I went to a Redeemer seminar yesterday to hear Dr. Peter Heslam talk about bringing the world closer to the Kingdom of God through business. Right up my alley no? Because I'm a dork and I have all this time on my hands below are my crude Paint renditions of the diagrams he showed us.
The one on the right is referring to the problem of Poverty, and how it can be pushed out through business with the 4 different types of capital: Institutional, Relational, Moral, and Spiritual. The left describes how Spiritual Capital is foundational to all the others i.e. Spiritual leads to Moral leads to Relational leads to Institutional and Institutional informs Relational informs Moral informs Spiritual. Institutional is all about having good governments, low corruption, free markets and whatnot. It seems counter-intuitive, but studies show that the lower the corruption is, the freer the markets are for a country. Relational is having the intelligence to know how to do business with people aka not screwing people over. It's hard to trade with another country if you're at war. Therefore, peace = good for business. Moral capital is what it sounds like, just being honest since the main currency to keep the economy running is trust (which is what is disintegrating right now). Spiritual capital is really what we Christians know as religion and the Christian life in general, but Dr. Heslam is trying to translate Gospel language to a secular world and chooses to say "Spiritual" for people who are scared of religion in hopes that later on they'll be convicted about the sustainability of their spirituality without religion.He talked about A LOT of interesting points in like 30 minutes. But mainly he talked about the value of bringing us closer to the Kingdom of God through business without necessarily having conversions. That unbeknownst to the Chinese he talks to, who deem Spirituality as Confuscianism, they are living out the will of God by adopting these foundational ideas, and he can be a witness to Jesus in the meantime. It was really cool having to use all the things I'd learned from my development and Colonialism classes at school to understand the bigger picture of what he was saying (I smell another paper). It spoke so deeply to my soul and the dreams I have about the power of business for the glory of God that after talking to Mike Chen (who we all know is such a good listener and was at the seminar) about some of my ideas, I literally wanted to cry (and did so when I admitted it out loud). I am such a friggin' feeler. It's so rare to be able to think and expound upon with others who understand and are working with me to bring about the specific vision God has personally shown me in so many times of insipiration while at school. To similarly think that at the root of Capitalism is evil, but it can be redeemed by the grace of God, that it could work for the good of those who love Him and surrender to Him and then furthermore the world.
I was invited to do a recruitment event for tonight at NYU. I immediately was excited, some may say inexplicably so knowing my experience with work so far. I couldn't quite understand it either. But it's a lot like welcoming freshmen into Navs. It's being transparent and honest and welcoming people into a company (which apparently comes from the latin of "breaking bread together"). And from that vantage point, I'm able to influence my own company as they see that I'm willing to invest in it. It's part of Redeemer's whole thing about being for the city, but not of it.
My co-worker went with me to the 6pm service yesterday too and she responded very well! It was such an answer to prayer. She's a Christian, but I can tell she has idols in her life that she has not really admitted to (don't we all ^_^). I look forward to what God has in store for her and the deepening of her faith.
Obviously, it has been a good birthday season so far (and I've only written the half of it!). God is good and faithful. That would be true anyway even if I had a bad birthday, but it's great to say when it feels so easy. Blessed be His name.
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