In the decades after World War II, evangelical Christianity nourished America’s devotion to free markets, free trade, and free enterprise. The history of Wal-Mart uncovers a complex network that united Sun Belt entrepreneurs, evangelical employees, Christian business students, overseas missionaries, and free-market activists. Through the stories of people linked by the world’s largest corporation, Bethany Moreton shows how a Christian service ethos powered capitalism at home and abroad. While industrial America was built by and for the urban North, rural Southerners comprised much of the labor, management, and consumers in the postwar service sector that raised the Sun Belt to national influence. These newcomers to the economic stage put down the plough to take up the bar-code scanner without ever passing through the assembly line. Industrial culture had been urban, modernist, sometimes radical, often Catholic and Jewish, and self-consciously international. Post-industrial culture, in contrast, spoke of Jesus with a drawl and of unions with a sneer, sang about Momma and the flag, and preached salvation in this world and the next. This extraordinary biography of Wal-Mart’s world shows how a Christian pro-business movement grew from the bottom up as well as the top down, bolstering an economic vision that sanctifies corporate globalization. The author has assigned her royalties and subsidiary earnings to Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org) and its local affiliate in Athens, GA, the Economic Justice Coalition (www.econjustice.org).

Investigating the personal stories behind the headquarters of the Wal-Mart empire, this examination focuses on the growth of Bentonville, Arkansas--a microcosm of America's social, political, and cultural shift. Numerous personalities are interviewed, including a multimillionaire Palestinian refugee who arrived penniless and is now dedicated to building a synagogue, a Mexican mother of three who was fired after injuring herself on the job, a black executive hired to diversify Wal-Mart whose arrival coincided with a KKK rally, and a Hindu father concerned about interracial dating. In documenting these citizens' stories, this account reveals the challenges and issues facing those who compose this and other "boom towns"--where demographics, the economy, and immigration and migration patterns are continually in flux. In shedding light on these important and timely anecdotes of America's changing rural and suburban landscape, this exploration provides an entertaining and intimate chronicle of the different ethnicities, races, and religions as well as their ongoing struggles to adapt. Emerging as subtle sociology combined with drama and humanity, this overview illustrates the imperceptible and occasionally unpredictable movements that affect the nonmetropolitan environment of the United States.

Discovering the Gospel in Everyday Living Walmart, Jesus and You is a challenging invitation to hear Jesus speak to you personally about the importance and significance of everyday events in your life. Today, many have failed to grasp the reality that Jesus has not changed His method of teaching. In the past, His use of parables helped people understand and apply God’s truth to their own life. Today, through Scripture and your own life experiences, Jesus can do the same. Have you read the Parable of the Buzzard, the Parable of Elvis, or the Parable of Walmart? You can find them and many more as the subject matter of this book. When Scripture is laid alongside a trip to Walmart, frustration with computers, ordering a hamburger, and other everyday experiences, you will know subject matter for parables is all around us. Then as you read the true life experiences of the author and what Jesus says about these experiences, you will recognize and learn how Jesus can speak to you using every day events in your life. You will develop a greater understanding of God’s word and grow closer to the master teacher. Walmart, Jesus, and You is easy to understand but will powerfully touch your spirit. With each chapter teaching a different life principle, the book is excellent for small groups and is useful to pastors, teachers, and others in the local church. Proceeds from the sale of this book will go to assist Southern Baptist international missions efforts through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering®.

In book two of the Jesus at Walmart Trilogy, Malachi Marble is still working at Walmart.& ;& ;The former pastor, toils through the night while attempting to keep the desire of his heart alivehis passion to serve God and his coworkers at the store.& ;& ;Join Malachi as his life, his faith, and his yearnings become exposed to vulnerability's limit.& ;& ;Walk past the greeter, into the heart and soul of Walmart with Malachi. Another trip to Walmart like no other, awaits you.& ;& ;And may you enjoy the venue of fiction for exploring thoughts and ideas to new depths.

Walmart is the largest employer in the world. It encompasses nearly 1 percent of the entire American workforce—young adults, parents, formerly incarcerated people, retirees. Walmart also presents one possible future of work—Walmartism—in which the arbitrary authority of managers mixes with a hyperrationalized, centrally controlled bureaucracy in ways that curtail workers’ ability to control their working conditions and their lives. In Working for Respect, Adam Reich and Peter Bearman examine how workers make sense of their jobs at places like Walmart in order to consider the nature of contemporary low-wage work, as well as the obstacles and opportunities such workplaces present as sites of struggle for social and economic justice. They describe the life experiences that lead workers to Walmart and analyze the dynamics of the shop floor. As a part of the project, Reich and Bearman matched student activists with a nascent association of current and former Walmart associates: the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart). They follow the efforts of this new partnership, considering the formation of collective identity and the relationship between social ties and social change. They show why traditional unions have been unable to organize service-sector workers in places like Walmart and offer provocative suggestions for new strategies and directions. Drawing on a wide array of methods, including participant-observation, oral history, big data, and the analysis of social networks, Working for Respect is a sophisticated reconsideration of the modern workplace that makes important contributions to debates on labor and inequality and the centrality of the experience of work in a fair economy.

A Walmart greeter, a nurse, and an astronaut walk into a church. . . . They each bring with them their own exhaustions and exasperations, their own uncertainty about whether and how their work matters to God. Good news: All work matters to God, because all work reflects some aspect of the character of God. God created the world so that it runs best when it mirrors Him, and we ourselves find the most fulfillment when we recognize God behind our labor. John Van Sloten offers a fascinating and innovative reflection on vocation: Our work is a parable of God; as we work, we are icons of grace.

A solitary woman. A foreign country. An unknown language. An impossible dream? No. With no mission board to support or guide her, and less than ten dollars in her pocket, Gladys Aylward left her home in England to answer God's call to take the message of the gospel to China. With the Sino-Japanese War waging around her, she struggled to bring the basics of life and the fullness of God to orphaned children. Time after time, God triumphed over impossible situations, and drew people to Himself. The Little Woman tells the story of one woman's determination to serve God at any cost. With God all things are possible! A true story of a determined missionary, Gladys Aylward : The Little Woman will challenge you to bold and expectant faith.