I have asked Rich Marshall to host the next couple of blogs. He is an internationally recognized speaker, trainer and author with over 40 years experience in bringing out peak performance in others. His clients are a virtual who’s who of corporate America. He has developed a new breed of corporate leadership training you will want to know more about. It’s called the E.P.I.C. Training System, a classic leadership development program and a remarkable proprietary system built on 7 foundational areas of human performance improvement. Now, here’s Rich…

Strategic Planning with the Holy Ghost - Part 1

I know it should not be this way, and yet I know that it is. For some reason many Christian business leaders have not come to full realization that God knows everything about business. Where do we get the idea that God can help with relationships, raising kids, understanding the “deep things” of life, but that He does not know about business? Where did we miss out on the fact that all “business principles” were “Biblical principles” before they were “business principles”?

OK, so I am not sure where the misguided idea came from, but I do have a few thoughts on the matter. You see, I come into the business world and its way of thinking from decades in the church world and its way of thinking. I was a Pastor, and I love pastors and support them and believe in them and all of that good stuff, so don’t think I am being overly negative on pastors. But here is what has happened. The pastor gives his testimony and it goes something like this: “I was working in that evil, bad, nasty, sinful world. And then God called me, and now I am in fulltime ministry.”

All good, all true, all intended to be motivating. The problem is not as much with what is said, as it is with what the businessperson hears. When they hear something like this, they conclude that one must leave the evil business world to go into full time ministry. They also hear that one who is truly “called” becomes a pastor. It leads to a mindset that thinks work is “secular” and church is “spiritual.”

So now, when this business person goes to work, he or she is already thinking this is my secular life. This is not spiritual, and therefore God must have nothing to do with my work. Therefore, I will live with a different set of rules here, and I will not engage God at work.

This is so far from the truth! God created us to work! God blesses us when we work. He has promised over and over again to bless the work of our hands. Work is a spiritual activity and should be seen as ministry, an event that God wants to be involved in at every level.

I love to teach people how to listen to God at work; to watch them engage with Him on a daily basis at work. It is a joy to watch what happens when we include the Holy Spirit in our planning and activities at work. In fact, one of the more popular offerings that we have in our list of services to business leaders is what we call “Strategic Planning with the Holy Ghost.”

NOTE: Join Rich and I Tuesday at 1:00 for an in depth discussion on how to integrate your leadership style with your core values, vision, mission and life purpose.  Watch your inbox for signup information.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 2:09 pm by Michael Q. Pink and is filed under Selling Among Wolves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tagged: Christian business, Rich Marshall, Strategic Planning, training