Heroes are in short supply, so I was not surprised at my sense of great loss at the death last November of Dr. Richard C. Halverson, pastor and retired Chaplain of the United States Senate. Dick was a hero to me as the unofficial chaplain to many of us who are called to serve Christ in the Church Scattered--the arenas of daily work, family and community. He commissioned us in a special way when he said, "The church is at it's best when the building is empty--the salt is out of the shaker penetrating and seasoning the market place, our homes and communities."
For Dick's prophesy to become reality, I must effectively "empty" from the church into the daily work arena of a physicist and high-tech entrepreneur. I am challenged to discover the shape of my obedience to Christ in a work arena dominated by unrestrained greed and quest for material gain. The following seven suggestions help me see my daily work as a spiritual discipline.
Step 1: Came to believe that God calls me to my daily work and uses it to give divine order to my life.
I see the nature and quality of my work mattering to God. My friend Greg, eight months sober, described for his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor how he started his day. "I'm Irish, energetic, a salesman and out the door before daylight!" His sponsor instructed him to begin the day alone with God in prayer and make God his business partner. Greg followed instructions for three days, but got fired on Friday from a job he had held for ten years. His sponsor quickly explained that God didn't want to work there anymore. Greg knew the job harmed his recovery.
Step 2: Came to believe God cares about how I do my work.
Early in my scientific career I realized I could be weird and strange as long as I produced innovative results. Character and personality defects were tolerated. But Christ boldly calls me to emotional and spiritual maturity in my daily work. He challenges my workaholic patterns and my treatment of people as cogs in the "great technological machine." As I move toward emotional sobriety and maturity, I am growing in my ability to see the work arena through Christ's eyes.
Step 3: Made a fearless inventory of my motivations for daily work in order to develop a desire to serve God as a steward and a servant.
After years in a work arena geared to self-centeredness, my motivation has not turned around quickly. But I am drawn to retrain and learn the way of servant leadership and stewardship of God's resources. I must overcome the fear that my material and emotional needs will not be met when I function as a servant and steward.
Step 4: Made the decision to place in God's hands the unfolding future of my daily work.
My business partner puts it bluntly: "At the Harvard Business School I learned that staying in control at all times is the most important thing." He mastered this lesson, graduated first in his class and built a billion dollar business. Years later after a personal spiritual awakening he admitted that the lesson was dead wrong. Faced with an unmanageable life situation, he became willing to lose control by placing his future in God's care.
Step 5: Accepted the fact that it is up to God how I am blessed and whether I am blessed.
When I left Texas Instruments in 1982 to start my own company, I unwittingly bought into the "corrupted" Puritan work ethic--if I work hard God is obligated to bless me in a material way. In a few years when the company nearly cratered because of competition from a major high-tech corporation, I wondered if I was one of God's "naughty children" who failed to work hard? I now find hope in the earlier Biblical Puritan belief saying that it is up to God whether and how I am blessed.
Step 6: Made a decision to work as serving the Lord and not serving men.
Why do I resist inviting Christ to join me in the "workshop" of my life? I am helped to ease into it by reading Paul's discipline of daily work--"Whatever your task, work at it with all your heart, as serving the Lord and not men (Colossians 3:23). When I focus on each individual task in my day as a place to practice work as a spiritual discipline, Christ is present and holds my future.
Step 7: Sought by prayer, meditation and fellowship to discover the shape of my obedience to Christ in my daily work.
Starting my day with God and making him my partner proves difficult in a High-Tech world with few spiritual role models. As I seek God's will for my work day and the power to carry it out, I am freed from making unreasonable demands on myself, on other people and on God.
These seven suggestions move me in the direction of significance and satisfaction and away from disillusionment in my daily work. Perhaps the church could be at its best with the building empty if the People of God dared to put spiritual growth first--ahead of desired financial security, personal prestige and power, emotional security or the high regard of friends and peers--when we are emptied in the arena of daily work.
Suggestion Box: Read one Step in order each day for a
week.
Record your insights, guidance and direction in a journal and share this with
your small group.
Repeat as required.
About the author: Robert Slocum is both an "ordinary Christian" as a Presbyterian layman and a high-tech entrepreneur as founder of a company that specializes in new product development.
This article appeared in 1996 Summer Issue of the Faith At Work magazine. Send comments to our Magazine Editor.