I am heading up a conference at my church (The Chapel in Akron, Ohio) on March 7, 2009 that will seek to help Christians in our region understand how to take their Christian faith in God's plan for the redemption of all things and apply it to their vocations. Unlike other "faith at work" conferences, this will not be primarily talking about “Christian ethics in the workplace" or "How to use your vocation as a means for the only really important thing, which is evangelism" (just a tad bit of sarcasm there...).
The discussion at this conference will center on how we live out God's Creation Mandate to "have dominion" and to "cultivate and take care of" the world in our vocations. It will offer a way for people to live out their Christian faith in the main thing that they do in their lives: work.
Our speaker will be Mike Wittmer, author of Heaven Is a Place on Earth: Why Everything You Do Matters to God. After Mike speaks, we will have lunch and break the attendees out into cohort groups for discussions on how to bring Sunday into Monday in the following vocations:
Medicine
Education
Legal/Law
Business
Stay-at-home
Tech
Office / Clerical
Arts
Athletics
Here's where I need your help. I want to promote this so people get it and will want to attend. What should I call it? What kind of "tagline" should I add so that people "get it?" Any suggestions on how to make this thing a success?
a web resource . exploring missional horizons . navigating spiritual formation . journeying into vocational-incarnational living
You've got it right there: "Sunday into Monday". I'll work on the tag line later.
ReplyDeleteAnd I won't even charge...
I'm not sure how you could work this in, but I think the idea of "Shalom" is inherent in the concept of living our lives in total and complete integrity--which includes, of course, our lives of "work". Maybe you can call it something as simple as, "The Work of Shalom" or "Work as Shalom" or "The Shalomic Week", etc.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of Shalom as, as Plantinga might say, "The Way Things Ought to Be", and "universal flourshing and wholeness and delight" is an idea that really must be incorporated into our "work mind-set" since work is a gift of God. Also, the Biblical idea of the redemption of all things in the "summing up of all things in Christ" has "Shalom" at its center; so tying "work" and "Shalom" together seems natural from a Biblical perspective.
The conference looks like it will be very interesting.
Jason
Jason,
ReplyDeleteAmen to the idea of Shalom being central to the idea of all things (including work) working in harmony for universal flourishing. I've written about this at length here in the vanguard!!
Thanks for the links, Bob. Wow...I'm going to have quite a lot of good reading to do on my lunch breaks! :-)
ReplyDeleteWe came up with a name!
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be called INTEGRATE: Where Faith and Work Meet
Very good, Bob. I think the title is well-chosen and conveys the purpose you spoke of.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny that the idea of "integration" started to hit me recently as I began to re-read Philip Hughes', "The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ". The first part of the book (covering the first 5 chapters)is titled, "Creation in the Image of God: Integration". The second part, "The Image Rejected: Disintegration". And the third part is, "The Image Restored: Reintegration".
I don't know how relevant that is...I just found it to be interesting :-)
Good luck with everything pertaining to INTEGRATE: Where Faith and Work Meet.
Jason