The Theology of Work Project
For the last four years I have the pleasure of overseeing a grant project that seeks to help seminaries train pastors to better equip their people to recognize God’s calling in everyday life. The grant arose, in part, because of a peculiar and somewhat troubling inconsistency in two groups of research. In the first survey, we discovered that the graduates of five seminaries from five different Christian traditions all highly value vocation and name it as a central theological category in their preaching and teaching. In a second study, composed of surveys and literature reviews, we discovered that most of the people in congregations served by our graduates simply do not feel called. They don’t see what they spend most of their time doing, that is, as worthy of the attention of God or the Church.
The causes behind this situation are complex and offer material for multiple future posts, but for now I want simply to draw your attention to a new resource that seeks to respond to this situation. Called simply the Theology of Work Project, it offers multiple resources and insights to anyone who wants to connect faith to daily life with greater ease and effectiveness. As described by the group that put it together,
The website contains some 500 practical text, video, and audio resources to help people in business, government, research, and every field of work outside the church. The site also aims to help pastors and church leaders equip their members for life in secular workplaces. Over the coming year, the TOW Project expects to expand the website to cover every book of the Bible and the most important topics in contemporary workplaces. At present about 2/3 of the planned articles are online. All the materials on the website are available free of charge.
Take some time to peruse the site. No doubt you’ll find, as I did, that not everything there aligns with my own theology of vocation or vision of the Christian life. But you’ll also find much that commends itself and many, many valuable resources for helping us all connect the faith we profess on Sundays with our daily activities and work Monday through Saturday.
…In the Meantime is where I find the most thoughtful, wise, insightful and interesting reading. EVERYDAY!
Thank you,
I thought the very essence of Martin Luther’s teaching was that an ordinary person could find holiness and joy through his ordinary work. He or she did not need to become a priest or a nun: The Priesthood of All Believers.
Around 1928, a guy over in Spain got the same idea. His name was Josemaria Escriva. He founded a little group called “Opus Dei” — the “Work of God” — a way for ordinary people to sanctify their lives through their ordinary, everyday work. They didn’t need to become priests or nuns. They could take the Gospel into the work-a-day world through their example. Isn’t this what Luther wanted?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opus_dei
As we all know, Hollywood and the media have attacked Opus Dei without mercy (e.g. “The DaVinci Code”).
Thanks for pointing us to this site – I’m looking forward to exploring it in detail but already on a quick glance I can see what a wide ranging resource it is. As a bi-vocational minister (working F/T + ordained for P/T ministry) I can see there being many interesting paths to follow through its collection of resources……
I too am now a part-time pastor and full time in the construction trades. Quite awhile ago a man stopped in the Church office to see me and he wore a clerical collar. He explained that he belonged to a Roman and Orthodox order and was ordained and worked in sales. He said his bishop encouraged them to wear their collars so as to witness to God’s work in the midst of daily life. Could I do that? How else might I dress or show that I believe when I visit the hospital or hang a door God is at work?