Coram Deo ~

Looking at contemporary culture from a Christian worldview

Faith & Work: Galvanizing Your Church for Everyday Impact by Missy Wallace and Lauren Gill

Faith & Work: Galvanizing Your Church for Everyday Impact by Missy Wallace and Lauren Gill. Redeemer City to City. 287 pages. 2025 
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If  you are a pastor or leader and looking to bring a faith and work context to your church and city, this is the book for you. Written by two leaders in the field who bring a wealth of experience to the subject, the book provides a proven roadmap to follow. The resources in the appendices are more than worth the price of the book.

The purpose of the book is to help pastors and lay leaders to catch a vision for the importance of equipping your church members to integrate their faith with their work – discipling them to live with Christ every minute of every day. The authors tell us that while workers spend about two thousand hours a year at work, they only spend about fifty hours a year at church and around fifty-two hours per year volunteering in churches and other nonprofits. They go on to tell us that if you want your church to be relevant to the day-to-day lives of your congregants and those in your city who don’t yet know Christ, addressing faith and work is essential.

The book is organized as follows:

  • Section One: Explains the “why” behind faith-and-work initiatives.
  • Section Two: The “how” portion of this book, providing practical guidance for implementing the principles explored in section one.
  • At the end of the book is included a “Getting Started Guide” that offers practical steps to quickly incorporate faith and work in your existing church activities.
  • In the appendices are provided numerous supplementary materials to equip you as you seek to build out faith-and-work initiatives in your context.
  • At the end of each chapter are helpful “Reflection Questions”.

The book goes over the Faith-and-Work Framework for Unleashing the Gospel, which focuses on what the Bible calls us to, daily, as disciples of Jesus. The authors also introduce us to the Heart-Community-World framework, a key tool for developing the integrated leader as it reveals how the gospel impacts everything: our hearts, our communities, and the systems and industries in our world.

The authors tell us that the integration of faith and work takes place at three levels: the individual leader level (both you and those you serve), the church level, and the city level.

This is a book filled with helpful resources for leaders who want to bring a faith and work context to their churches and cities. It would be an excellent book to read and discuss with your church leadership team.

Here are 10 of my favorite quotes from the book:

  • Work is a key mechanism for discipleship because so much of who we are is intertwined with the work we do, and work is part of God’s unfolding story to redeem the world.
  • All of our work allows us an opportunity to serve as redemptive agents for God’s work, no matter our industry.
  • Work is the ultimate sphere you must penetrate in order to call your people to a deeper relationship with God.
  • The opportunity for your congregants to love their neighbors as themselves in and through their work is key to utilizing their work hours for God’s glory.
  • Achieving excellence at work is another way we can love our neighbors, as a sustainable workplace keeps people employed.
  • A leader who has integrated faith and work is one who realizes the gospel changes how they interact with others through their work.
  • Faith-and-work-integrated leaders are the key to building a faith-and-work-integrated church or city.
  • Building the leadership team is the most critical step to the long-term success of implementing faith-and-work efforts in your setting.
  • It’s crucial to prioritize the integration of faith and work into the church’s core practices.
  • If all you can do at this time is add work-based examples into your sermons, you are making big cultural progress and impacting your entire congregation with minimal incremental effort.