Redeeming Work

A Guide to Discovering God's Calling for Your Career

Bryan J. Dik

• Publisher: Templeton Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781599475400
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The world of work is changing rapidly. As a Christian trying to discern the right career path, you might perceive the marketplace as a bewildering and anxiety-provoking place. You might even worry you'll have to sacrifice your values to have a successful career. How can you hope to find work that is informed by faith and that serves God's will? Redeeming Work was written to answer just this question.
The author, Bryan Dik, PhD, is one of the leading psychologists in the world who specializes in vocation. A professor, entrepreneur, and follower of Christ, Dik wrote this book as a labor of love after devoting his career to research and development of practical strategies for helping others find purposeful work. His message: there are abundant opportunities for Christians to forge careers that answer God's calling for their lives. In Redeeming Work, he shares the tools you need to find these opportunities and pursue them successfully.
Your purchase of Redeeming Work comes with a special bonus: free access to an evidence-based online career assessment system called PathwayU. By taking this assessment, you'll learn about what makes you unique, including what you enjoy (interests), what matters to you (values), your general tendencies (personality), and what you most need from an organization (workplace preferences). Then, you'll be able to explore career paths (and current job openings) that fit the pattern of gifts God has given you.

PART 1

Foundations

CHAPTER 1

Fusing Faith and Life at Work

SOME TIME ago I attended a conference for Christian twenty-and thirty-somethings. The theme of the conference, held at a megachurch in a Denver suburb, was “Fusing Faith and Life.” I had been looking forward to attending for weeks, especially the breakout session for professionals wanting to “fuse faith and life” in the workplace. I had a vested interest in the topic. As a then-new professor who had just started studying how people approach work as a calling or vocation, I was curious to learn what people might say about this topic—but my interest went much deeper than that. On a very personal level, I still had questions about how I could most effectively serve Christ’s kingdom within the large, public research university where I worked. I relished the chance to hear from like-minded peers trying to live out their faith in their careers.³

The room that was allocated for the session was the church nursery, and the number who attended was, I can only assume, far more than the conference organizers had anticipated. With only a handful of adult-sized chairs, most of us were seated on the carpeted floor in a large circle around the room’s perimeter. No lecture or workshop had been planned; this was intended to be a discussion. The session moderator opened by thanking everyone for coming and then asked, “What are some ways that each of you ‘fuse faith and life’ in your work?”

There was a very long pause. Finally, before the silence became too awkward, a woman cleared her throat and spoke.

“The main way that I do this,” she said enthusiastically, “is to request time off to go on short-term mission trips with my church. My boss has been very supportive.”

Heads nodded in approval. A second person raised his hand.

“I try really hard to get to know my coworkers well, because you never know when you might have an opportunity to share your faith with them.”

More nodding heads; people could relate to this. A few other variations on these two themes—take time off for short-term mission trips and witness to your coworkers—emerged in the discussion that followed. Then people began sharing struggles. One woman, new to the insurance industry, voiced near-despair over how hard it was to work in her office as a Christian when so many of her fellow sales associates used deceptive tactics to take advantage of clients. Someone in the room advised her to share the love of Christ with her coworkers. If that doesn’t do the trick, he advised, look for another job.

I was a bit dismayed by where this was heading. I raised my hand and said something along these lines: “Let’s just take it as a given that we are called to support missions, and to be witnesses of Jesus’s love wherever we find ourselves. For sure, these are critical responsibilities. Still, what about how we engage the work itself? If we truly believe Christ is Lord over every corner of creation, what does that mean for each of us, day to day, in our jobs?” I wanted to direct the conversation to the thorny issues I most wanted to discuss: Discerning our callings when we feel frozen with uncertainty. Exploring how our God-given gifts can help us address what is most needed in our professions. Promoting Christian ethics in environments often hostile to faith. Trying to understand how our approach to the daily grind can reflect our belief that Jesus is Lord not only of our spiritual lives but of every aspect of our lives—indeed, of the full expanse of his creation.

Instead, my question was met with uncomfortable silence.

If you are reading this book and you are a Christian, how would you answer the moderator’s question: What are some examples of how you fuse faith and life in your career right now? If you’re just starting out, how do you hope or expect to integrate your faith with your work as you look ahead? Your answer probably reflects what you believe about how the story of your career fits within the broader story of God’s plan for the world. This is not a small matter. Your understanding of how the Bible impacts your work can mean the difference between spending your workdays counting down the minutes until quitting time or engaging your career with excitement, purpose, and a profound sense of meaning.⁴ Yet many Christians have a hard time seeing how their work is relevant to their faith at all, much less supported by it. The chief reason for this? Too many Christians hold a view of God’s story that is too narrow in scope.

Orient to God’s Story (All of It)

When asked to explain the story of Scripture, many Christians start by sharing how people are separated from God because of their sin. Wholly unable to earn salvation by our own merit, we are in dire need of a savior. Having compassion on us, God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to earth. He lived a sinless life, taught us how to live, died a brutal death on the cross, and was resurrected three days later, before ascending into heaven. He lives today and offers new life to those who believe in him. By placing our trust in Jesus, we are saved from our sin and can look forward to living eternally in his presence.

Sin and salvation.

The problem is simple and powerful, laying out both the problem—our radical separation from God because of our sin—and the solution: Jesus entered the world to save us and reconnect us with God. All this is good and true, and the hope and peace it produces in people as they invest in a deepening relationship with Christ is beautiful.

Yet it is also incomplete. It represents an abridged vision of what the Bible teaches. It is amazingly good news, but it is not the whole story.

Since at least Augustine, theologians have approached Scripture as a unified narrative comprising several key sequential themes. In recent decades, Anglican bishop N. T. Wright popularized the idea that those themes unfold like acts of a play. In this book I refer to the whole of Scripture using this metaphor, as a play with four acts⁵—creation, fall, redemption, and renewal—a grand narrative that helps Christians understand how their own personal stories fit within God’s larger story. For a more thorough discussion of the Bible’s Four-Act Story, read the appendix, but here is a quick summary:⁶

•Creation describes the way things were, when God made a world⁷ designed to flourish in unity, wholeness, and peace, where everything is the way it’s supposed to be. The Bible calls that kind of flourishing shalom. God created humans in his own image and gave us the responsibility to care for and develop his creation, stewarding it and coaxing out its created potential (Genesis 1:28).

•The fall describes the way things are, broken and twisted because of sin. Adam and Eve’s rebellion in Genesis 3 created a chasm between people and God. But it was much broader than that; the entire creation was affected and is now “paradise lost”—a distorted version of what God intended for it.

•Redemption describes how God reclaimed all things through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Redemption “has accomplished nothing less than the promise of a restored paradise,” writes Amy Sherman, “where shalom in all its dimensions will reign.”⁸ That restored paradise is the new heavens and the new earth, initiated with the first fruits of Christ’s resurrection and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Right now, you and I are the instruments of God’s redemptive work, his agents of renewal, partners with Christ in making all things new.

•Renewal describes the way things will be, when Christ returns and heaven comes to earth. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes,” taught John the Apostle. “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4). The “old order” refers to sin and its effects on creation, which will be finally renewed as God intended: “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (Revelation 21:5).

The sin-and-salvation view that permeated the breakout session at that Fusing Faith and Life conference fails to capture all four acts of this story. It is only a Two-Act Story, one that focuses on the fall and a narrow vision of redemption (specifically, our restored relationship with God) without placing our sin and Christ’s work on the cross in their broader context. Those two acts are absolutely critical, but the full context is essential for three reasons:

•The Two-Act Story doesn’t tell us our purpose. With its focus on the fall, the Two-Act Story emphasizes human shortcomings without affirming that, despite our sin, we are made in God’s image and given work to do. The Four-Act Story recognizes that, from the very beginning, God gave people a grand mission: caring for and cultivating his creation, for his glory.

•The Two-Act Story forces a sacred-secular separation. The Two-Act Story draws a hard line between sacred and secular spheres of life; mission work and evangelism are sacred, and everything else is secular. The Four-Act Story, in contrast, recognizes that Christ is Lord of every square inch of creation; all of it is sacred. God cares about everything we do and is glorified within any honest area of work, not just “church work.”

•The Two-Act Story equates redemption with escape. Emphasizing redemption without focusing on renewal implies that our personal salvation and entrance into heaven are God’s endgame. If that were the case, none of our work (other than spreading the gospel) would matter—but this isn’t what the Bible teaches. Our salvation is a sacred gift, to be sure. Yet that gift comes with responsibilities that include, but go far beyond, evangelism. The Four-Act Story emphasizes that we are not only saved but saved for a purpose—that of bringing God glory and partnering with Christ to make all things new, anticipating the new heavens and the new earth (Revelation 21). That is God’s endgame.

In short, the Two-Act Story is only part of the whole story. Because of what it leaves out, the Two-Act Story offers precious little to inform the integration of faith with the rest of life in general, and with work in particular. The two strategies that emerged in the discussion at that conference—going on mission trips⁹ and sharing our faith with coworkers¹⁰—are clearly both good things. But as strategies for fusing faith and life at work, they fall woefully short. Neither has anything to do with the day-to-day details of work itself. Taking time off to go on mission trips is actually the opposite of integrating faith and work; it amounts to leaving our work to live out our faith elsewhere. And while we are absolutely called in Scripture to look for Spirit-led opportunities to share our faith wherever we are, evangelism doesn’t have much to do with the specifics of plumbing or manufacturing or nursing or science or software. On their own, these are strategies for separating, not fusing, faith and life within our work. If the Two-Act Story forms the lens through which you view your job, you will struggle to see any eternal significance in your work, unless you work in a formal ministry role.

In contrast, the Four-Act Story offers a vision for how the truth of Scripture transforms not only our personal lives but all areas of life, including every area of work. It functions like a pair of glasses that helps us focus on God’s grand plan and orient our lives to that plan. Left to ourselves, our vision is blurry; we do our best, but there is so much we fail to see. Through these glasses, things come into focus. God created everything good, but sin distorted that creation. Yet God redeemed it in Jesus Christ and is making all things new. Right now, God calls us to serve as his agents of renewal. It is an awesome privilege, one that infuses any honest type of work with soul-stirring purpose.¹¹

What does this look like, practically? Consider Jen, a baker and entrepreneur who orients to the Four-Act Story in how she runs the Sweet Petite, a bakery specializing in gluten-free cakes that double as gorgeous works of art.¹² Jen is an art school graduate and views her desserts as opportunities to create. “I think aesthetic beauty is really important,” she notes. “God gave beauty. He gave amazing art and amazing things to create with—and cake is basically just edible sculpture. And people love it—and people with an aversion to wheat, they are really excited that there is something out there that they can have for a birthday or a holiday or whatever.” Jen’s cakes bring forth God’s good creation—they are truly beautiful. Yet there is more than beauty in Jen’s work; there is justice and grace. All too often, people with severe dietary intolerances begin to view “good food” as simply off-limits, a dietary manifestation of fallen creation groaning.¹³ The Sweet Petite offers redemptive grace by making beautiful, delicious cakes available to everyone, including those with dairy and wheat sensitivities, sending the symbolic message that God’s kingdom feast is available to all who wish to partake.

As is the case for Jen, the joy we experience as we draw from the biblical narrative—God’s story and our place within it—to support and sustain our work is incredibly life-giving. The Creator and Sustainer of the universe has granted all of us the mandate to cultivate creation and to partner in restoring to wholeness those places where things have gone awry. What could possibly make work more meaningful than that?

Scripture, Science, and Career Decision-Making

Understanding the Bible’s full scope is necessary to appreciate God’s larger story. Yet the Bible is not an encyclopedia or instruction manual that directly addresses every problem of living in the modern world.¹⁴ For example, the Bible teaches Christians to work at whatever they do with all their hearts “as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23), but it does not describe how to change a car’s timing belt, cultivate a soybean field so that it produces a high yield, or prepare a soufflé that doesn’t collapse. The Bible also teaches Christians to be good stewards of the resources with which they’ve been entrusted (Matthew 25:14–30), but it does not steer them toward the most effective retirement investment strategy or the optimum smartphone plan for their usage. Building on the Bible’s foundation, we turn to other sources of information to address those questions wisely. Similarly, Christians on the job market know how to approach the search process with integrity, but they also know they must look elsewhere for practical guidance on how to format a résumé or prep for a job interview. Even answers to the question “How should I discern God’s calling for my career?” are not directly provided in Scripture.¹⁵

When it comes to making decisions about their career paths, Christians are wise to use a prayerful discernment process that follows the Bible’s directives for seeking God’s will for their lives. As we’ll see shortly, the Bible reveals much a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Yearning for Integration
• PART 1: Foundations
• PART 2: Discerning Your Calling
• PART 3: Living Your Calling
• Appendix: The Four-Act Story of Scripture: Our Foundation for Redeeming Work
• Notes
• Index