Please join us for a presentation associated with the Bill Pollard Faith & Business Research Fellowship and the Library’s Work and Faith Collection on October 11, 2019, at 11:30 a.m. in the Library Classroom.
Dr. Darrell Cosden, a returning scholar from the 2018 fellowship program, will present his paper “Honoring God and Developing People: ServiceMaster, Bill Pollard and the Heart of Corporation.”
About the presentation: This study examines the model of faith-business integration developed at ServiceMaster, and relatedly Bill Pollard’s role in developing and implementing it. It argues that ServiceMaster’s celebrated 4 corporate goals functioned both as a mission statement defining the core of the business, but at the same time also as “philosophy of Christian ministry” infusing their core business with the Christian faith. As used, the 4 goals functioned as a faith-business integration model in its own right, deserving a place alongside other models and thereby deserving reflective analysis and evaluation. To that end, this study examines how the model came to be and how it functioned. Further, attention is drawn to how well within the model the two dimensions (Christian faith and business mission) coinhere under the real-world business pressures encountered at ServiceMaster. Particularly here the study will mention the strategic business choices made by Pollard’s predecessors, Pollard himself, and to a lesser degree, the board. The purpose of the study is to show the model’s promises and potential shortcomings to assist students and Christians in business seeking ways to integrate their faith with their business.
About the presenter: Dr. Darrell Cosden taught theology and philosophy at Judson University (Illinois) beginning in 2007 after 17 years in Europe (Scotland, Russia, and Ukraine). He was formally a lecturer at the International Christian College in Glasgow, and he taught theology and ethics in Ukraine at the Donetsk Christian University. Dr. Cosden is particularly interested in faith and culture and how ideas, philosophical and theological, shape contemporary and popular culture. His 2006 book, The Heavenly Good of Earthly Work, was listed among the “Books of the Decade” by London Institute of Contemporary Christianity magazine. LICC Staffer Mark Greene said, “Cosden’s book is a tightly argued theological exploration of the eternal value of daily work, and deals with the nagging question that flawed understandings of the new heaven and the new earth lead to: why bother if it’s all going to burn?”
This event is co-sponsored by the SPU Library and the Center for Integrity in Business. Lunch will be provided. RSVP to cib@spu.edu by October 4.
Posted: Wednesday, September 25, 2019