Your Work Matters to God
Often we can feel like our church and work lives are worlds apart. Yet work is part of what it means to be made in the image of God.
Tim Yearsley, Head of Innovation for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, spends his time helping young people discover how work and faith were made to go together.
Tim joined us at Work + Go Manchester 2022 to help us discover why our work matters to God. Here’s a taste of what he had to say. To listen to his full talk, head to the Work + Go podcast to hear more…..
Chip Boy @ Pappa’s Fish Bar
I want to tell you about my first job and what I did there as a chip boy. My job when I worked at Pappa’s, was to haul sacks of potatoes off these enormous shelves. I’d rip open the tops of the sacks, pour the potatoes into a big machine that would spin them around really fast and take off all the skins. I’d then open a little funnel that would then release the potatoes down a chute, where I’d pick up the potatoes one by one and cut out all the nasty bits. Once this was done, I’d put those potatoes into a machine that would slice them up and drop them into these enormous barrels full of chips ready to be cooked later in the day.
It was grueling manual labour; I'd have to fill up six of these barrels every day that I went to work at Pappa’s. After about three hours or so when I finished doing that I had to then load in the new stock into the walk-in freezer, rearranged the stuff in the walk in freezer, lose the feeling in my fingers while I was in the walk in freezer and then carry the stuff out into the kitchen. Just do all the kind of dog's body work that I was doing. And when I went into the kitchen to deliver stuff, I would see them selling the portions of chips that I had made for the price that I was being paid per hour, which was £3.20.
I would come home exhausted from these shifts and my family ever caring, ever understanding would welcome me in and say ‘you absolutely stink of fish get in the shower’. I didn't really have a great time when I was doing this work at Pappa’s Fish Barn. It cast a shadow on my whole week and just dreaded going to work and the thought of having to go through all of that again. What was interesting was that, although I was being paid such a meager wage for such grueling work, I ended up working so many hours that I had more money than I knew what to do with. But I was miserable. And I learnt a good life lesson, that earning lots of money doesn't necessarily make you happy.
Disconnect
At the same time as working at Pappa’s I was going to our church youth group. But it was like my work and my faith were completely disconnected. And it's not always easy to see how the work that we do on any given day might matter to God and how it might be a part of how we live out our faith. We might know Paul says “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Col 3:23). However, oftentimes a disconnect exists, we can know this intellectually, yet it's difficult to believe it in the way that we live.
God as a ‘Worker’
But when we take a deeper dive into the Bible, we see that work is not a bolt on to our faith. It's not an activity we pursue separately. It's not a necessary evil, or even just a platform for evangelism. Our work matters to God. Because in the beginning, God worked. We are introduced to God as a worker in Genesis 2:2, when it says God rested from all the work of creating that he had done. The Hebrew word for work is ‘malacha’. So that is the word for work that is used in Genesis 2:2, and it's the same word that describes human work. God is a worker in the same way that we are workers. This is really significant. So I want to spend some time showing you in the ways showing you the ways that it is significant.
Here are some of the different facets of God's work that we see unfolding just on the first page of the Bible.
God’s work:
Brings order
Makes provision
Sparks joy
Crafts beauty
Releases potential
And we know that human beings are made in the image of a God who works like that. Which means that work is an inbuilt part of what it means for us to be fully functioning and flourishing human beings.
So how might your work be an expression of God's work?
Bringing order
When we arrange spreadsheets to make sense of data, as a data analyst might, we’re bringing order. Or when we assign functions to components like an engineer might, or when we manage a calendar like a PA might we bring order? I wonder, where do you bring order in the work that you do?
Make provision
We can make provision when we stack shelves or reimburse expenses or fix leaking pipes to provide running water, we make provision.
Where in your work, do you have opportunity to make provision?
Spark joy
In our work, we can spark joy when our products entertain and delight as a game designers might. When we congratulate someone on a project well done like a manager might or when we just add a personal note to an email as any one of us might who send emails. I heard it said that modern work is moving things from one email inbox to another.
So how do you do your emails to the glory of God? And do your emails spark joy when you send them?
Craft beauty
In our work, we can craft beauty when we paint or remodel like an interior designer or decorator might. Or when we perfect that phrasing like an editor might or when we arrange things on a slide perfectly like a graphic designer.
Where do you craft beauty and what you do?
Release potential
We can release potential in the work that we do when we teach classrooms of kids as a primary school teacher might, or when we design people policies, as an HR consultant might, or when we bring individuals together as a team leader might, we release potential?
Where do you have opportunity to do that in your work?
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart
‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as if working for the Lord, not for human masters.’ (Colossians 2:23)
Slaves were the people that this verse was written to a class of people even lower than chip boys at Pappa’s Fish Barn, although some days it did feel like slavery. But Paul tells even slaves to work at what they do with all of their hearts. Because our work is not only for human masters. We're not just passing the time until Jesus returns. We're not just earning a platform to do the real work of evangelism. No, if we get this right, we'll see that our work matters to God. And we will do our work as if working for God. We will see that sharing Jesus across cultures and having a fulfilling career is not an either or, but a both and. So do your work with all your hearts as if working for the Lord, not for human masters, your work matters to him and through it, you and the people around you will flourish as he intended.
Hear more from Tim about how he discovered meaning and purpose in his work at Pappa’s Fish Bar and how we can see our work mirroring God’s in the Work + Go podcast.
