The Art of Work

I'm reading through Linchpin by Seth Godin, the best selling author and marketing guru. He offers a simple but valuable insight on how work is transformed into art when we invest what he calls "emotional labor" into our daily work.

"Art is unique, new, and challenging to the status quo.... Art cannot be merely commerce. It must also be a gift... Art is not limited to art school, or to music or even to stage. Art is any original idea that can be a gift. It takes art to make a mom happy on the first day of nursery school... It takes art to construct the plans for the English Channel. Most of all, art involves labor. Not the labor of lifting a brush, or typing a sentence, but the emotional labor of doing something difficult, taking a risk and extending yourself."

Seth Godin, Linchpin, p.86

There is something wonderful and biblical about the idea that Godin is advocating. I have no reason to believe that Godin is a professing Christian but he is on to something! So much of work even in Christian discourse is viewed in transactional terms - do a specific volume of work for a specific return in monetary value. When we think of our work exclusively in these terms, we miss the essence of what God intended. We lose the soul of God glorifying work - the opportunity to imitate our Creator God through our work.

In Genesis 1, God worked in Creation by creating the Universe ex nihilo (out of nothing). Imitating Him in our work isn't simply about working ethically - it also includes working creatively. While we cannot create ex-nihilo, we are called to use our gifts to put our world into order, to explore new opportunities and nurture existing opportunities.

In other words, we are called to create art through our work.

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Are you an artist through the work you perform? Are there opportunities for you to imitate God by work creatively and investing emotional labor?

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Redeeming Culture

Last Saturday, I had the privilege to attend the Entrepreneurship Initiative (EI) Forum hosted by the Redeemer Center for Faith & Work (CFW). CFW's mission is to promote cultural renewal through the integration of faith and work. Through the EI Forum, I had an opportunity to meet several Christian entrepreneurs, executives, financiers and artists who are seeking to make a difference through their God given gifts and talents.

The event was kicked off by Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making. His big point was simply this - you don't change culture by critiquing culture or condemning culture or consuming culture. You change culture by making culture.

Simple but profound. If you buy off on his premise, it really highlights a huge limitation with the state of Christian activism today. It would appear that a lot of energy is expended to generating more boycotts of certain companies rather than building businesses that make a positive impact. Many Christians are swept up with concern about the anti-Christian bias in media rather than about developing new creative content that reflects the glory of the Eternal God.

Creating culture, not just consuming it or condemning it - that's how culture changes.

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Do you agree? Is changing culture even something Christians should be concerned with? What do you think?

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Summer Reading List

Summer is a time for the beach, hammocks, lazing around and ... reading. Here are the books I plan to read this summer and why they're on the list.

Church History in Plain Language by Bruce L. Shelley

Like most evangelicals, I know far too little about church history but I'm convinced that learning about church history will give me an appreciation for the doctrines that I hold dearly.

What Jesus Demands From the World by John Piper

What can I say - it's one of the newest Piper books. I read almost everything he writes and benefit from it. Plus I got it for only $2.97 a couple weeks ago when they were running a special on their website. That particular offer is over but...FYI - if you'd like to get this or any other Piper book, Desiring God is running a special through midnight Thursday - every book is $5!

The Long Tail by Chris Andersen

I've heard good things about this book on the new economics of the web 2.0 model - I'm looking forward to reading it.

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity by Philip Jenkins

Philip Jenkins is a leading authority on global church growth and this book is the definitive reference on that topic. I'm working on an initiative that will serve the global church so this is particularly interesting to me.

What books are you planning to read this summer? Share your list with us.

God at Work

I've just begun reading God at Work by Gene Veith, the culture editor of World magazine. It's a book about the doctrine of Christian vocation as it applies in all of life. I've only read the introduction but it's already made some salient points. Here's an excerpt about the implications of the Reformation on the vocation of every believing Christian.

The Reformation notion of "the priesthood of all believers"...taught that the pastoral office is a vocation...But it also taught that laypeople as well have vocations, callings of their own that entails holy responsibilities, authorities and blessings of their own. The "priesthood of all believers" did not make everyone into church workers; rather it turned every kind of work into a sacred calling.

Veith gladly concedes that he draws much of his insights about vocation from Martin Luther's understanding of the topic.

...for Luther, vocation is not just a matter of the Law...rather, above all, vocation is a matter of the Gospel, a manifestation of God's action, not our own. In this sense, vocation is not another burden placed on us, something to fail at, but a realm in which we can experience God's love and grace, both in the blessings we receive from others and in the way God is working through us despite our failures.

The area of vocation and work/faith integration is much discussed today and is in fact one reason the Every Square Inch blog exists. However, I find that biblically sound resources on the topic are few and far between. This book holds promise to be one and I'll keep you updated as I read along.

Another wonderful resource is TheHighCalling. As its name implies, the website's purpose is to promote a high view of our work as Christians in the marketplace. This week, they are running a blog tour to highlight the newly redesigned website that just went live. You really need to check it out and join as a member.

Among the other blog tour stops, are the following -

LL Barkat
Gordon Atkinson
CraverVII
Ramblin Dan
Charity Singleton
Camy Tang
Marcus Goodyear
Halfmom
Al Hsu

Emdashery Stacy Gina Conroy CREEations
Milton Brasher-Cunningham Mary DeMuth Karl Edwards
Amy Goodyear Jennwith2ns Charles Foster Johnson
Eve Neilsen Mike Mcloughlin Naked Pastor