{"id":21574,"date":"2019-02-15T22:37:24","date_gmt":"2019-02-16T06:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=21574"},"modified":"2019-02-15T22:37:24","modified_gmt":"2019-02-16T06:37:24","slug":"without-hard-work-hard-nothing-grows-but-weeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/without-hard-work-hard-nothing-grows-but-weeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Without Hard Work Hard Nothing Grows But Weeds."},"content":{"rendered":"

This Quote by Gordon B Hinkley[1]<\/a>is of great interest to me because life is like a battle and when you cease from fighting for the good, the bad automatically takes over. Life is about the choices that you make, knowing that every choice has consequences. God has given every person the important ability to make rational decisions to make the right choices in life. Despite of this God given ability, its not uncommon to make wrong choices in life because there other factors that come into play to influence our choices, Reading the book by Tourish, The Dark Side of Transformation leadership just showed how much influence a leader has on the followers in the place of work. Tourish[2]<\/a>goes further to discuss how the transformational leadership model leads into a cult and influences the followers to subordinate their decisions and choices to those of the leader.<\/p>\n

I was brought up in a Christian family and the culture of hard work was I calculated in me early on in life by the constant reminder of the benefits of hard work by my mother. I still remember that cleanliness was also emphasized early on in life as second to godliness. This culture was also reinforced in me because I attended a grade school that was sponsored by a Protestant church and hard work was always emphasized, one particulate teacher Henry was notable for constantly talking about our future and how it depended on whether we work hard in school or not. I can attest to the truth of this because I have always subscribed to always working hard and can attest to the fact the hard work always rewards, the opposite is true that laziness can only lead to \u2018growth of weeds\u2019 in your life. Paul tells the Colossians[3]<\/a>, whatever you do, do it with you\u2019re your heart as doing it unto God and not unto men which is the same emphasis on hard work but with the right attitude of doing it unto God and not just for men or for selfish gain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very remarkable that Max Weber[4]<\/a>attributes the growth of capitalism to the Protestant Ethic and especially points out Europe and America. This in a big way, highlights how much influence religious beliefs have on people which should be of great interest to us as Christian leaders, as to how we can leverage our positions and opportunity to influence development for the well-being of the oppressed. My observation from where I live in my African context, is that poverty is more widespread where the church has had no influence. Most of good schools, hospitals, colleges and other institutions that promote development in my country Kenya, are sponsored by the church and the availability of such institutions in any area dictate the state of the wellbeing of the people. We have been working in the poorest areas of Kenya as a ministry for slightly over 20 years and we have witnessed great transformation of lives. Our focus as an organization is vulnerable communities in Kenya and Beyond (we\u2019re now starting in Liberia in West Africa). We normally start with the vulnerable children where we establish Christian schools and intentionally empower their families holistically through business training, vocational skills trading, health education and curative services while sharing the Gospel and planting churches. I cannot overemphasize the power of the Gospel to change lives because it is so powerful and we have countless stories of peoples lives that have been changed. I will share one story to illustrate this. As we started our first Christian school in a slum community called Mathare valley in Nairobi, Kenya, we encountered Anne who, was a beggar on a popular street in the city. Anne was referred to us after a bad encounter with the police who chased her away from her popular begging joint with her three boys. Two of her school age children were admitted to our school and this gave us an opportunity to influence Anne to accept Jesus as her savior through our interaction over time. Anne could go back to beg but she had a business idea that we helped her to start by giving a Microfinance loan. Through her new found faith and the subsequent transformation, its amazing what has happened in Anne\u2019s life today. She was able to grow her business, going back to the same street that she used to beg to successfully solicit supply tenders to supply laundry soap to restaurants where she used to beg for food. Today Anne is a successful business woman, a church women leader and her first born son is a college graduate, his second born son is in college while his third born is in high school, she also owns her own decent house. The most remarkable thing about Anne is that she has mobilized many poor women in the slums and helped them by introducing them to our Microfinance program with the same results.<\/p>\n

Today as I reflect on Max Weber\u2019s book[5]<\/a>and the influence of the Protestant ethic, I\u2019m all the more persuaded to pursue my dissertation topic, and ultimately develop a biblically based financial literacy tool that will empower church leaders and pastors to empower the poor economically and more so as a tool of evangelism.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>Gordon B Hinkley. President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from March 1995 to his death in January 2008.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>Dennis Tourish, (2013). The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership. A Critical Perspective. <\/em>Routledge, Sussex (2013). UK.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>The Bible, Colossians 3:23;<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>Max Weber (2003). The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. <\/em>Dove Publications (2003), New York, USA.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>Max Weber (2003). The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. <\/em>Dover Publications (2003), New York. USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Quote by Gordon B Hinkley[1]is of great interest to me because life is like a battle and when you cease from fighting for the good, the bad automatically takes over. Life is about the choices that you make, knowing that every choice has consequences. God has given every person the important ability to make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[35,386,1457],"class_list":["post-21574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-leadership","tag-max-weber","tag-the-protestant-ethic-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism","cohort-lgp9"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21575,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21574\/revisions\/21575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}