Ep. 224 - Matthew Kaemingk

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same. Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice. But that the how sometimes Elusa that Makes Total Sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day. Okay, so I think this is the second time that we've chatted for the podcast, Matt, and I'm just going to throw it out there and say this is also one of the few interviews. The first one was the same, that I haven't actually read your book. [00:01:00] Speaker B: Nice. [00:01:01] Speaker A: So it's like, kind of embarrassing. But I would say I've read a lot for you already. [00:01:07] Speaker B: That's right. You've done a lot of homework already. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Is that fair? [00:01:11] Speaker B: Sure. [00:01:13] Speaker A: Eventually, maybe I'll read your work. I did read some chapters of a different book, not your book on immigration, for a different class, actually, and it was fantastic. Maybe I'll put the link for that one in the notes. I think that's what we chatted about last time, but this time we're going to talk about work because you're a public theologian, you're an ethicist. But I want to know kind of like, where, before we really get started, why the interest in work? Because you did write a book that I didn't read. I'm sure it's phenomenal, but why the interest in that in this sphere of things that you study? [00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think so the interest in work comes from a number of different directions, I think. One is because I firmly believe that theologians, pastors, seminaries have really missed the boat when it comes to thinking about the daily work of the people of God. So by and large, theologians, pastors, seminaries, some of them will think quite a lot about the work of evangelism and missions and the work that happens inside the church. Others of them will think a lot about the work of justice and poverty and race and things like that. And they will hold up these jobs, these very particular jobs, and say, these jobs are so important to the kingdom of God. The people who do missions or who do ministry, they are the true servants of God. Or the people who fight for justice and serve the poor, they are the true servants of God. They are doing God's work. But then, of course, 99% of Christians, they work in hospitals and schools. They build houses, they take care of roads, they serve in the police force, they sell insurance. They do all sorts of things. But those jobs don't fit into these categories of evangelism and missions and church ministry stuff or justice and serving the poor. And so those people, the 99% of other Christians, often feel very left out, like their only purpose in life is to give money to pastors and missionaries who are doing the true work of God or to give money to justice and poverty things. Now of course evangelism is important and of course justice and charity is important. But the church has failed in large part to serve these workers who live and work and serve in God's world. They've failed to connect the deep meaning of the gospel to the daily work of nurses and real estate agents and people in marketing and whatever else. And even worse, when they talk about our work in the world, they often speak about people in business are just greedy. They're just out there serving themselves. Whereas people who work in the church or people who work in justice, they're truly good and selfless. So we've really missed the boat. And then there's like personal things for me that drew me into this as well. But that's the big thing. As a theologian I get pretty annoyed with my colleagues in seminary land for not speaking to the daily working lives of people. So that's a grind that I have. [00:05:25] Speaker A: Well, but I like it. So I have a few comments on that first thing we read. So I will also link this I did read something that you wrote. There's this article that you wrote for Fuller and I'll put that in the notes. But one of the things that came to mind when you were talking about that inside of the article saying that people don't always say it this way but you just did, which is like your job then if you're not one of those things is to pay for that right? You pay for the pastor's salary or you give charitable use to some of these organizations. You support them financially in some other way. And when I was running in pentecostal circles I actually heard that quite a bit. I don't think that it's limited to pentecostal or charismatic circles but there was a phrasing like there are those who go and there are those who send, right? And so there were these business people who had plenty of money or land or assets or whatever and they did I remember even having conversations with them where they thought of themselves, they saw their kind of vocation in a way was to make money so that they could send other people on mission. And that was just kind of like an accepted that was just like accepted. Second thing I would say is years ago when gosh, I don't even want to think about how many years ago it was now, but many, many years ago when my husband was considering going on to doctoral work. And my husband is an earth scientist, he's a geologist. And we had been discipled in this kind of environment that I was just talking about. And we both had this moment where there was like this realization where it was like maybe this sounds OD just maybe God had gifted him to be a good scientist and that his vocation could be pleasing to God in and of itself. Right? Not so that he could make money to do something else, or not so that he could go and kind of, quote, be a light to his colleagues or something like that, but just that he was really gifted at that and he enjoyed it. He really liked being in nature and these kinds of things, and he was really talented at it. And it was like this moment for both of us where we were like, wow, wouldn't that be crazy if God had gifted someone in doing so and then they did that thing to the glory of God. [00:08:11] Speaker B: It's almost like God made him and designed him, right. [00:08:15] Speaker A: Almost that way. [00:08:18] Speaker B: And this creation as something that might be explored and cared for, cultivated, right? [00:08:23] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [00:08:24] Speaker B: So it's a real lack, honestly, I don't think of it so much as a nasty oversight by theologians and pastors. I think of it as a lack of theological imagination, that you can only see God working through missions, or you can only see God working through justice advocacy and marching, and you can't see God at work through the caring for people who are looking for a home, right. The caring for a child in a hospital, the thoughtful design of a street to make it safe. You don't have the theological imagination to see the importance of artwork and being a 9th grade English teacher that that is somehow cultivating God's creation and bringing beauty and flourishing to a city. And so it's a lack of theological imagination, and it's one that I want to give to pastors and worship leaders. And we can talk a little bit about maybe a little bit later on, about how we can actually do this on a Sunday morning. That you can send people into their week with a vision that you're a part. Of this that you can continue to worship God as you go out and work, but it really is a lack of theological imagination, and that's core to the issue. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Well, we don't have to talk about it later. That was going to be my next question is how do we do that? Right. Because part of what I could be kind of snarky and say, well, actually so what I'm hearing is pastors aren't not doing part of their job well. Right. Pastors have a job and part of their job is to help people understand the parts of their job that are God glorifying. And we're not doing that very yeah, but let's talk about what that might look like. And maybe this may or may not be a lead in. And so if it's not, you're like, Alexis, stop. We're going to go somewhere else. But at the beginning of the article, there was a statement where you said something about the finite nature of our jobs can seem insignificant to the infinite nature of, you said, global challenges and forces and institutions. I'll take myself back. In a previous life, I did social work, like case work, like, really hard case work, like child welfare stuff. And when I read that, I immediately thought of I was having a rough time. The turnover in casework is quite ridiculous, and burnout is just rampant. And I was talking with my supervisor one day, and I was complaining about some training we had gone to where this lady who was not in the industry but worked with people in our organization, and she used that stupid throwing the starfish back in the ocean picture, right? Because it's so beautiful, right? The work that we do and blah, blah, blah. And I looked at her, and I was just really on the verge of burnout. And I was like, Listen, but you used to live in Houston. I'm like, but she doesn't tell you that the beach is not some gorgeous this is you're. You're going around, sorry to all the people who love Galveston, but I'm like, you're going around. You're like, trying not to step on broken glass. The water is nasty. You're throwing these things back. This is not actually a walk on the beach, right? But I could feel that even then. And I just, even on a side note, went into that job thinking it would be swarming with Christians. Yes, because I saw this. I'm like, what are we doing? We are putting ourselves as advocates for people who are the most vulnerable in our community, among the most vulnerable in our community, not just in child welfare, but we were working with TANF, which was Aid for Needy Families, all this. And I thought, here we are, and spoiler alert, Matt, in the Bible Belt, it was not swarming with mean. There were a few in this one particular office, but this was not where you were finding, like, all of the laypeople on pews were not in pews on Sunday and working this kind of social work during the week. But it really did impact me when I read that, because I thought that was one of those jobs for me, that I thought it feels you think you're going in, you think you're going to, quote, make a difference. You think you're going to do something like that, and you're just not. And maybe to your point, then you can take this where you want to go. And there's not a lot of encouragement inside of Christian discipleship to say, this is important, right? Whether it's that or whether it's the person who picks up the garbage and the recycling, or whether it's the person who, like you said, makes the streets, or whether it's the person who's the scientist, there's not a lot to say. This is actually important for our community, for the flourishing of people, for Glorifying, God. It just kind of gets overlooked. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So a couple of things going on there. So I'll try and take through a few of them. I should be taking notes. So the first one is Finitude and the exotic. I talk about this a number of different times in that article and elsewhere, that many Christians believe that God is present in exotic and exciting jobs. So God will call you to an exotic country to serve or a big world changing type of job. So for those listeners who maybe went to a Christian college, you'll get like an alumni magazine that says, here's all the amazing things alumni are doing, right? And it will often be like people doing just exotic missions work or amazing work in the city or political things. But it's big, right. They rarely will highlight someone who started their own plumbing business, right. And so we connect, many Christians connect the exotic and the world changing to, oh, God is really there. And that's my clue, that God is with me. But the mundane, the small, the finite, we imagine that God's not in that, in those kinds of things. I had a friend, she preached this wonderful sermon on Jesus when he uses the mud and the spit to heal someone. And she just had this sermon that just sung on Jesus using mud and spit, right, using small, finite, gross stuff. And as a mother to small toddlers, that was a very powerful story for her. So that's the first thing that I thought about when I was listening to you was the finite, the small, the mundane, it's not world changing work, right? The other thing I thought about listening to you is just sometimes work just absolutely sucks. It just frustrates you. You hate it, it's grinding. You feel like, maybe I'm actually a part of an industry that's making the world even a worse place, right? And so that causes you to get depressed and get angry and bitter and you take that out on your family members or your kids or you take that out on God, but you're just not happy. And so the prospect of connecting that somehow to your faith life is not a fun one. And oftentimes when pastors do talk about work, they can talk about it in a way that's very romantic, like, hey, you can go and convert your coworkers or you can make a difference and be a blessing. You have been blessed to go be a blessing. And they're very sort of positive about what Christians can change the world and whatnot and they forget that the workplace work itself fights back against you. You're a student right now, I'm sure oftentimes, Alexis, you feel like the paper itself is wrestling against you, right? It's not inert. It's fighting you. So not only is our work mundane and finite, but it's also frustrating and fallen. And so we need spiritual pathways to complain about work. We need ways to lament. And it is no accident that the very first thing that the Israelites learn about this God Yahweh is that they can cry out to Him about their work. That is how God introduces Himself to Israel, is you can cry out to Him about your work. And he responds, of course, with a mighty hand. But that's one of the things, in fact, that's the first thing they bring to God is a terrible job. That's the first thing. And this is where I want to get into Sunday worship with you. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this on Sunday morning. How many Christians feel like they can bring their terrible jobs into the sanctuary? [00:18:42] Speaker A: Probably zero. [00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Where would you put that in a Sunday morning service? We have no place to put that. But that is the very first thing that the Israelites learn, is that they can bring a horrible work experience to God. And yeah, Sunday morning, it just feels completely divorced from Monday morning work. And that's a massive problem. Just a massive issue. [00:19:09] Speaker A: How much of this do you think how much of this do you think has to do with pastors that are not bivocational? Right. So, like, a lot of complaints that I've heard from just congregants are basically, how would I expect the pastor to understand what this looks like? I've heard this. The pastor is telling me to get up at 05:30 A.m. And have a, quote, quiet time before I go into work. And that will basically that's romantic, right? It's going to make everything beautiful and wonderful, and on my ride to work, I'm going to listen to worship music and blah, blah, blah. And then there's kind of this realization, well, part of the pastor's job is to sit and have a quiet time. So how would he or she even know what this looks like? Right. Or many have come out of seminary at 26 and this is all that they know. And then there are definitely some pockets where pastors are bivocational. And I'd be curious if Sunday morning looks different in some of those spaces, but a church staff meeting looks different than an industry staff meeting. Right. Even some of those things that might kind of be, I don't know, officey or something like that, they just kind of look different. [00:20:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Being bivocational can definitely help a pastor in many ways connect, ask better questions, sympathize, be able to draw on their own experience. All of that can be very helpful. That said, I have met bivocational pastors who live very dualistic lives. [00:21:02] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. [00:21:03] Speaker B: So they can still have a terrible theology of work. So they think of their job like, I'm a pastor and I don't know, like a construction worker. They think of their job. They'll use the term tent making. And the term tent making is essentially meant that I do this job to support my ministry, so my job has no real value to the kingdom of God other than it enables me to do ministry which God cares about, but God doesn't actually care about these houses that I'm building. [00:21:41] Speaker A: It's the same thing we chatted about before. But instead of there being two groups of people or two different people, the pastor is doing that for herself or himself. [00:21:50] Speaker B: They're split. So we call this dualistic thinking where you've split the sacred and the secular, the body and the spirit. You've split ministry, work from work out in the world. And so these dualisms run through our pastors, they run through our seminaries, they run through the way that we run our Sunday morning service. So I can remember being welcomed in on a Sunday morning by this young worship leader who will remain nameless. He's strumming his guitar, you know how they do. And he says, welcome to worship, everyone. I know you've all had a really busy week. You've got a lot on your mind, you've got a lot of projects, a lot of things buzzing about. But for the next hour, I just want you to leave that at the door and worship God. And the devastating message is clear, right, that you should not bring your work before the Lord. God doesn't care about this. This Sunday morning is this time when we pretend that work isn't real or we focus on things that truly matter. And work is not one of those things. And so that just reiterates this chasm that breaks us up. [00:23:18] Speaker A: And do we do it to ourselves as congregants too? Because it's like a cycle is part of what I'm imagining because we've been discipled in this way. But then we feel like we can't bring it in, right? Because I'm going to be a good Christian and I'm going to be spiritual and I'm going to do just what that leader said. I'm going to focus on God during this time. And so bringing it in feels burdensome or not. Okay? Right. It feels like something that shouldn't be. So where do we put it? [00:23:56] Speaker B: Well, Alexis, I've written a book about this that I highly recommend to you, available on Amazon.com. Listen, we'll get no, but honestly, this is why we wrote this book on work and worship. It was all about how to form a deeper connection between your labor and your liturgy. And it's mostly aimed directly for pastors and worship leaders because we have to impact them first. And as I've said, theologians and seminaries have failed to really equip people, equip pastors to do this well. So I don't want to just bash on pastors today because somebody trained them. But the core thing of this book, the core finding of the book, is the deep importance of actually carrying your work into worship and laying it down before the Lord. That's something we see throughout the Old Testament, right? People are doing this strange activity of bringing their work before God and lifting it up as if God cared what they made or what their God can see your fruit. You don't have to bring it to the altar. But they were convinced that God wanted them to never come before Him empty handed, that God cared about what they had made. And I like saying that they believe that Yahweh had nostrils and that Yahweh would breathe in their sacrifice. He would draw in the aroma of your work, and it would give Him pleasure. Now, it would give God pleasure if that work was well done, if it was justly produced. But if it was produced in a way that was unjust, if you didn't pay your workers well, if you stole it or any of that, and then you sacrifice it to God, they would say that this would offend God's nostrils, right? And he would reject it. But the message there is clear is that you are to bring your work before the Lord. And so our our argument is that workers need to regularly bring their work before the Lord in worship. And there's five things, five things that you can bring from your daily work. We've already talked about some of them. So the five things are we call them trumpets, ashes, tears, petitions, and fruits. So the trumpet is sort of a praise for something wonderful that's happened at work. It's important that you praise God for his victories at work, because if you don't, you will start to praise yourself at work, right? You'll start to think, I'm an amazing surgeon or I'm an amazing real estate agent. Ashes are confessions. You have guilt that you've behaved poorly at work, or maybe you're a part of a system that you need to confess. You're a part of an economy that's unjust in some way. So you need to bring that guilt before the Lord. Tears. We've talked about this. You need to cry. You need to bring your tears to God about terrible work. You need to learn to lament. So we've got to create space for that. The fourth is petitions, which is kind of like intercessory prayer. So you need to intercede and pray for your you need to bring your boss before the Lord and pray for your boss, your coworkers, your clients. We argue that workers have a priestly calling to stand before the Lord and advocate for the people in their lives. And so that's sort of an extroverted or selfless act. You're not praying just about your career and me and what I want for work, but you're praying for others that you work with. And then the last one is your fruits, right? The thing that you're very proud of. And so throughout the book, we look how this shows up throughout Scripture in deep and beautiful ways. It shows up in church history in deep and beautiful ways, and it shows up in the global church in all kinds of amazing ways. Like, we look at these worker worship services in Nicaragua, in Singapore and Zimbabwe, in the Ukraine, all kinds of fascinating ways in which global Christianity is placing their work and worship into deep conversation. But the modern west is not. The modern west would prefer their lives to be segmented and so we argue that scripture can help know no surprise. But also the global church can help us reconnect these things and that's a big part of it. And then of course we did like practically here's what that looks like. And so we've even developed a website called Worshipforworkers.com and a new album of music which you can find on Spotify. The album is quite great. It's called Worship for Workers and it has lots of songs that a worship leader can pick up and they're quite beautiful. We've got like Sandra McCracken and lots of other really great artists working on that. So that's really the thrust of that project. It's been a lot fun to work on. [00:30:01] Speaker A: Sorry, that was a lot no, I'm appreciative and now I have a lot more questions that are swimming around and I'm staring at you thinking do I ask the politics professor this question or do I not? I don't know where to go. Bring it. [00:30:22] Speaker B: Let's go. Come on. [00:30:23] Speaker A: I don't want to because when I read these, I wrote down these bullet points and I'm listening to you and I'm thinking, why is this different in the west, right? There's a hundred reasons why this is different in the west. But the first thing that came to my mind is I wonder if this is a lot different in the west because of the influence of capitalism. Like you talk about God being a maker, but I think in capitalism when we make, we make for people to consume and that that's just kind of part of right, so so I'll give you an example. When I was reading this article and you talk about God being a maker, that was the first thing we learned about God from the scriptures is that he's a maker. And my mother in law who passed away several years ago was an artist. And one of the regrets that I have is just that I wasn't able to connect with her very well because I found it difficult to connect with artists. And I think even now we talk and especially in social media, it's like oh, are you a creative? Right? It's a noun like you are a creative or you're not. And I've never identified that way. Like I've never identified as an artist or a maker or a creative. But my husband is more so he kind of took after his mom and he can do lots of artistic things and draw and play music and that kind of thing. When the kids were younger, even now, but when they were younger especially, there was just stuff like art projects and things like that around all of the time and I never really understood that. And I think part of it was because of maybe the unconscious influence of capitalism that says you make to create something and then that something needs to serve a purpose in someone's life. And my husband would say they can just enjoy the process of making like it doesn't have to be a thing, and it doesn't have to be stored in the house forever, and it doesn't have to be whatever. That part of being human is just creating and just making and sometimes just creating and making for the sake of doing it or for the process of it, or for pleasure's sake. But there were times when that hasn't really resonated with me. And even whenever before you list did off the five things, my thought went straight to fruit. Right? Like not using that exact word, but that's where I would go, right? Hey, mom. Look what I can do. Look what I can do. And you bring this thing, right, but these other things are part of the process of that. There's a question embedded in there somewhere, and really, I'm avoiding asking how much you think capitalism influences our inability to do this well, right? [00:33:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's a very good question. I guess I would say that capitalism makes this hard, but I would actually root the problem deeper in Western society than capitalism. So the division between work and worship started earlier, and it has to do. [00:33:45] Speaker A: With I wouldn't know this if I read the book, right? [00:33:49] Speaker B: No, you wouldn't. Actually. We didn't do a lot of this history, honestly, in the book. We just assume that there's this big division, and we immediately start working on how to put it back together. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Okay, that's fair. [00:34:01] Speaker B: So historically, the problem starts with the Greeks. So the Greeks of, like, Plato and Aristotle, they say things like, the soul and philosophy are really valuable, and the world below us is not that great. So the highest thing you can be is a philosopher, and the lowest thing you can be is a worker. So they had a very low view of work. Then later on you get that with a sort of Catholic dualism in the Middle Ages, where the monks and the nuns and the priests are the one who do the important spiritual sacred stuff. And the word secular actually emerges out of this Catholic dualism that some people have sacred jobs and some people have secular jobs. And so that's really contested by the Reformation, which says, no, everybody's work is holy. And so Luther and Calvin and others really talk about the holiness of all of our work and that it is enchanted and glorifying to God. And then what happens after that is you get this modern division slowly with, like, a deism and the Enlightenment in which God becomes removed from public life. And that takes shape in capitalism, but it also takes shape in socialism. And so you would encounter this division between work and worship in a socialist. Society and a capitalist society. Yes. But I guess I would just say modernity is the problem. [00:35:43] Speaker A: Got it. [00:35:44] Speaker B: And modernity produces capitalism and it produces socialism. And I don't want to romanticize the African or Latin American churches on this either. So there are great examples of connection in African and Latin American and Asian churches. But there's also you can find very dualistic churches around the world. The Greeks are a problem for work and worship. The dualistic Catholicism, capitalism is an issue on this. And then the last thing I would say has to do with geography in the modern west. So you're in Houston where know, these cities keep spreading out and you have a lot of suburban churches. And Leslie Nubigan talks about the challenge of suburban churches. That was the last one I want to talk about. He says what happens is essentially people sleep in these bedroom communities and then they drive into the city to do their work. But their worship, their understanding of God is shaped and formed in suburban life. And so preaching in suburban life is very focused on the family and on leisure and on your neighbors. So the pastor and the church life is very suburban focused and is totally disconnected geographically from the work that you do out in the city. The pastor has no idea. The pastor is totally disconnected from that world and life. Whereas if you were in the Middle Ages in a small French village, your field, your marketplace, your church, it was all right there. And the priest would walk through your field with you and he would walk through the marketplace and then just walk right up the steps into the church. So people lived very integrated lives. But in a city like Houston, right, the people of God are being stretched further and further apart and they are working in jobs that are more and more complex, that are really hard for pastors to understand and speak to. So one person is geological science, then the next person is a physics professor and then this other person, they're all over the place. It's very challenging for a pastor to feel connected or even conversant with what their people are doing. So there's a lot going on. Whereas like, if you're a pastor in a small African village, it's not as hard to make those connections. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but I'm still wondering I hear that I think something that I would add maybe is that everything that you just said is true and there are lots of people who even are geographically disconnected from their congregations. There are commuter churches. I don't know if I know anyone who goes to church kind of in quotes, like who goes to church where let's say in Houston. I don't know anyone who could go to church and could bike yeah, if they wanted to. Or could walk there or could get there within five minutes in their cars. And I'm also curious how that impacts this conversation too, because people are disconnected in their work from the place where they worship, and the place where they worship might also be disconnected geographically from the communities where they actually live. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Yeah, two things on that. One is an awesome little tiny book called Sidewalks in the Kingdom by Eric Jacobson, all about the spiritual importance of sidewalks and walkable neighborhoods. It's a great little book. It's like 20 years old, but I still just love that little thing. So back to new begin. So New Begin criticizes the suburbanization of preaching, right, and its disconnection from our life and work in the city. He proposes the planting of churches in factories and universities and office buildings and things like this. And you can actually see this. I mean, obviously universities often have like a chaplaincy or like a student like university and things like this. But his case is missional that you plant the church where the people are. And if the church is where the people are, it will be more conversant with their actual lives. And here's my last axe to grind. Right. Suburban churches will often talk about the importance of neighborhood ministry and ministering to your neighbors. But of course, for many people in the suburbs, the suburbs is where they sleep, but 60 hours a week they're in the city. And so what this does is basically say, look, we're not going to preach to your working life at all. We're going to talk to you about the people who sleep near you instead of your coworkers who you're working with every single day. So what this does is it creates Christianity of the margins, where Christians try to create margins in their evenings and on their weekends to do Christian work. So I need to create more margin to talk to my neighbors in the evening or I need to create more margin on my weekends to hang out with my neighbors because then I can do God's work rather than seeing their Christian life as being lived Monday through Friday in their daily working life. And this marginal Christianity is like, well, if I have extra time, I'll be a good Christian, or if I have extra money, I'll be a good Christian rather than seeing it. No, this is a path that you walk every day of the week where you're called rather than to the neighborhood that's right next to your church. That's always bugged me. [00:42:38] Speaker A: Okay, so I hear that and now I'm asking. Okay, then flip it like we've talked about. What does this look like on Sundays? Or even in just what you were talking about in this marginalization where we're still focused on doing God's work in quotes during those times. And our Monday through Friday, our 60 hours a week, is gone. So you're a pastor. This is a joke. You're not a pastor. [00:43:15] Speaker B: I actually am ordained within the Christian you are ordained. [00:43:19] Speaker A: That's right. [00:43:19] Speaker B: But I am not a day to. [00:43:21] Speaker A: Day, not a day to day pastor. Sorry. Yes, that is correct. So you are not a day to day pastor. You have a different job as a professor. But let's pretend that you're a day to day pastor and you've talked about how you can create space on Sundays, but I want to hear how are you talking to the people who do what you actually do? Except maybe they're not a seminary professor. Maybe they're a professor at a university and they teach science courses or they're the English chair or they're the people who you've talked about, they're the real estate agents and the people who design the streets and clean them and all of those things. And we're trying to convince them, you're trying to help them understand that their work is holy, that this division that has been imagined isn't really the division that they were brought up to believe that it was, even though it's the water that most of us swim in. How do they become empowered in their Monday through Friday life or their night shift or their weekend? How do they become empowered to see their work as something that is glorifying to God, that is beneficial to the community, that is worship? How do they become empowered to see that and to act on that? [00:44:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. So if I'm a pastor interacting with workers, helping them to open their eyes to these kinds of things, I would get really good at asking questions. And because the primary task of the pastor is to in these kinds of situations is to awaken the worker's theological imagination for the work that they do. My task is not to tell them, here's what it's like to be a Christian nurse or here's what it's like to be a Christian Science teacher or whatever, but it is to equip them to do that work and wrestling themselves. So I'll give you an example of very early on, I was working in New York City as a pastor for the center for Faith and Work. So we were caring for workers in Manhattan who are trying to think about these things. And I gave this talk on Faith and Work and serving God through your daily work. And this woman came up to me, very successful marketing executive, and she know, all right, hotshot, because I was a young pastor at the time, and she was not impressed with me, right? [00:46:18] Speaker A: She goes, all right, hotshot, I would give $5. All right, hot shot. [00:46:26] Speaker B: So she says to me, my job this week is to develop a marketing campaign for vodka, this vodka company. And I want to know, how do I glorify God by selling vodka? Now, what I could have done was tell her exactly what she should do, right? And imagine that I know something about marketing and something about the vodka industry, which I don't, though from time to time, a martini or whatever, that's about the extent of my knowledge. [00:47:05] Speaker A: Anyways, I've been into Moscow Mules lately, so she's speaking my language, right? [00:47:12] Speaker B: You know, she's like, all right, hotshot pastor, how do I sell vodka to the glory of God? So I ask her a series of questions, and this is what I really do argue that this is how pastors should interact with workers. So I said, well, if we're doing, like, a diagram of the decision making process, I think the first question is, do you think God likes vodka? Right? Do you think he likes it? And that made her step back for a second, and that gave me a second to breathe and figure out what I was going to do with this very intense woman who had this question for me. I knocked her back on her heels, which was the point of that one. And she said, well, I guess God could like vodka. And I was like, all right, okay, we've got an answer. God could like vodka. How under what circumstances might God like vodka? And then she started to think, and then she started to list some things. So she said, Well, I think God would like good quality vodka. God wouldn't like cheap vodka. That's what she thought. Okay, that's one thing. So quality, what else? Well, I think God would want god could like vodka if it was used responsibly. I said, okay, responsibly, that's another one. How might it be used? In a way that God would enjoy it? She thought for herself, and she thought, well, maybe like at a wedding or like a graduation or some kind of, like, anniversary or something like that. Okay, well, there you go. So you've told me that God could like vodka if it's quality made, if it's used responsibly, and if it's a form of some kind of celebration, like if it brought people together. I said, okay, can you imagine a marketing campaign that would highlight bringing people together, the quality of what's being made and it being responsibly used? I thought for a little while, and then I asked her and she said, I think I could work on that. And I said, if you did that, and if you did it really well, do you think God would be happy with you? Do you think God would be delighted? Then she was like, yeah, I think I could. And so it wasn't my job to create the marketing campaign or to solve it for her, but she is a member of a holy priesthood. She's a saint. She is in Christ. And so it's her task. God has given her these amazing gifts in imagination and marketing and things like that. So it's her task to wrestle with, why on earth did God put me here and what might God have for me? And my task as a pastor is actually a pretty humble one, right? It's coming up below and offering her a few questions and categories, but really lifting her up and saying, this is your calling, and it's your responsibility to wrestle with this. Now, of course, the conversation could have gone differently. She could have said, look, this is a really corrupt company and I'm being forced to lie. And then we have questions about, well, maybe you need to go, or things like that. But it's pastoral questioning and it's pastoral curiosity. That's the key, right? Because you don't want to be a pastor who just says, hey, how's the job going? And then you just immediately move on to the kids or you move on to anything, but you're genuinely caring about what they're going through, and you go with questions. I don't know if that's helpful or not. [00:51:28] Speaker A: No, it's super helpful, and I think it goes back to what we started with at the beginning of expanding our theological imaginations. I think so often because of kind of some of the dichotomy that we've expressed during this conversation of, like, there being a kingdom work, which is evangelism or justice and everything else isn't, then, well, how can you serve God at work? Looks more like evangelism or justice, right? Like, well, you talk to your coworkers about Jesus, or you leave tracks in the break room or whatever your tradition says is good evangelism. Or you stand up when you see an unjust practice and you bang your fist on the table. But having a theological imagination, that looks like what some of those questions, right? How am I interacting with God in my work? How am I imagining God with me in my work, maybe are some of the things I'm thinking about right now. How am I imagining myself in my creative process? How am I integrating my faith life into that? How am I questioning God in that? My kids read the Eric Liddell book not long ago, and I said, oh, this is the I feel God's pleasure when I run guy, right? And I said I laughed and I said, that's funny, because not everybody feels God's pleasure when they run. For some people, maybe they feel like God is completely miserable and why would he force them to do this kind of thing? But for Eric, he felt God's pleasure when he ran, which isn't for everybody. [00:53:29] Speaker B: On that particular topic. It is really important when you're speaking with Christians who are in the workplace, there's this four point heuristic that this guy, David Miller, sociologist, looks at faith and work. He says, Christians tend to think about faith and work in one of four ways. So the first one, you mentioned evangelism. So good. Christian workers. Evangelize the second one is ethics. So good Christian workers are very ethical. They have integrity, they treat people well, and that's what a good Christian worker is. The third one is they think in terms of spiritual enrichment. So I'm blessed through my work, and God teaches me things through my work, and that sort of a thing. The fourth one is the one that like Eric Liddell. And really what I'm pushing for is experience. And that is a deeper thing, which is God made me for this. God put me here, and I can bless God through the day to day work of this stuff. So if the first one is I talk about God at work, the second one is, I obey God at work. The third one is, I'm blessed by God at work. Last one is, I serve and glorify and experience God at work. So it's a deeper thing than just talking about him that God is walking with me as I walk through this insurance company, and God is blessed and glorified, and I can worship God through developing an insurance plan that's really going to serve this family well or whatever it is, or if I'm a counselor. The important thing is not that I evangelize my clients in a counseling room. Right. But that I am facilitating their healing. And so it's trying to help the worker move from just evangelism or ethics down to that deeper level of understanding that the work of my hands, the work of my hands can be lifted up and be pleasing to God. Just like the stay at home mom who doesn't feel like she's changing the world, but she's just changing diapers, right? And she's frustrated by that, helping her see that God is deeply present and delighted in those snacks and diapers and vacuuming the minivan and all of those kinds of things, and developing a theological imagination to see God moving in the mundane. That's a critically important pastoral skill that we have not done a good job of developing, I would argue. [00:56:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the last thought I have on that is as I was hearing you, I'm like, oh, now listen, this feels like low hanging fruit. This is superficial. Don't. Anyway, I can see your face, but I'm like oh, okay. Dr. Kamick. So it's a spiritual like, what I'm hearing you say that is not like I'm hearing, okay, so how do I do that? Like, we've seen, you know, what can pastors do to help facilitate that on Sundays? What can pastors do to help facilitate that in a worker throughout the week? But what can the worker do to help facilitate that? Well, this can be part of our spiritual disciplines, like a lot of other things, like when we do ignatian stuff or when we're practicing Alexiodevina or we're doing any of these things, we're intentionally engaging at that level, and that makes a difference for us in how we experience our work, like that intentional part for the worker. [00:57:51] Speaker B: So this woman, she's leading this marketing team that's particularly toxic and nasty, and there's backbiting and fighting, and she's sort of overcome by the responsibility of bringing these people together. And so one morning, she gets in early and she walks around the corporate table where they're going to be meeting and she places her hand on each of the chairs. She prays her way around the room for the meeting, asking the Holy Spirit to protect and lead her and to open up their hearts and draw the team together. Another, a physical therapist who is developing an anxious relationship with her patients who are not doing their exercises like they should. Physical therapists can be rough. And she develops this practice to slow herself down and place her hand on the body of the patient that she's caring for as a way to remind herself. This is a body made in the image of God that is sacred. And a delivery man who has a breath prayer for each house that he drops packages off and he has a simple prayer that he develops. These ways of practicing the presence of God in and through our daily work are incredibly important. They happen all the time. People develop these things honestly, often out of desperation, not out of thoughtfulness, but just, God, I need you. So, Alexis, I would just say that you have anticipated our next book, which is what my co author Corey Wilson and I are working on, which is Liturgies for labor and really talking through how might workers begin to practice the presence of God in and through their daily work. And there's been some work on this, but there needs to be much more on this side, so yeah, that's a wonderful point, Alexis. Thank you. [01:00:06] Speaker A: Wow. I feel like that's a great way to close this out. We went from one book that I haven't read yet to one that you haven't written yet. So there we am. I really am super grateful for this. Matt, you and I have had conversations over the years about something that Fuller emphasizes is vocational formation, this process. And I'm grateful to have these conversations with someone who's really thought about these kinds of things deeply. And it's not just what do we do? Where do I drive every day to go to work, but what does that actually look like and what is the connection of that with my faith, whether it's a quote, a ministry job or something? Very so I'm really grateful for you in those conversations as well. I have a list of links that I'll put in the show notes, but say the name again of the book that you and Corey have already that you published a few years ago where you list out those five points for workers. [01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So the name of the book is Work and Worship reconnecting our labor and Liturgy. And for those who would like to lead a worship service for workers or those who lead worship and want to do this, well, there are lots of resources at our website, worshipforworkers.com. You can find congregational prayers, you can find blessings for workers, special liturgies for them, and worship songs. So it's all there for yeah. Anyways, Alexis, thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun and yeah, I'm glad I could give you a little more reading. [01:01:59] Speaker A: That's nice. Thanks for coming back. Talk soon. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Bye bye. [01:02:05] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the Show Notes, Music and Podcast production by Seth Busetti. Be sure to give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also visit [email protected].