Faith as Usual Tag

Sometimes good-intentioned faithful leaders sprinkle faith "reindeer dust"--overt faith symbols and practices--believing that it is faith/work integration.  It isn't bad, and it can be very good, but by itself it falls into the category of what we call "religious stewardship"--incorporating faith activities into work and making positive cultural changes but stopping short of true heart transformation.  It is not the...

Over the last five 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 toward Biblical flourishing.  It is time to pause, take a breath and look back over the last 250 posts as we did after 100 and 200. We hope this is...

You could call this post the third in a "Safety/Surrender" series.  It is about encouraging faithful leaders to trust God enough to answer the call of stewardship, and embrace fully the potential, of the Creation Mandate by crossing the Safety/Surrender Gap. We believe it is a call to lead with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing,...

A faithful leader seeking to lead an organization with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing must remember "DDD"--"Don't Do a Demas."  You might be asking, "Who is Demas?"   The better question is "What's 'doing a Demas'?"  The best question is "How do I avoid 'doing a Demas'?"  Demas was a Biblical character who didn't finish well. ...

In prior posts, we have talked about three "gaps" a faithful leader must cross in the journey toward leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.  These are "wisdom" or "knowledge" gaps.  There is a fourth, and it is arguably the most important of all.  We call it the Safety/Surrender Gap, and it is a "heart"...

INTEGRITY IDEA: Strengthen Your Cord "Strengthen Your Cord" is about joining groups or organizations that gather faithful leaders to support each other in pursuit of faith/work integration, in navigating faith/work integration in an increasingly secular culture or in protecting the religious freedom to pursue faithful integrity through business a better way through Biblical flourishing. It provides a source of counsel from...

Does faith/work integration require Overtly faithful practices?  Leading an organization with faithful integrity in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities toward Biblical flourishing requires a continual prayerful balancing of the call to be Courageous through Overtness and the need to be Wise through Covertness. Both the idolization of Overtness and the fear of being Overt may lead to poor stewardship. Wisdom...

As a faithful leader seeking to lead faithfully, you face a foundational choice between two starkly different options with profound implications. One option is business as usual — business in "the way of the world" or, more precisely, according to "the kingdom of this world." We call the other option business a better way — business aligned with Biblical beliefs,...

INTEGRITY IDEA: Recall Your Faithful Purpose COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action): Practices COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt): Highly Covert or Highly Overt STAKEHOLDERS SERVED: Kingdom Most Integrity Ideas are practical actions toward implementing a bigger WHY for the organization. "Recall Your Faithful Purpose" is implementing practices to remind your stakeholders about your WHY--your organization's Re-Imagined Purpose...

Giving generously from wealth is a very good thing both for faithful leaders personally and for the businesses they lead, but faithful integrity and business a better way demand more.  Many organizations do important and excellent work helping faithful leaders understand the importance of being generous with their wealth.  However, by itself, the message of "give generously" can draw a...

Sometimes good-intentioned faithful leaders sprinkle faith "reindeer dust"--overt faith symbols and practices--believing that it is faith/work integration.  It isn't bad, and it can be very good, but by itself it is not leading with faithful integrity through business a better way toward Biblical flourishing.  By itself, sprinkling "faith" reindeer dust without transforming how the organization actually does business is what...

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...

A faithful leader who wants to lead with faithful integrity in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities must avoid "doing an Ahaz".  You might be asking, "Who was Ahaz?"  The better question is "What's 'doing an Ahaz'?"  The best question is "How do I avoid 'doing an Ahaz'?"  Ahaz was one of those "did not do what was right...

The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First".  The last of the four first principles embedded in the word Integriosity is Humility, and it is the key to understanding the...

Don’t worry--this is not about the U.S. Southern border, Eastern European borders or Middle Eastern borders.  It is about the border between the kingdom of the world and the Kingdom of God.  Kingdom border protection is trickier than geographic border protection because a faithful leader resides in both kingdoms and the border exists in the heart of the leader and...

ESSENCE:  The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". When "all the Law and the Prophets" depend on the commandments to love God and love your...

The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". If a faithful leader or an organization is committed to "seek first the kingdom of God" (Matthew...

The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW, and the first step of RENEW is reordering disordered priorities to "Keep First Things First". The Bible says unequivocally that "Righteousness" is one of the "First Things" we are meant to...

The first step on the ancient path from the "as usuals" of business as usual, work as usual, and faith as usual to "a better way" is RENEW.  It is the start of a four-step process called Integriosity® to help a faithful leader navigate the journey on the ancient path toward leading faithfully with faithful integrity through business a better way. Each step...

Side Roads are detours that substitute a lesser "good" for the "best" of transformational heart-change in an organization--transformation of its WHY.  They are detours off the ancient path of faithful integrity through business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities.  Side Roads are not inherently bad--in fact, they are better than doing nothing at all.  Well-intentioned...

Many well-intentioned, faithful leaders never find the right path to faithful integrity through business a better way, or stumble off it, because of good-intentioned "faith" messages or approaches that send them in the wrong direction--"bad theology" or, at least, poor communication of good theology which create stumbling blocks that substitute the "good" for the "best".  We have identified five common...

Faithful leaders seeking to lead with faithful integrity can get detoured from the ancient path toward business a better way. The world--and our culture--does not want a faithful leader on the ancient path. But the world and our culture are not the only stumbling blocks that can lead a faithful leader with the best of intentions to "miss...

Leading faithfully through business a better way requires getting across three "gaps": Sunday/Monday, Sacred/Secular and Knowing/Doing. The journey across those "gaps" starts with RENEW--renewing the faithful leader's mind about God's purpose for work and business, which reveals the sacred nature of work and business. Moving across the three "gaps" of faith/work integration equips a faithful leader to see...

Are you on the path that leads to where you want to go? Every faithful leader is on a path of some sort, but leading faithfully requires getting on, and staying on, the right path. There are really two main paths--business in alignment with the kingdom of the world and the ancient path of business in alignment with the...

As a faithful leader seeking to lead faithfully, you face a foundational choice between two starkly different options with profound implications. One option is business as usual — business in "the way of the world" or, more precisely, according to "the kingdom of this world." We call the other option business a better way — business aligned with Biblical beliefs,...

Does faith/work integration require Overtly faithful practices?  Leading an organization faithfully through business a better way in alignment with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities, requires a continual prayerful balancing of the call to be Courageous through Overtness and the need to be Wise through Covertness. Both the idolization of Overtness and the fear of being Overt may lead to poor...

From time to time, we are devoting posts to describing specific actions a faithful leader can consider in leading faithfully through business a better way. We are calling these Integrity Ideas. INTEGRITY IDEA: Hire a chaplain to be available for employees COVERT-OVERT CONTINUUM (six Continuums for action): Prayer COVERT-OVERT RATING (several levels from Highly Covert to Highly Overt): ...

From time to time, we will now begin describing specific actions a leader can consider during the Re-Align step of Integriosity®--actions that will begin to Re-Align the organization with Biblical beliefs, principles and priorities.  We will call the posts "Integrity Ideas". The Integriosity model organizes "heart change" along six Covert-Overt Continuums, and breaks the Covert-Overt Continuums into six gradations that...

Faithful leaders seeking to lead faithfully can get detoured from the ancient path toward business a better way.  We call those detours Side Roads when they substitute a lesser "good" for transformational heart-change in the organization--transformation of its WHY.  In prior posts we identified six: Agonizing, Individualizing, Monetizing, Cosmeticizing, Prosperitizing and Interimizing.   We recently encountered a situation that is leading...

We believe words are important and powerful.   Words (and disordered words) can either support or undermine efforts to move an organization's culture toward faithfully "doing right" through business a better way.  Disordered words can affect how leaders shape an organization's culture and view its WHY--the heart of the organization.  For example, "integrate your faith into your work" is just one...

We believe words are important and powerful.  The culture of the world is filled with words that blind us to God’s purpose for work--words that reinforce work as a burden to be avoided rather than a blessing of God's creation.  Disordered words that embody the world's priorities rather than Kingdom priorities infect our thinking, which ultimately infects our heart.  For...

We believe words are important and powerful.  The culture of the world is filled with words that blind us to God’s purpose for work--words that reinforce work as a burden to be avoided rather than a blessing of God's creation.  Disordered words that embody the world's priorities rather than Kingdom priorities infect our thinking, which ultimately infects our heart.  For...

For a leader seeking to lead an organization to faithfully “do right” through business a better way, or a person seeking to "work" in alignment with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities, WORDS MATTER.  We believe words are important and powerful.  The culture of the world is filled with words that blind us to God’s purpose for work and business.  Even...

Integrous Founder Paul Michalski was the guest speaker at the monthly Toolbox Ministries-Galleria lunch held on March 9, 2022 at The Houston Racquet Club in Houston, Texas.    Paul's talk was titled The 7 Stages of My Journey To the Why of Work: Understanding the Intersection of Faith and Work....

For a leader seeking to lead an organization to faithfully “do right” through business a better way, eliminating organizational silos must be a priority. In this post, we look at “wisdom” and “information” silos. Organizational silos are bad for the leader, bad for the organization and bad for its culture, which makes it bad for the people in the...

For a leader seeking to lead an organization to faithfully “do right” through business a better way or an investor seeking to invest in alignment with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities, eliminating personal silos must be a priority. In this post, we look at personal faith and wealth silos. The secular "world" view of faith and work is that...

We believe investors of Biblical faith wanting to invest in alignment with Biblical beliefs, values and priorities need to think BIGGER in a new way--prioritizing "significance" over "size". If they don’t, they are at risk of undermining not only the faithfulness of their own investing but also the ability of faith-driven entrepreneurs and business leaders to run their businesses...

In this post we look at some special "culture" challenges that can lead Biblically faith-based non-profits down a seemingly business as usual path. These organizations are born with "faith-work integration" but can have cultures that stray far from God's design for work--good work on the outside with unhappy people on the inside. People tolerate unhealthy cultures in faith-based...

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...

There are four stages in the process toward Integriosity®, each of which lays the groundwork for the next--RENEW, RE-IMAGINE, RE-ALIGN, RESTORE.  Jumping into RE-IMAGINE or RE-ALIGN before RENEW would be like going out on the field before you learned the rules of the game or the fundamental skills.  Jumping into RE-ALIGN before RE-IMAGINE would be starting the game without a...

The fifth key "mind-shift" of business a better way through Integriosity® captures a new way of thinking about the WHEN of faith-work integration--it is getting at the PRIORITY of "business a better way" in the organization being stewarded by faith-driven leaders. The critical thing to remember about Mind-Shift #5 is "THE TIME IS NOW". Once a faith-driven...

The fourth key "mind-shift" of business a better way through Integriosity® captures a new way of thinking about the HOW of faith-work integration--it is getting at the PRACTICE of "business a better way" through actually implementing a "heart" change in the organization being stewarded. The critical thing to remember about Mind-Shift #4 is "SYMBOLS ARE SECONDARY". In the...