Objectives

“…I believe that for just about everybody the most fulfilling thing we can do, in the long term, is to focus on our work. By “work,” I’m not just referring to a nine-to-five job. It could be parenting. Or serving on a board. Or volunteering. Many possible things. Anything that contributes good to others is work, regardless if we’re getting paid for it.

And what distracts us most from that kind of work? One of the biggest things is work’s opposite: leisure. Or better put modern society’s infatuation with leisure.

…I’m not against rest, relaxation and fun. I just don’t want you to miss out on the things that matter to you because you’ve unthinkingly bought into our cultural notions of leisure. What I’m against is making leisure your objective. Because if leisure is your objective, it will inevitably displace your higher priorities. That’s a very common problem in our society.

Let me put it this way: Leisure make a great booster to long-term productivity in our pursuit of meaningful goals. But leisure makes a terrible goal in itself.

Leisure doesn’t provide meaning. It provides renewal for other things that do provide meaning.

Preaching Angles: Leisure: Mk 6:31, Ex 20:10, Ecc 3:13, Ps 118:24; Work: Col 3:23, Pr 16:3, Gen 2:15, Pr 18:9; Purpose: Jn 6;27, Col 3:17, M 6:33 Source: Joshua Becker, Things That Matter, Waterbrook, 2022, Page 146-147

Business consultant Morgan Housel claims that the best arguments seldom win the day; it’s the best story that changes minds and hearts. Housel writes:

A truth that applies to many fields, which can frustrate some as much as it energizes others, is that the person who tells the most compelling story wins. Not who has the best idea, or the right answer ...

[For example], the Civil War is probably the most well-documented period in American history. There are thousands of books analyzing every conceivable angle, chronicling every possible detail. But in 1990 Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary became an instant phenomenon, with 39 million viewers and winning 40 major film awards. As many Americans watched Ken Burns’ Civil War in 1990 as watched the Super Bowl that year. And all he did – not to minimize it, because it’s such a feat – is take 130-year-old existing information and wove it into a (very) good story.

It's the same for writer Bill Bryson. His books fly off the shelves, which I understand drives the little-known academics who uncovered the things he writes about crazy. His latest work is basically an anatomy textbook. It has no new information, no discoveries. But it’s so well written – he tells such a good story – that it became an instant bestseller.

This drives you crazy if you assume the world is swayed by facts and objectivity – if you assume the best idea wins … The novelist Richard Powers summarized it this way: “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

About 70 years ago, brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht, fresh from military service in World War II, took over their family's store in Germany, a mining neighborhood of the bombed-out industrial city of Essen. Back then, their stores offered just 250 items, the essentials miners' and steelworkers' families needed to survive—flour, sugar, coffee, butter, bacon, peas, and condensed milk. In the 1950s and '60s, Germany's economic miracle took off, and a wave of glitzy supermarkets selling thousands of items sprouted up to serve the newly affluent middle class. But the brothers didn't flinch. They moved forward with a counter-cultural business model: limit choices and keep it simple.

Then The Wall Street Journal noted the remarkable success of the grocery chain started by Karl and Theo—Aldi.

Dim lighting bounces off brownish-tiled floors. The shelves are sparsely filled with cardboard boxes. Checkout lines stretch to oblivion. There is nothing super about these stores. Yet their owner, German discounter Aldi, is betting billions it can win over spoiled American shoppers. How? By offering them fewer choices—way fewer—than rival retailers.

The unlikely proposition has worked nearly everywhere Aldi has set foot. The company that started from a simple suburban grocery store in Germany's industrial northwest is now one of the biggest retail groups in the world with more than 12,000 locations, businesses in 18 countries and annual revenues over $100 billion (as of 1/25).

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Contentment; Discontentment; Choices; Satisfaction—God may want us to find deep satisfaction through less rather than more choices and options. (2) Parenting—Sometimes parents need to offer there children less rather than more choices.

American essayist, historian, and philosopher Henry David Thoreau wrote: "It is not enough to be industrious. So are the ants." The British science magazine New Scientist put out an issue on the psychology and future of work. One of the articles, "I Work Therefore I Am," cited Brent Rosso, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Management at Montana State University. He penned six unique attributes that help people find meaning in their jobs. Rosso mined hundreds of academic surveys to come up with the list. He believes almost any job can have at least one of the attributes. (Note: attributes copied verbatim because of their brevity)

Authenticity Going to work makes you feel you are accessing your "true self"—maybe that you are following a calling or can be yourself.

Agency You are able to make significant decisions and feel as if you "make a difference." This taps into our desire to believe that we have free will.

Self-Worth Your job makes you feel valuable; you are able to see milestones of achievement, no matter how small.

Purpose You see your work as moving you closer to a strongly held goal. The downside is that you are more likely to sacrifice pay and personal time too.

Belonging It's not what you do, it's who you do it with. You belong to a special group of colleagues, even if your job seems mundane or poorly rewarded.

Transcendence Your job is about sacrifice for a greater cause. Your meaning comes from following this, or perhaps a truly inspirational boss.

Possible Preaching Angles: This would make a fascinating illustration for a sermon on faith and work. It poses the following questions: What drives or motivates you as a worker? What should drive you as a follower of Christ?

American novelist John Grisham was an attorney who hated his job. He wanted to become an author, but he didn't know where to begin. Finally, he decided to start by writing a one-word message to himself on the early-morning squares of his monthly calendar: "Write." Grisham said to himself, "I'm going to get to work sixty minutes early each day, and I'm going to write just one page per day." And that's what he did.

He started getting up an hour earlier during the week and showing up at his desk an hour before the normal start time at his firm. He began writing … and he kept writing. Today, he is one of the most prolific and appreciated novelists of our day. That's the power of even a single word written on a schedule and lived out. What is the single word that you need to write on your weekly, daily, or monthly calendar?

In May 1845, two Royal Navy ships, HMS Terror and Erebus, embarked from London on a voyage with ambitious aims. The mission would forge a passage through the partially mapped channels of northern Canada and pioneer the Northwest Passage. In the process, the mission would also open new trading routes and allow vessels to forgo the dangerous and lengthy passage around Cape Horn. Led by Arctic veteran Sir John Franklin, the ship was equipped with new technology pioneered in Britain—coal-fired engines powering propeller screws for locomotion, and tinned food.

It was a risky trip. Hostile conditions, the use of new technology, and operating beyond the reach of immediate rescue parties meant the expedition was the equivalent of a Victorian-era moon landing. If men, supplies, technology, knowhow, or leadership failed, then deaths could be expected. But if the ship had been properly equipped with the right resources and decisive leadership it would succeed.

In July 1845, the ships sailed out of Baffin Bay and were never heard from again. After two years of silence, the alarm was raised in Britain and rescue ships dispatched. The rescue mission brought back the tragic news—129 men had died in the greatest single disaster in Arctic exploration.

A rough outline became clear. All had started well but the ships had been poorly equipped from the start. The engines were underpowered and much of the tinned food—produced by a contractor who was the lowest bidder—turned out to be rotten. Franklin's ill-equipped ships became prey to tidal movements in ice, leaving men dangerously short of supplies. Someone on the ship had left a terse note stating that Franklin was dead and survivors were abandoning the ships to head south with rowing boats. Eventually one of those rowing boats was discovered—with the skeletons still on it.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) The importance of building the right foundation in our spiritual lives with Christ; (2) Planning; Equipping the saints.

There's a special word for those tightrope walkers who display amazing feats of balance on a high wire—they're called funambulists. In his book Off Balance on Purpose, business leader and funambulist Dan Thurmon writes that these daredevils are constantly making small, critical adjustments, lifting their free leg as a counterweight, raising and lowering arms, adjusting their pole. A good funambulist is never truly at rest or "on balance." As a matter of fact, Thurmon writes, "[They] are perpetually off balance: making adjustments that bring [them] through a point of balance, only to readjust on the other side. Most of these movements are so subtle that they are imperceptible to the audience." They make it all look effortless.

But Thurmon says it's not nearly as easy is looks. So how do they maintain their balance? He continues:

When new students step onto the rope or cable … they almost always begin with the same flawed game plan. They stare downward at the wire to ensure that they have the proper footing. And so they fall … So what is the solution to this dilemma? If you have ever closely watched professional tightrope walkers, you may recall that they never look down at their feet or the wire or to either side at their hands (or the balance pole). Rather, they keep their head up and look forward toward the goal—the faraway platform—in front of them.

A 26-year-old man died after he fell into the frigid waters of the Chicago River. Shortly after midnight, Ken Hoang, a visitor from St. Paul, Minnesota, and two of his friends were taking photos of the river when he dropped his cell phone onto the ice below. He climbed over a railing onto the ice but fell into the water. One of his friends, Laruen Li, then dropped down onto the ice to rescue him but she also slipped into the river. When she yelled for help, another friend also stepped onto the ice and fell into the water, police said.

Ken Hoang was later pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Lauren Li, who had been missing since early Monday morning, was pulled from the water two days later and pronounced dead. The third friend, 23-year-old Phan Hoang, was hospitalized and released. Phan Hoang wrote on his Facebook account: "Life's too short. I hope no one would ever have to go through something so unfortunate such as what has happened [to us]."

The day after the tragedy, NBC Chicago was interviewing people about the tragedy. A young woman said, "I guess I can understand the impulse. Your cell phone is sort of part of you, we are kind of tied to it. But it's only a cell phone. To risk your life is incredible."

Possible Preaching Angles: This young man and his friends risked it all and gave their lives to save a cell phone. This illustration shows what not to risk your life for, but it also sets up a deeper, positive question: What would you risk your life for?

The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter is the modified plane that can haul more cargo than any plane in the world. It weighs about 600,000 pounds and usually requires a runway of 9,200 feet. But in November 2013, a wayward Dreamlifter missed its intended destination of McConnell Air Force Base near Wichita, Kansas. Instead, the jumbo cargo plane landed nine miles north at the wrong airport—the city owned Jabara Airport. Jabara has no control tower and a 6,100-foot runway.

A spokesperson at McConnell Air Force Base—the right airport—said, "The tower was in contact with the pilot … [but] the guy had no clue where he was landing." The pilot told the McConnell radio tower, "Apparently, uh, we, uh, have landed at Beech Factory Airport" (a third airport located between McConnell and Jabara).

Eventually it got sorted out. The aimless pilot finally figured out which wrong airport he had landed his plane. A replacement crew came and, after removing most of the cargo, they were able to take off on the shorter runway and get the plane to McConnell, the right airport.

Possible Preaching Angles: Spiritual Growth; Direction; Goals—This story provides a good way to ask questions like, "Do you know where or where you're headed in your spiritual life? Where do you want to land?" Or "Do you know where you are in your career or with your family life?" Or "Do we know where we're headed as a church?"

Our lives are filled with gadgets we can't use (automatic sprinklers, GPS devices, fancy blenders), instructions we can't follow (labels on medicine bottles, directions for assembling toys or furniture) and forms we can't decipher (tax returns, gym membership contracts, wireless phone bills). Every facet of our lives, even entertainment and recreation, is complicated by an ever-widening array of choices delivered at a frantic pace. Consider:

• More than 2,000,000 apps in the Apple App Store
• 250-plus selections on the Cheesecake Factory menu, and is 20 pages long
• 135 mascaras, 437 lotions and 1,992 fragrances at Sephora.com
• In 1980, the typical credit card contract was about 400 words long. Today, many are 20,000 words.
• One company, PC Pitstop, deliberately buried a clause in its end-user license agreement, offering $1,000 to the first person who emailed the company at a certain address. It took five months and 3,000 sales until someone claimed the money.

But one company has worked hard to counter this complexity trend—the supermarket chain Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's figured out that trying to give people everything is a lousy business model: It overwhelms customers, clutters stores, and undermines the shopping experience. So Trader Joe's offers many fewer products than other supermarkets (about 4,000 items instead of 50,000). But limiting variety doesn't mean bland selections. The company offers customers the best choices possible. Thus, shoppers don't have to sort through dozens of options for jam or mustard or frozen foods.

Does it work? The chain, which has about 350 stores in the U.S., sells an estimated $1,750 in merchandise per square foot, more than double the sales generated per square foot by Whole Foods Market.

Editor’s Note: These statistics have been updated as of 8/2024

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Church Life and Church Programs—When the church needs to simplify its options and programs and focus on what's really important. (2) Personal Spiritual Disciplines or Devotions—The need to pare down the distractions in our life so we can focus on what's really important.

In 1911, Roald Amundsen became the first person to lead a successful expedition to the South Pole. Amundsen was also famous for his incredible commitment to prepare for this expedition. While in his late twenties, Roald Amundsen traveled from Norway to Spain for a two-month sailing trip to earn a master's certificate. It was 1899. He had a nearly two-thousand-mile journey ahead of him. And how did Amundsen make the journey? By carriage? By horse? By ship? By rail? He bicycled.

Amundsen then experimented with eating raw dolphin meat to determine its usefulness as an energy supply. After all, he reasoned, someday he might be shipwrecked, finding himself surrounded by dolphins, so he might as well know if he could eat one.

It was all part of Amundsen's years of building a foundation for his quest, training his body and learning as much as possible from practical experience about what actually worked. Amundsen even made a pilgrimage to apprentice with Eskimos. What better way to learn what worked in polar conditions than to spend time with a people who have hundreds of years of accumulated experience in ice and cold and snow and wind? He learned how Eskimos used dogs to pull sleds. He observed how Eskimos never hurried, moving slowly and steadily, avoiding excessive sweat that could turn to ice in sub-zero temperatures. He adopted Eskimo clothing, loose fitting (to help sweat evaporate) and protective. He systematically practiced Eskimo methods and trained himself for every conceivable situation he might encounter en route to the Pole.

Amundsen's philosophy: You don't wait until you're in an unexpected storm to discover that you need more strength and endurance. You don't wait until you're shipwrecked to determine if you can eat raw dolphin. You don't wait until you're on the Antarctic journey to become a superb skier and dog handler. You prepare with intensity, all the time, so that when conditions turn against you, you can draw from a deep reservoir of strength. And equally, you prepare so that when conditions turn in your favor, you can strike hard.

Nobody who wants to keep on living wakes up one morning and suddenly decides, "I think I'll climb Mount Everest today." Such a monumental assault requires training, preparation, and gear.

Lots of gear.

In fact, experts suggest those who climb Mount Everest should approach it with no fewer than three separate pairs of boots: double plastic climbing boots, fully insulated overboots, and light hiking boots. And yeah—you need crampons, and certainly gaiters, and booties. Plus socks. Wool socks, pile socks, synthetic socks.

Lots of socks.

Tools help keep you alive, so don't scrimp here—you'll want an ice ax, carabiners, ascenders, a rappel device, a climbing harness, trekking poles.

To stay warm, you'll need plenty of good underwear, a pile jacket, pile pants, down pants, a down parka, a Gore-Tex shell with a hood, and probably a bib. Along with your sleeping bag you'll need two different sleeping pads (and a repair kit). Plan on two pairs of synthetic gloves and two pairs of pile mitts or Gore-Tex overmitts. Hand warmers are optional, but you won't regret bringing them.

For your head you'll want a baseball cap or some kind of sun hat, at least a visor …. Many climbers also like to use a neoprene face mask, and make sure you include a headlamp (with plenty of extra bulbs and batteries).

And toilet paper. Please don't forget the toilet paper.

Climbing Everest is a big deal. You need to be prepared. The same is true for other areas of our lives.

Take marriage, for instance. Just as you wouldn't try to scale a mountain without making sure you have what you need, don't enter the most difficult relationship of your life without doing so.

Preaching Angles: (1) Premarital Counseling, Marriage—This story was originally used to motivate engaged couples to prepare for marriage. (2) Preparation, Advent—But this story could also be used to motivate people to prepare for almost any area of their Christian lives, including the spiritual preparation needed for Advent or Christmas.

As an eight-year-old boy growing up in Hawaii, Brian Clay dreamed of winning one of the most prized gold medals in the Olympic games—the decathlon. He accomplished that goal in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

In the decathlon, athletes earn points for their marks in ten events over two days. With a commanding lead going into the last event, the 1,500-meter run, Clay could have just coasted to the finish line and still earned the gold medal. But when Clay was asked when he knew he had the decathlon wrapped up, he surprised me with his reply:

In the last race when I was about 10 feet away from the finish line—that's when I knew I'd won. I'd worked, trained, and competed for eight years to be able to … have the gold [medal] hanging around my neck. And if there was anything those eight years of competition had taught me it was that in competing against the best in the world in ten grueling events, anything can go wrong before you cross the finish line.

I've never competed in the Olympics, but I have competed in life. Like Brian Clay, I've learned that the race isn't over until you cross the finish line. Even in the very last years of life—just short of the finish line—you can continue to be used by God. People still need you. You can still have an impact.

When a mountain is in your way what do you do? Just ask Ramchandra Das, 53, who lives in Bihar, India. In order to access nearby fields for food and work, Das and his fellow villagers had to take a 4.3-mile trek around a mountain. Fed up with the obstacle, Das did something about it. With just a hammer and chisel, he cut a 33-foot-long, 13-foot-wide tunnel through a narrow area of the mountain. It took Das fourteen years to complete the task. And get this: Das isn't the first person to do such a thing. He was inspired by another villager who cut a 393 feet-long, 33 feet-wide, 26 feet-high passage through another mountain so that villagers could reach a local hospital. That man was motivated to do so when his wife died because he was unable to get her to the hospital.

The famous English sculptor Henry Moore was asked a fascinating question by literary critic Donald Hall.

"Now that you are 80, you must know the secret of life. What is it?"

Moore paused ever so slightly, with just enough time to smile before answering. "The secret of life," he mused, "is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do."

In the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, the lead character, Colonel Nicholson, is a prisoner of war in Burma who leads his men to build a bridge for his Japanese captors. Nicholson is an officer of high integrity, dedicated to excellence, a great leader of men–and thus well trained to complete any mission that he is given.

He builds a beautiful bridge. By the film's end, he finds himself in the painful position of defending the bridge from attack by fellow officers who want to destroy it to prevent Japanese trains from using it. There's a chilling moment of realization, right before he detonates the bridge, when Nicholson (Alec Guinness) utters the famous line, "What have I done?" He was so focused on his goal–building the bridge –that he forgot the larger mission of winning the war.

A controversy has arisen in Switzerland regarding the well known St. Bernard dogs and the accompanying St. Bernard hospice that have kept watch over an ancient alpine pass for centuries. The monks at the hospice are trying to find another organization to take care of the large dogs. St. Bernard hospice was founded in 1050 A.D., some 650 years before the first dog showed up. But for the last 300 years the hospice has been mostly about dogs.

Over the years, the hospice and the famous dogs—wearing barrels marked with a red cross—helped more than 200,000 safely cross the 8,000-foot pass. Neither the dogs nor the monks of St. Bernard's have actively worked in rescues for at least 50 years. Faster and safer methods of rescue such as helicopters and emergency personnel have been introduced in the area. The only dog at the hospice currently is a golden retriever, while only four monks remain.

St. Bernard hospice is largely operated for the tourist industry these days. The dogs are only present during the summer months. Father Frederic Gaillard says the decreasing numbers of monks and the hard work required to keep up the dogs are causing St. Bernard's to shift their focus. He says the dogs eat four to five pounds of food daily, and the big energetic dogs need to get out for exercise several times a day. He adds, "We think it's better to spend more of our time listening to people and not just them (the dogs). They take up too much energy. It's people that need us, and that's not well understood."

Vanderlei Lima went to Athens to do what no other Brazilian had ever done—medal in the Olympic marathon. This marathon was special. The runners would retrace the 2,500-year-old route of Phidipedes, the original marathoner.

As Lima neared the last leg of the race, he was in first place, and throngs of flag-waving spectators cheered him on. It was one of those moments where people of various backgrounds put their differences aside. The joyful celebration turned to bewilderment, however, when an eccentric spectator bolted from the crowd and tackled Lima. The assailant, wearing a red, white, and green kilt, did not injure Lima, but the delay dashed Lima's hopes for a gold medal. In the ensuing chaos, Lima lost 20 minutes and two other runners sped by him to win the gold and silver. Despite the unfortunate incident, Lima did not give up.

Following the race Lima expressed this reaction: "I'm not going to cry forever about the incident, although it broke my concentration, but I managed to finish, and the bronze medal in such a difficult marathon is also a great achievement."

If anyone ever competed for pride of homeland, it was Adebe Bikila of Ethiopia. When he was 20, he watched a parade of fellow countrymen returning from the Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. When he asked who these people wearing uniforms with "Ethiopia" stitched across the back were, he was told they had represented the country in the Olympics. That was all he needed to hear. He wanted to be one of them. Already a good athlete, he began to train for the marathon. Soon he displaced the current running hero Wami Biratu and earned a trip to Rome for the 1960 Games. He could now wear that uniform.

In Rome, Bikila did not disappoint his fellow Ethiopians. He didn't just win the gold; he set a new world record of 2:16:2 while running barefoot through the streets of Rome. Asked why he had run without shoes, he said, "I wanted the world to know that my country, Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism." He was the first African to win an Olympic gold medal.