Why Are Human Beings Creative? A Review of ‘To Invent Is Divine’
Why are human beings creative? This is the central question that patent expert James R. Edwards, Jr. sets out to answer in his new book, To Invent Is Divine: Creativity and Ownership. His answer is...
View ArticleThe Dignity of Work
These are strange times. Technology progresses so quickly that it begins to feel like magic. Artificial intelligence can write basic code in fifteen minutes that would take a decent programmer all day;...
View ArticleDiscover What’s Sacred about Spreadsheets
Ever wonder, “How could there be anything spiritual or truly eternal about financial planning?” If you’ve puzzled over money’s kingdom significance, questioned God’s view of tedious ledger keeping, or...
View ArticleWhat Do Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians Teach Us About Work?
In this article, I have collated over twenty excerpts from nearly every chapter of my book, Immanuel Labor – God’s Presence in our Profession, that highlight what the Apostle Paul teaches us about the...
View ArticleYour Work Matters & It Doesn’t, Be Glad
In my quiet corner, hunched between my tea mug and the Velky Česko-Anglický Slovník, I am concentrating fiercely on the demanding labor of translating seventeenth-century Czech. “Oh God, God, God! God,...
View ArticleGod Watches the Way We Work
It is our heavenly Father who provides food for birds and clothing for flowers. We, who are more valuable to him, are therefore to trust him for the necessities of life. A Weighty Decision Anxiety and...
View ArticleWhen Vocational Calling Changes Due to Moral Failure
I knew a good man who felt a call to vocational Christian ministry. While in college, he got his fiancée pregnant. This changed everything in the minds of his peers and in his own mind. He knew he had...
View ArticleWork is More than a Paycheck
Laurence Van Wassenhove, a fifty-nine-year-old French woman, has been receiving a full paycheck from her employer for the last twenty years—despite having no work to do in all that time. The reports...
View ArticleHow the Seven Army Values Align with Christian Values
In 2020, I wrote a two-part reflection on how I have experienced God’s presence while serving as a soldier on active duty for twenty years and while working as a civilian for the past fourteen years. I...
View ArticleThe Relationship Between Work & Rest
In 1982, Loverboy had a hit single, “Working for the Weekend.” The premise of the song was the opposite of the biblical vision of work and something foreign to Pete Ochs. The biblical vision is that we...
View ArticleWhat We Need to Learn & Unlearn About Work
After teaching about the theology of work for twenty years and struggling to truly convey to people the importance of what they do every day, I have found it immensely helpful to compare their work to...
View ArticleIs There a Water Cooler in a Virtual Work Environment?
One Saturday a few years ago, I got a phone call out of the blue from an old friend that I hadn’t seen for twenty years. Matt was one of the high school ministry volunteers when I was a church youth...
View Article7 Books on Faith, Work & Economics to Check Out Before Summer is Over
Labor Day weekend is coming early this year, which means the summer is beginning to wind down. While the holiday offers many a three-day weekend off of work, it also invites us to consider the meaning...
View ArticleLeadership in Ministry is Suitable for Any Job
Leadership is often misunderstood. We tend to hold up some caricature of a leader and then decide if we want to be that. More times than not, the answer is no. If you are reading about personality...
View ArticleHow Does God Lead Us to Our Calling?
It was the fall of 2007. I still remember it clearly. I was watching The Weakest Link with my daughter and youngest son. This was the original UK version hosted by a very sarcastic woman with a wicked...
View ArticleBusiness & the Local Church
In recent years, many churches have adopted popular business and leadership practices to make their operations more efficient. These practices have helped them develop stronger administrative...
View ArticleHow Ministry Experience Fosters Critical Thinking
This is what I hear from employers all of the time when I ask them about the skill of critical thinking: “We need people who, when they run into a problem, think through the issue, come up with a few...
View ArticleHow to Make Your Ministry Experience Relevant in Any Job
As a career coach at a state university, I regularly have students from Christian ministries come into my office for résumé reviews and practice interviews. During these conversations, they struggle to...
View ArticleThree Leadership Lessons Learned from Work
There is no lack of information available for best leadership practices. A quick Google search of the word leadership turns up countless results, ranging from leadership personalities to think tanks...
View ArticleKey Biblical Principles for Employees
In my last post, I laid out some basic biblical guidelines for employers and employees to follow at work. Now, I will share a few additional principles that are beneficial specifically for employees....
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