Work matters. God makes that clear. Even before the Fall, He gave human beings vocation. There was work to be done on the face of Earth in and through the work of our hands. Imagine, explore, create, experiment. How about a hammer? A harp? A wheel? Or an airplane? A television? An iPhone?

Ever since, the Fall, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve that we are, we have stumbled through history, sometimes understanding and getting it right, but more often than not making too much of our work, or too little of our work, failing to see it as integral to the work of God Himself.

Karl Marx offers an intriguing perspective on this. He saw the work of human hands as written into the very meaning of history, with the iconic sickles and hammers of his dream still setting forth the heart of his hope. Yet in the idolatry of his vision he did not see work as a gift of God to be returned as service for one’s neighbor to the glory of God. Millions upon millions suffered over the next century and a half because he missed the meaning of work.

Over its 2,000-year history, the Church has mostly missed its meaning too. There have been exceptions, like Johann Sebastian Bach, who saw all of his music as soli Deo gloria, whether it was the St. Matthew’s Passion or the Air on a G String. But most of the time, in Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions throughout history and all over the world, the Church has contributed to a more compartmentalized faith that has little to do with the way the world ought to be. In the words of the gospels, we have not been salt and light in our vocations and in our neighborhoods and cities, in schools and societies, in city halls and state capitols, in businesses and on farms, in law enforcement and in the courts of law, in art galleries and recording studios. Instead, we have blamed the world for being the world. Sadly, we have not made the connection that it is our vocation to be salt; it is our calling to be light. If the world is the world, and therefore worldly, then the first questions are, “Where were we? Why were we not salt, stopping decay? Why were we not light, showing another way, the way to be more fully human?”

Two years ago, feeling the weight of history and knowing something was wrong, several of us came together to do what we could about this problem. Since the congregation is the hermeneutic of the gospel, change must be effected in what the church teaches about vocations and occupations, about callings and careers.

With Amy Sherman of the Heritage Institute and author of Kingdom Callings as the team leader, and cosponsorsed by the Acton Institute and the Washington Institute, 16 congregations across America were chosen to take part in a year-long learning community. The purpose would be to recover the Biblical vision of vocation as integral, not incidental, to the missio Dei in the liturgy and life of the Church.

The College Hill Reformed Presbyterian Church participated in this project. Since life is mostly autobiographical, I wanted the Reformed Presbyterians involved because of my own long history within the denomination. For hundreds of years, the RP church has taught us to remember that all of life makes sense with the raison d’être of “For Christ’s Crown and Covenant.”

With the participation of Brian Jensen and Titus Martin as young leaders, my hope was that the congregation that has shaped the soul of the church through its ministry to the students and faculty of Geneva College will increasingly become a place that preaches and prays as if work matters, whether we preach or whether we teach, whether our labor is within the walls of the church or whether it is on the sidewalks of the city.

—Steve Garber, founder/director, The Washington Institute

For more understanding of why this matters to God and the world, here are several books that will deepen your discipleship:

Work Matters by Tom Nelson

Kingdom Callings by Amy Sherman

Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller

The Call by Os Guinness

The Fabric of Faithfulness by Steven Garber