Recently I was challenged by another leader to make our organization's core values more succinct and memorable. After taking a look at them, I realized I had trouble remembering my own nonprofit's guiding principles!
The key, I started to realize, was that if they were to become anything more than nice phrases, we needed to make them operational: they needed to become our framework for making decisions. So, I took our original seven guiding principles and simplified them into five short, actionable phrases which define our decision-making framework for DIFW. I’ve included them below, after which is a short explanation of each value. I also ordered them in the stages that we think many people go through in the journey of integrating faith and work.
A week later, as I looked at these five principles, I thought they may be of some use for people thinking through how theology should influence their own work or organization. If you’ve wondered just what it means to integrate your faith and your work, here’s how I would start thinking through the journey. In order, here are they are, followed by a brief explanation we use for DIFW and a reflection for our own work.
1. Think theologically.
Embracing the call to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of Christ, we value programs that enable men and women to verbally articulate how Scripture, the historic church, and the gospel of grace influence their work.
In our culture today, there are countless narratives that drive our work: the “isms” (secular humanism, materialism, pantheism, consumerism), the drive for success (status, power, money), and the 300 million plus religions we in America just call “me.”
Yet there is one narrative that I constantly try to return to amidst the noise: the Christian story. It may be obvious, but the first step in integrating faith and work is intentionally asking how Scripture, the historic church and the gospel of grace influence our work. This covers everything from our motivation to work, our relationships with others, the jobs and projects we choose, the way we spend our careers, and the influence we have in our organizations, communities and professions.
So how would you actually know if you were thinking theologically? A simple answer: you speak theologically. There’s a real and obvious connection between our thoughts and our words. The question to ask ourselves is this: what part of God’s redemptive history — from Abraham and the call of Israel to Christ and the church in Acts — should influence this decision, right here and right now? How would I articulate it considering the issues before me today?
2. Embrace relationships.
Embracing the doctrine of the incarnation, we value convening face-to-face conversations and building highly active networks and long-term relationships among peers across sectors.
God seems to care deeply about good relationships. Among all the world religions, the Christian God is the only one who is himself a relationship (Father, Son and Spirit). The reconciliation of fractured relationship is such a priority for him, that God became a man in Christ Jesus so that we might be drawn into his own self-giving love of the Trinity. As a matter of fact, in the Bible hell is described as the pain of utter loneliness (“outer darkness”) and heaven is a big party (the wedding feast of the Lamb). We were made to live in loving relationship.
If that’s true, then the gospel must influence our relationships with clients, co-workers, vendors, bosses, patients, students and everybody in between. If God came close, how should we then come close to others we work with?
At DIFW, this means placing a value on face-to-face conversations (over merely digital ones), highly active networks (staying in touch with some frequency with the people you meet through DIFW programs) and long-term relationships (developing actual friendships).
The question, then, again is simple: who do I need to reach out to today in humility to build or reconcile a relationship?
3. Create good work.
Embracing God’s own creation and the hope of the resurrection, we value programs that lead to Spirit-filled action and significant new projects that serve as a sign and foretaste of God’s coming kingdom.
Embracing the parable of the talents, we value programs that prove measurable returns.
“Create good work.” We chose this phrase carefully. It calls us to remember that the first work was the work of creation in Genesis 1. He created, and said “It is good.” He didn’t say it was “excellent”; it wasn’t being compared to anything else. But all of creation reflected God’s beauty and accomplished the purpose for which it was intended - from shining stars to blooming lilies.
Though sin entered the world, and work was cursed (Genesis 3), Christians believe that God is remaking the world anew, and the first fruits of the new world is the resurrection of Jesus himself. We, today, look with eager longing to the New Jerusalem, a heavenly city, inhabited by men and infused with the life of God and the goodness of his creation.
If this is true about God and his work, could the work I do really be called “good”? Does it fulfill the purpose to which God has called me - or am I just “getting things done?”
We get the idea from Scripture that we’ve all been entrusted with “talents” - skills, gifts, networks, ideas, relationships, knowledge - to which God will call us to account. He expects us to turn our two talents into four, or our five into ten. The parable of the talents makes me think God expects measurable returns from what he’s entrusted to us, and not merely getting by.
If all that is true, and I think it is, the question becomes, what projects will I undertake today that I can say at the end of the day, “It is good”? Will others join in with me and say about that lesson plan, gas station design or plate of food, “Indeed, it is good!” Here’s where our work begins to look like the work of God himself.
4. Serve others sacrificially.
Embracing the call to costly discipleship, we value high levels of commitment, acts of sacrificial service and courageous public witness among program participants, staff, board and volunteers.
Embracing the call to justice, we value programs that serve the needs of the poor and marginalized in our work and communities.
There may be no more common phrase in American business culture than “customer service.” Yet “serve others sacrificially?” At the center of Christian faith is Jesus Christ who gave his life on the cross that others might have eternal life. He sacrificed himself for us. A teacher once told me the definition of the righteous man in the Old Testament is somebody who disadvantages himself in order to advantage his community. Are we also willing to sacrifice our interests to the interests of others?
Being a Christian in a pluralist society will eventually cost you something. And it will probably be painful. It may even feel like death. But this is where Christians belong: giving their lives away on behalf of others.
Can we be embrace a courageous public witness, yet always seek to embrace an ethic of sacrificial service for the well-being of others? Can we put a special value on the needs of the poor and marginalized in our work and communities? Can we be people of high commitment when everybody else shrinks away - even if it costs us dearly?
Honestly, this step usually comes later, after we’ve been thinking theologically, embracing relationships and creating good work for a while. But it is utterly necessary if God is going to use us to do big things. The road to greatness is paved with stones of sacrificial service.
5. Solve big problems.
Embracing the call to be the Body of Christ for the life of the world, we value programs that address our most pressing contemporary problems and adopt a broad, interdisciplinary perspective in solving complex issues.
There’s a reason this one is last. In a culture where changing the world has become one of the most common aspirations of graduating college students, we need to hear first the story of humble service, good work, and redemptive relationships all in the context of a story we didn’t start and won’t finish. We are small. God is big.
Having said that, the Body of Christ must not shrink back from the great challenges of our day. We who created the first hospitals in the late Roman empire; we who established the first universities in the 12th century; we who composed sonatas, established economic systems built on virtue, and through history defended the worth of all men and women as being made in God’s image (an unprecedented gift in the history of the world - check out Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason) — who are we to shrink back when we see our neighbors in great need today?
As I wrote about in a previous blog post about Francis Perkins, at the turn of the 20th century, countless young people prepared both for acts of great sacrifice and deeds of great heroism. We can and must do the same today.
So what are the most pressing contemporary problems in your organization, community or profession? Who are you gathering across disciplines to solve these issues? How will you “attempt great things for God, expect great things from God” (William Carey)?
The Body of Christ is given as a gift for the life of the world. You and I may be just cells in Christ’s body. But we can gather; we can learn; we can act; we can be the bearers of a redemption far greater than any one of us individually.
So considering our time is short, let’s focus our efforts on the greatest needs and the known evils of our age. Perhaps then our work might humbly, yet hopefully, point to the redemption of all things in the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the tree of life, “whose leaves are for the healing of nations” (Rev 22:2).
Summary - DIFW Guiding Principles
1. Think theologically.
Embracing the call to be faithful stewards of the mysteries of Christ, we value programs that enable men and women to verbally articulate how Scripture, the historic church, and the gospel of grace influence their work.
2. Embrace relationships.
Embracing the doctrine of the incarnation, we value convening face-to-face conversations and building highly active networks and long-term relationships among peers across sectors.
3. Create good work.
Embracing God’s own creation and the hope of the resurrection, we value programs that lead to Spirit-filled action and significant new projects that serve as a sign and foretaste of God’s coming kingdom.
Embracing the parable of the talents, we value programs that prove measurable returns.
4. Serve others sacrificially.
Embracing the call to costly discipleship, we value high levels of commitment, acts of sacrificial service and courageous public witness among program participants, staff, board and volunteers.
Embracing the call to justice, we value programs that serve the needs of the poor and marginalized in our work and communities.
5. Solve big problems.
Embracing the call to be the Body of Christ for the life of the world, we value programs that address our most pressing contemporary problems and adopt a broad, interdisciplinary perspective in solving complex issues.
