Welcome back to the Theology of Business Podcast. I'm your host, Darren Author of Marketplace Christian and Marketplace Business. And this is a show that if the Marketplace Christians support a business, if we make disciples of our coworkers, the company, and your industry. If we're teaching interviews like the one you're about to hear, theology of business. This interview with Amy Sherman, you're about to hear on the subject of public discipleship in the marketplace, was recorded in the midst of the violent race riots that were happening in Charlottesville, Virginia, just a few weeks ago from the time of this recording. And in fact, Amy lived in Charlottesville. The racism and hatred we saw on display during those protests reminds us of just how much work the people of God need to do to accurately represent Jesus to our world. And as I record this, just a few weeks later, my own city of Houston, Texas has been faced with a different kind of adversity. We were just hit with Hurricane Harvey, as you're probably aware, if you've been watching the news lately, which has earned the title of the costliest natural disaster in the history of the United States. Within just a few days, our city was pounded by trillions of gallons of rain. The damage has indeed been catastrophic. Tens of thousands of homes and hundreds of thousands of automobiles were destroyed in our city alone. And many other cities and towns along the Texas coast were also devastated by the storm, and especially by the flooding. Whether it's making phone calls for fundraising, helping with the demolition in people's flooded homes, serving food at a local shelter, or any of the other countless jobs that need to be filled right now. The people in our city are so desperate for help that they don't care who provides it. Is that right to I actually have an evacueed cat sitting next to me because this particular cat needed a temporary home because her home got totally destroyed? And I can still feel the sheetrock particles in my throat from helping to remove wet sheetrock from a family's home that had water all the way to the ceiling of their living room. It's all hands-on deck here in Houston. All 12,000 members of the Texas National Guard were activated to bring relief to our city and to other areas along the Texas coast. And for the first time in any church I've ever attended, the pastor, my pastor asked the entire congregation of more than a thousand people to raise their right hands and say, I am hereby ordained as a pastor in the Church of Jesus Christ. I encourage you that no matter what kind of work you're doing for the Lord, whether it's helping people who have been devastated by a natural disaster, building racial unity, and your community selling products and services that reveal the glory of God. And no matter how much you get paid for doing it, or even if you get paid for doing it, that work matters to the Lord. You may be the only person who can reveal the love and message of Jesus to those people you work with and serve. And that place where you're serving and creating value during the week is the best place to share that message. I want to ask you to do something right now that you may have never done before. Whether you're driving in your car, walking the dog, or sitting in your couch listening to this, raise your right hand and repeat this after me. I am hereby ordained and activated as a minister of the love and message of Jesus Christ to those around me. And you might not be taking me seriously right now, but I want you to really do it. Raise your right hand and repeat this after me. I am hereby ordained and activated as a minister of the love and message of Jesus Christ to those around me. Like the Texas National Guard, you are hereby activated to respond to the needs around you as the hands and feet of Jesus. And like the congregation at my church as of Sunday, you are hereby ordained as a minister of the love and message of Jesus Christ to everyone you meet, and especially to those you work with every day. If you'll accept this challenge to reach five people in your workplace with the love and message of Jesus Christ by the year 2020, I invite you to make this commitment at love2020workplace.com forward slash commit. That's love2020workplace.com forward slash commit. On today's episode, we'll be discussing public discipleship in the marketplace, and we're joined by Dr. Amy Sherman. Amy is a senior fellow at the Stagamore Institute and was named by Christianity Today in 2012 as one of the 50 evangelical women most influencing the American church and culture. She's the author of six books and over 80 articles and periodicals. And her most recent book is Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, which was recently honored as Christianity Today's book of the year in the Christian living category. She holds a BA from Psy College and an MA and PhD from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, which is where she currently resides. And certainly, as we were talking before the interview, just praying that God would just bring healing to the situation and the racial division that's manifesting there and really indicative of what's happening in our nation. And so maybe we'll hear a little bit about that in this talk. But I heard Amy speak last year at the Faith and Works Summit in Dallas. And she's one of the few people I've heard who are talking about discipleship as a means of influencing institutions. And beyond just talking about private spirituality matters like doing your work as worship and working with integrity and applying the golden rule, all of which are certainly extremely important. But in this interview, she's going to share the need for both personal discipleship and public discipleship so we can make an impact on our workplaces and ultimately on the cultures. So welcome to the Theology of Business podcast, Amy.
SPEAKER_00Hey, thanks so much for having me.
SPEAKER_01How would you define, first of all, I'm going to ask you about public discipleship, but how do you define discipleship?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think that essentially discipleship is about living in the kingdom of God, um, under the reign of Jesus, uh, and and seeking to please him in everything. Uh I believe that I believe there's a phrase about that in in the first chapter of Colossians. So it's it's this very holistic uh whole life discipleship, conforming more and more over time with the help of the Spirit uh to the character of Jesus Christ. Um, but not only that, also conforming to the priorities and to the passions of Christ. Um, because all of those things, the character, the priorities, the passions, um, all of those dimensions, I think, are encompassed in the idea of our fundamental calling, the image-bearers uh of God. So that that's how I see discipleship. It's it's about this um alignment uh of glad-hearted um life under the reign of Christ in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01I love that. So, with that is our understanding of what is because I think it's good that you define that, because when somebody hears the term discipleship and being a disciple and disciple making can sound a little bit uh lofty and and kind of super spiritual, but I like how you broke that down for us. It's the character of it's is being image bearers of the character of Jesus as well as embodying the priorities and the passions of Jesus. So, now what would you say is the difference between personal discipleship and what you call public discipleship?
SPEAKER_00Personal discipleship is this sort of, I would say, more of the focus on the character of Christ, the development of personal holiness, you know, the the quest that we have through our spiritual disciplines, and again with the help of the empowerment of the spirit to grow in Christ-likeness, to seek to display the fruit of the spirit um, you know, more and more. And this I think has been typically the primary the primary focus of much of our uh churches, right? We focus on helping people uh learn how to pray, learn how to study the Bible, and then there's a lot of teaching about the practical application of those things uh in your personal life. So, you know, personal discipleship is about you know living rightly in your relationships, your marriage, your financial stewardship, um, you know, your sexual behavior, etc. etc. And and all of that is obviously really good, really needed, um, perfectly uh biblical, but um but not only are we to conform to the character of Christ, um, but also to really share in the agenda of Christ, in the in the passion of Christ, in the work of Christ. Um and so you study the Bible and you see Jesus' passion for justice, his passion for righteousness, his passion for uh the poor and the and the vulnerable, it's his passion for for beauty. Um and so we can't say that personal piety is the totality of what discipleship means. It's not the totality of what bearing God's image in the world uh is. Um but because I think so much of the church has focused on discipleship in this very sort of privatized and personal way, um folks like me and others have decided, you know, we need to sort of stick the adjective public in front of the word discipleship to help people remember that this practical living out of your faith is is something that needs to be done in every area of of your life. So not only your your marriage, um, but your your life in the marketplace, your life in the workplace, your life as a citizen, um as as a neighbor. Um and I think that um when we really understand you know a phrase like Jesus is called to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, um I think if we really understand what that means, um we'll do a better job of recognizing both this personal and this public uh dimension of discipleship.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. It almost seems to me, Amy, like there's there's some confusion about what is the image of God. And and usually when I hear Imago Dei, you know, the the image of God and how we're called to live that out in the workplace, the focus is not on Jesus, the focus is on God and the garden and and how God created work before the fall, and so work is a is a good thing, and and so it is enough to be like Adam pre-fall, and the fact that you are just going about doing your work. And and that to tack on anything else in addition to that, it would seem to some that you are devaluing the value of of work unto God, that it's that it's somehow less of an act of worship, that you are you know going to you're naming the animals or you're mopping the floor or something like that. But it sounds like you're you're saying let's realize that the image of God has been revealed in Jesus, and that whatever Jesus' priorities and the way that he went about his life is is more of what you mean besides just doing a good job at work. Is that right?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, I mean I think I think it's helpful to think about um in a sense the story of God, um the the the the work of God. And that that story is a story um, you know, from creation through fall to redemption and on to consummation, sort of the the grand narrative vision of of God's who God is and and what God is doing. Um and if we if we have that as the sort of big context, um that there's this big story, and the story of my life is to fit into that big story, um, that that's sort of what I'm here for, um, then it's really helpful to think about, okay, well that that story is uh is a is a story of um of righteousness. God is a righteous God. And the most helpful uh definition I've ever heard of the word righteousness was when I read a book and the author said, you know, just understand righteousness as set rightness. Um righteousness is everything being the way God intended to be. Um so you have the story of creation and everything is the way God intended it to be. The relationship between God and persons was the right, the the relationship of uh people to their own sort of psychological psyches was was right, uh the relationship between people was right, and the relationship between people and God's creation um was right. Um and so this God of righteousness uh establishes a world of righteousness, um a world, this concept I think is also well communicated by the the Hebrew um idea of shalom. And that that righteousness um is is all pervasive in in in in at an individual level and at a in a sort of systemic or institutional level. When we say that everything was right um in God's original creation, we mean that relationships were right, we mean that you know everything was working in the way that it was supposed to work. And through the fall, you see the the corruption of everything falling apart. In the redemption, you see Jesus coming and saying, I'm here to to make all things right uh once again, I'm here to set things right once again, uh, and then you have this vision in the scriptures of what life is going to be like when Christ returns, and we see the fulfillment of his kingdom where once again all things will be made right. Um and so when you have this sort of really robust vision of this set rightness, then I think what you what you understand is that um there are really important um lessons and implications for your your life in the world, personally and publicly, that that sort of are revealed in each of those chapters of the narrative. So we we learn something about what it means to be an image bearer uh in the story of creation, but we also learn something about what it means to be an image bearer uh through the through the horror of the fall and through the the glory of the redemption and through the uh and through the you know consummate beauty of uh of the doctrine of you know how everything is going to be in the new heavens and the new earth. So it's kind of like you have to have the really big picture in your mind, I think, in order to really in order to really understand this notion of what it's what it means to bear uh to bear the image. So yeah, it's to get back to your point, yeah, it is about bearing God's image and bearing Jesus' image, but it's it's kind of more it's about it's about um understanding our vocational role in this this whole big story.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and being able to frame it in such a way, and that seems to be the the real challenge. I mean, people ask me, you know, how how do I articulate for myself the way that my story the way that my work fits in? How is it ministry? You know, does it mean that I go and I you know pass out tracts to my coworkers? You know, and there's a lot of a lot of questions about that, but what I hear you saying is viewing your your work as a part of God's redemptive story, and there's there you shared several amazing examples at the at the conference. Um, what would be an example of cultivating creational intent? That's that's the first of the threefold expression of vocational image bearing that you teach.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So um the sort of the the verbs that I like to use are cultivating, restoring, and imagining. And as you said, the the first one is this notion of paying attention to the doctrine of creation, that part of the story. And I think we we work for the uh to cultivate the creational intent of the sector that that we're in. So in other words, um we're not just talking about being a good, honest, you know, uh employee of of a place or or being a kind boss. Those character things are really important, but understanding the nature of the work itself is also uh really important. And and understanding, you know, okay, I'm in the healthcare sector, or I'm in the uh I'm in engineering, or I'm in business. Um, well what what is sort of the what was the purpose of that? God created all things, including all vocations, including all institutions, including all parts of them of the market. Um so what is what is what does that mean? And when I think about that, think about uh a gal that I got to know a little bit while I was writing my book, she's an architect named Jill Kurtz, and uh she's pretty young. She's probably just recently turned 30 or so. And for her, as an architect, um, you know, she kind of looks at the scriptures and says, okay, um, if if I'm to take sort of the doctrine of creation um seriously, what I see is that God created this beautiful, well-designed world in which there was a harmony um between the physical world and the human beings that God put into it. Um and so as an architect, um, you know, I'm involved in in designing the the built environment in which uh human beings uh live. And so for her, very practically what that has looked like is to say, well, if there's supposed to be this harmony, then I need to build buildings that are sort of good for people, right? I I and I need to build buildings that that are built in such a way that they're good for the creation. So she actually was the first architecture student at her architecture school uh who got fully certified in something called um lead certification, which is basically when you learn how to build buildings in a really sort of green-friendly uh way. Um but beyond that, what I've appreciated about uh Jill is that um she's also really given thought, I think, to the institutional sector of architecture. And again, thinking about the doctrine of creation, um not only do you see harmony as a as a beauty and harmony as as values, but you you see this picture of human flourishing. And as an architect, you can contribute to human flourishing, but what if a lot of um people or groups or organizations can't really access the the talent of architects? Um and what Jill discovered in going off and working for a you know a good green design firm out on the West Coast was that you know, this was great. I can pursue my my interest in being an architect that that you know builds green friendly buildings, but boy, um you know, eighty percent of the world can't afford architectural services. You know, this seems to be a problem with our industrial sector. You know, we've we've priced ourselves beyond uh so many people, and there's just lots of Folks in communities around the world that could really, you know, use my talent. So she actually left her job and she and a friend started their own architecture firm. And they have, you know, it's a it's a business market, you know, obviously they have to make a profit, but they've really tried to make their green design services affordable so that, you know, nonprofit organizations, churches, small businesses, missionary organizations, et cetera, um, can um can afford her services. In fact, she calls herself a public interest architect, um, which I think is a wonderful phrase. So so, you know, that I think that for me that's a great story of how she's just thinking really, you know, she's not sort of saying I need to be a good person. You know, she is saying that I need to be a good person as an architect, I need to be friendly with my coworkers. Um, but she's thinking so much more deeply about the work itself.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And so she's not only setting the example for other architects, but as their as their company grows, the company itself and the culture that's put in place is influencing the entire industry and and certainly the community around. And when I think about discipleship, I mean uh the the Great Commission is not just to make disciples of individuals, but but of entire nations, right? And so there are there's every level of organization in between there. And uh and so when I heard you talking about public discipleship, that's what it made me think of and and architectural firms um like hers, you know, public interest architects, and the way that that just that truly does disciple entire companies in it and ultimately I think entire industries. Is that what you're seeing as more people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I I think there's the promise of that. Now, in her particular situation as a young woman, uh she actually is not quite right now as involved in in her business because she's just she and her husband are just started their families, but um what she has thought about is the the institutions that train future generations of architects. And so she's actually gone back to her alma mater and um convinced them to allow her to to teach this special uh January term course uh called Public Interest Architecture. So she's actually sharing her experience and trying to influence the way that that institution, I believe it's Kansas State University, you know, how that school of architecture, you know, is training um the future architects. So she's she's understanding that she has both a role to sort of shine her little light, you know, in the in the sector called architecture through her little firm, but also to shine her little light um by going back to a training institution and and bringing this perspective uh to young people. And it's been very well received. In fact, there's actually a student club now on campus where you know the students are really trying to promote this idea, they're you know, they're doing uh pro bono work for different types of organizations, and it's really been very exciting.
SPEAKER_01I love that. And and so that's cultivating creational intent. And then you talk about restoring institutional set-rightness. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think um if if the cultivating sort of expression um relies heavily on thinking about this notion of the the implications of the doctrine of creation, um the restoring expression um takes very seriously the doctrine of the fall and of redemption or or restoration. And it's essentially, I think, um, asking questions about um what's wrong. Uh you know, I'm in a particular industry or sector. Um where has that become corrupted? Uh we know that the fall was not only about um kind of individual people, you know, not following the rules. Um the the fall was this cosmic um you know comprehensive um situation in it in which corruption sort of is unleashed into the into the world and everything gets broken. Uh and and so the the sectors that that we're in get broken. And um part of what we're called to do is to be discerning about those places of idolatry and corruption and and to call spade a spade and to sort of push back against that darkness and and try to set things uh right. Again, going back to this notion that righteousness is this idea of things being set right. And so um there's a a Hispanic um uh pastor and nonprofit leader in the Philadelphia area, uh gentleman named Luis Cortez, and his nonprofit is involved in a in a variety of things, but one of them is housing and housing finance. And he got into this um in part because um the in their neighborhood they you know know a lot of families, and they were seeing this pattern of systemic uh discrimination against Hispanic families um who were sort of wanting to buy homes, and and they were facing um this systemic discrimination uh from the housing financing sector. So, for example, um a Hispanic home buyer might go into a financial institution with the exact same credit scores and history as a white uh home buyer, but they would end up with a much higher interest uh loan. Uh their homes are much more likely uh to go into foreclosure. Um they often um are abused by lenders who fail to disclose uh certain kinds of you know additional fees or to provide you know all that legal paperwork uh you know in Spanish as well as in English. And so this poor treatment that that he and his staff were seeing uh that many Hispanic families of modest means were experiencing in the housing finance sector made them want to say, you know, this is inequitable, this is an injustice, God is against this. Um we get to participate in trying to set this right. Um and so they've done that, I think, in in two uh important ways, what I would call at sort of a retail and a wholesale level. So at the retail level, retail level, they have themselves uh engaged in uh building homes and in providing uh housing counseling and finance counseling to several thousand families, uh actually helping them to find those companies that that offered fair and reasonable uh financing. Um and so that's making things better for those um, you know, three, four thousand families right there. Um but what Luis Cortez was aware of was that that retail effort needed also to be joined with a wholesale sort of effort by which you have to join with other people and and really seek uh a genuine reform at a more systemic uh level. So he's gotten very active in national policymaking uh on housing finance. Um he partnered with the University of Notre Dame uh to produce some uh scholarly reports that you know have really compiled the evidence of this discrimination and shining the spotlight on it. And then uh he was able to get his nonprofit um officially certified by the Department of Housing and Urban Development as something called a National Housing Counseling uh intermediary. And essentially, without going a lot of detail about that, that has provided a platform uh for this organization called Nueva Esperanza that Luis Cortez um to be a voice working with others to sort of pressure for the needed reforms in that sector in order to set things right. So we won't see this inequitable treatment uh against Hispanic uh home buyers.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_01Such a great example of restoring institutional set rightness when there's when you see an injustice, when you see something that doesn't look like creation, and certainly there are many things, as we talked about earlier, what's going on in Charlottesville, and and really as representative of what's uh happening in our nation with the the racial uh division and acknowledging that that that is uh that is what's happening, but then uh working toward and really getting a a vision of the uh the alone, the the that rightness, the righteousness that was uh that characterized uh the pre-fall. And and so then you talk about you don't just talk about um looking back to creation, but then imagining the work of your sector in the age to come. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think I think this is in some ways the maybe the funnest of the of the three expressions. So you got cultivating, restoring, and then imagining. And just like um with cultivating, you're trying to attend to the doctrine of creation, with restoring, you're trying to attend to the to the notion of the fall, and then the fact that Jesus comes back and says, you know, I'm here to begin to set things right. I'm I'm here to push back the darkness and you know push in the light. I'm here to do that work of renewal. Um, but then you look to the to the fulfillment, to the doctrine of the consummation of the kingdom of God, that that one day um all things truly will be set right, and we will live in this new heaven and this new earth. Uh and and to imagine, well, what you know what's architecture gonna look like in the New Jerusalem? What's uh what's uh housing gonna look like in the new Jerusalem? What's business gonna look like in the in the New Jerusalem? To begin to imagine, um uh imagine those things. And my favorite example of that is a guy that um I met um in Chicago, and he is a home builder. Um his name is Perry Bigelow, and he uh was the founder and uh owner, CEO of a company called Bigelow Homes. He's now retired, and his son is the managing person right now, day-to-day uh over Bigelow Homes. Um, but when I met with Perry uh in Chicago and got to actually walk around one of the neighborhoods that um his company developed, and actually it was a neighborhood that won his company Builder of the Year, which is a very prestigious award, um, it was so delightful to listen to him because essentially what he told me was that, you know, I'm a believer, so I'm you know, I'm in the scriptures, I'm searching the scriptures. Um, now these are my words, not his, but you know, he's a person who's trying to to to please the Lord in all things, right? Please the Lord in everything. And and so he was looking in the scriptures for, you know, what did they teach him about uh community building? Because in a sense, when he thinks about the product and service that his business provides, you know, at at at at the at a kind of big picture level, what does he do? Well he builds he builds neighborhoods. And so he wants to know, well, what does God want neighborhoods to look like? You know, what what are neighborhoods gonna look like in the New Jerusalem? Um and you can actually find some good teaching in the Bible about those things. And for him, one of his uh one of his favorite um sort of visions of this is depicted in in Zechariah 8, where you have this this picture of uh of a coming time um when the the community will be this place of of uh of of safety. Children will be you know playing out in the streets and old people will be kind of like hanging out, you know, chatting uh together. Um and and for him, you know, Peter wants to ask, what what are the things, what are the values and the characteristics of of the New Jerusalem? And how can I design my homes in my neighborhoods um to try to imagine that to the to the best of my ability and to facilitate that. So we're you know, I got to walk around this this neighborhood, and you know, it was marked by homes that had these really big front porches and and really wide sidewalks and really narrow streets, and the streets all had speed bumps, and there was a lot of green space, common spaces, fountains, benches, gazebos, and and all of these things were done very intentionally by Perry because for him he's saying, you know, I want the streets to be safe. I want the kids to be able to play in the streets, literally. Let's put the cars behind the homes. You know, I want the old people out jawing with their neighbors. So I'm putting big front porches so the people are there, they can, you know, call out, wave to their neighbor, have a conversation. I'm making the sidewalk, you know, wide, and I'm making the community beautiful and green and pretty because then people, when the weather's nice, they'll be out and about, they'll be conversing with one another, they'll be enjoying uh the natural environment, they'll be, you know, doing a game of pickup uh soccer or you know, baseball or or whatever. And he he's doing all these things very, you know, very intentionally because these kingdom values of safety and of um of community uh you know really matter to him. Uh another thing that he does is that um he very deliberately um has built his neighborhoods to include um housing options that are at a wide diversity of price ranges. So he has little homes with you know lofts, he's got you know little ranch homes with small yards and nice amenities on the inside, you know, for your your retired folks. He's got big family homes on big lots, uh, lots of places to run around if you got kids. And he does all of that because he wants the the people living in the neighborhood not to all come from the same, you know, income class. You know, he wants to have houses that, you know, better off people can buy, and that first-time, you know, your first-time home buyer who's a fireman, you know, he is he and his wife and his little baby that they can afford a uh a home, or that, you know, a senior citizen can be there, or a young yippie, you know, that wants to have their um little hip little business, you know, on the first floor and then uh a loft apartment above. So he's doing that because he, you know, he sees diversity as a mark of the coming kingdom. And so in all of those ways, um Terry Bigelow at Bigelow Homes um, you know, has tried to actually design his business and his product uh around imagining, you know, what might neighborhoods look like in in the life of the age to come in the New Jerusalem. And it was just fascinating listening to that and and delightful walking around that community. I mean, it was clear to me why it would have won Builder over the year. I mean, I was thinking if it wasn't Chicago and so darn cold in the winter, I'd live there.
SPEAKER_01Wow, you know, and I I think people when they look on the news and they see the the lack of diversity and and and the hatred and all of those things, um it it's easy to kind of feel like there's nothing I can do about it. That this just kind of is the way it is. But then you see somebody like Perry who is uh is uh uh not only advocating for it, but that he is actually doing it. I mean, he's actually bringing cultivating diversity because that's what the kingdom being like. And it may not mean that you necessarily need to go and and buy like an apartment complex or something like that, but I heard a very simple example of of this particular um if you're wanting to cultivate diversity, for example, in your company, uh, which uh ultimately would then deliver to your community uh there in in your meetings. Like let's say that you're leading a management meeting and and he was saying that uh that typically you know at your at your conference table uh half sits on one side, half sits on the other side, and the the kind of silos of the department that kind of fit together in the meeting. And you know, what we did one meeting is we went in there and I told my guys to fit and every other team that came in would have to fit in the car and they walked in and they were about to go into a negotiation and they walked in and just kind of dumped out it. But that was the best negotiation session they had ever had because uh there was they were prepared uh for to think in a diverse way and not just kind of in their own style of experience. But you know, just and just looking for those practical things. Amy, as we wrap it up here, what would be a parting piece of advice that you would like to leave with our listeners about how they can do this in their own sector?
SPEAKER_00I think it would be that um we I think we think best when we're kind of you know sitting around a uh a table of food with a handful of people and we're bouncing stuff after each other. And um and so to get together with other people in your same sector, you know, so you know, if you're an architect, get together with some other architects, if you're a if you're a real estate agent, you know, get together with some other real estate agents, you know, get get together with some people that are in the same, you know, businesses as as you um and who share your desire to you know really live into um this this robust vision of of discipleship and and joining the story of God, um, this this story of working for the the renewal of all things. And and you know, ask each other questions about these things. You know, what what what do you think the creational intent of you know real estate was? You know, what where where where do you think the idolaties uh idolatries and and corruptions are in the uh you know in the healthcare field or in in the educational field? Um, you know, w what what would you imagine you know um an engineer doing in the in the new heaven in New Earth? You know, asking these sorts of questions and you know and pair it with some good food and and pray and think and talk and discuss about these things together and and and sort of spur one another on, you know, towards love and good deeds. Um I I think we we can really spark some good creative ideas when we when we do that sort of thing. And and we need to do it intentionally, you know. Um and if you don't know other people in your field, well, start looking for them, you know. Make make that effort. Um but I think those sorts of uh uh kind of in-sector dialogues can be really helpful.
SPEAKER_01I love that. And and our listeners know that that's what this show is about. It's about helping you to disciple individuals, your company, and ultimately your industry. Because I don't think we can disciple nations until we disciple our industries, which are are a subset of that. And so if you are interested as a listener, if you're interested in getting together with other people in your sector, um you know, I I this is kind of uh I call an audible right here, but contact me through theology at business.com or Darren at hybridgebooks.com, and uh we'll we'll help you get connected uh with other people in your industry so you can begin to have these conversations. Do you have any other ideas on on uh is there another place where people can come, Amy, to engage in that dialogue?
SPEAKER_00I'm working uh with a group called Made to Flourish. Um it's a it's a collection of pastors, um, but uh we it's a very robust website and there's a lot of good stuff on there, including um, you know, articles and thinking about uh how churches can promote this sort of dialogue, you know. For example, taking a semester and and organizing your small groups um, you know, in this kind of way so that people can get to know each other uh and have these sorts of conversations right within the in the congregation. That that's one place. And then um actually here out of the University of Virginia, there's a very interesting thing called the Thriving Cities Project. Uh and the Thriving Cities Project offers a framework for uh thinking uh about uh dialogue, and it's a little bit different because instead of being organized particularly by you know, say engineering versus architecture or whatever, uh it's it's organized by the uh a slightly different framework that they call the six community endowments. Um and in each of these endowments they call them the good, the beautiful, um, the true, the just and well-ordered, the sustainable and the prosperous. And if you go on their website, you'll get a little description of those six domains. And the idea is that there are a number of industries that are in each of those domains. And so another way of sort of organizing this conversation is to gather people together who are kind of all primarily involved in one particular domain and then having the same sort of uh conversation. So those would be two um places I think of of resource on on this uh this kind of topic.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. I'll link up to those in the show notes. And what's the best place for people to hear more from you, Amy?
SPEAKER_00Right now I would say it's probably the Made to Flourish site. Um that's the primary uh kind of place that I'm writing for uh these days. Uh I do have an older website, uh centeronfic.org, which stands for Center on Faithandcommunities.org. The Center on Faith and Communities is the little division within Sagamore that I run. Uh so some of my older stuff is there, but um I actually am very non-techy and I lost my webmaster, so it's it's rather outdated. So people can go there and and see some stuff, but uh for my more contemporary stuff, probably the Made to Flourish website, uh, which is just made the flourish.org, is uh probably the best place.
SPEAKER_01Great. We'll link up to that as well. Uh Amy, thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your expertise, and and may God continue to bless everything you put your mind to. And we certainly continue to pray for your city and for our nation and for the healing, and and and just that God would continually stir our hearts to uh cultivate his creational intent to restore that institutional set right now and imagine of what things will be like in the in the age to come and let that fuse the way we go about working our life.
SPEAKER_00So thank you.