Merry Christmas from Marcus & Gordon

And so we come to the end of another year. Christmas is in a
few days and a 2008 is just around the corner. Marcus and I appreciate
all of you who have participated in the High Calling Blog network, both
those who write and those who have been reading. We pray that you will
find ways to slow down amidst the frantic activity of the holidays. We
hope that you are able see what is important about Christmas. Christ
came to this earth 2000 years ago and comes again in the lives of his
disciples.

We have served God this year with our lives. What good we have
done is credited only to the Spirit of the Lord. Where we have fallen
short, His grace is sufficient.

Merry Christmas,

Christmas Memories

Advent Candles - Covenant Baptist Church - San Antonio, Texas

Christmas memories are powerful for us. The secular and sacred holidays collide with an impact that shakes our wallets and our souls. I remember Christmas of 1988, waiting for my first child to be born. She was due in January and Jeanene was very pregnant through the holidays. Advent and waiting never seemed more real to me. These days I try to concentrate more on Advent than Christmas. Advent is counter-cultural. While our culture becomes loud, Advent worship calls us to silence. While our culture becomes rushed and harried, Advent is about slowing down and embracing the idea of waiting.

Everyone has their own unique set of Christmas memories, both good and bad. For many, the Christmas season is the one that never quite delivers. Our culture ties satisfaction and happiness to buying and receiving just the right gifts. We people of faith understand that possessions do not of themselves lead to happiness, but it’s hard not to get caught up in the craziness. Some people grieve terribly at Christmas. The loss of loved ones around this holiday forever colors the way a person feels about Christmas.

A number of High Calling Bloggers have written about the Christmas they most remember. I commend them to you. —- Real Live Preacher

Good Thoughts

Good Word Editing

In Support of Raytracing and Public Health

L’Chaim

Papa Poet

Ramblin’ Dan

Red Letter Believers

RelevantBlog

Sally’s Words

Seedlings in Stone

Shane Vander Hart

Spy Journal

Thoughts of a Gyrovague

It Takes a Leader

Sometimes you hear pastors and church leaders saying that leadership in the Church is harder than in the business world. You deal with volunteers, they say, and you can’t hire anyone you want. You have to take those who come in the door. Perhaps church leadership has some unique challenges, but Every Square Inch responds to recent statements by Bill Hybels and makes the case that business leadership shares many of the same challenges as leadership in the church.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

Hybels goes on to make the case that church or ministry leadership is more complex and challenging than leading in the business world. He offers the following four reasons to make his case. Let me state the obvious - I’m nowhere the equal of Hybels in the arena of leadership and I’ve had relatively little experience leading in ministry. However, there are elements of his words that really misses the mark - my comments and rebuttal below…Click here to read more.

Every Square Inch - Conversations on the glory of Christ in business and culture.

Easier, Faster, Shorter - Usually Not the Best

Our culture is in love with short cuts. No matter what you are doing, there is someone out there telling you a way to do it easier, faster, and cheaper. Unfortunately, easier, faster, and cheaper usually don’t mean better. And that’s especially true for people trying to live the high calling of their faith in the workplace.

Only one thing is certain as we witness our surrounding economy falter and adjust to its new equilibrium point – that a new gold rush is right around the corner. We just don’t know what form it will take.

There is a better way to live out these days. In our workplace, personal lives and families, we often “go for the gold” instead of the more enduring qualities — faith, hope and love. We need to spend the necessary time and energy on the things that last…Click here to read more.

Red Letter Believers - Red Letter Believers don’t just wear a title. They seek to live out their faith — impacting their jobs, their homes, their communities, and their nation.

Learning to Wait

We live in such a “hurry-up” society. Many of us have a hard time waiting for the microwave oven to finish our food. We get angry waiting in lines, furious when the mail comes late, and we definitely don’t like being stuck in traffic. Mark Roberts struggles with waiting too. He wonders about waiting and Advent in his post entitled, “Advent Revisited and Retooled.”

I have a confession to make: I am terrible at waiting. This makes me an especially lousy Christmas shopper, because, almost by definition, Christmas shopping requires waiting in line. Whether you’re at a fine department store or just grabbing some chips from the local mini-mart, chances are you’ll be waiting in line during the month of December. And, if you’re like me, inevitably you’ll end up right behind somebody who needs a price check on aisle 3 or who requires some sort of special assistance. This sort of thing can just about ruin the Christmas season for me, because waiting makes me grumpy…Click here to read more.

Mark Roberts is the Senior Director and Scholar-in-Residence for Laity Lodge.

Negative Feedback

What do you do when you get evaluated at work, and you receive some negative feedback? No one enjoys hearing about their need to improve. John Willome speaks very openly and with candor about his personal experience with this.

PART ONE: I had an interesting experience yesterday. I had my annual review with my board president. I am so ashamed of my response. Not to my president. I did fine with him. But afterwards I stewed on the two or three criticisms that came out of it rather than remembering the 97 nice things that we said…Click here to read more.

PART TWO: Father, I have still been stewing on the criticisms from my evaluation. Help me to instead embrace them. The couple of people who had criticisms for me are wonderful because they saw through any lacquer and veneer I put on myself. They, at least in part, saw pieces of me that have yet to be redeemed…Click here to read more.

Emails to God - Daily devotions by a lay Christian

When to Stay & When to Go

Years ago a person came to me at church and said, “I want to join your church, but I don’t know if it is right to leave my church.” We ended up having a conversation that ended with both of us admitting that there is no clear-cut answer to the question, “When is it okay to leave.” People of faith make commitments to churches and jobs. We understand that other people depend on us. Sometimes we stay because there are higher callings than personal need.When to stay and when to go. This is the hard question facing many people. Is there a right time to quit your job? When is that time? And if you decide to go, how do you do that with grace? Rob Geyer and David Rupert, both professionals, talk about how serious Christians approach the subject of quitting. Sometimes, they say, you are called to stay and make things better.
aaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

There are times when it necessary to quit your job. For anybody, there are conditions that you should not tolerate and with a healthy and vibrant economy, there should be no moral quandary to finding other employment….

But there may be a reason to stay in a bad environment, especially for the Red Letter Believer, the Christian who is committed to living out the words of Christ…Click here to read more.

Red Letter Believers - Red Letter Believers don’t just wear a title. They seek to live out their faith — impacting their jobs, their homes, their communities, and their nation.

Lunupis

A Different Street - Satchel Pooch writes about life and parenting and how those two collide.

Sometimes we all need a reminder, something to straighten out our perspective on life. These reminders aren’t always pleasant. Satchel Pooch writes about how her Finnish grandmother used to dole out “Lunupis,” which were gentle thumps on your head with a finger. It’s been years since she got one from her grandmother, but recently she says that God gave her a Lunupi of a different kind.

My spouse’s grandmother, of Finnish extraction, says that “lunupi” (sp?) is a Finnish word for when you give someone’s (probably a kid’s) head a hard flick with your finger. My father used to do this occasionally (though he was not Finnish) — and he had big wide fingers so it really stung!

Anyway, yesterday morning I was grocery shopping, and feeling very put out because though I waited in the checkout line a long time, someone else pushed to the front of the line when a new checker came. I went into snit mode, and was barely civil to the checker when I finally got there…Click here to read more.

When Doing the Right Thing is Hard

It’s one thing to talk about doing the right thing. It is quite another thing when doing right may cost you something. If you are a serious follower of Christ, then you will eventually be placed in a situation where doing what is right may cost you professionally. Eventually this will happen to you. When those moments come, the heroes of our faith emerge. I happen to think there is nothing more heroic than trying to teach children in our public schools. The system pushes you to do things that are not best for the children, and the system rewards those who go along. Miss B. has a brave solution for modern teachers. She says they should follow the example of Rosa Parks and refuse to walk to the back of the bus.

Brave stuff.
aaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

I just read some comments about Rosa Parks–the writer, Parker J. Palmer, suggested that Rosa remained seated in the front of the bus not only because she was tired physically, but because she was tired of passively encouraging racism by letting it overpower her personal values.

He went on to say how educators face the same dilemma that Rosa finally solved that historic day. They move grumbling to the back of the bus, all the way blaming the Institution of Education even as they compromise their own values by allowing the institution to move them away from their purpose and passion–teaching students…Click here to read more.

Entering Out - Miss B. has been teaching high school English for 15 years and doesn’t intend to stop anytime soon. Getting paid for doing something you love is the way to go!

Don’t Give in to Negative Thoughts

Progression of Faith - Mike Leaptrott writes about the growth of his faith over the years.

It is so easy to think that we can’t make a difference in our world. We are so far removed from political power. All we can do is watch them run the country on tv. The suffering in the world is larger than we can imagine. Many of us are doing well if we get out of bed and complete a decent day’s work. Mike Leaptrott advocates not giving in to this kind of negative thinking. We CAN make a difference, he claims. And we can make that difference by the way we work each day.
aaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

The most exciting part of my job is that I know we are counter-cultural, yet we succeed where others have failed. There are no slick marketing campaigns, no fancy hype, no telemarketing calls, no spam email, no suits and ties, and no mistreatment of workers. We are able to do this because we made the conscious decision to reject the worldview of corporate America that views its customers and employees as resources…

Running an ethical business is just one small step. We can’t stop there and assume we’ve succeeded in modeling Jesus’ vision…Click here to read more.

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