Out On The Playing Field

How can a church help congregants to cultivate a God-centered approach to the workplace?

Before I answer my own question, let me distinguish between the church gathered and the church scattered.

When I ask, "How can a church help congregants to cultivate a God-centered approach to work," I'm first thinking about how the church gathered might do this.

I'm coming at this question with the fundamental understanding that the purpose of the church gathered on Sunday is to prepare, equip and encourage the body of Christ to be effective as the church scattered throughout the city on Monday through Saturday.

Whether or not this is what every pastor sees as the purpose of the church is another question. Perhaps you've heard the statement, "The most important thing happening this week in our city is what's happening right now, here in this sanctuary!"

Dr. Vic Pentz, Senior Pastor of Peachtree Presbyterian, in Atlanta, used to see it that way. But no longer. In fact, he says he doesn't even believe it any more.

Does this sound like he has lost his mind? Take 1 minute and 16 seconds to hear Pastor Pentz explain himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YboJIUVm8Cc

Can the gathering of a church with its pastor on Sunday be likened to the players of a football team gathering at half-time in the locker room with the coach before returning to the playing field again?

While the analogy isn't perfect (there's more to the church gathered than the pastor's message), I think Pastor Pentz is on to something significant.

Of course the 'playing field' is more than a person's workplace. But since work occupies about 1/2 of a working person's waking hours, it's a pretty important chunk of life.

So what could happen on Sunday that might prepare congregants for engaging in their daily work on Monday as a "sacred task," whether swinging a hammer, driving a truck, running a business, or being a homemaker?

Next week we'll start exploring some specific ways in which a local church can cultivate a God-centered approach to life in the workplace, "out on the playing field."

Come Along Side

Last week's post ended with two questions:

Do you think the lost art of "God-centered work" can be restored?

If so, how?

Since no one responded, I'm left to answer my own questions! So, here goes...

When I'm involved in a project that requires skills I have never used before, or I'm trying to solve a problem I don't know how to fix, I look for "how to" information.

I appreciate the "_______ for Dummies" books, because they don't assume I know anything. They start from "A" and go to "Z," in an orderly, step-by-step fashion. That's what I like.

I can also Google, "How do I ________" and get a concise answer to just about anything in a nano-second!

But some challenges defy step-by-step solutions, and have no quick fixes. They are too big. Too complex. Like: restoring the lost art of God-centered work in a culture that has excluded Him from public places and relegated Him to "church" (which would have been unthinkable in Jonathan Edwards' day). Fixing such a problem is fully and completely beyond us. And this is a good thing!

Can the lost art of God-centered work be restored? The short answer is, "Yes."

Why do I believe this? Because "with God all things are possible" [Mark 10:27].

But those two little words, "with God," are critically important.

Psalm 127:1 comes to my mind: "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

When it comes to restoring the lost art of God-centered work in a post-Christian society, it can only happen if it's a "Holy Spirit thing."

Our role in the process is to come along side what the Lord is doing today in this regard.

So how is it possible to "come along side" with respect to restoring a God-centered approach to work in the 21st Century?

In the next few posts, we'll explore some ways we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit to revive a robust "theology of work" in today's culture. Specifically, I'll be looking at ways in which churches, homes, schools and companies can "come along side" in this move of God.

Did I say, "move of God?"

If it isn't, let's pack up and call it a day.

First stop: the church.

The Missing Curriculum: Conclusion

Here is the final installment of an article written for the May-June issue of Home School Enrichment magazine, titled, The Missing Curriculum:

Christ instructs His followers to “occupy” planet Earth until He comes again. This act of occupation takes place in every legitimate field of human endeavor.

It takes place as followers of Christ observe all that He commanded within the realms of business, government, the arts, media, education, and every sphere of legitimate work on this planet.

The degree of corruption we sometimes find in these “earth-tending” spheres may be because Christ-followers have either opted out of them, or we have never realized that we are supposed to observe all that Christ commanded within the context of those kinds of jobs in the first place.

Jonathan Edwards and fellow graduates from Yale, in 1721, would have understood that it is in the workplaces of the world where we have a prime opportunity to “observe all that Christ commanded,” which is the thrust of the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

It was the so-called “Protestant Work Ethic” that fashioned America into the land of opportunity it quickly became. Yet, today’s “sacred-secular split” has led many Christians to leave their Christianity outside the workplace door on Monday morning.

As a consequence, workplace participants cannot always distinguish Christians from non-Christians in the work-world, and our economy has suffered greatly.

I want to encourage the next generation to play a role in changing this. Will you join me?

The commitment to intentionally and systematically train young people in the “art of God-centered work” has largely disappeared from our churches, schools and homes. The custom of teaching students how to make connections between the biblical worldview and all forms of legitimate labor is no longer customary. It has gone the way of men's powdered wigs.

But it can be restored. I believe we can once again train our young people to see “their shop as well as their chapel as holy ground.”

The white powdered wigs can go. But to equip our sons and daughters with the ability to engage in their everyday work “as the work of God,” is long overdue for a comeback.

For a .pdf copy of the full article from the May-June issue of Home School Enrichment magazine, click this link:
http://www.biblicalworldview.com/The%20Missing%20Curriculum%20Article.pdf

Do you think the lost art of "God-centered work" be restored?

If so, how?

The Missing Curriculum: Part 4

Here is the 4th installment of The Missing Curriculum:

If we embrace the notion that our original job description (The First Commission of Genesis 1:26-28) was rescinded at the Fall, then we will have a very difficult time seeing how one’s shop as well as one’s chapel can be "holy ground."

But what the Puritans seemed to understand so well, is that because “the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world and those who dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1), God is still the owner of every pair of shoes in every shoe store in the world, and He claims rights to every customer who walks through the front door.

Because they saw Jesus as “Lord of all” (including all shoes and the selling thereof), they did not divide the world into “sacred” and “secular” compartments. They did not see some work as “secular,” and other work as “sacred.” For them, there was no “secular” world.

No, in Jonathan Edwards day, the merchant was doing “the Lord’s work” as much as the pastor.

If I could be a school principal over again, I would have my students complete a course on “the art and science of God-centered shoe-selling.” I would call it, “More Than A Paycheck.” As a matter of fact, I recently wrote such a curriculum, and I have called it just that!

I’d like the next generation to know that no matter which career paths they might take, whether it be in business, the arts, or homemaking, they will always be working in the Lord’s turf. This is because there is no other place to work! It is all His! He is “head over all” (I Chronicles 29:11).

Further, I’d impress upon them that no matter where we work, our ultimate authority is Christ. We might work in places that ignore the Lordship of Christ, and in some places that deny it, but we will never work in any place that is exempt from it.

Is there any place that lies outside the realm of God’s affairs? Is there any sphere of life’s activity that exists independently of God, on its own, in a vacuum, somehow separated from His ownership, interest and involvement?

Hardly!

I would teach my students that they will never have a “secular” job, because there truly is no “secular” world!

Next week: the conclusion to The Missing Curriculum.

The Missing Curriculum: Part 3

Here is the 3rd installment of The Missing Curriculum:

Work, at its core, is an act of governance. Governance over wood, metal, cows, cotton and carrots. Governance over electrical currents and wind. Governance over fiber optics and digital images. Governance over people. Governance over things. Governance over ideas.

Randy Kilgore, a leader in the current “faith-at-work” movement, says: “God created a world that functions on order, and requires labor for its tending. He created you and me to be a part of that order, to do that labor. Even when our acts at work don’t seem to have eternal significance, their very rendering fulfills His original commission to humans to tend His creation.”

"Creation-tending" is a very big job! Ruling over all the earth entails a responsibility as broad as the world is wide, and requires many varied occupations, including carpentry, high-tech work and homemaking.

It involves physical work (as with Adam tending and keeping the Garden), and mental work (as with Adam naming the animals).

Both kinds of work occurred before the Fall. Work is not a curse! It was the ground that was cursed. Not the work.

It is our great and awesome responsibility as vice-regents over this remarkable planet to govern over God's creation. And we were made in the image of God so that we could carry out this function well. The curse just made this work more difficult.

If the Fall had not occurred, human beings would be involved in all sorts of legitimate businesses, similar to the kinds of businesses we see going on today—sans the sin.

Some people think that when Adam and Eve sinned, they forfeited their role as governors over Earth. Like ambassadors caught in an act of treason, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden and removed from their positions as God’s vice-regents over all the Earth. In this scenario, “earth-tending” could no longer be the job description of human beings.

If this is the case, then we are prisoners on a cursed planet, sent out to wander, spending our days toiling for food. Our work, then, is no longer a way of fulfilling the role that God had in mind for us when He created Adam and Eve: “Let Us make man...and let them rule…over all the earth.”

Beyond providing for our subsistence, our work, then, could no longer have significant purpose.

Next week: Part 4

The Missing Curriculum: Part 2

The following is the second installment of an article I recently wrote for the May-June issue of Home School Enrichment magazine. The article is titled, The Missing Curriculum:

I was the principal of a Christian school for fourteen years. During those years, it never occurred to me that my school should provide specific instruction for students in the art of God-centered work. Frankly, I did not know there was such a thing as “theology of work,” or anything close to it, that would make up a full curriculum on the topic, as it did in the days of Jonathan Edwards.

For many years, I, like many others, thought only pastors and missionaries did “God-centered work.” I failed to make any connection between selling shoes (which I did part-time while a college student) and the Kingdom of God.

So what does selling shoes have to do with the Kingdom of God?

If we separate the two, we will never understand what the one has to do with the other.

But as the English Puritan Pastor George Swinnock put it, "The pious tradesman will know that his shop as well as his chapel is holy ground."

This is a teaching that we do not often hear today. When was the last time you heard a sermon along the lines that “your shop as well as your chapel is holy ground?”

But as we know from Genesis 1:26-28, God created humans in His likeness and image with one functional purpose in mind: to rule over the earth and all that it contains.

And this raison d’être necessitates all kinds of work! Furthermore, it makes all legitimate work on planet Earth a response to God Himself!

If this isn’t “holy ground,” I don’t know what is.

The Scripture referenced above, Genesis 1:26-28, says: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our likeness an image, and let them rule…over all the earth.’”

This profoundly important piece of information is often called, “The Cultural Mandate,” or, “The Dominion Mandate.” But I prefer to call it simply, The First Commission.

And what a commission it is! Here we have a commission to rule over the entire globe!

Chuck Colson summed it up this way: “On the sixth day, God created human beings—and ordered them to pick up where He left off!”

Next week: Part 3

The Missing Curriculum: Part 1

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting an article I wrote for the May-June issue of Home School Enrichment magazine. It speaks to the need for recovering something that many early Americans took for granted, but has since disappeared—to our great detriment.

The article is also relevant to last week’s comments about the Islamization of Indonesia and the inroads Islam is making in Africa today.

Part 1:

Many things have changed since 1721. Some things, like men’s white powdered wigs and women’s corsets, we can live without. But some things have gone out of fashion that we really need to recover.

1721 was the year Jonathan Edwards graduated from the Collegiate School at New Haven, known today as Yale University. But before Edwards and his classmates could exit Yale, whether to work as pastors or merchants, they were tested in a particular field of study that has since disappeared from virtually every school in America: the practical art of God-centered work.

The course of study that Edwards and his fellow Puritans completed had a name: technologia, a Latin term. It was a curriculum complete with textbooks.

Technologia was a holistic curriculum that helped people to approach work in the broader context of a Christian worldview.

It is the biblical worldview that gave work—all kinds of legitimate work—remarkable purpose and meaning for Jonathan Edwards and his peers, whether they were missionaries, bankers, cobblers or homemakers.

Dr. David Scott, professor of history at Southern Evangelical Seminary, discovered the technologia while doing eight years of Ph. D. research on Jonathan Edwards. “The Puritan curriculum of technologia,” writes Dr. Scott, “taught Edwards a God-centered view of all reality. He grew up in a church that believed it had an obligation to teach what it meant to live a God-filled life in everything we do. That is why the textbooks of technologia began with the being of God and traced His truth through creation all the way to how it is lived out as a farmer, shoemaker, or merchant.”

But today, there is little curricula available that integrates an understanding of biblical worldview with everyday work. This is what I call, “The Missing Curriculum.”

Have you ever taken a class that specifically focused on how to align biblical worldview premises with repairing automobiles, designing software or running a legitimate business?

Part 2 next week.

Islam In Africa

Of all the nations on earth, Indonesia has the largest number of Muslims. About 86% of Indonesia (nearly 200,000,000 people) claim to follow Islam.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of studying the history and culture of Indonesia as part of my studies at Bakke Graduate University. I spent ten days in that country with Ray Bakke and about a dozen other graduate students. During our stay, Ray pointed out that Islam did not come to Indonesia through Muslim clerics. It came via business and trade.

Michael Baer, in Business As Mission, writes: “I once asked an Indonesian Christian why the country had become so predominantly Muslim…She said that when the Western Christians came...they built missionary compounds and missionary churches and expected the Indonesian people to come to them. The Muslims, on the other hand, came as traders, farmers, merchants, and businesspeople and simply lived among the natives.”

Dr. Darrell Furgason, an expert in Islamic studies, says: “In places like Africa and Indonesia, the church has been intellectually crippled, with one hand tied behind its back. Western missionaries generally brought the Gospel in the way they learned it, as a purely soul-saving faith, with no real bearing on anything else—religion was a mostly personal matter, nothing to do with things like politics, science, law, economics….African people were given the Gospel, but not how to build a righteous nation, how to apply Christianity to everything….Muslims see their faith as all-encompassing…”

This leads me to follow-up on last week's post about what I learned from African educators earlier this month.

You see, while I was in Indonesia, one of my fellow doctoral students was an African by the name of Aila Tasse. Aila told me of the spread of Islam in Africa via business. His comment to me was: "The Muslims are winning."

When I returned home from Indonesia, I called Aila by phone and asked permission to record his comments for the benefit of others who need to know what is going on.

While in Kenya just a few weeks ago, I played Aila's comments for African leaders from Uganda, Nigeria and Sudan, and I asked if they concurred with Aila's report. Without hesitation, they all replied: "Yes! Absolutely! He is 100% correct!"

I urge you to take 2 minutes and 49 seconds to listen to Aila for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJppIj-Fnmc

Continued...

African Reformation?

Educators from Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon and other African nations came together April 1-4 in Kenya to focus on Christian education.

We met at the International Christian Educators Conference organized by the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), where I was invited to teach on the topic of biblical worldview integration.

One leader said that what he hears most from African Christian educators are: "What is a biblical worldview?" and "How do we teach Christianly?"

This same African leader said: "Africans have understood the Gospel of Salvation, but not the Gospel of the Kingdom."

Biblical worldview, the Gospel of the Kingdom, and "teaching Christianly" are closely linked. Why? Because an understanding of biblical worldview opens up an understanding of the Gospel of the Kingdom, which in turn motivates discerning educators to "teach Christianly."

What is the difference between the Gospel of Salvation and the Gospel of the Kingdom?

The Gospel of Salvation helps people understand how to become born-again believers through faith in Christ's sacrificial death on the cross. Through this door we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus, and we can know we will go to heaven when we die.

This is critically important. But the Gospel of the Kingdom helps us to understand what the door of personal salvation leads to. We are not just saved from something, but saved for something!

Actually, the Gospel of Salvation is part of the Gospel of the Kingdom. There is only one Gospel. But personal salvation is not the whole picture. The Kingdom is much bigger.

The Gospel of the Kingdom is about the on-going life of Christ being lived out through the work-lives, civil-lives, and relational-lives of His redeemed people in the here-and-now, as well as in the then-and-forever.

This is what African educators are seeing. The African Christian school movement is burgeoning, not only in numbers, but in the vision of what distinctly Christian education can be.

Many African leaders see distinctly Christian education as a means of enabling the next generation to seamlessly integrate the all-encompassing biblical worldview into the totality of their social, economic, and civic lives.

This is the most hopeful thing I have seen in a long time.

Is this part of an African reformation? African Christian educators are smelling it. They want to carry the life-giving power of Christianity beyond the saving of souls to the transformation of nations.

Continued...

He Flew Into The Presence Of The Lord

Last week, the soul of Dr. Albert E. Greene took flight from his 93-year-old body and he flew into the presence of the Lord.
Apart from the influence of Dr. Albert Greene on my life, it is safe to say I would not be doing what I am doing today, helping people to grasp the meaning and significance of a biblical worldview.

Apart from Dr. Greene, I doubt if I would have come to understand the breadth and depth of that treasure myself.

I first came to know this gentle giant of a man in 1959, as a 5th grade student at Bellevue Christian School, which Dr. Greene founded in 1950, and where he served as Principal and then Superintendent for many years.

In 1979, I took the role of Principal in a Christian school myself. To sharpen my understanding of what Christian education is supposed to be, I took graduate level courses in the philosophy of Christian education from Dr. Greene, who was then teaching part-time at Seattle Pacific University.

It was during this time that he asked me to stop calling him "Dr. Greene," and to just call him "Al." It was something I found extremely difficult, and never did feel comfortable doing.

It was through Al that the "worldview puzzle" fell together for me. I can tell you what room I was in on the day Al talked about the myth of the "secular world." I remember coming up to him after his talk, and sheepishly asking, "Are you saying the 'secular world' doesn't exist?"

I can still hear the inflection of his voice, as he simply stated, "It really doesn't." You could have knocked me over with a puff.

Al was one of the most intelligent men I have ever known. Yet, at the same time, he was one of the most humble men I have ever known. I was mentored as much by his kind spirit as by his brilliant mind.

The last visit my wife and I had with Al was a year and a half ago. His mind was sharp. As always, he suggested more books for me to read, as was captured in the photo that accompanies today's post below. Al's care-giver, Michelle Taylor, snapped this picture on that day.

Thank you, Dr. Greene, for mentoring me, and for your priceless encouragement and faithful support over these many years.

We'll talk again, my friend.

My wife, Kathy, and I, with Al about a year before he passed through the veil.

It Happens Every Summer

I believe any legitimate job can have extraordinary meaning when it is aligned with a biblical worldview.

This is why worldview matters, and why I believe it is critically important to understand how our work can be aligned with a biblical worldview.

The process starts with an understanding of what a biblical worldview is. Therefore, any effort and time we spend bringing a biblical worldview into focus is time and effort well spent.

While it is never too late to learn, it makes sense to get some worldview training as a young person, before entering the workforce. The problem is, few schools offer courses in biblical worldview.

Self-study is one way to learn about biblical worldview, but most young people are not likely to do this until they develop an internal motivation along these lines. Gaining that initial motivation is the real challenge.

One way for a young person to gain such a motivation is to spend some time with a group of other young people who are focusing together on biblical worldview training--and enjoying it.

But where does this happen?

It happens every summer, during 2-week summer camps for students hosted by Summit Ministries.

I can vouch for this program because my wife and I spent two weeks at one of their student summer camps about ten years ago. We wanted to get an "inside picture" of what the Summit program is all about, so we asked if we could come as participants, even though we were long past the target age. We were kindly allowed to participate.

My friend, John Stonestreet, the Director of Summit Ministries, is one of the most able teachers of biblical worldview I know, and is particularly apt at connecting with young people. Many other nationally-recognized experts in biblical worldview come to the Summit summer camps as guest speakers.

While most readers of this blog are already through school, I suspect you know of students who would benefit greatly by a 2-week focus on biblical worldview. This summer, camps are being held in Colorado, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Here is the link to the Student Summer Conferences: http://www.summit.org/conferences/student/
The application is downloaded from there.

I encourage you to pass this information on to students you know who are of high school or college age.

By the way, Summit also hosts worldview training conferences for adults. See http://www.summit.org/conferences/adult/

What Makes A "Good" Job "Good?"

What makes a "good" job "good?"

Pay is not the most important factor for most people. Of course, having a job that doesn't pay enough for basic necessities is a problem. But pay alone does not determine whether a person feels the job he or she has is a "good" one.

Matching one's strengths and abilities with one's work is a factor. Booker T. Washington, who was George Washington Carver's boss at Tuskegee Institute, remarked that Carver was a poor administrator. It would have been a mistake for Booker T. Washington to have "promoted" Carver to an administrative role. His best fit was in the lab.

But is it possible for a person to have a job that matches one's strengths and yet still not feel he or she has a "good" job?" Yes. Other factors come into play.

One of the biggest factors is meaning. Working with no sense of meaning can be drudgery, even if the job fits one's strengths. Making progress at work (although this is a vital factor in job enthusiasm), may not be enough either. Making progress toward something that has meaning, however, is another kettle of fish.

The big question then becomes, "How can work have meaning?"

Bonnie Wurzbacher, former Vice-President of Global Accounts for The Coca-Cola Company, once told me, "we don't find meaning in our work, we bring meaning to our work." This is a profound truth. She went on to say, that until she understood  

Carver's work had meaning because he brought meaning to it. He understood what the biblical worldview is about, and how his work fit into it.

The amazing thing is, a biblical worldview provides as much meaning for the work of retail clerks and taxi cab drivers as it does for chemists and college professors.

This is why worldview matters. Hear Bonnie's comments in the video below:

 

One Of The Single Biggest Discoveries Gallup Has Ever Made

Gallup's "World Poll" was the first of its kind. No one had ever created a poll that covered almost every issue on the globe, with questions that were applicable to every culture.

There is a lot of data out there that shows what men and women are doing around the world, but Gallup wanted to find out what men and women around the world are thinking. Gallup could not find such a poll, so they made one.

Gallup scientists created a questionnaire that was translated into dozens of languages, and they collected data from over 100 countries. The Gallup organization is committed to conducting this poll for 100 years.

After the first World Poll was completed in 2007, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, wrote of this project: "...we many have already found the single most searing, clarifying, helpful, world-altering fact." He went on to identify this fact as, "one of the single biggest discoveries Gallup has ever made."

What was Gallup's great discovery?

Clifton summarized it this way: "What the whole world wants is a good job."

Clifton wrote these words before we entered the world-wide recession we are now experiencing: "If you and I were walking down the street in Khartoum, Tehran, Berlin, Lima, Los Angeles, Baghdad, Kolkata, or Istanbul, we would discover that on most days, the single most dominant thought carried around in the heads of most people you and I see is 'I want a good job.'"

I found Clifton's report fascinating. It says something about people, in all parts of the globe, throughout all cultures. Muslims, Christians, atheists, Jews, black, white, communists and capitalists. It says something about how we are wired. We have a common felt need. That felt need is to be working, and to be working in a "good" job.

But what makes a particular job “good?” Is it the pay? The people we work with? The compatibility of our work with our particular gifts and talents, doing what we want to do? These are important factors, but it is possible to have excellent pay, great people to work with, a very fitting job compatibility, and yet still lack that "something" which makes a particular job a “good” one.

What is that "something?"

To answer this question, we'll turn once more to Dr. George Washington Carver. Next week.

It Boils Down To Four Words

For Dr. George Washington Carver, the purpose and meaning of work boiled down to four words.

After Carver succeeded in creating products from plants, Thomas Edison asked him to come to New Jersey and work for him. Edison offered Carver a salary equivalent in today’s economy to nearly one million dollars per year. Carver declined the offer so he could remain at Tuskegee and help the Southern farmers.

Carver started a “School on Wheels,” going out to farms so he could teach farmers how to revive cotton-tired soil by planting peanuts and sweet potatoes. He also went to his lab to create markets for these plants, inventing 300 uses for the peanut and 118 uses for the sweet potato. Carver not only revived the soil, but the economy as well.

More than twenty years after Carver’s death, Clarence Mason, director of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, said of Carver: “…I have the most profound respect and admiration for Dr. Carver because he turned away from the field in which he was most skilled and best trained [botany], to work in an area which he felt he could do the most good for the people in his community [chemistry].”

When Booker T. Washington invited Carver to come to Tuskegee Institute to teach students how to plant and harvest crops so they could be brought out of "degradation, poverty and waste," Carver replied: “I…shall be glad to cooperate with you in doing all I can through Christ who strengtheneth me to better the condition of our people.”

That is exactly what Carver did.

Through his work as a botanist-chemist, Carver loved people. At age 60 Carver wrote: “Living for others is really the Christ life after all. Oh, the satisfaction, happiness and joy one gets out of it…I know that my Redeemer lives. Thank God I love humanity; complexion doesn’t interest me one single bit.”

For Carver, it boils down to four words: Love God, love people.
Most people would agree that George Washington Carver was an extraordinary person, doing extraordinary work. But I think it is possible for any legitimate work done by any follower of Christ to be a conduit for loving God and loving people.

What do you think?

He Is Able To Look Beyond The Peanuts

Religious leaders tried to trip Jesus up one day by asking Him to identify the most important commandment. Christ replied: “Love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And then He added: “Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.”

Through his work as a botanist-chemist, Dr. George Washington Carver loved God and loved people. For Carver, his work is a daily opportunity for living out his love for Christ, and for humanity.

Carver’s love for God is evidenced by the fact that he asked the Lord to give him his “orders for the day” during his morning walks through the woods. Carver continued to commune with God throughout the day, while in the lab at Tuskegee Institute creating products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and soybeans.

In doing his work as a botanist-chemist, Carver put his daily trust in the Lord. He says: “God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His. No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way of doing it are revealed to me. The method is reveled to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain I would be helpless.”

When asked what the secret of his success was, Carver replied: “It is simple. It is found in the Bible, ‘In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.’”

At the age of 75, Carver wrote: “…if we do not take Christ seriously in our every day life, all is a failure because it is an every day affair.”

Clearly, Carver’s love for God compeled him in his daily work as a botanist-chemist. He is able to look beyond the peanuts to his love for the Lord, and this gave his work with plants extraordinary meaning, and a higher purpose beyond the plants themselves.

Carver was not only compelled by his love for God, but his love for people too, as we'll see next week.

In the meantime, here is the big question of the day: How can our daily work be a channel for loving God and loving people?

Carver Was In Full-Time Ministry

The accomplishments of Dr. George Washington Carver in the field of botany-chemistry are legendary, having developed 300 products from the peanut, and 118 from the sweet potato. The products Carver invented include printers ink, shaving cream, plastics, adhesives and much more.

But Carver only owned three patents on his many creations. Why? Because he didn't feel it was right to take money for something God gave him.

God gave him?

That's the way Carver saw it.

When he was inventing products from peanuts, Carver would go into his lab (which he called "God's Little Workshop") at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute, and ask God to reveal to him the mysteries of the peanut.

Carver literally asked God why He made the peanut, and, by Carver's own testimony, God answered his prayer. Carver locked the door to his lab when he was creating things, because, as he put it, "only alone can I draw close enough to God to discover His secrets."

Carver epitomizes what it means to be a co-worker with God. In a letter written to Rev. Lyman Ward, Carver declared, "I am not interested in science or anything else that leaves God out of it."

At the age of 63, he wrote: "Man, who needed a purpose, a mission, to keep him alive, had one. He could be...God's co-worker...My purpose alone must be God's purpose...As I worked on projects which fulfilled a real human need, forces were working through me which amazed me. I would often go to sleep with an apparently insoluble problem. When I woke the answer was there."

Carver did not practice a "Sunday religion." His relationship with the Lord was an every day reality: "...all my life I have risen regularly at four o'clock and have gone into the woods and talked with God. There He gives me my orders for the day."

Carver was in full-time ministry. Not as a pastor, but as a botanist-chemist.

We'll unpack more about Carver's life next week, but in the meantime, please take a few moments to watch a short video clip about Dr. Carver, and note the way he seamlessly integrated his faith with his work:

If the video does not play, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wv4qYIyJoM

Canceled When Adam And Eve Sinned?

Some people believe that when Adam and Eve sinned, they forfeited their role as God’s representative governors over all the Earth. Like ambassadors caught in an act of treason, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden and removed from their positions as God’s delegated vice-regents over all the earth. “Earth-tending” was no longer the job description of human beings.

Was the First Commission canceled when Adam and Eve sinned?

If this is the case, then we are prisoners on a cursed planet, sent out to wander, spending our days toiling for food. Our work is no longer a way of fulfilling the role God had in mind for us when He created Adam and Eve: “Let Us make man...and let them rule…over all the earth.”

Beyond providing for our own subsistence, then, work on planet Earth could no longer have any significant purpose or meaning.

Some people believe the world (and all it contains) was given over to Satan at the point of Adam and Eve's act of disobedience.

If we embrace the idea that “the earth is the Devil’s and all it contains,” and we accept the notion that our original job description (the First Commission of Genesis 1:26-28) was rescinded at the Fall, we will have a very difficult time seeing how carpentry, software development or truck driving can be "the work of God"--unless perhaps we are building orphanages in Africa, developing software for Bible translation, or driving trucks for the Salvation Army.

I can't say exactly how or when it happened, but as a youth in my church, I picked up the idea that this planet is now Satan’s, and we are living on a sinking ship. Only the work that I would do "for eternity" had any real significance, and that didn't include things like selling shoes or processing insurance claims.

What possible significance could there be for Joe the carpenter in spending his life working for the XYZ construction company, pounding nails into 2 x 4s?

This is why, as I mentioned before, I told my mother when I was twelve years old that there were only two occupations in this life worth doing: being a pastor or a missionary.

Thank God that George Washington Carver didn't see it that way!

We'll visit him next.

More Than A Paycheck

Last week we suggested that during Jesus’ 17 years as a carpenter, He was doing the work of God, based on the idea that He always did what His Father showed Him to do, whether as a carpenter or an itinerant teacher.

At age 12 Jesus was doing "His Father's business" in Jerusalem, talking with religious leaders in the temple. When He went back home with Mary and Joseph, He continued to do what His Father showed Him to do, "growing in favor with God and man" as a carpenter.

Imagine what might happen if hundreds of millions of followers of Christ around the globe were to go to work tomorrow morning with the conscious awareness that they are doing the work of God as farmers, taxi cab drivers and bankers?

Beyond imagination?

Maybe. So, let’s bring it down to one person—or, better yet, two.

What if you and a friend were to go to work tomorrow morning with the conscious awareness that each of you are doing the work of God, no matter what kind of work you are doing (assuming you have legitimate jobs)?

If you have some difficulty seeing your work as the work of God, I'd like to suggest a helpful resource. It's a curriculum called, "More Than A Paycheck."

"More Than A Paycheck" was written with the conviction that what the work-world needs now is a different kind of stimulus package. What we need is a recovery of "farming theology," "taxi-cab theology" and "banking theology."

Since the topic of the M-TAP curriculum is work of all kinds, it is as applicable for CEOs as it is for homemakers.

"More Than A Paycheck" consists of two texts [God's Pleasure At Work and The Difference One Life Can Make] each with accompanying DVDs that illustrate and augment the text. (The video clips included in this blog are from this curriculum.)

I invite you to join with me in helping followers of Christ to engage in their work as the work of God by forming a small group to complete the “More Than A Paycheck” curriculum.

To view a brief video endorsement by Chuck Colson, click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWVf4xlbM1o.

You may order the curriculum by visiting http://www.biblicalworldview.com/bookstore.html, or calling toll-free 877-624-0230.

Carpentry, Too, Is The Work Of God

Ordinarily when we think of the Spirit of God flowing through Jesus, we think of Christ raising someone from the dead, turning water into wine, or healing a blind beggar by the side of the road.

Yes, these are dramatic examples of the Kingdom “actualized,” the Good News "incarnated," and the Kingdom “come.” Clearly, they are examples of "the work of God."

But have you ever stopped to consider that Jesus spent the majority of His days on earth doing work as a carpenter/stonemason? (Some scholars think He may have done both carpentry and stonemason work. Perhaps He was a general contractor.)

So here’s the big question: Did the Kingdom "come” through Christ during His carpentry years, too? When Jesus did carpentry, was He doing the work of God?

By His own testimony, Jesus only did what His Father showed Him to do (John 5:19). Was this the case during seventeen years of doing carpentry work in the little town of Nazareth?

We don’t know much about the life of Christ during His carpentry/stonemason years. But we do know two things: Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" in Nazareth (Luke 2:52), and He spent about six times more time doing carpentry/stonemason work than He did itinerant preacher/teacher work.

It is significant that when Jesus is 30 years old, at His baptism, God the Father audibly proclaims: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:16-17).”

Think about this. Before Jesus heals a single person, or feeds 5,000, or preaches to multitudes, His Father is “well pleased” with Him.

The Father does not elaborate on what is so pleasing to Him. Certainly Christ’s character pleases Him. But I suspect He is also pleased with how Jesus spends His time and energy up to that point in life, reconciling carpentry with the will of His Father. For Jesus, carpentry, too, is the work of God.

Justin Martyr (2nd Century historian) claimed that plows made by Jesus were still in existence around the year 120 A.D. If so, Jesus must have done superior work.

But whether it was building houses or making plows, certainly Jesus found God's pleasure in His work, knowing He was doing what His Father showed Him to do: carpentry!

For me, this casts “the work of God” in refreshing light.

Two Legs Of A Marathon Runner

The Gospel of the Kingdom is Good News for both Heaven and Earth. This is not an "either-or" proposition, but a "both-and" deal.

Participating in the fullest outworking of the Great Commission [that is, participating in the joy of leading non-believers to a point of conversion, and participating in the on-going process of helping believers to observe all that Christ commanded] is like two legs of a marathon runner.

We must certainly share the Good News that Christ took our sins upon Himself at the cross for the personal salvation of human beings. People must hear that Christ died for their sins in order to believe it (Rom. 10:14).

At the same time, we must be diligent to help those who have received Christ as their personal Savior to fulfill the on-going purpose for which they are saved.

A big part of this on-going purpose involves Christ living out His life through His people in the context of their whole lives, which, for nearly half our waking hours, takes place at work.

We begin our new life in Christ through personal reconcilation to God by His grace, putting our trust in Christ alone to save us. And we continue our earthly role of reconciling all things to Him, including our work things, by means of that same grace.

Apart from Him, we can do nothing to save ourselves. And by the same grace that we exercised for our personal salvation, we are to let our salvation be "worked out" [expressed, or demonstrated] in the world around us, even as we're pounding nails, driving taxis or selling real estate. "...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-13)." That's grace in action, and it's a 24-hour deal.

Personal salvation is the critical starting point. It is essential to the Gospel of the Kingdom. But we must also bear in mind that we are not just saved from something. We are saved for something. And that "something" has a lot to do with our everyday work in the world.

We are not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works (Eph. 2:1-10). What better place to live out those works than in the workplace?