The spiritual crisis underneath our jobs.

Reviewing:

Working The New Press, 2004. 640pp.

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Simon & Schuster, 2018. 368pp.

The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change Currency, 2018. 416pp.

“I had no concept of the horrible dread I would feel getting up in the morning to spend all day sitting in an office trying to waste time.”

Rachel grew up in a poor family yet graduated from a prestigious British university with a physics degree. Yet soon after graduation, student debt forced her to take a job as a “catastrophe risk analyst” at a big insurance company.

Rachel recalls the day she hit an existential tipping point at her new job:

The final straw came after months of complaining, when I met my friend Mindy for a drink after a week of peak bullshit. I had just been asked to color coordinate a mind map to show, “the nice-to-haves, must-haves, and would-like-to-have-in-the-futures.” (No, I have no ideas what that means, either.)

She ranted at me, and I ranted at her. I made a long, impassioned speech that ended with me shouting, “I cannot wait for the sea levels to rise and the apocalypse to come because I would rather be out hunting fish and cannibals with a spear I’d fashioned out of a fucking pole than doing this fucking bullocks! . . . We both laughed for a long time, and then I started crying. I quit the next day.

Rachel ended her tear-strewn reflection with a response to those who would call her experience of work just a “Millennial problem.” “So, yes, I am the queen crystal of Generation Snowflake melting in the heat of a pleasantly air-conditioned office,” she said, remembering her grandmother’s words to toughen up. “But good Lord, the working world is crap.”

Nearly five decades earlier, Nora Watson, a twenty-eight-year-old staff writer for an institution publishing health care literature, shared her own lament for her new career.

Jobs are not big enough for people. . . . A job like mine, if you really put your spirit into it, you would sabotage immediately. You don’t dare. So you absent your spirit from it. My mind has become so divorced from my job except, except as a source of income, it’s really absurd.

Much has changed about the global workforce in fifty years, yet there are two feelings, felt deeply by millions of Rachels and Nora Watsons across the world, that have endured the test time: the feeling that the modern workplace is an assault on our human dignity, and that work ought to have some broader purpose than just a paycheque, but seems forever beyond our grasp.

In an age of abundance, we are better fed, housed, and cared for than at any time in world history. Yet three books on work—two new and one old—show that our core longing for our jobs is not fundamentally economic, social, or political in nature.

It’s spiritual.

Purpose, Pain, and PR Researchers

In August 2013, American anthropologist David Graeber published an essay titled “On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs.” After more than a million website views in seventeen different languages, stories came tumbling into Graeber’s inbox. A corporate lawyer who believes, “I contribute nothing to this world and am utterly miserable all the time.” An advertiser, whose job, by his own admission, “is a combination of manufacturing demand and then exaggerating the usefulness of products sold to fix it.” Judy, an HR assistant, whose job never requires more than one hour a day. “The other seven hours were spent playing 2048 or watching YouTube.”

Graeber had a hunch that many jobs don’t “really do much of anything: HR consultants, communications coordinators, PR researchers, financial strategists.” His book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory tells the stories of hordes of men and women who believe their very own jobs are just that—bullshit. Rachel, quoted above, is one of those people.

Lest we think Graeber is just cursing to sell books, he offers a technical definition: “A bullshit job is a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence, even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”

Graeber even has a taxonomy to describe these largely white-collar workers: “flunkies” exist only to make others look important; “goons” are those whose work is to aggressively propagate their employer’s agenda; “duct tapers” exist to fix some kind of glitch in a large bureaucracy; “box tickers” do jobs that allow their companies to say they’re doing something that it is not, in fact, doing; and finally, “taskmasters” are those whose work consists purely of assigning more work to others.

And lest we think these are isolated incidences, one poll in Holland found that 40 percent of Dutch workers believe their jobs have no reason to exist. Graeber dedicates nearly a third of the book to describing these jobs as acts of “spiritual violence.”

Ellen Ruppel Shell, a journalist for The Atlantic and Boston University professor, takes a different approach in The Job: Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change. Shell zooms out to tell us the broad story of work in our time, told through the eyes of educators, technologists, manufacturers, and laundromat operators. The overarching story is one of middle-class jobs slipping away as the working class languishes, and the new global aristocracy holds ever more power.

There are plenty of jobs left, but they’re mainly bad ones. In 2016 the American unemployment rate sank to below 5 percent. “But many Americans had a reason to feel less gleeful. Fully 58 percent of the job growth was in occupations with a wage of $7.69 to $13.83 an hour, while 60 percent of jobs in the midrange—$13.84 to $21.13 per hour—had vanished.”

Shell’s odyssey for a solution to the growing divide—which extends far beyond the size of a paycheque—takes the reader from Finnish classrooms to small manufacturers in places like the Navy Yard of New York’s Lower East Side. Makershops, employee-owned co-ops, and universal basic income are all proposed as the balm for the wounds of a digital age.

Shell calls her readers to embrace the worker’s own ability to construct meaning for themselves. The source of that meaning floats somewhere between creativity, agency, relationship, and economic dignity. “Rather than credit employers with giving us the ‘gift’ of ‘meaningful’ work, let’s agree that the meaning we gain from our work is no gift, but very much a product of our own efforts,” Shell writes. In this story, it us up to each worker to make meaning for herself.

A half century ago, another journalist, Studs Terkel, took up his tape recorder to listen to the American worker in his book Working. A collection of oral history, Working records the knotted, unfiltered voices of farmers, switchboard operators, spot-welders, hair stylists, proofreaders, and industrial designers. (Nora Watson, quoted above, is one of Terkel’s interviewees.)

Terkel gives voice to near universal human experiences at work.

We bemoan jobs we feel we can’t control. (“Who you gonna sock? You can’t sock General Motors . . . you can’t sock a system,” says Mike LeFevre, a steelworker.)
We feel like our jobs make us into machines. (A receptionist says, “A monkey can do what I do.” A bank teller confesses, “I’m caged.” A fashion model bemoans, “I’m an object.”)
And we often feel the need to defend our dignity in the face of “daily humiliations.” (Peggy Terry, a waitress, hears from a customer, “You don’t have to smile; I’m gonna give you a tip anyway.” She replies, “Keep it. I wasn’t smiling for a tip.”)

Terkel ends his introduction to the book with the insightful Tom Patrick, a banker turned fireman. “I worked in a bank. You know, it’s just paper. It’s not real. Nine to five and it’s just shit. You’re lookin’ at numbers,” Patrick remembers, as if to remind the ages that the phenomenon of bullshit jobs is nothing new. “But [as a fireman] I can look back and say ‘I helped put out a fire. I helped save somebody.’ It shows something I did on this earth.’”

Patrick hints at the sense of participating in a larger story through one’s work—a story that has, like a dream, been largely forgotten by a secular society.

Falling to Pieces

Spiritual atrophy is spreading amid many of the world’s workers. Derek Thompson of The Atlantic makes the case that work has become a religion for the college educated, and, as with all idols, is making its adherents miserable. Charles Duhigg of the New York Times seesthe same sickness plaguing his fellow Harvard-educated elites. Yet researchers like Princeton’s Angus Deaton and Anne Case believe that “deaths of despair” among white, middle-aged Americans—who are largely working class—are a part of the same “moral and spiritual crisis.”

Secular society is indeed beginning to crack.

Richard Rohr once said, “When people lose a meaningful storyline for their lives, they disintegrate both personally and culturally.” We rarely connect the spiritual and the cultural, but reading Working, The Job, and Bullshit Jobs side by side makes this connection hard to miss.

Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs may fall short in supporting many of its claims (I do actually know quite a few PR professionals and corporate lawyers who do good, important work), but it rises to the surface a vast and very real phenomenon: most people don’t like their work, and they spend the majority of their time doing something they’d rather not. And to those experiencing such a crisis of meaning, it feels something like spiritual death. And the spiritual consequences quickly become cultural. Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute shows that loneliness is tearing America apart. And even though GDP has grown at a healthy 3.5 percent, evidence of social collapse is all around us.

“Only if a man works can he live,” wrote American theologian Landon Gilkey in 1966 about Japanese internment camps in World War II. “But only if the work he does seems productive and meaningful can he bear the life that his work makes possible.” The story of work in our secular age is increasingly about finding ways to make meaning in our lives and careers from activities that feel abjectly meaningless.

The Job is written with warmth and optimism. But what’s missing is also what’s telling. Ruppel doesn’t even consider religion or belief in God as a valid motivation for work, but instead forces people into a secular box that calls people to create meaning for themselves, apart from any religious sources. (She briefly mentions the idea of vocation in connection with Yale researcher Amy Wrzesniewski’s research in job, career, and calling, but the context is about calling as “passion”—not a response to the voice of God.)

Again, if our cultural problem is intrinsically moral and spiritual, can we expect a healthy labour market when the labourers in that market are feeling the effects of a deep spiritual sickness?

Terkel’s Working is perhaps the most honest book of the bunch. It suggests no solutions and allows humans to express their deep humanity. Yet it also shows us injustice, despair, envy, shame, and pride. To where should a secular world look for hope?

From Soul to System

The Anglican priest George Herbert (1593–1633) believed that the elixir for our work was found in Christian teachings of vocation: “Teach me, my God and King / In all things Thee to see, / And what I do in anything / To do it as for Thee.” Christianity teaches that work is not first a social phenomenon, a policy problem, or an economic activity. It is first a response to God, an act of obedience that makes manifest our freedom and reflects God’s love.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky adds in his classic The Brothers Karamazov, “So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.”

From the perspective of secular society, this instinct is often overlooked, but at other times we subsume it into a larger humanistic narrative of being the captain of our own souls. Yet from the perspective of Christianity, worshipping yourself, your company, your family, or your workplace identity creates chaos. It is idolatry. The only way to heal society is to first heal the soul.

The challenge with both Bullshit Jobs and The Job is that they suggest political policies to fix spiritual and moral problems. The two are related of course; policies are certainly worthwhile and important, and corporate structures can certainly make living dignified, meaningful lives either harder or easier. But cultural issues facing workers can’t be considered in isolation from our deepest beliefs about God, ourselves, others, and our place in the world.

Christianity sees the need for redemption for both individuals and powerful systems. It crowns workers considered lowly by society with unsurpassable worth and dignity. Hotel janitors, landscapers, HR consultants, and even goons, flunkies, duct-tapers, box-tickers, and taskmasters have deep value. They may have bullshit jobs. But there are no bullshit people.

Yet Christianity also casts a wide net of responsibility on the powerful, and calls for reform. Policy makers, entertainers, CEOs, nonprofit leaders, and unions—indeed workers themselves—are called to reorient systems toward what’s good for employees, customers, and communities as persons. To whom much is given, much will be required (Luke 12:48).

A recipe for healing cannot be found in policies alone, but must move from souls quickened by divine love to reforming systems designed for human flourishing. This is what Christianity can offer our global conversation about work.

The enduring value of all three of these books is that they clearly show a world that’s dreading Monday. Each of these books is worth an honest reading to hear the unedited (and often profanity-laced) anguish of so many of those whom God so dearly loves (John 3:16). Yet they also make clear a call for Christians and their neighbours to look squarely at the systems—and morally questionable jobs so many despise—in need of reform.

Christian faith offers a secular world a picture of a God who was crucified on the roughhewn beams of his own work, and offers hope to all people at all times and in all situations.

Even to those melting in the sweltering heat of pleasantly air-conditioned offices.

This essay first appeared in Comment Magazine.

Culture Theology

Subversion

March 24, 2019

These three paragraphs, penned in 1991 by Lesslie Newbigin, changed my life as soon as I read them. Part of a larger treatment of “the gospel as public truth,” I repeat them here so I don’t forget the central why behind my seemingly endless (and multiplying) labors at Denver Institute.

And I post them for you, my fellow “undercover agents,” so that we might both know that we are not alone.

First, while the Church as a corporate society cannot identify itself with particular political programs, it must be the responsibility of the Church to equip its members for active and informed participation in public life in such a way that the Christian faith shapes that participation. Public life is the area where the principalities and powers operate. There are structures and forces which have a transpersonal character. The person who operates within them is not free to act as if he or she was a free individual. There is some freedom, but it is limited by the structure of the whole. If I understand the teaching of the New Testament on this matter, I understand the role of the Christians as that of being neither a conservative nor anarchist, but a subversive agent. When Paul says that Christ has disarmed the powers (not destroyed them), and when he speaks of the powers as being created in Christ and for Christ, and when he says that the Church is to make known the wisdom of God to the powers, I take it that this means that a Christian neither accepts them as some sort of eternal order which cannot be changed, nor seeks to destroy them because of the evil they do, but seeks to subvert them from within and thereby bring them back under the allegiance of their true Lord.

There is a beautiful illustration of this in Paul’s dealing with the runaway slave Onesimus. In the letter which goes to Colossae he tells Christian slaves to obey their earthly masters, because they are in fact serving the Lord in doing so. He does not tell Onesimus to go underground in Rome or wherever. He sends him back to his master as a slave, but he sends him back with the status of an apostolic nuncio. The structure is not simply smashed – as so much popular political rhetoric advocates; it is to be subverted from within.

But undercover agents need a great deal of skill. We do not spend enough of our energies in training undercover agents. A psychiatrist who was a devout Christian was recently asked whether her Christianity informed her work in the consulting room. She replied: “But that would be unprofessional conduct.” What kind of preparation is needed to enable a psychiatrist to discern the ways in which her profession could be subverted from its allegiance to other principles and become an area where the saving work of Christ is acknowledged? What would be the specific kind of training for a teacher in the public schools, for an executive in a big corporation, for a lawyer or a civil servant? Do we not need to invest much more of the Church’s resources in creating the possibility for such training? It cannot be done by clergy, though they have a part. It calls for the vigorous development of lay programs in which those in specific areas of secular work can explore together the possibilities of subversion. I know that much has been said along these lines, and yet there is little to show for it. In small enterprises of this kind in which I have been involved I have found that there was great enthusiasm once the purpose was understood. For undercover agents, it is a great thing to know that you are not alone.

Theology Vocation Work

The Church in Public Life: Pastoring for the Public Good of Your Community

January 4, 2019

The following is the talk I gave at Thriving Churches, Thriving Cities, Denver Institute’s annual gathering for pastors and ministry leaders. The topic: what does it mean for pastoral leaders and their churches to be involved in healing the public life of their communities?

Thank you again for coming today. I’d like to introduce our final set of conversations today by speaking to the topic of pastors and public engagement.

Today we’ve spoken about pastoral wholeness and integrity, and, in the breakouts, growing in pastoral excellence through navigating change and conflict. What might it mean, then, for pastors to lead churches working toward the healing of their cities?

Let me first tell you a personal story. My first pastorate after seminary was serving Iglesia Bautista Nueva Esperanza, a Spanish-speaking church in Brighton, Colorado. I preached in Spanish, led youth group in English, and, as the only white guy there, stuck out like a sore thumb.

I realized a year into my pastorate that about 80% of my congregation was related to each other. They were nearly all from Chihuahua, Mexico.

I also realized something important: that just holding church services and doing Bible studies would not be enough to serve my congregation and allow them to experience wholeness in Christ.

As immigrants, they were driven to leave their home because of economic factors. They were seeking good jobs. And many of the men were gone on Sundays working as painters and roofers. Education was also so important. They wanted their kids to get a good education, but they often struggled to navigate the system. And they were worried their kids would get caught up in gangs. Culture, too, was deeply formative. They were worried that America would instill in their families materialism over a love of family. Many were also aware of their Mexican culture and its tendency toward corruption.

As I pastor of my first congregation, I realized work, community, and culture were not abstract ideas. They were the fabric of real, daily lives.

Early in my life as a minister, I asked a question I want to now ask us today. Are we influencing culture, or are we being influenced by culture?

Or more pointedly, I recently started to ask about my own preaching: do I use culture to illustrate the gospel? Or does the gospel illustrate culture? That is, would I use the latest headline about business or government to illustrate a point from the book of Romans, or was I using the book of Romans to illustrate – shed light on – business and government?

What about us as pastors and ministry leaders in Denver, Colorado today? What does it mean to be the church in this place and time?

A generation about, pastor and missionary Leslie Newbigin wrote a slim book called The Other Side of 1984. He was addressing the world council of churches about what it meant to be “on mission” in the secular West. He wrote something about the nature of the church I’ve never forgotten.

In the book, he tells the story of early Christians in the Roman empire, and the debate of what to call themselves. He explains that in the Roman empire, there were many “private cults” that enjoyed protection from the Emperor. The opponents of Christianity used these words to refer to early Christians, but no Christian apparently ever did so. In other words, the Church did not regard itself as a society for the promotion of the personal salvation of its members.

The obvious choice for what to call a congregation of God’s people would have been sunagogos, or synagogue, which was already used to address Jewish minorities throughout the empire. But they didn’t use this either. Early Christians opted for the word ecclesia, which denoted the public assembly called by the civic authority, in which all citizens were summoned to discuss and settle the affairs of a city. By calling itself the ecclesia Theou, the Church made its own self-understanding clear: It was the public assembly by which all humanity was summoned, called by God himself.

The essential message of the early church was about Jesus’ kingship. Jesus was God incarnate, who died for our sin, was resurrected for our salvation, and now is Lord of all. All authority and heaven and earth has been given to Him.

That is, church has never only been about Sundays and souls; it’s about souls and cities. If something is going wrong in a city, it is the church’s responsibility to act. We are not only about defending our rights to worship as we please; we are about showing the invisible reign of Jesus through our words, lives, and actions.

In John Stott’s 1970s classic Christian Mission in the Modern World, he states,

“If we are to love our neighbor as God made him, we must inevitably be concerned for his total welfare, the good of his soul, his body and his community. When any community deteriorates, the blame should be attached where it belongs: not to the community which is going bad but to the church which is failing in its responsibility as salt to stop it from going bad.”

What does it mean to be a pastor who is publicly engaged and cares for souls as well as bodies, communities, companies, and cities?

Let me briefly suggest three things for the pastor’s role in public life.

Publicly-engaged pastors commit to preaching a gospel for all of life.

Here’s Newbigin again: “The message of Jesus was about the kingship, the universal sovereignty of God. It was not a message about the interior life of the soul in abstraction from the public life of the world.” Christian discipleship therefore means that Jesus is Lord of all – not only of our religious life, but of all of creation, including communities, cities, companies, schools, hospitals and cultures. The good news transforms our souls as much as it does our businesses.

The good news is that by Jesus’ death and resurrection, the power of sin has been broken, and he’s healing all that has been fractured by the Fall. This is both individual and institutional. Pastors have the unique and often times offensive job of preaching that Jesus really is King of all, and all final allegiance belongs to Him.

Publicly engaged pastors read far outside of their field and humbly learn from people living and working in sectors far different from their own in order to explore what Jesus’ kingship might look like for those areas of human life.

Publicly-engaged pastors commit to serving the vulnerable in their communities, both personally and through the volunteer efforts of their congregations.

Pastors who are publicly engaged commit to social justice and civic renewal in response to Jesus’ command to “love your neighbors as yourselves.”

Practically speaking, you can think about how to do this a few different ways. But one way is the think about your church and the volunteer capacities of your people, and decide together – what will be the one or two needs in our community that we will take responsibility for? It could be homelessness, loving immigrants, caring for pregnant teenagers, or mentoring. Sometimes it’s a program you’re doing; sometimes it partnering with a local nonprofit or civic imitative. But from what I’ve seen, this isn’t doing everything, but it is doing something. And doing it for a long time.

Another way is to become personally involved in the critical issues of your community. We’ll hear shortly from two pastors who’ve done this through sitting on local boards to investing in real estate projects. If you care, your people will care.

Publicly-engaged pastors commit to vocational discipleship and forming men and women to be agents of restoration and reconciliation in their workplaces and communities.

Here’s a word of good news for you. You don’t have to do everything. God has people touching every part of our civilization. The pastor’s role is to shape the imaginations of your people for their lives and vocations.

Here’s how NT Wright puts it: “Your task is to find symbolic ways of doing things differently, planting flags in hostile soil, setting up signposts that say there is a different way to be human.” To be “raised with Christ” is a creative calling to find ways our daily work and lives to point beyond ourselves to Christ, the Light of the World.

Let me also briefly make the case for an institution like Denver Institute for Faith & Work. We exist to serve churches – both pastors and laity – as we explore the meaning of Christ’s death and resurrection for our work, whether that be business, health care, retail, or transportation.

You, pastors, have the privilege of walking alongside of men and women and explore what it means to salt in society, yeast in our culture, and a city on a hill in a dark world. As your people scatter throughout society during the week, you can give them a vision for the redemptive angle of their work has on the public life of our society.

In summary, publicly-engaged pastors preach the breadth of our good news, show the depth of God’s love for the poor, and work to form God’s people in their vocations scattered throughout our cities during the week.

Pastors are critical to the health of churches, and churches are critical to the health of our cities. Thank you for your work.

Craftsmanship & Manual Labor Culture Economy Faith and Work Movement Vocation Work

“God of the Second Shift: The Missing Majority in the Faith and Work Conversation” (Christianity Today Cover Story)

September 27, 2018

By Jeff Haanen

The following is the cover story for the October 2018 print issue of Christianity Today. To access the full article for free, click the “friends and family” link below. Also, if you’re not a subscriber, please consider subscribing to Christianity Today to support their work. Here’s an excerpt of the story.

Our group was white, college-educated, and passionate about helping people find meaning in their careers. We looked at Josué “Mambo” De León, pastor of a bilingual working-class congregation called Westside Church Internacional, eager to hear his thoughts on a recent “faith and work” conference.

“For us, work isn’t about thriving,” Mambo said. “It’s about surviving.”

Between bites of salad, it slowly became clear who the man in a red baseball cap, World Cup T-shirt, and jeans really was: an emissary from another world.

“You start with the premise that you have a job and that you feel a lack of purpose,” he said. “But that doesn’t resonate with us. How are you supposed to find purpose and flourish when you don’t even have opportunities?”

On my way home from the office of the nonprofit I run, Denver Institute for Faith & Work, I stewed over Mambo’s comments. They reminded me of a similar conversation I’d had with Nicole Baker Fulgham, president of an educational reform group called The Expectations Project. Baker Fulgham, an African American working with low-income kids, asked me bluntly: “So when do we start talking about faith, work, and life for fast-food employees?”

In the past decade, the faith and work movement has exploded. Hundreds of new conferences, books, and organizations have sprung up from San Diego to Boston. But there’s a growing anxiety among Christian leaders that our national vocation conversation has a class problem.

A hundred years ago, partnerships between clergy and labor unions flourished. Yet as the forces of industrialization transformed the trades in the late 19th century, and vocational education and liberal arts schools parted ways, a new mantra for the college-educated took root: “Do what you love.” The late Steve Jobs, in a 2005 Stanford commencement speech, stated, “You’ve got to find what you love. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” Work done out of necessity was devalued, and eventually conversations about Christianity and work applied the word vocation mostly to college kids contemplating work they would most enjoy.

Today, when American evangelical leaders talk about work, the working class—which is two-thirds of the American workforce—is largely absent. What are we missing?

Daily Meaning or Daily Humiliations?

Years ago, I started Denver Institute after reading Studs Terkel’s 1971 classic Working, an oral history of working-class Americans. Work, Terkel says, “is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”

Of course! I thought. This fit well with my graduate school angst (and growing boredom with my assignments). I liked the quote so much that I put it in my email signature.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot that Terkel also believed work was centrally about “violence—to the spirit as well as the body. It is about ulcers as well as accidents, about shouting matches as well as fistfights, about nervous breakdowns as well as kicking the dog around. It is, above all (or beneath all), about daily humiliations.”

This didn’t sound like the workplaces I was used to. But the tension between Terkel’s two statements has started to resonate with me. In the past five years, we in Denver have hosted thousands of doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and other young professionals at our events. But there’s been a conspicuous absence of home care workers, retail sales clerks, landscapers, janitors, or cooks.

Calvin College philosopher James K. A. Smith—who once pulled 10-hour graveyard shifts on an air filter assembly line—observes, “The bias of the [faith and work] conversation toward professional, ‘creative,’ largely white-collar work means that many people who undertake manual or menial labor simply don’t see themselves as having a voice in this conversation.”

It may be time to do some soul-searching. Have we, by which I mean myself and presumably many of this magazine’s readers, seen the culture-shaping power of work but been blind to the “daily humiliations” of those whose work we depend on each day? Have we been interpreting Scripture through our own professional class bias and failed to ask how working-class Americans think and feel about their work?

The Great Divide

“Because hard work was such a high value for our family, it was also demoralizing,” says pastor Jim Mullins of Redemption Church in Tempe, Arizona. “One of the most difficult aspects of growing up was not the lack of money but the shame that would come with not having opportunities. That shame would boil into anger. I think a lot of the drug use and alcohol [use] that we experienced was a sort of numbing of the shame.”

Mullins’s story echoes the stories of millions of working-class Americans who have seen life deteriorate over the past 50 years in nearly every economic and social category. (I use the term “working-class” to mean those without a four-year college degree.)

The growing body of research is astounding…

(Read the rest of the article at Christianity Today.)

Business Work

Theology for Business (Keynote)

June 25, 2018

On June 15, 2017, I gave a keynote entitled “Theology for Business” at Denver Institute for Faith & Work’s annual business event. Since I’ve come back to this talk several times, both in my writing and speaking, I thought I’d post it here. (Here’s the video.) I hope it helps you as you consider how the gospel might inform the culture of your business.

Thanks for coming. I’m really looking forward to learning from our panelists today and from all of you.

Theology for business. What do these two worlds – church and business – have to do with each other? Christian theology doesn’t get a lot of air time at Harvard Business Review or even the Denver Business Journal. Neither does marketing, strategy or raising capital get mentioned much at church. But we find ourselves, here, today feeling like something is missing from both our church lives and our business lives.

Here’s what I mean. How would we answer, “What is the purpose of business?” It’s a good place to start, but we find ourselves with less-than-fulfilling answers. (1) Business culture: Famously, Milton Friedman has said that business only has one purpose: maximize share-holder value. That is, the purpose is merely to make profit. But this paradigm is diminishing. Profit is important, but as Max De Pree, the former CEO of Herman Miller, once said, “Profit is like breath. You need to breath to live, but you don’t live to breath.” Companies that are just living for profit don’t live very long.

Across the US today, from Fortune to Forbes, people are searching for deeper purpose for their business. Having a social mission is key to attracting millennial talent. But what is the overarching purpose for business? There are as many answers to this as there are businesses!

Each company defines their own firm’s mission, vision and values, I often find, acts like a religious community! Many companies are more mission-driven and have more rituals and strict practices that require more obedience than most churches I’ve seen! One company in town even makes new employees cross a literal bridge as an expression of loyalty to the company.

Everybody – and every company – is searching for its own purpose, and rarely asking, might there actually be a single, unifying purpose to business overall?

(2) Church: How would most people in church answer the question of purpose in business? Here’s the implicit assumption, “You’re in business, and I work at a church or nonprofit. Your job is to make as much money as you can and give it to us.” Here’s a significant pain point: so many with business-gifting end up feeling like ATM machines around church and nonprofit leaders. If this is you, let me say “I’m sorry.” We can do better.

(3) Conferences Like this often would say the purpose of business is to host a workplace Bible study, and get your co-workers to join you. Now, I’m all for workplace bible studies and evangelism. The challenge with this view is that we’re not really talking about business. It’s simply transporting church activity into a business setting. What about, though, the actual nuts and bolts of business? Supply chain, hiring practices, management. Does theology say anything about that?

Here’s the upshot: we’re here because we often feel lonely. (1) Lonely as one of the few believers in a secular company, (2) Lonely at church, often feeling misunderstood or objectified as a business leader. (3) And sometime lonely even at gatherings like this, hoping to find a vision for business in God’s redemptive story, yet leaving with only workplace bible study materials.

Add to that, we’ve never been taught to think about theology and business leadership together. But today, let me make the case that Christian theology is just as important for your business life as finance, operations or sales, customers or employees.

As we launch into our event, let me frame our discussions this morning with 5 doctrines that I believe can be transformative for our business practices.

First, the doctrine of CREATION and FALL calls us to THINK THEOLOGICALLY about the purpose of business.

The purpose of business is to provide for the needs of world by serving customers and creating meaningful work, while giving glory to God.

Let’s unpack this. In Genesis, work is a gift from God. God works for 6 days in creation, and then rests for one day. And he gives work to Adam in Genesis 2:15 the work of gardening – taking the raw materials of the world and making them suitable for human flourishing.

So, grain, for instance, by itself isn’t much good. But after work, it becomes bread. Grapes are good, but after a vintner gets ahold of them they become wine. Work bring creation from “good” to “very good.” Martin Luther saw this, and said that work is the way God provides for our needs. My friend Tim Weinhold says it even more boldly, “Business is God’s intended partner in his great work as Provider for all of humankind.”

Houses. Pipes. Sandwiches. Paper. Clothing. Business provides. When I go to King Sooper’s after getting back from the majority world, I’m still astounded at the power of business to provide. As as such, it reflects God’s character, who, in the story of Abraham and Isaac is called “The Lord Provides.” Different kinds of work reflect different aspects of God’s character: in health care, God as a Healer; in law, God as Judge and Advocate; art, God as Creative Artist; in business, God is Provider.

It provides three things:

The goods and services we depend on every day.

For example, my friend Dan Dye is the CEO of Ardent Mills, based here in Denver. They’re the largest flour producer in the US. Get this: over 100 million Americans per day eat an Ardent Mills product. He sees his work as nourishing the world. He SERVES.

Meaningful work.

For example, my friend Karla Nugent, the chief business development officer at Weifield Group Electrical contracting has over 300 employees. For her, providing work is an opportunity for people to express their God-given talents and skills while contributing to a better world. For many, Weifield is a transformative place of dignity and community engagement. It’s where people bear the image of God, the Creator.

The wealth we need to afford those goods and services.

My other friend Barry Rowan, former CFO for Vonage, says this: “Business is only institution that creates wealth; all other institutions distribute it.” Wealth creation is indeed incredible. Through business, wealth can be created from nothing, allowing abundance and prosperity. We don’t live in a zero sum economy. This is why more theologians need to be talking about “responsible wealth creation”, just as we will over the lunch hour today.

Because of the power of business, many consider business as a “holy calling.” Actually, a book we’re selling today, by Tim Dearborn, goes by that title. It’s a chance to provide for our neighbor’s most basic needs.

Business has an incredible power to provide for our needs through serving customers through quality goods and services, creating meaningful work, and creating the wealth needed to purchase those goods and service. Business is an extension of God’s own CREATION.

But The FALL happened, too. After Adam ate the fruit, sin entered the world, and our work and our business practices. You can see this, epecially the Prophets. Let me give you an example example:

Micah 6:8: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Now, we usually stop reading there. But Micah doesn’t.

This is the next verse, which speaks to Israel’s business practices at the time. “Listen! The Lord is calling to the city— … Am I still to forget your ill-gotten treasures, you wicked house, and the short ephah, which is accursed? Shall I acquit someone with dishonest scales, with a bag of false weights?” God saw something: people were engaged not in value creation but value extraction.

The story is this: in the time of the Kings of Israel, its leaders forgot the covenant and the law of God. They ceased worshipping the Lord, and they began to worship false gods. The core evidence of this was that they ceased to practice Sabbath. This is why there are so many calls back to practicing Sabbath in the OT. It was a call back to worship for all of society.

When Israel never stopped from the work, the workers in their households never had a rest, they were commodified for the sake of profit, and oppression spread. Idolatry caused injustice.

In Israel’s history, this idolatry was just as common among judges or priests as it was merchants, but the point is the same: business has a good purpose, yet because of sin, it can become distorted. The hinge between provision and oppression is which God you worship.

The Bible gives us a way to see both the goodness of Creation & distortion of the Fall, which makes business neither savior of the world nor the enemy of the people, but instrument for God’s blessing in the hands of his followers. For Whose Glory, then, becomes the question in business, which can restore it to it’s good purpose.

The purpose of business is to provide for the needs of world by serving customers and creating meaningful work, while giving glory to God.

Second, the doctrine of the TRINITY calls us to EMBRACE RELATIONSHIPS.

Second, let me get to relationships and business by showing you first a graph. 70% of the American workforce is disengaged from work; 54% experience some kind of sleep interruption due to work; 83% feel stressed at work; 60% are still connected to work on their off time; 51% of you in this room are looking for a job change (I hope that’s not true of my staff!); and only 21% feel their well-managed. Ouch.

Now, take a look at this. Take a look at the top 9 factors that drive employee engagement: Basic Needs: (1) Understand expectations; (2) Have necessary tools and equipment; Individual Needs (3) Opportunity to do best work, (4) Receive recognition and praise for their work, (5) Cared for as a person, (6) Development is encouraged Teamwork Needs: (7) Opinions Count, (8) Understand link to the Mission and organization, (9) Associates committed to good work, (9) Have a friend at work.

The point: America doesn’t broadly want to be working, yet they spend 100,000 hours of their life working. And what drives engagement is heavily relational. Feeling valued.

As it is today, we often discuss employees in terms of human resources, as if they were just one of the many resources needed in a company. But in the creation narrative, people come first, work is second. This makes sense, because God is relationships. Here’s my second point, 2. God is relationship – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and healthy businesses are bound together through healthy relationships based on a foundation of trust.

Even in the digital age, today, because we are made in God’s image, we still long for face-to-face relationships. We want to know others and be known.

Also, we see that the further up we go in an organization, the more important relationships of trust become. When business problems occur, more often than not, there are issues of trust or some kind of relational fracture. When business and economies go well, there is trust is the glue that holds them together. Drew Yancey, who is moderating our panel on entrepreneurship today, has made this point to me several times.

Today we have the privilege of hearing from Steve Reinemund, former PepsiCo CEO and dean of the Babcock School of Management at Wake Forest University. He’s seen this workplace disengagement statistics. But he’s also helped lead transformational efforts to reengage employees at his company. Here’s what he says. “We need people in business that understand business is a noble profession, that makes a difference in the lives of people.”

Core to the idea of faith at work for us at DIFW is the idea of “embrace relationships” because we long for connection, reconciliation, partnership, team – relationship. And business needs people willing to practice self-giving love, like the love inside the Trinity.

THIRD, the doctrine of the RESURRECTION calls us to CREATE GOOD WORK.

Why don’t we talk more about business at church? It forms the fabric of our cities, provides the employment we need, the goods and services we use, and the wealth we spend. I have a theory: we don’t think it’s a part of the gospel, or the “good news.”

The story goes like this: the gospel is that Jesus died for our sins so that after we die we can be with him in heaven. That is, the Bible is about saving souls, not the actual world we live in. AS IS, we struggle to relate faith to work, theology to business.

Let me suggest a broader story. Jesus did die for our sins. But he also rose again on the third day. And here’s what’s interesting about the resurrection story, especially in the gospel of John. It takes place in a garden. Jesus rises not on the last day of the week, but the first day of the week – Sunday. When Christians have traditionally worshipped. John is saying: Look, the world came apart on Good Friday, but the new creation has begun with the resurrection of Christ.

Our daily work matters because God is redeeming not just individual souls but all of creation. Christians look forward to the redemption of all things, in a city of all places. God does not abandon his creation, including our work in business. In 1 Corinthians 15, an entire chapter about the resurrection and death being “swallowed up” by life, Paul concludes: “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” It’s not in vain because the resurrection means the beginning of a new, physical world – one that includes our work in his heavenly city.

The resurrection means every spreadsheet, every transaction, and every dollar and every product is part of the scope of redemption. It also invites us to be imaginative. What might my industry or company look like fully restored?

Our Fellows asked these questions with their final, year-end projects this year. Catherine, who works at a credit union, imagined a “selfless sales” model, rewarding customer satisfaction not only moving more products that often weren’t needed. Christiana, an urban planner in Denver, implemented new training for her to prevent compassion burnout for those often yelled at in city council meetings. Banks, one of our presenters today, brought people from vastly different walks of life – the evangelical community and the gay community, the black community and the white community, republicans and democrats, together for a common meal, to listen, and heal divides.

Instead of looking to purpose for our businesses as merely profit or whatever big company is featured in the latest publication, the resurrection is an enduring fuel of hope and creativity for our work.

The doctrine of VOCATION calls us to SEEK DEEP SPIRITUAL HEALTH.

Let me tell you a story. I have four daughters. And so Saturday’s during the summer we go to swim meets. This last Saturday, I was watching these kids of all ages, race to cheers in the hot summer sun. Some of these kids are like fish – not only the teenagers, but 8, 9 10 year olds blowing through the water. Even many of the 6 year olds are impressive, making it all the way to the end of the pool.

One race of 6 year olds: the buzzer sounds, the kids belly flop off the block into the pool, and start their front crawl. All were doing great: except Reese. Reese jumps in, and immediately, he just tries to make it to the surface, in a panic. He’s gasping for air, grabbing for the buoys, wondering what he’s gotten himself into. It’s too deep. He can’t touch. He can’t go back. Parents cheer! Reese just tries to survive.

I had a revelation at this moment. This is exactly what it feels like to be an entrepreneur. Everybody is cheering, others seem to be excelling, and here you are, flapping around wildly, just trying to survive. And take one stroke, two stokes, toward the other end of the pool.

Today, we’re talking about “Caring for the Soul of Entrepreneurs” – because in the speed and exhilaration of starting and building a business, there’s often fear, chaos, uncertainty. Who are we becoming? In our souls, in the secret place.

Today, we have a panel of VCs and entrepreneurs who will both share war stories, but plunge beneath the surface to ask hard questions about character and entrepreneurship – with honesty and grace.

The doctrine of vocation is not about finding your ideal job. The word vocation comes form the latin root vox, or voice: it’s about responding to the voice of God in the day to day lives, including our business decisions. Traditionally, vocation means first responding to His call to “love the lord your god with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

As it is today, we live in a culture framed by a humanistic story, especially in tech start-up world. And the story is pretty simple. It goes like this: The humanistic story says there is no problem that human beings can’t fix. This story is especially prevalent in the tech sector today. But the reason I know this story isn’t true is that I can’t even fix myself.

We need others as we learn to respond to God’s call in our hearts and our work lives.

The CROSS calls us to SERVE OTHERS SACRIFICIALLY.

Today more business leaders than ever want to emphasize their social impact and sit on nonprofit boards. And in many circumstances, our secular neighbors are doing good work that Christians can look to as a model and can partner with.

But here’s my question? what about when our public acts don’t pad our resumes, but actually cost us? And are difficult? And not seen by others?

Central to the gospel is that Christ gave his life for ours. He took our punishment on himself; his death brought us life. It’s one thing talk talk about customer service in our business, or even creating a company of “love.” But it’s another to talk about sacrificial love.

The biblical model for the righteous business man is Boaz, found the book of Ruth. Boaz was a land owner, and practiced “gleaning,” which is essentially an old testament law that told land owners not to harvest to the very edges of their fields, but to allow the poor to collect what was left over to provide for their families. That is, he allowed the poor to work in his fields out of obedience to the law, summoned up by “love your neighbor as yourself.” Interestingly enough, this businessman ended up marry Ruth, an immigrant, and through his righteousness, he became the great grandfather of King David, and became part of the Line of the Messiah himself.

Why do I mention this? Work has an incredible power to alleviate poverty today. One of our panel discussions is entitled, “Good Jobs: A Strategy for Profit and Poverty Alleviation.” We will have the chance to observe something truly unique: a key nonprofit leader, Jason Janz, who is providing top quality job training for men and women in poverty; Helen Hayes, CEO of Activate Workforce Solutions, who is working to place these men and women in good, career level jobs that can break the cycle of poverty, and Michael Coors and Irma Lockridge at Coors Tek, who are hiring the Ruth’s of our day, and providing jobs that complete the transformative cycle. We’ll have a chance to see what I call “the good jobs pipeline” and ask – what might it look like if hundreds of Christian managers and businesses owners saw “love your neighbor” as the motivation behind their HR practices, and did so not to make a name for themselves, but simply because at the cross, I have been so deeply, and perfectly loved?

Moreover, what if another Christian doctrine influenced the workforce development conversation in Colorado: that all people are made in God’s image? Where the hundreds of workforce development programs leave it today is that all people have self-worth and dignity. But the creation story brings a transformative idea to to the table: that human dignity is primarily expressed through work, just as God the Creator works.

THEOLOGY FOR BUSINESS? Yes.

Summary. Here’s my point: Christian theology is fundamental to our business practices. Christian faith calls us to think theologically about the purpose of business, to embrace relationships, to create work in a spirit of hope, to admit our flaw as we seek deep spiritual health, and to serve others sacrificially in our city.

My prayer is that today you might leave here for your own work and business life. And that the question For Whose Glory? Might be one you take with you today into the office tomorrow.

Faith and Work Movement Work

How To Start Your Own Faith & Work Institute

April 24, 2018

Over the years, I’ve often received the question How did you do that? That is, how did you start Denver Institute for Faith & Work? The founding of DIFW was a one part grace (both God’s and other’s), one part luck, and one part perseverance. The great thing about our story is that we didn’t need anybody famous to make it work. We prayed, we convened, we planned, we executed, we failed, and then we tried again.

Are you interested in starting your own Faith & Work Institute? Here’s a few practical steps on how to get started:

1. Make a plan.

You can’t get anybody on board without a plan — with deadlines. A simple 2 page document is enough. Include measurable goals, action points, and deadlines, and hold yourself to them. Include goals for programming, fundraising, administration, and communication. This will be how you recruit your board.

2. Form a strong board.

Your board members are your best cheerleaders, strategic advisors, donors, and, early on, co-workers. Recruit a board that (1) Follows Christ, (2) Believes in your mission, (3) Gives generously and (4) Contributes a particular skill set you need, and (5) Connects you to a key part of the city.

3. Draw in pastors / industry leaders in an advisory role.

At the outset of DIFW, I found that our church advisory council and our advisory board did two things very quickly for us: (1) They built public trust in our new organization, and (2) They helped to form the programming we designed for our market. “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.”

4. File for 501(c)3.

If you’re not an independent 501(c)3, you need to file ASAP. Legitimacy in the nonprofit world depends on this little note from the IRS. Find a friend who’s a lawyer, and get it filed ASAP.

5. Initiate branding, website, and communication rhythms early.

Even before we initiated our first program, we got an identity package (logo), worked on a simple website, and started sending monthly newsletters. This is key to starting the long road to building trust in your mission.

6. Get a public event on the calendar.

Do it early. Even before you’re ready. I recommend an event because it’s easy to pull off, gets your name out to the community, and is easy to communicate to donors what you did. (Make sure to video record it.) This will be your next step toward legitimacy.

7. Fundraising: Share your vision with everybody.

Coffee is cheap. So go an have coffee with anybody and everybody who will meet with you. Do only 50% of the talking, but be sure to share the nut of your vision. Ask for permission to stay in touch. Year-end giving and your board will be the core of your early revenue streams.

8. Start new programs, learn from your mistakes, change, and start again.

Entrepreneurs make mistakes. Lots of them. The secret is to do it often and cheaply. Put the plans for a program together, get it out to the world, humbly accept feedback, make changes, and try again. Be courageous. Your identity is not at stake. And put your idea out there .

9. Embrace institution-building and becoming a generalist.

Building a new organization is tons of work. What is a website widget? I’ve never read P&L statements before! Do I really have to do board reports? So much of your work is not just administration – it’s building a new institution. One you believe can last for generations. You’ll have to start learning to do things way outside your expertise. That’s ok. The work of an institution-builder is the work of a generalist.

10. Make the Entrepreneurial Leap: Put in your notice and start as the full-time Executive Director.

This takes courage. And trust in Christ. But once you have 3-6 months of your salary in the bank, give your notice, and do this work full-time. It’ll seem nuts. But this will also motivate you. If this is where God has called you, then don’t turn back. God is with you.

11. Pray, show gratitude, and give the glory to Christ.

Launching a new organization – and having a measure of success — is a gift of grace. Thank God often in your prayers. Thank your board, thank your donors, thank your program participants. Gratitude is central to building a lasting institution, and it is what gives our work a lasting and deep joy.

Since DIFW started in 2012, God has been at work in other cities. Check out what other Faith & Work Institutes have been popping up around the US: Nashville Institute for Faith and Work, Los Angeles Center for Faith & Work, Chattanooga Institute for Faith & Work.

Need some help getting started? Contact me.

Business Culture Faith and Work Movement Work

The Internet’s Best Place to Start Learning about Faith & Work

January 19, 2018

Ok, maybe that blog post title is hyperbolic. But it’s not far off from the truth.

For the past four years, Denver Institute has amassed tons of articles, videos, blog posts, curricula and other resources on work, calling, culture and various industries. When our team looked at these, it was kinda overwhelming. Even for us!

So we decided to make our resources easier to navigate, find, and use through our new “Learn” page.

Here’s what we did. (1) We organized the page below into topics/industries. From there, pick something that piques your interest, like calling or health care or business.

(2) Inside of each page, we teed up 2-3 featured blog posts as a great place to start thinking about that industry/topic, along with a couple of recommended videos.

(3) For those with really curious minds, we have our own short courses linked on the bottom of these pages on our (forthcoming) content platform, Scatter.

Of course, I’m biased, but for those who care about what faith means for our work and our world, I think this is one of the internet’s best resources.

(Do you have a killer article, book, or resource we should feature? Send it our way: [email protected])

Business Culture Economy Vocation Work

Theology for Business (Keynote Address)

July 21, 2017

This is the keynote address I gave for the recent event “For Whose Glory: Exploring Faithful Practice in Life, Leadership and Business.” Below I’ve included a brief outline of my talk. The video also includes all slides from my presentation. Like it? Visit my speaking page by clicking the menu above.

I. Introduction: What is the purpose of business?

The answer from business culture
The answer from church culture
The answer from conferences like this

Thesis: Christian theology is just as important for your business life as finance, operations or sales, customers or employees.

II. First, the doctrine of CREATION and FALL calls us to THINK THEOLOGICALLY about the purpose of business.

The purpose of business is to provide for the needs of world by serving customers and creating meaningful work, while giving glory to God.
It provides
1. The goods and services we depend on every day
2. Meaningful work
3. The wealth we need to afford those goods and services
Business is an extension of God’s own work of creation
The Fall impacted both our work and our business, which we see most clearly in the Prophets
1. Idolatry causes injustice
2. The hinge between provision and oppression is the God we worship in business life.
“For whose glory?” is a critical questions which will determine how we answer the question of the purpose of business.

III. Second, the doctrine of the TRINITY calls us to EMBRACE RELATIONSHIPS.

The American workforce is stressed, disengaged, and unhappy (Gallup/BCG Research)
God is relationship – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and healthy businesses are bound together through healthy relationships based on a foundation of trust.

IV. Third, the doctrine of the RESURRECTION calls us to CREATE GOOD WORK.

We tend to not talk about business at church because we don’t think it’s a part of the gospel, or “good news”
The resurrection calls us to think more comprehensively about redemption, creation, and, thus, our work.
Our daily work matters because God is redeeming not just individual souls but all of creation.

V. Fourth, the doctrine of VOCATION calls us to SEEK DEEP SPIRITUAL HEALTH.

The exhilaration and speed of business life rarely affords us the opportunity to slow down and ask “Who are we becoming?”
The word vocation comes form the latin root vox, or voice: it’s about responding to the voice of God in the day to day lives, including our business decisions.

VI. Finally, the CROSS calls us to SERVE OTHERS SACRIFICIALLY.

Central to the gospel is that Christ gave his life for ours.
It’s one thing to talk about customer service in our business, or even creating a company of “love.” But it’s another to talk about sacrificial love.
Boaz was a model “Christian business leader,” as he calls us to hire and care for the “Ruth’s” of our day.

VII. Conclusion: Christian faith calls us to think theologically about the purpose of business, to embrace relationships, to create work in a spirit of hope, to admit our flaws as we seek deep spiritual health, and to serve others sacrificially in our city.

Faith and Work Movement Theology Work

Collective Impact: The Missing Piece of the Faith-Work Puzzle

June 4, 2017

What will the faith and work movement look like in 2067? What are we doing today that could genuinely last for 50 years, and even reshape American culture?

These are tough questions. Not only because 50 years is such a long time, but it forces us to think not only of our own organizations, but the larger networks across the US involved in this space, and the institutions that can outlast individual personalities.

It also forces us to think: what, specifically, are the long-term goals shared among overlapping networks of churches, businesses, universities and nonprofits involved in spreading a Christian message about the far reaching effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection for our work, culture, economy, and world?

After pondering this question, I’ve come to believe something rather disconcerting. The single biggest problem with the faith and work movement today is fragmentation and the absence of shared goals.

In April of this year, Jeffrey Walker penned a provocative article for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, “Solving the World’s Biggest Problems: Better Philanthropy Through Systems Change.” “It’s one of the perennial questions facing the nonprofit world,” Walker writes, “Why, despite the sector’s collective resources and best efforts, do so many social problems remain so persistent?”

The gap between outcomes and intentions has long drawn attention from America’s largest foundations trying to solve social problems. And today, more funders are growing wary of the creation and growth of life-long organizations with ever growing budgets and staffs (or, in the faith and work world – with ever new efforts that come today and vanish tomorrow).

Walker writes, “Perhaps what we need instead, according to the emerging line of thinking, is an emphasis on what is called ‘systems change’—on identifying the organizations and individuals already working on a problem, and helping to join forces to achieve their common goals.”

The idea is simple: instead of focusing on creating new organizations and multiplying social entrepreneurs, we need to think about creative collaboration, or on funding “systems entrepreneurs” who can bring together diverse actors and act as a facilitator and negotiator between network leaders, with the objective of finding common goals that can produce collective impact.

I think fragmentation is the single biggest challenge today for those leading institutions committed to the integration of faith, work, and life – and for key funders in this space who want to see long-term, systemic social and ecclesiastical change. According to David Miller at Princeton, the faith and work Movement certainly qualifies as a genuine social movement. But it is an enormously fragmented and disjointed social movement. Dizzyingly so. Without even mentioning the organizations themselves, here’s just a sample of the organization types in this space:

Business as mission organizations
Churches
Church-based centers
Chaplaincies
Gender-specific organizations
Businesses
Speaker consultancies
Bloggers
Poverty alleviation and job training
Think tanks
Evangelistic ministries
Institutes
Universities
Fellows programs
Christian universities
Seminaries
Conferences
Capital/Finance groups
Professional groups (e.g., Christian Legal Society, Christian Medical and Dental Organization)
Generosity or moneyrRelatedgGroups
Spiritual formation organizations
Community development organizations

Years ago, I read an entertaining article by my friend Lukas Naugle entitled, “The Faith-Work Frankenstein’s Monster.” Frankenstein, indeed.

Just before I started Denver Institute for Faith & Work, I drafted an article for publication (just for my own sanity) on how people were using language in the faith and work arena. After putting these organizations in seven categories – faith and work, “work matters”, work and business, work and economics, work and vocation, work and the common good, and work and mission – I gave up. The article was over 20 pages, and didn’t begin to touch on all the issues being addressed in these diverse language circles.

I said to myself, “This thing is an octopus. I’m sure it’s all connected to a single head (Christ himself), but all I can see is a bunch of arms flailing about wildly.”

We’re so fragmented, how might we go about finding common goals amongst networks this disjointed? Whereas in Walker’s article he could mention aligning groups that all care about, for example, human trafficking, they all had a clear definition of the problem. When I talk to my peers and friends in thefaith and work movement, I’m actually not sure we agree on either the problem or the solution. Some would say it’s workplace evangelism and others job creation for the poor; some a healthy economy, some all-life discipleship; some cultural renewal, others cultural conquest, and still others cultural retreat (thank you, Rod Dreher).

So what can be done? Here’s my view: we need to take manageable slices of this Frankenstein monster called the Faith and Work Movement, and begin to work on shared goals, and thus, collective impact. For example, City Gate 2017 which begins tomorrow in San Diego.

Two years ago I asked, who is broadly trying to do similar work as the Denver Institute for Faith & Work in American cities? And how would I define our work in contrast to the multitude of other organizations? Here was what I came up with: The purpose of City Gate is to create a relational and strategic space to start and grow institutions focused on (1) the integration of faith, work and life by those with (2) a shared commitment to the church, (3) a particular region or city, and (4) the far reaching effects of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the world.

This is a very specific group. But the specificity, I believe, allows to us begin on the same page, and ultimately, to learn from one another and perhaps agree upon shared goals. This year, attendees include the following organizations:

Jeff Haanen, Denver Institute for Faith & Work
Geoff Hsu, Flourish San Diego
Missy Wallace, Nashville Center for Faith & Work
Lisa Slayton, Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation
Travis Vaughn, The Terminus Collective
Mark Roberts, Max DePree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary
Matt Rusten, Made to Flourish Pastors Network
David Kim, Center for Faith & Work
Jim Mullins, Surge Network
Chris Lake, Vere Institute
Case Thorpe, The Collaborative Orlando

And we’re also blessed to have four start-up “city hubs” join us:

Ryan Wall, Watermark Community Church (Dallas)
Tracy Matthews, The Call to Work (Chicago)
Steve Lindsey, Los Angeles Center for Faith & Work
Clark Taylor, Chattanooga Center for Faith & Work

Alone, Denver Institute for Faith & Work is a relatively small organization: with 4 full-time staff and a budget of $650,000/yr, we reach about 1,000 people a year through programming and work with 25 churches. Yet together, the combined budgets of organizations at City Gate are $60 million/yr. We reach 15,530 per year through programing, work with 329 different churches, and function in (at least) 15 different cities.

This community now allows us to reexamine questions of impacting American culture in 50 years because we’re now dealing in systems. And because we’re all peers, and no one organization is calling the shots, we can openly discuss collective impact through shared goals.

Hurdles exist, clearly. Exploring alignment, open communication among partners, discovering workable models, measuring impact. Most importantly is relationship. Can we remain in community, and even develop friendship among pseudo-competitors? But minimally, we’re setting down early tracks for long-term systemic impact on both the American church and our secular culture.

For a nonprofit executive director of a small organization like me, it’s tempting to think, “If only we had enough money, we could change everything.” But one line from Walker’s article on systems change has been enduringly encouraging for me: “Let’s not kid ourselves: Money is not the only resource in limited supply. In fact, cash is positively abundant compared to other, more abstract necessities like hope, imagination and social cohesion.”

Hope. Imagination. Social cohesion. Perhaps that could last for 50 years…

Business Economy

The Public Good of Faith Expressed Through Work

March 30, 2017

Three stories of Denver business leaders serving their neighbors by providing good jobs

It’s often assumed that faith is a private matter. Fine for your personal life, but less appropriate in the workplace or public life. Yet time and time again, I’ve seen that when faith becomes a public matter – and is expressed as working for the good of one’s neighbor – there are transformative results for the entire community.

Take for example Karla Nugent, chief business development officer at Weifield Group Electrical Contracting. Two years ago, my friend Bryan Chrisman at National Christian Foundation in Colorado connected us. “You gotta meet Karla,” he said. “She’s doing just what you’re talking about at Denver Institute for Faith & Work.” So we met for coffee, and after 45 minutes I was speechless.

Her company was blossoming and now had 350 employees. She had a deep, intrinsic belief in the dignity of the work of electricians that she employs, and had innovated an apprenticeship program that was employing men with barriers to employment – and turning them into certified journeymen in four years. The stories of life change were astounding.

Soon after I penned an article on her story for Christianity Today. After the article was published, through one of our board members, Chris Horst, the American Enterprise Institute heard about her story. They decided to feature her in a new documentary entitled “To Whom is Given: Business for the Common Good.”

We decided to take a clip of that documentary and tell her story (see clip above). Take a moment to watch her story.

When I watch Karla’s story, for me typical categories begin to break down. She is generous with her money, but she is also generous with her hiring practices. She runs a profitable, high performing business, but is also humble and community-focused. Her company provides the electrical work for skyscrapers across Denver, yet it also provides dignity to her employees and, for many, a way out of addiction or cyclical poverty. That is, her faith is a public good.

Take another example: Wes Gardner, CEO of Prime Trailer Leasing.

Work Matters from CityUnite on Vimeo.

Wes had a simple, yet profound, revelation: “I realized that business can be a platform for serving your neighbor.” He shares the story of the Good Samaritan. Two men passed by the one who had been robbed on the side of the road, but one saw him. The Good Samaritan too had something to do, but instead he stopped and helped.

“I began to see that the best thing we could do to help our neighbor was to create jobs,” Gardner says. “Not just jobs, but good jobs.” And so Wes began to hire people who were undergoing transition or challenges. For example, Benjamin Goff went from working at the state capitol to struggling with alcoholism. A good job in a healthy environment was a key to finding a new way forward. Lauren Vasquez was a teen mom. She needed stable, good paying employment to support her daughter. Struggling to make it, she found the healthy environment she needed at Prime Trailer Leasing. The connection Gardner made with Hope House, a local nonprofit, changed her life.

One last example: James Ruder at L&R Pallet.

A Place of Refuge from CityUnite on Vimeo.

James inherited a pallet company from his father. He thought his business had plateaued after not being able to hire a workforce to make pallets. His turnover had reached 300% a year.

“God decided,” remembers Ruder, “to make my business a place of refuge.” Encouraged by his peers in a local group of Christian CEOs, Ruder decided to “give his business over to God” and allow God to work though him to serve the community.

Today, Ruder employees over 80 refugees from Burma – and his turnover has dropped to 5% a year, an unparalleled accomplishment in his industry. Ruder provides English classes to employees, connects his employees to community services, like how to navigate public transportation or finding an apartment, and treats many of them like family.

“When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m in the people business. Pallets are the widgets we make, but we changed our entire focus to our employees. And that has resulted in a completely different business model and profitability,” Ruder says.

Nugent, Gardner, and Ruder all are defying those who say compassion and profitability are a contradiction. Each business is profitable, and each does so by a unique investment in people.

The point here is simple: faith applied to work can have transformative impact on entire communities.

For me, this means three things:

We need to look harder at what “love your neighbor” truly means for our work and industries.
We need to ask whether the spiritual and moral formation of job creators might be one of the best, if not most overlooked ways, to alleviate poverty in our communities.
And we need to accept that faith is a genuine motivation for millions of working men and women across the country, and we do not need to be afraid to speak about faith-based motivations in public.

For many, faith is a public, social and economic good. And the most vulnerable in our communities are often the direct beneficiaries of sacrificial love expressed through work.