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Work should be joyful and fulfilling. We want to provide that opportunity for refugees through Atlanta recruiting services, but we want to offer great content as well. The following guest post was compiled for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.”

Rejoice at Work

Each weekday when I enter the workplace I naively hope this will be a day free from problems, issues, or emergencies. Invariably my yearning for that one, rare, trouble-free day is dashed, sometimes with a very difficult emergency!

I have come to realize, the real problem is not the troubles I face, but with my response to them. My normal response ranges from aggravation to anger, but those are not biblical.

Consider the events of Acts 16. Paul & Silas are in Philippi, carrying the Gospel to the Gentiles. An Angry Mob drags them to the magistrate and they are severely beaten and thrown into jail. The jailer locks their legs in stocks. Paul & Silas are in a very bleak situation: beaten, bloodied, imprisoned, and locked in chains.

Somehow they respond by praising God and rejoicing! And God responds by bringing the jailer and his whole family to salvation!

Just as they did, rejoice in the situations the marketplace brings your way. Thank God, not just IN bad circumstances, but FOR them, because therein reside the best opportunities to represent Christ.

Scott Emmons is a Civil Engineer as well as Lead Pastor at Trinity Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

The following guest post may seem like it has nothing to do with staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refugee workforce. However, we desire to be more than just an Atlanta recruiting firm, but to also provide great content. The project was published with the YouVersion Bible App and entitled “Bible on Business.”

A Biblical Role Model

We are called to love God and neighbor – among all peoples. So we should do business for God and the common good. This was also a foundational principle for the Quakers even centuries ago, who started many long-standing businesses, like Cadbury’s chocolate.

Pope John Paul II stated a business firm needs to make a profit and it should be “at the service of the whole of society.”

Thus we should aim at multiple bottom-lines and also serve multiple stakeholders. Business shall serve people, be good stewards of the planet, align with God’s purposes and make a profit.

The Bible portrays a businesswoman as a role model; she shaped her business for God and for good. Let’s look at some verses in Proverbs 31 and translate them into modern day business language:

She considers a field and buys it; she does a market assessment and invests. Out of her earnings she plants a vineyard. She makes a profit and reinvests. She sees that her trading is profitable, she keeps books and manages cash flow. She makes linen garments and sells them, she is involved in manufacturing and retail and supplies the merchants with sashes. She has set up a supply chain.

She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. She uses part of profit for charitable work. She provides food for her family. She is the breadwinner of the family and portions for her staff and provides employment.

Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate. Her work in business should be recognized and is certainly commendable.

We pray: Lord help us to follow you in the marketplace – to the ends of the earth; loving God and serving people through business!

Mats Tunehag hails from Sweden and is a leader in the Business As Mission movement. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

We undertook a huge project recently to compile a devotional on business for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.” Our main focus is staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refugee workforce. Additionally, we want to provide great content for business owners which is why we tackled this project. The following is a guest post from this series.

What would an organization look like if it were a manifestation of the Kingdom of God on earth?

The Kingdom of God manifest in my business would affect not only the day to day operations, but also the way I care for the spiritual journey of my staff and clients. I’ve listed a few specific examples of how my business could best reflect Christ:

• Ensuring the business as a whole has a positive impact on the world
• Excellence in our products and services
• All staff are paid fairly
• All staff have an opportunity to learn and progress, even if that means moving to another company
• Compassion and mercy are shown to staff and clients if they suffer difficult circumstances in their personal lives
• Ensuring a positive and healthy work environment – physical as well as emotional
• What is right is put ahead of what is profitable
• Turning the other cheek, instead of “going for the jugular” – Avoid Revenge
• Remaining humble and grounded
• Always marketing with integrity; under promising and over delivering
• Avoiding workaholic behavior, mitigate burnout

How does your workplace measure up?

For me, seeking the Kingdom of God to be manifested in my business is a daily pursuit. Therefore, I will continue to pray as Christ taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

Heather Maloney is the founder of Contact Point IT Services and resides in Melbourne, Australia. Follow along with Heather on Twitter at @ContactPoint. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

Why does an Atlanta recruiting company need  a blog? Good question. We believe we can have impact beyond staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refugee workforce. We can also provide great content like the following guest post from a project we compiled for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.”

How to Forecast

I was once part of a team evaluating the idea of a new luxury lodge hotel in Western North Carolina. The facility wasn’t to be a mere Ritz-Carlton but a super-luxury, experience-driven hotel for the ultra-wealthy. Nothing like it had ever been done before anywhere near this location. The leader of the team believed in the famous movie line, “if we build it, they will come.”

Despite the data which indicated this clientele did not travel to this location, leadership believed fundamental U.S. travel patterns could be changed through this vision. A strategic plan was created, a world-class architect was engaged, financial projections were assembled, and a “pitch” was made to a billionaire Texas family to invest in the project.

Hopes were high and all the right pieces seemed to be in place. And then the project died. After what seemed to be a sure partnership following the pitch, the investor went silent. Funds ran out to continue the plan and additional market data poured in overwhelmingly unsupportive of the idea. So what happened?

The book of Proverbs may reveal the answer. In life and in business, there is no more practical book than this one. And of all the verses in Proverbs, there are few others that have been as profoundly impacting in my short business career.

The author describes a radical shift in focus, trust, and confidence for the business professional. Instead of leaning or relying on your own intellect, skill, wisdom, insight, team, board, employees or market forces, we are to lean on the Lord.

How much does a person lean? With ALL of the heart and mind.

When is it appropriate to lean on Him? In ALL of your ways or, said differently, in EVERY decision, plan, forecast, meeting, presentation, interview, conversation, etc. At all times and in everything we do.

What is the net result? HE WILL guide and direct your paths to be plain, evident and straight. This is a promise.

In submitting to the Lord, we acknowledge His supreme wisdom and insight and can be counted as a true disciple of Christ.

Scott Denbow works in Real Estate Investment Management and resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

The following guest post from a devotion we compile for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business” makes some great points on profit. Though we are a for-profit Atlanta recruiting firm, our passion is staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refugee workforce.

On Profit

Far too often, there is an undertone I hear from Christian business people positioning profit as a bad thing or a sign they have somehow been corrupted. This passage reminds us, primarily, all things are of God and from God.

The manna the people of Israel ate was a direct gift from the hand of God. They did nothing to earn it and did nothing to produce it. The bread and the grain were also gifts from God, but from Him through the hands of the people.

In the same way, profit comes to us as a blessing. I have argued that profit is not the purpose of business, with clients for years; it is the beneficial result of work well done.

If we focus on profit alone, we are likely to have a very short-term focus and make some very poor decisions. So, like the people of Israel as they cross the Jordan and enter Canaan, we as business people are to be co-laborers with God and deliver excellence and quality at every turn.

If we engage in business in this way, and really understand our clients, we will earn a profit – just as God plans it. Profit allows us to grow the business, hire more people, and generally advance the full range of our objectives: spiritual, economic, social and environmental.

Pray to God, not for profit per se, but for the wisdom and drive to run your business well and merit the financial increase.

Peter Dickens is an entrepreneur, author of Leading in Disorienting Times and Director of the Tyndale Leadership Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

Working alongside various staff members means we encounter all types of cultures and beliefs. In the same way, we experience all types of backgrounds while  staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refugee workforce. More than Atlanta recruiting, we desire to provide great content. The following guest post was compiled for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.”

Work Relationships

I really didn’t think I had time for the board meeting but I had invested in this company so I made the trip to California. My flight was filled with e-mails and the beautiful drive north of San Francisco was consumed by phone calls. The board meeting was uneventful and I wondered if I should have made the time to come all the way to the West Coast.

After the meeting we went to dinner with a member of our advisory board, a robust man in his 80s who had been a renowned architect a few years earlier and now had retired to his ranch on the Russian River in Northern California.

Over dinner, our conversation moved to talking about world peace and a solution to global conflict. My architect friend proposed designing a city with a perfect environment for collaboration among its inhabitants. I proposed a model where everyone would be focused on serving God, serving each other, and following Jesus. He accused me and other Christians of thinking we were the only ones who knew the truth.

The truth discussion led us down the path of what Jesus said and I quickly realized my friend had never read the Bible. So, when I returned home I bought him a Bible and sent it to him asking him to accept the gift and read the book of John.

Several weeks later, he responded, thanking me for the gift and informing me he had read two thirds of the entire Bible and was enjoying connecting with his Creator!

This whole conversation was a gift from God and I almost missed this opportunity because I was so focused on my own obligations.

So what “good works” has God prepared for you today?

Durwood Snead spent 26 years is business and is currently the Director of GlobalX at North Point Ministries. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

We all have relationships at work. We provide Atlanta recruiting services to place refugees into those relationships. We also desire to impact business people through great content. The following is a guest post compiled for a devotional with the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.”

Work Relationships

Have you ever asked God why He’s placed the people you work with in your life? As business people we are obliged to fill our busy agendas to make profits, but as business people serving God, we also have the duty to stop and reflect about the people God has put around us.

Much of our company’s present business admin staff has been with us since the day we first opened our doors and the majority of them started on the sales floor of our stores. The retail industry is known to have high turnover, but I have been blessed to develop great relationships with our team and see them grow.

They teach me as much as I teach them. Their ideas, enthusiasm and hard work make me excited to go to work every day. I feel very blessed to be able to pray with them and share life with them in our workplace even though some of them don’t share all of my core values.

It can be easy to dismiss people with our busy agendas or prideful attitude because we reach a certain status within a company, but this is not what God intended for us as Christian businesspeople. He wants us to be influenced by Him so our lives, our decisions and our business philosophy can influence others and help them understand there is a merciful and loving God who will provide for every one of our needs.

Ask God to help you sharpen those he’s placed around you in their work and in their spirit.

Pouring out God’s love, wisdom and mercy into our colleagues, employees and suppliers is a beautiful form of worship. What if you become the instrument, through which a person meets our Lord Jesus Christ?

Merari Pena is the CEO of Forever Crystals and resides in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

We are all motivated by different things. For us, its staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refugee workforce. We also believe the Bible can provide motivation for our work. That’s why we compiled a devotional with the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.” This is a guest post from this project.

Motivation

My stepfather, Vickers Neugent, was the District Attorney in South Georgia where I was raised. We entered each other’s lives during my teenage years which was no picnic for either of us. He answered questions with questions or a stinging response – typical for a lawyer.

One afternoon, Vick was sharing his opinion on my knack for manipulating situations in my favor. I thought he was being complimentary until he concluded bluntly, “I’ve put many a man just like you in prison.”

Ouch. Actually, it was more confusing than hurtful. I could not understand how all these “gifts” I was fine tuning could be confused with the criminal element. Years of experience and maturity have shed light on the subject. Paul’s letter to the first church at Philippi clarifies matters even more.

We all know talented people who have used their abilities for immoral or criminal purposes. Others use their expertise for excellent causes or for building distinguished and profitable enterprises, but the motivation is all about personal gain. The difference in becoming someone who does the very best with his or her talents, for the right reasons, is leadership’s most important ingredient – motivation.

Paul cites “humility” as the correct motivator, the kind of humility where a person considers themselves secondary to the needs of others. This mirrors the command of Christ to love one another as He loves us. This guiding principle of humble love helps set a standard for decision making in business from customer support, to pricing, to employee benefits, to growth strategies and beyond. Internalized and personally adopted, this norm creates success for everyone.

Dalton Sirmans is the CEO of Mainstreet Technologies based in Atlanta, Georgia. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

We desire to be more than an Atlanta recruiting company. We also want to deliver engaging content to business people through our blog. The following guest post was compiled for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.”

Competitive Advantage

Noah is given the highest of all accolades – the biblical testimony that he was “a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time…”

Compared with our day, we may be tempted to think Noah had it easy, that he lived in “a simpler age”, without “the good, the bad and the ugly” face of globalization, without “destructive innovation” and without our breathless pace of change affecting everything from labor to finance, supply chains to margins.

Noah’s generation, we imagine, was without the gut-wrenching ethical, emotional and practical challenges of stem-cell research, dealing with Alzheimer’s, workplace morality, parenting, and human sexuality. He didn’t have to live with the fear of terrorism, climate change or nuclear devastation. Bureaucratic complexities of taxation, visas, and other regulatory impediments were unknown, we gather.

However, a more careful reflection on Noah’s generation – to which the scriptures also testify – reveals murder, rape, unbridled revenge, cruel labor, religious pluralism, the gender wars, terrifying tribal conflicts, environmental degradation, and sinister, poisonous thoughts pitting one man against his fellow, whether family or neighbor. Hardly an idyllic, pristine living situation!

As with Noah, we live in a unique generation, with unique challenges. We don’t get to choose the cards we are dealt, yet all of us are called to be blameless among the people of our day. What was Noah’s secret – and what can be ours?

It’s so deceptively simple that we convince ourselves it can’t be enough: Noah walked faithfully with God. Surrounded by men, he “practiced the presence” as Brother Lawrence would put it.

It wasn’t that he was so heavenly minded, he was of no earthly good. Among his other skills, he made a decent wine! And leading the construction of a ship 1 ½ football fields in length, and proportionally wide and high was no easy feat, either.

Noah lived his conscience, shaped by a relationship with God. In capturing and living the mystery of “being in the world yet not of the world” he is an example for us as people of business, in any season of our lives.

Craig Shugart is the CEO of a global investment fund operating throughout Asia. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.

The following guest post discusses a very common passage of scripture but manages to consider a unique perspective. In the same way, we look at Atlanta recruiting with a slightly different perspective. Staffing Atlanta companies with the talented refuge workforce is quite a niche. It allows us to serve a vulnerable people group with dignity and integrity. However, we want to be more than an Atlanta recruiting firm. We want to provide inspiring content to business people and help them identify the Bible as a source of wisdom for the workplace. This post represents one of an entire series compiled for the YouVersion Bible App entitled “Bible on Business.”

There’s Room in my Inn

When Jesus asks the question, “which of the three had mercy on the man?” we logically assume He is referring to the Priest, Levite, or Samaritan. But there is one other character often overlooked in this story – the innkeeper, a Jewish businessman running a hotel on the Jericho Road.

It’s easy to miss that the innkeeper made a decision to care for the injured man and engage with the Samaritan in a way that clearly was not good business. Jews hated Samaritans. They considered them “half breeds.” If people learned of what the innkeeper did, he’d develop a reputation that he and his inn welcomed “those hated people.” Certainly, his business would have gone down the drain.

And yet something motivated him to use his business as a platform for mercy and justice. There was no indication that he resisted; rather, he welcomed them. This time we see an innkeeper had room in his inn!

How can you use your work as a platform for justice?

David Spickard is the CEO of Jobs for Life based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Connect with David on Twitter at @davidbspickard. Compiled by Amplio Recruiting.