Category: Business

Preparing the Preacher

a man talking on a microphone while holding a bible
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The nature of man is to be part of a group rather than just an individual. As such, human nature is to communicate. Tomes have been written on proclaiming Christ through our sermons, but less on proclaiming Christ through our person. This article describes how to prepare the preacher to preach most powerfully.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Any man who has stood behind a pulpit in front of a group of God’s people has felt the yearning to be a perfect preacher. In our weaker moments, that yearning may be caused by the preacher’s desire for the listeners’ acclaim. In our stronger moments, that yearning may be caused by the preacher’s passion for his Lord, and a desperation to lead others to share that passion. But God does not honor His followers when they do not honor Him, so to be a powerful preacher, one must be a powerful Christian.

The thoughts of other preachers over the centuries can be useful in our spiritual preparation to preach today. My thanks to Colin S. Smith for compiling many of these quotations for the Basics Conference in May 2003.

Philips Brooks (Lectures in Preaching, p 5), said “Preaching is the bringing of truth through personality”

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Gender – A Biblical View

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A lava flow of anger, resentment, bitterness, and lies covers the landscape on issues of gender and sexual identity in Western culture in the 21st century. Some people believe in multiple, self-directed genders unrelated to biology while others believe in two genders, male and female, fixed by biology, culture, and ultimately God. What does the Bible say?

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Sexual practices and gender identity have become hot issues in the United States and elsewhere. The “culture wars” pit those holding to traditional social norms against those who believe that such norms are oppressive. Followers of Jesus Christ need to know what God says about gender from both sources of revelation, Creation and the Bible. Finally, Christians must do what He commands, both in their own lives and in dealing with and teaching others.

Sex as an act or as an identity

For every culture in most of human history, sex was an identity conferred by one’s immutable biology and confirmed by one’s culture. The word “gender” was rarely used concerning people until the mid-20th century. The day-to-day living out of one’s sex was called sex because biology was so closely tied to identity and activity. Gender was primarily used in language studies. Only in the past several decades has the word gender been applied to sexual identity in opposition to sex.

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Fundraising for Performing Arts Organizations

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The arts are a vital part of life, and music is the most widely used art of all. Rural areas sometimes lack the people or the funds for art and music programs, so locals fill in the gaps. This article presents a sound course of action for organizations interested in improving their fundraising.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

The arts are shrinking in America. Schools are limiting or canceling art and music programs due to budget constraints. Ordinary men and women are visiting performances and art displays less and less.[1] Yet the arts have powerful positive effects on those who experience them. Arts organizations across America seek to reverse these trends, but they must have money and other resources to do it.

The foundation of fundraising in any organization is to be good at what you do. Just as an artist must make beautiful art and a musician beautiful sound, an organization must have its own kind of beauty. Top leadership in musical organizations must have a clear and compelling mission and vision and communicate well. Lower levels of leadership must direct their teams to recruit fine performers and produce excellent shows. Team members must perform their tasks, however large or small, with aplomb. Donors will not donate to, and concertgoers will not patronize, an organization unworthy of support. Administrative excellence is paramount to make the magic of music and other performing arts.

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Paul, Leadership Under Fire

Leadership under fire in Corinth
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The Apostle Paul faced a tough task in writing to the wayward Corinthian church, bringing them back to the Lord while they assailed him. In a time when leadership is under fire across the globe, Paul can shed some light.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Corinth was a hotbed of scum and villainy in the first century Roman Empire. Located on a narrow strip of land between the Aegean and Adriatic Seas, Corinth grew rich and fat on the wares of merchantmen passing between the east and west of the Empire. In the AD 40s, God used Paul and his companions to plant a church in Corinth (Acts 18). Though it grew, the church stumbled from sin to sin and heresy to heresy. Writing from Ephesus in about AD 55, Paul confronted his wayward church in 1 Corinthians. The list of sins was long:

  1. The Corinthians abandoned Christian unity and were riven with internal strife (Acts 1).
  2. They were competing for status among themselves (Acts 1).
  3. They were abandoning godly wisdom in favor of worldly wisdom (Acts 1).
  4. They were denying the work of the Spirit (Acts 2).
  5. They were boasting in men (Acts 3)
  6. They were judging each other harshly at times and weakly at other times (Acts 4)
  7. They were tolerating blatant sexual sin (Acts 5).
  8. They were suing each other in secular courts (Acts 6).
  9. They were denying intimacy to their spouses, divorcing, committing adultery, and simultaneously emphasizing marriage over mission (Acts 7).
  10. They were using their Christian freedom without care for how their conduct harmed others (Acts 8).

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Taxes in the Bible

Taxes in the Bible
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The Bible has much to say about, and many examples of, taxes. God’s plan for taxation in ancient Israel was compassionate, effective, and limited. Modern thinkers, policy makers, and voters would do well to move American, Western, and world tax and government policies closer to what our ancestors would recognize, the taxes in the Bible.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

Governments, like people, have always tried to procure as many resources as possible from everywhere they could. Resources ranged from beautiful things (seashells, beads, precious metals, precious stones) to products (grain, wine, cotton) to labor (forced labor, slavery). Taxation is, by definition, involuntary. Freewill offerings, such as what the Hebrews gave to build the tabernacle (Exodus 35:20-35), are not included in this discussion.

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Recent Studies in Behavioral Finance

Behavioral finance was on full display in the Tulip bubble
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Most people in the field of finance assume that people act rationally. But research and life experience suggest otherwise, at least some of the time. What are some recent research findings on how our hearts cloud our heads? How can we minimize the irrational parts of our decision making in finance? We need to look at studies in behavioral finance.

By Mark D. Harris, MD, MPH, MBA, MDiv, ThM, PhD, DBA

The Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH) suggests that all the available information about a publicly traded company that is pertinent to investing in that company is contained in the stock price at any point in time (Vasileiou, 2020). Insofar as this is true, investors are rational actors who make investment decisions solely on rational grounds. However, company stock prices sometimes are higher or lower than one would expect based on purely objective valuations. This fact suggests that something besides rationality is present in company stock prices.

To explain market behavior beyond the purely rational, researchers turn to behavioral finance. Growing out of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, one of behavioral finances’ primary observations is that “investors (and people in general) make decisions on imprecise impressions and beliefs rather than rational analysis.” Further, “the way a question or problem is framed to an investor will influence the decision he/she ultimately makes.” The article concludes, “These two observations largely explain market inefficiencies; that is, behavior finance holds that markets are sometimes inefficient because people are not mathematical equations” (Behavioral finance, 2019).

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