Tyla'75

Perhaps it is a forest and trees phenomenon, this tendency to loose sight of the foundational importance of Work…daily, ordinary, routine Work. It is important, from time to time to refresh our thinking about this because, unless we are convinced that Work matters, our opinions about the exercise of Commerce will be built upon sand.

The biblical texts have a great deal to say about work.

Indeed, some years ago, the author Paul Minear described the Bible as “a book by workers, about workers, for workers” (“Work and Vocation in Scripture,” in Work and Vocation, ed. J.O. Nelson, p. 44).

In today’s context, for almost all of us, work is central and work is definitive…or at least our job is.

From early childhood, youngsters are constantly asked what they would like to be when they grow up. The notion of being a “productive” citizen is so imprinted on the nation’s character that when one is suddenly denied access to a job, his or here self-esteem is likely to plummet. Employment is far more than a measure of income: for many, it is the essential measure of self-worth. Jeremy Rifkin, The End of Work, p. 95

Yet, here is the tension…and the tragedy:

Every day, millions of workers go to work without seeing the slightest connection between what they do all day and what they think God wants done in the world.
- Doug Sherman & Bill Hendricks, Your Work Matters to God, p. 7

To counter this distressing reality and to become fluent in upholding the grace and truth of Jesus Christ in the places where we work, we need to cultivate a Worldview that embraces at least the following facts:

1. God is a Worker.
2. God designed and assigned us to be Workers.
3. Our Work reveals our Character.
4. Our Work is our Ministry.

1. GOD IS A WORKER

“In the beginning, God.” At the dawn of the world, we find God at work, engaged in the Perfect Startup. God is working with the energy of his Spirit and the wisdom of his Son. He speaks reality into existence, through his living and active Word.

The six days of creation are highly instructive. We see God shaping, organizing, classifying, labeling, blessing. He creates and develops, in a symphony of collaboration:

From darkness to light

From chaos to order

From empty to full

From simplicity to variety

From making to naming

• Three days are spent separating … and three days are spent filling.

God separates the land from the seas…then fills the land with vegetation and the seas with fish.

This is still how we create: we untangle the chaotic jumble of unfocused opportunities and we concentrate on pouring meaning and significance into what we choose to develop.

•God Assigns Functions.

Everything God makes is contributory. Take the sun and the moon. Genesis 1:14-16 tells us they function for us as signs and as regulators and as separators, in addition to being sources of light.

• God Stimulates Productivity

To exist is one thing, but to generate new products, better services, is much more interesting. For example, God tells the fish—”be fruitful and increase in number and fill the seas.” We can feel God’s enthusiasm for growth and productivity. Why? Because it contributes to the energy and variety and beauty of creation. It fleshes out his universe.

• God Names what he has created.

When we name a new baby or a line of products or a ship, for example, we are confirming the identity of what we have made…we are giving it status and visibility. It is one of the ways, in marketing, that we add value. Naming or branding is part of the creative process.

• God Evaluates

God declares each stage Good and, in the earliest example of synergy, He declares the overall result to be Very Good! It was a system.

• God Capitalizes

God provided a capital base that can perpetually throw off added value.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
— Genesis 1:11-12

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.”  So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day. And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
— Genesis 1:20-25

God gave humankind responsibility to cultivate and husband and manage the growing ecology of all he made.

Even after the judgement recorded in Genesis 6 and 7, God promises Noah: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease” — Genesis 8:22. God capitalized his creation with the conditions required to generate value in perpetuity.

• God Delegates

Having designed and shaped his world…and judged it to be excellent…God hands over the primary responsibility for developing it to us. And, as a good owner, God does not merely hand us the keys to the factory, but tells us explicitly what we are required to do.

Genesis 1 is a compelling glimpse of God’s extraordinary investment in His universe. It was quite a Startup!

Furthermore, God now oversees a process of Capital Renewal. He generates the ingredients for our productive success. He is the supreme Supplier…Sustainer…Investor…and thus the principal Stakeholder.

The earth was set up to accept active leadership. God worked to provide a productive place for us. The more we internalize this, the less likely we are to use or abuse people…or to destroy our environment. People are ends, not means. This has implications for our business relationships.

2. GOD DESIGNED AND ASSIGNED US TO BE WORKERS.

In the beginning God blessed humankind and immediately gave us our marching orders.

Here is our familiar mandate, our original job description. Seven Functions, enumerated in Genesis 1:27-28 and 2:15:

• Rule
• Be fruitful
• Increase
• Fill
• Subdue
• Work/cultivate
• Take care/keep

If ever you are tempted to think your work is pointless, I recommend you reflecting on these verbs. They sum up what human beings were equipped to do. They define, if you like, our design parameters. If you want to function according to specification, this is where you start.

Here is the original charter for entrepreneurs…here is why your profession, your passion, is close to the heart of our creative God.

But it isn’t only you! Every trade, every occupation, can participate in the divine plan.

Man is a maker, who makes things because he wants to, because he cannot fulfill his true nature if he is prevented from making things for the love of the job. He is made in the image of the Maker, and he must himself create or become something less than a man”. Dorothy Sayers, “Vocation in Work,” in William Carl Placher, Ed, Callings: Twenty Centuries Of Christian Wisdom On Vocation, p. 406

We are different from the animals because God has made us in his image to be workers like he is…indeed to be his co-workers…his creative agents and collaborators.

3. OUR WORK REVEALS OUR CHARACTER

Reflect on how God’s work reveals his character. Recall his assessment in the creation story that the fish and the birds and the animals were Good.

The virtue or moral excellence…the sheer goodness…of God’s work is celebrated in Psalm 111:

Great are the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wonders to be remembered…He has shown his people the power of his works…The works of his hands are faithful and just.
- Psalm 111:2-7

For you and me, in similar fashion, the way we work reflects our character. It expresses our worldview. It should reveal the Virtues that we have internalized.

Paul tells us in Ephesians that we are God’s poemata… His poems…His works of art:

For we are God’s works of art [workmanship], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
— Ephesians 2:10

What are “good works”? I used to think Paul meant little kindnesses such as helping disabled people cross the street. To break out of this atmosphere of charity, it is better to translate “good works” as “good activities” or “accomplishments”…and to remember how God Himself described his universal creativity as Good. God is good…God created good things…God wants us to create good things. God wants us to lead the field in quality as well as being moral leaders in our industries.

4. OUR WORK IS OUR MINISTRY

The prioritizing of “ministry” over “work” is now a fatal disease in Western Christianity. The work of the ministry has triumphed over the ministry of work. Careers and jobs are listed in the minds of believers from top to bottom in a scale of holiness and eternal relevance: missionaries and pastors on the top and stock brokers on the bottom. R. Paul Stevens, undated essay

Where did that idea come from? Life should not be chopped into the spiritual and the secular. There is no ordained hierarchy of occupations.

Such a split is a fragmentation that finds no support in the Scriptures. The incarnation or embodiment of Jesus Christ the God-Man undermines any such artificial division. Indeed, the opposite of spiritual is not secular but carnal: 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. Let us agree, with Henri Nouwen, that:

Living the spiritual life means living life as one unified reality. The forces of darkness are the forces that split, divide and set in opposition. The forces of light unite. Literally, the word ‘diabolic’ means dividing. The devil divides; the Spirit unites.
— Henri Nouwen, The Life of the Beloved, p. 107

You will also recall, as the parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25 reminds us, that the “righteous” got it wrong. To their surprise, what they did not even regard as ministry turned out to be a practice very much approved by the Lord. Those who provided goods and services, especially those who met genuine needs, were the heroes of the story.

A tiresome friend once told me that there are two types of human being: accountants and poets. And that I happened to be an accountant…so there was little hope for me! This is unbiblical. Every one of us is designed and gifted by God…one of his works of art. Every one of us can and should demonstrate creativity in our chosen sphere.

Do you deeply understand how your business can please God? By exercising his gifts and pursuing his design. Done in humility and with passion, this brings Him glory. Consider the notable statement by C. S. Lewis:

To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.
- C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 39

Donald McGilchrist, InsideWork’s history maven, lives and works in Colorado. Donald is a presenter at the More Than Money conference, July 17-19, 2009 in San Franciso.