I recently had the chance to sit down with long-time friend Rob West, the CEO of Kingdom advisors at the host of Faith and Finance, about faith, retirement, and a better story for our next season of life.

Here’s the episode.

In it, I talk about:

Redefining Retirement: I suggest that retirement is not the end of meaningful work but an opportunity to contribute in new ways, such as mentoring, volunteering, or pursuing passions that serve others.
Faith and Purpose: I emphasize integrating faith into retirement planning, encouraging retirees to seek God’s purpose for this stage of life.
Practical Steps: Our conversation includes practical advice on preparing for retirement, both financially and spiritually, and how to transition well.
Stories and Examples: I share some stories of individuals who have found fulfillment and impact in their retirement years by staying engaged and purposeful.

My big takeaway: A biblical vision of retirement has three parts.

Lay down past work identities.
Embrace a season of rest, reflection, and renewal.
Re-engage as elders—servants, mentors, leaders.

Hope you enjoy the episode.

Spiritual Formation Theology Work

Integrating Faith & Work with Jeff Haanen (UpNext Podcast)

February 19, 2025

“In this episode of UpNext, Tommy Lee sits down with Jeff Haanen, founder of the Denver Institute for Faith and Work, to explore the intersections of faith, work, and personal growth. Jeff shares insights from his journey as a father and leader, reflecting on the evolution of the faith and work movement over the years. They discuss generational perspectives on integrating faith into work, the power of community, and the need for spiritual formation in the workplace. Jeff also unpacks the importance of addressing internal struggles and motivations, advocating for an inside-out approach to living out one’s faith in the marketplace.”

Apple Podcasts

Theology Work

Do the Hard Work of Thinking Theologically

December 15, 2024

Reading theologians, studying Scripture, listening to sermons, examining church history,
memorizing creeds – this is so much work! To that I would say, yes, that’s 100% correct.
Thinking theologically is hard, taxing work.

But so is preparing for a final exam, walking alongside a friend going through a divorce,
training for a marathon, signing yourself up for an alcoholics anonymous group, or working at a job for extra hours to pay for your child’s sports fees. All growth is difficult, but we
cannot truly become like Christ without the renewing of our minds…and doing hard things (Romans 12:1-2).

We need to learn. We need to think. We need to be reading, listening, and applying. And we
need to do so in Christian community, like the church. Worldview is important. Doctrines are
tools for seeing reality. And the gospel is not just private truth; it is the public truth for all
things.

Here are some practices I’ve noticed among those who excel at thinking theologically.

Decide that thinking well is a non-negotiable part of your Christian life.

In the struggle for civil rights, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a sermon on August 30, 1959
encouraging his listeners to be both tough minded and tender hearted. Drawing on Jesus’
command to become wise as serpents and innocent as doves, he says being tough minded,
“is that quality of life characterized by incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive
judgment. The tough mind is sharp and penetrating. It breaks through the crust of legends
and myths and sifts true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and
discerning.”

And yet, says Dr. King, “So few people ever achieve it. All too many are content with the soft
mind. It is a rarity indeed to find men willing to engage in hard, solid thinking.” [x] The majority,
says Dr. King, are gullible and willing to accept advertising and political slogans as truth. The
few make the real commitment to being like God, who is both tough minded and tender
hearted.

Every idea – whether a work email or a storyline in a movie – must be held up to the light of
truth. This commitment goes hand in hand with the commitment to following Christ as both
Lord and Teacher.

Make the space in your schedule and your home for clear thinking.

Our world is crowded with noise. Social media, apps, media – finding the quiet space to
actually think and reflect has become a real challenge in a world addicted to being
constantly connected. We all are too busy and find ourselves constantly distracted.

It takes discipline to shut the screen off, and get out a notebook. It takes resolve to refuse
the easy media of Netflix and choose the slow media of the written word. It takes forethought
to gather a group of friends for a conversation about a substantive book and arch the
conversation toward questions that matter.

We must choose to make space for a deeper, broader life. It won’t happen by accident.

Choose your reading diet wisely.

Tim Macready is from Sydney, Australia. Sporting glasses, goatee, and a down-under
accent, Tim’s work has led him to the intersection of Christian faith, social justice, environmental stewardship, and business. His work requires him to understand everything
from financial projections to international markets.

And yet, when I asked Tim recently about the books that most helped him in his work, he
mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and The Cost of Discipleship. Theology, he
said, helped him better understand human nature, which directly influenced how we thought
of investing, business, and those he works with each day.

People like Tim are intentional with both their reading diet and their friendships. As a result,
they become wise (Proverbs 13:20). And they don’t read just theology, they read broadly
outside their fields. Doing so helps them make connections between topics, including
connecting theology to the secular world they live in. Broad reading, broad listening, and
broad relationships open the path to seeing a broader slice of God’s world. [xi]

Take risks based on what you know to be true.

Thinking theologically is not just an intellectually disconnected activity from the rest of life.
It’s a habit that is strengthened through practice, action, and then reflection.

Mary Poplin has spent her career teaching teachers. After a lifetime of reflection on how
Christian faith can and should be lived out as a public school teacher, Mary counsels
believers in education to take practical action steps based on the Christian worldview.

“Give kids direct instruction,” Mary says in a talk she once gave to other public school
teachers. “Be strict, but have high personal interaction with students and believe in their
potential. Teach religion in public schools in a way that’s fair. Don’t romanticize history –
either secular or Christian. Teach virtue and encourage moral conversations among
students. Pray for your students, be courageous in sharing your faith, and compassionate
with other views.” [xii]

Mary believes deeply that thinking well and living well are two sides of the same coin of
faithfulness in a secular industry.

Embrace that thinking theologically is for you, no matter your job, community, or title.

Thinking theologically is for the rich and the poor, those with PhDs and those with high
school degrees, those who are culture-makers and those who are culture-takers.

Take, for example, two very different people: Gisela Kreglinger and Gregorio Trinidad.
Gisela is a vintner who grew up on a family winery in Bavaria in south-east Germany. She
went on to get a PhD from the University of Edinburgh and write a comprehensive biblical
theology of wine in the biblical narrative, entitled The Spirituality of Wine. A world away,
Gregorio is an immigrant to the United States who works in Denver to support family back in
Mexico. His family has a small farm in central Mexico that he regularly visits, in which he
raises corn for elote. He once said about his family farm, “Today, on December 2, we sow
[seeds] in the name of our Creator and in that same name we hope with faith and patience
that by February 20 we can enjoy the fruit of that sowing.”

Though Gisela and Gregorio are from different social worlds, they both work in agriculture and they both see their work in light of Christian revelation.

Theological Action

In December 2019, University of North Carolina professor Molly Worthen wrote an op-ed for
the New York Times entitled, “What Would Jesus Do About Inequality?” She featured
leading voices on vocation in the U.S., noting that the faith and work movement today is
more interested in economic justice than baptizing laissez faire economics. She also wrote,

“In today’s evangelicalism, this is where the theological action is: the faith and work movement, the intersection of Christianity with the demands of the workplace and the broader economy.” [xiii]

I had to read that twice, before pausing to feel a proper sense of pride in being a small part of “where the theological action.” Theology, if we pursue it and know it, is indeed intended for action.

It’s easy to dismiss that “thinking theologically” is just for the few or the academically-
minded. This simply isn’t true. It is a gift from God for all the church to see our work and daily
life in light of Scripture, Christian doctrine, and the gospel grace. The Psalmist was right: “In
your light, we see light.” But to do that, we need to admit that what we think is who we
become. “For as a man thinks within himself, so he is,” (Proverbs 23:7, NASB).

This article is an excerpt from my latest book Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work that Transforms Our Outer World. It’s also available as an audio book. Click here for a free study guide.

[x] Martin Luther King Jr., “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart,” Stanford University, August 30, 1959,
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/draft-chapter-i-tough-mind-and-tender-heart.

[xi] For more on this topic, see my article: Jeff Haanen, “Broader, Not Deeper,” October 3, 2016,
https://jeffhaanen.com/2016/10/03/broader-not-deeper/.

[xii] Jeff Haanen, “What It Means to Follow Christ as a Public School Teacher,” July 17, 2005,
https://denverinstitute.org/what-mary-poplin-taught-us-about-being-a-christian-teacher-in-public-education-1-of-2/.

[xiii] Molly Worthen, “What Would Jesus Do About Inequality,” The New York Times, 13 December 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/opinion/sunday/christianity-inequality.html.

Craftsmanship & Manual Labor Spiritual Formation Work

Reclaiming Our Work

November 15, 2024

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow…For we are co-workers in God’s service.”
1 Corinthians 3:6-7,9

Josh Mabe led me behind his shop. “It’s a mess back here,” he said. What I saw was not
your typical Home Depot fare: old railroad carts, wine barrels, deserted barn doors,
discarded flooring from nineteenth century homes, planks from the bed of a semi-truck trailer
– each piece had a common theme: it had been abandoned by somebody else.

But for Mabe, each piece of discarded lumber is the object of his craft, an opportunity to
bring life from decay. Josh is the owner of Twenty1Five, a small furniture business
specializing in reclaimed wood located in Palmer Lake, Colorado, nestled at the foot of the
Rocky Mountains. Josh, a carpenter and craftsman, has attracted state-wide attention.
Rocky Mountain PBS, 5280, a Denver magazine, and Luxe magazine have praised his
attention to sustainability and “upcycling” – creating new products from used materials.
Yet it’s the products themselves that turn heads. His tables are mosaics of shapes, textures
and colors. He can turn drab boardrooms into a collage of natural beauty, and sterile
kitchens into a wild array of Mountain West history.

“I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands,” Mabe recalls. After college he taught shop
class for eleven years at a public school. A retiring coworker would leave scrap wood behind
the school – “what people would consider ugly wood.” But Mabe, unable to part with the
discarded lumber, took it home and built a table for his wife from the “reclaimed” wood. The
table caught the attention of his neighbors, though initially nothing came of it.

For financial reasons, Mabe took a job selling insurance. “But I was dying on the vine,” he
told his wife, lamenting the confines of an office. “That day,” Mabe recalls,” I distinctly
remember God telling me, ‘Go, make tables. And in two weeks I’ll bring you orders.’” That Monday, he went to his shop and began to build. Orders came in. Word began to spread,
and his new business, Twenty1Five, was born. [i]

Thorny Work

Mabe’s story reminds me that our daily work is filled with hope and pain, dreams and
setbacks, accomplishments and struggles. Each day, as we care for patients, teach
students, fix homes, and listen to customers, we are caught between the beauty of
cultivating God’s good world, and beating back the thorns and thistles of a fallen creation
(Genesis 2:15, 3:17-18). Sometimes the orders for tables come in; sometimes they don’t.

The thorns of work in our culture seem to be multiplying. First, we tend to either overvalue or
undervalue our work. Most professionals have made work their religion, seeing work as the
source of identity, self-worth, and impact in the world. The religion of “workism” is indeed
making professionals miserable. [ii]

Yet on the other side of the economy, people disengage from work, seeing it as nothing
more than a necessary evil. Millions of working-age men have dropped out of the workforce
completely, opting for entertainment and disability benefits rather than jobs, families, and
homes. [iii] Gallup reports that about 15% of all Americans are actively disengaged from their
jobs. [iv] Most, I’d venture, at least since the pandemic, have felt the slow creep of acedia or
sloth in our work, languishing in the long-afternoon sun of infinite tasks, yet finite energy. [v]
Work can feel like an exhausting marathon, which we will only be saved from at retirement. [vi]

Second, work is distracting. The advent of the internet and smartphones have affected all
corners of creation. Attention spans have become even shorter, and anxiety is on the rise. [vii]
But it wasn’t always this way. The Shakers had an interesting philosophy of furniture making.
“Make every product better than it’s ever been done before. Make the parts you cannot see
as well as the parts you can see. Use only the best materials, even for the most everyday
items. Give the same attention to the smallest detail as you do to the largest. Design every
item you make to last forever.” [viii] Though this philosophy is beautiful, with little red
notifications buzzing in our pockets every few minutes, it makes doing quality, lasting work
nearly a herculean effort. Distraction is the norm in a digital age.

Third, millions are underpaid and underappreciated for the work they do. In July 2022 Just
Capital did a survey of the issues American workers care most about. By far and away the
most important issue to American workers isn’t about communities, climate change or
corporate governance, it is: “pays a fair living wage.”[ix] In the fall of 2022, support for unions
was at an all-time high since the 1960s. It’s no wonder. At a time of deep divisions, Blacks,
Hispanics, whites, Republicans, Democrats, women, those over age 65 and under age 60
can all agree that they want to be respected for their work and compensated fairly. [x]

Yet, despite undervaluing or overvaluing work, the distractions we face, and the wide
underappreciation and under-compensation, we sense that work is part of a whole, meaningful life. Not only do we spend nearly 90,000 hours at work throughout life, but we
look to it for a sense of purpose. [xi] In the 1970s journalist Studs Turkel wrote, “Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for
astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday-through-
Friday sort of dying.” [xii] We long to be seen. We long for our work to be remembered. We
long for fulfillment and meaning.

If we want to live a full, happy life, we’ll have to find ladders to climb out of this damp, dark
hole we’ve found ourselves in. To do that, we first need to re-establish the value of work
Itself.

When Fires Burn Themselves Out

“Daddy, what if there were no stores?” That was the question my then four-year-old
daughter asked on the way home from church. As we cruised down South Santa Fe in south
Denver, perhaps she noticed the German Auto Parts Dealer and wondered what took place
within those four walls, or the fact that St. Nick’s Christmas and Collectibles was closed for
the season. Either way, it was an interesting question.

“Well, Sierra, just imagine,” I replied, looking at a gas station, then a shopping mall. “If there
were no stores, we wouldn’t have this car we’re driving in. We couldn’t be driving on roads,
these streetlights wouldn’t work at night, and we wouldn’t have these clothes on our backs.
We’d be naked!” She giggled in the back seat. “We wouldn’t have any food in the grocery
stores, our house would eventually fall apart, and we wouldn’t have any warm baths.”

“And dad, there wouldn’t be any doctors!” she replied. This was of great concern to her
because pretending to be a doctor was one of her favorite games. “Nope, no doctors,” I said.
“Wouldn’t that be terrible.” [xiii]

My daughter’s question reminded me of a book written by Lester DeKoster, a lifelong
librarian. “Imagine that everyone quits working, right now! What happens? Civilized life
quickly melts away,” DeKoster writes in Work: The Meaning of Your Life. “Food vanishes
from store shelves, gas pumps dry up, streets are no longer patrolled, and fires burn
themselves out. Communication and transportation services end and utilities go dead. Those
who survive at all are soon huddled around campfires, sleeping in tents, and clothed in
rags.”

This dystopian scene reminds us of an important truth: work is meaningful because it is the
form in which we make ourselves useful to others. [xiv] Indeed, work is not just the way we
make civilization, it is how we contribute to the great symphony we call the modern
economy.

Yet good work also is a key ingredient in a happy life. Charles Murray, an author and
researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, found that people who are unmarried,
dissatisfied with their work, professing no religion, and have low social trust had only a 10
percent chance of saying they’re “very happy” with their life. Having either a happy marriage
or a satisfying job increased that number to 19 percent. But for those who have both a very satisfying job and a very satisfying marriage, the number jumps to 55 percent who say
they’re “very happy” with their lives. Having high social trust bumps the number to 69
percent, and if you add in strong religious involvement, its raises even further to 76 percent.
Stunningly, for his sample set – whites from ages 30-49 – having all four elements (happy
marriage, high social trust, religious involvement and a satisfying job) closes the gap of self-
reported happiness between those with high incomes and those with low incomes. [xv] Good
work alone won’t make you happy, but it is one of the key ingredients to being happy with
your life.

We might, here, pause to say that there are many who don’t work and are completely happy.
And yet, if we think of work broadly as both paid and unpaid labor, we find that students,
volunteers, stay-at-home parents and retirees who are engaged in committed service to
others are consistently happier than those whose lives revolve around self-focused pleasure
or idleness. John Stott, the late great Anglican author and leader, defined work simply as
“the expenditure of energy (manual or mental or both) in the service of others, which brings
fulfillment to the worker, benefit to the community, and glory to God.” [xvi]

Getting a paycheck is, indeed, important, but what gives us spiritual satisfaction from work is
the opportunity to use our talents to love our neighbors as ourselves.

This article is an excerpt from my latest book Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work that Transforms Our Outer World. It’s also available as an audio book. Click here for a free study guide.

[i] This story first appeared at: Jeff Haanen, “Knotted Dreams,” 2 April 2014, https://jeffhaanen.com/2014/04/02/knotted-dreams/.

[ii] Derek Thompson, “The Religion of Workism is Making Americans Miserable,” The Atlantic, 24 February 2019,https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/religion-workism-making-americans-miserable/583441/.

[iii] See Nicolas Eberstadt’s Men Without Work, which I mentioned in chapter 1.

[iv] Jim Harter, “U.S. Employee Engagement Data Hold Steady in First Half of 2021,” Gallup, 29 July 2021,
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/352949/employee-engagement-holds-steady-first-half-2021.aspx.

[v] Jeff Haanen, “Where are all the workers? How to revive a wilting workforce,” Comment, 1 September 2022, https://comment.org/where-are-all-the-workers/.

[vi] For a book on faith and retirement, see: Jeff Haanen, An Uncommon Guide to Retirement: Finding God’s Purpose for the Next Season of Life (Chicago: Moody, 2019).

[vii] The CDC reported in July 2022 28.8% of Americans report symptoms of anxiety disorder; for 18-29 year olds, it’s a staggering 42.9%. Though there are many causes of the rise in anxiety, in a forthcoming article for Christianity Today, I argue that digital media certainly isn’t helping. See: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/mental-health.htm.

[viii] Quoted at: https://www.hattebergwoodworks.com/.

[ix] I find it interesting that in some data sets, pay is in the middle of what workers want most from their employer. I mentioned this in chapter 2. However, when asked about public and political issues, fair wages and pay are often at the top for voters, as are issues about the economy in general. Harmonizing the various studies, I think that good pay is just as much about expressing a worker’s worth and dignity as it is about paying the bills. For managers, pay gets employees in the door, but it’s insufficient to keep them there.

[x] https://justcapital.com/reports/2022-survey-workers-and-wages-are-more-important-than-ever-to-the-american-public/

[xi] Dan Buettner, “Finding happiness at work,” Psychology Today, 21 February 2011,
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thrive/201102/finding-happiness-work.

[xii] Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do (New York, New Press, 1972), xi.

[xiii] I first told a version of this story on my blog at: https://jeffhaanen.com/2013/02/24/daddy-what-if-there-were-no-stores/.

[xiv] Lester DeKoster, Work: The Meaning of Your Life (Grand Rapids: Christians Library Press, 1982), 2.

[xv] Charles Murray, Coming Apart: The State of White America from 1960-2010 (New York: Random House, 2012), 268,271.

[xvi] John Stott, Issues Facing Christians Today (Marshalls: Basingstoke, UK, 1984),162.

Culture Healthy Relationships Work

Building a Relationship-Centric Workplace

October 15, 2024

The glass door opens, and a smiling host in a suit and tie welcomes guests to Canlis, a fine
dining restaurant in Seattle. Low light, fireplace crackling, and white linen on the tables
create an air of elegance. Over 100 servers, cooks, and employees buzz around with grace
and speed to serve guests celebrating an anniversary or college graduation.

Food & Wine Magazine called Canlis “one of the 40 most important restaurants in the past
40 years.” Canlis has also been nominated for 15 James Beard Awards, which recognizes
“exceptional talent and achievement in the culinary arts, hospitality, media, and the broader
food system.” They won three.

The secret to their success? “To live out and grow the idea that more often than not, it’s
worth putting other people first,” says Mark Canlis with a grin, who took over the family
business in 2007, alongside his brother. “We’ve sought to understand what turning towards
one another really looks like and in so doing, see if our restaurant would stand the test of
time.”

Having endured since 1950 – and surviving a global pandemic that evaporated the need for
fine dining in a matter of days – Canlis has indeed stood the test of time because of their
focus on relationships, with both customers and employees. “Discovering what your
employee wants might be the most valuable and precious thing you can do as a business
owner,” he states. The culture embraced by Canlis employees is the true secret sauce to
their fine dining success. [i]

Relationships are the marrow of workplace culture: between management and employees,
employees and fellow employees, and employees and customers. They’re the heartbeat of a
school or company, and they’re also a source of tension, pain, and ultimately why people Quit.

One study found the top reasons people quit included lack of recognition, bad managers,
poor organizational communication, and unrecognized employee efforts. [ii] A Harvard
Business Review article echoed the same story: people quit principally because of bad
management or a lack of appreciation. [iii] Interestingly, compensation is always down the list
on what keep people at jobs, but relationships, communication, and workplace culture are
always at the top. [iv]

Family and work are the contexts for the growth – or deterioration – of human relationships.
To work well we must embrace relationships, whether we’re managers or employees, order-
givers or order-takers. But relationships are flat out hard work, especially in a lonely,
individualistic culture built on the myth of personal success. “Love one another as I have first
loved you,” can be a thorny proposition in the realities of manufacturing, retail, public
education, or food service. Yet for those who worship a God who is relationship, learning to live and work alongside other human beings, with all their flaws and quirks, is essential.

Healthy Relationships

One of my former co-workers, Lisa Slayton, proudly got a tattoo for her 60th birthday.
Emblazoned on her ankle is an image of the Trinity, with three hands each holding a cup,
pouring out living water into one another’s cup. For Lisa, a former nonprofit CEO and
vocational discernment coach, this image of the Trinity is the model for healthy relationships.

Secular culture is built around the individual and individual rights; but Christianity is built
around the Triune God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is distinctly three different
persons, yet always connected to the other Persons of the Trinity through self-giving love.
He is a “divine dance,” in the words of Franciscan priest Richard Rohr, into which his people
are called to participate (1 Peter 1:4).

Distinct but connected, receiving love yet giving love, self-assured yet self-sacrificial –
Christian doctrines give us a model for healthy, satisfying relationships.

One way to think about healthy relationships is the ability to “differentiate” yourself, yet stay
connected to others. Edwin Freidman, a rabbi, family therapist, leadership consultant, and
author, writes, “Differentiation means the capacity of a family member to define his or her own life’s
goals and values apart from surrounding togetherness pressures, to say “I” when
others are demanding “you” and “we.” It includes the capacity to maintain a
(relatively) non-anxious presence in the midst of anxious systems, to take maximal
responsibility for one’s own destiny and emotional well-being…The concept should
not be confused with autonomy or narcissism, however. Differentiation means the
capacity to be an “I” while remaining connected.”[v]

Murray Bowen, an American psychiatrist and founder of family systems theory, proposed a
scale of differentiation. On one side is enmeshment, being completely lost in another and
letting that person command your sense of well-being and identity. On the other side is
detachment and being emotionally cut off from relationships. Health is in the middle:
balancing individuation with togetherness or intimacy. It is staying in relationship with others
while being very clear about one’s own beliefs and values. [vi]

In the gospels, we see Christ living out this kind of balanced differentiation. He was in
relationship with his 12 disciples, yet he also sought solitude to pray. Jesus had a crystal-
clear understanding of his convictions, values and purpose. Staying true to these, he
challenged the Pharisees, and, when necessary, his closest friends, like Peter. As Christ
hung on the cross, he did this perfectly, staying connected to his mother and John, yet
unwavering in his commitment to God’s plan of salvation. He is distinct from those around
him, yet intimately connected to his followers.

Practically speaking, the test for our relationships comes when we face a crisis. When a
child throws a spoon at us in anger at the dinner table and we feel the blood rushing to our
head, how will we respond? (I’m speaking hypothetically, of course!) Or when your boss
disciplines you for not completing a project on time that you did not have the authority or
budget to complete, and your heart begins to race, how will you respond?

“Maturity is the ability to maintain a relational state under pressure.” – Tracy Mathews

Tracy Mathews, the founder of Attune, says, “Maturity is the ability to maintain a relational
state under pressure.” [vii] That is, when you feel a surge of rage or stress behind your eyes,
can you calmly state your perspective and allow the other person to share theirs? Or do you
flee, fight, or freeze?

Taking responsibility for your own emotions, refusing to negate or write others off, and responding with clarity, conviction and connectedness in a moment of stress is the test of the emotionally mature individual.

[i] “Becoming,” Faith & Co at Seattle Pacific University, 21 August 2020,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfEmU5UMSXU.

[ii] Laurence Hebberd, “10 Reasons Why People Really Quit Their Jobs,” Undercover Recruiter,
https://theundercoverrecruiter.com/why-people-quit/.

[iii] “Why People Quit,” Harvard Business Review, September 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/09/why-people-quit-their-jobs.

[iv] “The Top 9 Qualities of a Great Place to Work,” Top WorkPlaces, 5 August 2020, https://topworkplaces.com/the-top-9-qualities-of-a-great-workplace/.

[v] Edwin Friedman, Generation to Generation (New York: Guilford Press, 1985), 27.

[vi] For more on this, start with: Murray Bowen, Family Therapy in Clinical Practice (New York: Jason Aronson, Inc, 1993).

[vii] Tracy told me she originally got this quote from: Jim Wilder, Renovated (Colorado Springs: Nav Press, 2020).

Faith and Work Movement

I Love the Church

October 1, 2024

I love the church. I mean, I absolutely love it.

During worship this past week, I was reflecting on what a miracle local churches are to their communities. For example, sociologists say that church involvement is associated with a wide host of benefits for both children and adults. Kids who go to church have higher academic achievement and better relationships with parents and are more involved in extracurricular activities. Churchgoers commit fewer crimes, are in better health, live longer, make more money – and give more away. And one Duke study shows that across the board, those who go to church report significantly higher levels of mental health than the general population.

City municipalities often see churches as a drain because they don’t pay property taxes. Yet what’s often overlooked is that they don’t just do worship services, they provide a wide array of social services to the community that, when measured, produce tremendous economic and social value. These activities are a boon to their community and include things like: free child care, free counseling sessions with pastors (for those who could never afford a therapist), food pantries, medical check-ups, job training programs, and a wide array of educational programs. Churches are also like glue, connecting the civic sector through partnerships with nonprofits to a general audience on a weekly basis. Healthy churches tend to create healthy cities.

And one of the miracles of the local church is there are almost no places in society today where billionaires and the homeless, the tech founder and the refugee, the college-educated and the working class all come into contact with one another. It’s happening less and less in business, government, and even education because wealthier families often tend to send their kids to schools with other wealthy kids. But church still provides our culture a “commons” that creates relationships across a wide variety of racial, gender and class divides. All are welcome, and all are equal, in a church.

When reflecting on our need for more talented, skilled pastoral leaders leading local churches – which is a central reason we created 3 Streams Institute – I also realized that the Church is unique among all institutions. Now, I obviously care a lot about people living out their faith in secular work. But healthy churches are the root of spiritual and social renewal, not nonprofits, businesses, or the government. Imagine, for a moment, 100% of the churches disappear from your city tomorrow. What will be the health of the nonprofits, businesses, and government institutions in, say, 10 years? I’d guess it doesn’t look good. If society is a body, church is the soul. The body cannot live without the soul.

I truly cannot think of a more valuable institution to our cities and communities than local churches. And I deeply admire those who decide to commit to pastoral leadership over a lifetime. Churches are worth leading, and leading well. Pastors are worth investing in. And churches are worth committing to – like attending every, single Sunday.

Been a while since you’ve been to church? Give it a try. You might be surprised.

Attend church, but not a member? Consider joining. Like marriage, all the benefits come with commitment.
Curious about what it might be like to lead a church? Let’s chat.

church Theology

Rethinking Pastoral Education

September 18, 2024

It was a strange, deflating kind of day. I was a 24-year-old seminary student, eager to share my knowledge about the New Testament. I walked into the small church classroom well prepared with notes and PowerPoint slides. I plugged in my computer and eagerly awaited people to show up for my class at church. Hoping for over 10, I had two people show up. Next week, zero. Tumbleweed blew across the floor, and dust blew. (Not really, but that’s how I remember it.)

Months prior, knowing I needed church experience, I had created for myself an internship at a church for young professionals in Denver, Colorado. I had essentially no guidance or oversight, but undeterred, I advertised a class I could teach, prepared it, and showed up. I essentially tried to recreate seminary in a church context, because this is what I knew. And it flopped. Like a balloon pricked by a pin, I left feeling defeated.

Years later, I found myself in my first job after seminary: associate pastor of a Spanish-speaking congregation in Brighton, Colorado. In less than a year, I knew I was in way over my head. Navigating cultural differences, handling church conflicts, and trying to raise my own young family, my anxiety levels were climbing. And though I knew theology, I didn’t know the craft of being a pastor. I didn’t know how to lead. And I didn’t know myself.

The Seminary-Church Challenge

It’s no secret that the American church is facing tremendous challenges. Church membership is declining, as are numbers of seminarians pursuing an MDiv (the degree traditionally designed for pastoral leadership). Anecdotally, nearly all of my friends in church or denominational leadership are looking for one thing: leaders. And they are finding that recruiting talented young people into church ministry has become much more difficult than it was only 10 years ago.

Now, there could be many reasons for this; indeed, there are many reasons. Rising student debt, more options open to young people, church scandals deterring future pastoral leaders, and extreme competition for online theological education all play a role. But I believe we have a large, systemic issue.

Here’s what I mean: Seminary students are trained by scholars who are professionally prepared to do research—and sometimes to teach in a classroom. And this is fitting for academia. But it doesn’t look much like the daily life of a pastor. And churches are designed to, well, do church. They’re not training or educational organizations; they’re shepherding, worshiping organizations. There’s a large, systemic gap between theological higher education and the local church. By and large, the people whom higher ed is producing are not what churches need. Churches don’t need just good theologians; they need spiritually mature, emotionally healthy leaders who can build healthy, vibrant organizations. Theological education is a necessary component of pastoral education, but not sufficient.

This gap, of course, is nothing new in other industries. For many years, philanthropic and industry leaders have noted in conversations about workforce development that they see the need to better align education with work. Whether it’s to train a new welder or a health care technician, leaders have called for a new effort to provide young leaders with work-based learning opportunities. I believe this is the future of pastoral education as well.

Designing 3 Streams Institute

How might a work-based learning experience look for those open to exploring pastoral leadership?

That was the question I faced last year when considering how to design what’s become 3 Streams Institute. I knew what I didn’t want it to be: a place where interns make copies and fill coffee cups but aren’t known, appreciated, or invested in. I also knew that it couldn’t just be “seminary in another location”—existing models trying to solve new problems. I knew it needed to provide a holistic experience for both professional and interior growth. But what should it look like?

To answer that, I started where all great businesses begin: talking to our “customers.” I spent months talking to not just Anglican pastors but also over 15 past interns, apprentices, and residents. I wanted to hear: “What’s your story? What are you looking for? What was great about your experience? What would you change? What gift might you give to future learners?”

Broken down into five categories, here’s what I heard:

“Give us a place to discern our future.” Nobody I talked to said, “I’m 100 percent committed to a lifetime of pastoral ministry.” What I did hear, however, was interest, curiosity, openness, and some hesitancy. The interns wanted a place to test the waters before diving in.
“Give us practical experience.” Interns wanted a chance to lead and take on real responsibility in a supportive environment.
“Give us mentors and feedback.” I also heard how important a community of trusted leaders was to the interns. They wanted people to process their life and calling with, as well as to give them professional feedback.
“Give us a community to process real life with.” Each intern I interviewed was kindly vulnerable with me. After I spent hours listening, they shared the desire for a healthy, early-career work environment and community of peers to process their own spiritual, emotional, and relational issues.
“Give us a career path.” Interns were looking for an income—like the rest of us! But more importantly, they wanted to take graduated steps toward a career in church ministry. They were looking for a way to learn that wouldn’t put them further in debt and could result in both long-term and short-time gainful employment.

So, that’s what I set out to build: a work-based learning experience that would offer a healthy context for career discernment; practical work experience in a local church; mentored professional development; a community of peers and leaders to help them grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually; and a career pathway for future leadership in the Anglican church.

How It Works

Interns start with a nine-month role working 10 to 12 hours per week that includes rotating through different departments and learning with a cohort in six broad areas: emotional and relational health, spiritual formation, management and leadership, pastoral training, career discernment, and the Anglican tradition. The main goal of the first year is exposure to church leadership and genuine spiritual, relational, and emotional growth.

Year two features a 15- to 20-hour-per-week apprenticeship focused on working in a particular department in the church, getting real-life pastoral experience, and deepening discernment about pursuing full-time occupational ministry. Years three and four feature our full-time residency program (launching spring 2026), which focuses on the ordination process and provides holistic professional, spiritual, emotional, and ecclesiastical formation for future senior leaders.

We’re just getting started, and we have lots to learn from those we’re privileged to serve, but here’s what we’re excited about for 3 Streams.

It benefits our learners. The program provides both work experience and contextualized learning experiences that grow students’ interior lives and relationships—with God and others. It provides a scholarship (or a taxable stipend) to offset the cost of seminary education—which means that rather than getting interns into debt, we pay them to learn and grow. And it does so in a peer environment so interns have a place to process their careers, lives, and faith.

It benefits churches. This program creates a leadership pipeline for future church leaders, which nearly all churches are looking for. Now, it does cost the church. But it provides them a way to get to know future leaders before hiring them to lead and fills the seminary-church gap that is often a barrier to developing strong church leadership.

It’s holistic. We remain big fans of seminary education. But 3 Streams provides practical, mentored, hands-on experience and formation in six areas that are often overlooked: emotional and relational health, spiritual formation, management and leadership, pastoral training, career discernment, and the Anglican tradition.

It’s true to our mission. 3 Streams is “rooted in the gospel, alive in the Spirit, and formed by the liturgy.” We provide a context for learning that is theologically orthodox, connected to the historic church, and alive with the life of God.

It’s designed for adult learners. Rather than offering only a classroom setting or online class, we provide for our learners with environments that help them take charge of their own learning. For example, we’ve identified seven learning environments (thanks to my previous work with the brilliant people at Denver Institute for Faith & Work) that facilitate holistic learning: “come and see” experiences with leaders, reading and discussion in cohorts, practiced spiritual disciplines, relational processing with mentors, new professional experiences, formal teaching, and self-directed learning activities.

It provides on-ramps to pastoral ministry for any stage of life. We’ve designed the internship for either students or early-career professionals who are considering pastoral leadership. Starting in the spring of 2026, we’ll also have a residency program that will provide an on-ramp for mid- or later-career professionals considering an industry change. (More details are to come.)

It’s scalable. We’re just starting at Wellspring Church this fall, but we believe we could explore models to help other churches recruit, train, form, and send their own leaders.

If what we’ve designed feels like a mix of many worlds, well, it is! Just as corporations invest in research and development and venture capital firms take big bets on startups, we’re innovating new ways to think about pastoral education. And like design thinking teaches, we’ll continue to empathize, define, ideate, design prototypes, and test our curriculum, experiences, and program.

This launch is just the beginning. But we’re hopeful that, through prayer, generosity, and hard work, this could be a good, beautiful beginning.

The Early Career Arc

Leaving school can be hard. It means losing the predictability of a syllabus and the well-worn pathway of learning, writing, taking tests, and getting grades. This was the wilderness that I confronted in my 20s and that so many people face today. What did I need? Well, what 3 Streams is offering. A community. A deeper understanding of myself. Practice in the professional world. Patient mentors. The freedom to try things out, fail, and start again—albeit a bit wiser.

D. Michael Lindsay, the president of Taylor University, once studied over 500 “platinum leaders”—very senior leaders in the marketplace, government, higher education, and media—to understand what most formed them and helped them get into positions of influence. Interestingly enough, the main factor wasn’t what college they attended. It wasn’t what family they grew up in or their cultural background. It was what happened to them in their 20s that shaped their career trajectories.

I suppose that’s why I’ve spent much of my career designing holistic, formative experiences for young people in their 20s. Here’s where we can make an impact. Here’s how we can serve. And here’s how we can come alongside idealistic young people with PowerPoint slides, notes, and world-changing plans in hand and help them grow into the wise, seasoned leaders the Church truly needs today.

This is the second post in a series of articles about the newly created 3 Streams Institute. To learn more about 3 Streams or support its mission, visit 3StreamsInstitute.com.

church Culture Theology

Welcome to 3 Streams Institute

September 15, 2024

Today’s a good day.

Today, we launch 3 Streams Institute, a new initiative dedicated to recruiting, training, forming, and sending a new generation of leaders into the church in North America.

As with any founding story, what started as just an idea, even just a feeling, has now become something alive, new, and real. Here’s the story.

Billy Waters, the lead pastor at Wellspring Church in Englewood, Colorado, reached out to a handful of leaders in the winter of 2022 to discuss starting a new training organization that would build on—and expand—Wellspring’s internship program. We met for about five months with Chris Binkley, Tim Donohue, Katie Gayle, Jill Gilley, Tim Hascall, Linda Hearn, Steven Loomis, Amy Williams, and Mark Young to eat lunch after church, pray, and discuss. Passion and interest in the project were beginning to grow.

I had been attending Wellspring for only a couple years, but something had started to change in me, well before those early task force gatherings.

Remembering Why

I remember in the summer of 2020, when we were holding church on the lawn, I was struggling through a laundry list of anxieties and wounds in the midst of COVID. Reading our pre-communion liturgy, I came upon a single phrase asserting that “we,” the Church, “are the redeemed.” My first thought was, “That’s ridiculous. That’s not who I am at all. I’m a dang mess. And so is everybody around me.” And then, as I considered that phrase, “We are the redeemed,” tears began to well up. As I awaited the Lord’s Supper, I allowed that identity to be spoken over me, feeling undeserving but joyfully grateful.

I remember the time at worship when my extended family was going through a painful season, and my world felt dark, sad, and aimless. I remember the smile of Tara Malouf, a deacon at Wellspring, reading from the Book of Common Prayer, and I remember David Norris, the worship pastor, and Sara Kidd, the assistant worship director, singing a new song by Rita Springer called “Amen!” As we sang, “Amen, from an empty cup; Amen, when there’s not enough. God, hear me say it again! Amen!” I again felt a new freedom. That day, I came to believe that even when it’s dark, I can fully trust God, and he will provide everything I need. Everything.

I also remember during that summer of 2022, five months into our 3 Streams task force at Wellspring, thinking to myself, “This place, these people—there is something unique here. Something alive. Something the world needs. Something in me is now living that was once dead. If I can do anything to extend the vibrancy of this place and these people into the world, that’s what I want to do.”

Starting to Build

So I told Billy Waters that I had some experience building “institutes” and could potentially help turn a dream into reality. That summer, I put together a slide deck presenting an organizational plan of what 3 Streams could be. That fall, we discussed the plan with Wellspring’s board and senior staff. Early in winter 2023, Billy worked with a handful of generous donors to share the vision and realigned staff roles so 3 Streams could launch with a full leadership team. The plan resonated with donors who shared our concern about declining church membership, declining numbers of seminarians pursuing an MDiv (the degree traditionally designed for pastoral leadership), and the desperate need to recruit talented men and women into pastoral leadership.

The plan also resonated with prospective interns, who told me personally that they were curious about church leadership but unsure whether it was right for them. They wanted real-life experience, not just head knowledge; were looking for mentors and guides to help them discern their career; felt the emotional and spiritual weight of our culture and wanted a healthy context to work through emotional, relational, and spiritual issues; and were looking for not just a job but a career path.

In late February 2023, we got the go-ahead from the Wellspring’s board and leadership—including a budget, team, and early goals—to start building 3 Streams Institute. Partnering with Billy Waters, Tara Malouf, Amy Carr, Katie Gayle, and David Norris, we did just that. We built a curriculum and work-based learning experience that provides interns with:

A healthy context for career discernment;
Practical work experience in a church;
Mentored professional development;
A community of peers and leaders that helps them grow emotionally, relationally, and spiritually; and
A clear job pathway for future leadership in the Anglican Church.

Today is just a beginning, but it’s a joyful one.

Now, we build on the good work of those who’ve gone before us by humbly coming alongside interns, apprentices, and pastoral residents as they work, learn, discern, and grow together in community.

Today we welcome eight new interns—Ethan Metz, Madison Bishop, Olivia Wilson, Joe Morarez, Paige Lier, Maya Goodyear, Ellie Hires, and Martha Haller—as they begin a journey of exploration.

And we commit to being 3 Streams people: rooted in the gospel, alive in the Spirit, and formed by the liturgy.

Today we begin simply—but with great hope.

Join us.

Faith and Work Movement Work

Translating Your Christian Convictions for a Secular Workplace

September 3, 2024

The Challenge of Translating Faith into a Secular Workplace

“These ideas are fine,” I’ve heard many people say during my tenure at Denver Institute, “but
I work in a very secular company. How am I supposed to share my faith in a context where
it’s not invited—or is even condemned as inappropriate or offensive?” It’s a fair response to the ideas in this book. Home health care or software development, construction or biotech, driving trucks and driving profit margin are worlds far removed from church or faith-based nonprofits.

For most, the objection is two-fold. First, the church has a language that isn’t easily
understood by the larger culture. Singing, Bible reading, sermons and liturgies contain
worlds like sin, salvation, redemption, sanctification, and eucharist, words mostly unheard of
in company policy manuals, Slack feeds, or break rooms. To make it worse, Christians often
unthinkingly adopt insider language – “How’s your heart, man?” “It was a total God thing,”
“Want to join my D group?” [iii] – that makes it even tougher to communicate faith to non-
Christian coworkers or neighbors.

Second, Christians often fear the consequences of speaking about their faith in the
workplace. One investor I know, who held a prestigious job at a large asset management
company, was quietly let go after sharing about his faith at a Christian conference. His boss
saw it as unprofessional and not in line with corporate culture. It’s no different in, say, a
hospital. Alyson Breisch, a scholar at Duke University who trains and teaches nurses, says
that one of the concerns for faith-motivated nurses is that bringing up faith will cross
professional boundaries, and that may even be inappropriate in a physician-patient
relationship.[iv]

The task is to take up not just the vocation of one’s work, but also the vocation of translation.
John Inazu, a legal scholar at Washington University in St. Louis and a Christian, knows this
well: “My vocation of translation means translating the university to some of my church
friends and translating the church to some of my university friends,” says Inazu. “Living
between these two worlds makes me a kind of bilingual translator.”

This work, he writes, often requires personal risk. One of Inazu’s faculty colleagues said, “I
don’t get you; you’re religious, but you care about poor people.” And those in his church
have said they can’t trust a “liberal law professor” like him. [v] Yet Inazu feels at home at the
university and in church. And he’s committed to helping to stand in the gap between two
disparate worlds as an interpreter between church and his workplace. John believes we are
“ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us,” (2 Cor. 5:20).

So how do we do it? How do people of faith translate their convictions about the biblical
story into the secular workplace? Here’s a place to start.

Discern what kind of environment you’re in.

Before you share the gospel at work, you must first discern what kind of work environment
you’re in.

David Miller, who leads Princeton University’s Faith at Work Initiative and is the author of
God at Work: The History and Promise of the Faith at Work Movement, has proposed four
postures companies usually take toward faith in the workplace.[vi]

Faith-Avoiding. In a faith-avoidant company, leadership has actively decided to avoid
topics related to faith or religion. “That’s not appropriate here,” is the message, either
explicitly or implicitly. On the more extreme side, religious employees fear being fired for
expressing their beliefs, whether a Muslim wearing a headscarf or an evangelical Christian
asking a co-worker to accept Jesus as Lord.
Faith-Tolerant. More common in companies, schools, hospitals and government agencies
that faith is tolerated, yet not embraced. Often, faith-tolerant organizations will provide
religious accommodation to employees through the HR department, under the banner of
diversity and inclusion. In larger companies, religious expression is often tolerated in
“employee resource groups,” yet it is rarely invited into the work or company culture itself.
Faith-Based. The third option, which is most often cited among Christian networks of
business leaders, is faith-based. In this model, the faith of company founders is woven into
day-to-day operations of the company. This can mean the CEO is overt about his or her own
faith in corporate communication, adopts religious symbolism in corporate culture, and
groups, Bible studies, or evangelistic meetings take place at the workplace. This is most
common in smaller businesses or organizations led exclusively by Christians.
Faith-Friendly. Miller advocates for a fourth option: faith-friendly. In a faith-friendly context,
everybody’s ultimate beliefs are welcome, whether those be Christian, Buddhist, or secular.

In these organizations, leadership neither avoids or tolerates faith, yet neither do they
assume employees share their convictions. Instead, it actively welcomes conversations
about beliefs, backgrounds, and faith that shape employee’s motivations.

In addition to Miller’s four postures, I’d add the category faith-persecuting. In closed
countries, such as Iran, or ideologically-closed cities, like Boulder or Berkeley, being outward
about your faith can have severe personal or professional consequences.

This four-part model can be helpful in starting to understand how faith can translate into your
workplace. For instance, if you work in a dentist’s office where all your co-workers are
Christian, it will feel very different from working at a secular foundation that supports
progressive causes. In one context you’ll want to make space for others to speak who don’t
share your faith; in the other, you’ll need to be covert about how your faith is expressed lest
you become a pariah to your co-workers. Generally-speaking, the larger the company you’re
in, the more it will slide toward the faith-tolerant or faith-avoiding side of the scale.

Should you find yourself in a context like this, you need to recognize two things: your
company is not actually secular, but it is actually a very “religious” place (Acts 17:22).
Theologian Lesslie Newbigin believes, as do I, that companies not under the lordship of
Christ are controlled not only by people, but by what the New Testament calls “the powers and principalities.” These powers, though created by Christ and for Christ, become corrupted
and become dark when they become absolute (Col 1:16; Eph 6). When Jesus disarmed the
powers and principalities at the cross, he didn’t destroy them but he did rob them of the
claim to ultimate authority (Col 2:15). Though some see these verses as a hierarchy of
demons and angels, language of power in the New Testament could also be applied to
organizations, institutions, markets or governments. This truth can help us see that when we
go to work, various “gods” and ultimate purposes are already there, and we are ultimately in
a missionary context.

Second, we need wisdom to be Christians inside broken systems. Again, Newbigin uses the
language of subversion to understand the Christian’s role in a company, industry or system.
For instance, when Paul deals with the runaway slave Onesimus, he does not call for an
overthrow of the system of slavery, but instead reorients Philemon’s relationship to
Onesimus in light of now being his brother in Christ. The gospel doesn’t destroy systems,
but it sets them aright. “But undercover agents need a great deal of skill,” Newbigin says. It’s
a real challenge to know what it means to be in consulting, psychiatry, or financial services
as a Christian, who recognizes that her industry or company is distorted by the fall.[vii]

So, first, determine what kind of posture your workplace has toward faith, and begin the work
of seeing what the ultimate faith or worldview of your organization truly is.

Reimagine your workplace culture in light of the gospel.

The next step requires a work of the imagination.

Ask yourself: What’s good about my workplace or industry? What is distorted or fallen? What
might it look like if it was healed? And what is God calling me to do about it right now?

These four questions mirror the four movements of the biblical story: creation, fall,
redemption, and consummation. And they’re worth asking regularly as you begin to consider
what’s good, broken, and possible about your company, school, firm, or clinic. (See Chapter
4, Think Theologically.)

Matthew Kaemingk, a scholar at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, calls questions
like these taking an “industry audit.” We recognize that just like individuals, organizations are
often both a mix of good and evil, and it takes wisdom to discern what you can get behind
and where you must draw the line. Kaemingk believes asking these types of questions can
also help you discern how your industry is both forming you and deforming you. [viii]

For example, Trish Hopkins works as a real estate agent. “I’m astounded by whom God puts
in my path. From a young sailor and his bride purchasing their first home to a World War II
veteran selling his home after his wife’s passing, daily I get to participate in history-making
stories.” Trish sees the goodness of her industry in helping people buy and sell homes, for
many the largest and most significant purchase of their life. She also sees inflating home
prices, stress-filled house-hunting, and other agents who care little for their clients. She
imagines a world where people would “build houses and dwell in them, they will plant
vineyards and eat their fruit,” (Isaiah 65:21). Her calling in this larger vision of “home” is simply to be a thoughtful, Spirit-filled relational presence, patiently helping home buyers and
sellers navigate the process, and embrace an ethic of service, trust and compassion.

In the book of Genesis, Joseph knew the power of Egypt and Pharaoh to unjustly imprison
and persecute a religious and ethnic minority. But Joseph also believed that God could use
Egypt for good, including saving thousands of lives by providing food during a famine
(Genesis 50:20). He took a position of leadership in a corrupt government because he saw
that God can, and does, use broken systems as mysterious part of his redemptive plan.

Like Joseph, ask yourself: what role could even my broken, imperfect organization play in
healing a small part of God’s world? Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” It is also central to seeing how faith may transfigure not just your own work, but your whole industry. [ix]

Decide what practices you’ll engage in and which you need to abstain from.

What are the distinctive activities or beliefs you want to champion at your organization as a
Christian? And what are the practices or policies you must refuse as one ultimately
committed to God’s kingdom? [x]

For example, the prophet Daniel said yes to government leadership, serving in two different
pagan empires. He believed his leadership as a Jew could be of service to God and witness
to nonbelievers. He was willing to learn the language and literature of the Babylonians, and
even take a foreign name. He also engaged in the regular practice of praying toward
Jerusalem on company time. Yet Daniel and his fellow Jews Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah also famously refused to follow the dietary practices of his peers, and he also
refused to worship the CEO (Daniel 1-2). Ultimately, he was so valuable to his employer,
Daniel’s religious views were broadcast throughout the corporation (Daniel 3:29). This came
through pursuing excellence in his work, and carefully thinking through practices of
engagements and abstention.

The wise do the same thing today. Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, a journalist trained at
Northwestern University, has covered everything from local politics for the Daily Southtown
in Chicago to human interest stories for Christianity Today. Zylstra has seen journalism
transform in the digital age and social media turn up the noise and heat around political and
cultural issues. “The stories I write don’t necessarily…have anything to do with the headlines
of the day. We’re looking for where God is at work,” says Zylstra about what she chooses to
write. She believes the gospel changes “how we see our sources.” Because all people are
image-bearers, “We treat them very carefully. We want to have a lot of open communication
with them. We come alongside them to tell their story, so my sources see my stories before
they go up. It doesn’t get sprung on them when the rest of the public sees.” What she shares
with her secular peers is a commitment to getting accurate information and double-checking
facts. But in contrast to the never-ending anxiety-driven news cycle, she believes she can do
journalism in a counter-cultural way by focusing on local stories, where people tend to be
more hopeful about their communities and lives. [xi]

Deciding what practices to engage in and which to abstain from requires discernment. You
may see your co-workers in a tech company disengaging from their work and embracing an
“age of anti-ambition,” as one NY Times Magazine writer put it. Yet your response might be
instead to embrace a deep practice of sabbath rather than slack off in your work. Your
school may have strict, unspoken rules about sharing your faith with co-workers, but you
might instead choose to embrace intentionality with nonbelievers one month out of the year
as a spiritual discipline. Your financial services firm may be driven by greed or fear of
missing out on maximal returns, but you might instead practice contentment, or simply letting
your yes be yes or your no be no, resisting the temptation to twist language to close deals
for maximal personal benefit (Matthew 5:37).

To be a Christian in a secular age requires a form of civil disobedience, a refusal to comply
with the patterns of this world (Romans 12:2). It also requires Christians to offer alternatives,
finding practices that “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the
hope you have, but always doing so with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15)

Embrace the power of language.

“What’s our motto? Practically, it’s profit, profit, and more profit,” Scott shares his story with
me over breakfast at Gracefull Café in Littleton, Colorado. Scott works at a large private
equity firm, a company that buys and sells other businesses.

As Scott finishes a breakfast burrito, his expression changes, and his countenance becomes
lighter. “But here’s what I do. On my white board in my office, I write my values which guide
how I work and serve in business: integrity, humility, excellence, grace and joy. I start
conversations about them with employees, CEOs I mentor, even partners at the firm.” For
Scott, the language he uses about his work is a bridge to conversations about faith. [xii]

Most of us aren’t CEOs who can just rewrite a company’s values. But we can intentionally
choose which values the company we work for we can get behind, and then we can carefully
“lead up” and challenge the company to live up to its own best version of itself. Language
can be a powerful way to do this.

For example, David Bailey leads a nonprofit in Richmond, Virginia called Arrabon, which
focuses on racial reconciliation. Rather than using language of diversity, equity and inclusion
to describe his work, which has become a source of tension in many communities, he
believes God calls us to form reconciling communities that lead to “proximity, empathy and
then unity.” He believes that the work of racial justice must first have a foundation in spiritual
formation.

Another exemplary leader using language to build value-oriented work is Steve, who started
Orbit, a fintech company in the mortgage industry. [xiii] He counsels other business owners to
look at the overlap between your “cultural why,” your “company why,” and your “kingdom
why.”

For Steve, he saw that in 2016, the net worth of a typical white family was nearly ten times
greater than that of a Black family, and home ownership was the difference between this
huge asset differential. Steve saw a cultural need, and his “kingdom why” was based on a desire to see shalom and justice in his community. So, he created a company that helps
small and medium size lenders efficiently process mortgages, offering both a competitive
advantage for local lenders as well as designing a product that can ultimately help get more
people, including people of color, into homes. The intersection of his three “whys” formed a
company built on the values of rigor, ownership, curiosity, kindness, and transparency.

Distinctive language in a secular culture focuses on the individual. Self-esteem, personal
empowerment, and various shades of self-aggrandizement dominate. Yet Christian
language is uniquely grounded in grace. Words like faith, hope and love – the three
theological virtues – draw listeners into a gospel-centered world. Language of thriving,
human flourishing, or the common good can become common ground that draw coworkers
into deeper conversation about the very purpose of work.

I personally tried this exercise. I wanted to see if I could translate our principles – think
theologically, seek deep spiritual health, create good work, embrace relationships, and serve
others sacrificially – for a broader audience. I wrote an article entitled “Designing
Workplaces to Be More Human,” (not more “Christian”) and encouraged readers to ask
these questions that could be transferred to any secular context:

Do we invest in deep emotional and spiritual health?
Do we encourage real friendship and relational wholeness?
Do we create conditions for people to do their best work?
Do we stimulate broad thinking about the key issues of our day?
Do we really care about our city, especially the vulnerable? [xiv]

Language is powerful. Think about the words you’ll repeat, the words you write, and the
words you speak as ways to create bridges into the biblical story.

[iii] If you’re reading these footnotes and just want to enjoy a good laugh, watch “Shoot Christians Say” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dxo0Yjno3I&t=50s.

[iv] Alyson Breisch, “Reimagining Medicine: Breakout Session_04.6.16,” Denver Institute for Faith & Work, 4 April 2016,https://vimeo.com/172969773.

[v] John Inazu, “The Translator” in Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2021), 119, 125.

[vi] For more on these four models, including examples and what I believe to be challenges with each model, see: Jeff Haanen, “Faith in the Workplace: The Four Postures,” Denver Institute for Faith & Work, 17 November 2017,https://denverinstitute.org/the-four-postures-toward-faith-in-the-workplace/.

[vii] Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 83-84.

[viii] Two excellent resources to do this work are on Workplace Deformation and Workplace Reformation, by Dr. Matthew Kaemingk. They can be accessed online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RDvCESUSEg&authuser=0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grgoMJF_Jyo&authuser=0.

[ix] For another perspective on how to understand your city’s (or company’s) culture, see Stephen Um and Justin Buzzard’s book Why Cities Matter, or my book review for Christianity Today: Jeff Haanen, “How to Change Your Company’s Culture,” Jeff Haanen, 13 May 2013, https://jeffhaanen.com/2013/05/13/how-to-change-your-companys-culture/.

[x] On this language of practices of engagement and abstention, see: Justin Whitmel Earley, The Common Rule (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2019).

[xi] From “Faith and Work in Journalism with TGC,” Denver Institute for Faith & Work, https://denverinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/S2E3_Faith-at-Work-in-Journalism-with-TGC.pdf.

[xii] Scott requested I not use his last name or the name of his company.

[xiii] At the request of “Steve,” I changed his name and the name of his company to protect his identity as a Christian in a secular industry.

[xiv] Jeff Haanen, “Designing Workplaces to Be More Human,” Denver Institute for Faith & Work, 17 March 2020, https://denverinstitute.org/designing-workplaces-to-be-more-human/.

Culture Work

Which Story Do We Believe About Work?

August 8, 2024

Culture tells us a story about work centered on our individual success. We will finally be
happy with the title, the job, the salary. Of late, the story has shifted: we will finally be whole
if we join the right cause and solve our world’s social issues, while also obtaining flexibility,
work-life balance, and a fun work environment (when I want to come to an office). Though
there are things to praise about this shift, it still centers on me, trading career climbing for
personal comfort.

Christians tell a different story about work. Christians say that since God himself works, and
Adam and Eve were called into the Garden of Eden “to work it and care for it,” work is
intrinsically noble (Genesis 2:2, 5, 15). Many others, particularly in Reformed communities,
also believe work is a charge to build and cultivate human civilization based on God’s
command to “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it,” (1:28). Work is
good and a chance to impact culture.

Having shared this story probably hundreds of times, I heard honest critiques of this story
about work as well. “Jeff, that’s just high-minded idealism for people who’ve never had a real
job in their lives.” So I tell the other half of the biblical story about work: “Cursed is the
ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life,” (3:17).
Genesis clearly paints a picture of the Fall and how it’s impacted our work, stretching from
the “thorns and thistles” of daily labor to the monuments to human pride like the Tower of
Babel (Genesis 11). Indeed, in the very field meant for farming, just a few verses after the
Fall, Cain kills his brother (4:8), God reiterates the curse of work (4:12), and the first
technology, tools of bronze and iron, were likely forged for mining…and warfare (4:22).
Work can feel creative, impactful, and important. Yet it can also feel like toil. “So I hated life,
because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me,” says the author of
Ecclesiastes. “All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind,” (2:17).

The truth is: The Bible tells us both stories of work. Work was created good, but is now
fallen. It is a way to cultivate the earth, yet can also corrupt the earth. Work is new business
creation, teaching children to read, and works of art; it is also conflict with co-workers, being
unjustly fired, and workplace injuries – both physical and spiritual. The challenge for us today is to look squarely and honestly at the realities of work, and ask
better, more honest questions.

Not only, “What work am I doing?” but “What is work doing to me?”

Cracks In My Armor

We used to live in a two-bedroom townhouse behind a shopping mall. Between my wife, three kids and myself, it was a tight fit. One baby usually slept in a Pack-N-Play in a bathroom. But we felt grateful, like that maroon, split level home with tile countertops was God’s gift to us early in our married lives.

For years I worked at a Christian school during the day, but by night, I plotted out in a wire-bound notebook my own dream: an organization that connects the gospel to the industries of our world. One evening in late 2012, I came home from work and my wife had rearranged our garage into an office, complete with a desk, lamp, printer, space heater, and peg board sectioning off storage bins from the computer. “Honey, I believe you can do this,” she said to me. “I’m for you.” The tears welled up in my eyes. Her affirmation was just what I needed to hear.

And so I went for it. I spent a year recruiting a board, fundraising, building a plan, designing logos and eventually launching our first event, a gathering on faith and technology in one of America’s most secular cities, Boulder, Colorado. In the first several years, even I was surprised by our success. We got our first grant, built a donor base, launched new events, developed a leadership program, and began to hire staff. From the outside, it looked all “up and to the right.” Our budget was growing, our brand was starting to get recognition, and people I had never met somehow knew me.

But about 5 years in, I started to notice cracks in my armor. I would come home exhausted, with very little in the tank for my family, and often fall asleep an hour or two before my wife. When my kids needed discipline, I would sometimes explode in anger, and then quickly apologize, genuinely not knowing where that outburst came from. I noticed a feeling of near elation when we were “winning” – landing a large gift, hosting a successful event – and severe disappointment bordering on despair when I was rejected, slighted, or one of my plans flopped. I felt drawn to unhealthy patterns and a growing coldness within.

I noticed a growing divide between my exterior self and my interior self. My work persona (and LinkedIn profile) was all about success: growing influence, recognition, and public impact. But internally, I felt thin, lost, and concerned.

One day I pulled up to a stoplight in our family minivan. Waiting to cross the street was a thin white man, mid-twenties, wearing baggy jeans, stained shoes, and a tattered tank top. He had buzzed hair, an unkept beard, bags under his eyes, and a cigarette hanging out his mouth. I said to my wife, who was sitting next to me, “Honey, I feel like that guy looks.”

Rather than allowing faith to form my work, as my organization was built around, I felt like I had let my work deform me. Was this a calling from God, or had I simply baptized my own ambition? The world was cheering me on, but inside, I felt myself disengaging, disconnecting, and growing ever-wearier. I felt a growing need to shield those around me. And I had to ask myself a hard question: was I a part of the solution for what’s gone wrong in the world, or was I a part of the problem?

I’ve come to the conclusion that “faith and work” is not first about impact, success, or even a way to advance the gospel in the world – it’s about who we’re becoming in the process of our working lives.

Could there be a way to neither disengage from work, nor fall prey to the illusions of success, but instead live a truly healthy, whole life? A life that integrated and healed my heart and my mind, my work and my relationships, and the world around me?