Resources
The books listed here are either free to download or can be purchase by going to the link provided. All documents are free to download.
Click on the + sign next to the title to find the links to download or purchase.
| Title & Author | Language | Links | Tags | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ma Vocation – Un Don De Dieu by Glenn Smith |
Document Description:  A 14 session Bible study series entitled My vocation – gift from God. This is a third edition that we totally rewrote based on the internship programme we did over 2½ years with T@W.
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French | Download This Bible Study Series | |
| Organizational Culture and Change by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample Culture is a dimension not only in the life of countries and ethnic groups but also in organizations. Every organization has a corporate “feeling” or environment that communicates to new and old members what is important and what is permitted. This is true of businesses, small groups, clubs, churches, nonprofit and parachurch organizations. The minute a person walks into the meeting room, the store, the office or the sanctuary, he or she picks up a nonverbal message that is more powerful than such mottoes as “The customer is number one”; “We exist to give extraordinary service”; “This is a friendly, family church.” Culture turns out to be profoundly influential in determining behavior, expressing values and enabling or preventing change. |
English | Download full article (pdf) | |
| Loyalty in a Short-Term World by Peter Curran |
Sample Loyalty in a short-term worldPeter Curran
In a bygone era of stable work structures, when the public sector held many jobs and industries looked invulnerable, loyalty was a two-way street. Many large organizations offered the deal of job security in exchange for loyalty and hard work. If you were loyal to the company by doing your job consistently and conscientiously, doing as you were asked, going the extra mile when necessary, then the company would reciprocate loyalty through security -- continued employment, career progression, and the benefits of lengthening service.
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English | Download full article (pdf) | |
| Business Ethics by David Gill |
Sample Business Ethicsby David W. Gill
Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics (New York:Macmillan, 2005)
1. Introduction
“Business ethics” names both a phenomenon (“the ethics espoused and practiced in business”) and the field of study of that phenomenon (“the serious study of business ethics”). As a branch of ethics (or moral philosophy), business ethics is interested in how judgments of right and wrong, good and bad, moral obligation and responsibility, rights and duties, and the like, are made and justified. As a branch of applied ethics it explores how these judgments are carried out in a specific domain, in this case, that of work, commerce, and economic activity.
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English | Download full article (pdf) | |
| Accurate Weights and Measures by Peter McCaroll |
Sample IntroductionIn Larry Burkett’s Business By The Book1, he opens his chapter on “Discounting Decisions” with a case study of a car salesman. Burkett concludes the case study by quoting Proverbs 11:1 (“The LORD abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.”2) and submitting that the car salesman “has a different weight in his bag for different customers.”3
In this paper I will discuss the Biblical concept of “weights and measures,” and specifically the issue of unfair or differing weights and measures, and try to answer the question “what does it mean to use accurate weights and measures?” To do this I will identify and discuss biblical and background information in order to identify and reflect on essential principles that are contained within the biblical material.
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English | Download full article (.doc) | |
| Day at Work: Love-Recovering the Christian Amateur by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample LOVE: RECOVERING THE AMATEUR STATUS OF THE CHRISTIAN "To discover God in the smallest and most ordinary things, as well as in the greatest, is to possess a rare and sublime faith. To find contentment in the present moment is to relish and adore the divine will in the succession of all the things to be done and suffered which make up the duty to the present moment."
Jean-Pierre De Caussaude[i]
"What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God."
Luther[ii]
"Does God work?" Willie MacMichael asks his father in George Macdonald's book for children. His father answered biblically: "Yes, Willie, it seems to me that God works more than anybody - for He works all night and all day and, if I remember rightly, Jesus tells us somewhere that He works all Sunday too. If He were to stop working, everything would stop being. The sun would stop shining, and the moon and stars; the corn would stop growing; there would be no apples and gooseberries; your eyes would stop seeing; your ears would stop hearing; your fingers couldn't move an inch; and, worst of all your little heart would stop loving." |
English | Download full article (.doc) | |
| Day at Work: Hope-Making Our Mark in Heaven by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample HOPE:
MAKING OUR MARK ON HEAVEN
"How can Christianity call itself catholic if the universe itself is left out?"
Simone Weil[i]
"I cannot think of a greater tragedy than to think that I am at home on earth...."
Malcolm Muggeridge[ii]
"Only the heavenly-minded are of any earthly use."
C.S. Lewis[iii]
Years ago Leslie Newbigin said that "mankind is without any worthwhile end to which the travail of history might lead."[iv] A few believe we are heading into a new world order and paradise on earth but most people nurse a deep foreboding about the future, or refuse to think about it more than they must. The seeming resultlessness of history erodes the nerve of modern persons including, I must add, Christians who have more reason to embrace the future wholeheartedly than anyone. Whether world-weariness and future fright comes from the terrifying prospect of ecological doomsday, or, as is often the case with Christians like the Thessalonians, from the conviction that Jesus will probably come tomorrow, the result is the same for Christians: all work in this world except the so-called "ministry" is viewed as not very significant or enduring. [i]. Quoted in Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion and the Healing of the Global Village, Humpty Dumpty and Us (Minneapolis, Mn.: Winston Press, l979), iv. Check for original reference - footnote 3 in Fox preface. [ii]. Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus Rediscovered....p. [iii]. C.S. Lewis, .....p. [iv]. Leslie Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man...p. |
English | Download full article (.doc) | |
| Day at Work: Faith-Discovering the Soul of Work by R. Paul Stevens |
Sample "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
1 Corinthians 13:13
"We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."
1 Thessalonians 1:3
FAITH: DISCOVERING THE SOUL OF WORK LOVE: RECOVERING THE AMATEUR STATUS OF THE CHRISTIAN HOPE: MAKING OUR MARK ON HEAVEN FAITH: DISCOVERING THE SOUL OF WORK "There is no work better than another to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a souter (cobbler), or an apostle, all are one, as touching the deed, to please God." William Tyndale[i] "Do you like your new job?" It was a foolish question, a very Western question to ask a Kenyan. But Esther had been my student in a rural theological college in East Africa for three years. She had hoped, like the others, upon graduation to be placed as a pastor of a church. Instead she was given the enormously demanding task of being matron for three hundred girls in a boarding school. It was a twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week job with little recognition and limited remuneration. So I had reason to ask. But her answer revealed a deep spirituality, one which I covet for Christians in my home country and myself. She said, "I like it in Jesus." [i]. William Tyndale, "A Parable of the Wicked Mammon," (l527) in Treatises and Portions of Holy Scripture (Cambridge: Parker Society, l848), 98, 104. |
English | Download full article (.doc) | |
| Business as a Calling and Profession Part B by Gordon Preece |
Sample: Having surveyed the relatively positive biblical view of material work and clarified the difference between status wealth then and now and productive wealth, it is important to examine some of the Greek philosophical and historical factors disparaging work and business, against which Protestant notions of vocation subsequently reacted. |
English | Download full article (pdf) | |
| Business as a Calling and Profession Part A by Gordon Preece |
Sample: Note: adapted from the above title in Samuel Gregg and Gordon Preece, Christianity and Entrepreneurship; Protestant and Catholic Thoughts. (St. Leonards NSW: Centre for Independent Studies, 1999) printed here with permission. All Bible references are NRSV unless noted. Introduction A retired Protestant businessman told me recently how he had once spoken about business at an Anglican church only to be told by two young men that a Christian could not possibly be engaged in such a sordid activity. They would not be alone. A large number of Protestant Christians today would be uneasy with the claim that business can be an avenue of one's Christian calling. Given the bad press that many transnational business corporations get, and some deserve, this feeling is understandable. Yet, I will argue, it is ultimately misguided, representing an amnesia about one of Protestantism's great distinctives, the doctrine of the universal calling or vocation of all believers, in whatever biblically lawful places of service these believers find themselves. |
English | Download full article (.doc) |