By David Gill, reprinted from The 313.
Jeff Haanen is the founder of the Denver Institute for Faith & Work. Jeff writes on faith, business, entrepreneurship, and work, and he has published essays with Christianity Today, the American Enterprise Institute, and Comment. He’s the author of An Uncommon Guide to Retirement: Finding God’s Purpose for the Next Season of Life (2019), Working from the Inside Out: A Brief Guide to Inner Work That Transforms Our Outer World (2023), and the forthcoming God of the Second Shift.
Working from the Inside Out argues that “faith and work is not first about impact, success, or even a way to advance the gospel in the world—it’s about who we’re becoming in the process of our working lives” (p. 13). Our quest for faithful “workplace discipleship” needs to flow from a transformed inner life and walk with God. Much of the literature about faith at work jumps right to guiding ideas about work and skips over the worker as a transformed, empowered agent. (This is why my own Workplace Discipleship 101 begins with five chapters on “Preparation” before five chapters on “Presence” in the workplace). Haanen describes well how so many workers experience the frustration of fragmented lives. Instead, Haanen argues that “vocation is a moment-by-moment relationship with God, for the benefit of our neighbors, and through our daily work” (p. 18). In broad strokes, he is right on target.
Haanen devotes chapters to five guiding principles for faith at work. First is to “seek deep spiritual health” by “listening and submitting to the Holy Spirit, practicing the classic spiritual disciplines, and doing our work in a redemptive manner”—prayer, Bible study, meditation, worship, and so on. Second is to “think theologically”—seeing everything (including work and all life experiences and learning) in light of God and Scripture. Third is to “embrace relationships”—investing in and caring for others at work and beyond. This is a core teaching of Scripture and a huge need for ourselves as well as those for whom we care in our individualistic culture. Fourth is to “create good work” which means “an integrated faith [which] values Spirit-filled labor, a commitment to craftsmanship, and projects that serve as a sign and foretaste of God’s coming kingdom” (p. 24). Fifth is to “serve others sacrificially” through acts of compassion and justice.
In Part Three, Haanen argues that “How to Change” is about facing up to our failure, weakness, and suffering on this pilgrimage rather than denying and fleeing from it, and then joining in a “high-commitment community characterized by emotional and relational vulnerability” (p. 106). In this context and with this attitude we seek to form habits of growth which over time reform our character and presence. Change requires a transformed worldview but also a lifestyle of transformed habits. With this kind of personal change, we can move on to “translate” our faith and convictions from “Bible-speak” into language and concepts that can be heard in our workplaces. (I have done this for years in my MBA teaching and business consulting with the Decalogue—“Ten Principles of Highly Ethical Business Leaders”—and the Beatitudes—“Eight Traits of an Ethically Healthy Organization”). Haanen closes by showing how all five of his principles are in essential relationships with each other—none can be left out—and how it all constitutes a life of love, the core characteristic of Christian discipleship at work and everywhere.
Working from the Inside Out is a solid and valuable book from cover to cover. Faith and work experts and veterans will profit from this book as much as novices. Haanen wears his considerable experience and expertise lightly and his humility and vulnerability about his own struggles is endearing. I love how he toggles between professional and “working class” perspectives each step of the way—far too little of the faith and work movement is blue-collar and service-worker conscious. Another great strength of this book is the omnipresence of actual worker stories. Lots of examples to inspire.
Of course, this can’t be the only book on the topic. An adequate theology of work, grounded in a study of the work of God, calls for much more depth and detail than Haanen could provide in this brief tome. While I like the emphasis on work’s value in transforming the self, I think it is always first and most importantly about loving and serving God, then about loving and serving the neighbor. The “embrace relationships” theme really needs some additional emphasis on forming one’s “workplace discipleship posse” for regular, intentional discernment and support. The gods ruling today’s workplace and culture—the self, money, and technology—also need to be specifically named and desacralized. But these are just the musings of another veteran; Working from the Inside Out gets an “A+” and a strong recommendation to buy, read, and widely promote!
The Green Room 