InterVarsity Workplace Ministry

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We are thrilled to recommend this brand new book by two of our most beloved mentors. Al and Randy have both been thinking about the intersection between faith and work for decades, and their wisdom in navigating the current cultural divides is now yours to partake in as well!

"If ever there were a book for today, this is it! Al Erisman and Randy Pope have crafted a vitally relevant book on how to live in a post-Christian world. They do this by weaving together several stories of people in the Old and New Testaments who faced similar situations. Its wise reflections at the end can help us to navigate the cultural, moral, and spiritual ambiguities we face daily. Richly researched, this book is a gold mine for people struggling to be authentic Christians in a secularized business, not-for-profit, or even a hostile culture. A gift!" -R. Paul Stevens

Who are the righteous? In Hebrew, this word is "tsaddiqim," and it doesn't mean self-righteous or those who keep all the rules.

It's much more than that. This is the word used for those whose desire for right relationships and the flourishing of the world around them leads them to do right actions. They love God. They seek justice for the oppressed. They provide food for the hungry, shelter for the vulnerable, clothes for the naked. They seek the well-being of those in their community as a means of partnership with the Jubilee-bringer. And when those kinds of people are doing well? Yes, the city rejoices.

We do love to see these types of people experiencing blessing, because they so freely pass it on to those in need. But sometimes we fail to see our own blessing as a calling from God to become this type of person.

What do you need from Jesus today to become more generous? More focused on those in need? More willing to enter into another's pain, for the sake of healing and restoration?

When we hear the word “coach,” we might think of professional sports coaches and possibly associate the job with exorbitant salaries and fame. Or, we might have in mind a coach whose success and good character put him on level with other cultural "heroes."

But coaching is actually meant to build others up, to meet their potential, and most coaches work in the background, unseen and unknown, except to those under their direction.

Those who coach kids’ sports teams experience the joy of a ball finally landing in the glove of an out-fielding 2nd grader and the disappointment and tears of the middle-school hockey team who didn’t manage a win all season. They see jealousy and anger. They see all the emotion–excitement, surprise, fear and grief, multiplied and gathered up in a group of kids working hard together. And a good coach holds all of their fragile, growing hopes, fears, and potential, and offers instruction and encouragement.

But children aren’t the only ones whose vulnerability rises to the surface when striving towards a desired outcome. Working hard for something, especially when depending on others in a team, can bring out the best and the worst in us. Coaches have the position and responsibility to steward it all.

In Scripture, we see leaders like Moses and Joshua, leading the Israelites out of Egypt and into the promised land. Or Paul, Phoebe and Peter teaching and mentoring all of the new church communities in the New Testament. But before all of these we see Yahweh creating people, forming a team, assigning roles, teaching wisdom and continually guiding them towards the right path for success. And when he became flesh, he did the same. He formed a team, taught them how to play, and showed them what real success looked like.

Coaching doesn’t always look like winning. Sometimes it looks like dying. And when we choose to coach others, we have to be willing to die–to self, to dreams, to expectations–because coaching is about growing people, and people are messy.

So pray for the coaches you know. May they find both the humility and the victory of Christ as they give their time, strength, wisdom and emotion to those they are called to serve.

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Why should we live out faith in our work? In our daily lives? Why should we care for our neighbours, for the environment, or for the poor? What is it all for, if our destiny is just to float away and live like angels for eternity? What, exactly, is the Christian hope?

If these questions are ones you have or have grown up wondering, you need to read N. T. Wright's book Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection, and The Mission of the Church.

"And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:5)

Sometimes (maybe most times) it's hard to see it in the moment. And no one wants suffering in their lives. But when we look back, can we see the ways God has been shaping us, even through difficulty, even through our failures? Our hope is in the redemption of our stories, even the hard parts, as they are woven into the big story of God's redemption of the cosmos.

What do you need from Jesus in order to live into that hope? What do you need to lay down to receive it?

Until you lose a loved one, until you are involved in the legal and administrative aftermath of death, you may not have an appreciation for the role of those who work in funeral services. It’s a career very few of us dream of entering and a job most of us try to ignore. Why? Because we don’t know what to do with death.

We don’t know how to accept the fact that our bodies decay and eventually decompose. We don’t know how to deal with our anger at “untimely” death. And we often imagine those in this work as “creepy,” taking our cue from Hollywood and fiction novels. We don’t know how to think about this line of work because it faces, daily, intimately, the thing we all fear and dread.

But when we look at Scripture, we see a culture much more used to dealing with death. We see ordinary people involved in the anointing of bodies with specific spices to make the smell of decomposition less pungent. We see family members and friends wrapping their loved ones in strips of linen and laying them in tombs. And we see whole communities surrounding mourners for seven days in the Jewish practice of shiva (John 11, for example).

In John’s gospel we see Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus act as morticians, tending to Jesus’ dead body, wrapping it in strips of linen, with spices of myrrh and aloes. And while that sounds nice on the surface, we have to imagine the reality of Jesus’ body–beaten and bloody. This was not a clean event. With tear-stained cheeks and now bloodstained hands, they courageously honoured their apparently defeated Messiah by caring for him, even after death.

Christians who work in funeral services have every right to see their work as a calling from the good Creator God. But it is a work that takes incredible courage, resilience, and a deep confidence in the hope of resurrection.

They stand at the crossroads of life and death, of grief and hope.

If you know someone who works in funeral services, pray for them this week. And maybe reach out to thank them for their good work.

"In this book, Jake Meador diagnoses our society's decline as the failure of a particular story we've told about ourselves: the story of modern liberalism. He shows us how that story has led to our collective loss of meaning, wonder, and good work, and then recovers each of these by grounding them in a different story—a story rooted in the deep tradition of the Christian faith.

Our story doesn't have to end in loneliness and despair. There are reasons for hope—reasons grounded in a different, better story. In Search of the Common Good reclaims a vision of common life for our fractured times: a vision that doesn't depend on the destinies of our economies or our political institutions, but on our citizenship in a heavenly city. Only through that vision—and that citizenship—can we truly work together for the common good." -InterVarsity Press

This well known verse has been a comfort to many in the church for several generations. And it is comforting... but it has also been most often separated from its historical and literary context.

Jeremiah was a prophet to the people of Judah before and during the Babylonian exile. This verse spoke specifically to what the Lord would do when the exile was over. The context is homecoming—reunion with Yahweh after a long season of humbling. "'Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.'" (v.12-14)

Have you had a season of feeling distant from God? Or are you in a moment of humbling or homesickness?

While Jeremiah was written to a specific people in a specific time, the words of Scripture are for us too. And in the grand story, we are all longing for home. We recognize the brokenness of our own bodies, minds, hearts, the distance between relationships, the pain in our world.

As you feel homesick this week, as you feel lost or even ashamed, take heart in the promise of God. He is the Restorer of all things, and he will give us a future and a hope.

Sometimes the season after graduation can be overwhelming. Sometimes we find ourselves feeling lonely, discontent in our work, or just struggling to find community outside of the university bubble.

If you're in British Columbia, join a Journey Forward small group! New groups will be starting in the fall—communities of new grads meeting bi-weekly to learn, pray, eat, and process life together.

If you were a part of Journey Forward this year and want to continue next year, we will be offering a Year 2 cohort as well. All details on the registration pages—LINKS IN BIO!

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"Women now have professional opportunities beyond what previous generations ever imagined. But as our roles in public life have grown, the church's vision for women's work and calling has not grown with us, leaving us feeling isolated and under-resourced. Christian women face multiple tensions between home and work, navigating complex gender dynamics in the workplace and social pressure to hold together picture-perfect lives.
Joanna Meyer addresses a critical gap in Christian women's discipleship by speaking to the roles we play in public and professional life. Acknowledging the brokenness of workplaces and industries, she provides a theological framework for women's work and influence and offers resources for the challenges of working life."

-InterVarsity Press

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Homemaking

“Homemaking” today has many associations… elevated in some circles and looked down upon in others. But taken out of the debate around the role of women in society, the idea of making a dwelling place that provides comfort, safety, beauty and nourishment is not a gendered task. It is simply part of what it means to bear God’s image, because it’s at the heart of who God is. In fact, it’s on the first page of the Bible.

When we look at Genesis 1, we see God making a world. More specifically, we see God making a home–for himself and for his creatures. He sets up the sun, to give earth's inhabitants light and warmth. He makes trees for shade and organizes the water to sustain all kinds of life. He provides plants that are beautiful and also good to eat. In his blessing of “be fruitful and multiply” for both animals and humans, making homes is one way that we live into this blessing to, literally, “make more” of what God has made. More opportunity for life to bloom. But how?

Contrary to many popular social media influencers, making home is actually quite a messy business, because making home is not making a house or making a viral reel. It’s dealing in the muddle of daily life and people, with their ups and downs, needs and desires. Children, spouses, parents, friends, pets–no matter who lives with us, or even if we live alone, we all need a space where we can rest, feel safe, and grow. We need homes that are refuges and incubators, as we await and prepare for the renewal of all things.

Homemaking includes providing warmth and light, shade and shelter, good food and love, just like the Garden. It requires continuous cleaning and organizing, creating and recreating order and discouraging decay. It necessitates learning about the needs of those with whom we live and mutually seeking one another’s flourishing. In all these ways we reflect our Creator and Redeemer.

Homemaking can be a work of glory, if we let it. How might God be asking you to engage in making home for yourself or others this week?

"One-third of our waking lives is spent at work. Work is where we make culture and come into contact with our world. Work is central to God's mission to redeem souls, systems, and structures. And God works through our work to bring hope to the brokenness and fallenness of our surrounding culture.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for the world, and that includes the transformation of our ordinary work into a sacred calling. Ross Chapman and Ryan Tafilowski show how work is a way to love God, serve our neighbors, and demonstrate the gospel. With a broader understanding of God's work in the world, we are able to engage our daily work as part of how God makes all things new.
This guide invites you to reflect on the meaning and purpose of your life's work and to transform your work into service to those around you." -InterVarsity Press

Yes, this is more complicated now than then. We don't usually see, directly, the ways we take advantage of the poor and needy workers. And the complexity of supply chains makes it impossible for us to be able to see the provenance of every product we purchase and consume.

But we can know some things. We can know what companies are actively avoiding using slave labor in the production of their goods and which ones aren't. We can know what companies care about their impact on the environment and vulnerable communities and choose to invest our paychecks in their services.

We believe that in New Creation the justice of God will even out the scales of power and vulnerability, but our call as God's people is not to simply wait. From Genesis to Revelation, we are called to work with God in his care for the world and its inhabitants.

How can you put this verse into action in your life this week?

Marketing & Communications

Whether we are strolling down the sidewalk or scrolling through social media, our eyes and ears are continuously being handed invitations into ways of seeing ourselves and the world.

The airbrushed model on the poster at the bus stop invites her female onlookers to ignore the stench of the homeless human resting on the nearby bench and instead to buy her make-up… at once activating their insecurities and holding out the promise of ageless desirability.

Across town, a man takes a break from ordering his business accounts to look at his favourite news website. But lining the sides of the page are advertisements for the newest car, speeding around the curve of a mountain, offering freedom, autonomy, authority.

Effective marketing touches on our deeper longings–for belonging, power, freedom, love, even transcendence. But the things we consume, the things we put on or step into are, as the Teacher in Ecclesiastes put it, like smoke. A v***r. They cannot give us what they promise.

So, how should a follower of Jesus think about marketing? What does it look like to reflect Yahweh in the communications industry?

In many ways, the role of a Christian in this work is incredibly prophetic. It is bold, brave, and beautiful. Christians in communications have the opportunity to counter the deception of the serpent by telling the truth. And by telling the stories of businesses, organizations, goods and services that are actively seeking the flourishing of their communities, rather than dealing in manipulation and false promises.

They have the opportunity to tap into the same, good, innate human desires for belonging, power, fulfillment, and love, but honestly–through a lens of restoration and hope, rather than an escape from reality.

Following Jesus in Marketing & Communications means allowing God’s life-giving love, not money or prestige, to guide your design, craft your articles, underpin your meetings with clients. It means connecting those in need with those who can help. And that is good work.

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"In life we have moments in time in which we have an opportunity before us to make a change or to respond to a situation. According to Michael Lindsay, president of Gordon College, what follows these instances will depend intrinsically on the decisions we make and the actions we take. These are what he calls "hinge moments"—opportunities to open (or close) doors to various pathways of our lives.
Lindsay maintains that getting these moments right can change our lives for the better, and getting them wrong can pose problems for years to come: "Some transitions have a disproportionate impact on our happiness, our contribution to society, and our family's well-being."
[Lindsay] has charted seven phases of transition, providing both practical and spiritual insights for making the most of each stage. In uncertain and tumultuous times, there is no better advantage than wisdom gained early." -InterVarsity Press

As followers of Jesus, filled with his Spirit, we have the power to respond differently when a project goes sideways, when a coworker botches a presentation, when a manager is in a bad mood... We can choose to see these people as God's beloved image-bearers. We can choose to see them as struggling in a broken world, just as we are. We can have compassion, we can choose not to escalate.

What relationships or situations in your work does this idea challenge? How can you ask God for his help in this today?

Obstetrics

Obstetricians, obstetric nurses and midwives play a fascinating role in God’s design for human life. In Genesis 2, in the account of God creating woman, she is made as an ‘ê·zer (pronounced ay-zer) for the man. This word is usually translated as “helper” or “help mate,” but the meaning in the Hebrew Bible is one of rescuer or “delivering ally.” It is a word primarily used of God himself in Scripture. And one of the ways the woman was to be the man’s “delivering ally” was by allowing God to use her womb as a kind of fortress, preserving life, keeping the most vulnerable safe and nourished as He grew and strengthened them inside.

In Romans 8:18-25, Paul compares the creation’s (and our own) groaning for new creation to the pangs of childbirth–calling us to patience for what we cannot see, like awaiting the arrival of a baby.

Those who help deliver new life into the world are an incredible reflection of God himself, THE delivering ally, whose passion for the preservation of life has caused him to enter into the pain of the human story over and over again. Most extraordinarily, he came in Jesus, whose deliverance through death and into resurrection life created the unseen fortress within which even our most fragile hope can grow and become strong.

Of course, we know we live in the in-between. The new creation has been inaugurated in Christ, but the world is still broken. Those who deliver new life into the world experience the grief of stillbirths, of disease or damage to tiny humans, in spite of the goodness of the womb.

May those whose minds, hearts and hands care for the ‘ê·zer and for the new life inside her, experience the hope of resurrection life, even in the midst of sadness. May they be encouraged in their good work of partnering with the One who said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)

"We all want to make sense of life, of who we are and why we are, and to know that what we do—day in and day out—matters. But daily demands often lead to a life that feels void of meaning and disjointed from our deepest beliefs.

Steven Garber challenges us to move beyond our fragmented sense of reality and begin to see all we are and all we do—our work, play, relationships, worship, and loves—as significant to God. Once we discover that there is no chasm between heaven and earth, we are able to understand the coherence of the work of God and of our lives in the world. This is the seamless life—to see the truest truths of the universe woven into the very meaning of life, labor, learning, and liturgy."

-InterVarsity Press

If God is good, then so is his purpose! Rest in this good news today.

It's a hard word, but just as relevant to us today as it was to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai.

What idols are asking for your worship... in your work? In your social life? In your expectations about how life should be?

Waste Management

When we try to immerse ourselves in the Bible, some books are easier than others. Most of us tend to get lost in a book like Leviticus, for example. What do laws about staying away from blood and bodily fluids have to do with us today?

This question reveals the privilege of our social location. We take for granted a million things a day, but included in that number is our ability to take out our trash and have it "magically" whisked away.

But do we notice our sanitation workers? Can they teach us something profound about the nature of God? How does waste management reflect Yahweh?

Let’s look at Leviticus 16–God’s instructions to the Israelites for the Day of Atonement. One detail in particular might help us see something new about our garbage men... Two goats were to be brought for sacrifice. But only one was to be killed. The one that died was killed in place of the people–an innocent life in place of the guilty. But the other goat was symbolically burdened with all the sins of the Israelites and sent into the wilderness, taking all of their moral filth away from the presence of God. The two goats together made a way for the people to stay near God’s holiness.

We know what's in our trash cans. It’s the evidence of our decay, our waste, the harmful trappings of a culture we feel unable to avoid. This week it's plastic and cardboard packaging, broken ornaments and leftover pie.

In carrying away our trash, sanitation workers not only care for the community by keeping disease and stench at bay. They also reflect the one who carried the sin and filth of every human on his shoulders, bearing it away into the ultimate wilderness–death itself. And he is also the one who takes what the world calls trash and remakes it into something beautiful.

So, the next time you hear the garbage truck coming, choose to remember the atoning sacrifice of your Savior, and in gratitude, honor those who sacrifice their days for your health and well-being.

Remember the grace of the Lord as you enter into a new year. Fresh starts are his specialty!