| "In nothing has
the church so lost her hold on reality as in her failure to
understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work
and religion to become separate departments, and is astonished to
find that, as a result, the secular world is turned to purely
selfish and destructive ends, and that the greater part of the
world's intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least,
uninterested in religion.
But is it astonishing? How can one
remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern
with nine-tenths of life? The Church's approach to an intelligent
carpenter is usually to exhort him not to be drunk and disorderly
in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the
church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand
that his religion makes on him is that he should make good tables.
Church by all means, and decent
forms of amusement, certainly - but what use is all of this if in
the very center of life and occupation he is insulting God with
bad carpentry? No crooked legs or ill-fitting drawers, I dare
swear, came out of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth. Nor, if they
had, could anyone believe they were made by the same hand that
made heaven and earth. No piety in the worker will compensate for
work that is not true to itself; for any work that is untrue to
its own technique is a lie." |
|
Dorothy Sayers
(1942)
Mystery Novelist
Anglican Professor |
| |
| "When the bashing
of Christian symbols is so prevalent, so mainstream, it
effectively distorts our views of Christians and Christianity -
arguably, even Christian's views of themselves." |
|
Tammy Bruce
Author
'The Death of Right and Wrong' |
| |
| "One of the most
disturbing findings in our interviews was the pervasive lack of
awareness or interest among ecclesiastics in how deeply
anticapitalist the message continues to be among liberal and
conservative clergy, however much they cultivate a warm
relationship with members of the congregation. ...Business is
regarded as the source of economic injustice, not the cure. They
depict business as a force to be fought." |
|
Laura Nash and Scotty
McLennan
Authors
'Church on Sunday, Work on Monday' |
| |
| "The true measure
of a man is not the number of servants that he has, but the number
of people that he serves." |
|
Arnold Glascow,
Psychologist |
| |
| "You have to think
that the average stakeholder can accept the truth. What they
cannot accept is dishonesty, breach of integrity, violation of
trust. But we see it time and time again." |
|
Adrian Gostick and
Dana Telford
Authors
'The Integrity Advantage' |
| |
| "The ancient
Romans had a tradition. Whenever one of their engineers
constructed an arch, as the capstone was hoisted into place, the
engineer assumed responsibility for his work in the most profound
way possible. He stood under the arch." |
|
Michael Armstrong
CEO of AT&T
(from his resignation speech) |
| |
| "If you want to
build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and
don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long
for the endless immensity of the sea." |
|
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Early 20th Century French Novelist |
| |
| "...many workers
feel that while it is easy to see how a missionary or preacher
might be called, it is much less certain whether God's call
extends to a plumber, a doctor, or a salesperson. Of course, this
has unfortunate implications for the dignity of everyday work and
workers. For if only clergy are called, that implies that 'secular
workers' are not called - that somehow they did not make God's
first team." |
|
Doug Sherman and
William Hendricks
Authors
'Your Work Matters to God' |
| |
| "There is no more
a difficult place to find an honest man than on Wall Street in New
York City." |
|
Abraham Lincoln |
| |
| "Where is your heart
when it comes to serving others? Do you desire to become a leader
for the perks and benefits? Or are you motivated by a desire to
help others?" |
|
John C. Maxwell
Business Leadership Author |
