Weaving Work-Truth into Church Life (Part Nine)

Links to previous articles in this series: (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) (Part Four) (Part Five) (Part Six) (Part Seven) (Part Eight)

In light of the current coronavirus crisis, I debated whether to post this blog at a moment when we cannot gather in our churches or, for many, even go to work. But perhaps sheltering in place will provide us with extra time to reflect on how—when we can—to prepare our young people spiritually for the opportunities and challenges they will face in their lifetimes of working.

Equipping Young People for the Work World

Each young person in your church will soon face a crucial question: “What kind of work should I look for?”

Who is equipping these young people to make that decision? Who is training them to step into their jobs as representatives of Christ and his Kingdom?

Over the past eight years of teaching the theology of work, I have asked my graduate students to conduct surveys among Christians in non-church work. Responses now total nearly a thousand. One of the survey questions asks: “Before you entered your life’s work, had you received any biblical instruction on how to go about choosing it?” Nearly three-quarters of those responding have said they received none—no scriptural insight into deciding where they will invest perhaps a hundred-thousand God-given hours of their lives.

Will Young People Become Workplace-Ready Disciples?

At or near the same ages young people leave home, many of them head off into a war zone. Before they enter harm’s way, our military branches work hard to prepare them for what they will encounter. A U.S. Army website, says: “Basic Combat Training (BCT) is a training course that transforms civilians into Soldiers.” The Army spends a lot of time and money to make recruits battle-ready. Contrast this with what churches have typically done to make young people workplace-ready, prepared for the spiritual warfare they’ll encounter there.

How might the young people in your church respond to these vital questions?

• What criteria will you use in choosing how to invest the hours and years of your life?

• Do you know how to discover how God has “wired” you so you may discern his calling?

• Will you pursue work that will offer you the most security?

• Will you look for jobs that pay the most money?

• Do you understand God’s purposes for so-called “secular” work?

• Do you even want to work?

Suppose your church wants to equip its children, youth, and young adults to enter the work world to represent Christ and his Kingdom there? How might the church do that? Making workplace-ready disciples of young people calls for a multi-faceted approach.

1. Prepare Parents to Equip Their Children

Your church could make certain parents receive a thorough grounding in the theology of work. The major responsibility for bringing up children in the “training and instruction of the Lord” belongs to parents (Eph. 6:4). So they should be equipped to teach their children what God has to say about the work they will do over a lifetime. Such home-provided instruction, by word and by example, surely ought to include what God’s Word says about an activity that takes more than half our waking hours.

Parents might find either or both of the following books useful in helping their children discover their giftings and callings. In The Person Called You, Bill Hendricks addresses God-bestowed giftedness, explaining, “why you’re here,” “why you matter,” and “what you should do with your life.” The appendix includes a step-by-step guide parents can use to help their young people discover their giftedness. Ralph T. Mattson and Arthur F. Miller, Jr., in Finding a Job You Can Love, ask: “How would Christian education be viewed if it actually provided young people with an understanding of their specific gifts and equipped them accordingly?”

2. Include Workplace Material in Youth Groups and Classes

Your church should make it a priority to include in its Sunday school classes and youth groups material that will prepare children and young people to live for Christ in the work world. The curricula could include a great variety of subject matter. It might provide instruction from the lives of biblical characters who served God in the work world. For example, how did Joseph, Nehemiah, and Daniel all integrate their faith with their everyday work?

3. Hold a Jobs Fair

Why not schedule what you might call a “jobs fair”? The goal: to introduce young people to Christians who are serving God in all kinds of so-called “secular” work. I recently conducted an Occupational Survey in our church. The 108 who responded made it clear that our congregation includes those serving in a wide variety of work roles. A financial advisor. A legislative assistant in state government. A real estate agent. A psychologist. A fiscal analyst. A reading intervention teacher. A music teacher. A dental assistant. And a great many more.

Most likely, those in your congregation also represent great occupational diversity. Chances are that many young people will not even be aware that such ways of serving Christ even exist for serious Christians. Adults could be seated at tables, each with a sign describing his or her role in the work world: computer programmer, grocery clerk, homemaker, attorney, welder, counselor, and so on. Young people could circulate, stopping to engage the adults in conversations about the opportunities and challenges for Christians in that field.

4. Schedule Sunday Panels of Working Adults

Consider occasionally incorporating into the Sunday meeting panels of adult Christians who have learned how to turn their daily work into worship of the Lord and service to people. Each panel might be made up of those in similar lines of work. They could invite questions from the congregation, especially welcoming questions from young people.

5. Organize Job-Shadowing Partnerships

Or perhaps your church could arrange job-shadowing partnerships for teenagers. Find out what kind of work interests them, then pair them with adults who are currently working in that field. Each adult could invite the young person to lunch, followed by a tour of the workplace. In this way, the young people could see the work being done and ask questions along the way.

The evidence today suggests young people are increasingly disconnecting from the gathered church. As BreakPoint’s John Stonestreet and Shane Morris say, “We really are losing a generation of young churchgoers, and they’re probably not coming back—at least not if we stay the current course.” Might the church’s perceived indifference to work—one of the major concerns of forward-looking young people—help explain that trend? In her essay, “Why Work?” Dorothy Sayers asks: “How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life?”

A Young Man Wonders . . .

A Focus on the Family website includes a question raised by a parent: “How can I help my adolescent son settle on a vocation and make wise plans for the future? He seems to be thinking more seriously about career choices and wondering what God wants him to do with his life.”

Imagine that this young man is part of your church, perhaps senior-high or college-age. When he thinks about life, since most of it for him still lies ahead, he thinks mainly in the future tense. Questions about what is yet to come churn in his mind. Although not yet in the workforce, he soon will be. So he is extremely interested in what will become his life’s work.

Is his church just as interested as he is in preparing him to choose his life’s work and then to do it as an offering to the Lord?

Watch Your Language: Part Three

When I was young, we kids had a ready-made comeback when hit with a nasty put-down: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” In the title of her new book, Joyce Schneider puts a fresh twist on that old saying: Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones: But Words Can Kill My Spirit.

A Pair of Spirit-Killing Words: Secular Work

In response to a short blog on so-called secular work, one reader wrote: “I personally struggle with this right now as a Christian, because I have a hard time seeing anything good about detailing and driving cars for a living or of what importance it has to me or to others I'm involved in. I keep seeing myself as a failure with a bachelor’s degree when I think about work right now.” Words from a spirit deeply wounded.

And no wonder. Secular work carries the implied meaning of being second-rate compared with ministry (see previous blog) or full-time Christian service. To define secular, dictionaries use words like “worldly rather than spiritual.” “Not having any connection with religion.” “Earthly.” “Profane.” “Irreligious.” The Oxford Living Dictionaries dubs secular as “Denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis. Contrasted with sacred.”

This Language Lives On

I’d like to think we Christians have gotten beyond talking of secular work. But the words are very much alive and well among us. From a blog: “I strongly felt, however, the call to something greater than just secular work.” Or, “One of the most troubled periods of my life came when I left the ministry of Youth for Christ and went into secular work.” And, “At times I was tempted to give up the ministry and go into secular work.”

Yes, sticks and stones bruise. But for those in non-church jobs who are serious about following Jesus, the secular-work dart poisons. It can make it seem as if those 80- to 100-thousand lifetime hours invested in the workplace add up to a spiritual zero. Yet Scripture never describes any work as secular. Why? The reasons reach all the way to God’s own activities and purposes.

God’s Work Becomes Our Work

In his activity, God has revealed himself in his work as Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Restorer. It follows, then, that his purposes extend into all of these. By making us in his likeness, God gave us dignity by delegating to us much of his work on his planet. We workers, made in the image of the Worker, have the great honor of reflecting him in our daily work.

Garbage Collection. Our garbage-pickup driver comes every Tuesday. His job, according to the world’s value system, lies near the bottom of the occupational pecking order. That kind of work seems to have “no religious or spiritual basis.” Yet God himself engages in the cleanup business. His wind and rain cleanse the air. His sunlight disinfects. Garbage collectors are doing God’s work when they remove the debris from our homes and neighborhoods, waste that would kill us if left to putrefy. When garbage crews went on a two-day strike in Phnom Penh, 5,000 tons of rubbish piled up in the streets. It took 5 days and the intervention of military police to clear away the trash and end the stench.

Food Service. Are waitresses and waiters doing secular work? After all, in their jobs they serve merely physical (not spiritual) food to hungry, earthly bodies. But wait. God sent ravens to feed Elijah’s earthly body. He provided manna to sustain the bodies of the Israelites in the desert. Jesus fed thousands. “I do not want to send them away hungry,” he said, “or they may collapse on the way” (Mt. 15:32). So next time someone on a wait staff places that steak on your table, thank God that she or he is carrying out one of God’s purposes on earth. How can that be merely secular work?

Government Work. Surely working for an anything-but-godly government qualifies as secular work, right? Not so fast. God governs. “Dominion,” says David, “belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations” (Ps. 22:28). Joseph worked as prime minister of the pagan government in Egypt. Yet, he told his brothers it was to that very place that “God sent me” (Gen. 45:5). As a young man, Daniel went to work for the ungodly Babylonian government—and served God in that work for perhaps 70 years. Because they are carrying out God’s purposes, government authorities, says Paul, “are God’s servants" (Rom. 13:6). So is it right to call what they do secular work? Does it really have no spiritual basis?

Gathered-Church Work. Those who do what often gets called ministry or spiritual work are also carrying out God’s purposes. God rescues. He “redeems your life from the pit” (Ps. 103:4). “Our God is a God who saves” (Ps. 68:20). So those, too, who serve God and others by proclaiming and explaining the Good News are doing what God himself has been doing all along.

Church or Kingdom Perspective?

In light of who God is and what he does—and our being made in his likeness—what, then, keeps feeding this unbiblical concept of secular work? Could it be that we have allowed our practice of “church” to dwarf the far larger biblical theme of God’s Kingdom? As already quoted, “God rules over the nations.” When Jesus began teaching, he did not say the Church had arrived. Instead, his good news was that the Kingdom of God had come near. In The Other Six Days, R. Paul Stevens says, “Kingdom ministry has been almost totally eclipsed by church ministry.”

As King, with all authority in heaven and on earth, Jesus cares about the well-being of both his original Creation and his New Creation. He sends people to work in both arenas to carry out his Kingdom purposes. The Church—in both its gathered and scattered modes—is here to announce and to demonstrate the presence of the King and his Kingdom.

To a church-program mindset, managing a bank, sweeping floors, or designing a building may seem irrelevant except as a means for evangelizing or making money to support “the ministry.” Which makes it so telling how the Collins English Dictionary defines secular: “not within the control of the Church.”

Kingdom work--carrying out  our Father's business--takes the labor of both the gathered and the scattered church. Making a higher-lower distinction between so-called secular and sacred work disables shared church.