by Edward L. Lee, Jr. Tom Ray, bishop of the Diocese of Northern Michigan from 1982 to 1999 died in early February this year. He was 83. In his episcopacy he pioneered and implemented what he called Mutual Baptismal Ministry whereby congregations of any size and location could be fully and canonically empowered by the raising up from within all…
Reprinted from Made to Flourish. From time to time, the team at Made to Flourish likes to spotlight real-life examples of the faith, work, and economics integration we teach and promote. This week we want to introduce you to one of our City Network Leaders, Travis Vaughn. Vaughn is the executive director of Metro Atlanta Collective, a church planting network in…
I want to recommend a new podcast that is exploring connections between faith, work and rest: “The mission of the Surge Faith, Work and Rest Initiative is to help people discern their vocations and reimagine their occupations for the good of their neighbor and the glory of God. We produce this podcast to curate opportunities for people to listen to…
Part five of a series. On my list of four things we can learn from the sacraments about vocation, the third is: My daily work is a means of grace. “Means of grace” is a phrase used differently by different traditions. The goal in this series is to avoid getting too bogged down in differences over the sacraments, but here…
I am pleased to introduce you to a book that invites the church to a journey toward a more holistic method of mission and poverty alleviation. Laceye and Gaston Warner have written From Relief to Empowerment: How Your Church Can Cultivate Sustainable Mission. The Warners support the idea that mission flourishes when relationships are characterized by mutuality—a difficult, but important, balance to…
The purpose of the Faith@Work Summit is to gather active participants and leaders in the faith at work movement from every industry sector to learn from each other and work together to extend Christ’s transforming presence in workplaces around the world. The 2018 Faith at Work Summit, held in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare on October 11th-13th, is now open for registration! The early bird pricing for registration is now available at $179 per ticket, so be sure to purchase soon.
The economic machine that is America continues to move forward but too often leaves many behind. While the Dow roars towards unprecedented heights, the poor and powerless reach new lows. But there is a solution that is both obvious and obscure: business. Business has changed lives of the less fortunate in the here and now when leaders and shareholders look beyond their own pocket. The principles and the experiences of the Greyston Bakery social enterprise in Yonkers exemplify this power of business to change the lives of individuals, families and the neighborhood itself. Deuteronomy 10:18 tells us that God “administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.” The people of God are called to do the same.
Julius Walls (BS, Concordia) is the pastor of Metropolitan A.M.E. Zion Church in Yonkers NY and the President of Greater Centennial Community Development Corp, the non-profit arm of a 5000+ member church. Rev. Walls has worked in business, academia, and the church, serving, in addition to the previously mentioned positions, as Chief of Staff of Greater Centennial Church, CEO of Greyston Bakery, a $7 million social enterprise, as VP for a $23 million chocolate manufacturing company, as an adjunct professor at the business graduate schools at NYU and BGI and serves on several local and national non-profit and government boards. He is the co-author, with Kevin Lynch, of Mission, Inc. The Practitioner’s Guide to Social Enterprise.
Reflect/Respond
Can an unethical for-profit business yield a God-desired result?
Can a “Double Bottom Line” (financial and social) enterprise really work? Is it sustainable?
Resources
William Eggers, The Solution Revolution: How Business, Government, and Social Enterprises Are Teaming Up to Solve Society’s Toughest Problems (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013)
Marc J. Lane, Social Enterprise: Empowering Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs (ABA, 2012)
Social Enterprise Alliance https://socialenterprise.us/
Julius Walls, Jr., and Kevin Lynch, Mission Inc.: A Practitioner’s Guide to Social Enterprise (Berrett-Koehler, 2009)
by Edward L. Lee, reprinted from Living God’s Mission Tom and Brenda Ray Little notice has been made in The Episcopal Church of the death of Tom Ray on February 6, preceded just three days earlier by that of his wife Brenda. Tom was the bishop of the Diocese of Northern Michigan from 1982 to 1999. Both died quickly after…
Leadership Network’s Reggie McNeal has written another crisp, insightful, and wonderfully practical book for Christians desiring to “seek first the Kingdom of God.” As is his usual pattern, the book is highly accessible and marries principles with real-life application. The book rests on McNeal’s theological conviction that “God is at work in every domain of culture.” He longs for church…
At the corner of Liberty and Albercorn in historic Savannah, Georgia, stands a monument to the work of the Roman Catholic Sisters of Mercy. Serving the city since 1845, the sisters pioneered the creation of schools, orphanages, and hospitals, most of which still thrive today. Over the years the sisters served students, orphans, slave children, and more. They battled yellow…
By Tim Chester, reprinted from his blog under a Creative Commons 3.0 license. I’ve just been reading a draft of Jason Meyer’s forthcoming book, Lloyd-Jones on the Christian Life (Crossway). I was struck afresh by many things including how Lloyd-Jones anticipated some of our emphases in Everyday Church (that anticipated in the sense of got there ahead of us rather than saw us coming!). Here are three…
The Green Room 