We’ve written a bit about the millenial generation and its approach to the biblical doctrine of work. With so many young Christians struggling with what’s been termed a “quarter life crisis,” it’s important that [...]]]> Part 3 in a series on Faces of Faith and Work

We’ve written a bit about the millenial generation and its approach to the biblical doctrine of work. With so many young Christians struggling with what’s been termed a “quarter life crisis,” it’s important that they understand what the Bible says about vocation, faith, and work.

One young man in particular is answering God’s call on his life to help his brothers and sisters in Christ see how their careers and faith can be combined to impact culture for the glory of God.

During his senior year at the University of Georgia, Austin Burkhart became captivated by the idea of influencing a generation of Christians to embrace business excellence and missional impact to maximize their workplace influence for Jesus.

Burkhart says about two years ago God awakened him to the idea that his faith and work can and should go hand-in-hand. He soon began to desire to see this same paradigm-shift in his church:

[I wanted] my local church to celebrate and equip Christian leaders in business, education, science and the arts the same way they celebrated and equipped foreign missionaries.

Last October, he gathered with a few close friends. They envisioned an environment where conversations uniting faith and work flourished. Burkhart says,

We cast a huge vision for gathering Christians together to celebrate, encourage and challenge each other to unite faith and work. To live one integrated life not divided by a chasm between Sunday and Monday.

In January 2013, he launched his plan into action and ONE2 was born. Burkhart called it “an evening of practical conversation for college students where Christian business leaders share advice about how to unite faith & work.”

He formed and led a team to bring this dream to life. Together with his team, Burkhart:

• Developed a sustainable financial model and a marketing plan.

• Handled all event logistics.

• Hired and tasked a graphic artist, web designer, videographers, caterer, and event staff.

• Sold tickets and secured sponsorships to cover costs.

On April 4th from 6-9 pm, Burkhart and his team hosted the first ONE2 event in Athens, GA. Keynote speakers included Hugh Whelchel, executive director of the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics, and Chris Carneal, founder of Booster.

Over 120 college students and 25 Christian mentors from the community attended. The mentors shared ideas and practical tips about how to unite faith and work from their experience as Christians and leaders in science, education, and business.

Austin spoke to IFWE about ONE2 and how he hopes the message of faith and work changes the hearts, minds, and behavior of his generation.

Why did you see a need for ONE2?

When I started seriously following Jesus I felt this need to adjust my vocational goals to fit the perfect “spiritual” career. While I had deep passions for marketing, creative media, and business, I built up an invisible wall between faith and work. I started seeing jobs as either sacred or secular and buying into the lie that God sees some vocations as inherently more spiritual than others.

I found that many of my Christian friends wrestled with this tension between faith or work as well. What we began to discover is that God was calling us to both faith and work. Faith in work. Faithful work. Out of that paradigm shift, ONE2 was born.

How did ONE2 get its name?

A one-two punch is defined as “an especially forceful or effective combination or sequence of two things.” We became captivated by this idea of business excellence that leads to missional impact. At ONE2, we want to be a generation of Christians defined by business impact and missional impact delivered together for maximum effect.

How does ONE2 add value to the church community?

ONE2 equips young Christians for a lifetime of faithful work. As they work this out in community with a local church, they will develop into a world-changing generation of Christian leaders.

How do you want hearts, minds, and behavior to change in the lives of those who attend ONE2?

We want to change the idea that some jobs or professions are more spiritual than others and unleash a generation of Christians to pursue their vocational passion while remaining rooted in their spiritual purpose.

If hearts, minds, and behavior change, what will the results be on an individual level, and on a broader economic level?

Personally, this paradigm shift equips Christians for a lifetime of faithful work. Economically, they build unstoppable momentum through repeating the One-Two punch of business excellence and missional impact to become leaders who set right what’s wrong in the world and who work for the prosperity of the city in which they live.

Can you share a specific example of where you saw God working at ONE2?

I met Chris Render, our caterer, because of a mutual friend. He was working in the kitchen of a local restaurant and we sat down for coffee. I shared the heart behind ONE2 and the tension I personally felt between faith & work. He immediately lit up with passion as he explained how he was working for this company full-time but felt like God had gifted him to be a caterer.

He told me that instead of quitting or dropping responsibilities at his day job, he would use that to develop his skills and work hard to equip his future. He was a perfect example of working faithfully in the situation God had called him. He took all the responsibility for purchasing, preparing, and cooking dinner and dessert for ONE2 as well as coordinating a team to assist him. His hard work, leadership skills, and culinary talent all paid off and the food was a highlight of the evening!

With such incredible feedback from college students and table leaders, Burkhart and his team are busy building a resources-oriented website and planning to bring ONE2 to another city. He says,

We think there’s a whole lot more that God wants to do through us so we believe that we’re just getting started!

Burkhart graduated from the University of Georgia in May 2013 with a double major in mass media arts and marketing and will go on to pursue a career in creative media and marketing for Booster.

If you are interested in bringing a ONE2 conversation to your city, you can reach Austin at austin.burkhart@gmail.com

Leave your comments here. 

The journey we are on in life matters for the future we are building. It matters for the work God has called us to accomplish.

Using our skills and talents, we are making contributions to the flourishing  of individuals and society, both now and in the new heavens and new [...]]]>

The journey we are on in life matters for the future we are building. It matters for the work God has called us to accomplish.

Using our skills and talents, we are making contributions to the flourishing  of individuals and society, both now and in the new heavens and new earth, where we will spend eternity. We are contributing to the Kingdom of God, the rule of the eternal sovereign God over all his creation. As Hugh Whelchel explains in How Then Should We Work?,

We understand that it is God, through his providence, who is establishing his Kingdom here on earth. Yet this does not imply that we lack responsibility for the part God has called us to play. Much of what God accomplishes, he does through secondary means, and frequently his people are those secondary means. 

Given the importance of our work to God’s Kingdom-building, it is important that we serve as wise and scrupulous stewards. The goal of my blogs is to bring economics into this calculus of whole-life stewardship. Understanding the benefits of exchange, comparative advantage, and the gifts of markets has been a large part of our discussion here.

In addition to understanding basic economic principles, we must also consider the economics of public life – decisions made outside of markets and inside politics – because we know that all choices bring costs, regardless of the arena in which we make them.

Economics & Public Choice

The “economics of politics” is a discipline known as public choice. It is critically important for Christians to understand public choice theory, as it can help us in our quest to bring about human flourishing.

Economist William Shugart describes public choice this way in an article for the Online Library of Economics and Liberty:

As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.” The wishful thinking it [public choice] displaced presumes that participants in the political sphere aspire to promote the common good.

Public choice theory relies, knowingly or not, on two fundamental Christian principles:

1. We are fallen sinners (Genesis 3, Romans 3:23). Taking a job as a public official doesn’t override the temptation to sin and indulge ourselves at the expense of others.

2. We as individuals are the source of all action. When God created us, he created us as unique individuals, with our own distinct gifts, motivations, and tastes. We were not created as a “state” or “culture” or “town” or a “city.” We are born, we act, and we are motivated by our individual preferences.

Shugart elaborates on this second insight economists gained from public choice. “The individual becomes the fundamental unit of analysis,” he writes. Individuals are the organic decision makers, not abstract groups like “the people,” “the community,” or “society.”

The challenge of public choice, Shugart writes, is

How to model the ways in which the diverse and often conflicting preferences of self-interested individuals get expressed…when decisions are made collectively.

Economics, Public Choice, & Politics

As we discussed earlier, markets are tough disciplinarians. They weed out greed and corruption, and harness selfishness into service. If you are not serving your customers with lower prices and better quality, you will fail.

Politics has no mechanism for weeding out corruption and greed. The reason is because there is no profit/loss constraint. Profit no longer becomes a motivation; re-election does. Powerful special interest groups form and pressure politicians with votes and money to serve their small, localized interests.

Public choice theory reminds us that all these decisions and actions come at a cost. When politicians vote in favor of one group, they do so at the expense of another. The result is the increasing formation of powerful interest groups and well-paid lobbyists whose job it is to sway political agents to their narrow interests.

The Founders were wise in that they foresaw this problem, and worried about developing a sound political setting that protected against the tyranny of factions. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to thwart the rise of interest group politics.

So what can we do? Christians can re-engage the culture. We must be aware of the issues surrounding interest group politics and the dangers of the cronyism it produces. The only way to have a lasting, positive impact is if we count the costs in all decision-making, and ensure that we are an active part of a culture which can bring about positive change. Public choice theory can help us think through all these things.

Next week we will talk further about the principles of public choice theory and why they are important for Christian stewardship.

Leave your comments here. 

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God.

- Psalm 92:12-13

I recently came across an interesting

I recently came across an interesting article in World magazine, written by Anthony Bradley, a professor at The King’s College in New York. In it Bradley describes what he calls the “new legalism” of missional, radical Christianity. Pondering what it means for Christians to love God and neighbor, he writes, 

An emphasis on human flourishing, ours and others’, becomes important because it is characterized by 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.

Bradley is right. This idea of flourishing should be important to Christians today. But what is flourishing? Is it biblical? And how do we get it?

Flourishing In the Old Testament

In the Old Testament, the concept of flourishing is best described by the Jewish word shalom. Biblical scholars tell us that shalom signifies a number of things, including:

• Salvation
• Wholeness
• Integrity
• Soundness
• Community
• Connectedness
• Righteousness
• Justice
• Well-being

Shalom denotes a right relationship with God, with others, and with God’s good creation. It is the way God intended things to be when he created the universe.

In most of our English Bibles, we translate shalom as peace, but it means much more than just an absence of conflict. The idea of flourishing as shalom in the widest sense of the word is a significant theme in the Old Testament:

• When the Lord brings shalom, there is prosperity (Psalms 72.1-7).
• There is health (Isaiah 57.19). 
• There is reconciliation (Genesis 26.29).
• There is contentment (Genesis 15.15; Psalms 4.8). 
• When the shalom of the Lord is present, there are good relationships between the nations and peoples (1 Chronicles 12.17-18). God’s shalom has a social as well as a personal dimension.

Dr. Neil Plantinga offered a useful definition of shalom in an excellent article entitled Educating for Shalom. He writes,

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Old Testament prophets called shalom. We call it peace, but it means far more than mere peace of mind or cease-fire among enemies… In the Bible shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight – a rich state of affairs that inspires joyful wonder as its Creator and Saviour opens doors and welcomes the creatures in whom he delights.

Flourishing In the New Testament and Beyond

In this blog we often use the concept of the Four Chapter Gospel as a framework to understand redemptive history. The third chapter, redemption, shows us the way things could be. In the New Testament Jesus healed the sick and fed the hungry. Why didn’t he heal all the sick in Israel, or feed all the hungry?

The answer is simple yet profound. It has huge implications for the way we are called to live as Christians today.

Jesus was showing them, and us, the way things could be and the way things will be when he returns and establishes the New Heavens and New Earth.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we are also called to live our lives in a way that shows the world the way things could be. As Bradley writes, we should be encouraging Christians to live lives in pursuit of wisdom, knowledge, understanding, education, wonder, beauty, glory, creativity, and worship in a world marred by sin, following the call to be men and women of virtue in every area of life. 

As we work for the benefit of others, we promote a greater level of shalom not only for ourselves but also to increase the flourishing of our neighbors. This is what the prophet Jeremiah meant when he wrote in Jeremiah 29:7,

…seek the shalom of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it has shalom, you too will have shalom.

As we will see in future posts, this idea of flourishing should play a large part in our witness to the world of God’s grace in our lives.

Leave your comments here. 

What is the right amount of time to spend at work?

I recently watched the documentary Happy, which explores the concept of happiness in different cultures. The filmmakers travel the world looking at different communities and how they think about happiness.

The film’s segment on Japan focuses in part on the Japanese [...]]]>

What is the right amount of time to spend at work?

I recently watched the documentary Happy, which explores the concept of happiness in different cultures. The filmmakers travel the world looking at different communities and how they think about happiness.

The film’s segment on Japan focuses in part on the Japanese notion of “karōshi.” Karōshi literally means “death from overwork.”

The first reported case of karōshi was in 1969. In the late 1980s it began to be more rigorously tracked. In 1988 the Japanese National Defense Council for Victims of Karoshi was organized to study the phenomenon. As the Japanese National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health reported in a 2006 Country Report, there were 300 cases of reported karōshi between 2002 and 2005.

In Happy, a Japanese widow was interviewed whose husband died at a young age from work related stress. She described his long absences from home, his inability to get his mind off of work, and how his long hours affected his relationship with their daughter.

One day, when he seemed particularly tired as he left for work, she received a call that her husband had collapsed and could not be resuscitated. He had died of stress related heart failure before arriving at the hospital.

Stories like this are not unique to Japan. One article in the Japan Times says Japan is not the only Asian country to experience this phenomenon. China and South Korea each have names for workers who work themselves to death: guolaosi and gwarosa, respectively.

I am not an expert on East Asian cultures, so I do not feel qualified to make any proscriptions on what in the culture is the root cause. For Japan, the documentary blames the work ethic arising in the post-World War II construction period.

While that may or may not be, I do know that this is a gross distortion of the biblical meaning of work. It’s a temptation we all face, because it’s a common temptation to make an idol of our work. For too many of us, work becomes an end in itself, instead of a means by which we glorify God and transform culture.

To best serve Christ, it is important to be mindful of the ill effects our habits have on us, including our tendency to overwork ourselves. 

In Matthew 6:24, Jesus says,

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

This verse speaks to where our devotions lie. Are we working to serve God, or to serve money? Are we working to serve God, or our idol of work?

In guarding against this idol, it is important to keep our eyes on Jesus, to cultivate a relationship with him and those in his church. Over at The High Calling, Tina Howard, recently wrote about how the character of Christ helps her decide how to spend her time: 

Throughout the day as I face decisions about how to spend my time, I try to ask myself how I can demonstrate a characteristic of Christ to those around me. Some days that means I choose to work a little longer than usual in order to complete a project for a client on time because Christ is faithful to keep his word. Other days I take time off to care for a sick friend or spend a special day with my daughter, as Christ valued and honored relationships in his life.

This is part of what it looks like to balance the multiple calls placed upon the Christian. As Hugh Whelchel explains in How Then Should We Work?, there are several calls the Christian seeks to answer. Our primary call is to Jesus Christ; from that flow the secondary callings to church, family, community, and work.

The primary call to Christ is what orders these secondary callings. A properly ordered life values the importance of work. Yet while we work hard, “as if for the Lord,” we know we cannot neglect our other secondary callings.

Karōshi is a tragic example of myopic focus on serving what may be a cultural idol of work. Praying for those victims’ families and healing for what is the root cause of that phenomenon is important.

As we go about our work, let us remember to keep Christ at the center and mindful of what it means to serve him in our whole lives.

How do you juggle work, family, church, and community? Leave your comments here.

How to Change Your Company’s Culture  Jeff Haanen

So how do you move from simply being a Christian “in” an organization to actually engaging its culture with the gospel? – Jeff Haanen

Gift, Gratitude, and the Grace of Stewardship  Acton [...]]]> Part 23 in a series on Midweek Memo

How to Change Your Company’s Culture  Jeff Haanen

So how do you move from simply being a Christian “in” an organization to actually engaging its culture with the gospel? – Jeff Haanen

Gift, Gratitude, and the Grace of Stewardship  Acton Institute

The connection between gift and gratitude invigorates a life of stewardship and responsibility. – Jordan Ballor

Liberty Without Virtue: A Nation Without Its Heart Values and Capitalism

If we love liberty, we must also love justice, kindness, mercy and charity. Otherwise, the liberty that we dearly love will disappear, and the America that we call exceptional may join the ranks of failed experiments in democracy. – Tyler Castle

How Commerce Expands Culture The Ümlaut

The rise of capitalism has driven down the costs of producing and enjoying creative works; the supply and diversity of products has expanded accordingly. Still, the tempting allures of cultural pessimism stubbornly persist. – Andrea Castillo

Moral Markets World Magazine

Americans are about to relearn the lesson, says Steve Forbes, that it is big government and not capitalism that causes economic instability. – Marvin Olasky

Leave your comments here.

Once I was given a private tour of the US House of Representatives. Our tour guide, a congressman’s chief of staff, had us sit in the Speaker’s chair, look straight ahead, and say what we saw.

Directly in front of us was a representation of Moses, whose writings were a primary basis [...]]]>

Once I was given a private tour of the US House of Representatives. Our tour guide, a congressman’s chief of staff, had us sit in the Speaker’s chair, look straight ahead, and say what we saw.

Directly in front of us was a representation of Moses, whose writings were a primary basis for our country’s rule of law. Although many Christians might acknowledge the moral foundations of our nation’s laws, many are unclear about the place of biblical law in our personal and public life.

Let’s examine the Ten Commandments and then touch on their application to public life. This framework is important in order to make wise decisions in our work and in economics.

The Ten Commandments

When Moses received the Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy 4:13 records that he received two tablets of stone. Throughout Church history, the first tablet is described as speaking to our responsibilities to God, and the second tablet to our responsibilities to our neighbor.

The commandments on the first tablet tell us we are to always:

• Worship God’s ultimate being.
• Worship God alone.
• Guard God’s reputation (by not taking his name in vain).
• Set apart time for God.

The commandments on the second tablet tell us we are not to violate our neighbor’s:

• Person
• Property
• Marriage
• Reputation

We are not to violate these things in thought, word, or deed.

What the Ten Commandments Mean for Our Lives

Throughout history, the Ten Commandments have been used as a framework for expounding all of our ethical responsibilities. For instance, John Calvin develops a substantial section of his Institutes of the Christian Religion by using the Ten Commandments as an outline.

A full exposition of the Commandments is impossible in a short article, but perhaps a thought or two on each mandate may help us as we face our personal and public lives.

1. “You shall have no other Gods before me.”

God is first. This means we should offer prophetic resistance to anything that would make itself a god, such as the totalitarian state.

2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image.”

We must have no mental or material images that we would worship as an idol. Our work can often become an idol when we look to it for security instead of to God.

3. “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”

Following God requires complete conviction. We should not take God’s name in vain with respect to his worship, whether in language, in oaths, or in promises. Perhaps the worst sin is not profanity but lip service. Martin Luther once said that God is sometimes more pleased with the curses of the wicked than the hallelujahs of the pious.

4. “Remember the Sabbath.”

We must set aside time for our Lord and for worship, fellowship, and devotion. This is essential if we are to integrate our faith and work and do our jobs for the glory of God.

5. “Honor your mother and father.”

Heritage is important. C.S. Lewis urged that we need to let the breezes of the centuries blow through our minds.

Contemporary Christianity may have lost the biblical doctrine of work, but it can be rediscovered by reading what some of the great Church leaders of the past have written about a theology of work.

6. “You shall not murder.”

Every person has dignity. The image of God is the only adequate basis on which murder can be condemned, because it provides the basis for our dignity.

The image of God is also a reason why we should help the poor. We help them not only because God commands it, but because they are made in the image of God.

7. “You shall not commit adultery.”

Fidelity is important. Marriage and family are at the core of society. If they fail, society will become poorer economically and spiritually.

8. “You shall not steal.”

Stealing is evil because private property and ownership are good. This commandment and other passages like Exodus 21:28-36; 22: 1-15; Deuteronomy 22:1-4; 23:24-25; and Proverbs 22:28 and 23:1 all uphold ownership and property rights.

9. “You shall not bear false witness.”

In our culture, “truth has fallen in the street” (Isaiah 59:14). Truth is replaced by rhetoric and spin. We are to be truthful because God is truthful. Above all, we must uphold the veracity, or truth, of God’s word.

10. “You shall not covet.”

There is a difference between desire and greed. We can condemn greed and envy without prohibiting a healthy desire for relationships and things. Justly decrying greed does not negate the value of serving people through business and free markets, for instance.

These are just some of the ways the Ten Commandments can provide an ethical framework for our lives and work.

How else can the Ten Commandments guide our lives? Leave your comments here.

What is “flourishing” and how do we achieve it?

Christians can agree that we are called to bring about flourishing. As Jay Richards recently wrote, the Bible calls Christians to work for the good of the world:

Everything from [...]]]> Part 10 in a series on Markets & Morality

What is “flourishing” and how do we achieve it?

Christians can agree that we are called to bring about flourishing. As Jay Richards recently wrote, the Bible calls Christians to work for the good of the world:

Everything from the Cultural Mandate to the Great Commission calls us to live out our faith for the good of the world.

To work towards flourishing, we need a solid definition of what it means.

Defining Flourishing

I offered a brief working definition in last week’s post:

• Flourishing occurs when we fulfill our original job description, the cultural mandate God gave Adam and Eve in Genesis.

• Flourishing is what we bring about when we use our gifts and talents to serve others by taking dominion over natural and human resources (time, talent, money, and more). 

• Flourishing gives us a glimpse of the new heavens and the new earth God will bring in full when Christ returns. 

• It is characterized by well-being, prosperity, thriving, and abundance. 

We in the western world have been very successful in bringing about greater levels of flourishing. Looking at it visually often drives home the impact. The Atlantic Monthly recently published a great series of graphs detailing the economic history of the world. You can see them here.

Are We Flourishing?

Despite all the flourishing we’ve obtained, we cannot escape our sinful nature. We need a sound economic and political environment that harnesses human behavior for productive, creative uses in service to others. Yet there is evidence that we in the West are losing our ability to increase flourishing for ourselves and others:

• Dependence on government continues to increase. The United States has one of the highest standards of living in the world, yet forty-nine percent of Americans live in a household that receives a government benefit.

• Government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (the monetary value of all goods and services produced within a country) has increased from seven percent in 1900 to forty percent today. The result is unsustainable debt.

• Income inequality is slightly increasing, with the unnatural rate of income inequality being exacerbated by cronyism.

Obstacles to Flourishing

These points are entirely related. They bring to light three economic realities we as Christians cannot ignore if we are to turn this situation around and get back on the road to flourishing.

1. Governments cannot create wealth. 

Governments are not companies producing goods or services. They can only transfer or destroy wealth. As we ask government to do more and more, it must take wealth from one group in order to do what we ask of it. This involves trade-offs, many of which harm overall creativity and prosperity for all income groups.

2. Incentives matter.

Governments are run by human beings who respond to incentives. If we make it worth their while to grow the size of government and become inefficient, they most likely will.

Dependency on government benefits crosses all income groups. We often hear about “welfare dependency” and think it only applies to the poor. In fact, the increase in government spending and unnaturally high rates of income inequality are inextricably related to the fact that the rich and powerful use the government to get richer.

3. Markets are tough disciplinarians. 

If you open an business and can’t produce the right product, at the right time, and for the right price, people will not patronize your business. That’s a tough, competitive environment.

Given this tough, competitive market environment, it’s easy to imagine why business would seek protection and favor from the state – in other words, engage in cronyism. It might not seem like a big deal for a company to lobby for regulations that raise the barrier of entry into their market or gain subsidies that protect from competition. Markets won’t give you these things, but governments can be incentivized to do so. 

Flourishing Through Service & Sound Economics

These realities illustrate how, through the political process, we pick winners and losers. Markets, on the other hand, don’t discriminate based on how much money you give through lobbying. Earning a profit and generating personal wealth requires creating value for others. Markets don’t foster theft, they foster service.

This is why it matters for Christians to understand and apply sound economics to all areas of life. It enables us to see and rise up against the tide of political favors that harm the poor and inhibit our ability to wake up each day and use our God-given talents and skills to serve others.

In the coming weeks we’ll explore more of these three economic realities.

What do you think? Why is it important for Christians to understand sound economics? Leave your comments here.

…make it  your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will [...]]]> Part 8 in a series on Markets & Morality

…make it  your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 

- I Thessalonians 4:11-12

Last week we suggested that the free market is a tool at our disposal to help bring about flourishing (Anne Bradley offers a good definition of flourishing in this post). The market is a tool we can use to answer the call placed on us by the cultural mandate.

Jeff Van Duzer gives a concise picture of how the market contributes to flourishing when, in his book Why Business Matters to God, he writes,

Business exists in society in order to provide a platform where people can express aspects of their God given identity through meaningful and creative work and to provide goods and services to a community to enable it to flourish.

The original theories of Adam Smith, which have often been misinterpreted, were based on the firm belief that business would work for the greater good of society. As a professor of ethics, Smith believed markets, by their origin, were about morality and doing the right thing.

Yet, for too many businesses and some business schools, ethics are only about reducing risk or escaping additional regulation. Greg Smith, former head of Goldman Sachs U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe and the Middle East, offered his company as a prime example in an op-ed piece he wrote last year for the New York Times. He wrote that the Goldman Sachs corporate ethos “is as toxic and destructive” as he had ever seen it.

The reason, he suggested, is that the company had become so focused on money that it routinely sacrificed the best interests of its clients.Goldman’s and much of Wall Street’s obsession to turn as large a profit as possible clouds their vision of what made them successful in the first place: serving their customers.

What if real ethics were built into the mission of a business? What if ethics meant not merely avoiding the wrong thing but instead making a commitment to do the right thing?

This should be one of the major objectives of Christians in the marketplace. Those of us who are called to work in the business world are called to be redemptive agents of the market. Scripture calls humanity to this role as redemptive agents time and again.

1. In Genesis, God called Adam and Eve to be agents of change and development when he gave them the cultural mandate.

2. Jeremiah encouraged the Israelites to be agents of shalom even while living in exile.

3. Jesus called his disciples to be redemptive agents when he gave the Great Commission, which some theologians believe is a restating of the cultural mandate.

4. The Apostle Paul exhorted the early church numerous times that they were called by God, “according to his purpose (Romans 8:28),” to be salt and light in the world.

As followers of Christ, we have the opportunity to bring back the moral compass. As we act as salt and light in the marketplace, we will have a transformational influence on those around us.

The producers of the Greater Seas blog suggest there are four ways Christians typically engage the marketplace:

1. Survivors:

- Believe the marketplace is evil.

- Their goal is to survive the marketplace unharmed.

- Their strategy is to avoid contact with non-believers to escape possible corruption.

- Others ignore them.

- Their impact is non-existent.

2. Sleepers:

- Believe they can’t change the marketplace, but it won’t change them, either. Having an impact comes down to luck.

- Their goal is to stand their ground and play to a draw.

- Their strategy is to be nice to people and not share faith unless asked about it.

- Others think they are nice people.

- Their impact is marginal.

3. Influencers:

- Believe God cares about business and the Holy Spirit will help them succeed.

- Their goal is to create value and impact at work, succeed in business and ministry, and lead people to Jesus through leadership.

- Their strategy is led by the Holy Spirit. They speak openly about faith, invite people to church, and pray for guidance and favor.

- Others are skeptical of influencers, but like them.

- Their impact is effective.

4. Leaders: 

- Believe that by engaging the Holy Spirit at work, people, businesses, markets, and cities will be transformed.

- Their goal is to change the spiritual landscape of whole organizations in favor of the kingdom of heaven.

- Their strategy is led by the Holy Spirit. Actions speak louder than words. Timing is everything, and leaders diligently pray for value and impact.

- Others trust leaders and listen carefully to what they say.

- Their impact is transformational.

The moral decline in today’s marketplace would suggest that there are far too many Christians who are either Survivors or Sleepers. We need more Leaders.

Which one are you?

How can we bring transformation to our jobs, businesses, markets, and cities? How can ethics be brought to bear on how we seek to impact our communities? Leave your comments here. 

There might be a Christian way to write a play, but is there a Christian way to land a plane?

In other words, is there a “Christian way” to carry out all work?

In Wednesday’s and Part 3 in a series on Is Your Work Useless?

There might be a Christian way to write a play, but is there a Christian way to land a plane?

In other words, is there a “Christian way” to carry out all work?

In Wednesday’s and Thursday’s posts, we’ve discussed the subject of useless work raised by Christianity Today’s interview with Tim Keller. In the same interview, Keller discusses whether or not some vocations can really be “Christian.” He explains the Lutheran stream of work theology that teaches all work is God’s work:

The Lutheran stream says that everyone on the earth is being fed by God. The simplest farm girl milking the cow, the truck driver bringing the milk, the grocer selling it are doing God’s work – which means there’s no such thing as menial labor, as long as the job is actually helping somebody, as long as you’re not selling internet porn or something like that. Luther gives amazing amounts of dignity to all kinds of work. 

But then he diverges:

Actually, I would go as far to say I don’t know that there’s a Christian way to land a plane, but I do think there’s probably a Christian way to write plays. I think my faith automatically is going to affect how I write a play. I don’t think it automatically affects how I land a plane. 

Even though Keller isn’t implying the vocation of the pilot is less significant to God than the playwright, his statement is certainly not encouraging to Christian pilots.

It’s important not to look at someone’s job only from the outside to determine whether or not it can be carried out in a uniquely Christian manner. C.S. Lewis echoes this idea in Learning In Wartime:

I reject at once an idea which lingers in the mind of some modern people that cultural activities are in their own right spiritual and meritorious – as though scholars and poets were intrinsically more pleasing to God than scavengers and bootblacks. […] Let us clear it forever from our minds. The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly “as to the Lord.” 

In How Then Should We Work, Hugh Whelchel tells the story of a young American aviator, John Gillespie Magee, who passed up a scholarship at Yale to follow his call to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force before the United States officially entered World War II. He became famous for his poem High Flight:

 Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth/And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;/Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth/Of sun-spit clouds and done a hundred things/You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung/High in the sunlight silence. Hov’ring there,/I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung/My eager craft through footless halls of air./Up, up the long, delirious burning blue,/I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace/Where never lark or even eagle flew,/And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod/The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,/Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Though Magee’s faith might be more apparent in his poem than in the way he flew planes, he gives important insight into his vocation here. He draws on symbolism that no secular pilot would see. Dancing the skies and climbing sunward up the burning blue, his vocation as a fighter pilot is literally and spiritually drawing him into the heavens and closer to God.

Caring for human life is a valiant call. An old pilot joke goes, “What’s the different between God and a pilot? God doesn’t think he’s a pilot.” A vocation that grants a human a temporary super-human ability like flying requires an incredible amount of humility to keep safety a number one priority.

God entrusts us to perform our work with excellence (Colossians 3:23-24). Martin Luther echoes this saying:

The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

In offering work humbly to the Lord, there is a Christian way to land an airplane: to land it well.

Even though Keller would agree that a pilot’s work is eternally significant, he implies there might not be a Christian way to carry out certain vocations based on how the work appears on the outside. But even though an atheist pilot may land a plane just as well as a Christian pilot, the Christian pilot has still performed his Christian duty by landing the plane well.

Yet it is also important to remember our work goes far beyond merely performing our jobs well. The full impact of our vocation will not be fully realized in our lifetime. Magee was killed in a mid-air collision in World War II at the age of 19 and could not have possibly known how God would use his work to influence others and further his Kingdom. Whelchel says,

God used the work of this young man’s hands every time he climbed into the cockpit of his airplane not only for the common good but also in some small, although significant, way to further God’s Kingdom here on earth.

The faith of the Christian airplane pilot certainly affects the way he lands planes—as does the faith of the Christian writer on the way he writes plays—in both what is seen and what is not seen. Let us acknowledge the limitations of our own human understanding and not doubt the ways in which ordinary work can “touch the face of God.”

Do you think there is a Christian way to land a plane, or perform any job? Leave your comments here.

Should you stay in a job you hate?

It’s a question we often get asked here at IFWE. In fact, it was a question that came up during one of our recent webinars on faith and work. [...]]]> Part 2 in a series on Is Your Work Useless?

Should you stay in a job you hate?

It’s a question we often get asked here at IFWE. In fact, it was a question that came up during one of our recent webinars on faith and work. It’s also a question that came up in a recent Christianity Today interview with Tim Keller, Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. Andy Crouch asked Keller how he would respond to someone who hates their job. Keller’s answer, which we published in yesterday’s post, implies that people should always stay at jobs they hate.

Again, it’s possible that Keller misspoke and wouldn’t recommend everyone always stick it out in a job they hate, but it’s an important statement to clarify.

Sometimes, you might need to leave the job you hate.

Keller implies everyone should stay in an unfulfilling job to “pay your dues” and earn “some street cred.” But why would anyone want to stay at a job they hate and feel is useless?

One of our blog readers, Nathan, found this discouraging. On one post, he comments,

More people need encouragement to stick it out with jobs when they are unfulfilling, even though sometimes unfulfilling jobs do need to be abandoned. 

Nathan’s right. Sometimes you should leave the job you hate.

If you don’t like your job just because you think your work is useless or because you can’t see the end product right before your eyes, rest assured that your job is useful. Perhaps you are in the right job and need to readjust your thinking about the part you play in the overall production. Because of the knowledge problem, as we discussed yesterday, you might not be able to see how your work is part of a much larger economic (and spiritual) dynamic.

On the other hand, if you are not finding your job personally fulfilling for other reasons, perhaps your job is not drawing on your God-given skills and talents. The cultural mandate given in Genesis 1:28 tells us that, being made in God’s image, we each have creative talents and skills with which to develop God’s creation. Your dissatisfaction with your work might be an indicator that God has called you to a different vocation.

Vocation is a very prayerful and personal decision, and we must be careful not to make any sweeping statements.

Love or hate your job, no work is useless

No work is completely useless, though it’s sometimes easy to think that way. Some jobs do make it more difficult to see the end result of one’s work. Yet even the intern entering contact names into a spreadsheet adds significant value to the world through their work. Hugh Whelchel puts it well when he writes,

The work of believers possesses a significance which goes far beyond the visible results of that work…All human work, however lowly, is capable of glorifying God. Work is the potentially productive act of praise. 

There is no such thing as useless work if God has called you to it. But if you are currently in a position that you find less than fulfilling, I encourage you to spend time in prayer and conversation with close friends and family for vocational discernment. Meanwhile, remember Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10:31:

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Whatever we do, not just things that we think are important or things we like to do, but everything—especially boring and seemingly useless work—is to be done for the Lord.

What do you think? Should you leave the job you hate? Leave your comments here.