business and health workshop

WORKSHOP 1. The business of health, and the health of business. There are many wisdoms emerging in the sphere of health that need to be applied to the sphere of business. Correspondingly, there are many wisdoms being developed in business that need to be applied to practices within the healing professions. This workshop will enable attendees to learn more about the wisdoms of God that are emerging in both business and health, and the relatedness of these wisdoms to every sphere of life. It will also help you understand and trigger the wisdoms that God has given into your life and work.

conveners John van Geldermalsen and Chris Hayes

John van Geldermalsen was at one time the CEO of Time Magazine Australia. In more recent years he has worked in the Vincent Fairfax Ethics in leadership program as well as consulting to corporate leadership programs. John has thought long and hard about the nature of business and the nature of leadership. In this, he as been active in drawing out the many patterns of truth found in Scripture, applying them to his leadership development and consultancy work.

Chris Hayes is a medical doctor, who oversees the Hunter Valley Pain Management Service. For many years Chris has sought to align his Christian faith with every facet of his work. In particular he has grappled with the nature and meaning of pain, endeavouring to integrate his knowledge of God and of the creation with this challenging aspect of human existence. Chris has sought to focus on pain as a ‘reality sign’; a sign given by God to enable us to receive revelation about our lives with a view to both change and maturity.

Chris has also sought to empower both his immediate team and other health workers that are involved with the many hundreds of people who at any one time are utilising his service. In this he has looked into the nature of power and authority and, drawing from Scripture, has been able to substantially re-design and develop his pain management service.

preamble: The origins of this workshop arose when several of the teleios associates were discussing the conference. We were talking about the workshops and how it would be good to have one for health and one for business and so on. Dr. Chris Hayes interrupted the conversation, saying (in effect) ‘Why do we as people working in healthcare have to keep attending sessions where we can only talk about medical stuff. I want to find out what’s happening in other spheres of work; in particular in business. I want to see how I can get wisdoms from people working in that area and apply them to both the way I structure my team and the way I practice medicine.’

   Richard Barton, who works in business as a builder, added that he had recently read the draft of Jim Thwaites’ book about the theology of medicine from an hebraic viewpoint, and that most all of what he read he saw as applying directly to the many facets of his own work. These comments and the conversation that followed made it imperative that this first workshop be about business in health and health in business.

   All too often we divide society into distinct compartments that function like silos operating separately from other disciplines   . The dysfunction of such division is, by way of example, very evident in the health system; where business administrators often operate on a very different plane to that of the healthcare practitioners they are meant to serve.

We need to encourage discussion between different disciplines so that wisdoms from one sphere of work can assist others.

Such will work towards a greater ‘unity of the faith’ (Eph. 4:13), which Paul describes as the body ‘being fitted and held together by that which every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part’ (Eph. 4:16). It is in this way that the ‘manifold wisdom of God’ will be more fully ‘made known through the church’ to the ‘rulers and authorities’ in both the heavens and the earth (Eph. 3:10).

The workshops at the teleios conference are not all about getting content from those up front. Although John and Chris will have much to tell, their focus will be on drawing out key wisdoms, many of which they, at this stage, are only seeing in part. As these wisdoms are drawn out into the open on the day, they will serve to activate and give language to the wisdoms that are also emerging in your own life; wisdoms that are at this time still very fragile and unformed, but are such that as they connect with others and find voice, will be better able to come to the fore and over time make their wisdom-impact in creation. Each of the workshops will give time to small-group discussion and some journaling, this with a view to drawing out insights and wisdoms from the entire group there on the day.