Finding God at Work

Think about making career decisions like preparing a soup. The questions you ask while discerning what's next are like the different ingredients that mix together to form the final product.   One key ingredient that we sometimes leave out is this question: Who is God calling me to love?   Sometimes God gives us a "who" that's even more important than the "what" of our career. Sometimes it's a fami...

When we think about callings, we often ask, "What is God calling me to do?" But some other questions are just as important: "Where is God calling me to go?" "Is God calling me to stay?" In Scripture, we see examples of God sending people to specific places, sometimes with no substantive change in what they were doing. Sometimes, the *where* matters more than the *what* to God's purposes. We also s...

Chris interviews Zack Wilson about his experience helping start LINK Kalamazoo . On a few prayer walks during the pandemic, Zack started asking, "Why couldn't something great happen here?" An initial idea for networking events evolved into a group that's helping make Kalamazoo a more vibrant place, from business partnerships to influencing the city's ten-year master plan.   LINK Kalamazoo is helpi...

When you're at a significant career juncture, how do you involve other people in your decision-making process?   It can get dicey. On the one hand, we want helpful counsel. On the other hand, we risk being judged or getting unhelpful advice. Parker J. Palmer writes about this tension that "we often privatize these vital questions in our lives: at the very moment when we need all the help we can ge...

It can be helpful to think about what God calls you to as the intersection of three circles: What You Desire (Your Deep Gladness) What the World Needs (The World's Deep Hunger) An Economic Engine (God's Practical Provision) Sometimes, a single brilliant job hits all three areas. More often, we need a combination of jobs, responsibilities, and projects that help us hit all three. And that's okay! W...

Chris interviews Dr. Karen Swallow Prior about her new book, You Have a Calling: Finding Your Vocation in the True, Good, and Beautiful . Hear about how "follow your passion" is terrible career advice, how doing ordinary things well can deeply honor God, and how calling can transcend profession and pay. Regardless of what we do for a living, all of us are called to pursue truth, goodness, and beau...

The language and idea of "calling" sometimes gets thrown around a lot in Christian circles. Not everything we tend to think or say about calling in our particular Christian subculture is necessarily rooted in the witness of Scripture. In this episode, Chris tackles four myths about calling that sometimes surface: Myth #1: You only have one, lifelong calling. Myth #2: Calling is first and foremost...

We kick off a new series with this episode— Meaningful Work: Calling, Formation, Service, and Love .   Work often feels meaningless. So what can we do both to find the meaning that's already there, and to make the work as meaningful as it can be?   As disciples of Jesus, we mean something in the world; we communicate the reality of who God is when we live in love. "As he is so also are we in this...

Chris interviews executive coach and author Melissa McCormick about her unexpected career journey. In her years as a leader at the Taylor Company , Melissa was known as a Christian for going on mission trips. But when it came to work itself, she would "leave Jesus in the car" after her morning commute. Her approach changed when she realized she could take Jesus to work with her. When she invited h...

Chris and Katie wrap up the Divine Disappointments series by sharing how God has brought them through a season of desolation and confusion into a place of hope and anticipation. In the Joseph story, the dream came true in a most unexpected way, working out God's saving purposes not just for Joseph and his family, but for the whole world. For Chris and Katie, even though the future is unknown, it's...

Chris and Katie continue to reflect on how the life of Joseph provides a paradigm for their own "journey through the desert" of work and health challenges. Joseph's dream already looked dead when he was sold into slavery in Egypt, but it "died again" when he was imprisoned on false charges. Similarly, even after a significant health crisis and a season of real healing, Chris and Katie realized tha...

Chris and Katie continue to reflect on the life of Joseph and their own vocational journey. Joseph's dream looked dead when he was sold into slavery in Egypt. Chris's dreams of pastoral ministry and fatherhood looked dead in the middle of a physical, mental, and spiritual health crisis for Katie. For Katie, life was simply falling apart. Yet in the middle of all that, the Lord showed great mercy....

To wrap up our Divine Disappointments series, we're doing a four-episode look at the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis, with Chris (and Katie!) sharing how their own vocational journey has reflected the pattern we see there: Dream Death of the Dream Double Death of the Dream Resurrection Sometimes, our dream has to die before it can come to life in God's time. Take the course at FindingGodAtWo...

Chris interviews Ben Kraker about his vocational journey from youth ministry to tech sales to managed IT and app development, and how he grew closer to God through each shift. His work with youth, while fruitful, grew out of a sense of obligation to others' expectations. Eventually, he ended up on empty: disillusioned and driftless. But then, after shifting to a "secular" career, Ben discovered sp...

Every industry has negative externalities—some way that in the course of getting business done, the world around the business is negatively affected. As disciples of Jesus, how do we make sense of our responsibility in regards to the negative externalities of the industries where we work? Take the course at FindingGodAtWork.org . Sources: Psalm 15 (ESV) Esther 7:3-4 (ESV) Timothy Keller with Kathe...

Sometimes the most stressful part of work is how little it pays. It can feel like you're doing everything you know how to do, and you still come up short. When that's your situation, it's easy to become resentful. But even when you feel like you have your back against the wall, there's an alternative to resentment. Jesus shows us a different way. Take the course at FindingGodAtWork.org . Sources:...

Chris interviews Evelea Solgos about her harrowing first year working as a teacher, why she stuck it out even though it wasn't what she signed up for, and what she learned about herself through the process. After moving on from that role, with the help of a Christian therapist, Evelea learned how to discern God's presence in that experience even after-the-fact. She shares, "It's not too late. Even...

Henri Nouwen calls burnout "a convenient psychological translation for a spiritual death." Sometimes work feels more like death than life. When you're facing burnout at work, what can you do? How can you access the spiritual resources that Jesus offers in that dark place? Take the course at FindingGodAtWork.org . Quadrants Visual: Healthy and Unhealthy Activation at Work Sources: Ephesians 1:18-20...

Work isn't always bursting with excitement. Is there a way to find meaning in the boring moments? Take the course at FindingGodAtWork.org . Quadrants Visual: Healthy and Unhealthy Activation at Work Sources: Ephesians 5:15-16 (NIV, KJV) Colossians 3:23 (NIV) Wilmar B. Schaufeli and Marisa Salanova, "Burnout, Boredom and Engagement in the Workplace" in An Introduction to Contemporary Work Psycholog...

Chris interviews Dr. Luke Bobo about his 2019 book, Race, Economics, and Apologetics: Is There a Connection? . Hear about how previous policies like redlining and restrictive covenants continue to affect the economy today, how you can respond if you're facing racial discrimination in the workplace, and how we can offer our workplaces an "embodied apologetic." Luke Bobo (PhD, University of Missouri...

Sometimes work feels pointless. We get stuck in the comparison/competition trap, never achieving enough to be content. We get enslaved to our work, sacrificing everything else that matters. We end up in jobs that are dehumanizing, treating us more like machines than human beings. It's all so empty. What does Jesus invite us into when work is like that? Take the course at FindingGodAtWork.org . Sou...

One of the most painful forms of disappointment at work is disappointment in a leader. Sometimes you're excited to work for a specific team or a specific organization, but your boss or your boss's boss or a different leader in the organization isn't the person who you thought they were. How can we, as disciples of Jesus, meet the Lord when we're disillusioned about a leader we respected? Take the...

Chris interviews Drew Boa about his new book, Outgrow Porn: Find Lasting Freedom Without Fighting an Exhausting Battle . We come to work as whole human beings: mind, body, and soul. That includes our sexuality, which can sometimes "interrupt" our work day unexpectedly. Drew shares how to respond in a healthy way when that happens, why sexual development is like surfing, and the way our "origin sto...

Firing someone is always an instance of disappointment, right? Whether you hired that person or someone else did, somebody had hopes that this person would thrive in their role, that it would be good for them and good for the organization. It's tough to do firing well. But when you have the responsibility to hire and fire, the Christian thing to do is not to avoid firing people, but rather to take...

Chris interviews Clare VanderWeele about her decision to leave a relatively cushy gig as a marketing executive in order to become a birth doula and to homeschool her children. Hear how Clare began to discern God's voice calling her into something that, at the time, felt logistically and financially impossible. With the help of her spiritual director and church community, Clare and her family reali...