Some years ago my husband Troy made the decision to leave the marketplace and do vocational ministry. Troy left a lucrative, promising job as an engineering manager at General Mills to become a pastor at Community Christian Church. Over the years we have watched several of our good friends and now our co-workers make the same leap. John Ciesniewski, Tim Bakker, Carter Moss and Steve Brewer to name of few. Most of which are now campus pastors at CCC.
I came across John Wood's book Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, and I couldn't resist ordering it from Amazon. Reading it has made me reminisce about those days of huge decision making for us. It was one of the scariest decisions I ever had to participate in....until now. Planting a church is way scarier :)
Anyway, this book has a tremendous mix of personal story and helpful business principles for running a non profit organization. Wood's observations about the differences between the business world and non profit world are very interesting. It is also fascinating to get inside his head and see what would motivate a non Christ follower (as far as I can tell anyway) to make this kind of a self-less, compassionate shift in his life.
If you are involved in non-for-profit work in any way....His chapter called Making the Ask...is the best.
