The Reformer Martin Luther is well known for his life-changing views on salvation—salvation is a gift to be received, not a work to be achieved. Less known is Luther’s life-changing views on vocation. To rectify this, Michael Berg’s Vocation: The Setting for Human Flourishing, introduces...
Over the years, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people about their work. I generally begin with a simple question: “Do you enjoy your job? Why or why not?” I’ve been amazed at the number of people who began with two words: “I just.” Educators say, “I just...
I love to give gifts; it’s my favorite part of Christmas. It’s a special kind of fun to choose the perfect toys for my six nephews and find the softest sweater for my mom. Harder to find though, is the gift I can give to my...
As we approach Thanksgiving, it is appropriate we take a moment to thank God for His blessings. However, let’s be honest. Many of us have struggled in so many ways during this long pandemic: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. How can Christians truly praise God during...
Lately, I’ve experienced an especially busy and stressful season at work and at home. After 18 difficult months, I’ve noticed that on top of the physical and emotional exhaustion, I am—as I’m sure many others are as well—making more mistakes, more forgetful, and finding myself...
It’s not a classroom I’m used to. I’m seated at a long table, chairs gathered around. No orderly desks lined up facing a whiteboard. Instead, we’re set up in the middle of a community space. Toys litter the room, a kitchen opens onto our space, glass...
I am what is called a “necessity entrepreneur.” This is a nice phrase for people who started a business after losing their jobs in the recession: in my case, after thirty years as an employee of various small and large firms. In the five years...
I’ve had some busy people pick up Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work, look at the subtitle, and ask: “OK, so, in a nutshell, how does God’s work connect to our work?” Always a good exercise for an author, to be asked...
How do faith and work come together? In their book, Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy, Matthew Kaemingk and Cory B. Willson argue that worship is essential to bridging the gap between faith and work. It is not enough to merely think our...
Almost every Sunday morning at church, as we finish the final songs and benediction (and I prepare to pick up my crew of girls from Sunday School – now four!), I find myself asking the same question: What is the Church sent into the world...
In many ways, the culture in which we live has lost sight of a vision of work that resonates with what we see in scripture. Two aspects of this vision that we’ve forgotten are rest and recreation. Though work has been part of God’s design for humans since...
From the beginning, at the dawn of history, men and women are called first into a relationship with God. Then, secondly, they are called to participate with God in exercising “dominion” – managing, shaping, designing and developing the world that God has created and entrusted...
Stressed. Tired. Exhausted. Anxious. America has been reckoning with the cost of hyperproductivity long before 2020. However, the myriad effects of the pandemic— job loss, fragile employment status, complications for working parents, and forced changes in nearly all industries—have only further exacerbated our problems with stress....
The Bible makes it clear that work matters to God. No matter what your profession or occupation – whether you’re a parent, a bus driver, an artist or an engineer – God cares about your work. Here are ten key points about work drawn from...
Have you ever worked for a toxic boss? I’m not talking quirky, or even annoying. I mean the kind that says one thing to your face and another behind your back. The kind who takes credit for your work, or throws blame your way when...
“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” I still remember when I really came to believe that statement for the first time. Here was the gospel in all of its scandalous beauty: that God, despite all my...
The most famous verse in Leviticus may be the command, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). This imperative is so sweeping that both Jesus and the rabbis regarded it as one of the two “great” commandments, the other being “Hear, O Israel: the Lord...
For many of us, the current season is full of great eagerness and anticipation. Perhaps you’ve been working from home, and now there is the potential of going back to the office soon. Perhaps you were furloughed over previous weeks, but now you are hearing...
‘So, what do you do?’ We’ve all been asked this question more than a hundred times, right? It’s the go-to conversation starter from networking events to just hanging out and meeting someone new. People ask what we do for a living because the answer colors in a lot...
We have entered Spring, a season of physical growth. Trees are budding, perennials are emerging and chicks, ducklings and all sorts of animals are entering this world to begin their own journeys. Planet Earth is in full swing of its annual rebirth. As creatures of this...
We are in an interesting season of life right now thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of us are trying to adapt to the new normal of quarantines and social distancing, while others are boycotting the phrase “new normal” because it implies a permanency to...
We are walking in a very unique time in the life of our country. Never is the everyday work of Christians as evident as when the gathered church is no longer able to meet. Christians right now are cast into the middle of serving the...
All work has dignity because it reflects God’s image in us, and also because the material creation we are called to care for is good. The Greeks saw death as a friend because it liberated us from the prison of physical life. The Bible sees...
I recently attended a new event here in Fort Wayne hosted by the Northeast Indiana Center for Faith and Work where the focus is on living our faith in our actual work. There were people of all demographics in the room, wide eyed and ready...
We live in a world where everyone and everything clamors for our time. Calendars are full with meetings and activities. Oftentimes there is more work to do than hours in the day. The lines between work and life become blurred as we borrow from the...
In 1551, Robert Estienne created a numbering system for his edition of the Greek New Testament which was also later used in his 1553 French publication of the Bible. To this day, Estienne's numbering system is what we see when we read our Bibles and...