Last week, I was in LinkedIn and I saw a post from Bernard Looney, the soon-to-be Chief Executive of British Petroleum (BP). Mr. Looney is pictured sitting casually with an open-collared shirt. In his post, he states his interest in using LinkedIn as a platform “to listen and understand your …
Waiting
In the early 1990’s, I was working as an Asian Products Trader for Shell Oil Company. Our trading office was in downtown Houston. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was just starting to open their country to foreign trade, and I received a phone call from a Beijing trader asking if Shell could …
Four Meanings of Work
How do you respond to the question: where do you work? I would state that I worked for Shell in their trading department. Because Shell was a large international corporation with recognizable service stations over much of the developed world, people would quickly grasp both my company and the type …
Ministry Redefined
I worked on an energy trading floor for over twenty years during my professional career. It was a center of financial operations with employees sitting at trading desks lined up in paired rows so that traders, operators and analysts could quickly communicate with each other. Each desk had up to six …
Roots
I was fortunate to work with many highly competent people during my career: graduates from acclaimed universities, PhD’s, patent holders, and managers of Fortune 500 companies. These people were at the top of their respective vocations and I was blessed to work with them. But one doesn’t need these …
Work and Vocation
In the fall of 2014, I started a Master of Theology degree program at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. I retired a few months earlier after 34 years working in energy. When people learned that I was in seminary, I was often asked about why I felt called to be a minister. When I replied that …
Vocations during the Reformation – II
The Reformation (1517–1648) that Luther started spread into the surrounding European countries and manifested itself in various ways. Scriptural interpretation was hotly debated, thousands were martyred for their beliefs, and hundreds of thousands died from wars, diseases, or hunger. Theology was …
Vocations during the Reformation – I
I am fascinated by the Reformation. What started on October 31, 1517 with Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses on a Wittenberg University church door historically ended in 1648 with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia. We can see the effects of the Reformation in America today. A German family …