Workship: How to Use Your Work to Worship God
Graceworks: Singapore, 2017
According to one estimation, if you live the average
Australian life, you’re likely to spend 94,000 hours in your workplace. That’s
almost 4000 days, or close to 11 years of uninterrupted time spent in one
place. Time spent relating to many different people. Time spent to support ourselves
and others. A whole lot of time.
It’s little wonder then that we’re witnessing a renaissance
of Christian books, conferences, and courses on work. What are we to make of
all that time spent at work? And perhaps more importantly, what does God make
of it all?
It’s into this space that Kara Martin offers Workship:
How To Use Your Work To Worship God. Although work can be hard, tedious,
and broken, Martin offers a simple affirmation that God is interested in your
everyday work. It’s that affirmation which explains the portmanteau title, Workship:
The Hebrew root for work (avad) is also the root for
service, particularly serving God in worship. I believe the two activities are
meant to be integrated. Our work should be done in a way that honours God, which
serves God and others, that worships God. By combining the two English words:
work and worship, I hope to challenge people to integrate their faith and work.
Workship goes about this
in three sections. Firstly, in less than 50 pages, it paints a picture of work
in the full sweep of redemptive history. Secondly, Martin provides six
spiritual disciplines for the integration of faith and work in the workplace;
disciplines like prayer, evangelism, and social justice. And thirdly, Workship
draws on a wealth of experience to offer practical insights on how to navigate
work, such as how to manage relationships, and how to think about yourself and
your identity at work.
To be honest, I’m not sure that Workship is written for someone like me,
someone prone to biblical and theological pedantry. There are a few times were Martin
assumes a position rather than arguing for it, such as the extent of continuity
of our work between this creation and the next (she’s quite positive if you’re
wondering). So I found myself at points reading Martin’s prose with a wry smile
imagining the conversations Workship might
spark among st the theological guild.
But that’s because Workship is written for those in the
trenches. Whilst Martin does offer advice to churches on how they equip their
saints to live out their faith at work, this is a book written for those
engaged in paid work, voluntary work, housework, schoolwork, caring for
children or parents, or study. Devoid of technical theological jargon, Martin
is warm and compassionate in dealing with real workers and real people. Martin
often draws upon her own, hard-earned experience and wisdom of the realities of
work. In doing so, she is concise and crisp, judiciously drawing upon the other
recent Christian reflections on work (though this runs close at times to feeling
like a highlight package of the work of others on faith and work).
One particular highlight of Workship is the way Martin strives to
include prayer in the book. Each chapter concludes with a prayer written to
surmise the chapter. But more than that, Martin offers significant insights on
how to integrate spiritual disciplines with your work place. And this points us
to another strength of the book. Whereas some books on work would rest content
with more or less just giving a biblical account of work, Workship points the way forward into how to work today by providing
the habits and disciplines that will shape the Christian worker such as prayer,
justice, and evangelism.
If you’re someone who wants to
live out Colossians 3.17 in your work (‘whatever you do, whether in word or
deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him’), if you want to grow in your worship of God in and through the
successes and drudgery of work, Martin’s Workship
may well be the book you need.
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