We continue to count down the Top 100 Books for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs with…

Work as Worship

by Mark Russell

The time has come for us to see a purpose for business that goes beyond money and that has a vision for this economy that goes even beyond this earth. Built around twelve themes: calling, leadership, character, success, money, stewardship, balance, disciplines, relationships, pluralism, ethics and giving, Work as Worship opens our collective eyes to the spiritual nature and mission of our daily work. Written by respected business leaders from well-known brands (Hobby Lobby, Interstate Batteries, PepsiCo, TOMS Shoes, etc.), Work as Worship creates a space for ongoing community and conversation on these important issues.

Click on the book cover to check out the Reviews and Purchase at Amazon

This article was originally published here by Workship

— by Kara Martin

Recently I was asked to speak on a panel on the topic of ‘Meaningful Work’. I loved the title, and the opportunity to breakdown some common misconceptions Christians have about work:

• Work is a result of the Fall

• There is no intrinsic value in work

• There is a difference between secular work and sacred ministry

• To serve God you must leave work

• If you are not called to ministry then you are called to fund ministry

• If you enjoy secular work then it has become your idol

Work is not a result of the Fall

Instead, I pointed out that work existed before the fall. In Genesis 1:26–28, human beings (men and women equally) are asked to work to steward creation. The first command from God is for the human being to work in the garden (Genesis 2:15). Work is impacted by the Fall (Genesis 3:17–19), but that impact is on the process of working, and the context of work (the ground is cursed), rather than on the activity of work itself.

There is intrinsic value in work

We are made in the image of a God who works, creating a beautiful place for us to work and rest in. Therefore, work is intrinsic to what it means to be a human being. Throughout the Bible work is assumed to be an activity of humans, as a good thing, and there are suggestions in Isaiah 65:17–25, and Revelation 21:24 and 22:2, that there will be work on the New Earth to come.

There is no hard line between secular work and sacred ministry

We are encouraged to work, rather than to be idle (2 Thessalonians 3:6–10), and the Apostle Paul rarely makes a distinction between his work to feed himself and his companions and the proclamation of the Gospel. In fact, he suggests that our work becomes sacred by the attitude of our heart (1 Corinthians 10:31, Colossians 3:17).

We can serve God while in our secular work

Thus, all work is ministry, done with the right attitude, as an act of worship to God and service to others.

This means that we can serve God wherever we are, with whatever we have, and all the gifts he has granted us. Using the descriptors from Robert Banks (Faith Goes to Work), we are continuing God’s work of creating, sustaining, revealing, redeeming, bringing justice and showing compassion through our ordinary work, paid or unpaid.

All are responsible for funding the work of the church

If all work has value, the important thing is to be faithful to the work and the place that God has called us. We can be called by God to work in the church and work outside the church. It means we have to be seeking God, and praying about our choices.

All people are called to be generous to the causes God lays upon our hearts. All work is to be treated as if it is ministry, since all work (other than criminal or exploitive activity) has the capacity to be done in a way that serves God and others.

It is good to enjoy work as a gift from God

It is good to enjoy work, since work was created to be a good thing. Much of our work is impacted by sin, with things failing, conflict amongst workmates, and the frustrations of complications that prevent us from being as fruitful as we had hoped. However, some of us get into the flow of work which brings us much joy, whether it is a burst of creativity, the thrill of a team completing a project, or the sense of having endured and finished solving a complicated problem.

Work can become an idol

Unfortunately, if we have been brought up on a church diet of our ‘secular’ work having no value, then we may feel guilty about enjoying work, or separate it from God as something worthless to God. Ironically, this may mean that we end up treating work as something opposed to God, or competing for our attention and affection.

Derek Thompson, writing in The Atlantic, has warned that work has become a new religion for many people. While historically, our sense of meaning and purpose flowed from our religious faith, now work is seen as a place where we can discover our “identity, transcendence and community”.

If you think you are immune from this, consider how we respond to people we haven’t met before when they ask us what we do for a living… Often we respond with an “I am…” statement. I am a lecturer, and author and a speaker. “I am…” is a statement of identity.

We used to talk about work as our “job”, then it became our “career”, and now it is our “calling”.

Thompson warns against this subtle move to make work our god. While Christians worship a God who is good, the output of work is rarely all good. Making work “the centrepiece of one’s life is to place one’s esteem in the mercurial hands of the market. To be a workist is to worship a god with firing power.”

However, our work is an important part of how God made us. It finds its rightful place when we align our loves, with God at the centre, and when we see work as a gift from a good God, and the means of continuing God’s work of repairing and renewing the earth.

Meaningful work

My friend Gustavo Santos was born into a working-class family. He now studies and teaches faith and work theology, and often reflects on how his Dad saw his work: simply as a job well done, as service, as a means of providing for his family. He sees parallels with the story of Ruth in the Bible, a poor immigrant woman seeking to work to glean enough food for Naomi and herself, who ends up in the genealogy of Jesus. Gustavo writes in an article in Comment Magazine:

[Ruth’s story] tells us that God is always working through us—even if we don’t realize it. At the end of the story, God redeems his people through the faithfulness of two women living in an obscure corner of the world. The lineage of David is established and the providence of God takes another step as daily, wise, diligent work is undertaken by one pair of hands in an interconnected web of thousands.

To be integrated at work is to be fruitful

There is another twist in this message about expressing our faith and finding meaning in our work, revealed in a Barna Group research publication called Christians at Work. In that study they found some surprising results about Christians who were both faithful at work (‘integrated’) and faithful at church (‘practicing’).

The research found that if people were more involved in church activities (including personal devotions), then they were more integrated at work, seeing it as a place where they find meaning and purpose because it is aligned with their God-given calling and gifting. It ended up correlating with improved satisfaction in all areas of life: physical wellbeing, quality of life, emotional health, friendships, spiritual wellbeing, mental health and family relationships.

What is more, they had a transformative effect on their workplaces: speaking the truth, demonstrating morality, practising humility, withstanding temptation, moulding the culture and sharing the gospel.

The results of this research should not be surprising at all.  God made us as whole creatures, not as compartments. When we work well with God in our workplace, in our community, and our church, then it is going to have flow-on benefits. We were made to be integrated, in our beings, and in our lifestyles. Anything less is dis-integrating.

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[ Photo credit: Pixabay ]

— by Faith Driven Entrepreneur Team

Mark McClain is a good friend of the FDE movement and his podcast was an encouraging one for our listeners! On this episode, he shared about struggling with the idea of control, and he also talked about what happened when he realized he couldn’t be the expert at everything. After 20 years of experience as a CEO developing and leading innovative technology companies, he has some great lessons for entrepreneurs. We wanted to share with you his latest book that was released this year!

“Joy and Success At Work: Building Organizations That Don’t Suck The Life Out Of People”

Synopsis:
“I can’t wait to get to work!” When was the last time you felt that way? Have you ever? Mark McClain has and still does. He and his leadership teams have focused on creating companies that make the quality of their employees’ work experiences of equal importance to the quality of the solutions those employees create. With Joy and Success at Work, McClain has produced a manual that shares how he and his teams have done it–and how you and your team can, too. Speaking directly to the lack of fulfillment that too often accompanies work–with generous portions of humor and irreverence–Mark McClain deconstructs the modern business environment, then puts it back together. Shot through with pithy tales from his own experiences, Joy and Success at Work is Mark’s honest take on what team building can be, and done right, what it produces: Great places to work that support people’s broader lives, rather than sucking the life out of them.

Click the link above to access more on the Book!

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[ Image from Amazon ]

— by Chris Horst

A big rig rolled past our family bike caravan. The driver delighted our kids by laying on his air horn as we waved to him. 

With four kids under age ten in quarantine, we seek and savor all our outdoor moments. Our family bike rides these days make us look at the traffic all around us in a new way. This weekend we particularly noticed the delivery vans and freight trucks on the roads–all busy hauling packages and pallets full of food, toilet paper, and medical supplies. 

This global pandemic has created heartache, but it has also revealed new heroes. Amid the public health and economic pain inflicted by this virus, we also see it chipping away at old stereotypes and dismantling our chronic underappreciation of service roles in our economy. The men and women cleaning hospital rooms, stocking grocery shelves, and navigating delivery routes are no longer assumed, but esteemed.

“In 39 years, I don’t recall ever being thanked for just being a truck driver before,” shared Allen Boyd about driving for Walmart during the pandemic. “I appreciate being thanked for a change. I hope that it’s not just during this time and when it goes away, we’re back to just being in everybody’s way again.”

Though truck driving is one of the most common occupations in the United States, it is not generally an occupation held in high esteem. Until now. Just how would we survive without them? This has always been true, of course. But now we feel it. Whether it’s Amazon, Grubhub, Prime Trailer or USPS–these men and women make widespread quarantine and flattening the curve possible. 

God designed us to work. Before sin entered the world and marred both how we work and how we view work, God made it for us. Creating value through our own labor is core to what it means to be human. 

“Right now I feel proud,” shared Jorge Chavez, a truck driver. “I feel good because somehow we’re helping the community to make sure that they get whatever they need in their homes.”

For the last two decades, my older brother, Matthew, has served as a cashier’s assistant at Costco. While I’ve always believed in the dignity and importance of his work, this pandemic certainly magnified it. While many of us hunker down, Matthew ventures out. He takes pride in his work and he should. Matthew, his colleagues, and the 3 million grocery store workers in the US make it possible for the rest of us to withdraw–at significant risk to themselves.  

We will come out of this peril with new scars, but also with new heroes. The teenager stocking the soup and pasta aisle isn’t in our way. He diminishes his safety to make our daily meals possible. The woman mopping the bank floors and teller counters isn’t an afterthought. She ensures we’re all healthy and safe. The man driving the truck on the freeway isn’t clogging the passing lane. He keeps our society working. May we never again forget it. 

For more information on COVID-19, please see our page highlighting some of the best resources out there for Faith Driven Entrepreneurs in this season.

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Lead Pastor | Gwinnett Church

Jeff Henderson is an entrepreneur, speaker, pastor and business leader. Since 2003, he has helped lead three of North Point Ministries churches in the Atlanta, Georgia area.

Jeff was recently named by Forbes Magazine as one of twenty speakers you shouldn’t miss. Prior to serving as a pastor, Jeff worked in marketing with the Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens, Lake Lanier Islands Resorts, and Chick-fil-A, Inc., where he led the company’s sports and beverage marketing efforts.

Jeff has founded several organizations including Champion Tribes, Preaching Rocket, Launch Youniversity, and The FOR Company, which helps organizations grow using the FOR strategy.

Jeff and his wife Wendy have been married 23 years. They have a daughter, Jesse, who is a junior at Samford University and a son, Cole, who is a senior at North Gwinnett High School.

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