The West’s Hurricane Katrina has hit. My sister, who lives in Fort Collins, has said the scene is surreal. Churches packed with families, helicopters still rescuing people from the mountains, entire towns ravaged with water.

Perhaps one of the biggest tragedies is the media. It’s on the homepage of cnn.com one day, but on to another story the next. Yet the destruction and the human need is still growing. Covering disaster, it seems, is not as popular as covering efforts to rebuild.

But rebuilding is what now needs to happen. Here are three ideas anybody can do to help:

Give personally. If you live in Colorado, go and volunteer to help flood victims. Offer to begin the arduous process of gutting homes and businesses to rebuild. Give groceries, loan your car, open you home to victims. If you’re outside of Colorado, give to one of many local charities on the ground.
Volunteer with your whole office. Talk to your boss, and in the next two weeks, take a day to volunteer in Boulder, Greeley, Fort Collins, Estes Park or several mountain towns. Gut basements, rebuild homes, clear debris. See if God doesn’t smile on your act of generosity.
Donate one day’s profits to the relief effort. If you’re in a leadership position at work, consider taking 100% of one day’s profits and donating it all to relief efforts. Watch your sales climb.

Sometimes applying your faith to your work requires creativity and imagination. Sometimes it’s obvious.

Work

Denver Institute for Faith & Work: A Beginning

September 16, 2013

For me, today is a landmark. Today we launch the website for Denver Institute for Faith & Work. (To celebrate, we’re giving away a copy of Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work. To enter the drawing for the book, just “like” our Facebook page from 8am-5pm today. We’ll announce the winner tomorrow.) Today is a small, humble beginning, but nonetheless, one that reminds me of God’s faithfulness. As I look back over the last year, there were many “firsts” that confirmed that this project was not just my own, but was growing in the hearts of many – and was being led by God himself.

First ideas. It was August 2012, and I sat on my bed scribbling out ideas for a new organization. Inspiration came from both the confluence of many streams of thought – Bonhoeffer, Newbigin, JD Hunter, Andy Crouch, Dorothy Sayers – and the newfound realization that work was the heart of influencing and creating culture. Three weeks of ideas eventually led to a simple business plan of what I was calling The Denver Institute. But of course, I’ve never lacked for ideas. My wife can testify to this! Would this idea be any different? Could it actually happen?

First meetings. Q Cities Denver took place only a month later. Being completely cash poor, I reached out to the organizers and asked if I could write an article in place of a registration fee. They graciously accepted my proposal (even though the editor at The Gospel Coalition eventually rejected my article – sorry Q!), and I met a city full of people interested in the gospel, work and culture. Having really no idea how to start a new organization after the conference, I started recruiting church advisory council members and board members from the list of conference presenters. The first three meetings were with Stephen Redden, pastor at New Denver Church, Patton Dodd, Executive editor of Bondfire Books, and my pastor, Robert Gelinas, of Colorado Community Church. I felt a bit odd recruiting people for what was at that time a figment of my imagination – but it was also in those early meetings that an idea was starting to become a reality. We drank coffee, talked, dreamed, and something amazing happened – each of them actually took me seriously.

First calling. And so I spent my evenings in my office, working, planning, reading, praying. One afternoon, however, my wife and I were struggling deeply with finances. Before church on Saturday, December 1, I broke down in my office in tears. Here I was, pursuing this dream, while we could barely pay our bills. Yet after church that day, something I’ll never forget happened. (You can read the full account here.) Terri Powell, a fellow member of Colorado Community Church, approached me after the service, and boldly said, “I have a word from God for you.” Not being a charismatic, I didn’t know what to make of this! She said, at just the right moment, at just the time I was wondering what God was doing in my career and vocation, Terri said, “God says to you, ‘Your work matters to me.’ He sees what you’re doing, and it’s important to him.” That moment converted a personal interest to a divine mission – from that time on, it was clear I was only a part of God’s larger plan, one that he himself was orchestrating.

First donation. My dear sister was our first donor. (Thank you sis!) She gave enough in November of 2012 for our logo and identity package. Having the spiritual gift of discernment, she could see something that I could not yet see. When the check came in the mail, I was really astounded. Here was faith that I barely had yet! But of course, it was her prayers that led me to Christ, and now her faith that led me to step out in faith myself.

First board member. I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was sitting on a Lazy Boy in my sister’s living room, checking my email. For the previous three weeks, I had been pitching the idea to potential board members. Yet one person stuck out. I had coffee at Stella’s one day with Chris Horst, the Director of Development for HOPE International and the de facto leader of faith and work efforts in Denver. As one of the Q Cities Denver organizers, I knew he was an important voice. But after our meeting, I said to myself, “If I can get this guy, the whole plan works.” He was a passionate follower of Christ, humble, intelligent, and had networks a mile deep in the Mile High City. A couple weeks after our meeting, I sent him an impassioned plea for joining the board (unconvincingly trying to prove what a great leader I was!). While checking my email that afternoon, January 24, 2013, this is part of what he wrote:

Jeff,

Thanks for your patience in walking through this decision-making process with me. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and praying about this…The longer I considered it, the more excited I became about the opportunity. It’s right in my “enthusiasm wheelhouse” and a cause and leader—you—I deeply believe in.

I’m excited to roll up my sleeves and help you move toward the vision God’s planted in your heart. I’ve concluded a few commitments I made for 2012 and believe I have the margin to support this fully…

There are many whose life experience and natural intellect exceed mine by (very) wide margins and I’m really honored that you even considered asking me to join. I’m looking forward to serving however I can to bless The Denver Institute and, hopefully, bless our churches and communities in the process.

Warmly,

Chris

Immediately I jumped up from my chair, and triumphantly shouted, “Yes!” My mother, sister, brother-in-law, and wife all thought I had lost it. I said, “It all works! Now the whole plan works!” Not only was Chris the first board member, he was the first to take a huge risk and dance with me. Having just one other person willing to join meant number two, three, four, ten and twenty were not far behind. Know I new that this vision now would become a reality.

First Church Advisory Council meeting. In February I first met with our church advisory council. As I looked around the room, I thought, “There’s one person here who doesn’t belong. Me.” Honestly, to see nine top-notch pastors come together and express support for this new project was an odd feeling. To me, it was both a confirmation of God’s work, and a cause for deep gratitude – something I would be feeling a lot in the coming months.

First board meeting. Shortly after, we had our first board meeting. Chris introduced me to Hunter Beaumont, Jill Hamilton, and Jim Howey. Patton Dodd and Bob Cutillo, who would become the chair of our board, also joined. Each yes to a board invitation was further evidence that the Spirit was working in hearts and minds. He was working in soil I had not tilled, and bringing a harvest I had not worked for.

The 501(c)3 app. Through my friend Gary Hoag, God also provided Scheffel and Associates, and Matt Paulk, who generously offered to front us the costs associated with filing a 501(c)3 application. Things were moving fast – and on March 22, I signed on the dotted line.

Confirming the Call. Over the summer, we worked on program design, board development, and our first fundraising request. One meeting, however, stuck out. I met Bob Cutillo at Blueberries in Littleton for coffee on a Saturday morning. The purpose of the meeting was to talk about whether he would chair the board. What stuck out, however, was his deep wisdom – especially about calling. That morning, Bob clarified my own sense of “boundness” to this project. I’ll paraphrase what he said.

People often say, especially to high school graduates, “You can be whoever you want to be.” Well, that’s a bunch of bologna. When you discover your calling, you can either choose your destiny, or become less of who God created you to be…In my career, at times I’ve stepped away from being a doctor to the medically underserved. Things didn’t go well. I stepped outside of my calling, my “fit.” Do you feel the same way about starting this new organization?

After that day, it became clear: truly embracing the call to lead this organization actually was limiting my freedom. I don’t have the choice to do something else (a very un-American idea)!Well, I do, but if I did choose to go another direction, I would be denying my very own shape, the way God formed me for a particular purpose. In a world where people will change careers an average of 12 times in a lifetime, this view is exceedingly rare. Nonetheless, the call to this project was not only confirmed by others, but was being solidified in my heart as I peered into the future.

First event. Toward the end of the summer, we put our first event on the calendar. In partnership with The Well Boulder, The Tango Group, and All Souls Boulder, we’re bringing John Dyer, author of From the Garden to the City:The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology, to Boulder to equip those who work in the tech industry to better integrate the gospel with their work. In addition to our first event, we have leaders for 5 vocation groups, one that’s going now, the other four which will begin this Winter.

New Website. And today, we have a new website. Little did I know what I was getting into when I started this project! Words like widget, plugin, and CSS code have all moved into my vocabulary. But thanks to friends like Stephen Redden, Jill Hamilton, and Andrew Wolgemuth, we have a reasonably good website (with over 40 pages!) and three social media outlets. The website was a good reminder for me – living out your call doesn’t mean the absence of frustration or hard work!

God calls us to remember. It is one of the most frequent commands in the OT. Remember how I brought you out of Egypt. Remember the covenant. Remember the LORD your God. As I remember this past year, I can see how true Cathy Pino’s “Servant’s Prayer” is:

Lord it’s you who has brought me to this day

Who has carried and kept me in your care

I look back and I see you in all my years

And so forward I go, knowing you are there

God does something truly amazing with our work when we offer it to him. He takes our feeble attempts at service, in all our wandering confusion and persistent sin, and uses it in his great plan of redemption. What grace! What love! What creativity! To use such a tainted pallets as us, and to paint such masterpiece of salvation – what an exhilarating life to live.

If I was to share any piece of insight from my own story in the past year, it would be this: trust in his providence, and offer all your work to him. He will make it beautiful in its own time.

Work

Man vs. Man: Ranking Ourselves at Work

September 2, 2013

Nice to meet you. So what firm do you work for? I wonder if my firm is bigger.

Webster & Associates. Just took the job last month; I was over at Leeland & Keller before that. Forward progress for me. Bigger, better…This guy’s pretty confident. I wonder where he comes from. How about you? You local? Where did you go to law school?

University of Denver. After that I clerked for Judge Merriweather downtown. Geez, Webster & Associates? I bet he went to Harvard Law. How about you?

Yale Law. I clerked federal in D.C. A long few years, but worth the sacrifice. Good thing I didn’t meet my wife until law school. Too busy.

Comparison. We all do it. A recent blog post entitled Mom vs. Mom highlighted the subtle ways moms compete and compare – organic mom, slender fit mom, working mom, super-godly mom. The push to do it all, be it all, thrives amidst mothers and their kids. It’s no different at work. Pastors subtly ask one another how many people are attending their churches on Sunday. Lawyers vet their competition by making small talk about law school. Business leaders compare balance sheets over happy hour. Entrepreneurs, feeling ‘small’ when around a venture capitalist, inflate their ideas. Authors discuss which publishing house picked up their last book. In admissions and student enrollment (where I work), of course, the marker of success is the number of students each Fall. LinkedIn profiles grow and grow – even when people aren’t changing jobs. Just look at all those endorsements.

It’s not like anybody does this overtly. But in certain contexts the feelings of inferiority – or superiority – take over. The small talk may seem innocent, but at the heart of it is the desire to prove our own worth. We play a never-ending game of professional (and personal) rank. Why? To show the world our worth. To justify ourselves.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian and pastor in WWII, wrote a little book called Life Together about Christian community during his time leading an underground seminary at Finkenwalde. A random half-quote from the book once stuck with me. The Christian, says Bonhoeffer, is simply a “brother among brothers.” With God as our Father, and Jesus himself as our brother (Heb. 2:11), Christians are family. On an equal playing field.

Holding on to this phrase “a brother among brothers” has been hugely helpful to me as I walk into appointments. In the faith and work world, I have the tendency to exalt myself over other ministries or individuals who need my help, and, conversely, cower before high powered professionals or CEOs who make my paltry experience seem microscopic in comparison. Yet when I repeat the phrase “a brother among brothers” before appointments, it does two things for me.

It eliminates superiority. How could I, a servant of Christ, really be superior to anybody else? I’m justified freely by God’s grace, and the person I’m sitting across bears the image of the King of the Universe, and is my brother (or sister). Manual laborer, Latino pastor, retired grandmother, 15 year-old high school student – all family, and worthy of my attention and careful respect. When the apostle Paul appealed to Philemon to receive back his former slave Onesimus, he reminded him that in Christ his social rank had changed. Onesimus, once a slave, is now a brother (Philemon 16).
It also eliminates groveling. If this executive sitting across from me is really my brother, do I really need to build myself up, prove my worth, or beg for their approval? Would I do this with a family member? Of course not. It wasn’t for no reason that Joseph spoke squarely and honestly to Pharaoh. He had been with God (or, more accurately, God had been with him) and that freed him to speak truth – but never lacking love – to the most high powered man in the world. Since we are both made in the image of God, there’s no need to vet competition by checking academic credentials, examining work attire, or (when getting home) measuring the green-ness of their grass. Christians are free to listen, serve and love, without the need to conquer, achieve, or exalt ourselves.

Our worth comes not from our professional success or rank. It comes from Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross and the gift of His righteousness on our behalf. Since all the treasures of heaven have been poured out freely into the lives of Christians, there’s no need to play the game anymore. Here is where we find freedom, peace and rest. Here’s also were we find an eager desire to serve those “below” us, and a strong confidence to engage with those “above” us.

My friend David Hyams, at Rothgerber, Johnson & Lyons, a law firm in Denver, has suggested a good way to put this into practice at work. Change the question. Instead of asking asking questions about which law firm, which law school, etc., when meeting another lawyer, he simply asks the question: “So why did you go into law?” This question goes to purpose and intent. It also often draws out a lawyer’s highest ideals – of justice and equality – which are often in need of refreshing amidst the challenges of litigation, clients, and daily stresses of practicing law. Questions about rank tend to have the purpose of quietly finding ways to exalt and prove oneself; questions of purpose draw peers into re-envisioning the good purposes for which God has designed their work.

Discussion question: In your field, what questions are asked that are subtly intended to “rank” one another? How can you “change the question” when meeting people in your field?

Photo: Two Lawyers Conversing

(PS: Have a restful Labor Day.)

Theology

Satisfying Work in the New Jerusalem

August 29, 2013

What’s heaven like? In Isaiah 65, God promises to create new heavens and a new earth, to undo a world of suffering and renew his beloved Jerusalem.

“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.”

So what will this new Jerusalem be like? And is there anything we can do now to better reflect this new world? Isaiah 65 gives four key features of the new heavens and earth in this passage – and one that we hardly ever mention:

Long Life. In the new Jerusalem, there will no longer be infants who live just a few days, or people who do not live out their years to old age. Untimely, tragic death will be no more, and life will reign (Is. 65:20).
Peace and Justice. “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox…They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain” (Is. 65:25). There will no longer be violence or destruction. Peace and justice will flow in the streets – and even the fields – of the new Jerusalem. Strong and weak, powerful and powerless, will sit at the table of fellowship, a vision not much different from Dr. Martin Luther King’s vision that one day “on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
Renewed Family. No longer will women “bear children doomed to misfortune” but instead God will bless families and their descendants (Is. 65:23).
Satisfying Work. Because we so rarely mention work in the context of heaven, I’ll quote Isaiah 65:22-23a at length: “They will build houses, and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain.”

There are two things to notice about this passage:

The structure of the passage is built around Genesis 3 and 4. The new heavens and earth is a reversal of the effects of the Fall. Death was a result of sin (Gen. 3:19, Rom. 5:8), and Isaiah states God will reverse the effects of death with fruitful life (Is. 65:20). God curses both childbearing and work as a result of sin (Gen. 3:16-19), but both the family and work are restored in the new heavens and earth (Is. 65:22-23). Finally, one of the most devastating effects of the Fall is violence. Genesis 4 – when Cain murders his brother Abel – prefigures a world of injustice and bloodshed; Isaiah 65 envisions wolfs and lambs living side-by-side in peace.
Satisfying work is at the center of the new heavens and earth. The reason God’s chosen ones “enjoy the work of their hands” is because the can live in the houses they built, and enjoy the fruit of the vineyards they planted. The very opposite of this is “laboring in vain” and having others live in the houses they built, and others eat the vineyards they plant. Now, I think the immediate context of this passage is a promise that foreign armies would no longer rule over Israel, and essentially plunder their wealth (homes and vineyards). But nonetheless, this passage makes it clear that seeing and enjoying the work of your own hands is central to shalom, to peaceful communities. (Ecclesiastes makes similar statements about the curse of toiling so that others might enjoy your work, and, conversely, the divine blessing of finding satisfaction in your work [Ecc. 2:17-18, 3:13]).

In this post, I wanted to just lay some biblical groundwork for discussing further questions about satisfying work down the road. But for now, I’d really like to get your feedback on a couple simple questions:

What makes for satisfying work? Or, perhaps more easily answered, what do you think are the core features of frustrating work? In what situations do you say, “That was a good day’s work?”, and when do you lament, “I accomplished absolutely nothing today?”

(Note: Thank you to Robert Gelinas and Colorado Community Church for asking us [the congregation] to memorize this passage. It’s well worth our in-depth reflection.)

Photo: Jerusalem Sunrise

Theology

The Way of Nature, The Way of Grace

August 26, 2013

What really makes the work of Christians any different from the work of anybody else? Or put another way – how could we distinguish between the daily work of a Christian versus that of, say, a Muslim, secular humanist, Buddhist, or religious pluralist? Would we (or should we?) see a difference?

Some would say the actual work would be no different; work would just be done with a different motivation (a view I’ve disagreed with on this blog). Others would boil it down to the “three e’s”: excellence, ethics, and evangelism. However, I think there’s a problem with making these the distinguishing marks of the Christian’s work.

First, as best as I can tell, secularists, Muslims and other non-believers care about excellence just as much as Christians. They may do so out of the wrong motives – but nonetheless, I’ve often been amazed at the art, business structures, or literary achievements of my peers from other faith.

How about ethics? Again, I think there’s much truth in saying that Christians should outshine their peers in their ethical choices. They have a foundation for right and wrong that is founded on God’s revelation in Christ and a relationship with Him, not just a set of moral norms. However, I know many people of other faiths who are far more ethical than I am. One of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, often surprises me with his moral vision and rapt encouragement for fellow “artists” and entrepreneurs. I regularly read The Economist – not exactly a haven of orthodoxy – and am also impressed by the moral vision of many of its non-Christian writers.

I think far too many Christians try to undermine the ethical goodness of their non-believing peers in a veiled attempt to root out hidden sin and show them their need for the gospel. I don’t think this is a very good strategy. Lesslie Newbigin, in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, says:

“The Christian must tell [the gospel], not because she lacks respect for the many excellencies of her companions—many of whom may be better, more godly, more worthy of respect than she is. She tells it simply as one who had been chosen and called by God to be a part of the company which is entrusted with the story. She will indeed—out of love for them—long that they may come to share the joy that she knows and pray that they may indeed do so. But it is only the Holy Spirit of God who can so touch the hearts and consciences of others…”

There’s no need to try to unveil secret iniquities of others (don’t we already have plenty of our own?) and try to do the work of the Holy Spirit. Telling the story of the gospel is the task of the Christian, even as Christians work alongside of friends from other faiths, acknowledging the good work they do – work that is often better than our own.

Then it’s surely evangelism, right? Certainly, the words of the gospel are completely unique to the global Christian church – and they must be spoken. Yet far too often this becomes a project in changing the subject from expense reports, project deadlines, or lesson plans. What is it about the Christian faith that can drastically shape the actual work itself?

I believe one answer to this question is the way of grace. Christian film-maker Terrence Malick, in his beautiful film Tree of Life, opens by contrasting the way of nature with the way of grace. The way of nature is tit for tat, it is just punishment, it is competition and survival of the fittest. But more than that, it is the way of the self – getting your own way, your own reward. The way of grace, by contrast, isn’t worried about being overlooked, slighted, or insulted. It is content to simply give.

The Tree Of Life: Way Of Nature, Way Of Grace from Otto on Vimeo.

Expanding on Malick’s concept, I would say it is being so shaped by God’s undeserved favor that gifts flow from you to both friend and foe, business partner and business competitor, beloved co-worker and despised boss.

The biblical figure Joseph is a good example of the way of grace within the context of work. Sold by his brothers into slavery at a young age, he had every right to be angry and bitter. Yet we see a different response on at least four occasions:

In Potiphar’s House. When made a slave in Egypt, Joseph was put to work in the house of a military official. It would have been easy to be despondent, depressed, or outright vengeful, but he instead worked with such diligence that the captain of the guard put him in charge of his entire estate (Gen. 39:4). Yet it wasn’t just a desire for excellence that propelled him. The narrator wants the reader to know Joseph’s success came as a gift of grace. The LORD was with him and “gave him success in whatever he did.” His work flowed out of his relationship with a gracious God who did not abandon him, even in his suffering.
In Prison. Joseph was falsely accused of sexual harassment in the workplace, and, as such, got thrown in prison. Again, this was a devastating personal and career setback. He was working his way up the corporate latter, expecting perhaps to make the best of a bad situation, and instead he got severely punished for not even touching his boss’s attractive wife who was trying to sleep with him. So what did he do? File a lawsuit? No. Instead he entrusted himself to the God who was with him, and worked with such diligence “the warden put Joseph in charge of all those help in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there” (Gen. 39:22). Everybody in the prison benefited because his work became a gift of grace to all those suffering around him.
Administering Grain During the Famine. Joseph finally got his chance to get even. He finally got his day before Pharaoh. The way of nature would have been to call attention to his unjust imprisonment and get Potiphar’s wife thrown behind bars. But for Joseph, there was none of that. When faced with the CEO, he spoke truth loudly, interpreted the times for him, and gave him such swift insight it earned him a #2 ranking in the entire corporation. And perhaps what’s more impressive is his follow through. Seven years of plenty came – and they stored grain. Then came the seven of famine. And Joseph – for 14 years – faithfully brought his plan of saving resources during a season of huge economic yield to fruition, because he knew it was the plan of God. When the developed world came to Egypt’s door for food, Joseph’s role as a government official and his faithful stewardship of that role could only be considered a gift of grace.
When Being Reunited With His Family. Joseph had the opportunity to get even with his brothers – the ones who sold him into slavery. Indeed, the temptation for Joseph to use his positional power to punish those who did him so much wrong was immense (Gen. 44). But ultimately, in one of the most moving scenes in the Bible, Joseph forgives his brothers, and sends a lavish gift home to his father Jacob. The grace kept coming. And when reflecting on his painful career path, Joseph figured God had used even the evil of his brothers to bring about the good of saving lives during the famine (Gen. 50:20). Joseph acknowledge that his pain was a conduit of God’s grace.

What would it mean for Christians to universally adopt the way of grace in work contexts? The company loses millions on a big investment your employee made – and when your boss comes knocking, you decide to take the heat. Another coffee shop moves in right next door to your own, and you offer help and encouragement to your competitor. Your boss consistently overlooks your achievements – and you decide to give extra time to the new capital campaign anyway. The union requires you to say until 4:00pm, but you look at your student, a 5^th grade boy with a rocky home life and a “D” in math, and decide to stay late to help with his homework.

C.S. Lewis was once asked what makes Christianity different from all the world religions. “That’s easy,” he said. “Grace.” Every other world religion or philosophy at some point aligns with the way of nature – earning favor with God or others through personal merit. They are all a great climbing heavenward, beseeching the god’s (or other human’s) favor and getting what we deserve. The Christian God, however, comes down to earth, becomes a man, and gives his very life away to those who would scorn his sacrifice. His foundational work on the cross is a gift of grace.

When Christians choose to do these acts of grace, they’re not done to be seen by others. They’re done out of gratitude; they’re done because the universe they live in is sustained by the unmerited gifts of a loving God. So, should they ever receive praise for what looks like “ethical behavior at work,” all they can do is point to the One who first gave to them.

Discussion question: Over 70% of Americans don’t like their work. But would you like your job more if today you gave a boss, a co-worker, a client or even a competitor a gift of grace? What would it look like to build giving into the very structure of your company or your daily routines?

Education

Writing About Bill Kurtz, CEO of Denver School of Science and Technology

August 6, 2013

Recently Christianity Today published my essay on Bill Kurtz, CEO of Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST). (Read the complete essay here.) Having learned about Kurtz only this last Fall, his work was relatively new to me. As a charter school leader, and one who had spoken at both Q Cities Denver and at the Center for Faith & Work, I thought I should investigate his story to see if I couldn’t learn something about how he integrates his faith and work.

As we sat down at Udi’s in Stapleton on June 18 for a brief lunch interview, Bill was kind, humble, and self-effacing, not exactly what I expected from a successful charter school executive. We spoke for about 45 minutes on the challenges of public school education, his motivation & leadership style, and the secret to DSST’s success. I went home, typed up the interview, and got working on the article.

Little did I understand sheer magnitude and far-reaching impact of his work.

As I began to research DSST in local media, I discovered DSST is consistently recognized as one the nation’s top charter schools. Students are 75% from minority groups and 45% low income – and DSST ranks consistently as one of the top 5 schools state-wide on student academic growth. Average ACT scores are 24.6 (Denver Public Schools are 17.6), and 100% of seniors in school history have been admitted to a 4-year college.

Ed News Colorado has called DSST “the crown jewel of Denver’s high school reform efforts.” Another organization, A+ Denver, cites 10 years of failed school reform in DPS, with a single exception – DSST. Kurtz has even been to the House of Representatives in Washington to share about STEM schools in the US. He even got a $1 million donation from Oprah for his school – a pop icon with more power than the president, according to Kurtz.

As I was writing the article, I puzzled over the question: how did he do it? How did he produce not just one, but now seven schools with such stunning academic results?

Bill consistently attributed DSST’s success to their school culture. He says they have built a “values-based institution,” one that lives DSST’s ethics – respect, responsibility, doing your best, integrity, courage and curiosity – on a daily basis. In the article, I wrote about their morning meeting, a 4-times-per-week gathering of students and staff to “recognize student achievement, acknowledge the school’s values, praise service to others, own up to mistakes, and pledge to put forth their best effort each day.” In contrast to free-floating relativism or legalistic rule keeping, DSST lives a set of ideals – and these ideals shape DSST culture.

What interested me was how his understanding of the gospel shaped his engagement as a public school leader. Not only did he build his schools on concrete moral ideals, but he encourages staff and students to live out their part of “the human story.” Kurtz says, “Everybody wants to be affirmed for their unique gifts and talents, and everybody wants to make a significant contribution to the human story.” Underlying his desire to serve is this aggressive hopefulness that comes from understanding that human history in a story – with a divine story-teller – that has a good ending. Hope permeates his schools. And it drives him to do great things as an educator how has found an “opportunity for me to live out my vocation, serving the needs of others and building strong communities.”

Here’s how the article begins:

Ten years ago, a subtle desperation filled the aging halls of Denver Public Schools. In 2003, only 55 percent of Denver high school students graduated on time; that number dropped to 46 percent in 2008. As minority and low-income populations rose, achievement tumbled. Denver, along with cities like Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Oakland, became a “dropout epicenter.”

Despite noble efforts from teachers, issues like drug abuse, gang activity, and pregnancy fostered a “what’s the point?” attitude among students. Even many of those who did graduate wouldn’t go to college or be prepared to compete in a global workforce that was rapidly outperforming American students, especially in science and math. America’s high school students were falling behind, and Denver was near the back of the line.

But ten years ago, when most saw hopelessness, Bill Kurtz saw opportunity. (Read the rest of the article.)

Education

Interview with Bill Kurtz

August 6, 2013

June 18, 2013

What motivated you to serve in public education?

I always liked working with kids and I always liked challenges, and it seemed to me this is one of the biggest challenges our country faces. Also, it didn’t seem to me we were doing very well solving it. It was a great opportunity to serve and tackle something that interested me and work with people at the same time.

Why then public education?

It felt like the right opportunity to have an impact and, again, in a place where very few people were having the kind of success that we needed to have for kids and our communities. It felt like an opportunity to solve a much bigger problem. Not that private education isn’t good. But this seems to be the core…obviously most kids in this country are educated in a public school.

What is the biggest challenge in public education today?

Ah, the biggest challenge is finding great people. We’re going to hire about 120 people this year. That’s a lot of people. We look for incredibly high quality great people. There’s not enough of those in public education today.

Why not?

I think there’s probably a couple issues. One is people generally think of public education as a place not where you can have success. I think a lot of people are turned off by that. I think people generally people want to work in a vocation where people can be successful, where they can make a difference. I think the general perception is that that’s not possible [in education], particularly in large cities.

So, I think that’s been a challenge. And I think compensation is always an issue. I don’t think our best and brightest people see teaching as a way to support their family and provide the kind of income they want for their family. So it doesn’t draw the same kind of people that other professions would.

Is it more challenging in a charter school?

Not necessarily. In Denver it is because people don’t get pro comp, which is challenging a bit. But in general I would say no. It’s true in all public schools I think.

So what motivates you? You have six schools and four more planned?

So we have six schools, and one that will open next Monday and three more that will open in the next couple years. And we’re adding four to that. So we have seven open and we’d be adding seven more. We’d have a total of 14.

What drives you? That’s a lot of work.

What drives me is the opportunity to serve. We have something that is by no means perfect. We have plenty of issues and challenges that we have to get better at, but it’s an opportunity to serve and you have an opportunity to impact lots of students in a lot of families and a lot of student’s lives. We could just sit back and do one or two schools, but I think we’re called to do big things and I think we can do big things. I think it will be challenging but I think it’s worth the difference we can make.

Was there a moment you felt called to do this? Did something happen?

No, I don’t think there’s a moment. I think there’s an opportunity that presented itself, that was open for us that we had the opportunity to walk through. We were in a position to make a decision…

You and your wife?

No, we as in the team at DSST public schools. Gretchen is a very supportive partner, but she has her own work, which is probably good.

So, I saw you testified in front of congress in April, right? What was that experience like?

It was interesting. I don’t find it particularly hard; I think the work we do every day is hard. It’s a great privilege and opportunity to share the work we’re doing. Washington is a very interesting place and you can see quickly how challenging it can be. Members of congress go from one hearing to the next with very little information. Maybe a few of them are experts, so you know it’s…they have to know a lot or the conversation is very challenging. It’s a different world…

Have you read D. Michael Lindsay’s book Faith in the Halls of Power? You are in the halls of power. How do you express your faith in the halls of power? Or at least among leaders in [Denver]?

I think in general we express faith through our work …kingdom building work. It’s an opportunity to live in the world and be of the world in ways that can have a big influence on other people. You know, I think we’re called to enter the world and be a part of the world around us. So I think we have a huge opportunity to express that and to serve and to be a part of the larger community and bring that faith perspective to our work.

What’s your perspective of Christians who choose homeschooling or Christian education as opposed to public education?

I think schools are incredibly personal decisions for every family. I think it’s a challenging decision, there’s no perfect educational opportunity. I think every parent needs to make their own decision. It’s hard to judge parents because they know their kids the best. So I don’t think there’s a right or wrong decision.

So how would you answer a Christian who says “Public education is a secularizing influence?”

I think that there’s tremendous opportunity to experience the world God has created in public education. No schools share all the values of a particular family. Even Christian schools struggle with that. There are different views of the values people have. So I think that families have the opportunity to set the course of their own values and the opportunities to lives those values in lots of different places is really important. Public education is, in many ways, a cross section of society and I think we’re called to be in society and we’re called to be a part of that and influence it. I think there’s lots of challenges and opportunities.

How would you describe the culture of your schools?

The culture of our schools are …we would say we’re a values-based institution. We live a set of values, and we create a culture that is based on a view of the human condition that our organization subscribes to which is that everybody wants to be affirmed for their unique gifts and talents, and everybody wants to make a significant contribution to the human story. We think that…

Do you use that language of the “human story” in your context?

We do.

What does that mean in your context?

It means that there’s’ a larger story that I think is a part of the work that we do and I think people want to connect to that. People want to make a contribution that moves our world forward. Everybody has desire to connect to that in some way.

How have your schools been so successful. What’s your secret?

One, I think it’s the culture we create around a view of the human condition. Also, I think it’s significant that we have a clear goal for each of our kids, and it’s to send them to a four year college, and I think that clarity of goal is really important. I think we hire really great people who both educate students and who live our values outside of the classroom, which give our kids a grounding in what we think are important.

Can you tell a story of a particular student, one student, who was really influence by your school?

Well, we have a number of kids who have actually come back and taught in our schools. Our first graduating class is joining us this year, many of whom would probably have not gone to college if they hadn’t come to DSST. They went to college and were successful and have now come back to help others become successful.

That’s one the best stories we can tell, students who have gone and lived our values and now are back and want to live those values in a whole new way.

What impact have the schools had in the community?

I think we’ve had a pretty big impact. We’ve had an impact first and foremost on what people think is possible in public education. We’ve had the opportunity to change people’s minds around what’s possible, regardless of somebody’s ethnic background, economic background, academic background…that we can create schools that can help all kids succeed. I think that’s been the biggest contribution we’ve had. I don’t think there was that was that implicit belief in public education in Denver before we came and I think that’s changed a lot.

I think our commitment to a values-driven culture has had a big impact on public education in Denver. People have started to think differently. It’s hard to do as well as people want to do, but I think people are starting to think differently about the kind of schools we can create and how a culture can help young people ideally grow and thrive beyond just the classroom.

What does your average day look like?

My average day is 80% in some sort of meeting. I spend a couple hours in a school every morning and then … well, mostly meetings. With my school leaders, my senior team, board members, external fundraisers, donors, Denver public schools. Most of my job is helping facilitate other people doing their jobs.

Ultimately, my job is to hire great people and to give them the vision and the values and the tools they need to be successful.

What does a great teacher look like?

A great teacher is…very similar to kids…Giving them a vision for their own learning and then giving them the tools to be successful in every endeavor. I see teachers as leaders. They really are leaders.

What’s your leadership style?

My leadership style? I would say, in the best sense, it is creating a vision for people and giving people a context for their work and helping them think about why we do what we do. And then finding great people who I can them empower to be great. I would say I expect a lot of people. I expect them to be reflective – I’m very reflective. I expect people to be the chief learners in the organization. Things are moving very fast. People need to be learning just as fast.

Do you facilitate that learning?

I think leadership is a personal endeavor. I think you need to want to grow yourself. It’s really hard for somebody else to grow you as a leader if you don’t want to grow yourself. So I think it’s important for you to have ownership over you own desire to grow and learn. If you have somebody who’s eager to learn I think connecting them to that resources

Speaking broadly about education now, what do you think education reform looks like?

Well, I think we need to be clear about our goals. We’re not very clear about what we’re trying to do. We’re not clear about our academic goals and we’re not clear about our social/development goals. When you’re developing anything, if you’re not clear about what you’re trying to develop, it’s hard to do it well. I think it’s important that we be really clear about what we expect kids to be able to do. I would advocate that we give kids the chance to go to a four year college. They may not go, and that’s fine. But I think it’s the chance to go to college… If they choose to do something else, that’s great. But our public education system is not set up to do that today.

So it’s structural?

Well, it’s a set of expectations. The expectations of society and what we expect of our education system is the first problem. I think schools by no means are the ultimate formers of character, but they should certainly play a significant role in that. And I don’t think our schools do that today.

What does DSST do to shape student character?

Well, we create a values-driven culture. Embedded in everything we do. We’re not big on creating a character education class. We believe you walk in the doors and living in our culture is character education every day. So we expect our kids and ourselves to live our values and those values are going to trump our own self-interest at times. And that by creating a community that lives a set of values deeply, that is the best character development you can have.

I think schools in general are really hesitant to put forth a set of values they think are important and live them. I think, generally speaking, schools put forth rules that they expect kids to follow, and usually don’t even do a great job enforcing those. I hope every expectation we have are tied to one of our values.

What are your core values?

Respect, responsibility, doing your best, integrity, courage and curiosity.

How does the gospel influence your view of education in general?

I think in general it’s a great opportunity for me to live out my faith and build the kingdom. Obviously public education is a secular space, but everybody brings their own faith perspective to it and I think this is an opportunity for me to live out my own vocation and my own calling to build that kingdom.

What counsel to you give to Christian teachers? How should they express their faith in public education?

I think everybody chooses to do that differently. I think everybody has to come to their own understanding of what that means to them. But I think in general there are opportunities to share that when appropriate and I think there are opportunities to conduct themselves and show that by action. I think the strongest witness in many ways is to live your faith and to demonstrate the love of God through you own work. That’s a place to begin with.

So why STEM education? Why not art or literature?

Because I think it’s the greatest need we have today in our country and it’s the greatest opportunity we have to build opportunities for young people to both make a difference in our society and to earn a living wage and to connect them to future opportunities. So I think there’s an incredibly robust need for STEM education and to connect them with opportunities in the marketplace.

They still take language and history?

Yes, it’s still a liberal arts program. They get 6 years of science in high school – so they take more science, for example, and each student has to finish with at least pre-calculus. So it provides an opportunity for them to explore those more, but we have great history, great English, great arts.

What was it like meeting Oprah?

It was a really fun experience. I think it wasn’t the fact that we met Oprah as the fact that people knew that we met Oprah. It was all people wanted to talk about. So, Oprah has a reach that is way beyond anything I’ve ever experienced in my life, in terms of being a pop icon. Much more than the President – I’ve met the President.

Oprah has more influence than the President?

I didn’t talk to somebody probably a year or two after where that was not one of the first questions I got. … It was remarkable. And of course all the women on my team knew it happened before it happened. But this was not just another TV show. It was Oprah.

So what would you say to the evangelical community? What is the Christian’s responsibility to engage public education? Is education just a personal choice – along with homeschool or Christian education – or is it the “next moral issue” as the Teach for America people will say? Is it particularly important? What should the CT community do?

Yes, it’s an important issue for me. I think it’s one of the greatest issues that our society faces. I think that we ought to be engaged in that public marketplace. It’s very important. I mean, just from a civic perspective, in the last 10 years we’ve gone from 1 in 8 schools being high poverty school, high concentration of poverty kids in a school, to 1 in 5. In the United States – a 60% increase in high poverty schools in the last 10 years.

There’s a problem with the civic fabric of our country. We’re going to be a majority-minority country in 2040. Our schools are becoming more segregated, and literally the civic fabric of our country is being torn apart…unless people engage these kinds of issues. And public education is one of the most significant institutions of formation in our country. It probably impacts the most people in this country as it relates to the formation of young people. If they go to schools that are not educating them, that do not provide the kind of values that I think are important to a civic society, are going to schools with kids that look just like them, with no experience of the diversity of the human family – we’re in serious trouble. We’re going to have very little in common despite the fact that we’re an incredibly diverse society.

So yes, I think we all need to be called to this issue – it’s an incredibly important issue. And anybody hunkering down and hoping it’s going to go away – I can’t see it going away, short of people getting engaged and getting their hands dirty and becoming part of a much larger solution.

Video

Gary Flanders – Donor Alliance

July 28, 2013

Today my church, Colorado Community Church, featured a great “faith and work” story of one of our members. Gary Flanders works in the midst of tremendous suffering – and hope. He works for Donor Alliance, the organ and tissue procurement organization for Colorado, and has the privilege of serving God by bringing healing to hundreds of people every year. Check out his story.

Work

Reengaging America’s Workers

July 26, 2013

Generally speaking, most Americans either hate their jobs or are just simply “checked out.” A recent Gallup survey showed that of the 100 million Americans working full-time, 70 million were either “not Engaged employees” or “Actively disengaged.” That means only 30% of Americans were “engaged employees.” What do these categories mean? Gallup defines them as:

Engaged employees work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive innovation and move the organization forward.
Not Engaged employees are essentially “checked out.” They’re sleepwalking through their workday, putting time – but not energy or passion – into their work.
Actively Disengaged employees aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re busy acting out their unhappiness. Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged coworkers accomplish.

In 2012, 30 percent of American workers were ‘engaged,’ 18 percent were ‘actively disengaged,’ and the majority – 52 percent – were not engaged at all. The bottom line? America’s workers are generally bored or unhappy.

So what has caused such widespread dissatisfaction? Some note that 30-somethings today will be the first generation since the Great Depression to make less than their parents. Timothy Eagan at The New York Times doesn’t think it’s wages, but bosses that are the problem. Most companies tacitly “promote a view that everyone is replaceable” and don’t spend enough time focusing on the strengths of employees, says Eagan. Nor do they allow enough “flex-time.”

Eagan concludes, “Regular praise, opportunity for growth, and the occasional question from a higher-up of a lower-down about how to improve things would go a long way toward getting the checked-out to check back in.”

Though Eagan certainly has a good point here, I think he’s missing something more basic. People long for both creative work and deep sense of purpose. Re-engagement happens when both of these factors are built into a company or organization.

First, creative work happens when there is a deep connection between thought, activity, and relationship. For example, when an author writes a book, she (1) conceives of the book in her mind, (2) does the hard work of actually producing a book and works with a publisher to get it to the shelves, and (3) receives feedback about her book from the audience.

The modern world, however, has aggressively separated thought, activity, and relationship into different categories, and thus different jobs. Many jobs are simply a list of tasks that neither originate in the mind of the worker nor are ever really embraced by the worker. With the advent of the franchise in post-WWII America, millions of jobs became systematized, offering highly specific tasks (predictable products at lower cost) but jobs that don’t care much for the creative input of employees. What became important was the doing – not the thinking. “Thinking” will be left to management. Unfortunately, this kind of separation leaves people quite literally “checked out” from their jobs. They don’t need their minds anymore. Of if they do, they feel not like they’re not challenged or encouraged to engage both thought and activity, mind and body.

Moreover, huge swaths of the American economy are run by workers who have little if any connection to the outcome of their work. They occupy one small step in a global production chain, but never see their product influencing the life of another. The typical example is of a factory – pulling a lever or assembling a table leg hundreds of times a day. Not only is the repetitiveness of the job soul-squelching, but the worker can’t have the satisfaction of seeing the car or table being used by a family – and then hearing how they appreciate the work. Satisfaction at work is found in this third element of work – relationship. We need to see the work of our hands providing a valuable service to a customer. Without this experience – well, we see what we’ve got today – widespread disengagement.

So what can be done? If you lead a company or organization, provide each employee with these three elements of creative work – significant say-so in the work that is to be done (thought), an intentional and significant responsibility to turn the employees own ideas to realities (activity), and intentional interaction between the employee and the actual person who uses the product (relationship).

Second, workers need a deep sense of purpose. Several years ago, Howard Gardener did a study on what constitutes “good work,” that is, not just high job performance ratings, but work that contributes significantly to the communal good. Gardner found three elements were key for good work:

A strong sense of moral commitment to the larger purposes one brings to a job
A professional ethic exemplified by those doing early job training
Lineages of worthy models from the past with whom one identifies in working toward the future.

In Hugh Heclo’s masterful On Thinking Institutionally, he summarizes this model of good work as “being around and identifying with people who model and reinforce one’s appreciation for institutional values.” In short, being in a company of moral purpose, not just high returns, makes for meaningful work.

For example, take Denver Schools of Science and Technology (DSST). Their founder, Bill Kurtz, often speaks of a “values-based culture.” He expects employees and students alike to know school values – courage, curiosity, respect, hard work, etc – and to live them out. In so doing, he has created a culture that does these things well: teachers are committed to the moral purposes of the school (offering an excellent STEM education to inner city students in a context of ethical integrity) and a lofty professional ethic (all new teachers get a month of training in June to introduce them to DSST’s values and expectations).

DSST is consistently one of Denver’s best places to work because employees have a mission (not just a job) and they are willing to commit themselves to the moral good the institution they are a part of.

So, action point? If your company is motivated only by the bottom line, and you’re expecting to motivate employees only with greater compensation packages, you’re in trouble. Especially among Millenials (I’m one of them!). A deep sense of purpose, of accomplish a greater good to which the company or organization is committed is fundamental to employee engagement.

Conclusion: To overcome America’s widespread on-the-job boredom, leaders will need to rethink how their institutions are organized. Jobs descriptions will need to be re-written around two focal points: creative work and moral purpose.

Photo: Office Desk

Discussion Question: Are you “checked out” of your job? Why do you think this is? Or do you have employees who work for you that are disengaged? How can both creative work and a deep sense of purpose change how you organize your department or company?

Work

Doing Your Job Artfully

July 3, 2013

My bright friend Reilly Flynn recently brought up a helpful quote for those struggling with job satisfaction. On 5 Sept 1957, Martin Luther King Jr said

[We] must head out to do our jobs so well that nobody could do them better. No matter what this job is, you must decide to do it well. Do it so well that the living, the dead, or the unborn (Yes) can’t do it better. (Yeah) If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Raphael painted pictures; sweep streets like Michelangelo carved marble; sweep streets like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry; sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: “Here lived a great street sweeper (All right), who swept his job well.”

Though I had heard the quote before, I was not aware of the context. MLK was encouraging blacks to do their jobs with distinction and excellence, knowing that they’d be competing with their white counterparts for the same job. The only way to level the unequal racial playing field was to do their jobs with such distinction that their superiors would have to recognize their ability and give them promotions and higher wages.

Last week Chris Horst and myself did a Q & A session at The Next Level Church in Englewood, Colorado on the topic of “How We Work.” I expected questions perhaps on how their Christian faith related to, say, their work in corporate America or even as a barista. Instead, what we mostly got was various levels of dissatisfaction. “What do you do to avoid thinking about how meaningless your job is? What do you do if your boss hates your guts?”

It’s not uncommon to be a “street sweeper” in today’s economy. But what do you do if you’re a street sweeper and you don’t feel entirely called to sweeping streets? I counseled people to not give up hope, and serve well in whatever job you may find yourself. MLK counseled his people to not only serve well, but to serve artistically, as a testimony to the nobility of African Americans living in the US.

This isn’t bad advice. As Reilly pointed out, Christians ought to be known for excellent work. Too often “evangelical” is equated with shoddy, half-baked work. But we’d be wise to remember we are made in the image of the Craftsman who does all things with artful excellence.

Discussion question: Do you see your current job as being a “street sweeper?” What would it look like to sweep streets as Raphael painted pictures or Beethoven composed music? Do you think it’s harder to do this in some jobs than others?

Jeff Haanen

Helping Colorado’s Flood Victims

Denver Institute for Faith & Work: A Beginning

Man vs. Man: Ranking Ourselves at Work

Satisfying Work in the New Jerusalem

The Way of Nature, The Way of Grace

Writing About Bill Kurtz, CEO of Denver School of Science and Technology

Interview with Bill Kurtz

Gary Flanders – Donor Alliance

Reengaging America’s Workers

Doing Your Job Artfully