The Best of Both Ministry

Books and Publications

Best of Both

A collection of Bible verses with examples of their relevance to the business world, combining vision, values, strategic planning and mutual accountability in both the spiritual and business worlds. "The Best of Both."

All of us are searching for answers, but for some reason we think our business and our faith answers are different; they are not. The solution for both lies in God's Word.

Capitalizing on a 30 year business career, and of serving God through the local church both as a lay person and a staff person, Jeff Wheeler provides insight, often humorous, but always to the point about how God's Word should be applied to your life in everyday circumstances.

Each of the 35 readings are brief, but interesting and ideally help you in finding the answers you seek. To do so you have to understand the question – where are you looking and why.

Begin today with Best of Both. You can read a sample chapter or email us if you are interested in obtaining a free copy of the book.

It Isn’t Lonely at the Top: Leadership Lessons from the Rear View Mirror

After 35 years of leading companies and organizations in both the private and public sector, in the secular and faith worlds, I have come to the conclusion that most developing leaders fall victim to what I call "aspirational leadership." They personalize the journey to themselves and ask the question what kind of leader do I want to be. Wrong question.

And the publishing world caters to this misnomer with leadership books filled with platitudes and advice catering to that one wrong question. Occasionally an article or a book will appear that purports to turn the leadership paradigm upside down with inverted pyramids, leading from behind, etc.

Leadership is not about you - wrong preposition. And it's not about them either. Looking back on my successes and failures I have come to see the fallacy of "it's lonely at the top."

Leadership is a “we” process and if you find yourself lonely at the top you did it wrong; you either have no followers or no team. You've missed one of the great opportunities leadership provides, and you did it on purpose.

I have made many of these mistakes and they are so clear now that I can look back. I’ve compiled 10 lessons or steps to developing leadership within you and within others – simultaneously. My intention is not to have you avoid mistakes – you won’t’. It’s to have you recognize them earlier and adjust fast

The Confrontational Jesus

How a wrong view of Jesus can hurt today’s churches and ministries.

Somewhere along history, we developed a view of Jesus Christ as this mild-mannered, soft-spoken, gentle natured pacifist. We are rightfully focused on his message of love, but fail to really understand “turn the other cheek”. We see him as a person of constant affirmation and encouragement, and in fact, he was so much more. We can’t imagine him raising his voice, showing emotion, or pushing back when challenged; the facts are Jesus was a person who expected and demanded results.

And worse, we’ve taken that myopic view into the church and other ministries accepting mediocre results, negative behavior or disruption of the team because we have been hesitant or even fearful to confront. It’s interesting how team members pick up on the need for confrontation before the leader is willing to do it. That’s not biblical – and that’s not Jesus.It’s important to clarify one or two points early in the discussion. While Jesus was confrontive, he did so with pure motives; in other words, he did not confront to demand or diminish. He confronted to correct and to encourage. He wanted to change outcomes and in doing so knew he needed to change behavior. Confronting is not a license to demean; it is an opportunity to effect change.

I have spent 35 years navigating both worlds: the business world and the ministry world. This book is not designed to advocate a turning of church ministry and missions into that of a business, although very often that is the fear people have. It is, however, designed to show how some business principles – those based on Jesus’ words and actions – that are the norm in the business world should be the norm in the ministry.

Both groups would do well to look at the confrontational Jesus; the church to recognize that he did confront, and the business community to realize how he did it.As I said earlier, Jesus was a man all about results.