Several weeks ago, I sat down to share about the DIFW vision with a prospective donor. As I began to explain our mission, I could tell there was a mental obstacle.

“So, you can’t evangelize in schools or business or the government,” he said. “So what it is exactly you’re trying to accomplish?”

Before I could reply, the conversation moved to Chick-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, and the contentious religious liberty issues surrounding the overt faith of their founders. Though I’m personally encouraged by the Cathy and Green families, I could tell that our organization was being sucked into a culture war, one that tends to see the Church as almost a drain on a liberal, pluralist society – one that impinges on the rights of the individual.

But instead of getting drawn into the culture wars, I instead decided to say what has been true for millennia: the church is a gift to the world. There’s a reason why we chose the title “A Gift to the City” for our recently release 2015 Impact Report. It’s worth remembering that for centuries, Christian men and women have seen their work as an opportunity to bring life to society. The Church has long been a blessing to all – both Christians and people of other faiths (or none at all).

How has the church been a gift to the world? A few examples come to mind:

1. The Church gave us the first universities. The University of Bologna (1088), the University of Paris (1150) and the University of Oxford (1167) all were born out of Christian cathedral schools and monastic schools, dedicated to not only training clergy, but also learning about law, astronomy, medicine, music, math, and the “trivium” – grammar, logic and rhetoric. Say what you will about the drawbacks of medieval Europe: all modern institutions of higher education have a historical debt to Christians believing that investigating God’s world could benefit society at large.

2. The Church gave us the foundations for capitalism. No, it didn’t start with Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. Nor was it due to the Protestant work ethic. Rodney Stark has convincingly made the case in The Victory of Reason that the free market enterprise system was flowering in 12th century Italy. The supposed “dark ages” bloomed with inventions like the water wheel, horseshoes, fish farming, the three-field system of agriculture, eyeglasses and clocks. Why? There’s a good reason that capitalism didn’t arise in China, Islam, or the global south. Stark explains, “All of these remarkable developments can be traced to the unique Christian conviction that progress was a God-given obligation, entailed in the gift of reason.” Innovation, the power of reason, and the moral underpinning of capitalism (of which trust is the most important) all flowed not from either Roman law nor Greek idealism – but from Christianity.

3. The Church gave us the framework for human rights and democracy. Christianity offered to the world a doctrine which would forever reshape our political life: all people are made in the image of God. Everyone. Though a form of democracy did start in ancient Greece, we see in Plato’s Republic that his version of democracy is one we wouldn’t want to see anywhere today: a republic where only property owners could vote, where women and slaves were property, and where philosopher kings ruled. There was voting, for sure. But certainly not a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

The roots of democracy we enjoy today come principally from the Magna Carta, composed in the Christian West. (Which is one reason why today’s Chinese Communist Party leadership doesn’t want it touring around their neighborhood.) First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Magna Carta (1215) originally limited the rights of kings, but was later used in the Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution as precedent for protecting the rights of all people. Though nearly all societies have, at times, had their leaders approved by the people, the theological doctrine that all people are made in the image of God was the original source of one’s human rights – far before secular versions arose in the Enlightenment (See Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith and Revolution). Though the Church has also been guilty of violating human rights (i.e., The Inquisition), it has also been the source of the protections and rights we enjoy today in a liberal democracy. (If you need more convincing here, read Marcelo Pera’s Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians. It’s stunning.)

4. The Church gave us the birth of science. Isaac Newton did more theology than science, and Francis Bacon not only gave us the empirical method, but also worried that his methodology would be used by demons to distort its good intention. Sounds weird, but they lived in both the worlds of Christian theology and scientific inquiry. Talk of investigating the “book of nature” was a Christian idea – that we could see who God was both through Scripture and in his creation (Ps. 19, Rom. 1).

Often we only hear half of the story – that the Church opposed Copernicus’ heliocentric universe and persecuted Galileo, the “father of physics” and observational astronomy. But truth be told: Galileo’s run in with Pope Gregory XIII was more political than scientific (the Inquisition thought his biblical interpretation looked Protestant). His insights were initially adopted by Pope Gregory and used to revise the church calendar in 1582. Galileo himself believed that God had given us reason, senses and intellect and expected us to use them as tools to interpret Scripture. Galileo writes, “For since every truth is in agreement with all other truth, the truth of Holy Writ cannot be contrary to the solid reasons and experiences of human knowledge.” Generations of scientists, from Blaise Pascal to George Washington Carver (including a large number of prominent scientists today, like Francis Collins), are motivated by their faith to do science. Again, Stark makes the case that it’s the doctrine that God, the Logos, is a God of reason that led to science erupting not in China, Islam, India, or the Americas – but in the Christian West. Controversial thesis, I know. But hard to ignore the civilization in which the scientific revolution took place.

5. The Church gave us the art of Michelangelo and the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel is perhaps history’s greatest work of art. And Johann Sebastian Bach would often sign his symphonies Soli Deo Gloria (to God alone be the glory), one of the five “solas” of the reformation. Handel would often do the same. Artists for generations have drawn fuel from their faith – from Leonardo Davinci’s The Last Supper to contemporary artists like Makoto Fujimara. Bono isn’t half bad either.

6. The Church gave us the Civil Rights Movement. It also bears mentioning the Martin Luther King Jr was a Baptist preacher. The fundamental drive for Dr. King’s leadership in a nonviolent movement to correct “America’s original sin” (slavery, and hence racial discrimination) was a Christian notion of love – even love for one’s enemy. This was first and foremost a movement of churches – and only secondarily was it political. The Civil Rights Movement would have been impossible without the Church.

We could go on and speak of the monks in Ireland washing the feet of travelers and setting the precedent for modern hotels, or Basil of Caesarea creating arguably one of the first hospitals (at a time when many Romans abandoned the sick or dying in plague ridden cities – see Stark’s The Rise of Christianity), or heroines like Florence Nightingale who essentially founded the profession of nursing out of a sense of duty from God’s call.

Though any Christian would be quick to confess that we’ve sinned deeply in the past (the Thirty Years Wars comes to mind) and today as well (the tragic segregation that remains in our churches), we can’t forget: the church has long been a gift to the world.

So, with that, the question of the Church’s role in the world need not focus on fear-based arguing about losing a position of relative influence in the now post-Christian West. Instead, as those inspired most fundamentally by the grace of God (grace=gift), we can instead ask, What has God put in my hands that I might give to another? Instead of just going to church to get “filled up” by worship music and a sermon, might the Triune God actually use the Church to be the conduit of his abundant life to the entire human family (John 10:10b)?

Featured Photo: Christ Feeding the 5000

Work

3 Signs We’ve Made Work an Idol

October 14, 2015

I think we were arguing about asparagus.

I had just sat down to dinner with my wife and three daughters (soon to be four), and amidst that cacophony of noise and food flying to plates, I started to eat. I love asparagus. I really do. But when I waited until half way through the meal to put in on my plate, my wife made a comment, I retorted, and before I knew it, we were arguing about asparagus.

She went downstairs and I started clearing the table, bewildered at what just had happened. My three girls were silent. So, in a vain attempt at humble confession, I said to our 6 year-old, “Sierra, there’s sin in the world. One day Jesus will come and wipe away all of our sin. You know what sin is, right Sierra?”

She replied. “Oh yeah dad. Like when you put Denver Institute in the place of God.”

I froze. What did she say? We had made no mention of work all night. And whether she hit it on the nail or God did it through here, the message was receive loud and clear: I was making my work an idol.

I thought about the prior weeks, and my work had started to become all-consuming. I couldn’t get it out of my mind on the weekends. I’d fall asleep at 8:30pm on the couch utterly exhausted. Patience was running slim with my family. Work had ceased to become a good gift from God’s hands. Instead it started to eat me.

As I reflect on the build up to that moment, I think there are at least three signs we can see in our lives when we make work an idol.

3 Signs We’ve Made Work an Idol

1. Exhaustion.

Always busy, and always tired. That’s the way many Americans live out their lives. Often, I’m the worst offender. Do one more text in the car (at a stoplight, of course); get in one more email; go in early; stay late. Squeeze in a bit more on the weekends.

Inevitably, exhaustion floods in. And as I started to hack out exercise and hobbies, I also started to become more irritable with everyone around me.

Oddly enough, I think this is as true for the over scheduled 2nd grader as it is for the mom juggling two part-time jobs, house cleaning, entertaining guests, and decorating a new shanty chic kitchen.

The late Dallas Willard used to start all his spiritual formation retreats with making people sleep until 9am. Their souls were as exhausted as their bodies. The reason? Work had become all consuming.

2. Fear.

What will happen if we don’t get more donors? What will happen if not enough people come to the next event? What will happen if my pitch gets rejected? What if? What if? What if?

Fear often drives us to overwork. What will happen if I don’t succeed? So we adopt the spirit of the rugged American individualist: “If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”But underneath is the worry that I won’t have, I won’t succeed, I won’t (fill in the blank).

Jesus says, “Why do you worry about what you will eat or drink? Don’t you know your Father knows what you need?” At the heart of this fear is a deep loneliness. “I’m all alone in the world,” we whisper to ourselves, “and I have to do this by myself.

Praying and trusting God will provide –well, for a 21st century materialist, that’s a long shot, right?

No, I need to work harder. More. For salvation surely will come from the work of my own hands…

3. Pride.

Tim Keller once said, “Many modern people seek a kind of salvation – self-esteem and self-worth – from career success. This leads us to seek only high-paying, high-status jobs, and to ‘worship’ them in perverse ways.”

For so many, work is not just a job. It’s the chance to prove myself. My worth and value. Why is “busy” the #1 American answer to “How are you?” It’s because we want people to know just how important we are. It’s the heart’s never-ending quest for self-justification.

For many, work is how we centrally define ourselves in modern society, the way we measure our worth and success. When we do this, we no longer see work as worship – instead, we worship work.

Hush.

If you’ve ever seen these symptoms in your life, then what can me done? The biblical answer is rest.

“You shall work 6 days, but the 7th is to be a Sabbath to the Lord.” Why in the heck was breaking Sabbath punishable by death in the Old Testament? It’s because when we don’t rest, we make work an idol. And it violates the first command: You shall have no other gods before me. The very center of biblical faith is to love God will all you heart, mind, soul and strength. But when work supplants God, it immediately become destructive, just as all idols leave a trail of tears in their wake.

Sabbath reminds us that it’s not all up to us, but that God is our Provider. Sabbath reminds us that our identity comes from Him, not from our jobs. Sabbath brings a quiet rest to our soul.

Augustine recalls one of the final moments with his mother Monica that describes this kind of deep, inner peace. He says, “The tumult of the flesh was hushed. The water in the air was hushed. All dreams and shallow visions were hushed. The tongues were hushed. Everything that passes away was hushed. Self was hushed. And they moved into a sort of silence.”

It’s as if only in Sabbath can we hear that our very life (and work) is a gift from God. It is from Him that we have every good and perfect gift. And it’s from Him that we receive the peace that Jesus gave to his disciples (John 14:27). A peace that can them accompany our work days, uncertain as our jobs and professions may be.

The day after the Triune God spoke through my six year old to me after dinner, I took a long lunch. I swam a few laps at the pool. I then sat with my coffee at my office before I began to work, and said quietly to myself, “Jesus is Lord. ‘Be still. Know that I am God.’”

Economy Politics Work World

Let Them Eat Chicken: Religious Intolerance Is Bad for Business

September 24, 2015

by Chris Horst and Jeff Haanen

Denver is on the rise. Construction cranes line the streets around Union Station. New residents arrive faster than we can house them. But as Denver surges, will our city be a place where religious people are permitted to live and work? Given the recent news, it’s a fair question to ask.

Last month, a Denver federal appeals court ruled against Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic ministry serving low-income elderly and dying people in Colorado and around the world. The nuns believe new federal health care requirements force them to violate their faith by mandating they pay for abortion-inducing drugs for employees. Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, one of the nuns serving at Little Sisters of the Poor, said, “We… simply cannot choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith.”

Then, last month, the Denver City Council impeded the approval of a new restaurant lease at Denver International Airport (DIA). The “normally routine” approval process met a roadblock when several members of the Council decided the religious and political views of the restaurant’s owner — Dan Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A — did not meet their approval. To our knowledge, the Council has not interrogated the religious views of any other entrepreneur attempting to do business in Denver, nor has it defined which religious views are permissible.

Councilman Jolon Clark said Denver “can do better” than working with Chick-fil-A. Councilman Paul Lopez said his opposition to Cathy’s religious views is “really, truly a moral issue on the city.”

These two events illustrate a new hostility some Colorado lawmakers have toward religious expression. It’s important to clarify exactly what these lawmakers find inappropriate.

The Little Sisters of the Poor operate dozens of nursing homes worldwide for “the neediest elderly of every race and religion.” They do not discriminate in who they serve and only ask our government to allow them to provide health care plans to their employees that do not violate their most deeply held beliefs.

Chick-fil-A is in the restaurant business and is rated America’s favorite fast food. The Denver City Council has chosen to hold hostage the popular restaurant’s entrance into DIA not because the company has a history of discrimination towards its employees or customers. Consistently, Chick-fil-A outperforms its peers in these areas. It is solely because of the religious beliefs expressed by the company’s owner in 2012.

A year later, LGBT activist Shane Windmeye publically defended Cathy and Chick-fil-A in a Huffington Post article that described their friendship. Recently, The Denver Post Editorial Board rightly criticized the Council’s decision, asking, “Are corporate executives supposed to muzzle all opinion, or make sure their views mesh with the predominant outlook of politicians in cities where they’d like to do business?”

Denver celebrates its inclusiveness. But does our inclusiveness have room for religious people? To be clear, we do not believe these actions by the Council are akin to religious persecution, but we do believe they are unwise if we want our state to be hospitable to people of all religious perspectives — including views that differ from those of Little Sisters of the Poor and Cathy.

In 2007, anti-Muslim sentiment lead to the beating and robbery of an Iranian-American salon owner in Long Island. Her attackers said, “Your kind isn’t welcome here. You don’t belong here.” Colorado should continue to be a place where all people feel welcome. We want Colorado to live up to the sentiment captured by acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson:

“Democracy, in its essence and genius, is imaginative love for and identification with a community with which, much of the time and in many ways, one may be in profound disagreement.”

The American experiment hinges on this very definition of democracy, on our ability to live peacefully with our neighbors with whom we hold divergent views. If the recent actions of our lawmakers are any indication, our inclusiveness only has room for views approved by whomever currently holds office.

Colorado has long been a beacon of freedom for people of diverse ethnicities, creeds and religious traditions. For now, the spirit of the West lives on. Two weeks after the Council’s initial delay of Chick-fil-A’s airport lease, a committee unanimously approved it. The construction crews are busy at work in Denver for now, but unchecked intolerance toward people of faith will not keep them here for long. It’s bad for business and bad for Colorado.

This post first appeared on denverinstitute.org.

Jeff Haanen is the executive director of Denver Institute for Faith & Work (@jeffhaanen). Chris Horst is the author of Mission Drift and vice president of development at HOPE International (@chrishorst).

Featured photo of the Denver City & County building by Boston Public Library on Flickr, used under this Creative Commons license.

Economy Work

The Expendable Worker: Looking for Hope in the On-Demand Economy

September 11, 2015

“Low, low prices.” With that motto, a generation ago Walmart took over the world of retail. For years Walmart seemed untouchable; they could consume any competitor with volume, price and efficiency.

Yet in the past several years, some have questioned whether the Walmart empire has a gaping hole in the center. Forbes reported in 2014 that “Walmart’s low-wage workers cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated $6.2 billion in public assistance including food stamps, Medicaid and subsidized housing.” Americans for Tax Fairnessfound that “a single Walmart Supercenter cost taxpayers between $904,542 and $1.75 million per year, or between $3,015 and $5,815 on average for each of 300 workers.” When hourly workers go on strike to demand higher wages, often they’re fired.

Now, a recent New York Times cover story has highlighted the suffocating working conditions of Walmart’s successor: Amazon. Employing a sea of white-collar workers, Amazon has perfected the art of squeezing every ounce of productivity (and life) from its employees.

“One day I didn’t sleep for four days,” said Dina Vicarri, who sold Amazon gift cards. Another ex-employee’s fiancé would drive to the Amazon campus at 10pm after becoming concerned about his bride-to-be’s nonstop working night after night.

Liz Pearce, who worked at Amazon’s wedding registry said, “I would see people practically combust.” Bo Olson, who worked in books marketing, said “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.” The pressure to deliver faster and cheaper under the constant surveillance of Big Data has led to high employee turnover. A 2013 survey by PayScale, a salary analysis firm, showed that the average tenure for Amazon employees was one year.

Robin Andrulevich has called their human resource policies “purposeful Darwinism.” Hire overachievers with handsome incentives, drive them hard, and cut the lowest performers loose.

The conditions for warehouse employees at Amazon often are even worse. In 2011, Amazon came under scrutiny for brutally hot warehouse working conditions – they even placed paramedics outside for fainting workers. (They installed air conditioning after a public outcry.)

Walmart and Amazon today are fierce retail competitors with different business models. But they share at least one value: employees are expendable.

The Problem With the On-Demand Economy

Last week, I received the oddest email from Maren Kate, the former CEO of Zirtual, a company providing US-based online assistants — including my assistant Amber, working out of Utah. “It is with an incredibly heavy heart that I have to send this message. As of today, August 10th 2015, Zirtual is pausing all operations.” I didn’t fully understand what was happening.

Later that day, I learned that Zirtual, which had been on track for $11 million in revenue in 2015, essentially folded overnight. A round of debt funding didn’t come through, an within hours, 400 employees were let go and left to fend for themselves. Amber was dumfounded. She didn’t know what she was going to do for work.

Such is the lot of a new generation of workers in the On-Demand Economy. The Economist aptly titled an article on the phenomenon “Workers on tap.” The On-Demand Economy brings together computers and freelance workers (generally contractors) to provide a host of services: from chauffeurs (Uber) to home repair (Handy).

The problem with today’s On-Demand Economy – of which Amazon has at least taken cultural queues – is the same ailment plaguing Walmart and Amazon: employees are often seen as fungible assets. They may be human “resources” or even human “capital” (oddly, enough, and unlike money and machines, this capital can laugh and cry). But the unique lives of real people are often lost in the mix.

I can understand the desire of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to not want his company to become a lumbering “country club” like, in his view, Microsoft did. Frugal, productive and hard working are all good traits. But when companies drive employees, whether white collar or blue, to a place of desperation, we’ve made a critical mistake. And the mistake is dependent on our view of people. Are they assets or image bearers? Dispensable or deeply valuable?

Restoring the American Worker

I have a 6-year-old who occasionally treats her 2-year-old sister like a fly. Slightly annoyed, she often escapes to another room or simply builds her fort with a “No 2-Year-Olds Welcome” sign in front.

I then sit her down and explain a core Christian doctrine: All people are people. Even whiny 2-year olds have dreams and emotions, fears and joys, failures and triumphs. All people are reflections of God, I say to her. The all have value.

In the biblical account, people come first, then work.People are not designed for a job – jobs are designed for people. God put Adam in the garden “to work it and care for it” after he endowed them with inestimable worth (Genesis 2:15).

Today, we often take job descriptions and try to jam people’s lives into small boxes. When this happens, souls shrivel.

It also leads to odd distortions. Young college graduates work hundred-hour weeks in New York private equity firms as their bodies and relationships shrivel. Manufacturing line workers do the same repetitive tasks for decades – and their minds deteriorate as the years pass by.

Yet the biblical account gives us a very different view of work. It is neither one of seeking self-worth from working at a sexy tech company, nor one of selling off every skill and hour we have to the highest bidder on the other side of an app.

Work, in the Bible, is fundamentally about creative service. That is, work is a way for us to use our God-given creativity and talent to serve the needs of others.

But in an age where Amazon rules – and can nearly set the price for any good it offers because of it’s unending drive for faster, cheaper, more efficient -is it realistic to think that a large retailer could provide a life-giving environment for its employees? Could employees become more than expendable assets and contribute to a fully human community?

Hope for Retail: The Costco Model

In the late 90s, Matthew Horst worked part-time at a grocery store. He was punctual, cared for his customers, and did quality work. But the lack of benefits and a cancerous work environment prevented him from realizing his potential.

When Costco opened a store in his neighborhood in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, they hired Matthew. Even though he has always been classified as “special needs”, Costco took a chance on him.

Today, Matthew takes pride in a parking lot free of carts. He boasts to his friends at the eyeglass center, bakery and customer service desk. And he loves his customers.

His brother, Chris Horst, said it well: “There are many companies which ‘succeed’ at the expense of their workers. I am a firsthand witness to a counterintuitive company: Costco succeeds through the flourishing of its employees.”

A 2013 Businessweek article reported that Costco pays its employees $20.89/hour (compared to the $7.25 national minimum wage). Joe Carcello, a 59-year-old with an annual salary of $52,700 and a sizable nest egg for retirement, said “I’m just grateful to come here to work every day.”

President Craig Jelinek says about his employees, “We know it’s a lot more profitable in the long term to minimize employee turnover and maximize employee productivity, commitment and loyalty.” And so employees are paid well and treated with dignity – and contribute to a highly profitable model for retail.

Jelinek’s philosophy is simple: “This isn’t Harvard grad stuff,” he says. “We sell quality stuff at the best possible price. If you treat consumers with respect and treat employees with respect, good things are going to happen to you.”

Other big retailers that have tended to see employees as expendable assets, historically, have become casualties. K-Mart and Sears come to mind.

One has to wonder if Walmart (and even Amazon) are next.

This post first appeared on the Patheos Mission:Work blog at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/missionwork/2015/08/the-expendable-worker-looking-for-hope-in-the-on-demand-economy/. Image: Pixabay.

Theology Work

Why Work Is at the Heart of God’s Mission

July 28, 2015

Almost every Sunday morning at church, as we finish the final songs and benediction (and I prepare to pick up my crew of girls from Sunday School – now four!), I find myself asking the same question: What is the Church sent into the world to do?

This is a question that my friends in pastoral ministry think about often. They do so because it’s so foundational. The “why” of Christian mission, I think, is far less in question: our motivation for ministry is the gospel of Jesus Christ, his atoning death for our sins and his resurrection for our salvation. The free gift of new life in Christ is the spark that ignites the heart of his global people.

But what, then, is the church to do about it? In a previous post, I noted that John Stott, the framer of the Lausanne Covenant and best-selling author, saw a unity between service and witness as central to the church’s mission. Both were at the heart of why God sent Jesus himself into the world.

I recently picked up a book that I hadn’t read in ages that agrees with this view of mission. The authors of The Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (edited by Darrell L. Guder), like Stott, go to the mission of Jesus’ own mission to represent the Kingdom of God. “The church’s own mission,” they write “must take its cues from the way God’s mission unfolded in the sending of Jesus into the world for its salvation.”

They find a three part structure to the church’s own mission: “In Jesus’ way of carrying out God’s mission, we discover that the church is to represent God’s reign as its community, its servant, and its messenger.”

That is, the church is sent:

first to live under the reign of God as a distinctive, covenant community;
second the church is to represent “the reign of God by its deeds” and as a “servant to God’s passion for the world’s life;”
and third it is to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ with words, inviting all people to enter the Kingdom by way of the atoning sacrifice of Christ.

What impressed me about this formulation was just how many other “missional thinkers” and leaders in the 20th century missions movement have seen the same structure:

– In the 1950s, Hans Hoekendijk and Hendrik Kraemer articulate the church’s mission in three parts: kerygma(proclamation), diakonia (service), and koinonia(fellowship)

– In 1961, the New Dehli Assembly of the World Council of Churches organized around the three themes of witness, service and unity

– In 1981, Tom Sine in The Mustard Seed Conspiracy used the themes of “words of love, deeds of love, a life a love” to explain the church’s mission

– The 1972 book Who in the World? presented at Christian Reformed Church conference, organized the church’s mission around truth (message), the life (community) and the way (servant)

My question is this: What if our daily work is the central place that the scattered church (the church throughout the week, Monday through Saturday, cf. 1 Peter 1:1) embodies the gospel in daily living, bears witness to the truth of Christ in all of life, and serves the needs of the world?

What would change if the daily work of men and women was the center point of how all churches understand their own mission to their community?How would this change the church’s preaching, teaching and programming?

I’m not the first person to ask this question. Elton Trueblood, the great 20th century theologian, said in his little-known book The Common Ventures of Life, “A Church which seeks to lift our sagging civilization will preach the principle of vocation in season and out of season. The message is that the world is one, secular and sacred, and that the chief way to serve the Lord is in our daily work.”

Similarly, the great missionary, apologist and theologian Lesslie Newbigin said, “We need to create, above all, possibilities in every congregation for lay people to share with one another the actual experience of their weekday work and seek illumination from the gospel for their secular duty. Only thus shall we begin to bring together what our culture has divided – the private and public. Only thus will the church fulfill its missionary role.”

For Newbigin, in a culture like ours (the modern West, which is a pluralistic society ruled in the public realm by a secular vision of the world), work is the context in which the church bears witness to Christ, the Lord over all of life, OR retreats in the private sphere without a word of hope for the public life of the world.

The obvious tension, at least for me, comes when I attend so many churches. I hear the gospel. Praise God. I hear lots about ministries involving kids, teens, young marrieds, men, women and singles. Again, praise God. And I often hear about “mission activities,” which primarily means volunteering. But where is work?

Where are the efforts to bear witness to Christ in corporate board rooms, public schools or the vast medical complex of late modernity? And where is the equipping of the saints for deep acts of love and service in the manual trades, manufacturing, the service industry or accounting? Is this too, not the opportunity we have to serve? Is this not where all those people listening to our sermons spend their weeks – and their lives?

Let’s not stop volunteering. Don’t get me wrong. We NEED volunteers, and we NEED nonprofits. Society crumbles without those stepping in the gap to care for the poor on a volunteer basis. But isn’t job creation in business (work!) central to economic development, too? Isn’t upholding the rule of law absolutely central to protecting and serving those in need (cf. Gary Haugen’s The Locust Effect). These are all dependent on how we do our work, whether that be of a police officer, lawyer or entrepreneur.

The challenge for the Church in the 21st century, and for the myriad of faithful pastors in North America and beyond, will be whether our vision of mission includes the world of work or overlooks work in its preaching, teaching and programming.

This is the challenge for the Church in a post-Christian society. And this is the call of God, who has sent His covenant community into the world to faithfully live, witness and serve.

Work

How should I choose a career?

April 27, 2015

Today most career counselors and well-meaning friends would respond to this question with: What are you good at? What do you love to do? What’s your personality type? Where do you want to live? What kind of lifestyle do you want? These are good, normal questions. Yet I have to wonder, are the goals of self-fulfillment and maximizing my personal potential the best way to think about a lifetime of work?

These views are hardly uncommon. According to the Barna Group, the top career priority for millennials (I’m one of them) is “finding a career they’re passionate about” (42%). David Kinnamen, the CEO of Barna, says about millennials, “They cite working for themselves, a job adaptable to their strengths, having a lot of variety, and the freedom to take risks as essential career priorities, in addition to being able to fund their personal interests.” He adds they also have a strong desire to make a social impact through their job. Somewhat tongue in cheek, he remarks “Young adults want to make their own hours, come to work in their jeans and flip-flops, and save the world while they’re at it.”

Despite these good intentions, for many of us (not just millennials) job choice has become little more than a calculating process of maximizing psychological or financial gain while minimizing discomfort. Career selection is a process that begins with the self and ends with the self. And if I’m not satisfied, just change jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average worker today changes jobs every 4.4 years. We’ve embraced the logic behind William Henry Ernest’s poem Invictus: “I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.”

But it wasn’t always this way.

Consider the example of Frances Perkins, the former Labor Secretary under Franklin Roosevelt and a key player behind the New Deal. Perkins attended Mount Holyoke College, a member of the class of 1902. At Mount Holyoke, the end goal of education was not only knowledge, but virtue. She enjoyed history and literature, but she struggled in chemistry. So one of her teachers, Nellie Goldthwaite, badgered her into majoring in chemistry, with the idea that if she could overcome her greatest weakness, she could handle any challenge life threw at her. So she majored in chemistry.

Having been formed by Mount Holyoke—a college that sent hundreds of women to missionary service in places like India, Iran, and Africa under the motto “Do what nobody else wants to do; go where nobody else wants to go,”—a vision of sacrificial service was embedded in her at an early age. Self-denial, not self-fulfillment, was the bedrock of her vocational vision.

Frances-Perkins-AB

Yet it wasn’t until 1911, when Perkins watched in horror as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burned to the ground, that she received the “call within the call.” As she watched hundreds of workers desperately trapped by fire on the ninth floor (over 47 people jumped to their death from a window to avoid being roasted by the flames), Perkins made a life-long commitment to advocate for worker’s rights. She felt summoned by a force outside herself, not by a desire for “success” or to accomplish her personal “life plan.”

Her calling led her into politics, which culminated in her joining FDR’s cabinet. She took the job on the condition that FDR would commit to a broad array of social insurance policies: massive unemployment relief, minimum wage laws, the abolition of child labor, and a Social Security program for the elderly. Her entrance into government followed her calling, not vice versa.

Politics took a toll on her, and she often felt as if she would buckle under the pressure. To strengthen her soul, she would frequently make trips to All Saints Convent in Catonsville, Maryland, where she would pray two or three days at a time. In one particularly stormy season, after she had been accused of being a Communist, she said of her trips to All Saints Convent,“I have discovered the rule of silence is one of the most beautiful things in the world. It preserves one from the temptation of the idle world, the fresh remark, the wisecrack, the angry challenge…It is really quite remarkable what it does for one.” (She preferred to use the word “one” to “I” to refer to herself. Self-effacement even worked its way into her vocabulary.)

In David Brooks’ brilliant new book The Road to Character, he writes, “A vocation is not a career. A person choosing a career looks for job opportunities and room for advancement. A person choosing a career is looking for something that will provide financial and psychological benefits. If your job or career isn’t working for you, you choose a different one.

A person does not choose a vocation. A vocation is a calling. People generally feel they have no choice in the matter. Their life would be unrecognizable unless they pursued this line of activity.”

Vocation in this sense is not doing what you love nor finding the ideal job. It is a response to something already chosen for you. It expects suffering. It doesn’t run from it. When Albert Schweitzer left a successful career in music to become a jungle doctor, he said,“Anybody who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll any stones out of his way, and must calmly accepts his lot even if they roll a few more onto it.” Difficulty was to be expected.

Having a vocation is not about fulfilling a personal desire or want, in the sense of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure. It’s opening yourself to be used by God as He chooses. Perkins said this mentality develops in “a man who’s more an instrument than an engineer. The prophets of Israel would have called him an instrument of the Lord. The prophets of today could only explain his type of mind in terms of psychology, about which they know so pitiable little.”

Is having a vocation all pain and suffering? By no means. Being devoted to a work that is given to you often is accompanied by a deep, inner joy. As Dorothy Sayers says, there is a deep sense of purpose when working reflects the creative work of the Creator. A desire to serve God and “the work” is not merely responsive to the ever-changing demands of the community, but is an expression of simply doing a thing worth doing and obeying a call. In such unswerving commitment over the long haul, work takes on a deep, quiet satisfaction that modern job hoppers struggle to understand.

To desire the path of least resistance may be normal, but it is to desire too little. As C.S. Lewis says, “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Questions like What are you good at? What do you love to do? What’s your personality type? Where do you want to live? are not inherently wrong. But they should be secondary, or tertiary, to a greater purpose, one which may call us to do things we’re not good at, things we don’t love, that don’t fit with our personality and in a place we may not find ideal.

When Jesus foretold his own death and resurrection in Mark 8, “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” How could Jesus, the paragon of human life, suffer and die? Jesus responded to Peter with perhaps the harshest rebuke of the New Testament: “Get behind me, Satan! For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

In our desire for career success and fulfilling our dreams, have we not also set our minds on the things of man? What would it mean to choose a career with a disposition open to God’s purposes, even if it means hardship for a greater purpose beyond ourselves? Could fulfillment actually be found in self-denial instead of self-actualization?

“And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.’”

Work

Hearing the Call

March 20, 2015

[The following blog post was first given as a brief introduction to Palazzo Verdi, the site of our 2015 Women, Work & Calling Event. Two elements of the venue – the Chardin Chandelier and the replica of the prayer labyrinth at the Chartres Cathedral in France – tied in directly to our theme that evening: hearing the call of God.]

“Oh the beauty of spirit as it rises up adorned with all the riches of the earth!” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic priest, wrote this in his book the Hymn of the Universe. Indeed, the entire creation is singing with the beauty of God. From Mars to parking meters, from the Himalayas to high school soccer practices, the glory of God is present. With us. Here. Now.

Look up.

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This is the Chandelier Chardin, created by Lonnie Hanzon and brought to Palazzo Verdi in 2008. I look at this, and I think: “Just look up! And we will see His beauty in all of his creation and in the everyday if we only look up! And he and my spirit will rise to His!”

But as I look up, I think to myself, “Why can’t I see his beauty most days? Many days I’m caught between an un-ending inbox of emails, meetings, and trips in the mini-van. I live not in heaven, but on earth! Where is heaven between the dirty dishes and the office?

What is the solution?

“Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking.” Augustine said this. And it is by walking that the sorrows of pilgrims through the ages have been solved.

Look down.

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You are now sitting on the Chartres Labyrinth, a recreation of the 13th century Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth in France.

The Middle Ages was a time of pilgrimage. The destination would often be Jerusalem, considered at that time the Center of the World, symbolizing the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet many poor pilgrims, pilgrims like ourselves, could not afford to go to Jerusalem. Maybe they too had to clean the kitchen for the fourth time that day.

So they made a pilgrimage to cathedrals – like the Cathedral at Chartres. Inside the cathedral was a prayer labyrinth, forty feet across, in the nave of the church. Once at Chartres, they walked. They walked the prayer labyrinth, and brought their heart, the questions, the joys and sorrows until they reached the center. Heaven. Where God is.

And they would retrace their steps as they left, once again to enter the “outside world.” Where perhaps heaven might follow.

What draws us here tonight, for an event on women, work and calling? Each of us has a question. What is the answer?

How shall we hear the voice of the Caller?

“It is solved on pilgrimage. It is solved by walking.”

Work

Lincoln on Being a Lawyer

March 4, 2015

I came across this quote while reading the late Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy Continued, and it was so rich I wanted to pass it on to you:

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonestly is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief—resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgement you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.

Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.

Well, there you have it. In two paragraphs, Abraham Lincoln gives us both the problem with the law and the solution. Society confers upon lawyers the high responsibility of interpreting and upholding the law, without which the justice system would crumble. Yet most people distrust lawyers. When Gallup does its annual poll of public perception of honesty/ethics in the professions, lawyers are toward the bottom, just above advertisers, car salesmen and member of congressmen (many of whom are lawyers!).

Is this deserved? Maybe, maybe not. But all the same, Lincoln says, Don’t yield to this perception. Be honest. And if you can’t be honest while being a lawyer, quit law, and be honest anyway.

Not so easy. To be sure. But he offers practical wisdom to the young lawyer: Discourage litigation. Find compromise. Count the cost. Be a peacemaker.

And have no fear, says America’s greatest president, there will be plenty of business to go around. Not only will there be legal disputes a plenty because of fallen human nature, but if you were to actually practice these things, clients would likely beat down your door because you’d have the reputation of being the most honest lawyer in town.

Theology Work

Video Release: Eugene Peterson on Vocation

December 31, 2014

On New Years Eve, 1868, Andrew Carnegie sat alone in his room in the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York. Only 33 years old, he had already been successful beyond his wildest dreams. That year he made $56,110 and had accumulated $400,000 in assets. But his heart was restless.

New Years Eve was a time of sober reflection for Scottish Calvinists. Though an atheist, Carnegie the Scot picked up a pen and wrote that night, “To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares and with most of my thoughts wholly upon the way to make more money in the shortest time must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery.”

Though he delayed in taking action, that night he committed to get a thorough education, take part in “public matters especially those connected with education and the improvement of the poorer classes” and “choose the life which will be the most elevating in character.”

For many of us, New Years is a time to examine our lives and make plans for next year. Many of us have questions about our work. What am I called to? If it’s not just making money – what’s the purpose of my work? What if I don’t like my job? These are tough questions for any of us. Many of us need a guide.

Today, on New Years Eve, we release four short interviews of Eugene Peterson’s wisdom on work and vocation. If you find yourself with a moment of quiet reflection before 2015, watch these brief videos and ask yourself the questions below. Take time to write in a journal your answers and what you might change in 2015 about your work, your family, or how you spend your time.

I wish you a Happy New Years, and a heart that finds its rest ultimately in Him.

The Role of Work in the Plan of God from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Peterson says that taking a Sabbath “activates” and renews our work. How does weekend rest and worship influence your motivation to work on Monday?
In what way is your job “creation work” – work the participates in the creative work of God himself? Could your work next year be more creative?
Peterson mentioned that many people feel like they don’t have any worth unless they’re making money. Have you ever felt this? If so, why do you think this is?

Cultivating Vocation from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Peterson said that some write poems, but others are poets; some have jobs as doctors, but others are doctors 24 hours a day. What has God made you “24 hours a day?”
Do you have mentors in your life who speak truth you need to hear? Are you mentoring others?
What practices can you integrate into your weekly rhythm in 2015 that help to cultivate a sense of vocation or divine calling? What activities hinder your ability to hear God’s call?

Suffering in Work from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Peterson says: “Not many people have the ability or the opportunity to have a job that fits them.” Does this describe you? Are there ways to be faithful to Christ in your work even when you’re suffering?
Peterson’s dad was a butcher. Though he didn’t particularly enjoy his work, he had “contempt for the hackers who just wanted to get through the day as fast as they could.” Have you felt this way before? Is there a way to serve with excellence even in a job you don’t particularly enjoy?

Busyness, Sabbath, and Work as a Gift from Denver Institute on Vimeo.

Do you find yourself so busy that you feel like you don’t have any control of your life? Why is this?
What role does technology play in our busyness? What does a truly restful Sabbath look like for you?
Peterson says, “Work is a gift.” How might your attitude change toward your work if you truly believed that your daily work was God’s gift to you?

Theology Work

Four Sermons on Work

December 1, 2014

In the past several months, I’ve been honored to give four different sermons on work in the Denver Metro area. If you have some time this week, download them onto your iPhone or iPod (remember those?) and listen on your way to or from work. I’d love to get your feedback.

Here they are. I’ve included the title, time & place, biblical text, description, brief outline, and highlights for your scanning pleasure. Happy listening.

“The Gospel as Public Truth”

Listen Now: The Gospel as Public Truth

Date: July 27, 2014

Location: Fellowship Denver Church

Key Text: Acts 25:23-26:27

Description: Why does it seem like the public worlds of business, politics, technology or art seems so isolated from the world of church? In this sermon, Jeff Haanen explores Paul’s testimony before King Agrippa and Festus in Acts 25-26 to find a model for cultural engagement for our modern culture. Based on Paul’s own call, Jeff explains what it means to be a witness and servant of the gospel of grace in our work and culture today.

Brief Outline:

I. My Story: Does God also care about the public world?

II. Paul testified to the gospel publicly before King Agrippa

III. Modern culture – like ancient Rome – divides public truth from private values

IV. Living out the gospel as public truth: What Jesus didn’t do in his culture

V. Living out the Gospel as public truth: Servant and Witness

Three Highlights:

“Before King Agrippa, Paul testified to the gospel in the most public of places.”

“The early church believed Jesus’ message: Repent, believe the good news. The kingdom of God is near. They refused to privatize their faith because they believed that the first and final affirmation they made about all of reality was that Jesus is Lord.”

“When engaging culture, Jesus didn’t choose the path of the Essene or the Zealot…He chose a third path. That of servant and witness.”

“Wisdom and Work”

Listen Now: Wisdom and Work

Date: July 6, 2014

Location: New Denver Church

Key Text: Ecclesiastes 3:9-13

Description: With growing student debt, nagging unemployment, and an epidemic of workplace disengagement globally, how should we understand our work? Qohelet, the author of Ecclesiastes, could see the futility of seeing work only as a means to accumulation, ambition, or self-actualization. But he could also see that work was a gift from God, and a way to “do good” while we live. In this sermon, Jeff Haanen unpacks the wisdom of the sages and applies it to our work lives today.

Brief Outline:

I. Globally the world is disengaged from their work

II. Qohelet – the author of Ecclesiastes – saw the futility of accumulation, abmition, and self-actualization through our work

III. Work is a gift.

IV. Work is an opportunity to serve.

Three Highlights:

“Money is not nothing. It’s important. But if it’s the driving factor in work choices, we’ll have found ourselves exchanging the hours of our lives for cars, houses, trips, and REI camping gear that we’ll leave to somebody else.”

“Do what you love. We’ve said it for so long to graduating college seniors it’s become almost gospel. Do what you love. Do what you’re passionate about. Don’t settle for just a job. Follow your dreams. But is this wisdom or just hot air?”

“The door into God’s will for our work is not my talents, my opportunities, or even what the world needs. It is gratitude.”

“Sheep and Goats: Loving the World Through Work”

Listen Now: Sheep and Goats: Loving the World Through Work

Date: November 23, 2014

Location: Littleton Christian Church

Key Text: Matthew 25: 31-46

Description: The parable of the sheep and the goats is one of Jesus’ most well-known calls to justice. Yet what is he talking about when he said “I was hungry, thirsty, and in need of clothes” and you cared for me? In this sermon, Jeff Haanen connects this parable to daily work – the way we serve the needs of others every day. In it he notes the difference between sheep and goats today, and draws lessons for our modern success-oriented culture.

Brief Outline:

I. In this parable, Jesus is not just talking about isolated acts of charity, but instead our work.

II. Goats serve themselves – and ignore the needs of others.

III. Over a lifetime, we actually become either sheep or goats.

Three Highlights:

“What does it take for just a single loaf of bread to feed my hunger? … The difference between me going hungry and me being satisfied by just a loaf of bread is the work of dozens – if not hundreds – of other people. It was people working, serving the needs of others.”

“I believe those whose work is the home, with kids and household work, each of these needs to met almost everyday! I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! I’m sad and lonely! I need clothes on! I’m in prison! Ok…maybe not in prison literally. But certainly in the chains of original sin that must be disciplined regularly.”

“As we take a look at judgement, let’s not be afraid, but also let’s not be arrogant. C.S. Lewis once said that we had spent far too much time and energy thinking about who gets into heaven and who doesn’t. The better way to think about it is who’s walking toward God and who’s walking away from him.”

“The Creator”

Listen Now: The Creator

Date: October 14, 2012

Location: Littleton Christian Church

Key Texts: Genesis 1:1-3, 2:2-3; Psalm 104:31

Description: Why is it that we spend so much time and effort at work, and yet find it difficult to speak about our daily work at church? This need not be. God’s own work of creation is a model for human work. From creating skyscrapers to manufacturing silly putty, we are “made in the image of the maker” and to work as an expression of the image of God in us. We were not designed to merely go to work, get money, buy stuff and die. Work is part of our creative calling, and the way in which we offer ourselves to God.

Brief Outline:

I. Why talk about work at church?

II. God’s work is creative.

III. We are made in the image of the Creator.

IV. Too often our work today is defined only by making money, consumption, and then trying to escape from the job.

V. Creativity is a paradigm for shaping culture.

Three Highlights:

“God said in Exodus 20: ‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall do all your work…’Why should we rest one day a week and not work? Because that’s what God did. His rhythm of work and rest must become ours.”

“Every week we humans make skyscrapers, sirens and spaghetti dinners. Dorothy Sayers was right: ‘Man is a maker, who makes things because he wants to, because he cannot fulfill his true nature if he is prevented from making things for the love of the job. He is made in the image of the Maker, and he himself must create or become something less than man.’”

“What would it look like to start gather with other Christians in your field, to talk about your work, talk about your creative calling, and needs you see around you, and begin to serve God through your vocation?”