Honour your creator

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  An introduction to Ds. Riaan Esterhuyse – Spiritual Consultant – AGL Group

  21 Oct 2013 by Johan / No Comments

  Over the past three years AGL Group CEO, Johan Slabbert has worked closely with Riaan Esterhuyse, involved with leadership development of previously disadvantaged school learners and the development of the spiritual side of businesses, including The AGL Group of organisations.

  The AGL Group Executive is passionate about finding practical ways to meet business objectives and make decisions in alignment with their spiritual beliefs. But before we delve in to this discussion and the positive impact this spiritual leadership has had on the company as a whole, we’d like to formally introduce Riaan and tell you a bit more about him.

  Riaan was born in Mafikeng but spent most of his childhood in Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape. With a well-respected pastor as a father and a dedicated social worker as a mother, becoming a pastor would seem like a natural choice. However Riaan had no intention of becoming a pastor in his early years and even has a distinct memory of a day in Grade 3 when he promised God that only if he got over 80% he would be a pastor some day!

  That promise stayed with him, but when he matriculated in 1981 he didn’t feel quite ready for this calling and joined the South African defence force instead. After a year in Oudtshoorn and a year on the border he finally enrolled in ministry and spent the next four years completing his first degree. Riaan went on to do a masters degree in Clinical Pastoral Education before joining the Dutch Reform Church in Milnerton in 1992, where he spent eight happy years as the second pastor.

  He first met Johan in 1996 while raising money for a sound system for the church. Johan said, “Riaan, I’ll give you the first R4 000 for the sound system, let’s challenge the other business leaders to meet this or better it.” That was the start of their relationship, which over the years developed into a sound friendship; Riaan says, “We clicked from the beginning. I soon realised that Johan is a mover and shaker, ready to turn the world upside down, a dynamic person with a good heart with an absolute passion for people.”

  About three years ago, Johan decided he wanted to base his entire business on his Christian values, by putting God first. In other words he saw his companies as God’s companies, and he is working for God as the CEO of the Group. Since then he has been meeting with Riaan regularly to discuss the challenges of how to uphold a Christian value system in todays business world.

  Riaan has similar dialogues with about 15 other professional executives in the Cape Town area, offering them guidance and discussing the key questions around how businessmen can function as Christians within our modern corporate world.

  Galatians 5:22 describes nine attributes that Riaan uses to explain how you should behave in business as a Christian: patience, good heartedness, faithfulness, peace, friendliness, joy, love, self-control and humbleness. He goes on to say, “Ask yourself how your people see you. If you are showing those attributes, they will be drawn to you as you reflect the image of God”, which is taken from Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

   Riaan comments that this is not always easy, “you have to work at being a true leader for your people, how to make tough decisions and to deal with other businesses that may ethically be in the wrong in how they conduct themselves in their day to day actions. As Christian leadership you need to learn to stand back, give love and avoid retaliation.”

  He often uses stories from the book of Daniel to explain how to approach difficult situations, resulting in the question: are you bowing before the pressures of the world’s gods, or are you prepared to be steadfast in your faith and only bow before God and take the consequences of that, even if you’re thrown in to the oven of this world?

  Another theme of many of the conversations between Johan and Riaan is how to serve this living God of ours on an every day level. Riaan explains that his starting point in conversation is often to ask businessmen to decide if they believe in God. If the answer is yes, they need to decide if they are prepared to do what God and the Holy Spirit are asking from them or listening to the direction given to them.

  Faith is like breathing, it is continuous and if you say you love God then you must be prepared to be obedient and love him all the way. Riaan explains that sometimes this means you will have to make tough business decisions and decide what is against your Christian value system.

  Grounding this conversation in our political environment, Riaan believes that “In South Africa we need Christian Business Leadership who are bold about who and what they believe in and not ashamed or scared to confess that they believe in the Triune God: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. All their actions and decisions must be based and directed by their absolute conviction, within the will of God.”  He believes that this drive and conviction amongst our business leaders will have dramatic positive affects on the general wellbeing of our country as a whole: “I also know that the fight for the spiritual survival of our country is on a business level. These Market Place Ministers, as I like to call them are actually pioneers within the spiritual fight.”

  As a Christian in a business world you can begin to move towards being a mature child of God by using Prayer; dwelling in the word – read to understand it and hear God’s voice; fasting; meditating and memorising the word. Once you are Christ Centred you will ask God for guidance in every important decision. So let God be in front of you rather than next to you, so he can guide you, and show you the pitfalls.

  For those interested in learning more about how to achieve spiritual growth, Riaan highly recommends a book called Move: What 1,000 Churches Reveal about Spiritual Growth. In a nutshell, there are four types of people in any organization: those exploring Christ; growing in Christ; close to Christ; and finally Christ centred.

  Stay tuned for more insight from Riaan over the coming weeks.

   

   

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