Welcome to the Faith at Work Blog!

This page is for your orientation to my blog. A blog is short for the phrase “web log.” This web log is an online journal of articles, thoughts, impressions and commentary on issues that relate to faith in the workplace. It is also my personal journal of Christian faith transforming the way I work and the impact that has on those with whom I work.

It is the goal of the Faith at Work Blog to illustrate, demonstrate and facilitate the equipping of Christian believers to intentionally and strategically live their faith at work so that they may be "blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which (they) shine like stars in the universe, as (they) hold out the word of life. (Philippians 2:15-16).

Reason for this Blog

My target audience are those Christians who want to bring their faith into their workplaces. You may be unsure about what that looks like or how that can work. You want to live what you believe in all aspects of your life  specifically at work. You may wonder whether God values the work that you do, whether there is any eternal  purpose for your secular work and if so, how does God want you to work differently as follower of Jesus.

You may often face a hostile work culture pressing you to check your faith at your office door. Some want to make the workplace a religion free zone. Yet, faith often informs your decisions concerning ethics, career choices and many other work related issues.

Your church, though is often indifferent to the unique challenges you face at work. They do not understand the value of the secular work you do, seeing your workplace as primarily a mission field for evangelism rather than a place that serves the need of others and of your community.

The Benefits of a Faith at Work Blog

Therefore, this is what I would like to provide for you:

1.      A validation of your calling to the marketplace and the affirmation that God values the secular work that you do

2.      Some wisdom to navigate the mine field of a work environment hostile to faith.

3.      A little insight into cultural trends and issues affecting faith expression in the workplace.

4.      Instruction from scripture and theological resources for faith work integration.

5.      Demonstration of what faith work integration looks like in an actual workplace. (Please visit Medi-Kel Clinic webpage to see how we are integrating our faith in the healthcare work arena.)

I am not writing simply to advise you on what to do on the front lines as if I was sitting on a Christian ministry perch. I have to meet a payroll every two weeks. I know what it is like to face a tax audit. I have hired and fired people. I am actually standing with you on those front lines as a fellow traveler in bringing faith to work.  This is what this blog is all about.

Twelve Tools to Help you Make the Most of this Blog

1.      Create a Reader Account. Click here if you would like to be a subscriber of this blog. You can subscribe to specific categories that interest you after you have created a reader account by logging in here.

2.      RSS Subscriptions. RSS is a way of subscribing to a web log so that you can see the latest posts to that blog without actually having to visit it. You can use subscriptions services such as Feedburner to subscribe to the Faith at Work RSS. This is a technology that will send you notices via a newsreader like Blog Lines of the latest posts at the Faith at Work Blog. You will need to add the Faith at Work Blog Syndication link to your newsreader. For the main page it is http://blog.mike.mcloughlin.com/blog/index.xml. Each Category page has its own syndication link at the top right hand corner so you can subscribe to particular categories that interest you.

3.      Mouse Over Excerpts. If you drag your mouse over top of links in my articles, you will often find an excerpt of the article or verse introduction to give you an idea of what you will find if you go to that link. Many of these excerpts are from articles posted at Wikipedia. (Mouse over Wikipedia to see how it works.) NOTE: As far as I am aware using the "screen tip" to provide an excerpt of an article is an innovation particular to the Faith at Work Blog, so you can say you saw it here first!

4.      Colored Quotes. Quotes from other blogs or articles are distinguished from my writing by highlighting or offset from the regular text.

5.      Follow my Trackbacks. Many articles are linked as TrackBacks to other articles that I have written on similar topics so you can follow my train of thought through a series of articles. 

6.      Permalinks. If you are a Blogger you can use the Permalink beside the title of my articles to place a link in your blog to that article.

7.      Commenting on an Article. There are two ways you can comment on an article. First, you can leave a comment at the bottom of the article using the form provided and entering the lettering code. Second, you can place a TrackBack at the bottom of the article that links to your blog. You will need to Ping the article you are linking to, that is, you place the article's trackback link in a form on your blog that will send my site a "ping".  If you do not have a Trackback facility at your blog visit Wizbang to post a Trackback. A Trackback link will eventually appear at the bottom of my article to your article. Because of trackback spamming I will need to pre approve these trackbacks before your link appears so be patient!

8.      Keywords. I have identified keywords that classify what I am writing about. You will find these words indexed at the bottom of the article. Clicking on the Keywords will provide a list of articles linked to these keywords.

9.  Categories. I have a list of categories in the left sidebar that will help you see the varied topics that I write on. For example, here is a list.

About me; Business as Mission; Calling; Church; Culture; Entrepreneurship; Environment; Ethics; Faith; Faith at Work Movement; Financial Stewardship; Marketplace Ministry; Media Bias; Mission; Politics; Poverty; Religious Freedom at Work; Servant Leadership; Spiritual Formation; Theology; Wisdom; Work; Writing a Faith at Work Blog. 

10.Tags. Tags are like Keywords or Categories. Tags are used on the Internet to identify various blogs or photos on similar subjects. I use Technorati Tags. For example, I have tagged this Blog as Faith+at+Work. Click on this link to see who else is talking about Faith at Work.

11.  Cosmos. Technorati provides a Cosmos service that indexes all the blogs that are talking about or linking to the article you are reading. For example, click here for the blogs that mention the article Applying the Four Way Test to Christian Blogging.

12.  Search the Site. Finally, if all else fails, you can use the search tool in the top left hand corner to find out if  I have mentioned what you are looking for.

Thank you for Visiting!

Thank you for visiting the Faith at Work blog. Please feel free to leave a comment at one of the articles or Trackback to an article from your site. Remember though that it is good blogger etiquette to mention the post you are tracking to in your article! J Enjoy!

P. S. Just a note to say thank you to Blogware for making these tools available.