278: Faithful Work (Gem with Ross Chapman)

The greatest priority in the kingdom of God is simple and straightforward. Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:30).” That sentence will not surprise a single one of you listening.

But, in my own experience of the Christian life, it has often felt like we majored on loving God with our minds over loving God with our souls, or hearts, or physical strength. We’ve often valued the right ideas over the right sort of heart or fruitful practice. Today, we’ll talk about how we might experience a more creative way of living our lives in God. 

Our guest today is Amy Pierson  and we're chatting about her recent book Makers in a Thinkers’ World. She writes at the intersection of neuroscience, spiritual formation, creativity and lived experience. She speaks from a long journey with Jesus in these practices and disciplines. 

AMY PIERSON is the founder of Burning Heart Workshops (a soul care ministry) and former executive director of the Spiritual Formation Alliance. A writer, speaker, artist, mom, and Gamma of two, Amy lives in the Denver area with her hilarious husband, Bill, and their ridiculous golden retriever.

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

In Anne Lamott's book, Traveling Mercies, she shares the story that led her to take the leap into her own faith journey. It was the story of Abraham and Isaac that caught her attention. The reality and authenticity of Abraham's belief and trust in God's provision compelled her. It led me to ponder and process that moment in Abraham's life. This is where we’re headed today on the Unhurried Living Podcast.

And these are some of the questions we will be addressing: 

If we place ourselves in Abraham’s place, what level of trust might emerge from our own deep place? How far would I go in sacrificing that which I hold most dear? 

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

Sometimes, anxiety rises in my thoughts, emotions, and body as an overwhelming wave. I’m tempted in moments like that to let myself be overcome, whether by allowing anxiety to immobilize me, to chase me away from what God has given me to do, or even to drive me to ways of working that seem to be only thinly aware that God is with me as I work. 

I’ve been learning that over time that anxiety became embedded in my mind, my emotions, even my body. But I’ve also been learning that the peace of Christ can displace anxiety in me. I can learn to let the peace of Christ protect me from anxious worry in the midst of my many concerns. And I wanted to share with you what I’ve been learning, and more about what I wrote in A Non-Anxious Life. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

Spiritual growth is often sparked by great love or deep pain. But so much of our world conspires to keep us too busy to feel loved or to pay attention to our deep feelings. We want to grow, but we aren’t always aware of the points at which God is inviting us forward. We need mentors and tools that will help slow us down to notice God with us, and to see where we may be welcoming the grace of God in our lives and where we may be resisting God’s initiative and work. 

One tool that has helped me immensely over the years is the Enneagram. It’s become rather popular in the church in recent years. My guests today, Bill and Kristi Gaultiere, have written an important book that unpacks this tool titled Healthy Feelings, Thriving Faith: Growing Emotionally and Spiritually through the Enneagram. I really appreciate how they make the Enneagram understandable as a tool for growth. 

Bill and Kristi have been counseling and ministering to people for thirty years. Bill is a psychologist who has served in private practice, co-led a New Life psychiatric day hospital, and pastored churches. Kristi is a marriage and family therapist who has also served in private practice and church ministry. Together they are the founders of Soul Shepherding, a nonprofit ministry to help believers discover their next steps for growing in emotional health and intimacy with Jesus.

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

One-third of our waking lives is spent at work. Work is where we make culture and come into contact with our world. Work is central to God's mission to redeem souls, systems, and structures. And God works through our work to bring hope to the brokenness of our surrounding culture.

The way of Jesus Christ is good news for the world, and that includes the transformation of our ordinary work into a sacred calling. Ross Chapman and Ryan Tafilowski show how work is a way to love God, serve our neighbors, and live the ways of Jesus. With a broader understanding of God's work in the world, we are able to engage our daily work as part of how God makes all things new.

Ross, co-author of Faithful Work: In the Daily Grind with God and for Others, invites you to reflect on the meaning and purpose of your life's work and to transform your work into service to those around you.

Ross Chapman is the CEO of Denver Institute for Faith & Work. He previously founded and served as president and executive director of For Evansville in Evansville, Indiana. He holds a doctorate of ministry in faith, work, economics, and vocation from Fuller Theological Seminary. He lives in the Denver area with his wife, Candace, and their three sons.

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

We’re living in anxious times. I don’t hear anyone saying otherwise. And many feel utterly overwhelmed and powerless against the flood of anxiety that fills our hearts, our minds, our news feeds and our social media communities. 

Two weeks ago my latest book, A Non-Anxious Life, was released. The more I talk with leaders about soul hurry, the more I realize that a very common variety of it is anxiety. I know anxiety has driven a lot of my own work over the years. That kind of busyness may look impressive, but it hasn’t born good, lasting fruit. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

1990 was a momentous & tragic year for me. Sadly, it was the year my dad passed away. His was a traumatic and life-altering death. I was just 26-years-old. 

Unfortunately, my dad’s death was just the beginning of a five-year season of loss. So much to experience by one so young. 

Today, I’ll be sharing with you my journey of loss and how God met me with great grace.

Abiding video referenced in episode.

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

At the turn of the century, Billy Graham said, "I believe that one of the next great moves of God is going to be through believers in the workplace.” In the last few years, I’ve witnessed a powerful work of God’s Spirit in and through men and women who are living their faith in their places of business. 

We are always leaning into the question, “How do I integrate my life of faith and the work of my life? How do I lead from deep-rootedness in God? How do I learn to receive from God all I need to do my work well?” Today, I’m speaking to Barry Rowan, author of The Spiritual Art of Business. It’s the fruit of a life lived in deep communion with God in the context of significant business leadership. 

Barry Rowan is a Harvard Business School graduate who spent his entire career serving in C-Suite roles. He has been instrumental in building and transforming eight businesses, primarily in the technology and communication space, with one selling for $10 billion. His leadership experience spans both private and public companies, including Gogo (the inflight connectivity company), Vonage, Nextel Partners, and Fluke Corporation.

Deeply immersed in Scripture and the classic spiritual writers, Barry is deeply committed to contemplation and prayer which led him to complete a month-long silent retreat immediately following his retirement from a full-time executive career. His friends have dubbed him a “corporate mystic.”

Barry is married to Linda, his wife of over forty-two years, and they have two adult sons. 

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.

I love every part of our church's opening prayer and today I share about the importance of this prayer as well as the multiple sermons that emerge from the truths tucked within. 

Eternal God, heavenly Father, with great joy we thank you for graciously accepting us as living members of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and for feeding us with spiritual food in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. Send us now into the world in peace and mission, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you and others with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Specifically, I want to focus on the ending. Particularly this phrase: “…grant us strength and courage to love and serve you and others with gladness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord.”

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Follow Gem on Instagram and grab a copy of her new book Hold That Thought. You can also join her in the Replenish Community.

“Anything you could do in anxiety, you could do a lot better in peace.” That’s something Dallas Willard said. And it became one of the seeds that grew into my latest book with InterVarsity Press: A Non-Anxious Life: Experiencing the Peace of God’s Presence. It has been the most personal and most difficult book I’ve written so far. And it releases tomorrow!  

I wonder what your anxiety has been like over these last few years. I have to admit that this has been one of the most anxiety-provoking seasons of my life. So writing this book was not a theoretical research project. It was a personal quest for life lived with the Prince of Peace at the center of it. I’m grateful to be able to share with you what I’ve learned.  

This episode is a look at A Non-Anxious Life in a conversation with Michael John Cusick of Restoring the Soul.  Welcome to the Unhurried Living podcast.  

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Connect with Alan on LinkedIn or learn more about Unhurried Living programs on their website. Learn more about Unhurried Leaders membership.