Your work matters.  All work matters to God, humanity, and for eternity.

Culture says works is about surviving, status, and significance.  Scripture tells us something different.

Your work matters to God.
Work is not a human invention. God worked when He created. Then He called the product of His working good. In Genesis 2:15, God then tells Adam to work. He gives him manual work (cultivating the garden) and intellectual work (naming the animals).

Why did God give Adam work? Because we are made in the image of God, the Creator who works. In Part 1, Meredith Kline, Tim Keller, and Henry Drummond made a strong case that the cultural mandate given to humanity in the beginning of time was the dominion of creation for the purpose of building civilization (Gen. 1:28-30; 2:15, 19-20). That civilization-building activity (work) requires humanity (us) to be both co-creators and co-cultivators in God’s creation.

So, work is the expression and fulfillment of being made in God’s image, and we have the distinct privilege of continuing and completing the work God began.

The bottom line is this: all work is sacred work

The implications of this are huge. First, all work is sacred. There is no sacred/secular divide, especially when it comes to work. Here’s how Dorothy Sayer’s puts it:

“How can any one remain interested in a religion, which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. The worst religious films I ever saw were produced by a company, which chose its staff exclusively for their piety. Bad photography, bad acting, and bad dialogue produced a result so grotesquely irreverent that the pictures could not have been shown in churches without bringing Christianity into contempt. God is not served by technical incompetence; and incompetence and untruth always result when the secular vocation is treated as a thing alien to religion.”

Ouch. Does that sound familiar? She wrote that decades ago! This is why work matters.

The second implication is that work creates. The carpenter Sayers spoke of makes good tables, thereby creating value and something useful to society.   What that means is we can transform culture through our work. Through your work, you are bringing the Kingdom of God into your specific time and place. You are building into what God originally intended for humanity, whether you are a farmer, plumber, businessman, educator, doctor, or lawyer. Every profession contributes uniquely to a place’s culture.

The key question is what kind of society are we creating through our work?

Work matters to humanity.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:9-13, the apostle Paul writes to Christians who decided to stop working! They were waiting on Jesus to return instead. He rebukes them and tells them to work because it shows their love for others. They contribute to what is happening in the world, providing for themselves and others. The Reformer, Martin Luther, references Psalm 145 and 147 to demonstrate that God provides food for all living things through work (plowing and planting) and secures cities through good city planning and hard working administrators.

In the 1986 NBA playoffs, Michael Jordan scored 63 points against the mighty Boston Celtics.  Marveling at Jordan’s game, Larry Bird said, “I think it’s just God disguised as Michael Jordan.”  As Christians in the workplace, who are at work on purpose, we are distributing the gifts of God through our work, contributing to the common good of those around us, to our city.  May it be said of Christians working everywhere that the level of work they do must mean they are “God in disguise.”

People who love Christ must be people concerned for the common good. Work produces goods and services that enable communities to flourish. This is altogether different from a survival or status understanding of work, and it redefines the significance understanding of work we often adopt.

Lastly, work matters for eternity.

The work you do is part of a grander story. A story where you play a role, but you didn’t write the script. Our work now will be flawed and difficult because of the Fall. But it is still good, and it matters. And it will matter for all time.

At the end of time, the result of the co-laboring between God and humanity is clear: it is a city where God, humanity, and all creation dwell together in union and flourish in justice, fulfillment, and delight.

In Genesis 2, God gives Adam a playground to cultivate, to continue creating.  And at the conclusion of Scripture’s narrative, Revelation 21:1-2 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” We have moved from a garden in the beginning to a city in the end.

One of my favorite artists, Shane & Shane, wrote a song called “In A Little While” that expresses the hope and longing we have as we await that Day–when we see how our work matters eternally.  Check it out:

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Do you have a bigger vision for how your work contributes to this grander story—the story of the Creator inviting the crown of His creation to work alongside Him toward the ultimate completion of His grand vision?

Arts – vision to express God’s creation and heart beautifully
Business – vision to create wealth and prosperity
Education – vision to teach, grow, and pass on knowledge, wisdom, character/values
Government – vision of sound rule and protection
Health Care – vision to relieve suffering and provide care
Media – vision of telling the truth
Lawyer – vision of justice
Social Sector – vision of charity and care

Imagine what kind of city Evansville could be if all those who follow Jesus when about their work with this perspective every day. I believe we would have a transformed city—one that looks more and more like the city God envisions for Evansville.

Have you noticed how the last 15 years have seen a dramatic change in the public’s mind about the value of churches? Some would say churches take up the best property in the city, don’t pay taxes, take money from unassuming members, and constantly judge (or worse, discriminate) others based on their race, sexual identity, or economic status. Have you heard that before?

If not, consider these statistics:

• The number of churchless people in America would make the 8th most populous country in the world
• There are 156 million people in the U.S. who are churchless compared to 159 million who are churched.
• 70% of Millennials do not believe the local church is relevant to their lives

Here are three significant reasons why we are seeing more people walk away from church:

1. They find relatively significant relationships and community outside of church
2. They perceive their time and investment can make a bigger difference somewhere else
3. They have experienced real life change outside of the structure of a local church

In other words, they are finding fulfillment in the most important, deep human longings outside the church; so, to them, the local church is not valuable or relevant.

But, listen carefully. We do not have a church problem.

We have a mission problem.

My deep conviction is the attitude and mindset we encounter in our culture today towards church presents an opportunity for missional clarity, personal, spiritual alignment with Christ and His mission, and for unity on a scale we have never seen; it is not time for cultural critique.

Let’s begin with Jesus’ self-identified mission from Luke 4:18-19:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor”

Jesus begins his ministry with this statement. It is about mission. And the mission is shalom. His aim is to restore that which was lost in the Fall—to make things the way they are supposed to be. He brings individual transformation through justification and the redemption of persons, and he brings societal transformation through justice and the redemption of all things.

The Kingdom was the central teaching of Jesus’ ministry. He even taught His disciples to begin their prayers asking for the Kingdom to come to earth: “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”

Throughout history, we see churches and movements majoring on one type of transformation—individual or societal. Or perhaps both are important, but one is more important. Sometimes we emphasize doing kingdom work as justice and caring for the poor to the neglect of telling people about the King, or the opposite happens. We tell people about the King, but we fail to show them His Kingdom (See Eric Swanson and Sam Williams primer on City Transformation, To Transform a City).

Jesus’ mission should be our starting place when we think about church and our role in city transformation.

If we follow along in the Gospels, we see that Jesus carried out his mission with the fullness of both proclamation (sharing) and demonstration (showing). He was the King who came to reveal and demonstrate His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God, where all that is wrong is made right, had come to earth through the Person and work of Jesus Christ. Next, Jesus commissioned all of His followers to continue His mission (Matt. 28:19-20; John 17: 21-23; Acts 1:8).

Now the mission has a community—a church.

After the Gospels, the New Testament writers give us several ways to understand this commissioned community. From metaphors such as the Body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27), the Bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7-8), the family of God (1 Tim. 5:1), the house or Temple of God (Eph. 2:19-22), to descriptions as a community (Acts 2:42-47) and a mission (see above) that grows (Acts 6:7; 9:31; 11:34; 12:24; 16:5; 19:20), God makes it clear why this community exist: to carry on Jesus’ mission.

If you are in Christ, you belong to His Bride, His Body, and you are part of the only organization strategically located in all sectors of society—public, private, and social.   He has called and equipped each of us to work in a specific channel of culture—arts, business, education, government, health care, media, non-profits. And it is important to note here that “Church” is not a channel of culture; it is located in every channel.

So, if you’re a businessperson, a medical professional, a journalist, an educator, a creative, a civil servant, working in non-profit, or a volunteer, student or parent, you bring Christ’s mission and His Church into your specific time and place. In other words, you are primed to advance His mission. Can you think of any greater reason to do your work with competence and excellence?

Finally, the most weighty for last. The last point is poignant, timely, and important for us today as we live in an increasingly divided culture. It comes from Jesus’ last words, which He prayed before dying on the cross on behalf of anyone who would hear and believe His disciples’ message (us).

Jesus does not give us specific ways for how the Church should pursue shalom and continue His mission, but He does command us to do one thing particularly well: unity. In John 17:23, He prays, “Let them be one, so that the world may know that you sent me and that you love them even as you loved me.”

He prays for unity (let them be one) for the purpose of mission (so that the world may know). Missional ecumenism. Unity in mission. There may be 250 (or more) local communities called churches in Evansville, but there is one Church from God’s perspective: one group of people who have common union with Christ and who live out a common mission: Christ’s mission.

We are united in Christ with a shared mission. Are you participating? Or are you watching? Or perhaps, are you more inclined to be a referee?

So, what is the Church and her role in city transformation?

The Church is a commissioned community, a group of people in union with Christ and therefore one another who carries on God’s mission to redeem and restore ALL things.

City transformation can happen when the Church in Evansville cares for the orphans, widows, immigrant, prisoners, sick, disabled, poor, and aged physically, spiritually, socially, emotionally, and economically. In many ways, this is happening. But we have a lot more work to do. In order to make that happen, the whole Church must bring the whole Gospel to bear on the whole person and the whole city.

My prayer is that we begin tackling these issues together so that we can be more effective, and so that our city sees the Church as a group of invaluable, irreplaceable people who love them and love this city.

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In order to see our city transformed, we may need to change our perspective on some things. Here are some questions to consider:

1. Are we more concerned about caring for our churches than our community?
2. Has our understanding of Jesus’ mission missed God’s bigger story of shalom by understanding faith in Jesus as the end of the story rather than the entrance point?
3. Is the Gospel is limited to conversion in our practice?
4. Are our churches pursuing a project or dream that cannot be accomplished as a single congregation?
5. Do you typically think of your church as the church in Evansville?
6. If you are a pastor, do you think of your pastoral responsibility for the community as well as the church that pays you?
7. Do we agree or disagree with the idea that the Church is not a channel of culture but manifests in all channels?
8. Would you be willing to talk with someone from your church staff about this?
9. Would you be willing to connect me with them so that I can learn from them, encourage them, and share what I learn with other churches and leaders in the city?

Before I tell you a bit of why I wrote a three post series on city transformation and how I got (back) to Evansville, can we start by taking a minute to recognize our “cultural moment?” We are a city with momentum, entrepreneurial positivity, a robust charitable human service engine, and plans to connect, enliven, and accentuate our most exciting assets: the riverfront, the city core, our green space, complete streets, trails, better transportation, Haynie’s Corner and Franklin Street, a new elementary school, and of course, the development of the remarkably collaborative IU Med School.

That’s a lot, and that’s probably not even half of it. Does it surprise you to learn that Evansville is such a progressive place? I learned about all of that and a lot more in just 3 months.

But that’s not the Evansville I had in my mind before I moved our family back.

I love cities. Bigger ones. To say that I didn’t plan to move back to Evansville might be an understatement.

I spent two years at Castle High School after living all of my life in Indianapolis; then, I was off to college (Taylor University) and seminary in Chicago (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School). After Candace and I got married, we spent a brief time in Bloomington, then we headed east to booming Charlotte, NC, which is where we lived for over 5 years. Charlotte gave me a dream job in a dream city, so Evansville was not on my list of potential cities to live.

That was until I met a local business owner named Tom Gabe. You may not know Tom, but you probably have heard of I Am Second. Tom’s the reason you have. Tom and I met in 2014 when I shared about a collaborative non-profit ministry I was leading in Charlotte, and 7 months later he called to ask me about moving back to Evansville. No was my first thought. But after months of prayer, soul-searching, and what appeared to us as clear confirmation from God, we moved our two-year-old and two-week-old back to the great Midwest with a confidence that God had work for us to do.

Evansville has a lot of good things going for it, but the thing that Tom and others identified was the reality that no one had much time to think about the big picture of Evansville. People have important and good responsibilities to steward in their careers and volunteer leadership roles. Tom’s ask was about making it possible for someone to have the capacity and opportunity to wake up every day dreaming about collaboration across private, public, and social sectors, with special attention to the unity and mission of the Church, all in an effort to make Evansville a better city—the city God would want it to be. A simpler way to say that might be “city transformation.”

A city is transformed when the whole Church brings the whole Gospel to the whole city. In other words, church leaders and followers of Christ in their cultural channel are working together to ensure the entire city experiences the contextualized proclamation (sharing) and demonstration (showing) of the good news of Jesus Christ. Both spiritual and societal transformation is needed in Evansville (and in every city). Spiritual transformation happens when people love God. Societal transformation happens when people love others.

After a short time here, and as someone who had not lived here for 13 years, I have good news. Evansville is at a crossroads, a precipice. It is as if a tidal wave of forward progress and momentum are about to unleash positive change. A year ago I could not have imagined writing these words: I’m excited about Evansville’s future. Of course, there is a lot of work to do, especially when we think about evangelism, discipleship, and restoring shalom (shä-ˈlōm; see below).

This is Evansville’s next chapter. It’s not if it’s going to happen. It’s about when and how. The how is where the Church has a unique opportunity. That’s the topic of my next post. I hope you’ll follow along.

 

*This series on city transformation was originally written for Community One, the organization acting as my fiscal agent and making a huge difference in our city by helping people love their neighbors through home improvement and redevelopment.  

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For the biblical foundation of city transformation, keep reading.   I chose to keep this separate so you could choose to dive in a little deeper theologically, or if you’d rather not dive in right now, that’s ok. Come back later. But dive in at some point.

Let’s begin at the beginning. Cornelius Plantinga describes shalom as “the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight.” God is a social Trinity lacking nothing in relational fulfillment. He is the perfect example of shalom, and out of this perfection, He created. When God created, there was shalom. More simply, it is “the way things are supposed to be.”

God’s original intent then was for humanity to experience perfect, harmonious relationships with creation, others, himself, and the Triune God. This creates flourishing for all of creation (Genesis 1-2). But sin destroys shalom early in the biblical story and brokenness enters the world (Genesis. 3). The rest of Scripture is the story of God’s restoration of shalom—what we call the greatest story ever told (Genesis 4 – Revelation 22).

Let’s take a bulleted, chronological look at redemptive history with this idea of shalom in mind:

1. God creates the world and everything in it
2. He creates man and woman in His image to be in union with Him, perfectly
3. Everything was as it should be (shalom)
   1. “Shalom is the webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight—universal wholeness and flourishing”
   2. The way things are supposed to be (how God intended it)
4. Adam and Eve rebel against God, betraying their relationship with him and all of creation
5. Because of this, sin infects all aspects of God’s creation
   1. All of humanity’s relationships suffer brokenness: with God, each other, self, and creation
   2. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be (shalom is broken)
6. Out of love, God intervenes to restore shalom, to make things right again.
   1. He makes a covenant with Abraham to form a people
   2. He makes a covenant with Moses and calls a nation to Himself, to live among them
   3. That nation, Israel, is to be a light for the world to reflect His character and pursue His mission: justice and mercy, union with His people
   4. God shows that He is about grace and redemption as He pursues His shalom
7. But Israel is unfaithful, disobedient, and turns her back on God and His covenant with them repeatedly
8. Out of love, God intervenes again:
   1. The prophets foretell of a new covenant, a time when God’s people would reflect His character
   2. So, God He sends His very own Son, Jesus, who is perfectly one with Him, as a human being, and who is faithful to live out God’s character perfectly
   3. He preaches, performs miracles, claims to be ONE with God, dies and is raised from the dead
   4. It is through Christ that ALL creation can experience redemption
9. But, instead of unleashing that redemption completely on humanity and creation, Jesus leaves and sends the Holy Spirit for His followers.
   1. And now we come to our role.
   2. Before Jesus dies, he spends most of his final three years with 12 disciples, followers, and through those 12 ordinary guys, he inaugurates His Church—a group of people who can reflect God’s character to the world.

From the beginning, God’s plan was to invite His people to fulfill His mission with Him. What began with Jesus and his 12 ordinary disciples was the turning point that became the greatest revolution and upheaval of all time (2.1 billion).

That explains the grand story of redemption and the reason we pursue the individual’s personal transformation out of brokenness and into shalom and union with God through Christ, and it explains the reason we pursue society’s transformation out of injustice, corruption, poverty, and into shalom and flourishing.

But why city transformation?

Did you know the Bible uses the word city 1,250 times? In addition, cities are regularly addressed directly in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. There were two times Jesus wept: once over the death of his close friend, and the other over the city of Jerusalem.

Apart from those uses, if we look at the progressive revelation of Scripture, we begin with a garden in Genesis 1, and we end with a city coming down out of heaven in Revelation 21.

Meredith Kline states in his book Kingdom Prologue: “The city is not to be regarded as an evil invention of ungodly fallen man… The ultimate goal set before humanity at the very beginning was that human-culture should take cityform…there should be an urban structuring of human historical existence… The cultural mandate given at creation was a mandate to build the city.”

Building on this, Tim Keller says, “It is widely understood that when God tells Adam and Eve to ‘have dominion’ and ‘fill the earth’ he is directing them to build a God-honoring civilization. They are to bring forth the riches that God put into creation by developing science, art, architecture, human society. Kline reveals, however, that since Revelation reveals that the ‘end’ of creation (the climax of the work of the ‘Second Adam’ Jesus Christ) is a city – that therefore God was calling Adam and Eve to be city builders. City building is an ordinance of God just like work and marriage. And indeed, cities draw together human talent and resources and tap the human potential for cultural development as nothing else does.”

So, cities are important to God. But they are also important in our world today.

Since 2007, over half the world’s population lives in cities. And it is only going to increase. The nations have come to the cities, to our city, Evansville. Cities shape culture. Regional initiatives work where there is a thriving city.

Evansville’s next chapter can look more like the city God would want it to be, or it can look less like it. That includes morality, of course, but it includes much more: diversity and reconciliation, opportunity to work and make enough money, justice and mercy, servant leadership, love and hope.

The work of people who follow Christ is more than going to church, reading the Bible, and maybe one day sharing your faith with someone. It is also about city building, restoring shalom in the city where God has placed us.

“To make cities—that is what we are here for. To make good cities—that is for the present hour the main work of Christianity. For the city is strategic. It makes the towns; the towns make the villages; the villages make the country. He who makes the city makes the world. After all, though men make cities, it is the cities which make men.” Henry Drummond, Scottish Pastor, 1893.