Work is more than a task to be done. It is a relationship that involves the totality of life. If work were just a task to be done, we could define its relationships functionally. Imagine a series of concentric circles with the technical tasks to be done in the small­est, center circle. From there draw a larger circle, which is labeled as the collective effort to be done in the company of other workers. A third circle, then, identifies the economic system in which the worker performs the task, whether it is capitalism, communism, socialism, or a mixture of systems. In the fourth and outer circle, the task is defined in the historical setting in which the work has been done in a given society, such as North America since Colonial times, or India since its independence.

Such a functional scheme for the relationships of work is far too sterile. The person seems to be lost as only a cog in a machine of technical tasks, collective efforts, economic systems, and historical settings. Not that these more impersonal relation­ships do not affect the individual worker. We have already noted the actual and potential negative aspects of history, eco­nomics, organizations, and technology upon the personality and character of the worker. To define the relationships of work functionally rather than personally only aggravates this issue.

The spirituality of work requires quite a different model. Begin with the person as worker in the center circle. Expand, then, to the next circle of coworker relationships, add community relationships in the next outer ring, and conclude with church relationships in the outer concentric circle. In one way or another, our daily work interacts with each of these relationships in a spiritual context.

As workers, we cannot avoid interpersonal relationships with coworkers on the job. The relationships may be vertical on a boss/employee level, horizontal on a coworker/coworker level, or even diagonal in what is called a matrix in which workers and even bosses change roles from project to project. Hi-tech companies, for instance, will let leadership be determined by the expertise required in a given project. In a “matrix” organiza­tion, today’s leader may be tomorrow’s follower.

On one given day recently, three of our children went through traumatic lessons in human relationships on the job and called home to talk about it. Douglas, our oldest son, got caught in a political trap in which contending forces in an administrative structure stalemated on a decision. Although the issue did not involve his work or his reputation, he became the frustrated victim of a vertical relationship to his superior over which he had no control.

On the same day, our youngest daughter, Sue, ran into the buzz saw of the matrix organization where she works. As a manager of women’s clothing in a large store, she has to deal with her immediate supervisor and six buyers of women’s cloth­ing. In preparation for the annual sale, she worked until mid­night sorting the stock and arranging the merchandise. Early the next morning when Sue arrived at the store, one of the buyers confronted her with the charge, “Your floor looks like a mess!” (You are spared the vulgarity.) Our daughter burst into tears and fled to the restroom. Her salespeople, however, heard what the buyer said and the one with seniority pushed the woman into a dressing room and “dressed her down” with equally strong language. Now it was the buyer’s turn to flee in tears. Some minutes later, however, she returned with a bouquet of flowers for Sue, an admission of being wrong, and a request for forgive­ness. As part of her plea, she confessed that she was under pressure to sell the clothes that she had bought and wanted them located in the best spot for high sales.

At the close of the same day, our youngest son, Rob, reported his first encounter with an irate mother of one of the teenagers on his summer tennis team. Due to a double booking in the main office, a group of mothers appeared on two different days for their tennis lessons at the same times our son was coaching their children. On the first occasion, Rob divided the time between the mothers and the children, but the second time he had already scheduled private lessons. Like a wounded ti­gress, one of the mothers verbally pounced on him and dug in her claws with the accusation that he was shortchanging her daughter in favor of private lessons. A nonviolent, “people” person, our son tried to explain that the front office set the schedule for him. Still, to make up for the double booking, he offered to give the mothers’ class extra time. The mother would not be satisfied and stalked away with the threat to pull her daughter off Rob’s tennis team which had a key competitive match the following day. Although the girl did appear for the match, she came with orders from her mother to play first so that the family could get away for their weekend. Obviously, the mother wanted to extract a pound of flesh while admitting that she was wrong.

How should we as Christians relate to our bosses, co­workers, subordinates, customers, or constituents? Although each of us must establish our own pattern of interpersonal rela­tionships, my experience leads me to these five working principles:

Pray for them in daily devotions,
Value them as persons created in the image of God,
Love them unequivocally through conflict,
Praise them for positive changes in attitude and constructive achievements in work,
Lead them by example – quality of work, integrity of character, consistency of position, and joy of spirit.

Let’s apply these principles to our daughter’s encounter with her buyer. As hard as it may seem, she would have to commit the buyer to God in prayer before each working day. Flowers and forgiveness are not quite enough. Their relationship took a beating that day, and when the pressure for sales rises to fever pitch again, the old conflict can resurface. Yet, there is a positive side to their confrontation. They both understand how pressure can take them to the breaking point. Our daughter now knows how to pray for her buyer as well as for herself at work. Furthermore, her daily prayer can help her see the buyer as a person with special gifts as well as nagging needs. Imagine our daughter praying this way, “Help me, Lord, to value her as Your child, love her with Your love, and praise her with Your Spirit.” Such an attitude will not make it necessary for our daughter to say, “I am a Christian.” The buyer will want to know how and why she leads her staff and her buyers by the personal example of a joyous, caring spirit, as well as strong sales and good profits which come from her reputation for integrity with customers and fairness with her staff. These same principles apply to be­lievers and nonbelievers alike.

Our daily work also extends into community relationships as part of our spiritual obligation. When Christians counter the ethic of self-interest with a demonstration of self-giving for the moral good of the community of which they are part, they exercise an indisputable witness on the job. This brings up the question of whether our daily work is contributing to the moral good of the larger community. A construction worker on a new highway might well justify the job as a contribution to the community, while an apartment manager whose owner exploits the poor cannot. A politician who compromises principles for power must seriously question his role, while a police officer in a swat squad combating drug pushers might not. Every Christian needs to ask the question, “Am I contributing to the moral good of the larger community?” If the answer is yes, we should continue to explore the potential of the job for community impact. If the answer is no, we should either find a way to make a contribution or change jobs.

Another option for Christians is to volunteer for com­munity service, either on or off the job. United Way, the Red Cross, the Heart Association, Habitat for Humanity, drug pre­vention, and literacy programs are just a few examples of com­munity agencies which depend on volunteers on the job to lead their campaigns. I believe Christians should be the first to vol­unteer. The impulse is in our history. Just before Governor John Winthrop led the Pilgrims ashore to found Massachusetts Bay Colony, he preached a sermon to them which focused the bibli­cal vision for the moral community:

We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always hav­ing before our eyes our community as members of the same body.

Even though centuries have passed and our society has leaned heavily to the secular side, Christians cannot give up the biblical vision of the moral community. At every turn, on and off the job, we should be seeking ways in which to renew the moral roots of our community in our generation. Even now, we are living on the borrowed spiritual capital of the past. Our forebears founded and sustained the moral foundation upon which we depend. For us, then, the question remains: “Will we revitalize these moral roots in our generation so that our chil­dren and grandchildren will inherit not just the rights we enjoy, but the moral and spiritual qualities of life upon which we depend?”

The relationships of our daily work do not stop at our community. As Christians, our work is also tied to our church relationships. Central to that relationship is our corporate worship, the formal expression of the body of Christ which we have already seen in direct relationship to our daily work Even though this relationship is formal and highly structured, none of us can afford to neglect the scriptural admonition, “Not forsak­ing the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10: 25). Nor can we ignore the other, less formal, expression of the body of Christ. Students of spiritual renewal find evidence of what they call ecclesiola and ecclesia whenever there is a revival in the church. By ecclesiola they mean smaller, informal bodies of be­lievers within the larger, formal structure of the ecclesia or the corporate church. We need both the ecclesiola and the ecclesia in support of our daily work Especially in small group settings, we find the relational climate in which we can be honest about the victories and defeats in our daily work We can discover the biblical meaning of the diversity and development of our indi­vidual gifts. The genius of the body of Christ is its variety of gifts in which each member brings the skills and experiences of daily work into the seamless fabric and Spirit-guided design, which represents the will and kingdom of God on earth. We see that relational reality in Peter’s inspired insight:

As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen (1 Peter 4: 10­-11).

The practical outworking of Peter’s admonition brought ancient observers of the early church into awesome wonder. Celsus simply could not understand how the new community of Christ chose its leaders: “Wool workers, cobblers, and fullers, the most illiterate and vulgar of mankind, became venerated as teachers.” Celsus failed to understand how Jesus, presumably the illiterate and vulgar handyman of Nazareth, became the teacher whom scholars confessed as “Master.”

Peter’s ideal remains with us. In too many cases, the body of Christ is built upon the segregation of callings, defer­ence to wealth, and leadership of the clergy. Despite the lessons of history, most of us still do not draw a direct line between our daily work and our contribution to the body of Christ. Yet, we cannot deny what God wants to teach us through the life of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. When the body of Christ first gathered as the Apostolic Church, Stephen offered his gift for waiting tables – a menial task to be sure. He also brought his reputation for practical wisdom and his experience of the Spirit-­filled life (Acts 6:3). Quite appropriately then, the members of the body of Christ elected him to the position as a deacon – to wait on tables so that the apostles could give themselves totally to the ministry of the Word and prayer. On first reading, one would think that the early church espoused the split-world view of work that made preaching and prayer superior to waiting on tables. Not so. After performing his duty as a deacon, Stephen went into the temple to preach the resurrection of Christ in one of the most eloquent sermons of all time. His pungent preach­ing cost him. his life, but not without showing us how the practical skills of daily work contributed to the body of Christ and how the New Testament church created a climate that brought the hidden gifts of its members to their full potential. The spirituality of our daily work will never be fully known or appreciated until we see that model demonstrated once again.

As part of our spirituality, then, our daily work must be relational. God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, established the principle for us in the fellowship of work in Creation – each one doing the work that expressed His unique contribution to the Trinity. Naturally, God followed His own example in His hu­man creation as He put Adam in relationship to Himself through worship, to Eve through wedlock, and to nature through work. By this act, God demonstrated that work is more than a technical task to be done; it is also a relational activity that expresses the quality of our interaction with God, other persons, and physical nature. Once we accept this truth, our daily work can never be separated from our spirituality or segregated from the totality of our lives. Rather, we will see it as a center from which we extend our spiritual witness to our coworkers, our community, and our church. If there is any place where the connection between our daily work and our spiritual growth needs atten­tion, this is it.

From David McKenna, Love Your Work! (Victor / SP, 1990).  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.  Content distributed by WorkLife.org > Used for non-profit teaching purposes only.