What does the whole world want?

Jim Clifton is chairman and CEO of the Gallup Association, and his book “The Coming Job War” is the product of studying the data from surveying thousands of people, from Manhattan socialites to Masai mothers, in 150 countries. Clifton writes, “Six years into our global data collection effort, we may have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact. What the whole world wants is a good job.”

Clifton defines a good job as, “a job with a paycheck from an employer and steady work that averages 30 plus hours a week.”

Leadership and business writer Jim Collins goes even further and talks about not just having a GOOD JOB, but a GREAT JOB…not being just good, but GREAT.

So, given the current economic situation, what can the church do to create Great Jobs in RI?

Now you may be asking, is it the church’s responsibility to create jobs? Good question, and I think my first response would be no. But our churches are filled with very smart business men and women each week. People who run their own businesses. People who are excellent employees.

What if the church in RI created environments where we were bringing business men and women together to brainstorm ideas? What if these men and women started a “greenhouse of ideas” that would lead to business experimentation, and what if even ONE idea stuck? What if that one idea lead to one sustainable business that put tens of people to work with a sustainable wage to live in RI? What if that business brought money into our state that was able to be poured into the community? What if Christian business men and women continued to meet over the years, creating many of these sustainable businesses that employed tens or even hundreds of people — can you image the impact that would have on our economically challenged state?

What if these business were run with Biblical principles where the family came first and the job wasn’t an idol? Where office politics were not tolerated! Where people truly had care and concern for co-workers and for those outside the walls of the office? What if the company were pouring resources into the community? What if the bosses were praying for and mentoring their employees? Isn’t this Kingdom building?

I hope that if you are an entrepreneur or a business person, you will consider whether God might be calling you to create jobs in RI. What would it look like for you to run your business or collaborate with others to help start businesses that would bless the people of RI? What if God used you and other business partners to turn the economy around in our state? What if you could bring honor and glory to God by putting people to work with “great jobs”?

You never know what God may be calling you to do. We would love to pray for you in this way. Send me an email and let us know how to pray for you.

Tell us about your experience with Project Care on Sunday. What was your job? Where did you help out? What did God do through your hands?

With Thanksgiving just a few weeks away, it is natural for our minds to turn toward giving thanks to God for His goodness to us. After all, that is what the holiday is for. My desire is to have a thankful heart all year round, not just in November. I’m also trying to help develop this in my oldest child’s heart and mind as well.

It isn’t easy. It seems our natural tendency is to dwell on what didn’t go well, what could have been improved, to think about what didn’t meet our expectations. Even tonight – I’m spending time answering my child’s questions and fears about fire in our house (there is no fire; she is concerned after having had a fire drill at school today!). Her thoughts are not preoccupied on being thankful for a warm, safe home – her thoughts are on her toys that would be lost in a fire. It is interesting how quickly our thoughts become irrational and fear takes over.

As a family, we have been trying to focus on God’s goodness and to give thanks often. Some simple ways we do that are by giving thanks before meal time, often including other items of thanksgiving. During night time prayers we also take time to give thanks. Another recent addition to our family traditions is to have a time of sharing our “highs & lows” (our daughter also added a medium category) each night during dinner. This has been an excellent way to get better insight into each other’s days and for us to share the good things that have happened to us.

My prayer is that as we grow in our gratitude toward God, we will come to know Him better, we will give Him praise more often and our hearts and minds will be guarded by the joy and peace that comes only from Him.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

I have been a growing believer in Jesus for 55 years. Over those years, the depth, consistency, and quality of my experiences of meeting with God have varied wildly. As a young Christian, I was pretty much clueless about how to have a meaningful devotional life. As my walk with God became more enlightened and authentic, I was introduced to a whole array of spiritual disciplines. I have experimented with many, been successful with some, and along the way have learned that there isn’t just “one way to do it.”

My times of reading the scriptures have included absorbing the large daily portions required to read the Bible in a year, reading paragraphs a day through Bible books, memorizing short passages, writing outlines of chapters, and composing prayer responses to verses I have read.

More challenging for me and my temperament has been the matter of intercessory prayer. My “restless soul” struggles to stay focused and engaged in prayer. But I stay at it. To help me, I have, at various times, used prayer lists, a box of cards with names, or a daily diary booklet customized with lists for each day of the month. I have often combined intercessory prayer with outdoor walks and sometimes with time on the treadmill.

My attempts to make worship the main focus of communion with God have included praying the Psalms allowed, using a hymnal to sing songs of praise to God, writing words of praise in response to Scriptural insights, and meditating on the attributes of God.

Recently, I had an opportunity to investigate a newly developed tool for creating an ideal pathway for spiritual growth called Monvee (www.monvee.com) As the Monvee people put it, “Monvee exists in order to help people discover what is getting in the way of their spiritual growth and then craft a plan to address it.” It is a pretty sophisticated instrument that assesses your unique personality, your best ways of connecting with God, and some of the obstacles that might hinder real connections with God. With that information, it suggests some ways that might help you take your walk to the next level.

I had some misgivings about marrying spiritual growth with a software app, but I was curious enough to give it a try. (The free trial helped to persuade me!) Among other things, my Monvee “roadmap” suggested some ways I might try to connect with God more consistently. The result has been an interesting and refreshing way to dedicate my computer as an instrument of worship and spiritual growth. Let me tell you about some of the thing I was led to start doing as a result. They won’t work for everybody, and they might not work for me over the long haul. But for now, they are giving me some new and fresh ways to enjoy my times with God at the start of the day.

I have combined what is called the “Scripture Prayer-Worship Pathway” with journaling, using a really cool, free tool called Penzu (www.penzu.com). Penzu lets you create and save private daily journal entries and even sends you an optional daily reminder to do the writing. The Pathway involves responding to scriptures by writing and then reading aloud prayers to God based on the portion read. So my first order of the day is opening my Bible (right now I am reading through Matthew), opening my Penzu journal entry, and then writing prayers in response to God’s word.

Another insight from the Monvee experience was to point out how music helps me to direct my attention and affections toward God. So, using my collection of downloaded files, I select an appropriate song to use, and also locate the lyrics (using a nifty search tool called Apostle and display those on the screen. So rather than just “listening to Christian music,” I paste the lyrics into my journal entry, and then sing praise to God along with the CD, and pause from time to time to meditate on the words and add personal words of praise to the musical worship. (I guess it is sort of like planning a worship service for a congregation of one and then making that my offering to the Lord.)

Wanting to include intercession for others in my devotional time, I was able to find a creative way to use an Excel spreadsheet as an aid to prayer. As a pastor, I believe I have both the responsibility and privilege of praying regularly for the members of our congregation. I know that doing that every day for over 450 people is not a realistic goal for me. But what I can do is pray for some of them each day.

Using Excel, I was able to create a 30-page document that has 16 cells on each page. These are lists of members, relatives, colleagues, and missionaries. I can display one page each day, and curser down through the cells to highlight the person I am praying for.

Those are some of the steps I am taking on my current pathway into His presence. What road are YOU taking?

Worship Team: Circleslide
Circleslide will be leading worship again this year. They’ll be cranking out songs like “Love Amazing” and “Immortal”. Circleslide is a four-piece band whose music blends folk rock British pop and Pop 80′s. Circleslide’’s distinctive Americana-Brit pop style has been compared to everything from Bob Dylan and Neil Young to U2 and Radiohead

Camp Pastor: Sam Bhatt…As a youth pastor for a number of years, Sam Bhatt has a strong heart for students and a desire to serve them. His riveting storytelling engages students as he humorously takes them through the issues they face, igniting them to pursue passionately the strength they can find in Jesus Christ. Sam attended Emmaus Bible College in Dubuque, Iowa.

Details…
Cost: $150 ($75 Deposit due December 11 — $75 final payment due January
Cost Includes: Lodging (2 nights), Transportation (15 and 12 passenger vans), all meals at Camp Berea.
Other Expenses: (Non-Optional) 1 meal on the way to camp — (Optional) Paint-Ball, Snack Money, Gift-Shop, etc.
Itinerary: Leave CCF approximately 3:30 pm on Friday, January 13. Return Sunday, January 15 approximately 5 pm. Lodging is at Camp Berea in Hebron, NH.