"Whatever Next...?"           by  Jeremy Clare

                   A few dozen Faith in Business subscribers know me and my story already. I feel I know more of you than that, presumably because of the shared interests which are implied by  being fellow readers. However, the vast majority know nothing of either me or the "Whatever Next....?" story and so I am going to start with some brief biographical notes to set the scene. 

                   I was born in occupied Italy soon after the war and travelled as an infant (with the assistance of my parents I hasten to add!) to Herefordshire where I spent my childhood and happy schooldays, close to the shadow of the beautiful sandstone cathedral in the county town. I joined the Army in 1964 and became a Christian while I was at Sandhurst. I was commissioned into Royal Engineers and commanded troops in Germany, Kenya, Northern Ireland.....and Salisbury Plain. Despite some wonderful moments and much enjoyment, I then decided that a conventional regimental career was not for me. I changed cap-badge (which was difficult to do at the time), became an instructor, an educator and eventually a senior training consultant for the Army. When voluntary redundancy was offered a year or two after the Berlin Wall came down,  I chose to leave military life behind and to "ply my trade" in the big wide world.

            I followed my professional aptitudes and joined a lively young company who did training and development consultancy. They were also engaged in an activity I'd never heard of - it was called "Outplacement". Such a service is normally focused on "placing" people in a new job when they find themselves "out" of one, typically as the result of reorganisation and redundancy. It is now a well-established procedure which good employers provide for their people in such circumstances. Many of those people are asking themselves important questions about what to do next in their lives.

            I started my own business in 1994 and this is where the connections with Ridley Hall start. Two questions dominate the skyline for individuals going through such transitions. The secondary question is "How do I get my next job?" but many want to tackle this one first! The more important primary question is "What do I really want to do?" Unfortunately, this big and significant question often gets overtaken in the heightened emotion and perceived urgency of the situation. My business is devoted to helping people find the answer to both questions and in the right order! "What do I really want to do with the rest of my career/life?" is a worthwhile question for anyone to ask. When it is lined up alongside the question "What does God really want of me?", then our grey matter, our hearts and our spiritual muscles are all in for some aerobics!

            The personal questions raised for me by simultaneously being a Christian, doing commercial consultancy work and having significant inputs into client's life choices led me by a circuitous route to the work of the Ridley Hall Foundation and the founding of a group called Christians in Consultancy. The tale of how the company "Whatever Next.....?" came into being, the origin of the  name and the stories of some of the participants can only be explored properly by reading the book itself, which was started by this first-time author and finished within one week in late 1999. This is significant inasmuch as it indicates the book's relative brevity (100 or so pages) and its relative simplicity. What I want to explore from that is the idea that more of our "social, domestic and business" thinking could be briefer, more simple and more elegant if we followed first principles rather than techniques.

             Where did this last idea come from? Well, initially it came from one to one work with people going through career transitions. Much of the conventional worldly wisdom around this increasingly common situation concentrates on techniques for getting a new job.........but are Christians usually encouraged by the Bible to follow conventional worldly wisdom?  No, more often I believe we are encouraged to think for ourselves from first principles.  We are truly blessed by being able to read some of what Jesus said, but it is worth pondering too on the thought process which preceded his speaking. "What did Jesus have to say about it?" is a classic approach to bible study on issues of work, business and life itself but from what foundational principles was he speaking?

             How Jesus thought about issues, before saying what he said, is fascinating and fundamental. There are two drawbacks to relying solely on what he said. The first is the cross-cultural difficulty we sometimes have with translation, meaning or interpretation. The second is that there are loads of subjects about which Jesus said nothing at all! What God might think about the Internet or e-business can only be extrapolated in some way - Jesus said nothing about them. Because God is eternal he will presumably have an opinion and a view on everything that is happening in the world today. He may or may not share it with us. But if we can learn to think more in Jesus' way we should be able to come up with valid Christian opinions of our own first time............ is that really possible?

            How does this relate to "Whatever Next....?" Well, knowing what to do - short, medium or long term - was something Jesus was good at. He could have done anything he wanted about everything he saw, but he didn't. He wasn't called to a general mission but a specific one. Throughout his work/ministry from Baptism to the Cross, he carefully chose to do specific things in specific circumstances after listening to God. Indeed Jesus tells us several times in John's gospel that he did nothing and said nothing until he knew what his Father wanted - how about that for a first principle in life and business?

            Jesus the man was well able to think creatively, intelligently and imaginatively for himself about all the challenges he met in life. He had access, as indeed we do, to all the resources of God. Yet he never decided to "go it alone". It was his greatest pleasure and indeed his very nature to find out God's will every day, hour by hour, and then to do it. Philippians Chapter 2 in the Authorised Version encourages us to let (allow?) the same mind to be in us that was in Christ Jesus. St Paul implies that such an amazing thing is actually possible and says so in several of his other letters.  This is such an incredible thought - if we do allow that same mind to be in us, then we will presumably think like Jesus thought.

            I'm asking myself more and more "How did he think?" rather than "What did he think?" because if we can gain access to more of his unique "software", with code written by God himself,  then we can use his way of thinking for our own 21st century applications, whether they be social, domestic or business! In writing about Jesus' thoughts, I know that I'm swimming in deep theological waters. I am also writing as a man who longs to develop a daily, working model that simply helps me know how to work with my clients, what to say to them and how to help them. I know that Jesus had such a model and declared it in John Chapter 14 verse 6 - yes, of course, he was and is the model!  I believe he wanted us not only to do what he said, or even to do what he did, but also to think the way he thought.

            I'll finish by sharing what has struck me about Jesus' thinking in his dealings with people. These are only my first thoughts and the quest for a better understanding goes on: He thought -

dependently (on his Father)                    not independently

clearly                                                  not fuzzily or distortedly

timelessly                                              not short-term

gracefully                                              not only logically

helpfully                                                not selfishly

straight                                                  not waveringly

illustratively                                            not always sequentially

simply                                                    not long-windedly

creatively and unusually                           not on tracks                        

lovingly                                                  not judgmentally

freely                                                    not legalistically

perceptively                                           not always obviously

            These dozen characteristics are a constant inspiration and challenge to me as I continue to earn a living from my own business in a tough, complex and commercial world. I am mindful that Jesus worked in the family business for fifteen or more unrecorded years. I often wonder how he thought about his carpentry work, and the earning of a living, in the light of what he knew from early on to be "his Father's business".