Video Transcript: "Christ-Centered Management"

In this unit, we're going to talk about the biblical standards for management, and I'm going to introduce a concept called Christ centered management. Here's a  pop quiz, which did Jesus emphasize more? Was it management or leadership?  And your first instinct might be management, because man leadership is such a  popular concept. You've heard probably lead like Jesus, and you know, lead  Jesus was the servant leader of all and and there's so much teaching on  leadership. In fact, Christian leadership is literally 100 times more popular than  the concept of Christian management. There are 203 times more books on  Amazon that include the phrase Christian leadership than those that include  Christian management. And Google generates 400,000 search results the last  time I checked for the phrase Christian Leadership Conference. While there are  only 561 search results for Christian management conference, I mean certainly  leadership. The term leadership is far more popular than the idea of  management. In fact, I mean some of the most prominent leadership gurus of  the present day, they will actually tell you, don't be a manager, be a leader,  because managers just care about things, and leaders actually care about  people. And is that the biblical perspective? Is that the way Jesus wanted us to  think about the idea of management, and what are the consequences of our  society's negative view of managers and management. So going back to our  pop quiz here, which did Jesus emphasize more? Was it management or was it  leadership? What was the parable that Jesus told that was explicitly about  leadership. And when I say leadership, I mean about somebody that was in  charge, somebody was taking control, you know, sort of the way that leadership  is presented to us in our modern day, you know, albeit a servant leader, but  nonetheless, this is a person that is, you know, kind of steering the ship and and kind of king of the hill, Jesus, doesn't really give us that, that perspective on the  idea of leadership and the parables. In fact, the main characters in almost all of  Jesus's parables are the leaders, not necessarily in the way that we tend to think about it in a modern day, they were managers. And here are some of the  examples of some of those parables in which the main characters are  managers. The parable the talents you got the tares you got, the parable of the  mustard seed. You got the sheep and the goats, the faithful servant, the unjust  steward, the unforgiving servant, the lost coin, drawing the net, the 10 virgins,  the growing seed, all of these, and all of these. The main character is a  manager, a resource manager, a financial manager, maybe a business  manager, but as a manager, nonetheless, I think the Lord is getting at something here, that this is the way he wants us to think about ourselves, as stewards, not  as sort of the leader that is out in front of The pack that's kind of taken charge.  That's the one that everybody looks up to. But as the manager, the one that  understands that we have nothing, that we have not first been given from God,  that truly he is the leader. We are following his lead. We are the manager of the  directives that he gives us, and certainly in many cases, we then pass on those 

directives to the people that that follow us. And Paul says, If you want a good  heart for Christian leadership, as Paul said in I Corinthians 11:1 Imitate me as I  imitate Christ. That's what leadership is all about. But it's really first and foremost about being a follower. It's really first and foremost about being a manager, not a leader, first and foremost. So I've thrown around this idea of stewardship. This is really what we mean by the idea of management, but it flows from this  understanding that God owns it all. Stewardship is about managing in business,  in a business context, as though God owns it all. Why do we know God owns it  all? Psalm 24:1 tells us the Earth. Is the Lord's and all it contains the world and  those who dwell in it, For we brought nothing into this world, and we can take  nothing out. What do you have that you did not receive? These are all rhetorical  questions that God is asking us. I mean, obviously we brought nothing into this  world, and we will bring nothing out of it. Certainly. We lay up treasures in  heaven. But in terms of material possessions, you know, the the things that in  your business that you feel like you just have to have the death grip on because  nobody can do it better than you. You're not going to you're not going to take  that with you when you die. It's going to be the people that remain in that  business that are going to continue on. We need to do business and manage  with that mindset. In I Corinthians 3:22-23 and then continuing on in verse of two of chapter four, Paul says, All things belong to you, and you belong to Christ. So  we've been entrusted with an incredible amount of responsibility, and Christ  belongs to God. It is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy. And this is a remarkable thing about being a child of God, when you think about the  reality that not only does God love you, but that God trusts you, it says in I  Corinthians 13:7, that love always trusts, and this is the God kind of love that  always trusts so he doesn't just love you the way that you love your crazy uncle,  like you just sort of tolerate the person. He loves you so much that he has  entrusted everything to you and and that's this is what a word told here, all  things belong to you, and you belong to Christ. And elsewhere in the New  Testament, we read that all things pertaining to life and godliness have been  entrusted to us, heavenly blessings and blessings in heavenly places have been entrusted to us. We have nothing that we have not first received because, and  this is because God trusts us as his managers of what he has created. So what  are the benefits of a Christ centered approach to management? Number one, it  breaks the I'm the master mentality. It breaks that humanistic, if it's to be, it's up  to me mentality, and that is so liberating, knowing that we can partner with the  God of the universe in our business endeavors, knowing that we don't have to  go it alone, it helps us to focus on being faithful and effective, rather than on  being important and significant and and so that you don't have to feel a sense  that you have to kind of go down in history as this amazing leader, like, you  know, whoever you want to whoever in your industry or in your sphere of of  interest, is the leader that really stands out as the one that you really want to be 

like. You don't have to focus on being the significant one. You just focus on  being a faithful steward and being effective with what God has entrusted to you  and the way that he has called you to manage whatever it is that He has given  to you. Because, again, you don't have to worry about trying to be this legendary leader. All you need to focus on is the way that Jesus taught in his parables with  the manager being the main character. That's the way that he wants you to see  yourself, and he wants you to see yourself as being a faithful manager. At that  being a Christ centered manager also increases our influence and authority. And you see this in the parable of the Minas he's in Luke 19. You see it in the parable the talents and Matthew 25 where the faithful steward was entrusted with more  responsibility, with cities with more talents, with more money, with more  resources, in some cases, because faithful stewardship, it results in increased  influence and authority, and with that comes responsibility. And so now in the  next segment, I want to talk about how to become a Christ centered business  manager.