Thanksgiving: A Time for Neighboring

Thanksgiving isn't just a time for eating turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving is a holiday where we celebrate with thanks all that God has given us during the year. The pilgrims and the Native Americans celebrated together because they were grateful for the bounty and the new friends that God had given them. How do you celebrate this holiday? Can we offer up a fresh suggestion for your Thanksgiving this year? 

Martha and I had great examples when it came to celebrating Thanksgiving a little out of the box. Martha's parents, Ted and Elaine, ran a photography studio. They had many different employees working for them in the studio. At Ted & Elaine’s house, we often had guests for Thanksgiving that weren't family. Sometimes it was friends from out of town, but often it was people that worked in the studio who didn't have family in town. 

Now to be honest with you, Thanksgiving weekend is one of my favorites of the year. I love the solitude and the quiet. I love just hanging out, eating a lot, and playing some games. I love that time with family. But we live in a time today where so many that live around us aren't near their family to celebrate holidays. Not only are they not near their family, but because of the economy, they lack the financial means to go home and see their family and celebrate Thanksgiving. Do you know who these people may be from your office or workplace? Do you know any neighbors that might be alone for Thanksgiving? 

We bring up this idea of the power of neighboring at Thanksgiving so that it would give you an opportunity to see if anybody that you work with, or anybody that you live near might be spending this day alone. Nobody should ever spend a holiday alone. Are you willing to live a little outside the box and have somebody over for Thanksgiving who isn't family? 

I know the next generations have this thing called “Friendsgiving.” I think it's a great idea. I think it's really just being aware of our neighbors.  Jesus said love God, and love your neighbor as yourself. So, I guess that if your neighbor is somebody that's not God then that means your neighbor is anybody else. Practice loving on your neighbor today and invite them over for Thanksgiving, so they won't be alone. Practice the power of neighboring at Thanksgiving and see how it not only blesses your neighbor but also blesses you. 

Recently I was invited to preach at our church in Marionville, Missouri, and spoke on the Power of Neighboring. We invite you to watch this sermon to learn more about how you may apply it to Thanksgiving.  It’s never too late to be a neighbor!

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

Learn to Love People Better at Work

It's safe to say that the Industrial Revolution was not started based on the premise of loving our employees. Many big business people needed workers, and many workers needed jobs, so they fulfilled one another's expectations, but very few of those workers felt loved or appreciated. 

A lot has changed over the last 100 years in the workplace. We've come to realize that what Jesus said back in Luke 10:27 – that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves - is in fact, true; especially when we recognize our neighbors are those who work with us. 

A whole lot of studying has been done on this subject over the last century. Dr. Paul White, a friend of iWork4Him, has written many books about the workplace. He wrote the books Rising Above the Toxic Workplace, The Vibrant Workplace, and The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. We have interviewed Dr. White many times and addressed this topic again in a blog because we have seen that it is a universal truth: When you show your employees, coworkers, bosses, vendors and customers that they are appreciated – even loved – they will give you their best. 

It should not shock any of us that the spiritual truth that Jesus taught a couple thousand years ago is still relevant today. In fact, this whole premise of loving God and loving your neighbor goes back about 4,000 years or even more. God designed each of us for relationship. He designed us to live in community. He built us to complement each other with our gifts, talents, abilities, and voices. 

The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, a spin-off of The 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman, highlights the necessity of tailoring your interaction with those you work with according to how they best receive appreciation. 40% of those you work with prefer words of affirmation as the primary form of appreciation. So often, we miss the opportunity that just a few kind, specific words can mean to somebody. Have you affirmed anybody today? 

The other languages of appreciation are quality time, acts of service, tangible gifts, and appropriate physical touch. Each of these has a detailed description within the book and on the website: www.appreciationatwork.com. 

When you appreciate those who report to you daily, you will see not only that their attitude will improve, but their work product will improve as well. The overall profitability of the company will improve. This is a guarantee. When people feel appreciated, everyone benefits. This rolls down from the CEO to the customers and the vendors. 

So, an old piece of advice comes back to benefit us all again: Love God, love people. It's simple enough! Will you implement this today?

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

"Till Work Do Us Part"

Being a workaholic can destroy your marriage. Whether you own your own business or you work for someone else, there is a danger. That danger resides in the fact that we all love to work. We love the feeling of great accomplishment. We love to work with others to reach a common goal. We love the exhilaration of closing a deal. And frankly, dealing with work and succeeding at work is easier than working on your marriage. 

The whole problem with that mindset is that we got married to spend life with our best friend. We committed “till death do us part,” but we never considered that it may be work that parts us. How exactly do we protect our marriage from our work or our business? 

Some of you may think that my premise is wrong. That's fine, but I can prove it. Over the last 25 years, Martha and I have mentored around 75 married couples. Of these couples, the majority of them were entrepreneurs or business owners or leaders in their organizations. The number one complaint from the spouse who was home more often was that they felt like work was more important than them. 

At first, when you're a newlywed, you do have to work quite a bit in order to pay your bills and get a solid financial footing. You have to make compromises to get things moving in the right direction so you can eventually buy a house. However, that dedication to making a lot of money to get the kind of stuff you want can be heavily addicting. Once you have the perfect house, then you think you need the perfect car. Then the house isn't big enough when you have kids so you gotta get a bigger house. And when you get a bigger house, you need furniture, and then a cleaning lady, and then this or that or whatever it may be. There is never an end to the stuff you can accumulate. And the more stuff you accumulate the more money it takes to take care of those things. 

We have seen so many couples who have dedicated their lives to paying for their stuff, that they end up sacrificing their marriage and their family because of the pursuit of a job that pays for their stuff. 

I believe we have it all backwards. If our marriages are to be important, then every decision we make needs to reflect that importance in our decision matrix. If the job that we need to take to support the lifestyle that we've adjusted to is going to interfere with the importance of our marriage, then we need to make some changes. Perhaps we need to downsize our home or our cars. Perhaps we need to commit to fewer sports activities for our children and maybe eat out a whole lot less. Any way you look at it, decisions that you make outside your marriage absolutely impact your marriage! 

The destruction of a marriage doesn't happen overnight; it happens over time. It happens as a result of decisions that you make that will impact the marriage directly. Like taking a job that will take you on the road five days a week, one that requires you to work 10-12 hours a day, or a position that requires a commute of two hours each way to work. Each of those decisions impacts your marriage.  

So perhaps you should start with your marriage in mind. Don't make any decisions that will compromise how much you love your spouse; show it in the time you invest in your spouse. Don't be deluded into thinking that if you just could make more money, you'd be able to spend more time with your spouse and do more fun things. I can guarantee you that the pursuit of more money in order to be able to spend more time with your spouse never happens until it's too late. Once the overworking spouse realizes their overworking has damaged their marriage, it is usually too late to repair it because the other spouse has already permanently checked out. Now, as believers, there is never a time when it is too late to reconcile. There is never a time when there is no room for reconciliation and forgiveness.  However, the world does not support this. The world tells you that you should move on if you are unhappy. There’s danger in this. 

You and I need to protect our marriages at all costs. When we sacrifice our marriage at the altar of work or at the altar of business, we not only destroy the number one relationship on earth that means most to us, but we destroy our relationship with our kids and our future grandkids. We may also destroy our relationships at church, in our small group, and even in our neighborhood. 

Is it necessary to protect our marriage from our work and our business?  You bet! Every day, you need to protect what is most important to you. Show your spouse today that they are more important than your work and the stuff that your work allows you to buy. 

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

How to Get the Most Out of Your Retirement

I spent some time in last week's blog focusing on the fact that after 20 years of research on our Florida mission field, I came to one conclusion: the American dream of retirement is a lie. However, today, I'm not going to focus on the negative. Today, we will focus on the reality that there is explosive potential inside the hearts, minds, and souls of retired Christ followers in this country. As of today, over 45 million believers are living in retirement. Are they living with purpose? Are they living with contentment? Are they living feeling fulfilled and flourishing in their lives? Keep reading to find out. 

There are a lot of things that Martha and I observed in our 20-year research project in Florida. First, let me be honest with you and tell you that I did not think our time in Florida would be a 20-year research project. We moved there to find better health for Martha and to enjoy the incredible weather after spending most of my life in Minnesota. Was the weather great? Sure. Did Martha get healthier? Sure. Did we see contentment, fulfillment, and flourishing in our retired neighbors and friends? Nope. 

I promised in my last blog that I would finish the story of what we observed in our neighborhood once we realized that it was one of our mission fields. Martha and I determined that we wanted to help our 30-home neighborhood to be a great place to live. One of us needed to head up the homeowner's association to do that. It wasn’t going to be me. I have a low tolerance for stupid and significant impatience (don’t worry, God is working on that), so Martha ran for Board Chair. She is full of grace and mercy and is incredibly full of wisdom. Part of our plan was to ensure the enforced rules were necessary but full of grace and allowed flexibility. We also got to know EVERY neighbor. We knew their names and often offered to pray for them when a need arose. We invited everyone to our home for New Year's Eve and our annual end-of-winter picnic before the snowbirds left. We started fixing things that needed to be fixed in the neighborhood and often helped neighbors with minor projects at home. (Remember, we were the young people in a neighborhood full of chronologically superior folks.)  In a couple of years, the atmosphere of our community changed and when we moved to serve Martha’s folks in a different neighborhood, we cried along with many neighbors as we drove down our street to leave. Our hearts had changed, and it had impacted everyone around us.  

I truly believe that the enemy is behind the lie that the American dream of retirement is the biblical basis for retirement. I think the enemy deeply desires to destroy the family and disconnect the family from each other by creating bastions of pleasure and peace in Arizona and Florida. You see, if you can separate kids from parents and grandparents, you could influence them much more easily because they don't have anybody around them to remind them of their understanding and biblical wisdom. You are that biblical wisdom. You, the family's elders, are that bastion of knowledge, and you are desperately needed in your family and your nation. 

Martha and I have worked alongside the Retirement Reformation for several years. This organization is dedicated to helping Christ-following retirees find purpose during the retirement stages of life. Retirement is broken up into three phases. There's the active stage, where we have all kinds of energy and very few health issues and can do almost anything our hearts desire. This stage might involve a different type of work or volunteerism and may include some travel. The second stage of our retirement is the mentoring stage. Somewhere in our late 70s, we start to slow down yet our hearts, minds, and souls are filled with wisdom and so many answers from our experience that we can pour into the lives of the upcoming generations. We may not be able to run alongside them any longer, but we certainly can coach them. Just because your legs don't propel you at high speed anymore doesn't mean the experience and wisdom that God has given you isn't relevant to those in your family and your neighborhood. 

The final phase of our retirement can be labeled the sharing stage. You've lived a long life and gathered so much wisdom, experience, and frankly, some assets. In the sharing stage of retirement men and women seek to give their wisdom and wealth to others, even if it's from the recliner in the living room. 

No matter how you look at it, your retirement can be the most fulfilling years of your life. You are not bound by the 9 to 5, and you're not bound by what everybody else is doing. You have a call on your life, and God is not done with you yet. Your calling may be to go back to work. Your calling may be to start a different kind of work. Your calling may be to volunteer or even run for political office. Any way you look at it, the call on your life will be related to the talents, abilities, and spiritual giftings that God has bestowed upon you and has been enriching over your lifetime. 

In closing, put aside the notion that the American dream of retirement is the ultimate experience in Christianity. It's a lie. The ultimate experience of Christianity is pouring your life into others. You are desperately needed in the lives of those around you: your family, friends, your community. Seek the Lord in what He would have you do with the final phase of your life.

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

The Cataclysmic Disaster of Christians Retiring in America

I spent 20 years on the mission field in Florida. You may laugh at how I describe that, but that is, in fact, what it was. It was a mission field that transformed my life, my family's life, and the lives of all of those we lived alongside. I didn't move to Florida because I was going on the mission field. We moved to Florida because Martha’s health required us to be somewhere that was warm all the time. We chose Florida because it's beautiful and because we loved the beaches. God had different plans. 

For the first 18 years we lived in Florida, we lived in a townhouse community across the street from the beach. This community consisted of a diverse international gathering of people who had moved to Florida to be on perpetual vacation. Were they at peace? Were they satisfied with quitting their jobs and doing nothing? Did Martha and I find them in a place where life brought them satisfaction in their 30-plus-year vacation they called retirement? The answer is a resounding “NO.” 

Our 20-year research project of living in retirement communities and seeing how people absolutely hated life without purpose was usually accentuated by the fact that Martha and I were some of the only working people in the neighborhood. We found that homeowners' associations were often run by dissatisfied former executives who wanted to control something. Since they lived in a community, the only thing they could control was what the neighborhood looked like. From the first moment of moving to Florida, we should have known that this American retirement dream was a big fat lie. We were buying our townhome in Florida, and the association president basically told us he didn't want us living there because we had kids and kids are noisy. He felt our family's presence in his neighborhood would destroy the ambiance they loved. What really happened was our family moved into that neighborhood and found 29 other families who were really unhappy with where they were living because the association had gotten out of control. There were only 30 townhomes in our neighborhood, but each one contained another retired family who had thought that moving to Florida would be the ultimate experience of life. They found that living in a townhouse association was the equivalent of living in some sort of prison. There were rules for everything. Where did those rules come from? The retired residents of the neighborhood. 

I say all this to prove that we come from a position of experience. In my 57 years of life, I've heard nothing but lies about the reality of retirement. I have heard that after you've worked until age 65, you deserve to check out and be on vacation for the remainder of your life. You should move to Florida, Texas, Arizona, or Southern California to experience the fullness of all that America has to offer. It's such a lie. I've lived in neighborhoods full of retired people who are separated from their families and surrounded by other self-centered retirees who want nothing more than to experience life's grandness. But instead, they experience extraordinary dissatisfaction because life without purpose is empty, meaningless, and cataclysmic. Our country has been pulled apart from every corner, and one of those corners that's been affected is the family. And in the destruction of the family – by moving mom and dad or grandma and grandpa across the country to some beautiful retirement community where the streets are painted perfectly and there's palm trees lining the avenue – the reality is that's not what God intended. Christian retirees are the glue that this country needs.  

All of us here in America need you to take your retirement years and invest them into those around you, your neighbors, but don't move and surround yourself with other people who look like you. Surround yourself with families who desperately need older adults in their lives. Grant Skeldon would call retired people “chronologically superior.” Experienced Christians who happen to be of retirement age are so desperately needed to bring cohesiveness in our local churches, in our local communities, in our local businesses, as well as in our local neighborhoods. I can't stress this enough. Retiring and checking out for a 30-year vacation is the definition of a cataclysmic disaster in America. If you're not dead, God's not done with you yet. And when you retire, your calling doesn’t. God has so much left for you during this final phase of life. Please don't check out! 

I'll close this blog today with a call for reforming our retirement in this country. iWork4Him partners with Retirement Reformation because they are there to equip Christian retirees with purpose, meaning, and direction for the final phases of life. Please heed the call. The upcoming generations desperately need you in their life, and frankly, you need them in yours. You will not find satisfaction in moving far away from your family to a climate that is beautiful and warm all the time. Take it from somebody who lived in “paradise” for over 20 years. The weather is nice, some people are nice, but almost all the retirees are dissatisfied and frustrated. You can only play golf, pickleball, and tennis so much. God has a rich plan for your retirement years. Seek Him for it. 

Next week, I will tell you what happened in our two Florida neighborhoods when we realized they were our mission field.

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

I Needed a Mentor

We got a new youth pastor when I was 15 or 16 years old. This youth pastor never took the time to get to know me and frankly told me he didn't believe my faith was real. He doubted the depth of my faith because I was a little goofy. Well, now I'm 57 and still a little goofy, but I know that my faith was very real at 16, with a desire to grow. Even though my youth pastor refused to invest his life into me, one of the volunteer youth sponsors, Mike, decided to take that roll. That investment in my life has made a difference for 40-plus years. 

As a college student, Mike decided to invest his life in this goofy 16-year-old. That relationship has lasted a lifetime, and Mike's investment in me showed me that I was valuable and worth investing time into. Over the years, Mike taught me practical life lessons and deep biblical truths.  Because he saw a hunger for Jesus in me, he fed that hunger and challenged me to go deeper. He was there for me in the rough and good times – there’s plenty of both as a teenage boy.  

Was Mike a professional mentor? No, of course not.  He was one believer in Jesus, a little further along the path, investing his life into another follower of Jesus. Mike's investment of time, energy, a little money for pizza, and serious biblical teaching, caused me, as a teenager, to see the Lord for real. Mike also taught me one of the most valuable lessons I have ever learned: that to grow in my faith, I need to invest my faith in others. 

I've heard several sermons that challenge everyone to have a Paul, a Barnabas, and a Timothy in their life.  In other words, we need three types of people in our lives: 

• Someone a little further along in their faith to invest their time in you. That would be a “Paul.” 

• A “Barnabas,” who is an encourager and a partner in the faith.  

• And a “Timothy,” somebody you're investing your life into.  

It is easy to grow stagnant in our faith if we don't have these three types of people in our lives. Your faith walk will accelerate beyond what you can imagine when you take the time to intentionally have these three types of people involved in your life. 

If you're like me, you may have multiple Pauls, Barnabas, and Timothys in your life. I can't help it. I need multiple people to guide me or smack me upside the head with green-treated 2x4s. I need multiple people who will speak truth in my life and echo the words of God from their hearts. Also, being in the media world and a world where I work with ministry leaders, I often need encouragers to come out of the woodwork to help me through a situation. When you're in leadership, it's lonely. So, I need multiple Barnabas in my life. I also know that God has often placed Timothys in my life. I may have two or three men to pour my energy into at any given time. This pouring into their lives may be specific and targeted discipleship, but it might be just me living alongside them. Right now, I have two or three people like that in my life. 

It’s time to do a self-check. Do you have a Paul in your life, a Barnabas in your life, and a Timothy in your life?  Living with this level of intentionality as a Jesus follower will absolutely change your forward trajectory. It will change your life. 

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About the Author, Jim Brangenberg

Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

Celebrating Christian Working Women

This week, iWork4Him has dedicated all our broadcast and media releases to celebrating Christian working women! These often-unsung heroes of the faith need to be celebrated, and I, for one, wanted to stand up and say thank you. As a man, I don't know what it's like to be a woman, but as a believer in Jesus, I do know this: When you became a believer in our Lord Jesus Christ and surrendered your life to His Lordship, you were gifted with a unique set of gifts, talents, and spiritual abilities, and we want to celebrate them! 

Over the last ten years, we've interviewed well over 500 Christian working women, and their stories vary as much as their hair color, but one thing rings true – each Christian working woman we interview loves her work and feels called to do it. But even more significantly, almost all of them feel underappreciated for their contribution to the Kingdom by their local body of Christ. 

I'm not a theologian, but I am full of opinions. I have witnessed the Christian working women frequently being denigrated for choosing to work outside the home. I know many incredible Christian working women in my own life. Their calling is not only to be a great wife and mother and sometimes a great grandmother but also to impact their given workplace as talented followers of Jesus. 

I thought I would highlight the stories of several Christian working women we have interviewed over the years. The first one is Holly Betenbough. Holly is Rick's wife, and together, they own and run Betenbough Homes out of Lubbock, TX. As Holly enters the workplace every day, the Holy Spirit of God comes with her. Her main role is to minister to the masses. She brings gentleness, calmness, and a willingness to pray and listen to anyone she runs into. She is, in fact, in full-time ministry within her own company. We have witnessed Holly's impact as she walks through the halls of her business. No one remains untouched as Holly walks by. 

I am reminded about Sue Wilson out of Minnesota. Sue is a CFO and as she realized that her workplace really is her mission field, she has had many opportunities to listen to people within her company from all levels of the organization and to pray with them. As the CFO, everybody knows she controls the money, but she really wants to control the culture. She seeks ways to bring peace where she goes and deliver people from suffering by praying with them. Sue sees her workplace as a mission field and knows that God has given her the talent to be a CFO so that she can be right in the middle of a vast marketplace. 

Recently, I met Brecky Johnson out of Washington state. Brecky is a mother of four and a YouTube-for-kids sensation with almost 150 million downloads. She strives to be a great wife and a great mom, and she wants to help moms across the country by providing educational and fun programming for their kids to watch. Brecky loves Jesus and wants every mom and every kid to know Jesus, too. She uses her platform to travel across the country and inspire other moms. 

Finally, I am reminded about Krystal Gonzalez. Krystal is a massage therapist and a single mom of six children. When she's not giving massages, she teaches massage therapists how to do their trade. She sees her ministry on the massage table much like that of a bartender or a professional counselor. She's a good listener, and it provides a platform to pray with people. When she's teaching future massage therapists, she sees her platform as a place to instill a sense of ministry into every massage therapist who graduates from her class. Krystal knows that God has given her the ability to understand the human body and to help people live more active lifestyles. Krystal also knows that massage therapists have a unique role in the lives of their clients as they have an hour once or twice a month where deep conversations can happen. While healing begins on the outside, it can also occur on the inside. 

Each of these women, along with over 30 million Christian working women, is gifted uniquely to execute her gifts, talents, and spiritual abilities uniquely at work. We celebrate them, and I personally ask you to encourage the women in your life as they live out their faith where God has placed them. Christian working women represent a significant portion of the workforce. We thank God for them.

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

A Short-Term Trip on Our Long-Term Mission Field

I did go on a couple of short-term mission trips overseas when I was in my 40s. I didn't go on them because I thought I would make a huge impact on the people I came in contact with. I went on these two trips because I saw the amazing, miraculous impact similar trips had made on others who had gone before me. These friends went on a mission trip and came back, and their lives were never the same. They had an experience that transformed their view of God and their view of work. I wanted to experience this myself, so I went on a mission trip to the jungles of the Dominican Republic. 

For several days in the Dominican Republic, I walked alongside business leaders, business owners, and everyday workers, who knew they wanted more out of life, but they also knew that there were people who had a whole lot less than them. What I saw happen on the mission field of the Dominican Republic, in little villages spread across the country, was a paradigm shift for these business owners, leaders, and everyday workers, where they saw and now understood that they had very much. They saw that they had been very blessed and yet very discontent. They witnessed a people who lived out contentment in barrel-sized ways. The Dominican people are extraordinarily gracious, grateful, and content. They may not have many earthly possessions, but they did have a strong faith and contentment. These businesspeople returned home to make huge impacts in their industries, their companies, their neighborhoods, and their churches. They learned on the mission field that God was way bigger than they ever allowed him to be in their lives. 

Now it’s our turn. Are you ready for a short-term mission trip? Martha and I invite you to a short-term mission trip with us. Along with Mike Henry from Follower of One, Martha and I will go on a two-week experience. We will be prepping ourselves the first week before going to our workplace mission field. The second week will be a collaboration with workplace believers from all across the country, sharing their experiences as they live out their faith at work, some for the very first time. What are some of the things we will focus on during this two-week highly focused marketplace mission trip? We will focus on learning to love and appreciate those we work alongside. We are going to learn how to serve them over and above what our job requires us to do. We're going to learn to befriend them outside of the workplace. We're going to learn how to pray for people and look for ways to pray with them. We're also going to learn that excellence defines our work, because if it doesn't, people aren't interested in hearing what we have to say. 

Mike Henry developed these Marketplace Mission Trips because he saw many people preparing to go overseas on a short-term mission trip. He saw people preparing for an entire year to go on a one or two-week trip, and he realized that most people never spend an entire year preparing for work, their ministry place and mission field. 

You and me, we've been called to our workplaces on purpose for a purpose, and we've been gifted with a unique set of gifts, talents, and abilities. The job that we hold, the work that we do, and the people that we work with – none of that is by chance. The people that we work with need to meet Jesus, and you may be their only chance. Join Martha and me on a November iWork4Him – Follower of One Marketplace Mission Trip. Watch the Lord of Heaven and Earth transform your mind into recognizing your workplace as your mission field and teaching you how to prepare your heart, mind, soul, and strength for that mission field where you go each and every day. See you in November!

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Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

Take a Marketplace Mission Trip

I remember all the pressure.  Everybody expects you to go on a short-term mission trip overseas.  From the time Martha and I joined our first church as a couple until today, everybody, or almost everybody, thinks the epitome of the Christian experience is best expressed through traveling overseas and ministering for a week or two to a foreign people group.  And maybe we do this every year.  Now, there are many reasons to go on short-term mission trips overseas.  One of them may be preparations for a long-term placement overseas.  However, this is not the epitome of the Christian experience for most of us who are operating in our workplaces outside of the four walls of the church.  That experience is epitomized by preparing our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our strength for going to our daily mission field – which is our workplace.  

I define a mission field as a place where there are lost and hopeless people who need to meet Jesus.  These people don’t regularly attend church or don’t have or want access to materials, media, or conversations where they could learn how to become a Jesus follower. 

I will tell you this: I never wanted to go overseas on a short-term mission trip.  I kept arguing, and I did this for decades.  Why should we spend a whole bunch of time and money ministering to people across the world who we will only meet once when we could actually minister to people right here in my own state or my own country?  I now understand so much more.  There is value in all mission trips to somewhere outside your comfort zone to minister to people you don't know.  It doesn't have to be overseas, but getting out of your comfort zone is good. 

Speaking of comfort zones, how about the place you go to work every day?  This is a place where you already know everyone’s name, and you're familiar with the culture.  You know how to move within your organization's different cultural circles.  You don't need to prepare to speak a foreign language, wear different clothing, or eat different foods.  You already have all that stuff down pat.  The one thing you do need to do is prepare your heart, mind, soul, and strength for the paradigm shift that your work matters to God, and it is, in fact, your place of ministry – your mission field. 

To be honest, I didn't have this realization until I was 40 years old.  I always thought of work as work and church as church.  They had nothing to do with each other.  It's kind of embarrassing to admit today, but I'm being honest with you.  I thought my work didn't matter to God because I was an insurance agent and sold used cars.  When, at 40, I realized that God loved my work and He specifically equipped me to be a very good insurance agent and a good used car sales guy, I began to thrive in my ministry place at work.  What did it take to shift my paradigm from looking at work as something just necessary that I had to do to an incredible place filled with people who need to meet Jesus, who need to benefit from my expertise, knowledge, spirit, and wisdom?  It took a shift in my heart, mind, soul, and strength.  I had to realize that God needed me to love my neighbor at work.  

What if we prepared ourselves for the workplace mission field together?  Please join Martha and me on our upcoming Marketplace Mission Trip led by Follower of One.  Walk alongside us and prepare for your workplace mission field.  See you in November! 

TAKE THIS TOPIC FURTHER:

Listen to or watch show 2008: No Suitcase? No Fundraising? No Problem!

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About the Author, Jim Brangenberg

Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!

Clean Up Your Priorities

Priorities. We all struggle with this at one point in our lives. God has laid out a pretty clear line for what those priorities should look like. He wants to be first because if He's first in our lives, everything else seems to fall into place. What's that look like? We'll talk about that more in a minute. Our next priority should be our spouse. If we're married, our spouse should be our number two priority. Our kids come next. It is so important that our kids are not number two, and they're not number one. Kids need to know that the world doesn't revolve around them. The best thing you do for your kids is to let them know they're not nearly as important as your spouse. Our fourth priority should be our work. Notice that our work priority comes after our priority relationship with God, our relationship with our spouse, and our relationship with our kids. When work ends up being in front of any of those other things, our worlds are guaranteed to fall apart, crumbling into a disastrous consequence. Our fifth priority should be our volunteer work and our hobbies. Those things should never take any precedence over the previous four. Have Martha and I struggled with the order of these things? You bet. 

Martha and I love to work. For most of our lives, we have worked together. In fact, only about 8 years of our married life did we not work together. So, it's been very easy to reverse the priority and put work before marriage because we were always together. But that's not what God intended. 

What a blessing it is in our lives that God taught us to put prayer into every one of our days since the day we started dating. Hard to believe it's been over 41 years since Martha and I first met and 40 years since we started dating. Every one of those days, we have prayed together. Does it perfect keeping God at the top of our priority list? No, but it does remind us each and every day to re-center on Him. For both of us, the hour of our quiet time has varied. Sometimes it's been at night and sometimes in the morning, but we've always prioritized having quiet time. Obviously, when the little kids came along, the quiet time was harder to find, but we’ve tried to prioritize God in our day through prayer.  

Our number two priority is our spouse. Kids, work, hobbies, and volunteering should all come behind the priority of investing in our relationship with our spouse. Over the years, Martha and I have struggled with allowing ministry, work and even the kids to have priority over each other, but somehow every day, we've managed to spend time talking and keeping our friendship fresh. It just hasn't always been easy. 

When our kids came along five years into our marriage, keeping each other a priority was challenging. Of course, every new parent is excited about their children, and we were no different. But to remain in balance, making sure that God remained a priority and that our marriage relationship remained a priority, we had to ensure that our kids knew they weren't more important than those first two priorities. That wasn't easy. When our kids are young, they're pretty demanding. But as our kids grew older, certainly into their teenage and adult years, they knew our marriage relationship was more important than theirs. We didn't let our kids get involved in every possible sport or let them go to every activity at church or school because that would have compromised our family and marriage relationships. It was an ongoing battle, and something else always fought for our time. Our kids are now married and have children of their own, so they're experiencing some of the same things. They know that they're important in my life but not as important as my incredible wife. 

As I said at the beginning of this blog post, Martha and I love to work. We've had various jobs throughout the years, but we love to work. We like to clean up messes. We have fun organizing. We enjoy investing in people and solving problems. We love to work. The topic of keeping work in check has occupied more than a few evenings and weekends over the last 37 years. No question, both of us have had times when our jobs required way too much of our time and caused us to neglect our family. We even let our bosses interfere on our vacations. (What's with that, anyway? If you're a boss and your employees are on vacation, for crying out loud, just leave them alone! Your employees will be way better off when they return if you don’t bother them while they’re on vacation. That was just a side thought.) 

The final priority in our lives is our volunteer work and our hobbies. We've met so many people over the years whose volunteer work at church has interfered with everything, including their relationship with God. That seems kind of weird since they're at church volunteering for God. How come it interferes with their relationship with God? They're so busy doing things for God that they don't have time for God. Quick tip: don't volunteer to do something in any organization without your spouse and maybe even the kids being totally in agreement.  

Let's talk about hobbies as well. Hobbies are nice. It's sometimes nice just to escape from all the noise and ruckus of a family. But hobbies can be expensive. And they can get out of control. I know friends who have motorcycles and go on day-long rides during the weekend when their kids are home. That's just plain dumb. I know friends who golf all day on Saturday when their kids are home. That's just dumb, too. We have so little time with our families. Why would you take time away on a Saturday to be with other people when you only have your kids for 12 or 13 years before they start to discount your significance in their lives?  

Hobbies and volunteer work should be a very small part of our lives while our kids are growing up. And as the nest gets empty, find a hobby or volunteer work you can do with your spouse, or even invite one of your adult kids to join you. 

All of this is to say: managing your priorities is difficult. But God can help us clean up the mess of our priorities. He can help put Himself back on top and put your spouse second and your kids third and your work fourth and your hobbies and volunteering fifth. He can help! 

So, take a look at where your priorities stand today. If you have any questions about whether they're out of order, just ask your spouse or your kids, or look at your checkbook or calendar. If things are out of order, you likely have some cleaning up to do, some apologies to make, and some changes to implement. But it’s never too late to fix your priorities. Get number one figured out, and then the others should fall into place. You can do it! 

TAKE THIS TOPIC FURTHER:

Listen to or watch show 2007: What Would God Say About Your Priorities?

Subscribe to the daily iWork4Him PowerThoughts

About the Author, Jim Brangenberg

Jim's Mission: We are called to be examples of Christ to those around us. With that in mind, Jim is passionate about helping Christ followers connect their faith to their work!