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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faith and Work Movement

I Love the Church

October 1, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Work

Designing Workplaces to Be More Human

March 20, 2020

Designing Workplaces to Be More Human

We spend about a third of our waking lives at work. And yet, for the majority of people, work is not much more than a paycheck. We feel lonely, especially men. We feel like there’s a gap between our job responsibilities and our own potential. We often feel exhausted and question whether our work is making any meaningful difference.

How might we reimagine what it means to be fully human in our working lives?

Here are five aspects of what I think it means to be human, and, as a result, what I believe we need to focus on if we’re going to build workplaces that really invest in human potential.

Humans are emotional and spiritual. It’s tough to avoid it. Fear, anger, joy, surprise, sadness, disgust, elation – every day we’re a mix of emotions. My guess is that today, before leaving for work, you experienced at least a few of these emotions. One philosopher has made the case that fundamentally, we are creatures of desire. Dostoyevsky said it well: we crave nothing so much as something to worship. Our emotional and spiritual lives are woven tightly together.

Yet how many workplaces really acknowledge – and embrace – the fact that that we feel, we believe, we worship? Even rarer: who really takes the time and effort to invest in the deep emotional and spiritual health of their employees?

We see the cost when our co-workers are unhealthy – disengagement, addiction, distraction. A full 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year. But do we deeply care about facing our own shadows honestly and creating workplaces where our hearts experience deep peace?

Humans are relational. From our very first breath to our last, we are surrounded by people. Relationships are both the greatest sources of joy and pain in our lives.

The ability to relate well to others – what workforce development professionals call “soft skills” – is consistently the most important skill employers are looking for. Emotional intelligence also happens to be the skill needed for high level leadership.

Yet, how difficult it is to work alongside other human beings! The inability to deal with conflict, our own lack of self-awareness, and a growing loneliness epidemic in America all contribute to the deep challenges we face in our families and workplaces.

Yet each of us longs for community; we long to know others, and be known. We weren’t designed to be alone.

Humans are makers. From the earliest recorded history, humans made things. Tents, musical instruments, tools, weapons, pots, homes. “We are made in the image of the Maker,” says dramatist and playwright Dorothy Sayers. Work is, and always has been, a fundamental part of what it means to be human. Culture is made by what we make, and the meaning we derive from what we’ve made.

In the modern world, we’re constantly surrounded by other people’s work. Coffee cups, drywall, iPhones, books, concrete, electrical outlets, mops, pacifiers. Though some may imagine a day when machines take all of our jobs, history just doesn’t bear it out. Every time technology displaces jobs, we find other things to create. We are creators by nature.

Yet again, there’s so much that hinders our ability to do good work. Distraction, lack of autonomy, insufficient time, low wages, unequal access to opportunity. To make things worse, professionals especially have nearly divinized work as our sole source of worth and identity.

Who are the employers who invest in people’s ability to do excellent work, while holding work in its proper place alongside family and community?

Humans are thinkers. As young children, each of us were naturally curious about the world. We wanted to know. We wanted to learn. And now, as adults, we are in a constant state of debating what is true and good. Ideas matter.

In the circles I run in, it’s now out of fashion to acknowledge that we’re intellectual beings. But any cursory reading of history shows us that ideas matter. Just a review of the wars of the twentieth century – what some have called the age of ideologies – shows this to be true. Those who claim they just want “practical action steps” and don’t care much for “heady matters” are often the most controlled by the ideas of those who’ve gone before them.

In a global economy that changes so quickly, none of us can afford to stop learning. Yet in our jobs, more often than not, we become technicians. We become good at one thing – like processing mortgages or writing marketing copy – yet often are in the dark about the majority of the world. It’s hard to find opportunities to become generalists, and recover the range that we delighted in as children.

Where are the workplaces that encourage curiosity? Where are the organizations that ask employees to read outside of their field, listen to lectures on a regular basis, and really encourage broad, diverse thinking?

Humans are city-builders. This, too, is ancient. Not only do we work, but we work together. And as soon as we work, we form companies. And when we form companies, we realize that we need governments to safeguard those companies, and the rights that underpin them. We also need systems of education to form the next generation of workers and citizens. We need doctors to heal, craftsmen to build, and salesmen to sell. Before you know it, we have built cities.

As much as I’d like to avoid politics, we really can’t. Humans naturally form a polis when we work together. We must find ways to understand each other, live alongside each other, and provide for the needs of each other. “All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny,” said Martin Luther King Jr. “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Aristotle once said, “Man is a being best suited to living in a polis [city].”

Humans are intrinsically civic creatures. So, we’re forced to ask questions about not just our own needs, but also the needs of others. What does it mean for us to build just systems? What is a good society? And a question I often ask myself: are our workplaces a part of that answer, or are they a part of the problem?

***

At Denver Institute for Faith & Work, we built our five guiding principles around each of these five elements of what it means to be human. We also designed the educational program of the 5280 Fellowship around each of these principles as well.

Here’s a brief video overview of our Five Guiding Principles at Denver Institute.

My question for you is this: are you thinking theologically, embracing relationship, creating good work, seeking deep spiritual health, and serving others sacrificially?

Though in a secular workplace, you can’t always use theological language, you can take a look at your work environment or company and ask good, honest questions, such as:

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?

Sometimes integrating faith and work can seem overwhelming. But you do have a choice. You can shrink back, or you can act. You can accept the status quo, or you can choose to be motivated by doing your small part in the healing of God’s broken world. You can assume “work is work,” or you can imagine, in community, what might be.

You could even print these five questions and bring them up at your next team meeting. It may just convince them that work can be more than a paycheck.

This article first appeared on the Denver Institute blog.

Photo credit.

Culture Theology Work

What’s Really Happening to American Christianity?

October 29, 2019

The Pew Research Center recently published an alarming report: “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.” Since 2009, the religiously unaffiliated have risen from 17% of the population to 26% in 2018/19. And today only 65% of Americans identify as Christians, down from 77% only a decade ago.

The report points out that there’s a generational dynamic at work as well. A full 8 in 10 members of the Silent Generation are Christians, as are 3/4 baby boomers. Yet today, less than half of Millennials call themselves Christians, and 4/10 are religious “nones.” That is, when asked about their religious affiliation, they respond “nothing in particular.” There are now 30 million more “nones” in America than there were just a decade ago.

Sobering stuff. Whether it be church attendance or looking at the religious preferences of Whites, Blacks or Hispanics, the decline of Christian belief in the past generation of Americans seems to be picking up steam.

Some push back on this thesis. Glenn Stanton, a conservative researcher at Focus on the Family, claims that news headlines about the “dying church” are overblown. He accurately points out that the greatest numerical declines are in mainline churches, and that the numbers of evangelical Christians are holding strong. Indeed, even Pew reports that though the overall number of Protestants among US adults has declined from 51% in 2009 to 43%% in 2019, among Protestants the number of evangelicals has grown in the last decade from 56% to 59%.

Stanton and others point out what is happening is that the “middle is falling out.” That is, those who used to be nominally Christian now feel no need to say they’re a Christian of any sort when a pollster asks. So many of these people get lopped into the “nones” category but are not necessarily atheist or agnostic. “Nones” is a complex category of those without strong ties to a denomination or faith tradition.

Historically American exceptionalism held true in religion. As other rich countries secularized rapidly, especially in Europe, America didn’t follow suit. But since 1990, we now have about 30 years of data that says belief is indeed falling in the US.

What sense should we make of this data?

Though I wouldn’t use the word “crisis,” (the internet doesn’t need one more alarmist article), I would like to lay out three problems that confessing Christians need to pay attention to as belief recedes in America.

(1) The politicization of faith is reshaping how Christians express their faith in public and how they’re perceived by the broader culture.

As I read over these Pew research findings, I ask, “How would many of the Christian young adults in Denver respond to the question: ‘Are you a born-again evangelical?’”

My guess is that many wouldn’t claim the term “evangelical” because the word now has political and fundamentalist connotations. Though we work with many who would consider themselves theologically conservative, they’re also culturally-engaged, justice-minded, and have found themselves exiled from either the political right or left. As pastor Tim Keller has eloquently said for many, historic Christianity doesn’t fit into a two-party system.

Senior writer for The Atlantic Derek Thompson makes a convincing case that a few historical factors led to American losing its faith. One was the moral majority, led by figures such as James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, aligned Christian belief with Republican politics. Another factor was that after 9/11, all religion got lopped together with extremism. Either way, there are millions that now hold orthodox Christian belief, but don’t align with either the right or the left.

I see this every day at Denver Institute. As a matter of fact, my guess is that one of the main drivers of event attendance is that there’s a growing number of Christians (and, I’d argue, a good number of the “spiritual but not religious”) who want to distance themselves from political narratives about faith, but desperately want to find “their tribe.” They want to find others who care about faith and our culture, yet don’t find those communities either in their churches or their places of work. They’re looking simply for like-minded friends.

As old alliances peter out, a growing number of philanthropists, investors, business leaders, and other professionals are embracing vocation as a way of being public about faith without being political. Teaching students, attending to patients, serving clients, and fielding customer calls can be every bit as much a public act of faith as voting.

Indeed, I’d say daily work is becoming central to a growing number of Christians who are committed to living out the Lord’s prayer “May your kingdom come, may your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” yet are uncomfortable with the categories placed on them by a shifting culture.

(2) The retreat from culture sounds appealing…but it isn’t a real option.

In the past several years, some have suggested that attempts to renew culture should be abandoned completely and we should prepare for a new dark ages, in which Christian communities can only preserve the knowledge of the truth – like medieval monastic communities – as culture caravans into an abyss.

Yet my conviction is that a retreat from culture undersells how deeply connected we are in the modern economy. For every meal we eat, for every message we send, for every mile we drive, we need each other.

We can’t fully retreat from culture. Culture is the air we breathe.

The world we live in influences our emotions, our thoughts, and our dreams. And by not talking about these realities in our faith communities (or by simply turning up the worship music and smoke machines) what generally happens is that we unthinkingly adopt the norms of the world around us.

Which leads me to my last point….

(3) The accommodation to a secular culture poses a real problem for Christians.

Why is it that social media and news is filled with such vitriol, including many who profess Christian belief? Ed Stetzer, a missiologist at Wheaton College, has helped to sort this one out for me in a single image.

The short of it: Fifty years ago, the broad cultural consensus on social issues had a Judeo-Christian consensus. This included “convictional Christians” (those who really believe the doctrines of historic Christianity) as well as congregational Christians (occasional church attenders) and cultural Christians (those who don’t attend church by just call themselves Christians because of family or tradition.)

Today, that consensus has drastically shifted. Today the broad cultural consensus is secular on most social issues, and those who hold traditional views feel backed into a shrinking corner. Hence, you get many self-professed Christians who seem to be among the most combative voices out there, hoping to recover a nostalgic vision of American Christian that supposedly peaked in post-WWII America.

Here’s what I think. There are many Christians who are searching for a way to be hopeful yet not combative; who want to be faithful to the countercultural way of Jesus yet engaged with the world around them; who are among the many “Christians who drink beer” and are tired of the culture wars, yet are simultaneously deeply concerned about the world we live in.

Yet in my view, there are very, very few models for this kind of life. If I work for a Fortune 500 company, what practices should I embrace, and which should I abstain from? What does faith look like in the immensity of modern health care? When has my faith become individualistic and consumeristic? How should I practice my faith in my family, community, or workplace? When have I accommodated to mainstream secular culture, and what on earth does it mean to be “distinctly Christian” in a pluralistic society? How shall Christians remain “activated” as followers of Christ during the week?

In our post-Christian culture, we are no longer Nehemiah, trying to rebuild the walls around a once-great Jerusalem. We are now Daniel, looking for ways to be faithful to God in Babylon.

Actually, doing this requires hard thinking, faithful imagination, and robust communities of practice – communities that we’ve only just begun to build.

Work

Can I Really Change? Formation in the 5280 Fellowship

April 19, 2018

Tonight is the final information session for the 2018-19 class of the 5280 Fellowship, the flagship program of Denver Institute for Faith & Work. As the application period closes on April 30, I thought I’d re-post this article I wrote last year on the underlying philosophy of the 5280 Fellowship, along with some new pictures from this year’s class of Fellows. If you’re longing for meaning and a deeper sense of purpose in your work, I’d encourage you to apply an explore if the program is right for you.

How do we change?

I’m 34 years old, have four kids, and have been in the workforce for 9 years. And for me, there is no more pressing question in my life today than How do I change?

In the past three years, the stress of leading a growing organization, trying to be a good father, and accomplishing my professional goals has exposed, well, cracks in the foundation of my character. My precious wife has been so patient with me as I stumble, fall, and get up again – only to find myself back where I started.

As I’ve spoken with peers about their lives, careers, and relationships – especially young professionals in Denver and Boulder – I’ve seen common traits among many of us:

We’re around people and “social networks” all the time, but we feel lonely, and not deeply known by others. It’s the great irony of a social media age. More noise, but less deep relationships.
In our careers we’ve gotten good at a technical skill for which we were trained in school, like drawing construction plans, scheduling conferences or planning lessons. But we wonder: what about the broader city we live in? Who else is out there like me? How can I go from a microscope (knowing lots about a little) to a telescope (seeing a bigger picture)? Might my career or work be a part of something bigger than just my success?
In the drive to get things done and accomplish more in a shorter amount of time, I feel like my relationships, my knowledge of myself, and my relationship with God isn’t what I want it to be. I long to live a deep spiritual life, but most days I find this baffling. I need help. Lots of it.
Only 33% of Americans are engaged with their work. Most show up, do a job, get a paycheck – and would rather be somewhere else. And even for those third that are “highly engaged,” there’s an uncomfortableness, especially in Colorado, with those who make their careers everything, and forget about family, friends, neighbors, recreation, or the needs of others. Is there a way to be engaged, but not make work an idol?

In the last three years, I’ve felt each of these feeling acutely. Changing any of these seems daunting for me. Yet what’s interesting to me is that in the first year of the Fellows program at Denver Institute, I’ve seen what looks to me like genuine change in the lives of 27 men and women.

Grant Stone, a banker, shares about a broadening perspective on the financial industry, and what it means for his future career decisions
Candice Whiteley, a vice principal, shares about the value of a community deeply committed to God, a deeper knowledge of ourselves, and our world
Banks Benitez, an entrepreneur, shares about a renewed perspective of God that even sees Him at work at a car wash employing autistic men and women
Rachel Moran, a law professor, shares about no longer feeling alone as she endeavors to live out her Christian life at a secular university
My friend Hunter Beaumont, lead pastor at Fellowship Denver church, has said, “This program is having a transformative impact on the culture of my church.”
Paul Frank, who works at a healthcare supply chain management company, said to me recently, “When I started the Fellowship, I hated by job. I had been in a tech company for over a decade – was something wrong with me? But one night, after doing a “vocational power assessment,” somebody in my cohort said: ‘Look, you have incredible vocational power as one of the most senior employees in your company. Maybe God put you there for a reason.’ I now see my work as an incredible opportunity to mentor and serve.”

Why is this? Where is this change coming from?

When I designed the program, to be honest, I kind of had a chip on my shoulder about my previous educational experiences. I loved reading and ideas, but I couldn’t stand reading 500 pages of a boring book, writing a paper about an esoteric topic, or listening to professors lecture for hours without ever asking what I thought. I also developed an affinity for older books (and shorter ones!) that had stood the test of time. Better to build my life on the great ideas and traditions of the past than the latest fad that had become popular in the academy.

In my years after graduate school, I also came to value the primacy of learning from people: people who are further along in their careers, people who have had different training than I have, people who are influencing key conversations across different sectors in our city. Jesus wrote nothing, but he instead gave us his church, a group or people. I could now see why. People were just as important “texts” as were books. And through the Holy Spirit, God actually lives in people. Moreover, as I grew in my career, I saw myself imitating leaders I knew, and putting into practice what they were feeling and doing, far before I understood the concepts behind their actions.

I also began the incredibly hard process of self-knowledge. Only in the past several years have I really started to plunge deeply into how I react in stressful situations, how I come off in front of others, why I feel energized or exhausted, and the impact my own emotions have on everyone around me.

The Fellows program has been designed for those of us in our careers who long for a deeper change that technical training can’t provide. We built in elements into the program that take into consideration the breadth of what human being is. We are relational, social, physical, emotional, intellectual, habitual creatures who are environmentally-shaped, embedded in culture, and designed for work, for others, and for God.

So what does that mean? In the 5280 Fellowship, in means:

The relational and emotional context formed by the cohort of Fellows is the core of the program. God is relationship – and we grow only by first opting into a community and commits itself to a set of habits, like spiritual reading, work, discussion, prayer, vulnerability, and learning from others.
The community is designed around values of theological thinking, redemptive relationships, creating good work, deep spiritual health and sacrificial service. The unspoken values the community holds at the outset of the program shape the environment even before we’ve begun the formal program.
We strive to cultivate a deeper knowledge of God on two levels: (1) his revelation through Scripture and his church through reading great authors on topics like biblical worldview & mission, calling, theology work, Christ and culture. (2) We cultivate a direct knowledge of God, the living Person, through practicing the classical spiritual disciplines.
We set the context for a deeper knowledge of ourselves through a coaching process that includes an EQi assessment, 360 interviews, sharing our stories with the cohort, and evaluating our vocational gifting and power.
We set the table for a deeper knowledge of our culture by understanding issues through eyes of leaders actually shaping and forming those issues through their work.
We intentionally build diverse cohorts and expose our Fellows to a broad network of leaders in the city because we believe learning directly from other’s experiences is deeply transformative on a cognitive, relational, spiritual, professional and civic level. Experiences like the 5280 Fellowship are often catalyst experiences that open new opportunities, new perspectives, and new relationships across churches and sectors.
The program also requires a professional project and a personal development project. Leadership development programs that are all about papers and lectures – but don’t have the teeth of real world projects that will influence real people – are not effective. Conversely, applying your theology to real work contexts and serving real needs, from psychiatry to urban planning to corporate management, is both professionally impactful and is good for the workplaces, communities, industries and cultures we live in.

Tough thing about the program: it’s a big commitment over nine months. And it’s only for those who are serious about change. But here’s the truth: technology is fast, but character formation is slow. And we can’t do it alone. We need each other.

As I was interviewing two of our senior leaders last month during a Saturday teaching session, I closed the session, and looked up to our Fellows and said, “I just want to say one thing. Seven months ago you were strangers – but I now call you my friends. I genuinely love being a part of this community. Thank you. I needed it.”

Change seems impossible to me most days. But as we near Easter week and I take a look at the empty cross and the light-filled tomb – and the growing community of faith in the metro area – I’m filled with hope.

If you’re interested in learning more about the 5280 Fellowship, fill out the form at the bottom of the 5280 Fellowship page or reach out to me personally. We accept applications for the Class of 2018-19 through April 30, 2018.

Health Care Science Work

An Ancient Christian Vision for Modern Medicine

January 10, 2017

Meet the Denver doctor on a hilarious, heartfelt search for the healing ingredient in health care.

“Do you remember our handshake? The Nussbaum handshake? First you slap, then you shake, then you slide! It’s the Nussbaum sandshake, the Nussnutt landrake, the Fussbutt bandlake, the Cussbutt taketake!”

Martha, a retired nurse battling depression, found herself once again on the psych unit under the care of Dr. Abraham Nussbaum, a psychiatrist at Denver Health and author of a new memoir, The Finest Traditions of My Calling: One Physician’s Search for the Renewal of Medicine. After years of hospitalizations, Martha formalized her affection for Dr. Nussbaum with “the dreamshake.” Slide and shake, pinky swear, fist bump, explosion.

But why the dreamshake? What did Martha dream about her doctor? Was he a scientist, friend, lover, pill-provider, teacher, technician—or savior?

In a mammoth industry—in 2014, $3 trillion, or $9,523 per American, was spent on health care—competing visions for reform abound. Nussbaum, a 41-year-old Catholic physician, ushers readers through a wild, weird, head scratching, infuriating, and tender odyssey into the dizzying diversity of modern medicine.

Part journalist, part comic, part philosopher, and part shrink, Nussbaum’s search for the healing of healthcare culminates not with the wonders of technology or a recipe for cost-saving, but instead with a fourth-century bishop’s call to build a “poor house” for the ill.

Comedy and Tragedy

On the second day of med school, a young female pathology resident grabbed lunch from the cafeteria and accompanied Nussbaum to his first autopsy. She casually chatted while cutting open an elderly man’s chest—opening the rib cage, removing the organs, and plopping intestines into the sink before she “ran the bowel,” spilling out feces.

As guts spilled out of the cadaver, Nussbaum asked if she ever considered vegetarianism. “No,” she said. “Why would you ask?”

For Nussbaum, residency began by learning how to handle dead body parts; it eventually grew to learning how to handle co-workers.

As a third-year resident, Nussbaum (the rookie) shadowed Cannon, an intern with small glasses, curly hair and pearly teeth. Around three in the morning, a nurse paged them about a patient with a case of the hiccups.

“Okay, Rook, look up treatments for intractable hiccups,” Cannon said.

“Chlorpromazine. Haloperidol. Methylphenidate. Baclofen. Midazolam. Rectal massage.”

“What was that last one?”

“Rectal massage.”

“Uh-huh. That’s the one. Rook, let me teach you. You’ve got to show the nurse who’s in charge.”

The furious nurses massaged the patient’s rectum every 15 minutes the entire night—and made sure to page Cannon mercilessly for the next half decade while on call.

It’s hard to say whether the physicians, the patients, or the consultants in The Finest Traditions of My Calling are more entertaining.

Dr. Paul Bregman, one of Colorado’s many marijuana doctors, arrives to lunch wearing Air Jordans, tweed pants, and a black t-shirt, and tries to offer Nussbaum a bag of cannabis-infused Ho-Hos (“I want you to see the amazing”). Connie, a patient who is sure her sister is plotting to harm Peyton Manning, won’t relent until the star quarterback visits her in treatment. A team of health care consultants prints t-shirts with the new hospital motto. They get tossed from floor to floor by underwhelmed doctors and nurses, and eventually worn by wild-eyed patients on the third-floor psych unit who could uniquely identify with the new slogan: “I’M COMMITTED.”

Yet the comedy of medicine often gives way to the tragic.

Bao was a 43-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who regularly visited the emergency department reporting chest pain, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety. She felt “as lonely as an empty cup.” One night, Bao, a self-described virgin, requested birth control pills. When asked why, she said, “I met a man.”

“Can you tell me about him?”

“My car broke down on the highway. I was on the side of the road and a police officer helped me call a tow truck. Then he told me he was separated from his wife and wondered if we could get together some time. For sex. He told me he liked Asian ladies.”

The internist had prescribed Ortho Tri-Cyclen for birth control, but had missed Bao’s real story completely.

“The value of experience,” said Sir William Osler, founder of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, “is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.” Has modern medicine reduced people to “parts and money,” billing patients for defective limbs or organs, yet forgotten to cultivate deeper virtues?

Amidst such a circus, where does one look to discover and “to preserve the finest traditions of my calling,” to which the Hippocratic Oath refers?

The World’s First Hospital

While enrolled in an AmeriCorps program after college, Nussbaum lived at a Dominican priory. One night, he arrived for mandatory vespers for hymn singing. They cracked open their hymnals to the 72nd Psalm,

“He will rescue the poor at their call,
those no one speaks for.
Those no one cares for
he hears and will save.
He saves their lives from violence,
lives precious in his eyes.”

Having just seen Francisnek, a homeless Polish immigrant whose sobriety was the boast of the rescue mission, slip back into alcoholism, Nussbaum longed for the fulfillment of the psalmist’s promise.

In contrast to the scotch-sipping, sitcom watching friars, the Sinsinawa Dominicans, their sister community down the road, “seemed strangely alive in the absence of men.” One nun handed Nussbaum a “holy card”—like a baseball card for Catholics—of two saints, Cosmas and Damian, “Physicians and Martyrs” who promised to turn their bearers into “willing and loving servants.” Considering the call to medicine, Nussbaum’s pilgrimage took him to Duke University, to study the history of medicine under theologian Stanley Hauwerwas.

In the ancient Greek tradition, sick people came to the temple of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine, and offered gifts in exchange for health. Likewise, Greek doctors saw only those who could pay, and there was no public duty toward the sick. But the Jewish tradition of hospitality and the Christian tradition of charity to the poor birthed a new, public commitment to the ill.

In 370, Basil, the new bishop of Caesarea, built a ptochotropeion, or house for the poor, ill, and dispossessed. Located on city’s edge, so it would be accessible especially to travelers and strangers, clerics, deacons, and lay physicians gave patients rest, meals, and care. Basil believed Christians were responsible for the social welfare of the entire city, not only the wealthy. Many scholars today consider Basil’s ptochotropeion to be the first hospital in Western society, the foundation of public-health efforts, and the historical inspiration behind hospitals for the indigent ill in cities throughout the West.

Denver Health, where Nussbaum practices medicine today, descends from Basil’s vision, however loosely. Outside the hospital is a bench, cut from stone, that reads “DO JUSTICE. LOVE GOODNESS. WALK HUMBLY.” The omission of God’s name from the prophet Micah’s famous injunction is both a symbol of medicine’s forgotten origin and a testimony to longings for a deeper, more soul-satisfying vision of the physician’s vocation.

Each morning, when Nussbaum’s arises from bed, he gazes upon an image of Basil of Caesarea. “To place the hope of one’s heath in the hands of the doctor is the act of an irrational animal,” wrote Basil. But “when reason allows, we call in the doctor, but we do not leave off hoping in God.”

Engagement with Faith

The Finest Traditions of My Calling is a sparkling, heart-wrenching, hilarious success.

Even when critiquing quality improvement experts, the narrative still charms. Nussbaum once compares Atul Gawande’s New Yorker essay on “Big Med,” which promises healthcare will be saved by becoming like aircraft carriers or assembly-line restaurants, to “Famous Factory Meatloaf” produced at the Cheesecake Factory.

Yet it’s his serious and delightful engagement with Christianity that really elevates the book. He praises Hildegard of Bingen, a medieval abbess, musician, mystic, and pre-modern clinician, for gently nursing both gardens and patients back to health. Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, advocates an application of liberation theology to health care, and opens clinics for the impoverished from Malawi to Peru to Russia. Nussbaum suffers alongside of one of his patients, Eleanor, who struggles to believe in a God who let her mother die of cancer.

Most books on medicine either completely ignore Christianity (and assume medicine started in the 20th century) or see it as a tactic for converting patients. But here, faith is a surprising source of hope. Though Nussbaum doesn’t claim to be a “Catholic psychiatrist,” (he unconvincingly claims to be a “bad Catholic” in the vein of the novelist Walker Percy), his Christian commitments shine through with the humility of St. Luke the Physician.

Yet perhaps Nussbaum’s greatest triumph is turning a medical memoir, a genre that can inspire intractable cases of yawning, into an accessible adventure for a general audience, one worthy of a sequel or even a film adaptation.

Weeks after finishing the book, my daughters are still asking me to do the Nussbaum handshake.

This book review first appeared on christianitytoday.com.

Economy Nonprofit Work

The “Culture Hole” in Our Annual Giving

November 7, 2016

So many charities, so many choices. This time of year, year-end fundraising appeals pour into our mailboxes. How are we to decide between the many worthy nonprofit causes that are asking for financial support?

If you’re anything like Kelly (my wife) and me, you have to make this choice carefully. We’ve set aside a certain amount each year in our charitable giving budget, and we want our donor dollars to make an impact.

For us, there are two giving categories that won’t budge anytime soon: the local church and the poor. We believe we have both a duty and a joyful opportunity to support our local church (Littleton Christian Church) as it proclaims the gospel to our community and nonprofits like HOPE International that are serving the poor and marginalized throughout the world. I believe these two categories should be universal priorities for Christians.

But I think many Christians have often overlooked a third category for charitable giving: culture. Actually, I believe the culture category is necessary considering the redemptive scope of the resurrection and what it means to be a follower of Christ in this world. Education, the arts, scientific research, leadership development, even politics (Did I really just write that?). The broader arena in which we work and live needs generous donor support – and without generous culture patrons, our entire civilization is negatively affected. Not a small claim to defend!

Here are three reasons why I think we all need to add “culture” to our annual giving priorities:

Not all good activities our society needs are profitable, and thus, they need charitable support.

Imagine if you had to buy a $20 ticket to go to church each Sunday. Would you be incensed? What if you grew up in a community with no symphony, or you never visited an art museum or arboretum as a kid? Do you feel like other children should have that experience today – even if they can’t pay for it?

We live in the age of philanthrocapitalism – a view that says philanthropists ought to act like angel investors, and nonprofits should cease with this fundraising nonsense and act more like businesses.

Many nonprofits should indeed develop earned revenue streams (book sales, event ticket sales, or fee for service). And many organizations need to vastly improve reporting and metrics. But some valuable human endeavors are simply not profitable. And never will be.

Two examples:

(A) Education. It’s not profitable. It just isn’t. When a Ph.D. student spends five years studying medieval Hebrew manuscripts, or a kid learns a multiplication table for the first time in second grade, there’s no way these activities can – or should – be profitable. Experiments in for-profit higher education, like the University of Phoenix, haven’t gone well. The point is that education is good… and costly. And it will perpetually require donor and/or government support to impact lives and shape an educated citizenry, which our businesses, churches, hospitals and, yes, schools, depend on.

(B) Science. Building the large hadron collider, a massive particle accelerator, is costly. Really costly – to the tune of about $13.25 billion. Now, why on earth would anybody fund this? Because this activity could push all of humanity forward through a new scientific breakthrough. It’s not profitable – but it is valuable. Cancer research, a children’s hospital, the chemistry department at your local university – each need donor support.

I fully understand the need for sustainability in the nonprofit world. Trust me: as the executive director of a nonprofit, I understand this. We actively work on minimizing risk and diversifying our income streams. But it’s also worth remembering that there are incredibly valuable human endeavors that require generosity and can only flourish with the support of people who think private schools and preserving primate habitats – “culture” – are worth donor support.

Christianity leads us to invest in a broad scope of redemption – and a broad commitment to human flourishing.

Colossians 1:19-20 says, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” All things, many theologians have pointed out, means the individual soul but also neighborhoods, cities, and entire areas of human endeavor, like art, law, manufacturing, agriculture, retail, and investing.

Or take a less-quoted example: Zephaniah 3. When God judges Israel for her sin, he says, “Her officials within her are roaring lions; her rulers are evening wolves, who leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are unprincipled; they are treacherous people. Her priests profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law.” God is judging not just individuals, but cultural norms that had become unjust. He speaks to government leaders, the media (ancient prophets functioned in many ways like the media of today), and corrupt religious leaders.

God’s law, given through Moses at Sinai, lays down a vision for a just society, not the private salvation of individuals nor isolated acts of charity. As soon as he tells people to “act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God,” he follows up by mentioning the integrity (or lack thereof) of their business practices (Micah 6:8-11).

God cares about all of his creation, from neurotransmitters to nuclear energy. And because of human sin, each area of the world is distorted due to sin. Syria is crumbling, spiritual emptiness is rampant, caustic partisan division is paralyzing Washington, and refugees are suffering.

Anthony Bradley, a theologian at The King’s College, defines human flourishing as “a holistic concern for the spiritual, moral, physical, economic, material, political, psychological and social context necessary for human beings to live according to their design.” Does our giving reflect this broad view of human flourishing?

We can’t change all that has gone wrong, not give to every cause. But we can do something. Why not pick an area of culture – like spurring on the generosity movement, contributing to the formation of a potential leader, or even giving to a bunch of scholars thinking about culture – and give generously?

The poor need us to give to “culture.”

Last week I was talking with my friend David, who, through his career, has become personal friends with many high ranking government officials in Africa. One day, he took an emerging leader from the Congo (a lawyer by trade) to visit one of the world’s biggest private equity funds (hundreds of billions in assets). The fund manager said, “We’re interested in investing significantly in the Congo. But we can’t yet. Because of the scope of the investment, we need to see political stability for at least 10 years before we invest.”

The young leader went away encouraged – knowing that this investment could create thousands of jobs for his countrymen – yet knowing he needed to work on building networks of moral integrity in the upper echelon of leadership in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to help stabilize a county that’s been torn by civil war.

The point has been well made by documentaries like Poverty, Inc. or books such as Entrepreneurship for Human Flourishing that entrepreneurship and business does more to alleviate systemic poverty than charity ever will. But that’s not to say that charity isn’t necessary. On the contrary, what we most need is a certain kind of moral fiber among business leaders that turns wealth creation into societal benefit. Earning more money can mean the chance to buy more whisky and prostitutes, or it can mean the chance to invest in your kid’s education. The formation of ethical leaders, especially in business and government, is critical to poverty alleviation. (Gary Haugen has also made the case that the rule of law and preventing violence from sweeping through countries is also critical to development work.)

In summary, if we care about the poor, we can’t just give to the next natural disaster or emergency fundraising appeal we get in the mail. We need to build up institutions and the people who lead them because it leads to jobs, stability, and cultures of virtue that can put poverty to rest for good.

The Most Generous Country in the World

Americans are the most generous people in the world. We give away over $1 billion dollars a day. We give away $373 billion a year – and 73 percent of that is from individuals like you and me. (Though we give the most by total contributions, Australia and New Zealand edge us by a greater percent of people who give to charity each year.)

And people of religious faith are the most generous of all Americans. It’s controversial, but true. Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute reports that the average annual giving among the religious is $2,210 per year, whereas it is $642 among secular Americans. Christians even give to secular causes more generously than secular people.

Each year, Kelly and I strive to give more generously for the core reason that God has first given generously to us.

It’s makes me excited to give this year to the church, to the poor – and to the cultural endeavors that God so loves (John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:19).

Culture Theology Work

What Greg Thompson Can Teach Us About Living as Christians in Cities

December 11, 2015

Occasionally you meet somebody that shines with such virtue that you are, perhaps for the first time, made aware of your own poverty of spirit.

When I met Greg Thompson during our Thriving Cities symposium in late October, I almost immediately felt the weight of his glory. Before speaking to the crowd, he almost desperately asked me to let him know if there was anybody I knew at the event who had a particular hurt or pain that he could pray for. Unlike my concerns (Will the event be a success? Will people “like” the evening?), it seemed to me that his vision for the renewal of cities was almost completely driven by an other-worldly love.

It’s rare that I go back over a talk that a DIFW speaker has given several times to take notes, underline, and to pray. But when Greg spoke about our “shared wound and shared calling” to reimagine what a virtuous civic life might look like, it was not just my mind, but through sitting under his teaching, quietly my heart was drawn to the beauty of his vision.

Here are six movements Greg Thompson encouraged us to make as Christian people living in cities today. ‎

1. We need to move from a posture of victimhood to servanthood.

“It’s true, of course, that [Christians] are in fact an increasingly marginal people, a trend that looks to continue for a really long while — like a hundred years probably. And it is true that simply by virtue of having moral norms that we cling to, we can be seen as a moral threat to the aspirations of our nation. But it’s also true that Christ is risen, and that while we may be marginalized, we can never be victimized, for heaven’s sake. And to the contrary, we don’t live in this world either as masters or as victims but as servants.”

Fear is rampant in American culture, says Pulitzer-Prize winning author Marilynne Robinson. And I’ve felt this fear too. Just saying you’re a Christian can be a recipe for career sabotage or becoming socially ostracized.

But fear is not a Christian habit of mind — love is. Even as Christians are losing public influence and public voice, Greg reminded me that night at the event that we may be pushed to the margins, but we need never adopt a mentality of victimhood. We are here neither as “culture-shapers” (masters) nor culture-defenders (victims) — we are simply servants. Those who have a deep, abiding hope in the risen Christ, and a enduring reason to love those with whom we live.

2. We need to move from hostility to hospitality.

“One of the most painfully evident aspects of the Church’s life — at least in public — is our fear and our contempt of those who differ from us. It is true that we do have and we must have deep differences with our neighbors. That’s what it means to have convictions in a pluralist age. And it is true that some of our neighbors are going to be hostile to us because we’re Christians… But it’s also true that God loved you and me while we were enemies. Our neighbors, every single one of them, is made in his image and they have an irreducible dignity. And we have to be the people — the poets — who can recognize the beauty where it is and welcome them in.”

As Greg said this, I was convicted. Do I assume that I’ll be persecuted for my faith in a secular city, and is that why I’m always defending myself before a conversation has ever begun? Why is it that as a shrinking minority I feel the need to assert my “rights” to live a Christian? How might I simply open my workplace, my office, my dining room table and share my life with those that disagree with me? This is what Christ has first done for me — yet what I also find so uncomfortable in the reality of my Tuesday mornings — and Saturday evenings.

Yet inviting in the stranger is perhaps one of the most powerful things people of Christian faith can do in this pluralistic age.

3. We need to move from competition to collaboration.

“One of the most disappointing afflictions in contemporary Christianity is the way that we seem more eager to build a brand for ourselves than to build a common good for us all…

“It is actually as we join together that we grow up into what [Paul] calls the full stature of mature, Christian personhood. And because of this, we’re called to labor diligently to situate our gifts not simply in relationship to our own personal sense of calling, but to our brothers and sisters — to not simply get up in the morning and ask ‘What do I want to do?’ but ask ‘What needs to be done?’ ‘Who’s doing it?’ and ‘How can I join them?’”

I’m guilty of this. We all are. Brands must be built — it’s the only way we can market our products in a noisy world. I get this. But can the boundaries between brands and competitors melt a bit? Can we find ways to work together with rival schools, rival tech companies, rival businesses — even “rival” churches — for the good of all? (Could we even find ways to bless our competitors?)

Finding a way to live in distinctive conviction yet humble collaboration is a huge challenge for the church today. And for me personally as I try to walk the narrow path of both conviction and compassion.

4. We need to move from an emphasis on the individual to the institutional.

“Social healing in a disintegrated age cannot — it literally cannot — be a product of focusing on individuals, or even of focusing on individuals in aggregate and hoping by some math it will add up to a transformed society. It doesn’t work that way.

“We have to have an institutional horizon to our love. And the reason for this is because the social order that we inhabit and all the individual lives that we have are inescapably institutional in nature. We are formed by institutions at every point, and so if we’re going to be a people who reimagine a civic ecology, we’re going to have to take institutions very serious and learn that it’s not unspiritual to do that.”

Government employees, professional service providers, waitresses, nurses, engineers and even pastors are formed not only by individuals, but by the shared values, ethos and pathos that grow up in groups of people. Renewed cities require renewed institutions. Perhaps if we begin the counter-cultural work of thinking institutionally, our witness and service to the city start to take hold.

5. We need to move from the merely political to the public.

“Politics does not in fact create [culture change], but actually expresses a larger cultural system of which it is a part. And so politics emerges out of this larger network of interpenetrating institutions that I’m calling the ‘public,’ or economics and politics and art and medicine and religion. All of these things together are forming an ecology. And because of this, we have to renounce our obsession with merely political change, because that is not how social healing works.”

Politics is downstream from culture. Because this is true, efforts to change the culture through electing the right officials will nearly always fail. Instead, culture springs up from an ecosystem of work — oil & gas, health care, finance, education, religion, restaurants and hotels.

Politics is important. It always has been for people of Christian faith. But being people of Christian faith in cities does not start in Washington D.C. It starts at work.

6. We need to move from a focus on cultural triumph to a focus on the common good.

“One of the saddest features of our current cultural setting, which is definitely on grim display during the political season, is our tendency to think of the goal of all of our labors is actually the goal of conquest. To think that we’re trying to win. This aspiration is to defeat our neighbors in a high-stakes culture war…

“But listen: It is true that we serve a king — King Jesus — who right now is enthroned on heaven. Right now. Ruling all things. And as an expression of his reign sends light and wind on the righteous and on the wicked alike. He’s giving gifts to people who are opposed to him.

“And what that means is, if that’s true of him, if we seek to inhabit his kingdom, where we seek the good not simply of ourselves, but of our neighbors… We are not trying to win; we are trying to love. Because of this, as we think about what it means to engage the city and to reimagine a civic ecology, we have to remember that our goal is not cultural conquest; it is to seek the common good.”

“We are not trying to win; we are trying to love.” This is what I meant earlier by the beauty of Greg’s vision. He’s on to something — a way of civic responsibility, yet also one of deep peace and deep joy.

In the end, the way of love is the path toward a renewed city.

This post first appeared on denverinstitute.org.

Culture Work

The World’s Best Outreach Strategy

November 7, 2014

How are we going to reach out to our culture?

It’s a common question in church world. Do we have a fall festival? Sponsor a 5k? Chili cook off? Day of service at the homeless shelter? Mission trip?

The idea seems to be this: We’re here…in church. They’re out there…in culture. We need to “reach out” to them. Hence, the myriad of “outreach” ministries in most American churches.

But the truth is that won’t don’t need to “reach out” to culture at all. We are already “out” there every single day.It’s called work! And not only are we – the laity – inculture, but we actually create culture every day.

A few weeks ago, I saw this firsthand. My first meeting for the day was at a Starbucks in downtown Denver. I met with Eric, who shared with me his story. For his first job after college, he climbed cell phone towers. After more than a few frozen climbs in the air, he decided he needed a change. He thought for a while. Perhaps he would become a public school teacher – or maybe he should go to seminary. After a stint as a park ranger he applied for and got a job with an engineering firm, designing the physical structures that support electricity stations. It was job I had literally never thought about – and strained to understand! – before that morning.

At 9am I met with Grant. He shared with me his journey as a recently promoted accountant at a big four accounting firm. He spoke of both the enjoyment of helping companies show clear financial pictures of their firm, and the frustration of filing piles of documents for the SEC since the Enron scandal. We ended on mulling over his plan to pitch a work/life balance program to his HR department, noting that young accountants – who often work long, long hours – need this balance in the worst way.

I then had lunch with Abraham, a doctor at Denver Health in their psychiatry department. Abraham is an unbelievably brilliant and faithful catholic. He told me about attending medical school and in the process he got a masters in theology from Duke. He’s now a doctor and leads their psychiatry department, where he endeavors to live out his faith in a very secular field.

From there, I headed out for more coffee, this time with Mike, a brilliant musician. He now plays tympani for the Colorado Symphony. He shared of the incredibly difficult path of becoming a professional musician and how we once auditioned at a prestigious symphony in Canada where the conductor basically sabotaged his chances of being selected.

Then I met with Bradley, a fresh-out-of-college middle school English and History teacher. Sparkling with enthusiasm and in a masters program, he was just happy to be in his career.

And then I met with Susie, the bi-vocational pastor of Platt Park Church. We spoke about church, and her two other jobs: as a small business owner of a painting and wine business in Denver, and as rental property managers.

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As I was driving away from that appointment, and I thought about meeting with an engineer, accountant, doctor, teacher, musician, pastor and small business owner, I had a profound aha! moment. Work is where culture is made.

I spent a day listening not just to their human stories – of triumph, failure, hope, disappointment, and meaning – but to a microcosm of human civilization in 21st century America. Here, I thought, is culture! And here it is made by human beings every single day.

Andy Crouch and Ken Myers have a pithy definition of culture: it’s what we make of the world – in both senses of the word. It’s both the meaning we make and thethings we make. So, for example, on I225 on my way to Colorado Community Church (my home church), there is a beautiful new overpass bridge that will connect the new light rail system. Why create such a huge, costly yet beautiful piece of transportation in the sky? It’s because we value connectedness and ease of access. That is, wemake something (a bridge) because of a value (connectedness). The engineers, contractors, and laborers who made that bridge created a piece of Colorado culture.

So what? Every single weekday any one local church is scattered throughout the city – and creating products and services driven by certain values. This is culture making. And the irony is that so many Christians wish they could be in church or working for a Christian nonprofit which is seen as “meaningful” work! The edifice of the modern world is made through their decisions! And yet we often fail to see the opportunity to not just be “in” culture but to actually shape culture through our work as engineers, accountants, doctors, teachers, musicians, or small business owners.

The question is not if we’ll be involved in culture, but how? Will we do it thoughtfully or thoughtlessly? Intentionally or under the tyranny of the urgent? To advance common good or our only our own good? Engaged emotionally or disengaged and bored? Caring for weak and marginalized in society or using them to get ahead? In line with God’s kingdom or the kingdom of the world?

When we ignore work, we ignore the part of culture we actually touch every day. But if we engage work, we engage culture. Here’s where the world is made – for better or for worse.

This post first appeared on www.denverinstitute.org.

Jeff Haanen

Building a Relationship-Centric Workplace