Working with Impact
WHy impact?
We find meaning and joy in work that goes beyond doing no evil and does some good. This is the S in CSR of an organisation having social impact and seeing its responsibility to wider stakeholders in business and the community as well as the shareholders. There is a growing realisation that business can be a force for good in the world by creating and supplying goods and services that change lives for the better and by including more people in gaining value. Our work can make a difference in society when we shape culture and nudge people to make wise choices or when we repair what is broken and restore value that is lacking. Creating systems and solutions that deliver value to those who need it most makes work worth doing.
However, doing good can be seen as unrealistic when there’s a trade-off between grabbing hold of value and giving away value. In a competitive environment where it’s survival of the fittest by tooth and claw, then ‘show me the money’ is a more common phrase than ‘make an impact.’ Impact takes a back seat when quarterly reporting assesses short-term measures and becomes a window dressing exercise that is more about marketing headlines than life change of people.
HOW impact?
For a Christian, making an impact is a great commission because God’s heart is to redeem and restore. Work is a response to the redemptive work of God in us and an opportunity to be involved in the redemptive mission of God. The Chrsitian worker lives in response to knowing forgiveness and adoption not to gain God’s approval by doing good. In view of God’s mercy to us we want to be an ambassador of reconciliation in a world that has rejected God and seek to bring justice and grace into a world of brokenness and selfishness. We work as foreigners in this world who are heading for our new creation home. The identity as an exile prevents us being satisfied that we’ve ‘made it’ to Christendom but also motivates us to go into our context and ‘seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which God has carried us’ (Jeremiah 29:1-7) by adding value to our culture through our work (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). In all we do we seek God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matthew 6) by living distinct lives that bring God’s light (1 Peter 2:12; Matthew 5:13-15) and acting to redeem and restore with a “redemptive edge”. Living for Christ generates impactful value for the sake of his glory.
Making a meaningful impact
A talk at Soul Factor Singapore by
Sam Rhee, Co-Founder & Chairman Endowus, a digital wealth platform
Discussion questions
1. What meaningful impact are you making on people’s lives through your work? What change in the world would you be willing to give your life to?
2. Jesus is described as the Great Redeemer who restores us to God and renews God’s love in us. How does knowing redemption change the motivation for work and the model of work?
3. Read Jeremiah 29:1-6
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.’
How does God want people to live and work? How is peace and prosperity linked to acting with justice and mercy?