I am attending the 14th Annual International Consultation on Ministry in Daily Life sponsored by the Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life. Richard Mouw, President of Fuller Theological Seminary, opened the Consultation with a lively presentation on faith in daily life. He had four main points:

1.      God cares about the daily work of God’s people because God cares deeply about the world. The Bible uses the word “world” in three senses. First, in a negative sense such as that Christians are not to be conformed to the patterns of this world (the world under the rebellious powers). Second, in a neutral sense – “go into all the world and preach the gospel.” Third, in a positive sense, for the good created world. “For God so loved the world (Kosmos)”… that God sent the Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. That’s the good creation. We are called by God to engage in the structures and the processes that are required for the maintenance of the good creation. This is what it means to be called to holy worldliness.

2.      Theological colleges, churches and parachurch organizations, need to care about what is important to God. The Church needs to be equipping people for where God has placed them, especially in places of leadership in the marketplace. Much of the theology of evangelicalism has been a theology of survival on the margins of culture. Today, there are calls for churches to set up communities for radical spiritual formation, but we are not equipping the people in those communities to take what they are getting into the structures and patterns of public life. 

3.      All of us together must engage in a shared project of defining reality for the sake of our daily work. We can’t move on with ministry in daily life unless we have a clear understanding of the way the world is and what defines reality for the everyday Christian on the frontlines of everyday work. It is important for us to discern the “hellishness” of what’s going on around us and also what's going on around us that is "for heaven's sake", a reflection of God at work in culture.

We need to do this from within the context of people’s daily work, reflecting deeply on how the world looks and how the world is experienced from within work not from the outside looking in.

Mouw has written a book recently entitled “He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace” The book discusses the presence of God in culture and the influence of common grace. The title is a line from the Sunday school hymn, This Is My Father's World.

4.      We have to have hope that we really can accomplish some things if we put our minds together, our hearts together, and share our experiences and pool our resources. We serve an “oversized” God who will provide us what we need to care for His world and do it well.

I asked Dr. Mouw a question similar to a question I had asked Miroslav Volf speaking on God at Work at the Yale Divinity School during last year’s consultation. If God cares for our work, how do you respond to those who place more value on certain types of work and less value on other types of work. I used Rick Warren’s comment in the Purpose Driven Life as an example. (See this post for the exact quote.) Warren states, our mission is forever, our job is only temporary, in referring to the work of mission in the workplace. 

Mouw answered, “How people handle life has eternal significance. I worry about that polarized notion of time verse eternity that makes the stuff we do in church the important work and other work is just to pay the way. I think that’s wrong. I’m not saying that’s what Rick means. I think there is a danger that that can reinforce all the wrong thinking by following that course.

Farming has profound theological significance. I attended a meeting of the Christian Farmer’s meeting where they talked about a Christian egg policy for Canada. These were not theologically trained Christians but believers who cared deeply about God’s creation… at one point a farmer stood up and said with a Dutch accent. ‘Colonel Sanders wants us to treat our chickens like little packages of meat that can be bought or sold, but I think CHICKENS ARE CHICKENS! God wants chickens to be able to strut their stuff in front of other chickens!” He was saying, there is a certain dignity to the creation that has to be treated as having a dignity of its own. You just can’t do anything you want to chickens in order to sell them. It has implications to your relationship to the eternal God. He asks us to manage creation, to be earth keeping, in accordance with the will of God.”

So there you have it on the authority of the President of Fuller Seminary, “Chickens are Chickens!” Which means there is eternal value to the work we do because it is done in service to the Creator God. Well said, Dr. Mouw!