The WORKER—Trinitarian Work
We have argued in previous articles that a wholistic marketplace theology must deal with the head (which systematic theology caters to), the heart (which embraces the need for prayer and spiritual formation), and the hands (which suggests that theology must be applied). But even more than application, it is in practice that we learn the truth about our work. In the previous article, we tried the wholistic triad on for size as it relates to work. But here we want to apply it to the worker herself. In this essay, we will consider how the worker is inspired by and actually participates in the work of the triune God, Father Son, and Holy Spirit.
Trinitarian Work and Human Beings as Co-Workers
Father, Son, and Spirit exist in a reciprocal unit, each person enwrapping the others, each living in the others and for the others, so deep and so united that they are one God. Thomas Torrance expresses the importance of this truth in the following way:
The doctrine of the Holy Trinity [is]…the fundamental grammar of our knowledge of God. Why is that? Because the doctrine of the Trinity gives expression to the fact that through his self-revelation in the incarnation God has opened himself to us in such a way that we may know him in the inner relations of his divine Being and have communion with him in his divine life as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”[1]
Human work is meant to reflect and participate in the character of God’s work as Father, Son, and Spirit. What does this mean? Human work like God’s work is not only redemptive and curative but creative and unitive, not only saving souls and fixing/mending relationships but designing and building, as well as creating community. If God’s work is unitive and creative as well as curative and redemptive, and if our work enters into and continues God’s work, then what does doing “the work of the Lord” entail? All good work is doing the Lord’s work! That is what it means. But there is more.
Human work, like God’s, is meant to be relational. God is a being in communion. Humankind, made in God’s image, is a being in communion, even in the workplace and through work. St Augustine, followed by Jurgen Moltmann, said that God is a lover, a beloved, and love itself. This is marvelously explained by the Gospel-writer John and in the letter of John (John 3:16; 13:34; 17:23; 1 John 4:7-12). The world was created through the love of God. Human beings are all born in the love of God, no matter what the circumstances of their conception. And the world essentially runs on love. So, the worker in the kingdom of God does not yield to worker alienation, suppression, and isolation but gladly works in work teams, rather than in solo work, small groups, and project teams. The “body” metaphor used by Paul for the interdependence of members in the church, is suitable for the workplace and work groups as well—interdependent gifts, skills, and personalities. Significantly Dee Hock, while president of VISA said, “Never hire or promote in your own image.” Systems thinking is essential to understanding how groups, families, churches, and corporations actually function and can be nurtured toward health.[2] In fact we love our neighbor through our work whether we see that neighbor or not, providing goods and services. We are mandated to build a relational work culture. Even the etymology of the word “company”, made up of two Latin phrases—cum (together)— and pane (bread)—suggests a shared life and livelihood. And God meets us in our relationship with our coworkers, so invested is God in our relational life as God is, in fact, love itself. But there is more!
The great themes of God’s work as revealed in Scripture include creating, sustaining creation and human life, redeeming and transforming, and consummating. These are all echoed in human work. This unity of engagement is apparent from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and here in Colossians 1:15-20 where Christ, the Son of God, for example, is named in the following way:
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or ruler or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. [creation] He is before all things, and in him, all things hold together. [sustaining] … he is the beginning and the first born among the dead [consummation] …and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. [redemption]
But the same could be said of the Father and the Spirit. But each person brings a distinctive character to their work, and humankind, made in God’s image will find their own work expresses mainly one of God’s characteristics, and hopefully all three.
Reflecting God the Father and God the Son—Head, and Theological Thought
Let’s start with God the Father. Christian Schumacher in his book God In Work says the following about Father's work:
A person cannot reflect the Father in work unless he [or she] participates in the actual act of envisioning the object he wishes to make. That is to say, the creative idea must emanate from the worker—the intuitive act of the imagination which precedes the fashioning of the actual material.[3]
As workers, human beings are called to extend the sanctuary (the Garden) into the world, to “fill” the earth not only by populating the earth, and so humanizing the earth, but filling it with the glory of God. The Bible makes it clear that we are vice-regents over creation and therefore are commanded to act as stewards of God’s created world. Indeed as Bruce Waltke has shown in his Old Testament Theology “Genesis 1 confers this authoritative status of God’s image to all human beings, so that we are all kings, given the responsibility to rule as God’s vice-regents and high priests on earth.”[4] That is, the man and woman were to bring in God’s kingdom, to exhibit his rule “with power to control and regulate it, to harness its clear potential, a tremendous concentration of power in the hands of puny man! What authority he thus possesses to regulate the course of nature, to be a bane or a blessing to the world!” says William Dumbrell, former Dean at Regent College.[5] So Father's work is creative, stewardly, and providential.
Son's work is slightly different. Jesus Christ, the Son of God came to do the Father’s will and implement the Father’s idea of the kingdom of God on earth (Luke 4:16-21). Again, Schumacher says, “The Son executes His Father’s plan, he ‘exteriorizes’ it, he incarnates it within the bonds of matter, time and space.”[6] He does this through self-emptying, not considering equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:6). This means downward mobility. The Son does this through self-giving, taking the form of a servant even to the laying down of his life for others (2:7). This means personal generosity and humility (2:8). Astonishingly, this means we have a humble God! Thus we are not to think of ourselves as better than anyone else (Deut 17:20). And finally, the Son does this through suffering (2:8), through his obedience even to death on a cross. This last point deserves some explanation. “Taking up our cross” which Jesus says is a precondition of discipleship means two things, first identifying ourselves with the finished work of Christ on the cross. God needs to do nothing more to reconcile us to himself other than he has accomplished on the cross. But, secondly, it means sharing the passion of Christ. Paul himself spoke of filling up “what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24). We do this by engaging the suffering of the world, by entering the affliction of the church, and by experiencing the pain of other people and the pain of the marketplace. My boss, then President of Regent College, used to say to me, frequently, as Academic Dean, “You (and me) have to take the pain of the organization.” So Luther was right when he said there is a cross to be taken up in the marketplace. But how does the Holy Spirit meet with the worker in the marketplace? If the Father and the Son appeal to the mind (mainly) the Spirit is known through heart experience.
Workers in the Holy Spirit—Heart and Soul
Spirit work through human work involves empowerment, expressiveness, evaluation, and joy. But in passing I offer and affirm a comment by Christian Schumacher that “the functions of planning, doing and evaluating within the world of work were analogous to the functions performed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the Godhead”[7] and that to be deeply motivating, as some employment counselors have affirmed, work needs to be planned, executed and controlled (or evaluated and enjoyed) by the worker himself. As God delighted in his creation (Gen 1:31), humans too find fulfillment when they do good work. But this third dimension—the work of the Holy Spirit takes us from head to heart.
First, the Spirit confirms in our hearts that we belong to God wherever we are in the workplace. The story is told of a German pastor who confronted John Wesley before he had his “heart-warming encounter with Jesus, but while he served as a missionary in North America. “Young man, does the Spirit bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God.” Wesley admitted to being bewildered. This led to a second question.“Do you know Jesus Christ?” Wesley apparently mumbled something about hoping that Jesus had died for him, which led to a third question.“Young man, do you know yourself?”[8] Romans 8:15-18 says that whenever we cry “Abba Father” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness or hugging us inwardly that we are sons and daughters of God. This Spirit confirmation means that we are walking and working sanctuaries. Wherever we go God is with us. And we are part of God’s “filling the earth” (Gen 1:28), extending the sanctuary into the world. It means there is nowhere so demonized that we might not be called to serve there.
Second, the Spirit leads in vocational discernment, in making decisions, in planning, and in the execution of our plans. The apostle Paul knew himself to be constrained by the Spirit to do some things and was also restrained by the Spirit not to do other things even when he had an open door of opportunity. “Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to do. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas” (Acts 16:6-8, emphasis mine). How do we know it is the Spirit speaking to us? Teresa of Avila, the medieval mystic, helpfully describes the various ways the God speaks to us. She called them “locutions” and draws on the Medula mystica of Francisco de Santo. Teresa says that some of them come from without; they are corporeal and are heard in the hearing even if no one else is able to witness the sound. Some come from the inmost parts of the soul. They are imaginary, not in the sense of fabricated. They are not heard in the ear but experienced as an impression received by the imaginative faculty. Some “locutions” are intellectual and spiritual as God imprints a message in the depth of the person’s spirit and understanding. How might we know that these “locutions” are really from God and not from Satan, or a mere figment of our own misguided imagination?[9] Teresa has a quiverfull of wisdom on this subject. First, a message must agree with the Scriptures and therefore they have power and authority. “Unless it agrees strictly with the Scriptures, take no notice of it than you would if it came from the devil himself. The words may, in fact, come only from your weak imagination…and must invariably be resisted so that they may gradually cease; and cease they will, because they have little power of their own.”[10] Second, is the sign that “a great tranquility dwells in the soul, which becomes peacefully and devoutly recollected, and ready to sing the praises of God.” Saint Ignatius calls this “consolation” in contrast with “desolation,” the negative sign that this is not from God. The third sign is that “these words do not vanish from the memory for a very long time; some indeed never vanish at all.” Teresa insists that even though others might conclude that these words are pure nonsense, and even though circumstances may militate against their fulfillment, “there still remains within it such a living spark of conviction that they will come true…though all other hopes may be dead, this spark of certainty could not fail to remain alive, even if the soul wished it to die.”[11] What does this mean? It means that our life is not a bundle of accidents; we are not subject to fate; we are led. We do not get guidance; we have a Guide.
Third, the Spirit enables us to overcome the internal and external struggles we experience in the workplace and turns these into spiritual growth. The seven deadly sins emerge largely in the context of our work. They are roughly parallel to the “works of the flesh” found in Galatians 5:19-21 (not meaning the physical body but the whole person turned inward and away from Christ). I have placed the “works of the flesh” in italics.
Pride (idolatry, witchcraft, selfish ambition)
Greed (selfish ambition, factions)
Lust (sexual immorality, impurity, orgies)
Envy (jealousy)
Gluttony (debauchery, drunkenness)
Anger/Wrath (hatred, discord, fits of rage, dissensions )
Sloth (not in the list perhaps because it is not a social sin)
In writing Taking Your Soul to Work[12], we discovered an extraordinary thing: for every sin and “work of the flesh” in the workplace there is a Spirit fruit available: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). It is as though every struggle is a prayer and heart cry for God to reveal his Spirit fruit. For example, for greed there is goodness, for lust, there is love, for gluttony (even in work!) there is self-control, for envy there is kindness. What does this mean? The Spirit changes our character developing increasing Christ-likeness (the fruit of the Spirit) and giving us a godly motivation for our work in the world. We grow spiritually in the workplace, possibly mainly in the workplace.
Fourth, the Spirit anoints our creational talents and enables us to work with excellence. St Augustine was apparently criticized for not buying his sandals from Christian sandal-makers. He is reported to have responded: “I do too much walking to walk on inferior sandals.” Sadly, I must confess that many CEOs when asked whether their Christian employees are good workers, respond with a cautious “no” because they are more interested in church meetings and Bible studies than they are with their work. But, happily, I can confess that I know many, many people who put their best into their work. And it is the Spirit that prompts them to do so. That is Paul’s message to the slaves and masters in Colossae: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters…. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col 3:23-4). They are to do this not only when the master’s “eye is on [them] and to curry their favor” but with “sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord” (3:22). I do not believe in spiritual gifts; I believe in Spirit gifts. It is the Holy Spirit working through our lives not merely as an organ or capacity transplant. The three Greek words used in the New Testament for Spirit gifts are ton pneuatikon (1 Cor 12:1) – Spirit people or Spirit gifts; charismata (concrete expressions of grace); and dorea (Eph 4:7) – gifts. While Spirit gifts are normally associated with service within the body of Christ some Spirit gifts are useful for stated Christian ministry in the work world (e.g. prophecy, faith, healing) and some empower us for general service in the work world (e.g. faith, administration, prophecy, pastoring, helping). So, the Spirit gives Spirit gifts for service in the church and the world. The Spirit anoints the creational talents that we use in work bringing them to a higher level of excellence and fruitfulness (Bezalel is the Old Testament example of this.) Let me explain how this happens especially in relation to human talents which also are from God.
Talents are creational aptitudes that are built into us by God when we were created. They are usually permanent and nonsituational. If you are gifted in administration you can use this talent almost anywhere. Spirit gifts are endowments of the Holy Spirit that are not necessarily permanent and usually are contextualized or situational. One may exercise a Spirit gift in one group but not in another. But there is an overlap of talents and gifts. That is, while some Spirit gifts may emerge without any seeming connection to a talent the person has, normally the Spirit seems to anoint a person’s capacities to move it to a notch higher in effectiveness and with it to bring the touch of God. Why do I affirm this? Because of Romans 12:6-9 where Paul in speaking about Spirit gifts says: “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is in teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is in giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.” I have put the last phrases in italics because they indicate an anointing of a creational capacity with the Holy Spirit in generosity, in diligence and in joy. What does this mean? We do not have to work slavishly, merely doing our duty. But can flourish in the workplace. This is part of our witness. Jesus himself said, “So you also when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (Luke 17:10).
Fifth, the Spirit inspires creativity in the workplace. Through the Spirit’s work, we can do good and beautiful things as workers. The stunning Old Testament example of this is Bezalel.
See I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri...and I have filled him with the Spirit of God [The only person in the Old Testament of whom this was said], with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and will all kinds of skill to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze...to work in wood, and to engage all kinds of crafts (Exod 31:2-5).
How does this work? God the Spirit gives wisdom—practical intelligence and vision in seeing, designing and figuring out how to do it. God the Spirit gives discernment—clarity in problem-solving. And God the Spirit gives skill—practical ability: hands and heart joined in doing. So Spirit work glorifies God. It is a practical way of loving our neighbors and Spirit work embellishes human life and creates beauty. God tells Moses to have sacred garments made for Aaron “for glory and for beauty” (Exod 28:2). Beauty is not just in music and graphic art, but a meal or a deal, a voice or an invoice, an operation or cooperation, a community formed or immunity created, a test or a quest, a swept floor or forgiven heart, a canvas painting or a computer program, a plaything or a work-thing, a toy or a tool. Is it possible that Christians could be the most creative people on earth? Edmund H. Oliver, a Canadian clergyperson has tabulated the social achievements of the Christian church as a pioneer and not merely an ambulance.[13]
Sixth, the Holy Spirit brings joy into our lives and even our work. Joy is one aspect of the Spirit fruit in Galatians 5:22-3 and a distinguishing mark of the Christian. Throughout the Acts of the Apostles, people are filled with the Holy Spirit and joy. But not just joy in the gathered fellowship or even joy in ministry, but joy in working—getting into it heart and soul—using our gifts and talents. Cardinal Wyszynski affirms this “it is good” joy that God and God-imaging creatures experience.
[Humankind] feels an almost divine joy when [they] contemplate the signs of [their] labor in material works. Just as God during the seven days of creation declared repeatedly that all He had made was very good, so [humankind] in [their] work sees a reflection of [their] own image....[14]
Even though there is no perfect “fit” on this side of heaven, there is the joy of working for love, realizing for whom we are working: family, children, loved ones, neighbors (near and far), and ultimately God (Matt 25:40 – “you did it to me”). Again Wyszynski speaks to this: “There is the joy that flows from the feeling of having completed some task that will be useful for one’s neighbors.”[15] Further, there is the joy of working with and for God. Again, Wyszynski says,
Work becomes for the man [generic] the source of great new joy… from the knowledge that he is acting ‘hand in hand’ with the Creator, from the graces of his state flowing over all his works, and from the actual grace given like a good spirit to all his efforts, labors, and works.
But ultimately through the Spirit, we experience the joy of working in God. God is not a deadpan autocrat but is the most joyous being in the universe and we enter now, partly, and in the final evaluation, fully, into the Master’s joy (Matt 25:23). Scripture is full of it: “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” said Nehemiah to the returned exiles (Neh 8:10). Psalm 16:11 says of God: “You fill me with joy in your presence.” (Psa 16:11) Then there is the joy of God in creation (Prov 8:27, 30), in redemption, in consummation. “You,” said the prophet Isaiah, “will find your joy in the Lord” (Isa 58:13-4). Such is the fruit of the Spirit. “The Christian is a controlled drunk, purposively intoxicated with the joy of the life which is perpetually created by God himself,” said Canon Stanley Evans.[16]
So, to summarize, the Father is the originating principle. Workers do the Father’s work when they design and envision a task. Workers do the Son’s work when they “incarnate” the plan, execute it, and serve in humility and with downward mobility (Phil 2; John 20:21). And workers do the Spirit’s work when they evaluate, express the creativity inspired by the Spirit, and enjoy their work (Exod 31; Isa 58:14). So much for head and heart in the worker and the marketplace theologian. We turn now to the hand, to practice. And here I must be personal about what I have learned about myself as a worker and God’s view of the worker.
Workers Reflecting God in Practice—Hands and Strength
I have had many jobs in my 84 years and each one has taught me something about the meaning of work and of myself as a worker under God and God’s view of the worker.
Pastor Assignment Number 1
My wife Gail and I started our marriage in the inner city of Montreal, Quebec, where we pastored a dying English-speaking church. Its building was located in the midst of a very mixed and needy community with seventeen ethnic groups of people. I learned that pastoral work is hard, very hard, and that one does not see rapid fruit from it. A pastor sets out to build a people, empowering people to use their gifts and creating a community that prizes people and serves the community. In the process, I learned about myself that I love to be liked and that I do not like criticism. A pastor gets lots of it. I remember telling my spiritual friend, Bill, over a Montreal smoked meat sandwich in Leister’s Deli, that I was quitting. When he asked why I explained that I was spending most of my time putting out fires in the congregation (who is leaving? Who is disgruntled?). Bill asked me what kind of church I wanted to belong to. I said, “No one would want it.” He said, “I might. Tell me about it.” So, we scribbled on serviettes the shape of the church for which God has given me a vision. And a year later it was substantially realized. I learned that without a vision the people perish, and so does the pastor. I learned that I needed to sound my own voice as a leader and not merely keep the ecclesiastical wheels turning. I also learned that if you change the culture quickly the culture will change you giving you an exit visa! We spent years reinforcing the good things in the culture and ignoring most of the negative features.
Baptist “Bishop” Assignment No 2
After six years of pastoring, I was asked to become an area minister overseeing nineteen churches in the province of Quebec. I was too young for the job, twenty-nine to be exact. There are many positive things I experienced during that year but one led me to resign within a year. As an area minister, I was considered a denominational staff and needed to go to Toronto to meet with staff monthly. The first item on the agenda as “Will we lick stamps or rent a postage meter?” We debated this for hours and came up with a compromise; for one month we would rent a postage meter and try it out. Next month when I walked through the mail room I discovered two boxes, one for metered mail and the other for stamped mail. You can guess what the first item on the agenda was! I was, I thought, a misfit in an administrative job. I wanted to create something not lubricate the machinery. I have since learned that I missed a golden opportunity to be mentored in the ministry of administration. Once again, I was learning about myself and learning, at the same time, about the purpose of God in our work. Martin Luther said one’s daily work is the situation in which the Christian’s sinful self must be put to death within and by the demands of daily life in vocation. “It is the place,” Luther argued, “in which the person of faith chooses sides in the ongoing combat between God and Satan. The ‘old self’ must bear vocation’s cross as long as life on earth continues and the battle against the devil continues.”[17] So the pressures of the marketplace have a purifying result, even if we may shrink from saying as does Cardinal Wyszynski that the toil of work is salvic, and a remedy for original sin. “Christ wants us to take the whole burden of work on His cross, to become co-sufferers with him. The hardship of work is our daily cross.”[18] Shocked at this when I first read it, I now wonder whether this really different from Paul’s exhortation to work out the salvation that God has worked into us, with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). I was not ready for that fear and trembling. What followed was an abrupt change.
Coaching and counseling: InterVarsity Staff Worker for the Atlantic Provinces
“Will you go anywhere in the world,” I was asked in the interview? Move to Halifax on the East Coast and cover the five Atlantic provinces, came the assignment. We did and loved living there, loved the students in the five universities I was responsible for and loved the creative opportunity to take students on canoe trips in the summer and to counsel one on one with them. I loved teaching the Bible which I did weekly in a friend’s house with students coming and going. There was, however, one major snag. I was traveling and on the road fifty percent of the time, and with a young family that needed their father. So, when InterVarsity asked me to move to the West coast, to Vancouver, and become divisional director for the province we felt this was the hand of God—less traveling but more administration. In reading what I am writing I realize that I seem to be a person trying to find his vocation. And indeed that is the truth. As Karl Barth once said we find our calling by experimentation, by trying out various service roles and contexts. Meanwhile, the church of which we were members tons of students and the leaders invited me to pastor them.
Pastoral Assignment Number 2
The next four years were terrific, engaging, fun, and also trying. Pastoral work is a meat-grinder as one tries to reconcile the needs and desires of so many diversely inclined people. This time I was mainly using my communication gifts speaking morning and evening to hundreds of students and families. It was a dream but not a dream without a problem. So, when I resigned after only four years the people wondered what hit them. And when they realized that I was going to support my family through carpentry they thought I had “left the ministry.” In fact, as I told my friends, “I have never left the full-time ministry.” But there were longings to be fulfilled, and one sturdy and persistent longing was to work in the world. I had gone from university to seminary to first church and while pastors usually work too hard, I felt there was something missing in my experience of work. I am also a mission-hearted person who wanted to engage the marginalized and the outsider. I taught and worked with the congregation to substantiate that their dispersed life in the workplace was holy and pleasing to God, and a major mission field for the twenty and twenty-first century, I needed to model this. Pastoral service has a unique hazard and I soon began to realize that I was praying more as a carpenter than I was as a pastor. George MacDonald put it this way: In George MacDonald’s novel, The Curate’s Awakening, there is a fascinating interchange about church work.
The great evil in the church has always been the presence in it of persons unsuited for the work required of them there. One very simple sifting rule would be, that no one should be admitted to the clergy who had not first proved himself capable of making a better living in some other calling.... I would have no one ordained till after forty, by which time he would know whether he had any real call or only a temptation to the church from the hope of an easy living.[19]
I was thirty-seven, not forty!
Carpentry and Business
I have written elsewhere about my experience in housebuilding and home renovation in Vancouver. Suffice it to say that it was hard to start at thirty-seven in a very physical calling but as my mentor kept reminding me, “the sleep of the laborer is sweet” (Eccl 5:12). It seemed to me that other carpenters were dancing on the thin-edged top of 2x10 floor joists and walking swiftly on top of 2x4 walls carrying one end of roof trusses without thinking about the risk (I did, both think of the risk and did it!) One thing I discovered was the tremendous satisfaction of seeing a result from one’s daily work. As I threw my nail belt into the trunk of my Chevy Nova I could look back and see that we had framed an entire story of a house that day. And the business end of the enterprise was a learning experience. I soon learned that sending out an invoice was not regarded as an obligation but rather was a signal that they would be bugged repeatedly for payment. It was, however, work, including the bookkeeping I was doing on the side to make ends meet in our household. I was learning that the average person spends a load of time and their primary energy at work. I also learned that manual work requires brains and not just brawn. The ancient philosopher Anaxagorus wrote, “It is by having hands that man is the most intelligent of animals.” For the early Heidigger, ‘handiness’ is the mode in which things in the world show up for us most originally: “the nearest kind of association is not mere perceptual cognition, but, rather, a handling, using and taking care of things which has its own kind of ‘’knowledge.’”[20] Something is being lost in this information and creativity society. “What is new,” continues Crawford, “is the wedding of futurism to what might be called ‘virtualism’: a vision of the future in which we somehow take leave of material reality and glide about in a pure information economy.”[21] In the Bible, the first artisan is God – the worker, who makes things with imagination, creativity, with both form and function.
Pastoral Assignment Number 3
Mark Twain quoting someone else said it well. “‘Blessed is the man who has found his work’? Whoever it was he had the right idea in his mind. Mark you, he says his work – not somebody else’s work. The work that is really man’s own work is play and not work at all.”[22] I was finding my work but not sure I had found it. I returned to a dynamic though small church ministering to students and families near the university. It was a thriving cause, standing room only (in a small building) three times on Sunday. I was working in a plural eldership with mature people each of whom could have led their own church. But it was obvious that we needed to church plant, and church plant we did. One Friday afternoon I received a phone call from the clerk of a church even nearer to the campus. “Mr. Stevens, you have a space problem.” “Yes, we have.” “We have the reverse one. We have a 700-seat church with only 40 people meeting in it. Would you like to rent our facility?” I immediately said, “Yes.”
Professor
I was going into Carey Hall on business and the President said, “I want you to apply for an open faculty position.” I said, “You don’t want me, I’m too controversial.” He said, “That’s why we want you. You are a maverick and we need a maverick here.” After two years at Carey, I moved to Regent College with whom Carey was, at the time, in a partnership. And after two more years, I became the academic dean in a strange way.
The selection committee chose me as the inside candidate but they had an outside candidate that was better qualified. At the interview, I realized that what the faculty wanted was a senior academic, which I was not. So, I withdrew. But when they went to the outside candidate he withdrew as his marriage was dissolving. So, they came to me and asked me to do it for a year’s interim. I said, “No. I am not an interim. I will tinker with it. Four years or nothing!” They came back and offered two years. I said, “Four years or nothing.” They scrimmaged again and offered me three years. This time, my wife and I prayed furiously and agreed to do it for three years. Meanwhile, I was teaching full time, as well as writing books annually. At the end of three years, I said to my wonderful assistant, “I am going back to faculty.” She said, “You cannot.” “Why not?” Then she looked at me and said, “I refuse to train another dean!” So, I did another three years. But they were the most spiritually forming years in all my work life as my President mentored me, along the lines of “in this job you will have to deal with yourself. And I will help you.” And something happened in me. I realized what I had been fleeing all these years was a critically important ministry, that administration and management is a practical way to love, providing an infrastructure whereby people can thrive, prizing giftedness, defining reality and saying thanks.
Retirement and The Institute for Marketplace Transformation
At sixty-eight, I retired from the faculty of Regent College but kept teaching and writing. I had become the Professor of marketplace theology and leadership and was traveling globally, teaching and encouraging my students who had returned to their home countries. While I had been full-time at Regent I had started the Marketplace Institute to facilitate the connection of faith and work for people who could not quit their jobs and come to Vancouver. This institute needed to be nimble and entrepreneurial, the very opposite of the academic community. Then one of my former students sent me an email. Dr. Dae Kyung Lee, an oral surgeon in Seoul, and a Regent grad wrote me an email that he was praying about a vision: an Institute (or school) for Christian Life, a Bible and Marketplace Institute, “with you as President. I am wondering if you are able to be part of the plan. The possible location is Jeju Island, South Korea, and the main language would be English, with consideration of Chinese and Korean translation.”
I was instantly interested. I had just retired from Regent but I had 50 years of teaching, publishing, modeling, and advocating for the marketplace under my belt and in my heart. The Marketplace Institute at Regent which was taken over by my successor, Paul Williams. But I was 77 years of age. “Am I crazy to be starting something at this age?” I asked my physician and my accountability group. “Keep engaged,” they both said. And now the IMT movement has become global with regional centers in Hong Kong, South-East Asia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and North America. Why decentralized? Because a theology of work must be contextualized to the culture. But there was one more work assignment that was not easy to contextualize.
Homemaking
During the past years, as my wife has become more frail and handicapped I have taken on a new role alongside my part-time commitment to IMT. I have become a full-time homemaker, making meals and keeping the house and making the house a home, which is why some people call homemaking “hearth-keeping.”
Now along with IMT I am taking care of my wife (she has, since writing this, passed into her next assignment in the new heaven and new earth) and managing the household. I have a helper to do the laundry and housecleaning but I do the cooking, work which my wife has done for 60 years of our marriage. It is just like any other work, hard but good, appreciated and taken for granted, and is as pleasing to God as speaking the gospel to a vast audience. Perhaps more so, because you are pouring your life into people you know and love.
My Learnings
So what have I learned about a theology of work from my own work-life? First, I learned that the theology of work is good for the body and the soul, it puts stamina in your energies, it explains why work is hard but good, and it teases us with the thought that some of what we have done in this life “for the Lord” with faith, hope and love will last and find its place in the New Heaven and New Earth. But what have I learned about being a worker? Second, I learned that finding one’s calling to the workplace is a lifetime process rather than a one-time word from God (except of course to love God and to love our neighbor). Third, I learned that it is important not to leave work prematurely, as I have done more than once. The ancient desert fathers and mothers had a saying: “Stick to your cell it will teach you everything.” In other words, you can only learn about yourself, and God’s purpose for your work by an extensive commitment to us, for which the ancient English word “longanimity” is meaningful. Fourth, I learned that God gives approval and delights in your work well done because it is well done and done for him even when people do not acknowledge that you are doling the work of the Lord, and they may entertain leaving their so-called secular job to “go into the ministry.” We are working for an audience of one. Fifth, any work and not especially religious or church work is an arena for spiritual growth. Pity the person who has so much money that they never need to work. The Puritan William Perkins called them “damnable.”
Whew! I have not even mentioned by avocational pursuits that include photography, publishing photographic books, building a cabin in the Gulf Island off the coast of Vancouver Island, and most of my time doing my work on behalf of our three children, our eight grandchildren, and our two great-grandsons. But each of these assignments has been revelatory, not just of who I am but for the revelation of what it means for me to be a worker under God.
Yes, head, heart, and hands—all engaged in doing marketplace theology well.
[1] Thomas F. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 1.
[2] See Phil Collins and R. Paul Stevens, The Equipping Pastor: A Systems Approach to Congregational Leadership (New York: The Alban Institute, 1993).
[3] Christian Schumacher, God In Work: Discovering the Divine Pattern for Work in the New Millennium (Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1998), 75.
[4] Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 218.
[5] William J. Dumbrell, “Creation, Covenant and Work,” Crux, September 1988, Vol XXIV, No 3, 17.
[6] Schumacher, God In Work, 74,76.
[7] Schumacher, God In Work, 71, emphasis mine.
[8] I am unable to determine the exact original location of this quotation.
[9] Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, trans. E. Allison Peers (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 139.
[10] Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, 140-1.
[11] Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, 142-3.
[12] R. Paul Stevens and Alvin Ung, Taking Your Soul to Work: Overcoming the Nine Deadly Sins of the Workplace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).
[13] Edmund H. Oliver, The Social Achievements of the Christian Church (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1930/2004).
[14] Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, All You Who Labor: Work and the Sanctification of Daily Life (Manchester, NH: Sophia Press, 1995), 186.
[15] Wyszynski, All You Who Labor, 185.
[16] Kenneth Leech, Experiencing God: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), 103.
[17] This quotation is from an article by Mark Kolden in Word and Work, 383, but I am unable to verify this.
[18] Wyszynski, All You Who Labor, 94.
[19] George MacDonald, The Curate’s Awakening (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House Publishers, 1985), 189-190.
[20] Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class As Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work (New York: Penguin, 2009), 68-9.
[21] Crawford, Shop Class As Soulcraft, 3.
[22] Mark Twain, “A Humorist’s Confession, New York Times, November 26, 1903, quoted in Ben Witherington III, Work: A Kingdom Perspective (Grand Rapids” Eerdmans, 2011), 14, emphasis mine.
