“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 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.

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.

[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?

Spiritual Formation Vocation Work

Breathing New Life Into Your Work

July 9, 2024

Four doctrines that motivate me to work, build, and serve

Work can be a drag. Unreasonable managers, unruly technology, and unmet expectations – but work can also breathe life into communities. Work, I’ve noticed, has a particular power when motivated not centrally by success or money, but by the biblical story.

The Doctrine of Creation

Dave Hataj grew up with a dad who struggled with alcoholism. His alcoholism seeped into the family business, a small manufacturing company in Wisconsin. Remember parties at the office and pornography on the walls, “By the time I was 18,” Dave remembers, “I knew something was very, very wrong. Something felt dark.” Depressed and drinking heavily, Hataj turned to running as an escape. One day on a long run through country roads, “I remember a voice coming to me. I said, ‘Who’s playing a trick on me?’ I just remember this voice saying, ‘You are not alone. I’ve been with you through all of it.” Dave realized for the first time that he was not accident, and that his life had purpose.

Today, Hataj is the second-generation of Edgerton Gears, a company that makes gears, that in turn make cardboard boxes, aluminum cans, food processing and other everyday items. Dave felt that God was calling him to redeem the culture of his family business. After his conversion, Dave had his work cut out for him to introduce openness, trust, and accountability into the business. A part of the solution was to hire young men of character.

But it made an impact, “When I started working here,” says Clayton Flood, a Journeyman Machinist at Edgerton Gears, “I was nervous. It’ll probably be hardy, tough guys. But it was super nice people. But boss really cares for me here, and that’s why I felt comfortable becoming a machinist.” In a similar vein, “This is an actually happy environment,” says Andy Hagen, an apprentice machinist. “You feel like you can talk to your actual co-workers.”[i] Culture started to change around character.

Another strategy Hataj used was giving young craftsmen a sense of purpose. He found that many of the young men they were hiring hadn’t taken the college route, and had taken on an identity of being a failure or “D student.” Hataj, however, believes that every person is created to create (Genesis 2:15), and each has God-given talents and skills that their community needs. Hataj has written for his employees The Craftsmen Code, which he has new employees sign off on. It states:

I am not the center of the universe.
I do not know everything, nor nearly as much as I think I do.
There is dignity and purpose in knowing my trade.
The world needs me.
Pay is a reward for my efforts, but not my main motivation.
Every person has unique gifts and talents.[ii]

Dave’s renewal of the trades at Edgerton Gears is based on the doctrine that God himself creates, and we too are called to create what the world needs through our work. Or as Dorothy Sayers writes, “Work should be the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God.”

The Priesthood of All Believers

Lesya and Nicholai Login live in the small town of Khust, nestled in the western mountains of Ukraine. They both have a lifelong love of biking and dreamed of sharing their love of the outdoors with others. As Lesya worked as a teacher and Nicholai as a bike repairman, they dreamed of opening their own business. But Lesya, who was only 22 at the time, was consistently rejected for a small business loan because of their age and inexperience.

A neighbor told them about Hope International, an international microfinance institution. With their first loan from HOPE Ukraine, they bought a few bicycles and began to rent them. It was a time of growth spiritually as well. Nicholai had shared his faith with Lesya years earlier and they both began attending Nicholai’s church. Their story of entrepreneurship and faith was bound together, “Choosing to take the loan was pivotal for me,” Lesya says, “I was full of excitement to have my dream come true—that our passion would become our work.”

Years later their business grew. They expanded to two locations, a retail brand, and several employees. Not only do they sell bikes and accessories, but they also believe their work is a platform for sharing their faith. “When God gives, we are called to give back,” says Lesya. Working with their local church, the organize an annual bike ride for children. They have also created a bicycle club for youth, giving them a positive alternative to alcohol or drugs through the power of community.[iii]

The Apostle Peter once famously wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Peter got the idea of “a royal priesthood” from Exodus 19, when God said to the Israelites, just before giving the Ten Commandments, “Out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be fore me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” (19:5-6). The role of a priest was to intercede on behalf of the people and mediate to God. When God calls his people “priests,” he intends that through all of his people – not just clergy – he will make himself known to the world. And that can and should take place every day and everywhere, even at a bike shop in a small town in Ukraine.[iv]

The Resurrection

Dan Reed is now middle aged. “I’m not in my thirties now, Jeff,” Dan told me over afternoon beverages. A long-time friend, Dan has been a life-long fundraiser. Short hair, beard, piercing green eyes and a quite attentiveness in any conversation, Dan is the founder of Seed Fundraisers, a coaching organization that trains “elite fundraisers.” His passion for fundraising came from years of raising money for the Morris Animal Foundation and seeing his peers in the industry. “Organizations that raise money aren’t necessarily the ones solving problems,” Day says. “Organizations solving problems aren’t necessarily raising money. And organizations receiving praise are not necessarily healthy places to work.” The nonprofit industry, noble as it seems from the outside, too is filled with brokenness.[v]

Dan set out to look for the gold standard in nonprofit fundraising practices. He found organizations led by visionaries; he found organizations that built sustainable solutions; but he also found that the best fundraisers were more concerned about activating generosity than raising money. Fundraisers, says Reed, are often seen instrumentally, meaning that leadership and boards often functionally say to them, “You go find us money so we can do the really important work.” And relationships with donors were often just as broken. Fundraisers would either “manage” donors to hit their revenue goals, or they would take on a subservient posture toward donors, bowing to an unhealthy power dynamic. But what if fundraising itself was intrinsically valuable work, apart from the causes it supports, simply because it inspires generosity, and hence, virtue?

Dan’s career was shaped by his understanding of vocation, which, for him, meant that his work had intrinsic value on a daily basis apart from the impact it made. It had value because work itself is a participation in the new creation.

Paul writes, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has gone; the new has come,” (2 Corinthians 5:9). The Jews of Jesus’ day did expect a resurrection of the dead, but they thought it would happen at the end of time when Israel would be restored and a new, earthly Davidic kingdom would come at the end of time. But when Jesus’ was raised from the dead there was confusion. After the resurrection, they fully expected an earthy restoration of the Messiah’s rule (Acts 1:6). What happened instead was that the key event of the end of time – the resurrection – happened now in the middle of time. Theologians called this the “inaugurated kingdom,” or as one Anglican liturgy puts it “the Lamb who was slain has begun his reign.” The new heavens and earth are not just a future reality; they have already begun, right here, right now. Even as a fundraiser.

New Testament Scholar N.T. Wright puts it succinctly, “Jesus’s resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project to not snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s prayer is all about.”[vi]

When Dan Reed looks intently into how he does his work as a Christian, and why, he’s asking the right question as a person of faith: since Jesus is raised from the dead and now reigns, how now should I live?

Stewardship of our Gifts

Meagan McCoy Jones grew up in the family business. McCoy’s Building Supply is a supplier of lumber, building materials, roofing supplies, and farm and ranch equipment in Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. She recalled as a teenager her parents would often have significant conflict. They worked through marital challenges with they help of a counselor, and the process ultimately influence Meagan’s own leadership of the company decades later. “They became committed to being relationally different, which is incredibly powerful,” Meagan recalls about her parents after their marriage crisis.

As a result, the McCoy family brought tools of building healthy relationships into the leadership of their company, which transformed how they do their work at McCoy’s. “Our leadership training includes tools like conflict resolution, which is a cute term until you have two super-angry people.” As a result of her parent’s marriage, she now works to deeply understand her co-workers. Leadership for Meagan is “me more deeply knowing you, and then caring about you. The next time I walk in, and I see your project as deserving of both praise and probably some constructive criticism, I’m going to make sure I’m very specific, and make sure to mention both the really good things and things I wish were different.”

Today, Meagan believes healthy conflict resolution is critical to a healthy workplace. “I have told my team that if there is any conflict among us, the only work of the day is to resolved the conflict between us.”[vii]

Generally, when Christians talk about stewarding our gifts, we think about using our skills and talents, whether they be designing a prototype or caring for injured patient, for God’s purpose. “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others,” writes the Apostle Peter, “as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms,” (1 Peter 4:10). Yet we rather think about stewarding our pain and suffering as a form of God’s grace. Meagan and her parents turned painful family memories into a means for building a healthy, redemptive workplace culture because, in part, they believed that even their difficult circumstances were gifts to be stewarded.

We’re called to see our talents and our pain, our skills and our suffering, our experiences and our frailty, as one mysterious gift we are called to steward on behalf of those we are called to serve.

“For some reason,” says Meagan, “we were given a lumberyard chain. And that’s our universe to care about and steward.”

This is an excerpt from my latest book Working from the Inside Out (IVP, 2023). Learn more about the book here.

[i] This story is from the film: “Turning,” Faith and Co, Seattle Pacific University, https://faithandco.spu.edu/film-detail/turning/.

[ii] See: https://www.craftsmanwithcharacter.org/the-craftsman-s-code.

[iii] “Bikes and Baptisms: One Ukrainian Couple’s Journey,” Hope International, https://blog.hopeinternational.org/2017/03/16/bikes-and-baptisms/.

[iv] For a more in-depth treatment of Exodus 19-20, see my sermon: “A Kingdom of Priests and a Holy Nation,” Wellspring Church, 26 July 2022, https://jeffhaanen.com/2022/08/01/a-kingdom-of-priests-and-a-holy-nation-a-sermon-on-exodus-19-20/.

[v] Dan Reed, “In Search of Best-In-Class,” Seed Fundraisers, 4 June 2021, https://www.seedfundraisers.com/post/in-search-of-best-in-class.

[vi] N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008).

[vii] These quotes are taking from a Denver Institute for Faith & Work podcast interview, which can be found at: https://denverinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/9_3-Meagan-McCoy-Jones-1.pdf

Nonprofit Theology Work

My Two Cents on Not Losing Our Hearts on the Job [Audio]

May 7, 2024

Since Working from the Inside Out has released, I’ve been honored to speak on numerous podcasts with hosts way smarter than me.

Here are a few of my favorite, where I share about everything from how to handle conflict with co-workers to spiritual rhythms that can infuse life into the workday.

Enjoy.

Women Scholar’s and Professionals – Intervarsity

Faith in the Workplace with Jeff Haanen on Christianity Today_Being Human Podcast with Steve Cuss

Live Faith First Podcast with Eliot Sands_Work Can Be a Good Thing with Jeff Haanen

Unhurried Living: 289: Working from the Inside Out (Alan w/ Jeff Haanen) on Apple Podcasts

E 354 How Inner Work Transforms Your Outer World with Saddleback Church on YouTube

A Brief Guide to Inner Work that Transforms Our Outer World with Apollos Watered on YouTube

Episode 274 – Working from the Inside Out with Jeff Haanen with Faith Driven Entrepreneur

Working from the Inside Out with Eric Most and Laurie Bossert on Generosity Now

God’s Story Podcast – Working from the Inside Out with Jeff Haanen

Episode 58 Manly with Andy – Working from the Inside Out with Jeff Haanen

Denver Institute for Faith & Work _ Working from the Inside Out featuring Jeff Haanen

Here’s the Full Audiobook on Audible: Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World

Free Study Guide: Study Guide_Working from the Inside Out

Vocation Work

How to Take a Sabbatical

April 9, 2024

Over the years, I’ve received probably the most feedback from my retirement book about the topic of sabbatical. I’d like to post here an excerpt from this chapter that makes the case for taking a sabbatical – either in early retirement or during a career – as well as lays out some simple practices for your own sabbatical. Enjoy.

You can find more on sabbaticals, calling, and work in: An Uncommon Guide to Retirement: Finding God’s Purpose for the Next Season of Life.

Whether we make work the source of our identity or empty work of any meaning past a paycheck, many newly retired people say: Enough. I’m done. Time to finally spend time on me.

Mary is a sixty-year-old woman. One day, she heard Marc Freedman, the founder of Civic Ventures, waxing eloquent about the civic heroism of older Americans on National Public Radio. She called in and said bluntly, “I would like to disagree with everything that’s been said.” Freedman was stunned. How could anyone disagree with the idea that older adults are a social asset to our communities? She told her story: she landed her first job as a teenager. After raising two kids and working for 40 years straight, she finally grew tired of her boss heaping on more and more work. At the first opportunity she got, she retired.[1]

Mary, like many others, entered into retirement longing for rest and renewal. But vacation isn’t the answer. The answer is to begin retirement with a stretch of deep Sabbath rest.

The Reason for Sabbath

On the dusty sands of the Sinai desert, Moses descended from the mountain with a message from God. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:8-9).

Why include a day of rest among the ten commandments upon which he would build a new society? And why should we consider Sabbath rest – or a season of “sabbatical rest” – as a better category for early retirement than vacation? The Old Testament suggests three reasons.

1. Trust.

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day” (Ex. 20:11). Moses gives the Israelites the reason for Sabbath: God himself rested after six days of work in creating the world. There’s a pattern, woven into the fabric of the universe by Creator. It’s like gravity or the laws of motion. To be like God – and to become fully human – we need both work and rest in proper proportion.

Sabbath reminds us to recognize our proper role in the cosmos. Biblical scholar Craig Slane says, “In ceasing from labor one is reminded of one’s true status as a dependent being, of the God who cares for and sustains all his creatures, and of the world as a reality belonging ultimately to God.”[2] Like children dependent upon their parents, Sabbath makes us see that food, clothes, sunlight, friendship, air – all are gifts from the Creator, not mere products of our labor. The Bible continually points to God as the ultimate Provider.

But we have surely worked for and paid for all those “gifts,” right? God does give people the gift of working as co-laborers in his ongoing creation and cultivation of the earth (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:15). But we are not all-powerful. In Sabbath, God says, “Enjoy your work, but think not of yourself as masters of the universe. That is my role.”

ING, a financial services company, aired a series of commercials in 2008 centered on the idea of “What’s your number?” That is, how much money do you need to retire? A man bikes with the number $1,267,407 under his arm. A woman walks into an office, carrying the number $675,423, as if it were a purse. A man sits in a clinic with his pregnant wife, holding “his” number. The idea is that once we have saved a certain amount of money, we will have the ability to “retire in comfort.” Here is where our security lies.

Saving money for future needs is wise (Proverbs 10:4-5). But the Bible suggests trusting in “our number” as a blanket of assurance is idolatry – the worship of a false god.

Jesus tells the story of a man who built two barns as a hedge against insecurity. The wealthy man says to himself, “‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’” (Luke 12:19-20).

Sabbath reframes retirement debates about money, retirement, and security. Whether clothed in gold like Solomon or in rags like Lazarus, Sabbath calls us to trust God to provide for our needs. Taking a sabbatical can release the chains of anxiety and restore us to our proper place as created beings, dependent on God the Father for every good gift (James 1:17)

2. Identity.

“Remember that you were slaves in Egypt,” says Deuteronomy’s version of the fourth commandment, “and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” (5:15). Why not work every day of the week? Only slaves do that, suggests the Bible. God is the one who has redeemed his people from slavery, and Sabbath was to be a continual reminder of their liberty and identity as God’s people.

In 2015, Americans left a total of 658 million vacation days unused.[3] Project Time Off reports that 37% feared they’d return to a mountain of work, and 30% said “nobody else could do my job.” Why the nonstop work? I believe America’s work-a-holism flows from a question of identity. If we’re not our jobs, then who are we? What is our real value?

Centuries ago, the Israelites were called to remember the Sabbath as a reminderthat their value was not derived from their work.The practice of Sabbath was a call to re-center their collective identity on God’s vision for them as a people. The Israelites were God’s treasured possession, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5; cf. 1 Peter 2:9).

Work was created to be an expression of our identity, not the source of our identity.

One of the “thorns and thistles” of retirement is that it reveals where we’ve put our identity too fully in our careers. The report isn’t due, the phone stops ringing, and it feels like nobody needs you anymore. The recently retired often feel a sense of loss and separation.

But this pain, argues Gordon Smith, author and president of Ambrose University in Calgary, can be transfigured into a deepening sense of vocation and contribution.

I am convinced that part of the essence of vocational identity during this period of our lives [the senior years] is that we let go of power and control: people listen to us because we are wise and because we bless, not because of our office or any formal structure of power. [4]

Sabbath calls us to root our identity in God’s action on our behalf, and let go of an identity that was too wrapped up in our jobs. (We’ll return to the theme of identity and calling in the next chapter). Taking a sabbatical can heal past wounds as we re-center our identity on being God’s sons and daughters.

3. Justice.

The command to observe the Sabbath includes a command to allow those with the least cultural power (children, servants, foreigners) to rest so that they “may be refreshed” (23:12). “On it [the Sabbath] you shall not do any work, neither you nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your town,” (Exodus 20:10). The Bible continually connects the observance of Sabbath with justice.

My friend Vincent Rose is a greeter at Walmart. As an immigrant from South America now pushing 75 years-old (he’s never been able to afford “retirement”), he recently shared with me about why he often must miss church on Sundays. “I always get scheduled on the weekends. And what can I do? I have to work – but I miss being here,” he said, almost crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Jeff.”

For Vincent, Sunday is not just the chance to worship, it’s a time to be with family and friends. When he must work while others shop, his opportunities for meaningful relationships diminish.

Vincent’s story clarified something for me. Sabbath is not just about individual spiritual practice. It’s also about making space for the restoration of others. There are only two explicit prohibitions in the law regarding Sabbath: no fires were to be kindled in Jewish dwellings (35:3), and no one was to leave their place (16:29). That is, not only were they to cease from productivity (fires were used for everything from cooking to making tools), but they were not to engage in commerce, forcing others to work on the Sabbath.

The prophets regularly connect Sabbath observance to a just society (Isaiah 58: 6-8, 13). Not only does round-the-clock work oppress the powerless, it suggests idolatry. Sabbath observance was an outward sign of whether people were keeping the first and most important commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

Vacations tend to prioritize our own luxury, consumption, and comfort; Sabbath sets limits for our work in order to create economic, social and spiritual renewal for all social classes.

Historian Paul Johnson writes about the Sabbath, “The day of rest is one of the great Jewish contributions to the comfort and joy of mankind.”[5] Perhaps taking a post-career sabbatical could also be a great contribution to the contemporary experience of retirement.

Planning a Sabbatical

What if we decided that early retirement was the best time to take a true sabbatical? What might six months, nine months, or even a full year of deep, Sabbath rest look like?[6] How might we spend time in order to expand and redirect our sense of vocation for the next season of life (the topic of the next chapter)?

My argument is that sabbatical is a way to structure time in early retirement to heal past wounds, seek God’s voice, and find God’s call for the next season of life.

Does this, then, mean a year of twiddling your thumbs? Not at all. Though many put boundaries around technology use, economic consumption, and work activities on their Sabbath days, Sabbath is not only about what not to do. Here are nine practices to consider as you plan your sabbatical year:

1. Prepare.

The Jewish “Day of Preparation” was a weekly rhythm of preparing to rest well – and it required extra work. Jews would store food and goods so they wouldn’t need to purchase them on the Sabbath day. They informed Gentiles (non-Jews) of their intention to take Sabbath rest.

Sabbaticals must be intentionally prepared for rather than stumbled into. I once asked my uncle, Rod Haanen, what he would do after he retired from managing the Thunderbird Lodge in International Falls, Minnesota. “Well, I don’t know. I just know what I won’t be doing.” My uncle, like millions of Baby Boomers, needs a plan for life after retirement.

Consider taking two or three weeks to consider how you will restructure your time in sabbatical. What responsibilities can you hand off before you begin? What will your days, weeks, and months look like? And most importantly, who will journey with you into sabbatical? Judith Shulevitz’s Then Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time notes that Sabbath is a communal, not individualistic, activity. Consider doing a sabbatical with a friend or spouse and making plans in a trusted community.

2. Feast.

The idea of Sabbath as dour law-keeping is from the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, not from God. In Jewish tradition, Sabbath was a time for richly eating and drinking. It was one of the “festivals of the Lord” which prohibited fasting and outward expressions of mourning (Leviticus 23). Sabbath was to be a “delight and joy,” recounting God’s grace toward his people (Isaiah 58:13).

On your sabbatical, consider having a lavish feast – or several – for former co-workers, family and friends as a way to look back on a career with gratitude. You could do this once a month or once a quarter. In Israel feast days were markers of time. Joyful celebration can also form the chronological foundation of your sabbatical year.

3. Worship.

In Lauren Winner’s short, accessible book Mudhouse Sabbath, she notes the difference between contemporary visions of a day or rest and the biblical vision of Sabbath. “Whom is the contemporary Sabbath designed to honor?,” she asks, tongue in cheek. “Whom does it benefit? Why, the bubble-bath taker herself, or course!”[7] In contrast, Winner says, in the Bible the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. The difference between “indulge, you deserve it” (the popular vision for retirement) and “drink in the joy of God” could not be starker.

As you plan your sabbatical year, leave time for communal worship, for long and short periods of silence, for prayer walks, and for studying Scripture. Worship is the center of Sabbath.

4. Re-create.

Sports, hobbies, music, the theater – these all can play an important role in a sabbatical year. Jewish culture was built around its festivals and celebrations. Recreation as “re-creation,” rather than leisure or vacation, can be an ingredient in renewal.

But might recreation be turned into a kind of work, a way to “occupy my time” in retirement? Leisure can lead to a busied pattern of entertainment, rather than space to rest, reflect, and heal. Even vacation can be turned into a frantic pace of busied work.

What is the difference between work and non-work? Wouldn’t woodworking be work to a carpenter, but a hobby for a banker? Or could Sudoku puzzles be work to a math teacher, but just plain fun for a retired electrician?

The key, I believe, is not to make an extra-biblical set of rules about what counts as work and what doesn’t on a sabbatical (Jewish and Christian history is filled with such failed experiments). The key is to pay attention to internal dialogue of your heart, even during recreational activities.

The Benedictine monks practiced ora et labora (work and pray.) They endeavored to be aware of God’s presences while farming, working, or even doing dishes. Can you take up carpentry during a sabbatical, yet quietly listen to God’s voice? Or internally are you “cranking work out?” The difference between the two heart attitudes is the difference between work and rest, Sabbath keeping and Sabbath breaking.

Audrey Assad and Isaac Wardell, singer-songwriters of the vocation-themed album Porter’s Gate: Works Songs, write, “In the fields of the Lord, our work is rest.” Recreational activities, done in a spirit of rest, can train the heart to re-engage work after a sabbatical in a spirit of peace.

5. Remember.

Take time to write down the good gifts God has given over a lifetime of work. Get out picture albums, invite over old friends for scotch (at least if you’re Presbyterian), and remember. Remembering was a core Sabbath practice for the Israelites. Even amidst the pain of unfaithful kings, the breach of covenant, and eventual exile, they found new life in remembering the Exodus and their nation’s birth out of slavery.

Anne Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts: Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are is a beautiful book that portrays her odyssey of actually writing down and noticing commonplace and everyday gifts. Experiment with this during your sabbatical. The taste of warm coffee, a phone call from your daughter, the way afternoon light sparkles through the kitchen window. Notice God’s gifts. Remember. Be filled with gratitude.

6. Love your neighbor.

“It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath,” Jesus said as the crippled man “stretched [his hand] out, and it was restored” (Matthew 12:9-12). The Pharisees saw this and conspired to kill him, calling him a law breaker. But Jesus saw that Sabbath was for the restoration of all his people, especially the poor, widow, orphan and foreigner.

During your sabbatical year, consider visiting shut-ins, sitting with tearful friends who’ve lost loved ones, or praying with pregnant teens at a local clinic. My friend Bob Cutillo, a physician at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, once told me, “Don’t serve the poor. See through the eyes of the poor.”

Sabbatical is a space in time for seeing what you otherwise were too busy or distracted to see during your career.

Also, beware of partaking in heroism during your sabbatical. It’s likely that caring for the needs of the poor will be a far greater gift to you than it is to them.

7. Practice simplicity.

“Tis the gift to be simple, ‘tis the gift to be free.” The classic Quaker song offers a counter-cultural freedom from the entertainment and accumulation-complex of retirement: to possess less and intentionally simplify your lifeis to experience deep freedom.

A common early-retirement practice is to declutter – garages, storage bins, closets. Many also transition to smaller homes. Yet the Christian practice of simplicity adds a layer of spiritual restoration. “Throughout church history followers of Jesus have intentionally vowed to live simply,” says author Adele Calhoun. “Following the example of the Lord, they have given up comfort and possessions and the clutter of life to leave larger spaces for loving God and neighbor. Simplicity creates margins and spaces and openness in our lives.”[8]

In sabbatical, develop the habit of giving things away. Reject things that are causing anxiety in you. Learn to enjoy things without owning them.[9]

8. Renew your mind.

“One of the people who most impressed me during my research,” said Michael Lindsay, the president of Gordon College, “was John Mendelsohn.” As I interviewed Michael about his book View From the Top, he shared about an infectious learner, Dr. Mendelsohn, who used to be the head of the prestigious M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“When I was doing the interview,” Michael remembered, “he was reading a book on the history of opera.”[10] What does the history of opera have to do with cancer research, I thought? Nothing. And that was Michael’s point about learning and long-lasting contribution: people with deep, long-lasting influence cultivate a “liberal arts mentality,” in which they learn far outside of their field. Such a broadening education allows them to innovate across disciplines, understand society broadly, and influence larger cultural conversations with wisdom (one of the traditional roles of an elder in the Bible).

During sabbatical, consider taking time to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:1-2). Read not only religious books, but anything from neuroscience to wildlife biology to the history of water rights in the West. Our careers have a way of making us technicians – we know everything about one topic, but remain in the dark about most of the world. We’ll return to this in chapter 7, but reigniting your curiosity and sense of wonder is crucial to cultivating wisdom, a virtue the world needs from Baby Boomers in the next generation.

9. Decide when your sabbatical will end.

As we’ll explore in chapter 4, we’re created to work, and sabbaticals (like Sabbath days) are meant to end. “You shall do your work for six days,” says the commandment, and that commandment is applicable over a lifetime, even as varieties of work may change. Sabbatical is also a critical time for re-evaluating your sense of calling (which we’ll explore further in chapter 3). But setting a defined period of time – whether that be 3 months, 6 months, or a full year – focuses a sabbatical, prevents it from melting into a never-ending vacation, and instead prepares the heart to listen to God’s voice for next steps.

I was once preaching on the topic of work and rest when a (very) elderly man came to me and said, “Son, I’m ninety-one years old. Don’t you think I should be able to take a break at my age?” I muttered an embarrassed, “Yes, sir,” as I was only in my early thirties at the time. He continued, “But let me tell you something. I’m a retired professor at Moody Bible College. I love writing, but haven’t done any writing for years. I’m going to take up writing again tomorrow morning.”

He paused, then looked me in the eye. “Thank you, son.”

A Colorful Symphony

In Norton Jester’s classic children’s book Phantom Tollbooth, Milo, the main character, meets Chroma the Great, “conductor of color, maestro of pigment, and director of the entire spectrum.” Milo learns that Chroma is the conductor of a great symphony – piccolos, flutes, clarinets, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and tubas – which causes the sun to rise each day and shed color on nature. Every evening as Chroma lifts his arms, his symphony plays and a dash of color fills the sky. “What pleasure to lead my violins in a serenade of spring green,” Chroma says, “or hear my trumpets blare out the blue sea and then watch the oboes tint it in warm yellow sunshine.”

One day, Milo wonders what it would be like if he tried to lead the orchestra himself. He raises his hands before dawn and a piccolo sends a sprite of yellow in the sky. With another movement of his arms, the cellos make the hills glow red. But then things start to go wrong. As his untrained arms flail, the sun goes up and down and up again, green snow begins to fall, and the flowers turn black. A week passes by in only four minutes. All the colors are now wrong, and Milo says unhappily, “I wish I hadn’t started.”[11]

The instinct in our working lives is to try to conduct the symphony by ourselves. And when things go wrong (as they always do), the instinct is to regain control in retirement by waving our arms and trying to summon satisfaction from fleeting pleasure, deep rest from vacation, or by immediately going into another field of work, hoping it will finally satisfy the longings of the heart.

But this is the counter-cultural wisdom of Christian faith for retirement. Sabbath rest allows us to pause and see the great, colorful symphony that is God’s world. A sabbatical structures time so we can develop the spiritual muscles to hear the voice of God, see the beauty of creation, and embrace our place in it.

“What am I going to do with my retirement?” Anne asked me not so long ago. The still, quiet whisper of the Conductor calls us, I believe, first to take a season of deep, Sabbath rest.

[1] Freedman, vi.

[2] Craig J. Slane, “Sabbath,” Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theological, accessed on January 25, 2018: https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/sabbath.html.

[3] “Under-Vacationed America: A State-by-State Look at Time Off,” Accessed on August 11, 2018: https://projecttimeoff.com/reports/under-vacationed-america/.

[4] Gordon T. Smith, Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God-Given Potential (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2011), 85.

[5] Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 37.

[6] Sabbatical is a term often used for extended time off for academics (and the occasional lucky pastor). But even in corporate America, the idea is gaining steam. As of 2008, 16 percent of American companies had formal unpaid sabbatical programs, and 5 percent offered paid sabbaticals. The idea of a full year of Sabbath rest is deeply biblical. One year out of every seven Israelites were instructed to let their crops lay fallow and not do any work. “For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of Sabbath rest” (Leviticus 25:4). God promised to provide such a yield in the sixth year that they would have enough to eat until crops from the ninth year were harvested (25:22).

In his book Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, Andy Crouch asks a provocative question: what if our entire careers were marked by six years of work, and then one of rest – instead of putting all our years of rest on the back-end of our lives (retirement)? As it turns out, the math is pretty provocative. He writes “If one were to start full-time work at twenty-one and retire at the age of sixty-nine, then hoped to enjoy an ‘active retirement’ until, say seventy-seven before being more constrained by the limitations of old age, the forty-eight years of work would be matched by eight years of retirement – exactly the 1-for-6 ratio of the sabbatical year.” See Andy Crouch, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2014).

[7] Lauren Winner, Mudhouse Sabbath (Brewster, MS: Paraclete Press, 2003), 11.

[8] Adele Calhoun. Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices that Transform Us (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL, 2005), p. 75.

[9] One of the best treatments of simplicity is penned by Richard Foster. See: Richard Foster, The Celebration of Discipline (Harper & Row Publishers: San Francisco, CA, 1978).

[10] Jeff Haanen, “Michael Lindsay: Go Where Decisions are Made,” Christianity Today, August 6, 2014; accessed on January 19, 2018: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/august-web-only/michael-lindsay-you-have-to-be-in-room.html.

[11] Norton Jester, The Phantom Tollbooth (New York: Random House, 1961), 125.

Craftsmanship & Manual Labor Faith and Work Movement Work

Sacrificial Service & the Sapp Bros. Cheyenne Travel Center

March 28, 2024

It’s one thing to embrace customer service. It’s quite another to live a life of sacrificial service.

Jesus calls his followers to “take up your cross and follow me.” Peter wrote that serving as Christ did will entail suffering (1 Peter 2:21). It’s one thing to follow Christ when things are going well. But, in the words of biblical scholar Bruce Waltke, how many of us would qualify as the “righteous” – those willing to advantage others, even if it means disadvantaging ourselves?

People who commit to sacrificial service of a community through their work are rare. New York Times Columnist David Brooks wrote in his book The Road to Character that the median “narcissism score” has risen in the last two decades. When young people were asked about whether they agree with statements like “I am an extraordinary person,” or “I like to look at my body,” Brooks says, “Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago” — they score about 30 percent higher, to be exact.[i] Behind the thin veil of careers with social impact is often the Almighty Self, ever ready to find the perfect mix of social impact, comfortable work hours, and financial reward in “meaningful work.” Especially since the pandemic, I believe the willingness to sacrifice for a cause greater than ourselves is diminishing.[ii] Especially if it costs us.

Yet, meaningful work is found not in success or financial reward, but in sacrificial service. When people struggle to find a cause worth sacrificing for, boredom and meaninglessness tend to creep in. “Far too many people in this country seem to go about only half alive. All their existence is an effort to escape from what they are doing,” writes author and dramatist Dorothy Sayers about how most people view their work. “And the inevitable result of this is a boredom, a lack of purpose, a passivity which eats life away at the heart and a disillusionment which prompts men to ask what life is all about.”[iii]

People need a reason to sacrifice for something beyond themselves. It’s what puts wind in sails, feet on the ground, and energy in a workday. Paradoxically, what we’re really looking for is the right cross to bear, not the best throne from which to rule.

We live in a cultural moment in which there are multiple issues calling for sacrificial work. Take, for example, the growing inequality in American society. In 1989, the Federal Reserve Reports that the bottom 50% held $22 billion in wealth while the top 10% held $1.7 trillion. Fast forward to 2021, and the bottom 50% held $260 billion in wealth while the top 10% swelled to $36 trillion.[iv] To make that clearer, the top 1% of US households has 15 times more wealth than the bottom 50% of households combined.[v] The simmering discontent and anger so prevalent in American society has its root, I believe, in millions of people seeing the wealthy get much wealthier — even in the last 20 years — while their standard of living stagnates or declines.

And yet, some decide that sacrificial love for others trumps personal comfort.

Julie (Sapp) Stone works as an investment director focused on family economic mobility at Gary Community Investments, a philanthropic organization in Denver. Before that she worked at Teach for America, an organization that places talented young teachers in low-income schools. Bright, energetic, connected, and committed, Julie was deeply formed by Catholic social teaching, which motivates her work on behalf of low-income families. When I asked Julie about her commitment to issues around justice, I was surprised to learn it didn’t come from academic study. Rather, it came from growing up at a truck stop on the Wyoming-Nebraska border.

Julie’s grandpa and his brothers were Depression-era survivors who bought a car dealership, which turned into car leasing and eventually into a small truck stop chain headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Her dad became the general manager of Sapp Bros. Cheyenne Travel Center, and her mom the store manager. The establishment employed over 100 people between a motel, gas station, restaurant, and store. Julie grew up just a few miles away and started to work in the family business alongside her brother at just age five, picking up trash around the truck stop because of her parent’s pride in their work. As she grew, she waited tables, stocked shelves, and served the truckers. Her dad would famously pause mid-bite while eating in the restaurant to check out a customer after their dinner because “nobody should have to wait to pay.”

“I’ll pound the table in defense of truck drivers. They are an extraordinary community,” Julie says. “They’re hard working, responsible, God fearing, family centered, and make tremendous sacrifices for their work.” Julie pauses, with almost reverence in her voice. “My dad always trusted that I’d be okay at the truck stop, whether he was there or not. Truckers know that their actions reflect on other drivers, which creates a sense of shared responsibility. If there was ever a conflict or a tactless comment, without fail, another driver would step in and sort things out.”

Sapp Bros. was employee-owned, provided full healthcare coverage, and even paid for college tuition, which was practically unheard of in the 1980s. Julie’s parents believed that their job was to lead and serve their employees sacrificially. “I remember one Christmas my dad had it out with corporate. Since the combined portfolio of travel stations didn’t turn a profit that year, there would be no Christmas bonuses,” she recalls. “I watched my mom and dad divide their past and future paychecks to make bonuses happen for the Cheyenne employees.”

Julie believes her parents’ leadership was built on love. “At the end of the day Mom and Dad recognized that each employee was giving of their time and talent to help make our company successful. My parents were genuinely grateful for their people, which explains why so many who were hired on opening day in 1983 were still there when I graduated from college in 2003.”

Julie’s commitment to justice today isn’t abstract. She sees the faces of those who worked for her parents for 30 years in front-line jobs — people of enormous integrity. “I see working families first. They show up for the physical work. They provide services and make products the rest of us rely on, they almost always go unnoticed. These are the families whose sacrifices benefit us all.”[vi]

***

This is an excerpt from my new book Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World (IVP, 2023). Buy a copy or listen to the audio book today.

[i] David Brooks, The Road to Character (New York: Penguin Random House, 2016).

[ii] See my article: Jeff Haanen, “Where Are All the Workers?” Comment, September 1, 2022, https://comment.org/where-are-all-the-workers/.

[iii] Dorothy Sayers, “Vocation in Work,” quoted in: William C. Placher, Callings: Twenty Centuries of Christian Wisdom on Vocation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005).

[iv] See: The Rationale, Ownership Works,https://ownershipworks.org/the-rationale/.

[v] Tommy Beer, “Top 1% of U.S. Households Hold 15 Times More Wealth than Bottom 50% Combined,” Forbes, October 8, 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/10/08/top-1-of-us-households-hold-15-times-more-wealth-than-bottom-50-combined/?sh=3067585a5179.

[vi] Candidly, this was my favorite interview in the book. A special thank you to Julie Stone for sharing her story, and for her beautiful revisions.

Spiritual Formation Theology Work

How to Change

February 26, 2024

An Excerpt from Working from the Inside Out

It had been a hard week.

As I got out of the shower, my mind was spinning with the minor defeats of a middle-aged man. The time I lost my temper with my daughters at the dinner table. The day I felt about four inches tall when I was talked down to by somebody with more money and power than me. The crouching sloth I was silently battling when overwhelmed by too much to do and too little motivation. And then that Saturday afternoon on my back patio when I felt a wave of depression sweep over me.

That morning I looked at myself in the foggy mirror. Crow’s feet had set in around my eyes. Gray hairs were sprouting from my sideburns. Alone in the bathroom, I said out loud, “God, when do I really change?”

I had been a Christian for twenty-two years, attended thousands of church services, and led a Christian organization, yet that day the promise of being conformed to the image of Christ had never felt so remote. Change, I’ve found the hard way, is elusive. Real, interior transformation—or what the New Testament simply calls abundant life—is the promise of the Christian gospel (John 10:10). And yet we struggle through addiction, broken relationships, and moral failures time and time again.

And it’s not just a problem for Christian leaders blazing back to earth after a fall from grace. It’s all of us. “Trying harder next time” seems to make it even worse.

To become good—actually, thoroughly good—feels like grasping smoke on a windy day.
As I pass my fortieth birthday, one question sits behind every other question in my life: Who am I becoming? That is often followed by another: Can I really change?”

HOW WE CHANGE

“To be honest, I’ve become adept at finding new ways to say I’ll change but then remaining stuck. The habits of sin—or even just the habits of our culture—have a way of reemerging like an unwanted trick birthday candle.

So, how do we change? Unfortunately, reading a book alone won’t do it. This is sad news for an author. But I’ve come to believe that reading alone won’t lead to real interior transformation. Think about your experience reading this book. Likely, it’s before bed, after a hard day, or consumed in snippets on vacation or between sittings. Once you close the book—even if it’s a self-help bestseller—you’re still surrounded by anxieties, responsibilities, media, family, coworkers, and a thousand other noisy influences. It’s not that books can’t change you. I believe they can, but they rarely do so in isolation from the rest of life.

How about getting more schooling? I’m a big believer in education, but many of our educational systems have largely adopted a narrow, heady version of change. Read a book, write a paper, take a quiz, then you’ll change. And yet, in higher education or in high school, the curriculum that really changes people are the unwritten values and norms of a school—not just what the syllabus says.

Most churches—at least word-centered Protestant churches—are similar. Though rarely stated, the unwritten message tends to be that the right combination of church attendance, music, and preaching will finally bring about the wholeness we desire. And yet, at least in my family, the van ride home from church often looks more like Chernobyl than the Garden of Eden. Some mysterious pattern of emotion, experience, and habit short-circuits even the most powerful experiences of God from creating real moral formation. I believe church is central to change, but we need to rethink what experiences actually lead to genuine Christian formation.

After researching the topic for years, I’ve discovered that trying to understand the way people change can leave you drowning in a quicksand of information: psychology, history, literature, sociology, andragogy, educational studies, history, theology, neuroscience, economics, current events, anthropology, sociology, philosophy—the author of Ecclesiastes wasn’t wrong when he wrote, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body” (Ecclesiastes 12:12).

And yet, here we are, limping along. We’re ever hoping things will get better, looking for salvation in every job offer, relationship, or vacation, yet feeling the subtle weight of encrusted sin, unhealthy habits, fractured relationships, and unmet dreams. If we really want to live a life that is truly healthy from the inside out, what kind of experiences might lead to real growth?

Unfortunately, I can’t answer that question fully. I, too, am just learning. But I have a working theory I want to explore with you in this chapter:

  Formation begins when an individual self-identifies a problem, need, or point of suffering and then joins a high-commitment community. The community is formed by an emotional and relational context of genuine vulnerability, bound together by a common story or universal history, and defined by a set of shared habits and practices.

  Over time, change is solidified by a deeper engagement of ideas and concepts discussed in community that affirm the story; a broader relational network that exposes learners to new emotions, stories, ideas, habits, and practices; significant work, which the learner is called to perform using new skills and knowledge; and public recognition for accomplishment, which shapes the learner’s identity.

   Long-term change happens when the learner chooses to grow in self-awareness and cultivate new spiritual disciplines, which open the soul to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

That’s a mouthful. Let’s take each of these movements one by one.

This is an excerpt from chapter 8 in Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World. You can buy the paperback or audiobook wherever books are sold.

Theology Vocation Work

Audio Book Release and a Free Gift: Working from the Inside Out

December 27, 2023

Hey Friends,

Today we launch the audio book, narrated by yours truly, of Working from the Inside Out. As a big thank you for your support (and patience with my erratic posting on this blog), I’d like to offer the first four people who read this post a FREE copy of the audio book on Audible.

THE AUDIOBOOK IS:

Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World

YOUR DOWNLOAD CODE(S):

6MXTKU7GNWL3
PLB3C1RHEJW4
UXC0EFVYWAR3
XPSNZU30Q158

Note: Each code is one-time-use.

HOW TO REDEEM:

Your free audiobook(s) can be enjoyed via Audiobooks.com. Existing Audiobooks.com account holders can visit their My Account page to redeem, while new listeners can follow the below instructions.

1	Visit www.audiobooks.com/promo
2	Input your promo code and hit “apply”
3	Continue creating your FREE account and then hit “Start Listening”
4	Download the free Audiobooks.com app for Apple or Android devices (see below for links), or listen on your desktop through Audiobooks.com
5	Login and start listening! Your free audiobook(s) will be waiting for you in the My Books section

Thanks again to you all! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the audio book! If you think of it, leave a review on audible!

Jeff

PS. I’ll update this blog post as soon as I hear from you that all four free audible books are claimed.