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WORSHIP@WORK

Through the lens of breaking bread together, Worship@Work will challenge you to:

  • approach your own work as worship; and thereby
  • play a part in God’s plan to put the world to rights.

“When we worship something we find our worth in that thing. And when worth is found in God, it is found to give worth out. We can add worth through our work, and invite worthiness in our relationships. Worship thus shapes society, as worth is passed round like a parcel.”

But what does it mean for everyday work to be offered back to God as worship? How might turning public policy into benefit payments, for example, be an offering to God?

The course is divided into 7 x 30-minute sessions (which make it ideal for Christian Workplace Groups to run over lunchtime):

  • I: Saved. So What? – we fail to be the royals, priesthood, and prophesiers we were made to be. So Jesus enters the world as prophet, priest, and king. Through his death and resurrection, his Spirit enables us to be royal, priestly, and prophetic. But we need to be filled with the Spirit continually and corporately. God thereby fulfils his promise to bless the nations.
  • II: Work – whereas royals represent God’s rule – God first: neighbour next [James 2:8]; the priestly re-present the world to God. When worth is found in God, it is found to give worth out. Worth is passed round like a parcel. Worth can be passed on through our work, when we turn one thing into another.
  • III: Fall – the Powers are good because they glue society together. Yet they fall to become idols, dividing society into “us” and “them”.* But the Powers can be put back in their place. So when gratitude expresses the worth we find in God, generosity forms society; but when we find our worth in work or money, society is divided. Our worship shapes society Watch the accompanying video for this session:
    Worship@Work (Video 1): The Powers
  • IV: The Sacred-Secular Divide – through the lens of the SSD, the “sacred” and the “secular” are like oil and water. But since breaking bread together acts like an emulsifier, resisting a violent divide in creation between “sacred” and “secular”, it is better to reserve “sacred” for God alone, and “secular” for everything he has made. Watch the accompanying video for this session:
    Worship@Work (Video 2): The Sacred-Secular Divide
  • V: Resurrection – this world will echo in the next. Jesus talks about drinking wine in the kingdom [Mark 14:25]. So the know-how of making wine has a place there. But the next world is not like this one. Wine will be made for the common good. Needs will be met and relationships restored. We should anticipate this by working towards the kingdom now.
  • VI: Anticipating the Kingdom – breaking bread together gives us a picture of the new creation [1 Corinthians 11:17-34], where there is no place for looking down on other people. It shows us what it means to put the world to rights. Watch the accompanying video for this session:
    Worship@Work (Video 3): Resurrection EDIT
  • VII: Breaking Bread Together – breaking bread together helps us to reflect on our attitude towards work. This is because the workplace produces the bread and the wine.

* ‘That social, political, judicial and economic structures can become demonic is evident to anybody who has considered that the state, which in Romans 13 is the minister of God, in Revelation 13 has become an ally of the devil. Similarly, the moral law which God gave for human good led to human bondage and was exploited by “the elemental spirits of the universe”. Every good gift of God can be perverted to human use’ [John R. W. Stott, God’s New Society: The Message of Ephesians (Leicester: IVP, 1979), 274.]

COURSE SAMPLE