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By Lloyd Mackey
 MARKETPLACE transformation was the theme. Using Christian motivation to resolve poverty issues was the variation on that theme. All that emerged, when some 200 people met in a Toronto airport area hotel April 2 - 4, for the second annual Purpose@work conference.
Edna and I took a break from Ottawa to attend the conference. My account of it will appear within the next week or two in ChristianWeek's national edition and, perhaps online as well.
I have three stories to tell with respect to the conference, all of which are included in the news story I wrote for ChristianWeek. Then, at the end of this piece, I want to make a point that illustrates some of the tensions between Christians, the marketplaces and the communities in which we live.
The four main players in the stories are Ed Silvoso, Linda Rios Brooks and David Rae, all conference keynoters, and Charles Lewis, the journalist who covered the event in the April 5 issue of the National Post. Former Canadian Football League kicker Gerry Organ comes in for a mention, as well.
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Silvoso, an Argentinean native, has made his mark in the Christian community in recent years, through his advancement of Christian marketplace transformation concepts, based on his previous experience as an evangelist, hospital administrator and banker.
Silvoso spoke of "five pivotal paradigms for nation transformation" during his talks. It is the fifth that I want to highlight for a moment. That paradigm states: Nation transformation must be tangible and the premier social indicator in the elimination of systemic poverty. In exploring that point, Silvoso maintained that "wealth is a gift from God (and) redeemed wealth has a key role in God's plans to establish his kingdom on earth."
Then he offered a formula for group consideration, namely: "Poverty would be eradicated if 50 per cent of the capital currently held by only two per cent of the population were to be invested to help the people struggling in the bottom 20 per cent of the income bracket."
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Rios Brook is a Florida pastor and a respected spokesperson for some segments of what might be described as the "evangelical/charismatic prophetic" community. She has a self-described "rabbinical" teaching style in which she encourages her audience to interact in a way that brings out the conflict of an issue and allows for a non-threatening exploration of the various views involved.
At a conference banquet, Rios Brook recounted her personal story, surrounding her years as a television executive in Minneapolis.
While there, she resuscitated a dormant station, acting for a group of business people who were mostly elderly Christians.
She told of her abject failure at building viewership for a traditional Christian program format, followed by a successful, but controversial, effort to recoup the business group's considerable investment.
Market advisors said that she should get conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh on her station. She secured the right to do so, but only if she would also run the raunchy Jerry Springer.
Rios Brook self-deprecatingly told how she handled that prospect: "I ran Springer after midnight, when most of the directors would be asleep."
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But word got around anyway, because Springer did attract a lot of viewers.
Her solution: run a ticker at the bottom of the screen inviting viewers to call a number if they wanted help for any of the issues discussed by Springer. At the other end of the phone line was a cadre of Christian counsellors.
"We had a great time using Springer as a televangelist," she recalled.
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In his National Post story, writer Charles Lewis quoted the conference's chief organizer, Gerry Organ (a onetime CFL kicker who played on two Grey Cup teams) as noting: "The gospel . . . starts with the quality of your work, how you handle ethical issues, that you know quietly that you are a servant of the living God in the workplace and therefore you are a servant to people."
The newspaper ran a photo of Rae, the sometime president of Apple Canada, kneeling during his talk. His pose was to illustrate a story he told about leading an employee of his to Christ.
The Post interest in Rae was connected to his previous Canadian business experience.
But, for the past decade, he has headed Crown Financial Ministries in Atlanta, a group that builds interest in both wealth management and Christian stewardship.
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The points made in these three stories all tie in to that above-mentioned theme of marketplace transformation and the variation relating to wealth management and Christian stewardship.
The conference itself was organized by the Workplace Transformation Group, an eclectic cluster of Christian business and church leaders. Whatever their differences, they have an enthusiasm for seeing Jesus, his power and his values unleashed in city marketplaces and financial centres.
And they see sound wealth management and stewardship as one leg on which such transformation can rest. Silvoso illustrated those values by telling Jesus' story of the three stewards, two of whom won heavenly approval by prudently multiplying the funds they were given for investment. By contrast, disapproval was dispensed to the one steward who buried the money given him, rather than investing it.
The outcome of that thinking -- and it is reflected in the kind of work David Rae is doing these days -- is that good Christian stewards, by earning well and building their wealth, have more to give for a range of Christian projects designed to enhance spiritual development and to relieve poverty, oppression and disease.
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I am thinking a little about writing next week about the spiriting of a damaging video into the public domain by the newly-minted Saskatchewan NDP opposition. Some of the above material, by implication, may provide some grist for analysis of that particular turn of events.
But it is a subject I want to think through, first, after noting the eloquent and heart-felt apologies of the now-politicians whose off-the-record quotes and impersonations were caught on the video. Please stay tuned.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press: 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
April 10/2008
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