By Greg Forster: part seven of a series. In my last post I talked about how the underlying theology of fortification paradigm churches leads to cultural puritanism. Here are three specific ways fortification paradigm churches can overcome this: The Past: Where dominance paradigm churches overestimate both the moral and religious integrity of the American experiment, fortification churches tend to underestimate…
Read part I of this interview here and part II here. David Gill: Tell us about the “Gotham Fellows”. Katherine Leary Alsdorf: The Gotham Fellowship grew out of our pilots of classes and discussion groups as a way to provide discipleship and public theology training at the same time giving an opportunity for the gospel to deeply change how people…
While studying global corporate workplaces in India and the Middle East, I came across a peculiar set of ideals, norms, and expectations that were widely shared across companies. Together, these constitute a distinct “representative character” that (thanks to Ashwin, the IT professional I mentioned in my previous post) I call the Mercenary. What’s a representative character? It’s a recognizable symbolic…
I love it when an author can take great ideas and communicate them effectively, helping people to process and apply them. Bob Robinson has done this very well with his 7-week bible study, Reintegrate (forthcoming in 2017 from Good Place Publishing.) The overarching aims of the study are to help believers connect shalom to everyday life; see their vocation as…
I was recently introduced to an organization called The Fellows Initiative which currently operates programs in 22 cities around the US. A Fellows program is a nine to ten-month spiritual and vocational leadership program that prepares the graduate to live an integrated life of faith. The content presented in the program includes the theology of work, vocation, calling, cultural engagement,…
By Greg Forster; part six of a series. “They told us, ‘this is our culture,’ but we told them, ‘this is God’s word.’” I was hearing a talk from a leader in the fortification-paradigm church I used to attend. As I stressed in my last post, this church did a great job of helping people overcome addictions and enslaving sins.…
[This post was originally delivered as a talk at the Faith@Work Summit in Dallas, TX.] I’d like to start with a thought experiment: Imagine that you are about to meet a person for the first time and the only thing you know in advance is that the person is a woman. What words come to mind about that person? In…
By Greg Forster; part five of a series. “Three years ago, when I first came to this church, I didn’t have a job. I lived off my girlfriend. I spent all my time sitting on the couch, eating junk food and watching porn – and that was my life. Today I have a job, I’m supporting myself, I don’t do that other…
Read part I of this interview here. David Gill: Let me come back to the challenge of being a woman in executive leadership. It seems that many of our faith at work organizations and ministries define themselves as “for men only” even in our time when women are massively present in business schools and the marketplace. Katherine Leary Alsdorf: Prior…
Katherine Leary Alsdorf is co-author with Timothy Keller of Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (Dutton, 2012). She came to Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City in 2002 to establish the Center for Faith and Work to help people nurture a meaningful integration between their faith and their professional work. Prior to this ministry role at…
The Green Room 