Working with Christian Servant Leadership Spiritual Intelligence: The Foundation of Vocational Success

318 Pages·2016·2.7 MB·English

Working with Christian
Servant Leadership
Spiritual Intelligence
The Foundation of Vocational
Success
Gary E. Roberts
Working with Christian Servant Leadership
Spiritual Intelligence

Gary E.  Roberts
Working with
Christian Servant
Leadership Spiritual
Intelligence
The Foundation of Vocational Success
Gary   E. Roberts
Regent University
Escondido, California, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-58980-4 ISBN 978-1-137-58981-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58981-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935292
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To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who is the author and fi nisher of our
faith and the foundation of this book. I thank my wonderful wife Connie,
my beloved mother Joyce, and sister Sharon, and my precious daughters
Alyssa, Sandra, and Christin for their love and support. I dedicate this book
to my students and colleagues at Regent University with gratitude and
humility.

I
NTRODUCTION
Authentically and passionately honoring the calling that God places on
Christians within the arena of the workplace is one of the great challenges
of faith integrity. A foundational enemy of the Christian faith is compart-
mentalization and the lukewarm state that it generates. The increasing sec-
ularization of modern culture promotes and validates the marginalization
of religious faith, providing a convenient and tempting rationale to adopt
alternative worldviews from moral relativism, utilitarianism, hedonism,
and materialism to Darwinian “survival of the fi ttest” and a plethora of
spiritual, but nonreligious, approaches. The pernicious effect is to create
a climate that promotes cultural norms that reject active faith integration
in an increasing number of settings. However, Christians cannot absolve
themselves of responsibility for being “hearers and doers” of the faith in
the presence of ambivalence to increasingly hostile attitudes and overt or
covert persecution or disapproval. In times of darkness, the light within
every believer should shine more brightly, offering hope to the lost and
broken, and, most importantly, to the smug, complacent, and lukewarm
Christians. Unless Christians can be authentically transformed by the
power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and receive a marketplace anointing,
Christianity and each believer’s personal walk is simply another lifestyle
choice in the supermarket of modern culture. An intellectual faith may “fi t”
contemporary cultural norms and values of compartmentalization, but
there is no persuasive rationale for pursuing a powerless faith for the seeker
and unbeliever. Producing alternatives to “business as usual” is a prime ele-
ment of every Christian’s Great Commission and Great Commandment
charge. Even more troubling is the integrity gap for Christians between
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viii INTRODUCTION
espoused beliefs and actions, contributing greatly to powerful and broadly
internalized negative stereotypes. These include common societal labels
such as “fundamentalist,” “judgmental,” “legalistic,” “intolerant,” and
most adversely, “hypocrite.” The most effi cacious response to cynicism
and persecution is genuine spiritual transformation. The focus of this book
is to introduce a systematic, scripture-based, and Holy Spirit–endowed
framework for integrating faith into the workplace. The scope of this task
is immense, and this effort is a preliminary and incomplete introduction,
but it is vital to marshal the courage to begin the journey. This book is the
fruit of a 12-year personal and professional process of faith integration.
I experienced my personal epiphany with the Holy Spirit in 2001, and
became acutely aware of the need to integrate Christ into all life domains.
In 2003, I accepted a faculty position at Regent University, accepting the
great, fearful, and humbling charge of integrating faith systematically into
my teaching, research, and service as I was learning to work out my sal-
vation with “fear and trembling.” This required my own paradigm shift
in terms of the purpose and nature of work. Based upon my reading,
research, and personal sanctifi cation growth, the Holy Spirit cultivated
an interest in spiritual intelligence, or the means of promoting spirit-led
decision making, problem solving, learning, and growth in the workplace.
I developed devotionals, class assessments, and received grant funding
from Regent University, further refi ning spiritual intelligence assess-
ment instruments used for both diagnostic and developmental purposes.
This book is the fruit of that effort. As the Apostle Paul states, not that we
have perfected, but we continue to strive to achieve and fulfi ll the calling
Christ has on our lives (Philippians 3:12). As we move further into the
end times and closer to Christ’s return, the battle lines and confl ict levels
accelerate. The only Christian that your coworker may know is you, hence
the need to grow in Christ-likeness so we may receive and love God more
purely and become more perfect vessels to bring the light of Christ into
a dark world.
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is a “labor of love” dedicated to my Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ who is the author and fi nisher of our faith and the foundation of all
that is good. As with any worthy effort, the fruit is the product of team
effort and the glory collectively shared and given to God. I thank my
wonderful wife Connie, my beloved mother Joyce, and sister Sharon, and
my precious daughters Alyssa, Sandra, and Christin for their love and sup-
port. I dedicate this to my students and colleagues at Regent University
with gratitude and humility. I am indebted to my able graduate students
who over the years have provided research support, conceptual and practi-
cal validation of spiritual intelligence principles, and, most importantly,
the love and integrity of Christ. They include my gifted son-in-law Scott
Bates and my sister-in-Christ Diane Hess-Hernandez who colabored with
excellence as a graduate assistant and administrative assistant when I was
interim dean, who models and practices spiritual intelligence and served
as a colleague and coauthor in previous publications and presentations.
Diane Hess-Hernandez, Eneami Bestman, Serenity Gingrich, and Michael
Baylous ably conducted the spiritual intelligence interviews. I give God
the glory and my team the fruit, and assume responsibility for any errors
and shortcomings.
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