Career Shift
Theme of the Week: Going for Broke
Christopher Crane & Mike Hamel
Thursday, September 4, 2003
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Key Bible Verse: Commit your work to the Lord, and then your plans will succeed (Proverbs 16:3). Bonus Reading:1 Peter 4:10-11
Being the CEO of a successful company isn't what Paul Klaassen expected to do with his life. "I became a follower of Jesus Christ in college," he recounts, "started a Christian rock band, and eventually married the alto vocalist [Terry Merritt]. After our music days, I'd been accepted at two seminaries when I decided to do eldercare instead—mainly because I saw this work as a ministry."
"Some people have said, 'Wow, what a shift!'" Paul told Assisted Living Success magazine. "[But] pure religion is defined as caring for orphans and widows in their troubles."
As a teenager, Terry came face-to-face with the crisis in eldercare when she and her father cared for her terminally ill mother at home rather than move her to a nursing home. Later, after she married Paul, the couple volunteered at several senior-care facilities and experienced the dark side of eldercare firsthand. They'd also observed a more dignified approach with Paul's relatives in Holland.
The Klaassens obeyed the call to full-time ministry by starting a business: Sunrise Assisted Living. They serve seniors with the zeal of pastors caring for their flocks. [continued 9/5]
—Christopher Crane & Mike Hamel in Executive Influence
My Response: How could my job also become a divine calling?
Thought to Apply: The Moravian symbol [was] a bull, standing between an altar and a plow, below which were the words: "Ready for either."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adapted from Christopher Crane & Mike Hamel, Executive Influence (NavPress, 2002) by permission.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
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Lord, don't let me just put in time. I want to put energy and passion into my work.
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