Meaning: Cultivating a Life of Joy, Purpose, and Impact

By John Barcanic

We are created to want joy, purpose, and impact in our lives. We want to make a difference. We want to have influence, be needed, and bring positive change to the world around us. But in today’s world it’s hard to even know what a life of joy and meaning looks like, much less how to pursue it.

By exploring the teachin

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Barcanic
• Release date: Mar 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087868431

John Barcanic

John Barcanic helps change-makers turn vision into action, and action into transformation. As the Founding Director of Intersekt, John knows that both personal and community transformation occur best in the context of healthy, authentic relationships. A sought after speaker, coach, and consultant, his skills have delivered results for a broad array of organizations in more than 10 countries on four continents He is recognized for his ability to make deep theological truth readily understandable and immediately applicable. John is an ordained pastor, certified leadership coach, and jazz pianist. When he's not speaking, coaching, or consulting, you can find John at a café in his hometown of Chicago playing piano with his jazz trio, reading a gripping novel, or debating whether or not people can fly in heaven.

Book preview

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MEANING

Cultivating a Life of

Joy, Purpose, and Impact

JOHN BARCANIC

Also Available:

Uncertain Seas

The God Confidence Game Plan

Meaning

Cultivate a Life of

Joy, Purpose, and Impact

JOHN BARCANIC

A Division of

Innovative Ministries International

Meaning

© 2018 by John Barcanic

All rights reserved. This publication or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

Intersekt

A division of Innovative Ministries International

224.858.8843

[e-mail]

intersekt.org

ISBN E-book edition: 978-1-0878-6843-1

ISBN Print book edition: 978-1-0878-6844-8

Cover photo by Adele Payman on Unsplash

Cover design supervision by Lyn Barcanic

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by churches, denominations, and others. For details, contact Intersekt Ministries at the email above.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my remarkable daughter, Katelyn, who revived in me a love for writing.

May your own words fly far and wide, landing lightly and weighing heavily.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

The Challenge

I was certainly distracted as I allowed my car to creep forward towards the drive-thru window. I’d placed my order with the disembodied, distortion-filled voice at the speaker and was ready to get my food and move on.

The window opened—hands delivered my beverage and a bag—I think I may have heard a voice say, Have a nice day. Glancing quickly in the bag to check that my order was correct, I drove off into traffic, giving little thought to the interaction. I’d experienced it dozens, maybe hundreds of times in my life. It was routine. But, unregistered by my distracted mind at the time, it was a routine that turned my fellow human into a robot.

What do I mean?

What difference would it have made to my interaction at the drive-thru if the employee was replaced with a machine? Let’s assume the machine functioned as well as the human. Imagine I could speak my order into a box that used voice recognition to translate it into text on the screen, so I could ensure it was correct. I’d swipe my card, then pull forward and the drink and bag of food would be dispensed via mechanical arms instead of human ones. How would my interaction with those devices have been any different than my interaction was with a living, breathing human?

Humans are designed to want joy, purpose, and impact in their lives. We want to make a difference. We want to have influence, be needed, and bring positive change to the world around us. But, increasingly, society conditions us to see one another as machines rather than people.

This is especially evident in the workplace. We’ve gone from having personnel departments to managing human resources. We see employees as cost centers, as cogs in the machine, rather than the heart of the company itself. And we certainly don’t