ClickCease
Matt Rusten
Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company

Is joy an underrated asset in your leadership? In our latest article, Matt Rusten explores why joy, much like humor, plays a vital role in building a thriving company culture. From increasing team engagement to fostering resilience, joy can transform workplace dynamics and inspire purpose-driven work. Discover three key ways to cultivate joy in your organization and why it’s essential for leaders who seek both results and fulfillment.

Why Joy is Vital for Your Leadership and Company
Business, Faith, Faith at Work
Convene
Do Not Worry

‘Do not worry.’ We’ve read Matthew 6:25-34 in the Sermon on the Mount, but what does that look like on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis? God knows our every worry, fear, and concern – and He can handle it. Many thanks to Darrell Passwater, Convene Forum Team leader, for his encouragement to think about how our lives might be different by truly living out this scriptural principle.

Do Not Worry
Greg Leith
Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the ...

Got a quick minute to chat? I’ve been wanting to share something with you as you lead in the midst of the election cycle in the USA or when your political election takes place in your country. When the dust settles on the election and the new country leader is declared, one thing will still be as true as it is right now. You’ll still be the one leading your firm the day after the election. Your team members will still come to work the day after the winner is declared. They’ll still be looking to you for leadership, for a paycheck, for a sense of community at their workplace.

What do they want most that only you can deliver? It’s meaning. That meaning they’re looking for begins with you and your leadership. To be sure, what Washington DC does actually can impact your business significantly, however, the president of the United States or the leader of any country does not lead your firm. You do. It’s an enterprise entrusted to you to lead as a steward. It’s a place where people look to you for answers, where people want to be part of a team that cares about them and where people want to be valued, appreciated, and loved. The next president of the country will not show up this week at your office to encourage your team, fix a broken piece of equipment, hire the next team member, sell a big account, or cast a bold vision about how your team will reach your goals and impact the culture.

Who Will Lead Your Firm the Day After the Election?
Chip Neidigh
A Safe Place To Fall
A Safe Place To Fall
Dave Ulrich
3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

As we find ourselves mid-October and a blink away from a new calendar year, it is an opportunity to prepare for how we view transitions. Transitions allow for reflection and renewal, for letting go and beginning anew, and for learning from the past and creating the future. Instead of laying out trends for the next year, I would like to comment on a fundamental enabler of any transition: hope. Leaders who want to improve, CEO’s who work toward excellence, HR professionals who aspire to deliver more value, and employees who seek well-being all achieve their transitions by realizing hope.

Hope integrates many of the positive traits that shape transitions for others and matter to me personally: learning, patience, service, faith, humility, optimism, gratitude, and so forth. I send hundreds of formal and informal e-mails every month to invite people to programs, to thank people for attending programs, to check in on those I mentor, and to stay connected to those I care about. I begin almost every one of these notes with “Hope you are well.” Hope is one of my personal desires, tag lines, and biases and an enabler of any transition.

If I could implant one trait in my family, friends, and colleagues who are undergoing continual transition, it would be hope. 

3 Principles of Hope That Enable Transitions

Family

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Turning Pain and Confusion into Hope

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Turning Pain and Confusion into Hope

If you were looking at Sara’s exterior appearance and demeanor, you might assume she would not be open to a conversation about Jesus or faith. However, what was hidden beneath her mask was crying out for everything He offers. 

She was craving hope and longing for peace.  She wanted to know she was valuable and that life would get better - and that was the doorway that led to a meaningful conversation about Jesus. 

Sara didn’t wake us asking spiritual questions.  She was in survival mode. 
But, when someone connected with her pain and listened to her internal cry, she was willing to listen to her new friend share about the God in Heaven who loved her and had a plan for her life. 

In that moment the God conversation became relevant...it wasn’t theology, it was practical, relational, and the benefits of everything Jesus offered were very appealing. 

Sara prayed to receive Christ and excitedly began her new journey with Him. 

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Letting Go Is A Process

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Funerals are always times I reflect on life, particularly the time that has flown by. Eulogies are told and memories of days-gone-by with lifelong family and friends run through my mind. It’s a time when I realize the inescapable finiteness of my human existence. I’m in one of those “seasons of funerals” that tend to come, more often, as I grow older. Besides the corpus in the casket, many of the mourners are aging and/or terminally ill or have someone dear to them in those situations. The reality of mortality weighs heavy in the church. I believe it’s how God prepares us for our own ending—through the experience of the death of others.

Those are moments when everyone in the room deals with the question: “Do I really believe what I say I believe—that I will be swept into the arms of the Lord when I, too, face that threshold?” It’s difficult to let go of who we know and love even though we believe in the eternal presence of God. The pastor’s role as spiritual leader is to remind us of that truth.

If you pause to think, our lives are filled with moments of dying and grieving, and those experiences train our spirit to accept death and move through it to resurrection. It’s the letting go of the familiar--what we know and love—what we can see and touch—with the assurance of a better outcome.

So, it is with our businesses. What we know and love can be projects, employees, processes, assets, or clients that we well know are beyond their useful life. Yet we protest, we cling to memories of vitality, and refuse to let things go.

In his excellent book, “Necessary Endings,” Dr. Henry Cloud explains that endings are necessary for growth—some things die and some must be “killed.” He distinguishes between real and false hope; false hope is when more effort will not bring about different results.

As a Christian business owner, you are the spiritual leader and steward of the company whose role is to navigate through these decisions of life and death to ensure the legacy of the organization.

At Convene, we help by bringing perspective, wise counsel, and encouragement around those decisions—the decisions that can be so hard to let go, even though we know there’s a better place on the other side.

Lessons From My Father

Lessons From My Father

Some days, my dad and I had a rocky relationship. I remember a conversation he and I had while he was at the top of the stairs in my new home. I was 26, married, good job, college degree in hand and convinced I was a pretty wise young man. We’d just had a major disagreement about how I was not happy with his involvement in writing about whether UFOs existed or not. He loved writing about it. I thought he was wasting his life in useless pursuits. With tears welling up in his eyes, he softly said, “I’ve lost my son! I’ve lost my best friend!” The next morning, driving him to the airport for his trip home, he was still teary. He knew that I was not connected to him deeply and that the issue of his writing had created a giant wall between us.