| Church life | Sydneyanglicans.net

| Church life | Sydneyanglicans.net

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United states of Tara | Film

United states of Tara | Film & TV | Sydneyanglicans.net

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Slander at work | Music

Slander at work | Music & day to day Christianity | Sydneyanglicans.net

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Why we miss the workers | Behind the news | Sydneyanglicans.net

Why we miss the workers | Behind the news | Sydneyanglicans.net

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"Called" to be a guitarist

Went to see Tommy Emmanuel, Australian "leg-end" guitarist, play in concert last night at the Angel Place Recital Hall in Sydney CBD. What a freak! His 50 years of playing the guitar has made him a virtuoso who, incidentally cannot read a bar of music. It must be the muscle memory in his fingers that allows him to play some blisteringly fast (and beautiful slow) tunes - melody, chords and bass together - on one guitar.

At one point in the evening he mentioned that playing the guitar was his "calling", and that got me thinking about the "calling" of the Artist: one who is blessed with the gift of creating art (whether poetry, music, visual art, etc) for the enjoyment of others, and ultimately for God's enjoyment. For a biblical example check out David. His gift of music (expressed in playing the harp) would often placate the angry soul of King Saul and averted many disasters, and the legacy of the Psalms he wrote has been a great blessing to the devotional life of the Church throughout the ages.

God has certainly blessed Tommy Emmanuel with the gift of playing the guitar skillfully. Glory be to Him!

Does God like your job? | Music

A good friend and brother brought this article to my attention from Sydneyanglicans.net. It's great that the issue is out there again and being discussed in Sydney - it would have seemed that we were not interested in pursuing the questions around faith and work, but my heart is encouraged...

Does God like your job? | Music & day to day Christianity | Sydneyanglicans.net

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Work/Life Balance

A few months ago our pastor Shane lent me a book to read: "The Busy Christian's Guide to Busyness" by Tim Chester of Total Church fame. I was struck by a section exploring 3 types of ethic:

• The Work-centred ethic;
  
• The Leisure-centred ethic;
• The God-centred ethic.

A particular stand-out comment was related to a cycle of work/rest/play a la the old Mars Bar advertising hook: "A Mars a day helps you work rest and play!"

A popular phrase at the moment is the "work/life balance", which suggests to me that there is "work" and then there is "real life", as though work was not a part of life(!!) 

I want to advocate for a "work/rest balance", which I think more accurately captures the biblical idea. 6 days of work and 1 day of rest, a "Sabbath to the Lord your God".

This appropriately gives work and rest its true place.

Comments?

Management

Last week I attended a course on Foundational Management for my employer, which was a great experience. I got to meet many people from the business side of things, and had some interesting conversations about their day-to-day work and their technology needs.
I think all of us were energised by the course and inspired to become better managers.

One of the key ideas around management is that you should be able to get the work done through other people. Thinking about Christ Jesus our Lord/Manager, His strategy is the same: to get His work of bringing souls to Himself done by us; we are His hands and feet. In dependence upon the Holy Spirit, may we seek in every way to please our heavenly Master to this end.

Prayer Meeting - CBD South

This morning I attended an "inaugural" men's prayer meeting under the auspices of the Christian Business Men's Association (CBMA) and City Bible Forum (CBF). It is a joint venture using the experience of CBMA and the resources of CBF, specifically the Evangelistic Prayer Team (EPT) booklets.
The Vision of CBF is: Under God, we long to present the good news of Jesus Christ to every worker in every major business district of Australia so that they may respond in repentance and faith and be established in the fellowship of believers.

Such a vision will only remain a vision without the commitment to regular prayer and subsequent action (under the guidance of the Holy Spirit) in witnessing to our work colleagues with the glorious Gospel.
This initiative is exciting and important if Christians are to "seek the welfare of the city" a la Jeremiah 29:7. I commend it to you.

Servanthood - an application

I have been working for nearly 9 years in the IT (Information Technology) industry - not sure if that makes me a veteran, since things move so quickly in technology... anyways, the last 3 of those years I have been working through the concept of faith and work, and how it all applies. Here's a distillation of my thinking:

*Jesus Christ came not to be served, but to serve... (Matthew 20:28)

*He calls his followers to be servants...(1 Peter 2:16)

*The IT Industry is one of many service industries (including the more established legal and accounting professions), and a key discipline in IT according to the ITIL standard is Service Management, with the main function being the IT Service Desk (traditionally "Help Desk").

*My training and experience to-date has focussed in on the Customer Service side of IT as opposed to Application Development or Project Management.

*All IT jobs in some way should serve the business it supports - without the business needs/problems, IT simply would not exist.

*IT in a very real way exists to redeem people from the curse of technology - analogical to Jesus' redemption of man from the curse of sin (am I starting to draw too long a bow here??)

*This is where IT workers can find their meaning and motivation - they shadow in their day-to-day service to others the Servanthood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are some pitfalls here:

*Technology itself can be a harsh master, but used well it is a great servant;

*IT workers need to keep in mind that they serve the business, and the business doesn't serve them;

*Service is also a lot broader than IT - it is a whole-life attitude, that in the words of Oswald Chambers: "[a servant is] one who becomes broken bread and poured out wine in the hands of Jesus Christ for other lives" (My Utmost for His Highest, February 25th entry).

May we all live sacramental lives of service in His Name...Amen.

The Great Divorce

I would like to borrow from C.S. Lewis' book title for this post. There is a "Great Divorce" currently in place, with the idea of people in "full-time ministry" and "the rest". This has proven to be extremely unhelpful, and can be attributed to a dualistic understanding of the world: a lower, material realm, and a higher, spiritual realm. This is reflected in the current dichotomy between "spiritual" work and "menial" labour. However, I think that we need to recover a more integrated view of the world, a view that looks back to Genesis and God who creates the material world and sees that what He has just created is "very good" (Genesis 1:31). He has just brought the land and sea, animals and humans into being, and He stands back in admiration of His handiwork.

Do you see this? God is a worker! He has blessed and sanctified work by His own work! Make no mistake, work can be terribly difficult and frustrating (see the account of the curse of work in Genesis 2:17-19), but because God works, work itself can also be a blessing if done in an attitude of service and gratitude (Colossians 3:17).

There are some encouraging signs of the removal of this dualism in Christian thinking, but there is still a lot of work to do. Mission is something that can (and should) be done by anyone, wherever they are found (a la Matthew 28:19, the "as you go..." making disciples etc).

Perhaps another term to distinguish those who are engaged in Gospel work but do not work in business from those who do, is "paid Christian ministry" and "unpaid Christian ministry"? Or maybe there's a better one out there... The Protestant formulary coined by Luther was of a "priesthood of all believers", which desperately needs to be recovered in the Church, so we can recover from the damage caused by the "Great Divorce" of sacred and secular.

Christianity 9 to 5

Michael Zigarelli has a wonderful ministry of online articles including excerpts from spiritual giants such as C.S. Lewis, Brother Lawrence, and Thomas a Kempis to name a few. Check it out at: http://www.epiphanyresources.com/9to5/9to5magazine.htm. You can subscribe to a regular email which links to the articles.

Christianity 9 to 5: Practical Resources for Living your Faith at Work.

Not just for Sunday...

I was awoken this morning by my radio alarm, and the first words I heard were "Your relationship with God is not just for Sunday..." (Time with God with John North)

I exclaimed aloud "That's what I'm talking about!"

That's exactly what this blog is about - removing the Sunday/Monday gap. A foundational document in my thinking can be found here on the Lausanne website. More on this document forthcoming...

Introduction

Hello World!

My name is Christopher - in Greek it means literally "Christ-bearer". My aim for this blog is to wrestle with the concept of the Lordship of Christ in all of life - with a specific bearing on work and faith integration.

The title of my blog is a Hebrew word which means both "work" and "worship" - a great way to demonstrate what should never have been separated. 

Come one, come all and rejoice with me in the God who cares about the whole person!