’s no consideration that as followers of Christ, His teachings and His living example, we do not seek personal vengeance. We can seek justice for others. We are called to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit at all times—if we believe He’s dwelling within us—of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness… Also Christ calls us to love our enemies, not just our neighbors (family, friends). Scripture also tells us that “perfect love casts out all fear.” And the Ten Commandments say, “Do not murder” which Christ expands in His famous sermon to be equivalent when we hate. Perhaps as Steck’s [the author’s] series expands, we’ll see Redd transform into being more Christ-like. What Redd is doing is not different from typical “Christians” but I hope Steck gives us some hints to a greater life of faith, that can be shown in what we think, decide and do.

We also have to take to heart the call: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think…” (Romans 12.2) Transformation is more than just identity—we can call ourselves Christian—it’s our character and values which influence our decisions and actions (i.e. our behaviors and customs).

 

Biblical Business Radical: Do Nothing from Selfish Ambition (ouch!)

 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit…” (Philippians 2.3 ESV) “…or vain conceit…” (NIV)

…except to get promoted at work or have wonderful returns on investment or ”keep up with the Joneses.” Right? When we’re asked about our lives, can’t we talk about our work, career, business accomplishments? I mean we have to fill out a CV or resumé for any new job. As a business owner, couldn’t we mention how much we have in sales or how many employees we pay, how far we ship or how far our customers travel to get to us…?

“Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others.” (Philippians 2.3 NLT)

“Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top.” (MSG)

Doesn’t God allow for exceptions when it comes to our vocations, our career desires and our businesses? I don’t think so. I haven’t found any exclusions in scripture that certain character traits are only required at home and not at work, in the marketplace. Hmmm, this is a hard command to practice.

(Is it a command or a guideline or suggestion? Can I call it one of the latter and have a loophole?)

So what do I do? 

“…but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.” (Phil. 2.3-4 ESV) “Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.” (MSG) “Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.” (NIV) “Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.” (v. 3 NLT)

Easy to do with customers for a lot of us. Easy to do with employees if we practice servant leadership. We can talk about our accomplishments as a team effort, since that’s really what it is. No one person achieves anything without ideas or resources or assistance from others.

Maybe even easy to do with competitors because there’s the sales “rule” of not demeaning your competition. But can I look to the interests of my competitors? The closest I’ve found is to backfill their capacity when they have too much business or offload some business when I’ve not had enough capacity. And having strong competition is good for your business: you get stronger and your customers have solid choices. I had a friend who owned a lumber yard in a small city. When his one competitor went out of business, he worried he would also lose business. The reasoning: his contractor customers would think he was jacking up prices because there was no competitor and would then be willing to take their trade to another city with multiple yards.

Involved in Politics?

 Yesterday I had a conversation with an elderly business owner who was bemoaning the fact that national cultural trends were killing America and the solution was empowering the Republican Party. In order to redeem society, he said, we need to be involved in politics.

Two thoughts: first, Christ had the opportunity to remake the Sanhedrin, confront Roman rule--the governor and the tetrarchs--and chose not to. Neither did He instruct His disciples to do so after His resurrection and ascension. Second, He said His Kingdom was not of this world as a rebuke for those who thought the Messiah was going to bring political power back to the Jewish people.

So why are Christians so concerned with political power?

Also, if you had to rate the political parties on the several commandments--two of which are called the Greatest Commandments--and as exemplars of the Good Samaritan principle (caring for others not of your "tribe"): which party better shows "love of God" and obedience? (Remember the parable of two sons, one said he would obey the father but didn't, the other said he wouldn't but did.); which party better shows love of their neighbor? which party shows more love towards their enemies (Mt. 5.44)? which party exhibits more quarrelsomeness, divisiveness, anger, selfish ambition--character traits that will not inherit the kingdom (Gal. 5.20-22)?

Biblical Business Radical: Change Programs Don’t Work

 Business is a lot of habits (routines). We purchase the same stuff from the same people (think of your own experience grocery shopping). I once filled in for a purchasing agent and got a request from an assembly department for $80/lb cold-temperature grease. I knew the operations so I was curious how they were going to use it. Just as I thought, they applied the grease to assembly plates to keep other parts from sticking while they were in an oven! It turns out that some number of years ago, a high temp grease wasn’t available, some cold-temp grease was and it just kept getting reordered without any questions. 

A lot of studies have shown that change programs—efforts to make significant improvements—often fail. Some because they’re not appropriate to the industry. Some just because of resistance to the unknown, the uncomfortable, the fear of being inadequate. Some just because the “program” is separate from the everyday work. Some from a lack of trust and so people just wait “it” out until the distrusted leaders give up on the program.

When change is needed because the business results are horrible or not at a level worthwhile for growth, it can happen when there’s trust. It can happen when it becomes part of our everyday work. It can happen when the old ways to do things are no longer available: the machine has been mothballed, the software has been upgraded, the purchasing mechanisms (cash, cards) are no longer available. This style of not providing ways to revert back to old habits and old routines is named after the Spanish explorer Cortez: “first, burn all the ships. We have to go forward; there is no return to Spain until we’ve achieved victory.” Andersen in his small book Hunger in Paradise describes achieving new success by smashing past awards, assuming everything is broken even if the customers think it works, and never be content.

Christ dealt with this by acknowledging that old religious structures or religious thinking or rituals needed to be replaced. He described them as old wineskins or old clothes. The kingdom of heaven coming is new wine or new, unshrunk cloth patch. New wine will burst the old wineskins. A new cloth patch will pull away from the old cloth when it shrinks. And so the old can’t be allowed to continue when the new is present. Unfortunately for us, for human nature, if we’re satisfied with the old [wine], we resist the new. (Luke 5.39) Christ gave us a new way to commune with the Father by the omnipresence of the Holy Spirit. We are the priests now. (1 Peter 2.5)

Even though we have the new, we still might resist because we’re comfortable with the old. “My old flip phone works just fine making calls. Why do I need the latest iPhone or Galaxy or Pixel or…?” The new is uncomfortable and we might fail.. “Now I’m responsible for praying to God, understanding the scripture, being full of love, joy, peace…!?”

Can we cry out like the father desperate for his child to be healed, “I believe. Help my unbelief?” (Mark 9.24)

Biblical Business Radical: Motivation to Change Habits

 In another forum, I’ve written that most of us don’t change habits, in the long term, even after a crisis. 90% of heart disease patients don’t change their detrimental lifestyles. Duhigg in his “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” points out that habits are shortcuts. We’ve evaluated options, made decisions and now we just stick with those decisions and they become routines. Grocery shopping, brushing teeth, reactions to personnel conflicts at work, hiring practices, responses to competitors’ price cuts, etc. 

Likewise in our spiritual life, this is true. If we haven’t had a habit of praying, it’s hard to start one unless you get positive feedback (like the minty mouth-feel after brushing your teeth or an increased level of energy and stamina from exercise routines). This is also true for many of the spiritual and piety disciplines like meditation, scripture reading, bible study and so on. The destination of discipleship is to be transformed into His image and model His character and share His Good News to those around us. This like many “healthy” habits requires good feedback. 

How would you rate God in giving you feedback as you initiate new habit or continue with established habits? The twelve Disciples got some feedback when they were able to perform some miracles, just like their Rabbi. They were elated and also confident that they could call down fire and brimstone on people who rejected them. (Luke 10 e.g.) and Jesus congratulated them, but reminded them of a greater reward—their names recorded in heaven. Christ teaches a lot about prayer and how much our Father in heaven hears them: continue praying He reminds us; your Father in heaven knows what you need just like He knows what birds and flowers need; He will not deny us the bread we ask for and torture us with rocks or scorpions to eat, and so on. 

And yet many find God silent. Even the psalmists have this complaint. Surely, His people groaned from unanswered prayers while in Egyptian slavery or Roman oppression. Maybe His silence allowed the people to fall away, again and again and again as recorded in Judges, the Kings and the Chronicles.

Does God not listen? Does He not want to encourage us in our habit of prayer? Or are we praying to a “different god” of comfort, prosperity, prestige…?  2-3 million people heard God’s voice as He spoke to Moses on the mountain (Exodus 19.9),  and they repeatedly committed to do all the Lord has spoken and be obedient. They witnessed the glory of the Lord on the mountain. Moses and the elders saw Him with a pavement of sapphire under His feet (Ex. 24.10). They had already heard many of the commands. But…when Moses went up to the mountain for forty days, the people forgot. They hadn’t yet created their new habit. They resorted to worshiping in an old way with an image—in this case, a golden calf. (Exodus 32). They squandered precious resources the Lord had provided them through the blessing of the Egyptians who compelled them to leave. 

How much do we fall back into our old routines when we fail to perceive answers to prayers or fail to see our character being transformed into one more loving, joyful, peaceable, gentle, self-controlled and so on?

How weak—how human—are we that we need short-term, repetitive reinforcement of good habits?