Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• Should Christians Travel with a Colleague of the Opposite Gender? Miranda Carls responds to the question “My work requires me to travel regularly, sometimes with colleagues. Occasionally, I’m assigned to a trip with someone of the opposite gender. As a Christian, I’m not sure how to handle that. I’m not afraid of having an affair, but I don’t want to give even the impression of impropriety. What should I do?”
• Golden Rule for Your Email Mailbox. Caroline Stoltzfus asks “How can we love and serve our fellow emailers without spending too much time in our inboxes?”
• Working with Dan Doriani: Collin Hansen. On this episode of the Working with Dan Doriani podcast, Dan visits with Collin Hansen about his work, historical movements within the American church and the legacy of Tim Keller.
  Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:
  • More links to interesting articles
  • The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
  • Faith and Work Book Review ~ Our Secular Vocation: Rethinking the Church’s Calling to the Marketplace by J. Daryl Charles
  • Quotes from the book Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society by Amy Sherman.

• A Reflection on Land, Work and Rain. Russ Gehrlein writes “In your job, have you seen God provide everything you need to do the work He has called you to do? Do you see yourself as God’s coworker as you meet the wide spectrum of human needs through what you do forty hours a week? Do you sense God’s presence in your work?”
• Called to Lead. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace is available in both a paperback and Kindle edition. Read a free sample (Introduction through Chapter 2).
• How God Works in Our Fourth-Quarter Neediness. John Pletcher writes “For many of us in our workplaces and leadership, it’s the fourth quarter and we feel it. There is so much to accomplish!”
• How to Care for Our Own “Garden of Eden”. Russ Gehrlein writes “What does it mean that God called Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” and “to subdue the earth” (Gen. 1:28)? What does it mean for us to work and take care of our own gardens?”
• A Specific Vocation and Several Callings. Luke Bobo writes “What is a calling to the Christian, exactly? Is it the same as a vocation? Should one’s calling be separated from one’s job, or can they coalesce together? Does a disruption like being fired suggest that job was not a calling in the first place? Who issues this call and how do we even hear it? It can seem impossible to know where to begin when it comes to discerning the nature of our work.”
• Working with Dan Doriani: Kathryn Alsdorf. On this episode of the Working with Dan Doriani podcast, Dan visits with Kathryn Alsdorf, co-author of Every Good Endeavor with Tim Keller.

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Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes the Week

• You will not have a meaningful life without work, but you will lose yourself if you say work is the meaning of your life. Tim Keller 
• The fear of the Lord is the only fear that imparts strength. This is an especially vital truth for any who are called to some form of leadership, for the strength this fear gives is—uniquely—a humble strength. Those who fear God are simultaneously humbled and strengthened before his beauty and magnificence. Michael Reeves
• The quality of our work will speak loudly so our coworkers an hear our words of life. We are sowing seeds when we do our jobs well, which may lead to opportunities to share the gospel. Russ Gehrlein
• No task will be so sordid and base, provided you obey your calling in it, that it will not shine and be reckoned very precious in God’s sight. John Calvin
• Servant leadership means putting others before yourself. Dee Ann Turner
• Mission includes our secular vocations, not just church ministry. Tim Keller
• As Christ-followers, we are compelled to pursue excellence in each of our callings in life. Jordan Raynor
• A sense of calling should precede a choice of job and career, and the main way to discover calling is along the line of what we are each created and gifted to be. Instead of, “You are what you do,” calling says: “Do what you are.” Os Guinness
• When God comes into the world he comes not as a philosopher or general, but as a carpenter. Tim Keller

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

Our Secular Vocation: Rethinking the Church’s Calling to the Marketplace by J. Daryl Charles. B&H Academic. 336 pages. 2023
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Despite its somewhat confusing title (it comes from Dorothy Sayers’ classic essay “Why Work?”), this is an excellent book about the Christian’s vocation, and one that I would commend to you. The author tells us that the church is largely silent about work, vocation, or the marketplace to which 99 percent of those in the body of Christ are called.  The marketplace is the chief setting in which Christians impact society. It is there that, day in and day out and generation after generation, Christian influence will produce its greatest effect. But Charles tells us, tragically, most pastors and Christian leaders remain ill-equipped to offer counsel on matters of work. He wonders how anyone can take Christianity seriously, particularly in a post-Christian era, if the church has little vision for that domain in which all people—not just Christians—spend so much of their time?
The book represents an attempt at synthesizing the theological and the hermeneutical, the historical and the contemporary, the ethical and the pastoral, and is organized as follows:
Chapters 2 and 3 are of a theological nature. They examine the roots of our social and ecclesiastical predicament with a view to then probe its theological underpinnings.
Chapter 4 looks back in history to the early sixteenth century in an attempt to appreciate a significant breakthrough in terms of the church’s understanding of work, vocation, and the marketplace.
Chapters 5 and 6 go together insofar as they illuminate perspectives on work in the Wisdom literature of Ecclesiastes and establish a link between our work and our callings (our vocations).
Chapters 7 and 8 include reflections on the church’s presence in society, and questions of discernment and guidance with respect to vocation.
This thoroughly researched and well-written volume covers a number of subjects including rewards, retirement, education, poverty, calling, divine providence, doctrine of creation, the need for a serious theology of work, wisdom literature, Martin Luther, the book of Ecclesiastes, the false dichotomy of the sacred-versus-secular mindset, discernment, the priesthood of all believers, and the common good.
Below are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

• Our work, embedded in the context of our individual callings, is nothing less than worship.
• Since work is participation or cooperation in God’s purposes and activity in the created order, it has an intrinsic ethical value of its own.
• To work is to reflect God’s nature, his very likeness.
• Our mission is the marketplace.
• The tragic reality is that few people see their daily work as connected to the purposes of God and as a means by which to flourish.
• All legitimate work is an extension and expression of God’s work.
• Work is a gift, instituted at creation. As a gift, it conveys a sense of dignity, value, and fulfillment.
• In our cultural context, retirement is almost universally viewed as a release from work. However, this perspective lacks any biblical warrant. Scripture nowhere releases human beings from their labors and service to others as long as they can breathe.
• Scripture promises that our endeavors, however long we live and regardless of whether we are paid, have enduring value.
• Jobs may (and usually will) change, but one’s underlying calling does not, since it is given by God and transcends a job, an occupation, or a particular season of life.
• Work is a heavenly vocation and divine gift to be received with gratitude.
• The teaching of Ecclesiastes is that work is a satisfying gift coming from the hand of God.
• God equips us with specific giftings and abilities and plants within each of us unique burdens for the purpose of serving him and serving others.
• We do not get to select but instead receive our vocations from God.
• We discover our vocations through a progressive and gradual process, which entails the various seasons of our lives.
• Vocation, then, is properly understood as a way of life and not merely a job, occupation, or even a “career.”
• Every believer, then, has a particular calling—a vocation—even when he or she may not have a clear sense of it, or even a clearly defined career or occupation. This means that even should my work, my job, or my career come to an end, my calling (my vocatio), which is all-encompassing and broader, does not.
• Vocation entails the basic awareness that, based on the image of God within us, we are created for work, which can be a form of worship.
• Vocation entails a willingness to serve others and thereby serve the common good.
• Every endeavor, every labor, every task has meaning and purpose when done to honor God and serve the neighbor.
• Vocation and our calling in Christ determine a person’s identity, not what we do or achieve.

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Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

We are reading Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society by Amy Sherman. Sherman is also the author of Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, a book I first read in my “Calling, Vocation and Work” class at Covenant Seminary.
Every corner, every square inch of society can flourish as God intends, and Christians of any vocation can become agents of that flourishing. In this book, Sherman offers a multifaceted, biblically grounded framework for enacting God’s call to seek the shalom of our communities in six arenas of civilizational life (The Good, The True, The Beautiful, The Just, The Prosperous, and The Sustainable).
This week we look at Chapter 9: A Strategy for Cultivating the Just Advance Restorative Justice.

• In west Michigan a coalition of churches and nonprofit organizations are vigorously seeking to bring reform. They are advocates of “restorative justice,” a paradigm rooted in biblical reflection.
• The first is engaging in holistic ministry among prison inmates. This includes putting resources into their hands and helping their loved ones.
• PinC’s second focus is on ministry outside the prison. Its CONTACT initiative (Celebrating Our Network of Trust, Accountability, Collaboration and Training) facilitates returning citizens’ reentry into the life of the community.
• PinC’s third main focus is on advocacy.
• The Bible urges us to remember those in prison.
• One in three Americans has an arrest record.