Blue-collar work that creates for the Kingdom
Jordan Raynor sits down with Dave Hataj, Owner of Edgerton Gear, Inc., to talk about what it means for our work that Jesus talked far more about his Kingdom than about “being saved,” how apprenticeships give you wisdom, while info products give you knowledge, and what Scripture says about our work lasting into eternity.
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[0:00:05.3] JR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christ followers who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian who is pursuing world-class mastery of their craft. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits and routines, and how their faith influences the work that they do each day.
You guys have been asking me to bring on some more blue-collar guests onto the show. Today, I am bringing you a phenomenal one. His name is Dave Hataj. He grew up working in his father’s gear shop, starting at the age of 5. At the age of 19, Dave became a Christian and he was convinced that if you really wanted to serve the Lord, he needed to become a pastor – so that’s exactly what he did.
Over time, he came to realize that work, even blue-collar work in a gear shop is ministry. He quit his pastoral ministry job to take over operations at Edgerton Gear, based in Wisconsin, where he currently serves as owner and operator and has been for about 25 years now. To give you an idea of the scale of that business, if you’ve used an aluminum can, a paper cup, a piece of paper, a book – so basically all of us – you have used a product that Edgerton Gears has played a role in creating.
Dave recently published this excellent book titled Good Work, which brings a much needed blue-collar perspective to this ongoing faith and work conversation. I really loved this episode of the podcast. Dave and I talked about what it means for our work, that Jesus talked way more about his kingdom than he did about “being saved.” We talked about how apprenticeships give you wisdom, while information products and YouTube tutorials give you knowledge, and we talked about what Scripture has to say about our work and the actual work products that we create, what the Scripture says about those things potentially lasting into eternity in the New Heavens and the New Earth.
Please enjoy this terrific conversation with my new friend, Dave Hataj.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:02:29.2] JR: Dave Hataj, thank you so much for being here. I was just telling you before we started recording, I loved this book. When people ask me for good faith and work resources, honestly, it's a pretty short list of books that I recommend and yours is one that I've added to it. I think our audience here on the podcast has been asking for more blue-collar perspectives on redemptive work. Just thank you so much for taking the time to do this.
[0:02:53.5] DH: My pleasure to be here. That's pretty high praise, because in a lot of ways I wasn't sure why I was writing the book. I always told my wife I would never write a book, but it turns out – I think you're dead on. There's a need for a blue-collar voice.
[0:03:06.6] JR: Is that what you did it? Why did you write the book?
[0:03:08.9] DH: It was a strange thing. I got pretty ill about five years ago; just burned out and doctors called it adrenal fatigue, but nobody could really diagnose it. It took me about a two-year recovery of going home early every afternoon, just resting, sleeping. The second year of my recovery, you're faced with your mortality. I was 55 at the time. I'm going, “God, what's happened? Where am I headed?”
I realized I've had incredible mentors. I've been so blessed in so many ways with great people in my life, and I wanted to get down on paper for my staff and – I have three grown sons – this is what I feel God has been teaching for the last 25 years, in business and in life. I just started writing. It was sort of like therapy. I showed it to one of my mentors, Paul Stevens, up in Regent College in Vancouver and he said, “Oh, this has potential.” Long story short, I didn't try to promote it. People just took it and ran with it. Here I am today with it.
[0:04:07.2] JR: Quite the reluctant author. Dave, let's start here. Tell us a little bit about Edgerton Gear. What do you guys do?
[0:04:14.2] DH: We are a custom gear shop. Gears are those little things with like bicycle teeth, but gears are in everything; from anything that makes paper, to tractors, to cars, to – I often say that there's nothing on your body that's man-made, or in you room, your house, at work, that wasn't made without the assistance of gears.
Back in 1962, my parents were married, three little girls, bun in the oven, which was me, and my dad said, “I got to figure out how to make a living.” His summer job when he was a teenager was a little gear shop, working in Chicago. He started the business, 20 – let's say I grew up in it. I was working in the shop by that time I was age five and we are serving customers everywhere, from those who are making toilet paper in the current pandemic to masks. I had a rush out today that – so they needed a couple of gears immediately, because of making the N95 masks – to bottling, to any paper product, to lumber products, food service packaging, cardboard boxes. You name it, pretty much our gears run everything.
We’re not a production shop. All of our machinists are pretty much journeyman, or craftsmen, very highly trained. We did that intentionally, because modern industrialization, it can get very boring very fast. We wanted to keep low production to keep everybody interested and engaged on a daily basis.
[0:05:42.6] JR: That's interesting. It’s an interesting perspective on automation and technology. I want to go back to the beginning of your vocational story, because I'm reading your book and my first thought was, “Oh, my gosh. This guy is George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life.” I was so glad you went there in the book and drew the parallel yourself. Tell us your story. You starting to work in the gear shop when you're 5, which is a topic for another time that we could dive into. Take us from there to today. What's the story behind this?
[0:06:17.0] DH: Well, the only person that had been to college in our family is my oldest sister. My family, going back generations, very blue-collar. Bricklayers and machinists and lumberjacks, etc. We were very poor growing up, so this is all I knew. We were required to work in the shop as kids. As I started to school, I loved to read but I struggled with a lot of the other classes. My dad always said, “You’ve got to learn math, because you're going to need that as a machinist.”
As I started going into high school, I could not relate to any of these career paths that other students were taking to go into university or to college. I was in that boat of – I took every shop class that you possibly could. In our high school and most high schools, the shop classes are at the end of a long hall, at the other end of the school. A lot of us don't do well in class, but we do really well with our hands. That's how we learned to engage with the world.
I took a woodworking and welding and drafting and printing and auto mechanics and everything. By the time I got to be a junior or senior, that idea of going to university wasn't even on my radar. It wasn't even brought up in our family. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I got out of high school and my dad said, “Well, you’re working in the shop. Unless, you have a better plan?” I had no plan. Most of my friends – a lot of them did go off to university – but quite a few of us just had to get a local job in a small town of 5,000. You just find a job.
I initially hated it, because I had been doing it for so long. Back then, in the early 80s, manufacturing was dirty, dark, and dangerous. It was greasy, it was filthy, it was – you get it – but in a way, it was enjoyable too if you like to get dirty and greasy. I think I was more burned-out with what is the point of making gears? How is this possibly making a difference in the world? One day I just – and it's an interesting story. I was also training to do triathlons and marathons at the time. On one of those training runs, I was just completely depressed and just having a major pity party, like woe is me, woe is me.
I heard a voice. It was so real, I thought someone was playing a trick on me, like it was out on the bushes. The voice just said, “You are not alone,” and it repeated it. My world turned on a dime. At that moment, I realized I was incredibly loved. God was real. Then it was a matter of, what do I to do with my life? If you're incredibly loved and you realize you're here for a purpose, what does God do with a machinist?
[0:08:51.8] JR: You're at this point, right? You have this incredible encounter, where God grabs a hold of you and – you do it, a lot of young people do it, and they check, “I should be a pastor.”
[0:09:03.5] DH: Yeah, exactly. That's what people tell you. That's the way my career path went. If you are really zealous for serving God, you must become a pastor, a missionary, a Sunday school teacher or something. The idea of serving God at the workplace wasn't even on anybody's radar, anything like that.
[0:09:19.2] JR: Yeah. Pick up the story from there.
[0:09:21.4] DH: I didn’t go to church for a while, because my dad is a very angry atheist, my mom a very devout Christian. I didn't want to get in the middle of them, so I really kept my faith quiet for a while. I was living at home at the time. One week, they went off on vacation and I snuck my way to church. That first Sunday, I met a man named Pete and his son Scott. Pete was a VP for University Christian Fellowship. He helped start the marketplace movement back in the 80s. People just took me under their wing. It’s like, wow, you're zealous, so I did all the traditional things. I volunteered in the youth group, then I got almost like an internship in youth group, got hooked up with Athletes in Action. People said, “Oh, my gosh. You want to serve the Lord?” Okay, where you going? Went out to California, with Athletes in Action.
Long story short, I ended up getting a job as a pastor in a megachurch. I had never been to college, no theological training. I was the Wisconsin hick in Newport Beach in this big church. They offered to pay me to be their pastor to college students. I don't think they knew what they were getting and I don't think they thought I could do much damage, because at the time it was only 10 students. The funny thing is –
[0:10:30.2] JR: Pretty low risk. Yeah.
[0:10:31.4] DH: Low risk, and I had no idea what I was learning, or even teaching. What I would learn during the week, I’d teach on Sundays and Wednesdays. Our focus back then was you read the word, you worship, and you pray. Within a couple months or six months, the group just started to explode and God just did some amazing things in the group, grew to over a 100 students.
I had a crazy burnout experience. It's very, very painful. I won't get into details right now. That's for another day. I was really shipwrecked, because the one place that I thought I would be the most accepted and loved and find purpose in my life became extremely painful. Then I went, “God, now what do I do? If I don't fit in the church as a professional religious person, what in the world do you want to do with my life?”
I met my wife shortly before that. We were married. I got some advice to say “Go up to Regent College in Vancouver, theological graduate school. You need to get to know God. You need to get to know Jesus and figure out what you really believe, versus what the church has told you to believe.” That led me on to study. It was the end of the first year. Still didn’t know what I wanted to do and I took one of those weird classes, What Color is Your Parachute, they analyze your gifts, they do personality assessments and all that.
It came back and it said – the test at the end of semester came back and said you – and you got to keep – I should back up a second. Realize that the last place on the planet I would ever want to come back to would be Edgerton Gear, making gears in the shop. It was the most dark, depressing, painful place on the planet for me. I said, “God, I would go anywhere, do anything, but I will not go back to the shop.” Fast forward, I get these test results back and it said – and I'm not kidding – verbatim, it says, “You are uniquely gifted to run a small manufacturing family-run business.”
[0:12:24.2] JR: Unbelievable.
[0:12:25.1] DH: I screamed. I was like, “Lord, no.”
[0:12:28.6] JR: Absolutely not.
[0:12:30.2] DH: No.
[0:12:31.1] JR: Anything but the old building and loan. Anything.
[0:12:33.7] DH: Anything. Exactly. Exactly! I did feel like George Bailey. I’m like, “Okay. I'll go back and honor my parents,” and they were more than willing to have my wife and I back, because my dad was certain that – he was just burned out and starting to have some health problems. I took another six months to prepare at Regent College to say, “Okay, Lord. If you're calling me back to this mess,” – what I call my family and my family business, we all have messes – “If you are who you say you are, you have to somehow be able to reach this little blue-collar machine shop in Wisconsin.” Otherwise, if my faith isn't practical, what’s the point?
[0:13:10.4] JR: You take this personality assessment. It's like, “Hey.” Basically, telling you verbatim, “Go back home –”
[0:13:15.6] DH: Back. Go back home.
[0:13:16.3] JR: – run the gear shop. At this point, did you see that work as ministry? If not, where in your story did that happen? Where did you start to connect these two ideas together?
[0:13:29.5] DH: Boy, Jordan. That’s a great question, because I think I really was like a lot of Christians who said, “God is only really interested about saving people.” It's all about people. Even though I had these amazing mentors that taught me about theology of work, it took me I would say, gosh, a good 10 years to really understand that making gears is part of the creation mandate. It is part of serving the good of the world. Modern civilization, really, as we know it, would not exist without gears.
I had this tension that was trying to get in my head. Intellectually, I knew that I came to realize my job is really important. But the heart part of it really took a long time to come, to get there, because I wasn't getting any validation, I shouldn't say any, but very little validation from the Christian community.
[0:14:25.1] JR: I want to come back to that and talk about that in a minute. First, let's park here for a second. We talk a lot on The Call to Mastery about how people master various vocations. I'm always curious about what the keys to mastery are in fields that I don't understand. I have no idea what it takes to be a master machinist. What are the keys to mastering that trade, a very hands-on, technical trade? How do you become world-class at that craft?
[0:14:53.2] DH: Another good question. It’s something that I just grew up with and never had to really think about. It was – my dad was a phenomenal machinist. The attention to detail and the perseverance and the focus on math skills and to have – back then, all the machines were manuals. So you would have steel chips flying in your face, in your arms, and you’d get burned, and it was dangerous.
It was this discipline – we are working within tenths of an inch, not – ten thousandths of an inch. If you take a human hair and you split it six times – or I should say, yeah, three to six times, depending the thickness of your hair – that's one thousandth of an inch. Cut that again in half and that's half a thousandth. Those are the tolerances we’re working with.
I remember one story that, I’d run a manual lathe and my dad would cut the piece of steel, bring it over, here's the blueprint, you got to figure this out, you got to make it. He teaches methods of setting up and doing the same thing over and over, but the attention to detail to make the machine and understand cutting speeds and cutting oils and tool angles and RPMs and all this together wrapped up – how do I take every tool to make it perform the way I want it to, because you're really forcing your will on a piece of steel to make it conform to what you need it to be.
I remember one case, I scrapped the part four and five times. Every time I scrapped it – the hole, the bore kept going oversized on me because it wasn't the correct tolerance – I’d take it back to my dad, and he’d give it to me, and check, and said, “Go start again, and start again, start again.” I guess an answer long – or short answer to the question, it's just the discipline to be committed to this excellence that is very tangible. When your part is not to print, or it is, then having that perseverance and that courage – because the other thing that's interesting about machining, people think it’s, “everybody just makes it the same.” If I gave a blueprint to 10 different machinists, of how to make a gear, they would come up with 10 different ways of making it.
[0:17:00.3] JR: Interesting. In that way it’s very creative.
[0:17:03.3] DH: It is very creative. Even in our shop, that's one of the things that excites me the most is really seeing the guys that are on the machines, their giftedness, how they think, how they use their creativity to get to the same goal. We're using the same machines, but how are you going to get there? I think that's one of the most fascinating things about being human, is when you see people engage that God-given creativity to figure things out. I think that's really exciting.
[0:17:29.9] JR: In the world of machinery, apprenticeships are how you learn, right? It's how you learn technical blue-collar work. Apprenticeships are less common in what we might call “knowledge work.” I'm curious for you, you had to make that transition from being this highly technical worker as a machinist, to the less technical work of owning and operating the business. As you, over time, made that transition, how did you seek out apprenticeships in that latter role? Did you continue to apprentice yourself under mentors as you begin to operate the business day in, day out?
[0:18:09.8] DH: Oh, absolutely. In fact, anything I do, what is great about the apprenticeship model of education is that you have this mentor, right? The mentor is giving you guidance, giving you direction. They've gone before you. In the book, I teach this class, that I talk about Craftsman with Character. One of the things that we do with our students and we teach them, one, they're not the center of the universe. Two, you don't remember as much as you think you do, right?
[0:18:40.0] JR: I wish somebody told me this when I was 9-years-old.
[0:18:43.0] DH: Exactly. It really expresses humility, that you need to learn from those who have come before you. Even when I started transitioning more of a management/leadership role, I have always looked through those older people that said – man, one of my best mentors has been a baker his entire life. He just understands people and he understands business processes and family. I got other mentors who are really phenomenal at theology. It's always been in my – I guess – the apprenticeship DNA is, always learn from those who came before you.
[0:19:14.7] JR: Yeah, and get to know them personally, right? We're living at this time where anyone can learn anything on YouTube. That's wonderful. But nothing can replace direct one-to-one communication between mentor and protégé and apprentice, right? Because they get to know you, your unique challenges, your unique needs, and they can coach you through it, right?
[0:19:35.7] DH: Well, exactly. I think the most incredible, important part of mentorship is we are all broken. Yeah, we are all fallible. We all bring our own wounds and garbage to the table. A mentor recognizes that, and they've made mistakes before too. I think the most important role is they come alongside, they see us for who we are, and can help us get there, in spite of all of our junk that we bring along with us. That's I think the real difference between gaining knowledge on YouTube and gaining wisdom by doing things, and having people speak in your life, and coach you and mentor you and help you to overcome – in a lot of ways – yourself.
[0:20:18.9] JR: That's really good. I love that distinction between knowledge and wisdom. I think that's the Delta between what you might call a direct apprenticeship and an indirect apprenticeship on YouTube.
Hey, so we love talking about habits and routines, the big people are particularly productive. I'd love to know what your day looks like, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. What's the tick-tock of your day?
[0:20:40.1] DH: Okay. I go early to bed, early to rise.
[0:20:43.0] JR: Good for you. Me too. Yeah.
[0:20:44.5] DH: Yeah. I'm usually up by 5:00, 5:30. Up here in Wisconsin, it can be difficult in the winter, but I get up and I do my bathroom routine and then I'm in the kitchen. I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting for the last few years. A lot of times, I won't eat breakfast until 10:00 or 11:00. I’ll make myself a smoothie, take my supplements and my vitamins. In the winter, I build a fire in our fireplace. We have a wood stove. Sit down and maybe read the Word, or just meditate, journal, and just really try to check in and say, “Oh, God. Okay, God. What's today about?”
I think one of the more – maybe you do this too, but what I look for when I sit down in those quiet moments in the morning, I try to just call myself and listen to where the stress points are. Where am I feeling anxiety? What am I worried about today? Really try to dig into that. I think I learned that quite a few years ago, because if I don't deal with my anxiety and stress firstly in the morning and if I can’t name it, identify it, it shakes the whole day. It carries with me and influences how I respond to people and how I make decisions. I try to just get that very centered place first thing.
[0:21:54.8] JR: Hey, Dave. Let me stop you there, because I want our listeners to hear something you just said. Because I've been experiencing this lately, the power of clearly articulating what you're anxious about, right? Giving a name to that anxiety is incredibly powerful. I find it's really powerful if I write it down, or if I speak it out loud.
The other day I was in our kitchen at the end of the day and, my wife found me, I was literally just talking to myself. Talking, I'm like, “Why am I anxious? Okay. It's this, this, this. I understand it. Now, Lord, help me overcome this. I'm casting these anxieties upon you.” There's a lot of power, there’s a lot of wisdom in what you just said. All right, so that's your morning. Take us from there.
[0:22:36.1] DH: Well, I have this phenomenal two-year-old – well actually, a year and a half year old, golden doodle that I've got, and I’ve always been a dog guy. We get out and take a walk around the block. Usually it’s after I come out of that quiet solitude moments in front of the fire, then it’s just outside to walk. I need to get outside. I need to see the sunrise. I need to feel the wind in my face. I just connect with God, I think, on a deeper level out there.
Then especially, like you said, if you identify that anxiety, then I take it outside and say, “Lord, what do I do with this today?” Even it's the Scriptures that come back. Today, it was Psalm 34, where I really have to dig into it and just recite it and meditate on it. It's like, you have not abandoned me. You have heard my cry. I am living with fear today. I want to believe you and all of that. It's really a prayer walk every morning to get me right through the day. Then I get in my truck, I’m here at the shop by 7:00, and it's a matter of seeing what's in my basket, quotes, orders, guys have questions, answering e-mails, and we’re off to the races.
[0:23:38.2] JR: Yeah. What time do you go to bed?
[0:23:40.7] DH: I try to go to bed between 8:30 and 9:00 and read myself to sleep. I've always got books on my bed stand and my routine is just to calm my mind. Right now, I just finished Everything I Needed by Robert Fulghum. I think that's it, or Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Or I’m rustling through a book by Chesterson right now. Holy cow, that's hard.
[0:24:01.9] JR: Yeah, jeez. Chesterson is not easy. Yeah.
[0:24:04.0] DH: Yeah. Or just whatever. Usually it’s – that's always ongoing.
[0:24:08.2] JR: Yeah, I'm quite the early to bed guy as well. Looking like 8:45 to 9:15 is about my window right now. You mentioned something in your book that I loved and it's a good segue-way to this conversation about how the gospel influences your work. You talked about on your drive into the office in the mornings, praying – this specific prayer that you're praying for your business. Can you talk about that?
[0:24:33.0] DH: Well, I go up between two prayers. One of them, when you go back to Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things unto you.” Really, it’s – I am called to seek God's kingdom 24/7 in my business. What does that look like, Lord? What does your kingdom look like, in a machine shop of all places?
The other prayer that goes along with it, realizing how inadequate and sometimes just frail – I mean, I got to be honest, life is just so overwhelming. I just need God to infuse me every day, to see as He sees, to think as He sees, to listen as He listens, to speak as He listens. I need his spirit just to hover and infuse me, so when I get to work, he's already there before me, which of course, he is. Just to have a completely different perspective and may his kingdom come through me today every day while I’m here.
[0:25:27.8] JR: That's a perfect segue-way. In the book, you really harp on one of my favorite topics and a topic that I am growing increasingly obsessed with. You mentioned that when you first started reading the gospels, there wasn't nearly as much talk about “being saved,” as there was about God's kingdom and bringing about God's kingdom. Please get up on your soapbox. This is your invitation, and talk about what does that mean practically? As you and our listeners engage in our work each day. How can we help bring about God's kingdom?
[0:26:08.5] DH: Well, I think first of all, we need to understand exactly when he said that there's not a lot in the gospels about salvation. Jesus is constantly talking about his kingdom. Well, what is that? I’ve wrestled with that. What in the world is this kingdom? It's really the rein of God. Go back. Everything is his. He wants to take it back. He wants his values, his perspective, his way of loving and engaging the world and people in a way that is life-giving, instead of life-sucking, right?
This little simple verse that says, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,” I really spent a long time trying to understand what in the world that meant. I picked up a book by Dallas Willard a number of years ago, The Divine Conspiracy. Dallas Willard talks about that that word, righteousness that Jesus uses repeatedly throughout the gospel, especially at Sermon on the Mount, can be translated to true inner goodness.
He even goes in a little bit more about is that ideal that God puts in our hearts and our minds. This is what life should really have been about if we weren't dealing with hollowness and brokenness and sin, right? I'm like, okay, that starts to make sense to me, because it says seek God's kingdom in His goodness.
Now, then I really started thinking about how does goodness change everything. How does it impact everything that I do throughout my day? Because if that's my barometer, if that's what I'm trying with my standards I'm trying to live up to, it's such a crazy, radical concept, but it's so simple. If in every comment, every interaction that we have with anybody, in every job that I do throughout the day, if my first priority is looking at from God's perspective of goodness, his standards of perfect goodness, it gets really radical really, really fast.
Because now, every person I meet, I'm not looking at that as a person or employee. I'm like, “Well, how can I breathe life into that person?” Every job that I do, whether it's making a gear, or a solid piece, quoting a job, what is goodness in that context? When that starts happening, it’s – I don't even know how to explain it really well, except through the book, because – it starts changing everything around you. It's like, every one of us has a sphere of influence that we have that's unique only to us, right? We have only our experience, our friends, our family, our giftedness, our job, our skill set, whatever.
If we start making God's goodness a top priority, it starts influencing people and things around us in a way that I think is really contagious. I think that's what Jesus was talking about when he was on the Sermon on the Mount. You got to realize, that he was speaking to the masses, the blue-collared people, not the religious professional. They're the ones that he fought with, right? They’re the ones that he ticked off and they ticked him off, right?
When he’s on the Sermon on the Mount, talking to these masses of 5,000 people, what I’ve got in my mind is who are those people? Why would people follow? The same here in Edgerton, if Jesus came on, what was it about Jesus that just enamored people and drew people to him? I think we live such in a broken world that we don't even know what goodness is anymore. Everybody flipping each other off on the highway. We just want – look out for number one, we treat each other rudely. He starts saying, this is what life really could be.
Could you imagine a car salesman – like I have some friends that are car salesmen – that treats people with absolute goodness and in their best interest? When we deal with our customers, if our top priority is their success and not ours; when I'm dealing with staff, if my first priority is to make them successful, love them, it's this radical upside-down world that really starts to change things.
[0:29:52.1] JR: I love that. There's such good, practical applications for – okay, great, living in line with kingdom principles has implications for the here and now and how we treat our customers, how we treat our employees, etc. What impact does it have eternally? What impact does it have in the eternal kingdom? You've studied scripture, you've been to the seminary. What impact does it have in the New Heavens and the New Earth and the permanent eternal Kingdom in which Jesus is reigning forever on the New Earth?
[0:30:21.2] DH: Wow. That’s a deep question.
[0:30:23.4] JR: I know. We’ll go deep in our first conversation together, Dave.
[0:30:27.4] DH: Well, I go back to something that Paul Stevens taught me, is that – this idea that everything just burns up and we get to the New Heaven and the New Earth, and everything we do, it doesn’t matter. We just got to get people safe. Well, that’s not Scriptural.
[0:30:38.7] JR: Amen.
[0:30:39.1] DH: If you refer to the book of Revelation in different places, there is this concept of the New Heaven, New Earth, and that things done in faith here and now will carry over into that new city, that New Jerusalem, that New Heaven. My gears, if they're done in faith, you know – let me back up. I think our concept of Heaven too often is we’re sitting around with harps and singing and worshipping. What is worship? If God made us as workers and six days – if we're made in his image and he worked for six days and then he rested, he has endowed us as workers. That's what we do.
I really believe we're going to carry our gifts, our talents, into that New Heaven and we are going to be working. To be honest, I'm tired of making gears. I hope I get to do something else! I think those things that we do that we’re passionate about, that – whether it's our hobbies or whatever – that's going to carry over. This concept of goodness; we are changing the world now. We are caught in between the now and the not yet. What we do now I think can help transform and carry our broken world, reconcile it, to where God wants it to be.
[0:31:47.9] JR: So well said. I know you're reading my book Called to Create right now. If you get to the end in chapter 12, I quote a lot of NT Wright and talk about – we do not create the kingdom, only God does that, but we create for the kingdom. The things that we do in line with kingdom principles, I believe the physical things, the gears, the impact the gear makes, have a chance of being included in the New Heavens and the New Earth, the New Jerusalem. I mean, this is Isaiah 60, where the nations are coming back into the city and they're not coming empty-handed. They have physical, cultural goods. If that doesn't inspire us to create – not only with excellence but inline with the character of our creator God – man, I don't know what will.
All right, so all that said, I'm with you, right? The eternal significance of our work is not just in saving souls, but we should be concerned about saving souls and, more importantly, people understanding and grasping the gospel as their functional salvation day-to-day, right? Not just their legal salvation. I'm curious, if you have seen evidence – I talk about this in my latest book Master of One, that as we get masterful at our craft, it makes us just winsome to people. Excellence is attractive to people. A lot of times, that can open up doors to share the gospel with words. Have you experienced that?
[0:33:15.3] DH: Absolutely. I think that's why I'm even more passionate about understanding my actions. How I do my work, how I live, the quality, the commitment to excellence, the kingdom values of humility and trust and faith and love, and all of those things, really does attract people. It's like, “What is up with that?” That excellence in everything we do is very attractive. It leads to questions, it leads to how do you do life? How do you have this perspective?
When I came back to the family businesses – my gosh it’s 28 years ago now – there's 17 employees, and what I would say is one believer. He was a very angry Baptist. Very angry. Okay. I have every person in the shop.
[0:34:00.1] JR: I know this guy. I think I know this guy. Yeah.
[0:34:04.1] DH: I mean, everybody in the shop told me off and that in those first two years, except one. It wasn’t the angry Baptist. He told me off too. I realized over the years, my dad, the way he was, being an angry atheist, my mom being devout, and everybody knew I worked in the church. They thought I was going to come back and beat them over the head with a Bible. I had to be very quiet about my faith and earn their trust by how I live my life, exhibiting integrity in everything we do.
Everybody in the shop is on their own journey, their own spiritual journey. Some guys, they're not ready to hear anything. They just need to see it before you earn that trust. Over the years, there's been story after story, people just said, “You know what? I didn't have any clue about God, until I started working here. Now I'm interested.” From there, all the way to just praying with the guys, because their faith has become the most important thing in their life.
It's not my job to convert people. It's not my job to share with them constantly. Our company is not a prison. We're not demanding that you have to believe certainly, but I do demand that we have shared values in how we're committed to our customers and our product. Then their spiritual journey is really up to God.
[0:35:14.6] JR: You talk about this in the book, this idea that, as Christ followers engaged in work outside the four walls of the physical church, we have an opportunity, I think a unique opportunity to make people more like Christ, whether or not they have any interest at all in being like Christ. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
[0:35:35.4] DH: I’m in a unique position, because I own the company. Whether you're a business owner, or a manager, or in any position of influence, I think no matter what job, that we can all say we are a position of influence. In my role, one of my primary roles is to create culture, to create the values and the beliefs and the assumptions that we all carry, and how we're going to do business.
By creating this culture that is kingdom-based, with these values, I treat people like, you know what? I don't care if you're a Christian, but you've got to adhere to these values. I think, it's just like a sports coach or anybody, you call out the greatness in people. You challenge them to be more and more of who they were created to be.
My perspective on every person in the shop is they do have unique gifts and talents. My job is to be committed to their success, to help them to become who God really created them to be, whether they realize that or not. In so doing, I think business has phenomenal – it's a phenomenal opportunity for potential. People want that. I think there's a heart cry in all of us to live in a way that meets that inner desire to be great – without being what the media says is great, but to be somebody who matters, who has a sense of purpose and to do it in a community.
As I often say, we're here for two reasons and God puts it in all of us; a need for purpose and a need for quality relationships. In a business, that is the ultimate. We have a purpose, a mission statement as a company and as a team, as a community. We have that opportunity to do that together and support each other through all that.
[0:37:16.3] JR: Yeah. Speaking of purpose, in your book Good Work, you cite a Gallup poll that I frequently cite. They found that 85% of workers globally are actively disengaged in their jobs. What's the church's unique solution to this problem?
[0:37:35.2] DH: Oh, boy. That's another great question, because I could go two ways on that.
[0:37:38.9] JR: Go both. Feel free.
[0:37:40.4] DH: Well, I think the first thing you got to recognize that the church has failed miserably in really helping everybody that goes to church to realize that they are created for a purpose, and they need to be out living it in their jobs. We're not called to save people in the church, we’re called to love them into the kingdom. The only way to do that is to meet people where they're at.
If we cloister ourselves in our churches, in our fellowships, without engaging the world, we're ripping the world off of what they need more than anything. We need to be out there living our jobs, whatever the job may be, with that sense of purpose that we have a deeper calling to do everything we can to be agents of goodness and grace in everything we do. That's how the kingdom spreads.
The church’s responsibility for me, first of all, is to not only set people free, but to kick them out into the world. I think there's a lot of fear. We need to withdraw from the world. Boy, we need to get out there! That's the first part of it. The second part, if we together came to realize that's our mission, to be in the world, together we can really inspire people to go, “Whoa, knowing God and following Jesus isn't just about going to church. He cares about the deepest part of who I am.”
I think collectively, if we can gather outside of the church walls and together inspire and tell each other stories of how God is shaping and using and molding us, in our businesses, and in our work, to make a difference – this whole pandemic thing I think is fascinating right now and it's heartbreaking in so many levels. For the first time, we're really having to find what's essential and what’s not, which is really, really interesting to me, because we put so much emphasis on the media and on being – whether it's a rock star, music star, or whatever.
Now we're getting down to the basics of what is life really about? All the self-isolation, quarantine, is really exposing, man, I need each other, I need somebody, I need to be together. The church can really model that sense of deep community that I think a lot of people are really lacking.
[0:39:55.2] JR: Yeah. Let me offer something on this topic. Here's the deal, Gallup says 85% the globe's workers are disengaged. A huge chunk of that are Christians who are disengaged from their work. I think all of us, Christian or not, who fall in that 85%, are falling for one of two false narratives about work. One is the narrative that says there's no meaning in work. Work is a meaningless means to an end to collect a paycheck and move on to the truly meaningful things in life. The other narrative, the other false narrative, which may be more common today, is that work provides ultimate meaning and satisfaction and self-worth. Either of which fails to accomplish the Lord's will for me personally and for the world at large, right?
The only third way, the only true narrative for work, is the biblical narrative of work, which celebrates a God who himself worked, but says that nothing other than Jesus Christ can provide your life with ultimate meaning and worth. If the church doesn't get the biblical narrative of work, the rest of the world surely can't. The purpose of work is glorifying God, loving neighbor and self, making disciples, creating for the kingdom. If we don't get that, how in the world do we expect other people to grasp onto that?
I think that's what people need. They crave story. It’s what Lewis was looking for early in his life. We were talking about George MacDonald and how he changed C. S. Lewis's life prior to recording. He was looking for that true master of narrative to make sense of life, to make sense of work. I think that's what we're looking for. What would you say to that?
[0:41:35.1] DH: I couldn't say it better, because I put it in terms of what I call the grand narrative. This is how we taught our kids about God. Rather than beating them over the head and saying you got to memorize all these scriptures and just rote memory, I want them to be captured by the grand narrative that we are all part of a bigger story. It goes way, way, way back and, miraculously, we are part of that. We are not an accident. All our life experiences – all the hurts, the pains, whether it's family, friends, the gifts, the talents – God made us to be part of that big story.
I think you're right on, Jordan. Once the church can wake up and realize that that's what we have to offer, that every person here does have a sense of purpose, we’re put here for a reason and how do you fit into that? I think it takes a lot of conversation. I think it takes a lot of just mulling over, like being a gear maker. How in the world is being a gear maker serve the greater purpose of the kingdom? I would love to see that with carpenters and plumbers and technicians of all kinds. I mean, if you don't have that, you're right. What's the point of getting up and going to work in the morning?
[0:42:48.7] JR: Yeah. You want to make Christianity attractive to the world, give people a bigger story for work. My favorite line in your book – I underlined this three times – “God invites us to be his ambassadors, his princes and princesses, to usher in the goodness of his kingdom.” That's the story of work! I have a five-year-old, a three-year-old, and a five-month-old girl. Those five-year-old and three-year-olds, they just want to be princesses. They sense this royal DNA running through their veins. If you can help them connect that to God's story for their life and God's story for the world and the small role that they can play as actors in that grand narrative, man! That will get them fired up about life, about work, about creating for the kingdom.
Hey, so last question before I ask my three rapid-fire questions. Jesus spent the majority of his adult life doing blue-collar work, as a carpenter. Then, and I think this is such an under-appreciated detail scripture; at the resurrection, he appears to Mary as another type of blue-collar worker, a gardener. What significance do you assign, or do you hope the modern church will assign with those historical facts about our Savior?
[0:44:03.3] DH: I think he is really validating that the kingdom comes through so many different occupations that are out there. It's not an exclusive role for the religious professionals, but whether it's being a gear maker, or whether it's being a gardener, or a fisherman, or whatever, they're all the same. God wants to meet us where we're at in very, very powerful ways. We are agents also of transformation.
To be supercharged with his spirit, to see every aspect of our jobs, every aspect of our lives, to be those ambassadors, to be those princes and princesses, to transform a bakery, to transform a gear shop, I think that's what God wants us, all of us, to look at our occupation status. This is really very powerful.
[0:44:47.5] JR: Not just the religious professionals. By the way, my most hated term in the church today is full-time ministry, or full-time –
[0:44:54.2] DH: Oh, I hate it. I hate it!
[0:44:57.1] JR: I hate it so much. I’ve struggled. I struggle with it, because what do you call someone who is paid by a four-wall church? I actually think you've come up with the best term so far, religious professionals. That's a pretty good way of describing those roles.
[0:45:17.0] DH: – when we use that term, full-time. I completely agree. What are we all? Part-time? Are we part-time Christians? That’s what we do. Yeah.
[0:45:23.6] JR: Jesus called us all to be full-time missionaries. All right, Dave. So three questions I love to wrap up every conversation with. Number one, which books do you gift the most, or recommend most frequently to others?
[0:45:35.2] DH: Okay. The first one right off the bat – it might be a little bit weird, but The Road Back to You by Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile and the whole enneagram thing. I know some people are like, “Oh, the enneagram thing.” Well, to me it’s pretty powerful, because for the first time, my wife understands me a little bit better. In the enneagram, I’m an eight, I'm a challenger, and it helps her understand my moods. I find I'm attracting eights. Other men and women who are frustrated, they react strongly. Anger is always close to the surface. That's just been a powerful book for people to go, “Oh, that's who I am. That's what I am. Now I don’t have to feel so bad about it.” Because it also looks at the dark side of who we are. I think that's a really powerful book.
The other two books that I highly recommend – I gave some thought to this and I talked to you before we came on the air – George MacDonald, The Fisherman's Lady / The Marquis’ Secret. They’re two back-to-back books; powerful stories of transformation from this little fisherman guy, to being something so great and grand – and MacDonald just really captures beautiful story of how we’re just all agents of transformation and influence in very powerful ways, especially agents of grace. That's what I love about it. It’s more important than anything.
[0:46:48.9] JR: We are talking about MacDonald before we started recording. I don't think any of us would know C. S. Lewis if it wasn't for George MacDonald. He had a profound impact on Lewis’s life and helping – I actually think Lewis used this exact term in a letter to Tolkien or something like that – for the true story. MacDonald gave him a picture of the true story of life. MacDonald is great.
Hey, Dave. Who would you most like to hear talk about these topics we've been talking about for the last hour, about this topic of faith and work? Who do you want to hear talk about this?
[0:47:20.7] DH: Well, one that I already recommended to you, a buddy of mine, named Andrew Campbell. He's one of most phenomenally gifted woodworkers I've ever met, but he's also a deep thought [inaudible 0:47:30.3]. He wrestles with life with God and has wrestled with God in pretty amazing ways all the years.
[0:47:41.3] DH: Then another guy I met recently, his name is John Silveria. He's a retired machinist and he has wrestled – he's a strong follower of Jesus and he's been trying to wake up our country in terms of – to the world of manufacturing and the great crisis we’re all faced with: a retiree demographic, where we don't have enough young people come into the trades. We denigrated the trades and manufacturing to something less than worthwhile, and he's really a trying to get the standard up and he’s been trying to say this for a long time. He’d be another really guy you can talk to.
[0:48:14.4] JR: I love that. Dave, you're talking to an audience full of Christ followers, trying to redeem every corner of creation for our King through their work. Trying to do extraordinary work. What one piece of advice would you leave them with?
[0:48:27.2] DH: I thought about this one a lot too and – two words: go deep. The reason I say that is I think we really need to understand who God made us to be. Every personality, again, you are so unique. God has uniquely crafted you unlike anybody in the world. When I say go deep, you need to get in touch with how he made you and why. What gifts and talents has he given you, because you can influence the world unlike anybody else, right? You have your own unique sphere of influence that no one else in the world has.
The other reason we need to go deep is that we all have our dark side, like we mentioned before. The best craftsmen, the best tradesmen that I know, they are in touch with themselves, because I have seen some incredibly gifted people that are incredibly toxic. They self-sabotage all their efforts and endeavors, because they're impossible to live with, and they are a wrecking ball to everybody around them. I think there's this really important thing to go deep, understand the good and the bad, and bring the bad to God and allow him to transform you.
[0:49:35.6] JR: Dave, I just want to thank you for your incredible testimony and example. You are an inspirational and very practical example of how work can reveal the kingdom and the character of our King and everything that we do. Thank you for reminding the church of the dignity and worth of all good work, and thank you for the gift of this amazing book.
As I said before, I don't think there's a ton of great faith and work books out there. I've got a collection of just 12 that I recommend, and Good Work is one of them. Of course, if you're listening right now, you could find all those books at JordanRaynor.com/bookshelf. Dave, thanks again for spending time with us today.
[0:50:12.1] DH: Jordan, thank you so much. I am so excited about what you do the message you're trying to get out there. The world desperately needs you, my friend. Thanks you so much.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:50:20.9] JR: I know I said it on air, but I love Dave's book. After that conversation, I love Dave Hataj. Man, I hope we hear a lot more from him in the coming years. Thank you guys so much for tuning into The Call to Mastery this week. I'll see you next time.
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