— Theology of Work

We are excited to share with you some of the great content from our friends at Theology of Work, as originally published on their website. TOW Project resources are meant to be both theologically rigorous and genuinely practical. They are committed to bringing the Bible into the lived experience of work in every sphere of society.

When Christians ask about vocation (or “calling”), we usually mean, “Is God calling me to a particular job, profession or type of work?” This is a significant question, because the work we do is important to God. If work is important, it makes sense to ask what work God wants us to do. 

In the Bible, God does indeed call people—some people, at least—to particular work, and gives all people various kinds of guidance for their work. We will explore biblical accounts of these “calls” in depth. Although scripture seldom actually uses the word “call” to describe God’s guidance to jobs, occupations, or tasks, these occurrences in the Bible do correspond to what we usually mean by a vocational “calling.” So, as a preliminary answer, we can say “yes,” God does lead people to particular jobs, occupations, and types of work. 

But in the Bible, the concept of calling goes deeper than any one aspect of life, such as work. God calls people to become united with himself in every aspect of life. This can only occur as a response to Christ’s call to follow him. The calling to follow Christ lies at the root of every other calling. It is important, however, not to confuse a calling to follow Christ with a calling to become a professional church worker. People in every walk of life are called to follow Christ with equal depth and commitment.

In this article, after exploring the call to follow Christ, we will explore the calling to particular work in light of many of the biblical passages related to calling. We will show how the cooperative work of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit guides and models our work. 

The call to belong to Christ and participate in his redemptive work in the world

In the Bible, the word “call” is used most often to refer to God’s initiative to bring people to Christ and to participate in his redemptive work in the world. This sense of calling is especially prominent in the letters of Paul, whether or not the word “call” is actually used.

Romans 1:6

…including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:28

All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

1 Timothy 2:4

[God] desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2 Corinthians 5:17-20

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

The calling to belong to Christ goes deeper than the kinds of workplace “calling” that are the main focus of this article. For this reason, it is important to start our exploration of calling with the call to follow Jesus. It is a call to a restored relationship with God and with other people and with the world around us. It encompasses all of a person’s being and doing. It reminds us that the call to a particular kind of work is secondary to the call to belong to Christ and to participate in his redemption of the world.

In particular, our work must be an integral part of our participation in Christ himself. His work of creation underlies the act of creativity and production in the universe (John 1:1-3). His work of redemption can occur in every workplace through justice, healing, reconciliation, compassion, kindness, humility and patience (Colossians 3:12). Christ’s redemptive work is not limited to evangelism, but encompasses everything necessary to make the world what God always intended it to be. This redemptive work occurs in harmony with the work of creation, production and sustenance that God delegated to humanity in the Garden of Eden. The Bible does not indicate that the work of redemption has superseded the work of creation. Both continue, and in general, Christians are commanded to participate in the work of both creation and redemption.

— Continue reading the longer article here at the TOW Project website.

  — Dr. Michaela O’Donnell Long

At FDE, we love hearing from female leaders and what they’ve learned. Dr. Michaela O’Donnell Long is the senior director of Fuller’s De Pree Center for Leadership. She is also the co-founder of Long Winter Media, a creative agency that helps brands make an impact. Michaela teaches as an adjunct professor of Practical Theology and Leadership at Fuller.

This piece was originally published on Fuller’s De Pree Center for Leadership website.

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I graduated seminary in 2011, on the heels of the Great Recession. Very few companies were hiring. In fact, many were laying people off. Let’s just say that in a depressed economy there is very little demand for someone with an advanced degree in theology and no record of success in any industry. To complicate matters, I had just gotten married to someone who—like me—had just graduated seminary and had very little work experience.  So there we were, excited to be married, but with no jobs, no money, and no prospects.

We filled in with odd jobs, me writing for websites and Dan editing a few videos for a friend. But, in December of 2011, we got two calls that would help us launch our business. The first was from one of my seminary professors. He knew I was jobless and wondered if I might help an organization he worked with develop a keynote presentation. The other call was from an interior designer friend of my father’s. She wanted to know if Dan could help her make a video. Driven by financial necessity, we immediately said yes to both opportunities.  After the projects were finished we decided that we should turn “creative work” into an official side hustle—a way to save money for a house. We put together a quick website and officially launched in an email to family and friends. Within three months of that email, we had full time work. We had accidently started a full-fledged business.

When we started Long Winter, I didn’t have the time to stop and ask myself if I was passionate about “creative work.” That lack of space to process is one of the great gifts of my life. If I had had too much time to think about things I might have realized, “I don’t even know how to make videos or do branding. I don’t actually even know what branding is. So, no I suppose I’m not passionate about this work.” In other words, if passion had been a measure for discerning God’s call I would have missed what has been—by far—the most formative work experience I have ever had.

Our cultural obsession with passion as a prerequisite for work threatens to cut vocational formation off at the head. In other words, if we insist on using passion as a measure for what we ought to do—or worse, proverbially prostrate to passion as if it were the holy grail of work—we will stunt the rate at which we try things, iterate, and reflect. Trying things, iterating, and reflecting are some of our greatest tools for learning about how God is forming us and fitting us for this world.  In this, we are reminded that vocation is formed, not found through an ongoing—and often complicated—process of discernment rooted in context, convictions, and community.  In other words, action precedes reflection. Thus, experimentation precedes formation.

Readying ourselves for this formation journey starts with accepting that we are God’s beloved—and that God’s call to us as beloved is the underpinning of any work we do in this world. The good news here is that we need not know what we are passionate about in order to know that God calls us—regularly and with fervency—both to commune with God but also to unique opportunities in our world.  Our passions may very well be formed as we engage God’s callings, but they, themselves are not what we live in pursuit of.

I have learned much about my vocation, my gifting, and even my passions through the starting and running of Long Winter. Had I not leapt before I looked, these learnings might still be unknown to me. My two hopes for us are this: First, that we fear not in trying new things when we sense God’s activity in our midst—that we open ourselves up to the possibility that sometimes we will need to leap before we look. Second, I hope that we can cultivate new mental models about passion and work because most people only know what they are passionate about after they’ve experimented, iterated and reflected.

…

[Special thanks to Steve Johnson on Unsplash for the cover photo.]

Article originally hosted and shared with permission by The Christian Economic Forum, a global network of leaders who join together to collaborate and introduce strategic ideas for the spread of God’s economic principles and the goodness of Jesus Christ. This article was from a collection of White Papers compiled for attendees of the CEF’s 2018 Global Event.

— by David Park

Culture and Leadership are Important
Many of the attributes of great companies and organizations are well known: A high-performing team, sustainable competitive advantage, appropriate capitalization, and sound governance often lead to excellent outcomes in profit or impact. In addition to these attributes, having an exceptional organizational culture has become critical to attracting and retaining the best people. Even when a culture has not yet been established, founders and investors choose to work with each other partly based on shared values.

The culture of an organization will embody the values and personality of the leaders, so much so that changing an organization’s culture usually means changing its leaders. Much has been written about organizational culture and even more has been written about leadership. This literature tends to focus on personal or team effectiveness, strategies, and tactics for improving productivity, as well as reviews of aspects of popular corporate cultures. I am increasingly convinced, however, that we have missed an important foundation of healthy culture and effective leadership.

Emotional Health Matters
Daily, there are stories in the media about leadership failures ranging from fraud to scandal. Most individuals have experienced dysfunctional management and culture stemming from poor leadership within their organizations. For leaders who seem to lead from insecurity, fear, or anger, the consequences are apparent. For even the most talented leaders, though, often it seems there is a dark side to their brilliance and drive. Too late, we read about a hidden sin that was corrupting their lives from within. Christian leaders are not exempt from these failures.

Why are these stories so frequent? I contend these failures are principally matters of the heart, the consequence of neglecting to identify and address issues of emotional health. Expecting emotionally unhealthy leaders to build healthy cultures is not reasonable. How leaders handle relationships, failure, stress, and conflict is all driven, to a large degree, by their interior state. Without regular investment in improving their emotional health, they are hampered in their ability to lead well. Leaders who are not emotionally healthy often struggle to reconcile what they believe with how they behave. They also have difficulty managing their fear and insecurity, and are often overwhelmed by circumstances and pressure.

Emotional health is not a popular or familiar topic. Very little in formal or informal education addresses issues of emotional health. To cope with the challenges of life, people often default to their personalities, or to examples from their family of origin, which may include behaviors that can lead to process addictions and substance abuse. Many people naturally seek coaching and education in the areas of professional knowledge or physical health, but they do not do the same with emotional health. Working on improving emotional health is often hard, painful work. In addition, many view going to see a counselor or therapist as shameful, so they only do so as a last resort.

Examples of Emotional Health Issues
The following are a just a few examples of causes or symptoms of emotional health issues.

Trauma
Childhood or developmental trauma often goes unidentified, so the wounds fester into adulthood. These become the lens through which individuals experience the world and often spur the development of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Trauma is not limited to sexual or physical abuse, but can be the result of many life experiences including divorce, death, injury, or neglect.

Compulsive behavior
To distract from or become numb to pain, many individuals resort to process addictions (e.g., shopping, eating, and pornography) and substance abuse. These individuals may be highly functioning but are living with destructive behaviors that may eventually cause significant damage.

Poor understanding of personalities
Most people lack a useful framework for understanding different personalities, including their own. Gender, ethnic, or other stereotypes are of limited use in understanding individual motivations and temperaments.

Lack of boundaries
Many individuals struggle with differentiating themselves from those around them. For these individuals it is difficult to be honest, self-aware, and not manipulative.  

What Can Be Done
These issues cannot be fully resolved by the human resources department of a company. They also cannot be fully addressed through a Corporate Chaplain program. Professional counseling or therapy is needed for individuals to be equipped with the appropriate tools, awareness, and resources.

Make counseling or therapy mandatory for company leaders and provide the resources for it

Too often, we require counseling or therapy only after a problem has been publicly identified. By then, significant damage has already occurred, and more work is required to repair trust. In addition, individuals who are receiving help have been singled out and bear a social burden that can be detrimental to progress. The reality is that everyone has something to work on in emotional health. Making this known and establishing it as the norm would allow individuals to address issues before they become acute and will create more tools for honest and informed dialogue when issues do arise.

Look for alignment with stakeholders

The organization’s intentional investment in emotional health must be transparent, with buy-in and accountability from key stakeholders including the board and investors. The effort is likely to be material in impact, both in cost and benefit, and should be recognized as such.

Seek non-judgmental awareness and growth over uniformity or perfection

There is no ideal personality or temperament. The expectation for counseling or therapy is not perfection. The hope is for personal and collective awareness and growth that will lead to better communication and effectiveness.

The Hidden Key to Building a Great Organization
An organization’s greatness cannot meaningfully exceed the emotional health of its leadership. Eventually, unhealthy leaders will create unhealthy cultures and limit the ability of the company to achieve or sustain success. Fortunately, something can be done about this. Just as we would expect investments in professional training and capital assets to generate a return on investment, we should expect that improving emotional health will pay dividends as well. It is time to bring attention to the need for emotional health in our leaders and invest significantly toward this end.

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[Special thanks for the cover photo to Ben Sweet on Unsplash]

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In this week’s podcast, the team answers a few of your questions around profit making and taking as well as consumerism. One Bay Area listener shares his struggles with being in what he believes is a money-driven industry. The team challenges us all to think about how we can redeem the industries we’re in by making figuring out the best way to serve it our number one goal. William believes that almost all industries are redeemable, Henry encourages us in the ways we can show love for the people in these industries for the purposes of transformation and Rusty reminds us of our true identity as a guide to ensure optimal motives while bringing in those returns. One of our listeners in Nairobi, Kenya asks the team for a biblical viewpoint on consumerism in response to the rise of the global middle class and the team takes us back again to a discussion of heart motive by realigning a few marketing and product design concepts back to the kingdom. And no good podcast on entrepreneurism would ever leave out a few quotes from “Wall Street”.

As we do our mad dashes this Christmas season to show love for the people in our lives, let’s stop and take note of our heart motives in the doing and giving. Tell us who and what you want to partner with our Father God in redeeming this Christmas season by commenting below.

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In this week’s podcast, the team answers a few of your questions around profit making and taking as well as consumerism. One Bay Area listener shares his struggles with being in what he believes is a money-driven industry. The team challenges us all to think about how we can redeem the industries we’re in by making figuring out the best way to serve it our number one goal. William believes that almost all industries are redeemable, Henry encourages us in the ways we can show love for the people in these industries for the purposes of transformation and Rusty reminds us of our true identity as a guide to ensure optimal motives while bringing in those returns. One of our listeners in Nairobi, Kenya asks the team for a biblical viewpoint on consumerism in response to the rise of the global middle class and the team takes us back again to a discussion of heart motive by realigning a few marketing and product design concepts back to the kingdom. And no good podcast on entrepreneurism would ever leave out a few quotes from “Wall Street”.

 As we do our mad dashes this Christmas season to show love for the people in our lives, let’s stop and take note of our heart motives in the doing and giving. Tell us how and what you want to partner with our Father God in redeeming this Christmas season in the comment section below.

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

It’s Monday so that means a video to start the week off!

We continue to highlight The Lion’s Den and their work. With their conferences in Dallas and Birmingham, they have been partners in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur movement for more than 5 years.  Think “Shark Tank” meets the Kingdom of God and you have a sense as to what happens at these events.  This is installment #3 of 4 highlighting their work.  In this video, the TLD team asks Do you want to invest in something you’re passionate about and be engaged in things that excite you? Where is the Lord directing you?

Check out this short video about walking out your faith and growing spiritually by helping and teaching others.

If TLD is something that you think you’d be interested in presenting at, or going to, please go to: https://www.thelionsdendfw.com/pitch-application  — Applications are open until 12/31/18.