Success In The Marketplace Is A Team Sport
Our Mission
To present Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord to business and professional men and to develop Christian business and professional men to carry out the Great Commission.
John 20.21 observes, just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.
Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples has Him restating His purpose for not taking them with Him immediately into heaven. This purpose is lost to most of the Church. Every Christian should ask themselves why they are not immediately transferred to heaven upon their adoption as children of God. After all, parents adopting children don’t really feel they have adopted the child until that child is officially delivered into their arms as their own.
So too, God Whom we call Father, is in heaven while we remain on earth awaiting either His return or our death. Why? The answer is because the children of God are the means of God through whom He adopts the estranged from God to Himself.
Christians are left on earth for one purpose: to share with people God’s love for them through Jesus the Savior and announce their opportunity to become children of God through repentance and faith in God, the Lord Jesus, Who is the Christ. Failure to give our best and most effort to this mission is to fail at obeying God’s will for our lives. This work is the vocation of some but is to be the occupation of all who claim to be children of God.
When we live self-absorbed, self-seeking, self-promoting lives we demonstrate our disobedience to God and our apparent similar need to repent and have faith in Jesus the Savior because He is sending His people to do His work as He was sent from His throne in heaven. How did Jesus do His work?
First, it was the Father’s will not His. Jesus did not come to do His own will but the will of Him Who sent Him. Absolute adherence to the will of God was the way in which Jesus accomplished His work. The will of God, the salvation of the world, must be our primary work as well.
Second, Jesus came to save sinners. Jesus was a friend of sinners. Most Christians separate themselves from sinners failing to realize they are sinning when they do this. Christians see so little fruit among sinners because they place no seed in the midst of sinners. Christians must stop seeking isolation and begin to develop real relationships with people so that they can start winning people into God’s Kingdom.
Finally, the way Jesus became a friend of sinners was through serving people’s needs. Jesus came not to be served, though He is God, but to serve culminating in the surrender of His own life. Christians are to be the servants of all. The greatest Christian is the greatest servant. As we serve people we demonstrate love for people thus drawing people to the love of God.
Christians are to serve at their own expense and inconvenience so that people experience genuine love from God. This is how Jesus served and so we must do the same. The Christian mission is clear, the example has been set, who will obey?
His Opportunities
- Prayer and Bible study occurs every Friday morning at the Coral Gables restaurant in East Lansing from 7am – 8am, feel free to join us.
- CEO's, are you looking for a private group of fellow business owners for encouragement, support, and advice? CBMC offers such a group. Contact Mike at mwinter@cbmc.com for more information.
- CBMC needs your help to continue its ministry to men in the marketplace. Please DONATE
MONDAY MANNA
A service to the business community
A Publication of CBMC International
June 12, 2017
Success In The Marketplace Is A Team Sport
by Robert J. Tamasy
To find a template for success in today’s workplace, we need look no farther than the human body. Illness and disease are often the result of one part of the body not functioning as it should, or not functioning at all. Imagine an otherwise healthy body without a beating heart, or a brain directing the systems of the body. Even if all the other organs were fully functional, life without even one of the major organs would not be possible.
In a similar way, success in the marketplace – individually and corporately – results from many people possessing different strengths, gifts and levels of experience, sharing a common mission.
Recently I had the opportunity to meet with members of a small firm, one-to-one and then as a group, to review their respective traits, strengths, needs for working effectively with others, and their stress behavior when needs are not met. Through the use of an assessment tool called the Birkman Method, they learned a lot about themselves and one another.
One of the greatest benefits of this kind of interaction is learning to value and appreciate each other’s capabilities and differences, and how to work together most effectively, understanding how they can complement one another as they engage in various projects and tasks. Members of this firm learned, as is often the case, the whole can and should be greater than the sum of the parts.
We clearly see this demonstrated in team sports as well, athletes playing their positions and carrying out their assignments, whether on a soccer or football field, basketball court or hockey rink. They all play different roles, but for the team to win they must all do their jobs well.
The team concept is also often presented in the Bible, even though a growing relationship with God is a very personal, individual matter. Here are some principles it cites:
The value of creative friction. Metal rubbing against metal is a time-tested way of sharpening a blade. In like manner, our interaction with one another, even when conflict and seeming chaos result, serves as one of the best ways of planning, evaluating alternatives and discovering new solutions to problems. “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Proverbs 27:17).
The benefit of mutual support. At times, we might feel determined to do things our own way and resist the involvement of others. However, the combined strength, capacity and abilities of two or more people working together invariably proves to be most effective and productive. “Two are better than one, because they have a great return for their work. If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!… A cord of three strands is hard to break” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12).
The importance of shared learning. “Not one of us is as smart as all of us,” the adage tells us. One of the best ways of being an effective team is sharing the insights, wisdom and understanding we have attained and gained from others. “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others” (2 Timothy 2:2).
© 2017. Robert J. Tamasy has written Business at Its Best: Timeless Wisdom from Proverbs for Today’s Workplace; Tufting Legacies; coauthored with David A. Stoddard, The Heart of Mentoring, and edited numerous other books, including Advancing Through Adversity by Mike Landry. Bob’s website is www.bobtamasy-readywriterink.com, and his biweekly blog is: www.bobtamasy.blogspot.com
Click here for the PDF:
