Comments for with the Trinity in Daily Life http://trinitypartners.org for Men and Women Partnering with the Trinity every day. Sun, 21 Nov 2010 13:30:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ Comment on Being Sorry vs Repenting by Joe Lineberry http://trinitypartners.org/2010/10/20/being-sorry-vs-repenting/#comment-39 Sun, 21 Nov 2010 13:30:07 +0000 http://trinitypartners.org/?p=433#comment-39 Assuming we really want to apologize, I think the concepts in the Five Languages of Apology (Chapman and Thomas) are helpful here. They assist us in trying to apologize in the language that the hearer will recognize in seeing and understanding the apology as sincere.

]]> Comment on Chapter 4 Case Study: The Public Face of Christian Career, Calling and Profession …. by redeemerws http://trinitypartners.org/2010/06/04/the-public-face-of-christian-career-calling-and-profession/#comment-18 Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:28:30 +0000 http://trinitypartners.org/?p=68#comment-18 Thanks Don !

]]> Comment on Tim Keller on Vocation by school grants http://trinitypartners.org/2010/07/04/tim-keller-on-vocation/#comment-17 Sat, 24 Jul 2010 21:49:42 +0000 http://trinitypartners.org/?p=174#comment-17 It’s posts like this that keep me coming back and checking this site regularly, thanks for the info!

]]> Comment on Chapter 4 Case Study: The Public Face of Christian Career, Calling and Profession …. by Don Flow http://trinitypartners.org/2010/06/04/the-public-face-of-christian-career-calling-and-profession/#comment-16 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:56:36 +0000 http://trinitypartners.org/?p=68#comment-16 These comments by Rob are very helpful. I would offer these additional thoughts. The concept of “shalom” offers an opportunity to think about the purpose of business. In the OT, for shalom or the “flourishing of life” to exist, we see goodness, beauty, truth, justice, and plenty as the primary underlying conditions. In a market capitalism, we refer to these as social capital (good), intellectual capital (truth), aesthetic capital (beauty), political capital (justice) and economic capital (plenty). The role of business is to create economic capital. This is its legitimate creational purpose and contributes to the flourishing of life when it provides this function. However, for economic capital to be shalom building it must not be a net consumer of the other capitals. That is to say, shalom creating economic capital is not a destroyer of social, intellectual, aesthetic, or political capital. If it does so, it has abandoned its legitimate calling in creation. So Christians have a “priestly”, “kingly”, and “prophetic” responsiblity when it comes to economic capital (just like they do regarding every other kind of capital).

At a personal vocational level, Christians have the responsibility to look to be agents of redemption in whatever place, in the sovereignty of God, they are living out their faith. This changes over the course of our life in Christ and our particular type of work. I want to suggest three basic, broad stages for thinking about this: new Christian, maturing Christian, mature Christian.

1. New Christian: Exercising Faith. Re-orienting of the self to Christ: desire (behold Him), belief (Believe in Him), identity (Belong to Him).

2. Maturing Christian: Living Love: Incarnating Christ: character, culture, and community.
(Become like Him, Bear His fruit).

3. Mature Christian: Bringing Hope: re-envisioning, reforming, reweaving (Bless His world, Bring forth His justice).

It has been my experience that few Christians move past the 2nd level regarding their work. I think this is primarily because churches are not equipped to help them think through the 3rd stage (in fact, few are actually prepared to talk about the 2nd stage).

Additionally, few churches are prepared to address the vareity of issues that Christians face because of the different roles they play in the work place (operational, managerial, executive). When these issues are combined with different stages of the Christian life, most of the advice given sounds simplistic or irrelevant (The new Christian who is a CEO is not thinking about reforming capitalism. He is trying to learn what it means to exercise faith, to pray, to desire to be a follower of Christ. The mature Christian who operates a machine is not trying to reform the company, but he/she is interested in redeeming the space that God has provided).

As more more Christians are engaged at the executive level of organizations, there is a wonderful opportunity to engage with a wider audience about the nature and purpose of business and to effect significant change. I am in touch with folks who are deeply grappling with this. But every Christian has a responsbity to ask what “faithfulness” looks like in whatever space and wherever they are in their walk with Christ.

Don Flow

]]> Comment on Vocational Poem by Pharmacy technician certification exam http://trinitypartners.org/2010/05/20/vocational-poem/#comment-3 Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:00:32 +0000 http://trinitypartners.org/?p=51#comment-3 Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!

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