I am fortunate to be around very wise and godly people on a regular basis. In fact, much of the material for this blog comes from their mouths, whether they realize it or not! I recently heard one of them say something that stuck with me. It was especially impactful for me because it was convicting! While the phrase “to honor God” is part of our company mission statement, I have strayed from this idea as my central goal. My friend’s quote made this obvious to me.
Rule #1 in writing a blog is to stay on topic. I am supposed to pick a category or fairly specific area and focus on it, not straying far from it much (if ever). Today, I am going to break Rule #1 (a little). With Mother’s Day just ahead of us, I want to take another look at Proverbs 31 [READ HERE].
At a Chick-Fil-A Leadercast several years ago, Patrick Lencioni told us a story about Southwest Airlines that would cause many CEO’s to cringe or outright panic! Whether you would agree with then CEO Herb Kelleher’s method or not, you will certainly respect his adherence to his company’s core values!
We probably all know someone that dresses in a way to stand out from the crowd. Whether it is a wacky looking tie or a dress that is so bright it looks like it runs on batteries, we have all seen examples of people wearing clothes that stand out. Why do you think they do this? What is their purpose?
I have been studying a little in Matthew 5-7. If you are familiar with this passage, you know that this is also known as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This “sermon” from Jesus is so full of meat, you could write a whole book on what we should learn from it. Today, I want to focus on a couple of verses that teach us to stand out from the crowd.
I believe it is critical for Christian business owners and leaders to live out their leadership differently than those who do not claim the Christian faith. We are called to die to self and should, therefore, look different than the rest. One way we do this is to focus on others – our employees or team members – and their needs before our own.
In my last post, we started digging into 2 Corinthians 5:20 and figuring out what it means to us. We started by breaking out the various components of the definition of an “ambassador,” applying each component to our own situations. You really need to read that last post [HERE] to get the full effect. Today, I want to cover the remaining points that I believe are most critical in this verse.
Sometimes a single verse from the Bible can teach us much that we need to know about being the Christian business owners and leaders that God has called us to be. While that may be too large a task for one verse, I think I have at least one that comes close. Let’s start by taking a look at the following verse about being an ambassador for Christ:
During any given day in the course of business, we may face dozens of decisions. Some are easy and others are more difficult. While many of the decisions that we face might be categorized as multiple choice, I think the more difficult ones are those that fall under the True/False or Yes/No category. If you are not careful with these decisions, you can get into trouble. How are we supposed to make these decisions?
As Christian leaders, I think it is fairly obvious that we should always be learning and growing. This includes getting stronger in our knowledge of God and growing in our relationship with Him. It also means we should be gaining knowledge in our industries as well as in the area of leadership. In light of this, I have a question…is it possible to get too smart?