Faith, Work, Education and Vocation
Confession is good for the soul, but it is hard for pastors. A few years into my pastorate, I confessed to my congregation. When pastors make a confession, one thing you can be sure of– the room gets pin drop silent. My confession was not due to moral impropriety, financial malfeasance, or abuse of power, but it was pastoral malpractice. I spent most of my time equipping my congregation for the slimmest minority of their lives. I was much more focused on how well I did on Sunday, than how the congregation was doing on Monday. I had little interest in, nor had I given sustained thought to my parishioners’ daily callings. I did believe their work mattered in an instrumental or utilitarian way (especially at offering time on Sunday or during a capital campaign!) What really mattered most to me was my work and the numerical growth of the gathered church on Sunday. Like many pastors, my success scorecard focused on the four B’s: bodies, buildings, bucks, and brand. I may not have explicitly verbalized it, but I lived as if my vocational calling was far more important than my congregants’ callings, where God had called them to live and work. My pastoral malpractice can best be summed up as a professionally accepted blindness and vocational failure on my part. Looking back with the advantage of hindsight, my Sunday-to-Monday gap had been formed by a theological impoverishment and a pedagogical deficiency.
As Christian educators and leaders, we are entrusted with a great privilege and high stewardship of forming Jesus followers for vocational effectiveness and faithfulness. I believe we need to address both an impoverished theology as well as a deficient pedagogy that are contributing to this Sunday to Monday gap. These are the two main threads of thought I would like us to focus our attention on.
I had the great privilege of a four-year residential seminary experience. There is much I am deeply grateful for, particularly learning the original languages and gaining vital exegetical skills. But with charitable honesty, I graduated from seminary ill equipped theologically and pedagogically for pastoral leadership. My own spiritual formation and vocational effectiveness as a pastor was not developed in school.
An Impoverished Theology
Theologically, I had a strong foundation of systematic theology that sought categorical and logical consistency but lacked a commensurate robust biblical theology that brought canonical coherence. I failed to see the high importance of vocation and the integral theological connections of faith, work and economics consistently evidenced from Genesis to Revelation. Somehow, I had missed rigorous exegesis of the bookends of Holy Scripture: the early chapters of Genesis and the final chapters of Revelation. I had also missed the significance of Jesus' thirty years as a carpenter, his workplace and economic parabolic teaching, and the Gospel’s speaking into every nook and cranny of life, connecting Sunday worship with Monday work in a seamless fabric of avodah–of Holy Spirit-empowered faithfulness.
With the best of intentions, yet with far-reaching effects upon the beauty, spiritual growth and missional effectiveness of the congregation I was called to serve, I had been perpetuating a wide Sunday to Monday gap in my preaching, discipleship and pastoral care. Big changes were needed and with God’s grace and the Spirit’s empowerment, we made them. The transformation of our congregation’s spiritual formation and missional effectiveness has been remarkable.
Over the last couple of decades, I have come to realize how pervasive this pastoral malpractice is across our nation. For many pastors, Christian leaders and Christian educators there is a sizable gap between worship on Sunday and work on Monday. Many of us spend most of our time equipping students or congregations for what they will do with a slim minority of their time, overlooking the importance of everyday work and the workplaces inhabited for many hours of the week. The negative consequences of this malpractice are both striking and sobering.
So, what is really at stake in a theologically impoverished Sunday to Monday transition? Let me suggest briefly for your further reflection, five compelling realities that are at risk: (1) the rightful worship of God, (2) the spiritual formation of Christians, (3) Gospel plausibility, (4) Gospel proclamation and (5) the furtherance of the common good.
The Rightful Worship of God
If students and parishioners see Sunday morning as the primary time they worship God and do not see what they do Monday through Friday as prime time worship, then our good and great Triune God who is worthy of 24/7 worship receives diminished worship from his covenant people. In creation, God designed us to work and worship in a seamless way (avodah). While we are not to worship our work (that is idolatry), we are to see our paid and unpaid work, though presently marred by sin and redeemed by the Gospel, as an act of worship done unto God. There was no Sunday to Monday gap in the Apostle Paul’s theological and missiological framework. He put it this way: “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.” (Colossians 3:23) By the saving grace of Christ and through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, apprentices of Jesus live and work before an Audience of One in a seamless life of worship. Our primary place of worship is not Sunday, as important as that is, but all seven days of the week.
Spiritual Formation of Christians
If we perpetuate a Sunday to Monday gap, spiritual formation is hindered. If Christians in our classrooms or our pews see their spiritual formation as primarily something that occurs on Sunday and not a vital aspect of the work they do every day, then their spiritual growth will be negatively affected. Our everyday work, in a broken world with its inevitable suffering, is one of the means the Holy Spirit uses to conform us to greater Christlikeness. We shape our work and our work shapes us, infusing a joyful experiential meaning into our daily lives. The Swiss psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl was renowned for his grasp of Torah and remarkable insight into human nature. He concluded that humans find a sense of meaning not only in the relationships they forge and the suffering they encounter but also in and through the work they do.[1] Yet many followers of Jesus who grace our classrooms and sit in our pews are practical deists in their Monday world. Many tell me they feel like second-class citizens or on God’s B-team because the meaning and importance of their everyday work is implicitly, and sometimes even explicitly, diminished by Christian teachers and leaders.
Gospel Plausibility
If followers of Jesus are not equipped in our institutions and churches to connect Sunday to Monday, then the plausibility of a Gospel witness is less compelling to a secularized culture. Sociologist James Davison Hunter makes a compelling case for the unique faith contours of our present cultural context. The great cultural dissolution of the Christian faith as well as the myriad of faiths in an increasing pluralistic world conspire to make the uniqueness and truth of Christianity inconceivable.[2] Charles Taylor reminds us of the plausibility challenges from the ubiquitous immanent frame of our secular age.[3] Alan Krieder has devoted a good deal of his scholarly inquiry to the question of how the early church grew amid fierce cultural headwinds and formidable odds. According to Kreider, a primary reason for the growth was the spread of the Gospel and its transformational influence in the marketplace. He notes that non-Christians observed the Christian difference in the marketplace. “What happened was this. Non-Christians and Christians worked together and lived near each other. They became friends.”[4]
The parallels with the first three centuries of the church and our 21st century are striking. It is as if the Pax Romana and the Roman Roads have returned to the world. Today with the internet and the global economy, the world has never been more connected and accessible. For those of us called to equip Christians to be salt and light witnesses in the world, it is urgent that we make the marketplace an equipping and missional priority. Many of the congregants I serve are much more likely to interact with work colleagues in India than they are a neighbor who lives across the street.
The Gospel we cherish not only needs winsome and persuasive proclamation, it also requires a daily incarnation of the Gospel-centered life in messy broken workplaces. For many unbelievers, the Gospel needs to be seen before it is truly heard. Colleagues who are not yet Christ followers can see the Gospel’s transforming truth in the quality of work Christians do and their attitude toward work. It is our good work that speaks to others, pointing them to the good God we love and serve (Matthew 5:13-16). Our vocational faithfulness provides fertile soil for the growth of the Gospel.
Gospel Proclamation
If our students and congregants are not equipped to connect Sunday to Monday, the proclamation of the Gospel is muted. Since many of our congregants spend a great deal of time each week in their paid and unpaid workplaces, it is there where Gospel witness finds its greatest opportunity for transformational impact. Are we encouraging and equipping our students and congregants to share their Christian faith with their co-workers? Bill Peel points out with prophetic clarity, “God calls every Christian to be a witness for Him. So, for most of us, our mission field is where we spend the bulk of our time: the workplace.”[5] What would it look like if our students and congregants saw their workplace as their primary Gospel mission field?
Furtherance of The Common Good
If we don’t seek to better connect Sunday to Monday, then the common good of all peoples is diminished, and human culture is impoverished. Writing to the exiles in Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah admonishes God’s covenant people to “seek the welfare” or the common good of the pagan city (Jeremiah 29:7). What does seeking the welfare of a city entail? The establishment of an isolated cultural ghetto is discouraged by Jeremiah. Rather, the exiles should marry, have children, work hard, and robustly engage in the economic life of the city of Babylon. God’s people are called to live holy lives in a very unholy place, being a faithful presence and seeking the flourishing of their neighbors. As we work in the Babylonian marketplaces of our time, not only are we blessed, but those around us also flourish. They enjoy the very tangible blessings of common grace. The writer of Proverbs puts it this way, “When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices.” (11:10)
An Impoverished Pedagogy
Those we spend time with profoundly shape us. We know this existentially but also from the illuminating lens of sociology and interpersonal neurobiology. Made in the image of a relational God, our brains are hardwired for relationships. I was reminded of this truth at a small gathering of seasoned Christian leaders from around the country. Our conversations focused on the stewardship of forming the next generation of flourishing pastoral leadership. Seated next to me was a surgeon who had spent many years training physicians in a prominent teaching hospital. We all listened in rapt attention as he told us that while the medical school classroom was vitally important, it was inadequate to prepare a surgeon to possess the wisdom, skill and competency for surgery. What was essential was lots of time at the scrub sink.
The surgeon described scrubbing for surgery along with the inexperienced surgeons who would participate in the surgery. At the scrub sink they talked through the surgery and what they might anticipate. Leaving the scrub sink, they rolled up their sleeves and performed the surgery together. Following the surgery, the entire surgical team returned to the scrub sink. At the sink, the lead surgeon would debrief the surgical team and what they had learned. Later, they would go to the break room for some refreshments and more conversation. This seasoned surgeon said that in preparing a new generation of surgeons, these extended times at the scrub sink are not optional; they are essential. He advocated for a more intentional “scrub sink pedagogy” at all levels of Christian education including the preparation and formation of pastoral leadership.
Scrub Sink Pedagogy
Since then, I have found myself thinking a good deal about scrub sinks, pedagogy, discipleship, and leadership development. I believe the scrub sink is a helpful metaphor for intentional transformative education, formation and whole-life discipleship. Hands-on, life-on-life scrub sink experience is where needed tacit knowledge is transferred and obtained. What is tacit knowledge? It is the kind of knowledge gained through personal experience and relational connection. Tacit knowledge is implicit knowledge, a knowing that is beyond mere words or verbalization. Learning to ride a bike, for example, requires tacit knowledge. To gain the knowledge and skill necessary to ride a bike we need more than a manual to explain the process. Of course, a bike-riding manual may be helpful, but it is far from sufficient. We need to get on the bike and in most cases, we need someone else there who knows how to ride a bike, to guide us and cheer us on as we learn.
The 20th century philosopher, Michael Polanyi thought deeply about the important dimension of tacit knowledge. Polanyi captures the realities of a transformational scrub sink apprenticeship experience: “By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself.”[6] Michael Polanyi realized that while the classroom and curricula are effective conduits of propositional knowledge, they are often limited when it comes to gaining tacit knowledge. The tacit dimension of knowing transcends words and flows from personal relationships in the context of real-life togetherness and experience.
Jesus and the Tacit Dimension
When we reflect on the brilliant Jesus and his educational and discipleship methods, we observe a strong pedagogical tacit dimension. Jesus essentially invited his inner circle of disciples to a three-year scrub sink experience. Yes, his inner circle heard Jesus preach and teach great propositional truths that were transforming, but they also lived with Jesus, observing his sinless life, his miracles, his skills, his wisdom and his spiritual practices. Following the resurrection, Jerusalem’s religious aristocracy were in awe of the disciples' brilliance and boldness: “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized they had been with Jesus (Acts 4:13). How do we account for the astonishing transformation of Peter and John? Clearly, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is a compelling causality, but I also believe the disciples' three-year experience with Jesus, receiving tacit knowledge, was a substantial contributing factor. It is instructive that in the words of the religious aristocracy, Luke includes the pregnant phrase “and they recognized they had been with Jesus.” Is this phrase a mere historical observation to further the Acts narrative, or is it also pedagogically important as we reflect on discipleship?
In our education, formation and discipleship development efforts, I believe we are wise to emulate Jesus’ apprenticeship model. Jesus invites all who would follow him into his highly relational, highly transformative yoke of apprenticeship: “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am humble and gentle of heart, and you will find rest for your soul.” (Matthew 11:28) In this great invitation from Jesus, we encounter a highly relational and rich tacit dimension of whole life apprenticeship where we learn how to live our lives like Jesus would if he were us. The rich tacit dimension of discipleship embraces the precepts, practices and pedagogy of Jesus. Without that our educational and disciple efforts will prove impoverished. In grace, over time and in the power of the Holy Spirit, apprentices of Jesus increasingly are formed into greater Christlikeness. Jesus put it this way, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone fully trained will be like his teacher.” (Luke 6:40)
The Church and The Tacit Dimension
Emulating Jesus, the early church adopted an apprenticeship pedagogical model that was highly relational, rich in tacit knowledge transfer and embedded in local church community. Writing to his protégé Timothy, Paul gave this clear and encouraging grace filled instruction. “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:1-2) Paul is instructing Timothy to teach others in the local church sound doctrine and practice. While this has a strong propositional element of learning which is essential for maturing discipleship, we must not miss Paul’s description of scrub sink discipleship. Transforming educational formation and discipleship is both taught and caught in a relational community.
What might a more intentional tacit rich pedagogy mean for us? While this important question could have multiple answers depending on our institutional and ecclesial context, let me suggest a couple of thoughts for your consideration. As good as classrooms and discipleship curriculums can be, I believe more emphasis needs to be placed on the importance of living in community together. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer would say, “life together.”[7] This would include a greater emphasis on relational tacit transfer and on multi-generational mentoring. Dr. Josh Packard’s research is revealing. Examining ages 13-25, Packard found increasing distrust of institutions, yet greater longing for mentoring relationships in an educational context. Dr. Packard puts it this way. “For a long time, it was through programs and through book-based learning and those kinds of things worked really well. And now there’s sort of a shift, in that maybe it is relationship forward or relationship first to get to those deeper relationships. There has never been an issue about where that real commitment comes from –from the mentors that you’ve had in your life.”[8]
With so many challenging cultural and economic headwinds in higher education and the democratization of information a click away on the internet, tacit knowledge with its deep incarnational relationships offer a greater educational value proposition for our institutions and local churches. In today’s world, pastors know congregants can find the best preaching and teaching on the internet. That does not mean the local church should not be committed to excellent teaching and preaching, but it does mean a greater emphasis ought to be placed upon incarnational learning and the tacit dimension of discipleship.
Pastors and spiritual leaders would be wise to focus discipleship efforts on their congregants’ workplaces. Pastoral care and discipleship efforts in our church include strong tacit rich relational pedagogies including regular workplace visits with parishioners. These visits deepen relationships, and through the tacit dimension of discipleship and spiritual formation are profoundly transformational for both the individual and the church body as a whole.
The Church as A Teaching Hospital
What might a more intentional tacit rich dimension mean for preparation of future church leaders? While I am a strong proponent of the classroom and seminary, I believe we need to create learning environments outside the classroom that are rich in tacit knowledge. In a sense the local church is vital here and becomes a teaching hospital. One of the most effective ways to do this is to establish ongoing pastoral residencies in our local churches which become ongoing institutional incubators for leadership development. After completing seminary training, inexperienced pastors need a two-year immersion in a healthy local church where they learn from other residency peers, mature congregants, and experienced pastors. In this program, they will find spiritual formation, self-care, and pastoral skills that will serve them well for a lifetime of effective and flourishing pastoral service. The post-seminary pastoral disillusionment and dropout is way too high.
Inexperienced pastors need time in a rich, supportive and generative scrub sink pedagogy. In our discipleship efforts, it's time for the local church to take on a more teaching hospital role, spending more time and energy at the leadership development scrub sink. So how do we narrow the Sunday to Monday gap?
Narrowing The Sunday to Monday Gap
Let me suggest three questions for your thoughtful consideration. First, how do we teach and model a more robust biblical theology particularly in work/vocation? In our curriculum design? Classroom experience? Online students? Residential campus life? We now have a good number of rich theological resources available including books, videos, the Theology of Work commentary series, and connections like the Oikonomia Network.[9]
Secondly, how do we increase the tacit dimension of our education and training efforts? What might this look like in the classroom? Online? And for residential students? When I look back at my four years of seminary education, the richest and most transformative learning experience I had was joining a handful of professors and fellow students in a summer graduate study program in Israel. It was in that apprenticeship context living with my professors where the intersections of tacit learning took place at a transformational level. Truly it was an extended scrub sink experience for me.
Thirdly, how do we cultivate more robust collaborative church partnerships to enable our preparation of Christians for their vocational callings in the church and the world? Our church’s pastoral residency program has partnered with a seminary for almost two decades. We recruit and hire students who have completed their Master of Divinity to move to Kansas City for a two-year immersive scrub sink residency. Modeled after a teaching hospital, we are training a new generation of pastoral leaders for the church. They are being mentored in a healthy, generative local church culture where they gain greater tacit knowledge and are put on a trajectory of deeper spiritual and virtue formation and growing pastoral leadership skills.
Seven years ago, Made to Flourish[10] was launched to help pastors and churches narrow the Sunday to Monday gap. We have developed many resources to help educators, pastors, and churches better integrate faith, work and economic wisdom for the flourishing of their communities. It is our hope to serve you in any way we can. One of Made to Flourish’s strategic initiatives is facilitating and training a growing church network of like-minded teaching hospital churches around the country. Presently in our network we have 36 churches that are partnering with seminaries and creating a two-year immersive pastoral residency with a strong scrub sink pedagogy and a robust vocational theology.
Last year in Phoenix, I had the privilege of addressing seminary deans and leaders from over 50 institutions who are part of the accelerated pastor degree program initiative convened by the Kern Family Foundation. I was very encouraged by these educators' excitement about greater collaborative local church residency partnerships and the rich tacit dimension that they provide in the spiritual formation and leadership effectiveness of an emerging generation of church leaders. For the glory of God, the good news of the Gospel, and the advancement of his kingdom, let’s narrow the Sunday to Monday gap. Let’s more intentionally and prayerfully equip God’s people for the place God has uniquely called them in their Monday worlds.
Thank you for who you are! For whose you are! And the very important work God has called each one of you to faithfully steward. With the psalmist I pray, May the Lord bless the work of your hands. Yes, Lord, bless the work of your hands. Amen.
[1] Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 4th ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).
[2] James Davison Hunter. To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
[3] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007).
[4] Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016).
[5] Bill Peel and Walt Larimore, Workplace Grace (LeTourneau University Press, Longview, Texas, 2014), 19.
[6] Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Toward A Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 53.
[7] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together (New York: HarperCollins, 1954).
[8] Springtide Research Institute, The State of Religion and Young People 2022: Mental Health (Winona, MN: Springtide Research Institute, 2022).
[9] www.oikonomianetwork.org
[10] www.madetoflourish.org
TOM NELSON
President of Made to Flourish and Senior Pastor of Christ Community Church in Kansas City, KS
This essay was originally delivered as a plenary address at the 2023 IACE National Conference.