04 Mar #006 – Integriosity – The Basics – Fruit
The fruit of Step 4 of Integriosity® – “Restore” – is to see what we believe are the three bigger WHY’s of work and business materialize and manifest in the organization.
In thinking about the Biblical purpose for business, we at Integrous are inspired by what Jeff van Duzer concludes in his book Why Business Matters to God (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed): “Leaders should manage their businesses (1) to provide the community with goods and services that will enable it to flourish and (2) to provide opportunities for meaningful work that will allow employees to express their God-given creativity.”
We express the bigger WHY’s of work and business – and the fruit of Integriosity – as:
- Humanize People
- God created work as a good thing and created people to work. People are more “fully human” when engaged in meaningful work that unleashes their God-given productivity and creativity in a culture of Shalom built on Biblical principles of relationships, community and human dignity.
- Beautify the World
- God created a world that flourishes through our productivity and creativity and then commanded us to be instruments of its flourishing. An organization adds to the beauty of the world and assists in God’s restorative plan for His Kingdom by creating opportunities, goods and services that help families and communities to flourish and by extending its culture of Shalom to all people it touches. In the process, the work of the organization takes on deeper meaning for its own people.
- Glorify God
- We love what marketing guru Seth Godin says about businesses (which we believe holds generally for organizations): “A business is a construct, an association of human beings . . . . That business has precisely the same social responsibilities as the people that it consists of.” If people are called to glorify God in all they do and “love their neighbor”, then organizations must exist to do the same. An organization does so principally through serving people–by providing opportunities for individuals to express aspects of their God-given identities in creative and meaningful work, by providing opportunities, goods and services that enable families and communities to flourish and by creating a culture of Shalom conducive to the flourishing of all people it touches.
A business is a construct, an association of human beings combining capital and labor to make something. That business has precisely the same social responsibilities as the people that it consists of. (Seth Godin)
We will explain the Biblical foundation for these WHY’s in future posts. But if a leader of an organization is serious about faith/work integration, we believe this is the $1,000,000 question: To what extent is the organization producing this fruit?
SPOILER ALERT: In future posts, we will explain why we believe that the concept of “Work-Life Balance” is actually dehumanizing and unBiblical and should NOT be advocated or pursued!
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.