Photos by Ralph Freso/GCU News
John Kaites’ goals weren’t limited to the Colangelo College of Business when he took over as dean of the college at Grand Canyon University nearly two years ago.
He wanted to helm a monthly Bible study series, which will start Sept. 15. It will run from 10 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. in the college's lobby and will be open to all students, faculty and staff.
The Bible study will revolve around Kaites’ devotional, "Fear Not," which encourages readers to make a gradual transformation to live life fearlessly, rest entirely in God’s love and allow that love to wipe out your fears.
Following each session, the group will walk to Global Credit Union Arena for 11 a.m. Monday Chapel.
“I expect that it will be relevant to all attending, no matter where they are in their life, no matter where they are in their journey,” Kaites said. “It will help them to understand that life is never perfect, but that God is always with them, and that the relationship they have with the Lord will help guide them forever.”
Kaites, senior pastor at Horizon Church in Ahwatukee, has wanted to integrate faith into the business college through its curriculum and turn faith into action.
“This Bible study was one of the ways in which we can walk through what it looks like to be a Christian businessman or woman, what it looks like to work in the secular world and still have a faith grounded in the Bible that can be used to care for people, to love people, and to use all of the skills that the Lord gave us in the Bible in order to be successful in business,” Kaites said.
“If you take the miracle of business principles that God has given us, and couple that with the words of Christ and turn that into a business strategy, it’s an amazingly successful strategy. Your customers are going to be happier, your employees are going to be happier, because you're not just trying to do a transaction, but to be transformative in their lives.”
"Fear Not," published in 2017, explains, in a simple way, four principles of the Bible.
“That is that every story, every Bible verse, points to one of these four items in one way or another,” Kaites said. “I have never found a place where in the Bible, where this doesn't equate.”
The four principles he will touch on:
- What happens when you put Christ in the center of your life, not only how it changes your life today, but how it offers you salvation and life everlasting.
- Your two jobs on this planet are to love God and love others. Everything else is a vocation within the confines of those two jobs.
- The value of surrendering and serving the Lord.
- And then if you've done those three things, the Bible points to one other central message that is one of the most repeated things in the Scripture, and that is, you have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about -- not even death itself.
The other Bible study sessions are scheduled for Oct. 13, Nov. 17 and Dec. 1.
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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