In our quest for effective, productive faith integration, solid resources abound. Consequently, I deeply appreciate the emergence of this fresh work, distinctly crafted for church leaders.
Upon reading and contemplating Faith & Work: Galvanizing Your Church for Everyday Impact, by Melissa Wallace and Lauren Gill, we discover three beautiful benefits that I’d like to explore.
Encouragement for Church Leaders on the Journey
If you are reading this, there’s a high likelihood you are already familiar with the concept of faith integration, and you genuinely hope to help others more effectively marry Christ-centered, biblical faith with their daily endeavors. However, can any of us truly say, “I’ve arrived when it comes to holistic faith implementation in all I do and say every day. Got that all beautifully wrapped, with a big bow on top!”?
Wallace and Gill empower readers, especially church leaders to “catch a vision for the importance of equipping church members to integrate their faith with their work—discipling them to live with Christ every minute of every day.” With such vision and subsequent action, there is immense potential for kingdom productivity. Individuals and whole churches can start to view their workplaces and tandem relationships as the vital context for personal heart change and gospel influence. Such influence will affect the church community and catalyze a wondrous wave of impact in city-wide transformation.
The authors sensitively recognize that church leaders can feel overwhelmed and hesitant about adding a faith-and-work focus to their already busy agenda and schedules. Wisely, this book calls for such integration to start with church leaders more intentionally growing their own heart and skills for integrated living. They also encourage us to take simple starter steps, like intentionally including faith-at-work stories and concepts more consistently in our teaching and preaching.
Honest reflection will prompt many of us to say, “I still have plenty of room to level up, reach higher, and develop a more holistic approach.” This new book offers solid encouragement for how leaders can cultivate their own faith integration and thereby take more decisive steps toward leading others with Christ-honoring credibility.
Robust Theological Insights
With their solid synthesis, Wallace and Gill draw church leaders into the glorious story of God as deep motivation and foundation for faith-and-work endeavors. They help readers see the biblical narrative through four acts: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. After explaining how each act in God’s grand story plays a vital role in advancing our workplace understanding and acumen, the authors delve into key perspectives that lead to beautiful paradigm shifts.
A foundational shift involves church leaders truly believing “discipleship is inextricably linked to faith and work because work is the environment in which congregants can process all that God is teaching and asking of them.” This essential shift prompts church leaders to both teach and plan for ministry strategies that urge congregants to embrace daily work as the primary context for living out their faith.
Wallace and Gill beautifully motivate us: “So, whether your congregants are truck drivers or bankers, artists or stay-at-home parents, they can unleash the power of loving God and loving neighbor in their everyday lives.”
This vital shift in perspective is based on the realization that people spend a vast majority of their lives in offices, boardrooms, shop floors, plus a colorful tapestry of other daily endeavors. Such call for work as the primary discipleship context is reminiscent of Eugene Peterson’s clarion call for Jesus’ followers to view their daily work in light of Christ’s resurrection, as the primary place for spiritual formation.
A Rich Roadmap for Implementation
Viewing their winsome roadmap, readers encounter the most unique and empowering aspect of this new resource. Wallace and Gill supply church leaders with a clear pathway so that genuine, ongoing faith-and-work initiatives can take root in the life of our churches. This roadmap includes a clearly delineated four-phase path: step one, build leadership; step two, understand needs; step three, implement; and step four, assess.
Upon careful consideration, the biggest, most beautiful benefit in this book comes via a generous supply of empowering, motivating, can-do ideas presented under step three, implementation. In addition, this empowering new book wraps up with seventeen appendices, chock-full of creative tools and user-friendly examples for getting started.
Wallace and Gill urge church leaders to creatively build into their church liturgy through songs, sermons, sending prayers, and industry stories that spotlight missional integration of faith and work. They also provide tangible concepts for building faith-and-work integration into a church’s discipleship pathway. Such a discipleship road will include ongoing learning experiences and special intensives. The authors’ roadmap also delivers compelling ideas for implementing community impact and ongoing mission within a church’s city.
Pastors, elders, and other church leaders, you can read an excerpt and grab your own copy. Read and ponder. Gather over coffee for discussion with fellow faith-and-work leaders. Then plan two or three starter steps for implementation. Your church will beautifully benefit from digesting and implementing these kingdom-advancing, disciple-making principles. May all our endeavors will encounter greater waves of redemptive work for Christ!
