I read a story once about three stonemasons working side by side. A bystander went up to each of the them in turn and asked what they were doing. The first stonemason replied, “I’m laying some blocks.” The second one said, “I’m constructing a wall.” And the third stonemason said, “I’m building a great cathedral.”
What are you doing when you work? A full-time job for most of us in the United States requires forty hours of work each week, or just under one fourth of the one hundred sixty-eight hours that a week contains. Take away a little bit for vacation and sick days, but add in overtime, and it still comes out to almost a quarter of our lives between adulthood and retirement. That’s a lot of time. So much time, in fact, that it raises the question, is working at my job good stewardship of the time God has given me?
In the forty plus years that I’ve been a Christian, I have many times seen people express the belief that full time ministry is a better vocation for a believer than any kind of secular work. But if that’s true, then shouldn’t we all be doing it? Only, if every Christian was in full time ministry, would there be enough people left to grow the food, build the houses, keep the books, enforce the laws, write the software, or do the thousands of other jobs that are necessary to keep society going? Should we stop sharing Christ because it might lead to too many people in ministry and too few doing anything else? Is there even a need for that many full time ministers? Beyond all that, haven’t we all met people who clearly don’t have the gifts or aptitude for vocational ministry?
Obviously, that’s a silly idea. Nowhere in the New Testament do we see any evidence that every believer should be in full time ministry. But neither do we see any evidence of a two-tiered church, with some roles that are more important in God’s eyes than others. Scripture calls us, all of us who believe in Christ, a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9) and it says further that each of us was specially created to do “good works” that God prepared just for us to do. (Ephesians 2:10). And, in fact, those who are leaders and teachers in the church were given the task, not of doing the work of God’s kingdom, but of preparing everyone else to do that work. (Ephesians 4:11-13). But how many Christians have been taught that their vocation doesn’t really count in God’s kingdom?
So, if I’m not in full time ministry, how do I contribute to glorifying God and building his kingdom while I’m at work? Is it just evangelizing coworkers (when that can be done without interfering with the job), earning money to give to the church, and maybe leading a Bible study during lunch?
I don’t believe that it is just those things, but it does include all those things. Remember that when I go to work, I’m probably going to be talking to people who won’t hear what my pastor, or anyone else, preaches on Sunday morning, because they don’t go to church. The Bible tells us:
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 3:15-16).
This is for all of us. And there is some very effective ministry being done in the workplace. Jodi Fraser is the manager of administration at the University of Nevada, Reno. In an interview recently she told me that she often finds opportunities, while she works, to talk about God, to such an extent that her boss, at one point, said to her, “I know I’m going to say this, you’re probably going to want to pray for me but, well…” to which Jodi replied, “well, I’ll pray for you anyway, but go ahead.” Jodi is a witness to her coworkers of God’s grace.
There are, of course, many ways to serve God in secular work. Kyle McClelland is the owner of Have Lights Will Travel, an electrical business here in Reno. Kyle has many times hired people from his church who have needed work. He tries to “encourage people to live the best that they can,” and to “lean into their spirituality, and have faith.”
This is not, of course, to say that there are no limits. Those of us who don’t own our own companies have to obey the policies set by our employer, and those who are business owners have to follow all the various laws and regulations that govern employer/employee relations. And although I didn’t ask this question in my interviews, I am quite confident that both Jodi and Kyle would affirm that if my ministry at work keeps me from doing the job I’m being paid to perform, then I’m stealing from my employer.
So all of this builds God’s kingdom, and it glorifies Christ. But what about my job itself? Not my break time, or conversatons with coworkers, or money from my paycheck that I donate, but the actual thing I’m being paid to do, and that I spend the majority of my time when I’m at work doing? Does this also, glorify God?
Scripture says:
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us –
yes, establish the work of our hands.
(Psalm 90:17)
So, God is concerned in this psalm with the work that we do. In the New Testament we read:
And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12)
Productive work, then, is something God not only approves, but actually commands. In another place it says:
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:17)
Just a few verses later, this instruction is amplified:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (Colossians 3:23-24)
Notice that the last two passages I quoted don’t say, “when you serve in some sort of ministry” but “whatever you do.” Is it the case, then, that a secular career might be part of the good works that were prepared for me, and that I was created to do (Ephesians 2:10)? I believe that it is.
Consider this: Whatever I’m being paid to do is, pretty much by definition, useful to somebody. In some small way, I’m providing a blessing for at least one person. (We’ll assume for the purposes of this article that I’m not a pornographer or a drug dealer or doing any other kind of job that involves me in sin.) Doesn’t it make sense that, as a child of God, if I”m doing something that blesses others, I should work at it with all my heart, as the Scripture says? So if, for example, I build a house, I honor God by building the very best house I can build; I’m building it for Jesus, even if someone else is going to live in it. If I’m preparing taxes, or cooking hamburgers, or teaching children, or even excavating an archaeological site, I’m working for Jesus. If the job is something that ought to be done at all, then I honor God when I do my very best. When I work according to my ability, and not according to how much I’m getting paid.
If I’m working to serving Christ, then my paycheck is not my reward for the work I’ve done, it merely gives me and my family the ability to live, and to keep serving. My reward is being kept for me in heaven (1 Peter 1:4). My goal is not to reach a certain income level, but to make the world, in some way, a better place each day because of what I do. And it’s no great secret that the attitude I bring to the job will affect the quality of my work. Remember the stonemasons at the beginning of this article; two of them were doing something mundane, the third, something incredible.
I am God’s creation. More than that, all those who believe in Christ are God’s children. When I do something that is worth doing, and I do it well, God is glorified, because he is the one who gave me the ability to do that work. And when I do the work with the intention of gloryfying God, that’s worship. I worship Christ whenever I use the abilities he gave me to bless others, whether that blessing takes the form of preaching a sermon, reporting the news or unclogging a drain.
Kyle touched on this in our interview, talking about stewardship of the resources we have been given, and the retrofits his company performs to reduce energy consumption. The work he does provides a benefit to the entire community (which also, of course, provides a blessing to the customer, in the form of reduced energy costs).
At a conference many years ago I heard a story about the Colorado headquarters of the Navigators ministry. When the building was completed and they were starting to move in, one of the staff noticed that one door in the rear was not well done. It was secure, but it just didn’t look very nice. Since that door only opened onto an alley behind the building, most of the staff were content to leave it that way. Navigators founder Dawson Trotman, however, insisted that it be redone. Not just the public parts of the building, but all of it, had been built for the Lord, he told the others.
That’s the attitude that I want to bring to my work; the Colossians 3:23-24 attitude, that everything I do, I do for Christ. Even excavating an archaeological site. That in my everyday, mundane tasks, I am worshipping my Savior. And I have to confess that I don’t achieve that nearly as often as I want to.
But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13-14)