Glorify God

Over the last four years, we have been laying out and expanding on a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--leading with faithful integrity through business a better way and toward Biblical flourishing.  It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 200 posts as we did after 100. We hope this is a...

Because the key attributes of business in the "way" of the world do not align with a culture of Shalom built on Biblical principles of relationships, community and human dignity, the "way" of the world often brings the inherent “beauty-potential” of business (solutions, prosperity and jobs) with an ugly cost of "wrecking" work as God designed it. What we...

Profit is NOT bad.   In fact, we believe PROFIT IS NECESSARY for an organization (other than a non-profit organization) to be obedient to the Creation Mandate, because it is necessary for sustainability, for the flourishing of owners and to further the bigger "WHY" of the organization.  However, in order to faithfully "do right", an organization must put profit in the proper...

We believe many people of Biblical faith pursue their career or do their job without any Biblical understanding of the WHY of work.  Their WHY for work is wrapped up in their needs and the grand plan for their kingdom.  In this post, we will explore three ways to view the WHY of work: live to work, work to live, and...

Recently, the CEO of BlackRock, Inc., Larry Fink, came out with his 2022 "letter to CEOs". In his 2022 letter, Fink focused on "stakeholder capitalism".  We thought it would helpful to compare stakeholder capitalism and what we call business a better way.  In many ways, they can look and feel the same, but they are not.  You will not be surprised...

Over the last two years, we have laid out a model for moving toward what we call Integriosity®--faithfully "doing right" through business an better way.  It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 101 posts. We believe these last 100 posts have honored our promise to you from post #001. Integrous is here to help...

One bigger WHY of work and business is the "SO THAT" that gives the biggest WHY to every other WHY. RESTORE is the fourth and final step in the path of Integriosity.®  It is about seeing the bigger WHY's of work and business materialize and manifest in an organization that has been RE-IMAGINED and RE-ALIGNED with Biblical beliefs, values and...

When a leader, armed with a RENEWED understanding of God's purpose for work and business, begins to RE-IMAGINE the organization they lead, the process must begin with Re-Imagining Vision--the organization's WHY.  Re-Imagining Vision requires leaders prayerfully to discern a WHY that expresses the heart God desires to implant in the organization and captures the hearts of the organization's people, inspiring...

The core of Integriosity® is ALIGNMENT--aligning the organization's purpose and values with core Biblical purpose and values, then cultivating an organizational culture of Shalom that is aligned with, and reinforces, the organizational purpose and values. The RENEW stage of Integriosity provides the tools for Re-Alignment--a renewed understanding of Biblical purpose, values and priorities for work and business. But...

Profit is NOT bad.   In fact, we believe PROFIT IS NECESSARY for an organization (other than a non-profit organization) to be obedient to the Creation Mandate, because it is necessary for sustainability, for the flourishing of owners and to further the bigger "WHY" of the organization.  However, in order to faithfully "do right", an organization must put profit in the proper...

Love is the first "Generosity Priority" embedded in Integriosity®, and we have seen how the generosity and service aspects of Love lead us to the purpose of work and business (maximize flourishing by Humanizing, Beautifying, Glorifying), but there are also respect and sustainability aspects of Love that are inherent in the Creation Mandate. Biblical sustainability is about faithfully "doing right" by caring for all God's creation as its STEWARDS.  It is motivated by obedience to the Creation Mandate--not by fear...

Putting together the puzzle pieces of the last several posts, we see that the first principle of Love leads us to the same purpose for business as emerged from the first principle of Kingdom--the BIGGER purpose of work and business is to HUMANIZE people, BEAUTIFY the world and GLORIFY God by serving internally and externally in a way that maximizes the...

The nature of work in God's design is that it is how we use our skills to obey His commandments through SERVICE.  People are more fully human when they are working in alignment with God's purpose for work--a vehicle for living out the Creation Mandate and the great commandments to love God and love each other. Embedding the Biblical principle of work as service in the culture and...

Being created in the image of God is not just a great t-shirt slogan--it has important implications for how we live and what we need in order to be fully human. Embedding the Biblical principle of love your neighbor in the culture and heart of an organization is essential to faithfully "doing right", because it is essential in order...

Keep First Things First means going back to Biblical first principles, and one of the four principles embedded in the word Integriosity® is the "Generosity Priority" of LOVE. "All the Law and the Prophets" depend on the commandments to love God and love your neighbor, which makes understanding love your neighbor in an organizational context essential to faithfully "doing...

The book-ends of a BIGGER GOSPEL reveal the purpose and relevance of work and organizations in God's grand plan and an even greater purpose for Redemption through Jesus. Creation and Restoration teach us that humans need work and organizations to be "fully human"; work and organizations have intrinsic Kingdom value; work and organizations can glorify God; and a purpose...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must recognize that what they believe about "where we are going someday" profoundly impacts "how we act today". God's restoration plan for His Kingdom means work and business have relevance in God's grand design and eternal significance. A BIGGER GOSPEL reveals that we have the...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must recognize that what they believe about "where we are going someday" profoundly impacts "how we act today". A Restoration understanding of heaven means the "very good" creation that left plenty of room for our creative and productive cultivation will finally be perfected as a refined...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must look to Creation to understand the necessity of work to God's plan for His creation. The world was actually created to need our creativity and productivity in order to flourish. A BIGGER GOSPEL reveals that creation needs human work to unleash its potential (and...

For a leader to lead an organization to faithfully "do right", they must look to Creation to understand the importance of work to the humanity of those they lead. God created work for humanity as a GOOD THING before the Fall, and people are more “fully human” when engaged in meaningful work that unleashes their God-given productivity and creativity....

A leader can't lead an organization to faithfully "do right" without understanding and embracing a BIGGER GOSPEL, because without going back to Creation, we can't understand Who We Are, and more importantly, we can't understand Who Other People Are.  It is only when we understand the implications of God creating humans in His image that we can begin to understand...

It is impossible to understand God's purpose for work or business without looking at Genesis and understanding the Creation Mandate (a commandment about our purpose on earth), God's love for all creation and our role as its stewards. As stewards, we have global responsibility to use our God-given creativity and productivity to cultivate God’s creation in order to enable...

The effort to faithfully "do right" by integrating faith and work can get DERAILED by six problems that can keep the organization in the deep hole of "business as usual" and may even push it deeper. The more of "business a better way" is much harder, but getting out of the hole is necessary and worth the journey....

"Prosperitizing" is when leaders pursue faith/work integration because they believe it will lead to God blessing their business with worldly success--measured in terms of profit and growth.  It is perhaps the most insidious of the various Side Roads because the organization can look like it actually is conducting "business a better way"--but its NOT....

Some faith-driven leaders have been deceived into believing that the integration of faith and work is principally about sprinkling some "faith" pixie dust over the organization to make it look and feel "Godly"--and that leads down the Side Road of Cosmeticizing. "Cosmeticizing" is when an organization adopts overt faith symbols and practices without transforming how it actually does business....

We have explored the five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders to stumble down faith as usual Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work. After Agonizing and Individualizing, the third of these Side Roads is Monetizing.   Side Roads represent responses to Placebos advertised as the Red Pill that we believe...

We have explored the fivecommon Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders to stumble down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work.  We have also hinted at the six common faith as usual Side Roads that represent responses to Placebos advertised as the Red Pill but, we believe, actually miss the ancient path...

We have explored the five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders to stumble down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work.  We have also hinted at the six common faith as usual Side Roads that represent responses to Placebos advertised as the Red Pill but, we believe, actually miss the ancient...

We believe there are five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work.  The fifth Placebo is The "Success First" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Road of Interimizing and tempts leaders to delay taking action for the wrong reasons (misunderstanding of faith/work integration and...

We believe there are five common Placebos of what we call faith as usual that can lead well intentioned leaders down Side Roads in their effort to integrate their faith and their work.  The fourth Placebo (after The "4-Hour Content" Pill, The "Save or Give" Pill  and The "Add Some Faith" Pill) is The "Bless You" Pill, which commonly leads to the Side Road of Prosperitizing....

We call the blue pill "business as usual", and the last several posts have shown ways in which it is broken.  If a business is just an association of human beings working together (which it is), is it any surprise that "work as usual" would be broken as well in related ways?  Organizational cultures that are broken through toxic assumptions...

Of the various aspects of blue pill "business as usual" that contribute to workplace and worker brokenness, Profit as Purpose is the most significant, but the Scarcity assumption and the Self Interest assumption exacerbate the problems by ignoring why we were created and whose image we reflect.  Together, these factors reinforce manipulative and dehumanizing managerial behavior and work cultures that...

Profit is not a problem, just like money is not the root of all evil. In fact, profit is necessary for a business operating in a market economy--without it you don't have a sustainable organization or access to financial capital.  But (and it is a big "but"), Profit as Purpose is a problem of business as usual, just like the...

In addition to Profit as Purpose, Scarcity and Self Interest, the fourth aspect of "business as usual" that we believe leads to workplace and worker brokenness is a "Can We" Culture--an organizational culture in which ends justify means and ethics or the law are seen as the only boundaries (or even obstacles) in the pursuit of the organization's purpose.   A goal...

We were designed to work--to use our gifts of creativity and productivity--it is part of being fully human.  If we are not working and earning an income, we can feel empty and insecure (this is a special post prompted by the Covid-19 crisis tagging 10,000,000 people with the label "unemployed", which often brings with it feelings of emptiness and insecurity).  Sadly,...

There is no shortage of statistics showing that most workers feel disengaged and disconnected from the activity that was intended to bring flourishing and fulfillment by unleashing their God-given creativity and productivity.  Central to the the red pill of Integriosity® is humanizing people by redeeming work and business-- bringing it closer to God's design in Genesis....