Integrating Your Christian Faith Into Your Business Life - Geneva College
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Integrating Your Christian Faith Into Your Business Life

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Everyday Living Program Spotlight

About three quarters of Americans identify with a Christian religion, according to figures released by Gallup in 2017. The United States is still a predominately Christian nation, and people of faith play a huge role in the country’s economy. Small Business Trends cites a recent study that found the religious goods, services, and institutions that comprise the American faith economy are worth around $1.2 trillion a year, “more than the annual earnings of Apple and Microsoft combined.”

Perhaps your career aspirations involve working in a faith-based hospital, school, or not-for-profit organization. Or, maybe you’re a Christian entrepreneur ready to carve your own path and inspire others to help bring your vision to life. Because Christians try to follow Jesus’ teaching in everything they do – personally, professionally, and privately – integrating your faith into your business practices means holding yourself to a high standard of ethical and moral behavior.

Pursuing a course of studies in Organizational Leadership, such as Geneva College’s Bachelor's in Organizational Leadership program, can help prepare you for a wide range of management, administration, and supervisory roles in today’s complex work environments. You’ll carry your personal code of integrity into every professional action and decision you make, whether that’s in marketing, finances, management, or human resources. You’ll effectively incorporate the deepest parts of your faith into a Christ-based business plan that serves and blesses everyone involved.
Here’s a sampling of some of the things you’ll learn with Geneva’s servant-leader platform:

Moral leadership: With a focus on serving, supporting, and building up others rather than pulling rank or holding office over others, your contribution is characterized by a deep sense of ethics and your vision of a higher purpose. Those who are affiliated with you know without doubt that you put the good of the group before self-interest.

Others are happy to be led by you because they sense and trust your personal integrity, which comes from Jesus’ teachings. You always choose what is right over what is convenient or easy. You consistently demonstrate clear vision, perceptive foresight, and balanced wisdom when making decisions that involve other people or your company’s future.

Community building: You’ll learn the vital role that teambuilding plays in effective leadership and how to create a culture of compassion and mutual support in your company. Studies in effective communications and organizational dynamics provide insight on why people act the way they do and help you identify methods that can improve the behavior and attitudes of organizational members. Exercises in group problem-solving sharpen your leadership skills.

Motivating others: One of your biggest roles and privileges as a leader is to support others in reaching desired goals and actualizing talents and gifts. In an interview with The New York Times, Douglas A. Hicks, author of “Religion and the Workplace,” states that Christians must focus on how business affects people, especially the employees. Do they have meaningful, well-paid work that inspires them, or is it mind-numbing, low-paid drudgery?

“Are people able to live out their own agency by making a contribution in the workplace?” Hicks asks, in keeping with 1 Peter 4:10 NIV: “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
Principles of negotiation: By exploring the basic theoretical models of bargaining, handling conflict, mediation, and consensus-building, you’ll be prepared to interact ethically and fairly with vendors, competitors, and customers.

Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby and a Southern Baptist, told The New York Times in a 2013 interview that the Christian identity of his company affects how it negotiates with vendors: “We’ll negotiate as, ‘Here’s what we’ll pay,’ and leave it at that.” Mr. Green clarified that this does not mean initial offers can’t change, “But we’re not going to intentionally lie in our negotiating.”
Putting Biblical principles before profits and always doing the right thing lets everyone who associates with you trust your stewardship and sincerely desire to be affiliated with you. “When a business places serving others above all else, an environment that facilitates growth and understanding immediately surfaces,” adds Integrity Support in “What does it mean to be a faith-based business?”

If you’d like to learn more about Geneva’s Christian-based, servant-leader platform and our Bachelor of Business AdministrationManagement, or MBA we’d love to chat with you. For more information on how Geneva College can help you pursue your goals for a career in Business, please phone us at 855-979-5563 or email admissions@geneva.edu.

Opinions expressed in the Geneva Blog are those of its contributors and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official position of the College. The Geneva Blog is a place for faculty and contributing writers to express points of view, academic insights, and contribute to national conversations to spark thought, conversation, and the pursuit of truth, in line with our philosophy as a Christian, liberal arts institution.

Jul 16, 2019

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