To provide CHRIST-LIKE services:
Care Honesty Respect Integrity Service Trust
Loyalty Inspiration Knowledge Excellence
The fundamental purpose of Christian Referrals is to bring glory to God.
We do this by supporting and promoting businesses that commit to providing CHRIST-LIKE services to their customers.
God is glorified when His will is done on earth. Jesus taught and exemplified what it means to honour God.
As followers of Christ, we honour God by espousing and demonstrating Christian values through our thoughts and behavior, and especially through our service to one another.
Christian Referrals is dedicated to improving the reputation of Christians, by promoting businesses, with proper values and a decent work ethic, that sincerely endeavor to provide CHRIST-LIKE services.
Work is a very important way for each of us to glorify God. Since we can’t serve God directly, we serve God by serving others. Our workplace is the best way for Christians to showcase our values. By doing our best in all we do, we proudly serve as an example for others. Our goal is for people to associate Christian workers with superior work ethic and exemplary character traits.
Pastor Rick Warren, in his series entitled: “Doing Business with God,” begins by stating:
“In your lifetime, you are going to spend 150,000 hours of your life at work. That’s about 40% of your life working. Work defines our lives. Work describes our lives. It dominates our lives. It identifies our lives.”
Work, in large part, shapes our character. It consumes much of our thoughts and energy for the majority of our lives. For most people, an average work day can be divided into 8 hours for sleep, and 10 to 14 hours for work (including the time required to prepare for work, before and after, and commute to and from work).
Moreover, these days, with smart phones, do any of us ever leave our work behind?
The average working person is left with only 2 to 6 hours to do everything else that our busy lives demand of us (shopping for food and other things, preparing food, eating, cleaning up, tending to medical needs, doing household chores, exercising, grooming, socializing, relaxing, etc., not to mention all of the time that those of us with children spend attending to their seemingly infinite needs and desires!
Let’s face it, most of us lead very hectic lives, with work occupying the majority of our time. Moreover, we spend so many years at school, acquiring the education and training required to obtain and maintain employment in the first place. That is why work is such a critical environment for us to put our Christian values into practice. Every day, our jobs present new challenges and opportunities to shine (or not). If you’re going to spend 40% of your life at work, then you might as well invest that time wisely by becoming the kind of person that God wants you to be.
Most businesses strive only to maximize their profits. Unfortunately, this often comes at the great expense of compromising on essential Christian values. However, as Christians, we have a great opportunity to do business differently, and to promote our faith by setting an example for others to follow. Christian businesses are committed to glorifying God above all. We honour God through our work by doing our best, every day, to provide CHRIST-LIKE services to everyone.
Christian Referrals provides businesses with a structured forum to promote Christian values at work.
Often, good companies and individual quality workers are referred informally through word of mouth.
Christian Referrals strives to bring together in one place all of the best businesses in every community.
Too often, when someone is looking for a particular service, they don’t know where to begin looking, and they don’t know who to trust. At Christian Referrals, we appreciate the importance of finding valuable, high quality, reliable workers that we you trust.
Our members represent only the best businesses that practice Christian values. We confidently recommend any of our members because they promise to provide CHRIST-LIKE services, and are then monitored and held accountable to comply with this high standard. In addition, the quality of our members’ products and services is continually evaluated by their customers, who rate them out of 5 crosses, and provide detailed comments about their experiences, for everyone to read. If the quality of any of our members’ service fails to comply with our criteria, then they are required to resolve the problem. If any member fails to meet our standards, they may be suspended, or even expelled, from our directory. Unlike common business directories, Christian Referrals does not merely publish any business that simply pays a fee. We promote only those businesses that truly bring glory to God. We refer to you only those businesses that you would refer to your own grandmother.
By promoting Christian businesses, Christian Referrals is helping to foster thriving Christian communities.
When individual Christian businesses are supported, they tend to fair better economically. When Christian businesses are profitable, Christian households tend to function better, and individual Christians flourish.
We flourish when we have less concern about finances, and more positive energy to focus on putting our Christian values of patience, compassion, kindness and humility into practice. Another important Christian value is generosity. When we have more, we have more to give, particularly to those less fortunate. We glorify God when we contribute to our churches and church-sponsored programs, as well as when we donate to charities and support other valuable social programs, all of which bring glory to God.
What good is the word of God unless we apply it in our lives in some meaningful way?
At ChristianReferrals.ca, we believe that each of us is called to serve God in whatever we do.
Every occupation contributes positively to society and every person has an opportunity to glorify God through the services that they provide. Those who take pride in their work, and offer their best in their service to others, create spiritual significance in their work and bring glory to God.
In Joseph Allegretti’s book, entitled: The Lawyer’s Calling, he quotes author Charles Kammer, at p. 27, in reference to Martin Luther, who challenged the medieval church, and St. Thomas Aquinas, by claiming:
Any occupation becomes a ‘calling’ if its primary motive is serving God, responding to God’s wishes and intentions for human existence…Luther understood that in the person of Jesus we have a model which shows that to love God is to serve the neighbor. Our vocation becomes that of loving the neighbor through our occupation.
Allegretti also refers to John Calvin, who’s thinking was similar to Luther on this point. At p. 28, Calvin states:
We know that men were created for the express purpose of being employed in labor of various kinds, and that no sacrifice is more pleasing to God than when every man applies diligently to his own calling, and endeavours to live in such a manner as to contribute to the general advantage.
Thus it is not necessary to join a monastery in order to serve God. There are no second-class citizens. On the other hand, no Christian is exempt from the duty to follow Christ and to serve the neighbor in love…Any work is a calling if we approach it as a way of serving God and each other.
It is not so important what you do for a living – it’s how you do it that makes the difference.
In reference to the Roman Catholic perspective on work, Allegretti states, at p. 28:
Modern Catholic theology does insist on the spiritual significance of work. Human work is seen as a participation in God’s creative work.
Vatican Council II, for example, said that “when men and women provide for themselves and their families in such a way as to be of service to the community as well, they can rightly look upon their work as a prologation of the work of the creator, a service to their fellow man, and their personal contribution to the fulfillment in history of the divine plan.”
Similarly, in his enclyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II speaks of human work as a sharing in the activity of God. According to John Paul II, humans are, in a sense, co-creators with God. Furthermore, human work shares in the redemptive work of Jesus. ‘By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, man in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. He shows himself a true disciple of Christ by carrying the cross in his turn every day in the activity that he is called upon to perform.’ Work is a way in which we participate in the cross of Jesus.
Work is important: It is an avenue by which we serve God.
At p. 29, Allegretti continues:
“Any job can be a calling because any job can be, in its way, an instrument of Christian service. It depends upon our attitude, our disposition, not the details of what we do.”
At p. 30, Allegretti refers to the noted theologian James Gustafson, noting:
“A calling implies some vision of better lives for individuals, for groups, and even for the commonweal of the human community.”
In Doing Business with God, Rick Warren provides valuable insight into how best to serve God by considering the purposes of work:
Character:
“God is more interested in who you are than in what you do. God uses your work and your workplace to develop your character. Your workplace is a testing ground, a life course in character building, because God is trying to make something out of you. It’s so much more than what you do. It’s who you are and it’s who you become. Life is preparation for eternity. It’s preparation for heaven. And God is developing your character here on earth, because it’s the only thing you’re going to take with you. God is watching you and God is testing you, so that He can decide what kind of job he is going to assign to you in eternity. While we are at work, God is working on us.”
Service:
“Work is a place to make a difference; to give back…Become a purpose-driven business person. One day, God is going to do an audit on your work. Use your job to prepare yourself to serve God’s purpose in eternity. Give your best, knowing that you’re really working for God.”
Ministry:
“There’s something about the quality of your work that can speak so much louder than your words. Your work demonstrates what you believe. It can be a very powerful testimony for you. How you do the things you do, especially when you’re under pressure; especially when people are making unreasonable demands on you. How do you respond to those things? As people see who you are, as they see your character reflected in your work, they’ll start asking you: who are you? What makes you the way you are? When people see that light, when they see the good things you do, then they want to know about your faith. Your workplace is the best place for you to share the good news about Jesus. You are the only bible that a lot of people are ever going to read. And people will see your life. They’ll see the life of Christ in you. Because you’re representing Jesus in the workplace.”