Category Archives: Work with purpose

Practical suggestions for pastors and lay leaders

Will Messenger, executive editor of the Theology of Work Project, admits that many pastors will never be attuned enough to the concerns of business people to offer really deep advice on difficult workplace issues. For these, the best form of support may be to facilitate small groups of like-minded people — for example, workers in similar jobs — to read Scripture, pray, and discuss matters touching their work. David Miller, founding director of the Princeton Faith & Work Initiative, agrees and says that pastors who are most distant from work-related concerns can take steps to bridge the divide between themselves and the working people in their pews. Some ways they might do so:

• Be present in the work sphere and listen carefully.
• Become workplace literate (for example, by reading the Wall Street Journal).
• Preach to work concerns.
• Address workers’ sense of work-faith disjunction in adult education, small groups, and retreats.
• Train laity in devotional disciplines linked to their work and daily lives.

This kind of engagement may not be possible if a pastor embodies anti-business biases. And researchers like Miller and Laura Nash of Harvard say that such biases are common — sometimes inherited from seminary professors. Messenger says that businesspeople tell him things like this: Continue reading →

We’ve been talking about how much God values our work and how important it is to his purposes. That’s great, but most people live far, far from that reality. And pastors, let’s be honest: most of you are not equipped to help your people put the “thorns and thistles” of their work in biblical perspective.

The truth is that most working people, though they may otherwise love their church and their pastor, feel their pastor simply does not understand their working world and its issues. One businessman puts the situation in stark terms. He says:

“In the almost 30 years of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. . . . There has never been an inquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career [as a sales manager]. In short, I must conclude that my church really doesn’t have the least interest in whether or how I minister in my daily work.”

This is clearly a matter for pastoral concern and action. Continue reading →

Over the past week or so, we’ve done a rapid survey of the New Testament, the early church, and the medieval church on faith, work, and economics, and then settled into the massive changes wrought by the industrial revolution of the late 18^th through late 19^th centuries, looking at that era through the eyes of John Wesley and some key industrialists.

I’d like to suggest now that just as the industrial revolution left in its wake many kinds of social misery as workers left the moral and spiritual boundaries of the Christianized towns of the West and tried to navigate the tempting and alienating cities, we are again today seeing economic dislocation, social misery, and a loss of moral moorings. And Christians must address these realities – not exclusively through charity (though the worst of the current social problems do demand this), but also – and more importantly – through economic action grounded in economic understanding.

As Greg Forster has said, “The economy is a moral system, a web of human relationships in which each person’s work benefits others through a vast system of exchange.” Pure and simple, there are good and bad ways of behaving in this system. Continue reading →

The Reformed tradition

Calvin elaborated on the Lutheran doctrine of vocation, freeing people to pursue the vocations of their choosing rather than to remain in a single “social standing” as the more conservative Luther had counseled. The Calvinist Puritans developed the idea of the sacred importance of economic work in ways that prepared the ground for the flourishing of capitalism: as Weber argued, obedience, diligence, delayed gratification, and other “ascetic” virtues were transferred in Puritanism into the world of work, and resulted in the creation of tremendous wealth.

Puritans often condemned the pursuit of money and goods for their own sake. Their “work ethic” was never about money-making. But “it opened the way to a career in business, especially for the most devout and ethically rigorous people.” Leland Ryken describes the Puritan idea of calling as including “the providence of God in arranging human tasks, work as the response of a steward to God, contentment with one’s tasks, and loyalty to one’s vocation.”

Wesley and the industrial revolution

The next great change in Christian attitudes to economic work came with the industrial revolution, which was already ramping up in the time of the great 18^th-century preacher John Wesley, when the commercial virtues of the Puritans and the new capitalist habits of long-term investment began to create the industries and factories that would drive Western economic growth in the centuries to come. Continue reading →

Friend Phil Harrold at Trinity School for Ministry in Pittsburgh asks (in the comments area of this post), “What are your top picks for books on Christian faith and vocation?” Here’s my off-the-cuff answer:

If you are willing to do some selection, a great sourcebook is Callings, by William Placher. Steve Garber’s new Visions of Vocation is more involved, but also more narrative – likely especially appealing/useful for millennials or at least younger Christians. It may be too long to read for a small group study – more a resource book or something for a leader to read and choose from judiciously.

God at Work by Gene Veith is a slim volume that might be helpful. Lester De Koster also has a slim volume, from a Reformed perspective: Work: The Meaning of Your Life. The Acton Institute series of short videos, For The Life of the World, is very good – an absorbing experience that should generate a lot of conversation. Also best for millennials, but accessible for all ages. It comes with a study guide and may be purchased in many forms, including download, or even rented.

If you have this question still in early 2015, I highly recommend a two-part video documentary I’m working on (helped secure funding for, and have had a hand in scripting and editing): Going On Vocation. It is advertised on the back cover of the Christian History magazine Vocation issue, which is another excellent resource for such a group as yours. Click the link in the preceding sentence for a full-color downloadable pdf of the issue; if you go to the main level of www.christianhistorymagazine.org you can also find it in online flipbook format under “back issues.” They can also be purchased hard copy in “bulk” – including smaller orders. Continue reading →