I am attending the annual meeting of the Coalition for Ministry in Daily Life that is being hosted by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. 114 people are in attendance from business, church, & Para church organizations.
Dr. Volf’s subject was the question of how is God at work in our work?
He broke the question down into four questions:
1. How does God help us succeed at work?
2. How does God help us to cope with failure at work?
3. How does God help us to decide what kind of work ought we to be doing or not doing?
4. How does God help us answer the question, why do we work?
His answer in summary was
1. God is at work in our work by blessing our work so that we can work well and be fruitful not only for our own good but for the common good.
2. God is at work in our work by delivering us from the failures we experience at work and enabling us to bear those failures well.
3. God is at work in our work by directing us to work in a morally responsible way that we can find personally fulfilling.
4. God is at work in our work by giving our work meaning because we are working not just for ourselves or for the common good, but we are also working for God.
God’s project of creation is incomplete without our part in it. “Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth; and there was no man to cultivate the ground.” Genesis 2:5
One day God will gather the fruit of our labour, redeem and bring it to consummation in his new creation. Thus our work not only has instrumental value but intrinsic value because it will last into eternity.
This is a great insight for me and the work I do at Medi-Kel clinic. One of my most important jobs as the Business Manager is to define our organizational culture. Every business has a culture. It is comprises the values and expectations of those who operate the business. Sometimes these are explicit sometimes they are implicit. At our clinic, we choose to make these values explicit in a set of governing commitments. You can see these Governing Commitments here.
Our first governing commitment states.
Our commitment to God:
To faithfully serve His purposes to care for and love people, keeping our eyes on Him and remembering that this is His clinic and He is at work here.
The question has arisen, where is God at work at Medi-Kel clinic? Volf’s has given an excellent exposition of where God is at work in general which has direct application for us in our clinic.
1. In our clinic, we strive to provide extraordinary medical care for our patients. We need God’s blessing to enable us to do this well.
2. At our clinic, we must not fail in the practice of medicine and if we do fail, we need God to cover us, our staff and especially our patients and deliver us from the consequences of failure.
3. At our clinic, we need God to direct us to work in a morally responsible manner that is both personally and professionally fulfilling.
4. Finally, at our clinic, we must realize that as much as we are working for our material well being, and the well being of our patients, we are also working for God in bringing about his purposes for the people we care for.
Physicians are only too aware of the complimentary role they play in helping people get well from disease. Often, they stand by and watch in amazement as God works his ways in and through the body of the patient to bring about healing.
Yes, God is very much at work in our clinic, though I often do not notice it.
Thank you to Dr. Volf for opening my eyes to see how and where He is at work.
UPDATE:
Chris Scharen, Associate Director of the Faith as a Way of Life project at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture also has a post on Miroslav's teaching on the value of everyday work. Find it here: miroslav on faith and work
