Celebrating Jesus's birth into the home of a carpenter
Jordan Raynor sits down with Missy Wallace, Executive Director of the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work, to talk about the significance of Jesus being born into the home of a carpenter, Missy’s incredible path from management consulting to being one of the world’s leading thinkers on the topic of faith and work, and what church leaders can be doing to help every member understand the eternal significance of their work.
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[0:00:05.3] JR: Hey everybody, welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. Merry Christmas to all of you. I debated whether or not to release an episode today. But I figured why not? While you’ve got some downtime, while you’re spending time with family, I want to give you the gift of a great episode to listen to. This is an episode that I’m going to treasure for a really long time.
Today, you’re going to hear my conversation with Missy Wallace, who’s the Executive Director for the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work. She’s a masterful leader, whose organization in my opinion is doing some of the best work in equipping Christians to connect their faith with their work. She’s one of the best thinkers on this topic.
But we sat down recently to talk about what it means then on that first Christmas Day, God shows for Jesus to be born into the home of a carpenter.Not a priest, not the home of a Pharisee. God placed Jesus in the home of Joseph, a carpenter. We’re going to talk about the eternal significance of that and what that means for our own work. We’re also going to talk about Missy’s path from a crazy, impressive career in management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group, to doing the work that she’s doing today and helping the church connect their faith with their work.
Finally, we talked about what church leaders can do very practically on Sundays to help every member of their congregations understand the eternal significance of their work. You’re going to love this conversation. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Missy Wallace.
[EPISODE]
[0:01:41.3] JR: Missy Wallace, thanks for joining me.
[0:01:43.4] MW: Great to be with you, Jordan.
[0:01:46.0] JR: Yeah. The second to last time we met up, first time we ever met, I was in Nashville and I was telling my wife after we met. I'm like, “It's like, Missy and I have known each other our whole lives and it was like catching up with an old friend.” It was so refreshing after a day of very intense meetings. I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Hey, let's start here. I mentioned the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work in my introduction. What is the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work and tell us a little bit about the work that you and your team do?
[0:02:16.3] MW: Sure. We are a group trying to help Christians figure out what does their faith actually mean day-to-day in the workplace. I think a lot of people understand that their work matters and it's trying to help them understand God’s design for work, why work is broken, how work can be redeemed and what the how is for them and how it might play out in their day-to-day? We do that through a variety of programs.
One, we have a year-long intensive called Gotham. We’re one of 14 cities around the nation that offer that. It is for people in a variety of industries to figure out the how. Then we also have an entrepreneur group to try to figure out what it might look like to do redemptive work through your business. Then we are piloting a career discernment program to really figure out how to incorporate faith and work into the job search process. We have all kinds of forums and lunch and learns and Enneagram classes and discerning the spirit in your work classes, things like that, but those are the three main buckets.
[0:03:18.3] JR: I love it. You of course know our mutual friend, Jena Viviano, who's thinking a lot about this and how to think about the intersection of faith and career discernment. You actually introduced me to Jena, so thank you. We already had her on the podcast.
Let's talk about your story. I know you have a very compelling story of your career. We understand the work you're doing today. It's great. Take us back to the beginning of your career and show us the path from there to here. What's your story, Missy?
[0:03:45.2] MW: I became a believer and believing it as my own in high school through young life. When I went to college, I probably wasn't quite ready to own all that yet. In college, I got on a path of perhaps achievement as Lord and savior and Jesus as self-help tool. That was a path I was on for a really long time. I worked in banking and then I got an MBA and I worked with management consulting for the Boston Consulting Group. I worked in Chicago, Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, New York and just had phenomenal experiences in my consulting life.
Then I worked for Time Warner. When we came back to New York, I was having children and we re-engaged our faith as many people do when they start having children. It was still, “We’re the shiny penny bootstrappers, if you just work hard, there's not a problem we can't solve.” Our faith was maybe a check the box to be good people kind of Christianity. We ended up moving to Nashville. I ended up taking a job in a school. They were starting a new school actually and I was started as a consultant and then ended up working for them full-time; one of my favorite jobs I've ever had for a variety of reasons.
And looking back, I realized I took that job with bad faith work theology, but I didn't know it yet. Continuing on this story, three years into that work, my oldest daughter became very, very ill. She was in and out of mainstream school for four years. She had a brain disease and was hospitalized and at the hospice and originally diagnosed as terminal. Over a number of years and three medical centers, we were able to realize if it's autoimmune disease and get it into remission. But it was multiple comas, multiple ambulances, a life-like – a lot of chaos.
I stopped working for three years. That time period was really the time where ‘we can work our way out of this problem’ didn't work anymore. Self-help Jesus when I need something didn't work anymore, although I did need something. It really did wreck our worldview. We had to really reconstruct what do we believe and why and do we really believe it? I did an incredible amount of theological study in those years and our spirit were just reignited with the gospel and with Jesus as Lord and savior, instead of as self-help tool.
I worked with a pastor who often says, “There's really only two worldviews. Either I am God, or God is God.” I think this was really our reckoning of, “God is God and he is good, even though the situation seems bad.” Anyway, after that I ended up enormous self-study project that led to me going to some divinity school, which I did not finish, which led to me understanding chasing work theology, which led to me going, “Oh, my goodness. I've had it wrong for 20 plus years. Oh, my goodness. What do I do? What do I do?” Ended up writing a plan with the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work.
Then through my sick daughter, ended up being in the place where a pastor was coming to take over from New York City to revitalize this church in Nashville. He had sat next to Katherine Alsdorf when she launched the Center for Faith and Work in New York. He really understood the journey. We got together and we launched the Nashville Institute for Faith and Work.
[0:07:19.5] JR: Wow. There's a lot in there. Here's what I'm curious about, so you started studying theology, you started going back to the core of the gospel because of this very personal situation, right? It was very much a personal search for you, “Who do I believe God to be and what does that mean for my life?” I don't understand the leap to the faith and work theology though. What was it about that in your study of theology and going to divinity school that you really latched on to be like, “Oh, my gosh. I've been thinking about my career totally the wrong way.” What was the spark for you?
[0:07:51.2] MW: So, it's not totally linear, which I'm a linear thinker. It actually probably means it really of God and that it's not linear. Because it doesn't totally make sense to say, “Oh, I had a sick kid. I studied theology and now I understand faith and work.” It really should be I had a sick kid and now I work at the hospital. That's not really what the story was.
Here's what happened; during a lot of the theology study, I read about a lot of false idolatry. I realized that I had – we all have, that I realized a lot of my false idolatry had been around achievement and around pleasing people and getting the affirmation of my bosses. After I took those three years off while she was getting better, I ended up going back to work at the school. When I went back to before I launched an IFW. I didn't even have the idea for an IFW yet.
When I went back to work at the school, I actually went back in a new role which was college counseling. In the college counseling role, I was at a school that is college preparatory with people that are really high-achieving. In working with the student, the parent and the counselor triangle, I was seeing over and over people’s idolatry play. The parents’ idolatry of the child’s success, the child's various or young adults’ various idolatories. It was daily holding up a mirror going, “Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.”
Then when I started into the divinity program, I actually thought I was starting in there to create a non-profit around flipping the college counseling question. Instead of, “ How could I find the best fit for me? And how could I achieve things in college? And what would make me a better worker?” I, I, I, I. I wanted to flip it to how students, Mary, Don, Jim, how are you part of the larger unfolding story? And how could you view what you've been given as a strength you've been given to give back to a larger unfolding story? You still might want to go to Harvard or Stanford and you still might work in an investment bank, or a law firm, or be a plumber. How are you part of a larger unfolding story?
I started back into the divinity process really looking for some credentialing to be able to launch a non-profit that answered that. Then when I was in the process, I hadn't yet discovered – I discovered the idolatry side and I discovered the narrative arc, of a larger unfolding story. But I really hadn't really understood that work was before the fall and that we were created to work and that all these industries actually could reveal various aspects of God's character. It was in the study that I was like, “Oh, my goodness. This college piece, this is but a sliver of the larger problem, which is a faith and work theology gap across most Christians.”
[0:10:36.6] JR: Yeah. I described this as – I don't know if you and I have talked about in these terms yet, but the spectrum of what we believe the meaning of work to be. You and I have taken very similar journeys on that spectrum. At one point in our careers falling on the extreme end of the spectrum that says that work is what provides my life with worth and value and it's what makes me viewed as successful in the eyes of my bosses, investors, whatever. And realizing that that's not a biblical picture of work.
Also recognizing that the other end of the spectrum isn't a biblical picture of work, saying that work as a meaningless means to an end. I only go to work to get a paycheck, so I can move on to the more meaningful things in life, right? There's some middle ground. I guess a follow-up question that is how do we as Christians view our work, celebrate our work as a good thing that is unfolding the kingdom of God here and now, without turning work into an idol? How do you wrestle with that tension?
[0:11:34.5] MW: Well, can I speak for a second about the two ends of the spectrum? It's from idol to idle. It’s I-D-O-L to I-D-L-E. It’s almost it's everything, or it’s nothing. Neither are quite right. There's a great article. I'm sure you've read it by Dorothy Sayers, who was a British woman. She wrote it in the 40s. She’s actually a novelist by training. It’s kind crazy that she wrote these theological treatises in a way. But she talks about serving the work rather than the work serving you. Western culture is all about the work serving us. If you think about when you talk to people about their job searches, they talk about what it's going to do for them, whether it's pay, or the commute is close. Do they have flexibility? Or all these variety things that do matter, but it's not a service orientation.
[0:12:18.8] JR: It's not the primary purpose of work. I got to bring this up. When we set up first watch in Nashville, I was telling you about my next book. I was telling you about Master of One, which you kindly endorsed. I think what got you interested in the book was what we're talking about right now. I was talking to you about the three lies of work and calling that come from chapter one of the book. The number one lie that we bought for so long is that we can be anything we want to be. Number two, we can do everything we want to do. I think the biggest lie is the third, that your happiness is the primary purpose of work. When you believe that, you get this really bad advice to follow your passions, follow your dreams, do whatever makes you happy. Like me have written about this problem and have taken on this conventional wisdom. Can you talk about this for me? Can you explain why this gets you so fired up?
[0:13:12.2] MW: Some of your listeners may be familiar with the Gospel Coalition. They have this column that people of my generation might consider a Dear Abby. Younger people might not know who Dear Abby is. But it's, “Dear Gospel Coalition. I have a problem at work, can you all help me solve it?” They farmed them out to various people to answer and I'm one of them.
One of the questions that the person asked was, “Dear Gospel Coalition, I'm working in an area that's not in my passion. Is this bad?” “Dear reader, no. It's not bad!” I was able to articulate a reason why passions are actually – I searched all the social science. An interesting Yale and University of Singapore. I've done a neat study on passion and work that was helpful. It's alluded to in the articles, but and a link to the article. Passions are evolving and not fixed. Problem one is that God does put nudges on our heart, but he doesn't necessarily put fixed passion.
Passions usually evolve out of hard work and crucibles and all kinds of things. One of the things I'm doing with my extra time in my life, I’m working with the hospital that treated my child on some issues around she has a rare disease and the doctors have me on this committee helping with that. I have a passion for that. I wasn't born with that passion. That passion was forged out of circumstance.
Then the second problem with following your passion is in my opinion, well, I shouldn't say following your passion is a problem. I should say, making your passion as your key to your job search criteria is a passion. Some people do work in their passion.
The second thing is you might have a passion that has nothing to do with your gift. I could have a passion for food and I could be a foodie. I could think this would be amazing for me to open a restaurant, but I can be absolutely terrible at the key skills to opening a restaurant. That's problem two, following your passion is that sometimes it doesn't align with your gift.
And then problem three is that social science is actually proven. You can go Google the articles, that monetizing your passion often makes it no longer your passion. Then when you put a dollar to something, suddenly it's no longer a passion and that you actually lose your passion. I don't think working in your passion is bad. But I think striving to find a job with passion as the key criteria and believing this lie that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life, I think that's the same amnesia of childbirth. The only people saying that are finished with that work that they don't remember. That it did have toil. The bible says work will have toil. It will have toil.
[0:15:46.7] JR: Yeah. This is one of the biggest themes of Master of One, right? This theme that you get to love what you do by getting really good at it. This is why I have such a problem with the follow your passions, do whatever makes you happy advice. Two main problems. Number one, I think it's the antithesis of what Jesus has called us to do and serve, rather than be served. Be concerned with giftedness, far more than what's going to bring you short-term happiness in your career.
The second reason why I hate this advice is, it doesn't work. You're probably familiar with it. I think this is who you were alluding to at Yale, Amy Wrzesniewski, this professor of Organizational Behavior, who has done lots of studies that show that the number one predictor as to whether or not somebody's going to describe their work as a calling, as opposed to a job or a career, is how long they have spent getting good at that thing, right? Passion follows mastery. It doesn't lead through it. You get to love what you do by getting really good at it. I'm so thankful that you're championing these ideas.
[0:16:52.3] MW: My dear my 22-year-old doesn't believe it. That is one thing is I think that my generation parented the next generation with the lie that you mentioned, which is you can be anything. And if you believe you can be anything, then there's all this pressure to find your passion. I've sent her my article and she says, “Yeah, a nice article mom, but I don't buy it.” I’m like, “Okay, well, let's stay in touch about it.”
[0:17:15.2] JR: Let's keep in touch throughout your career. We've talked about the idolatry of work, but we've also talked to obviously work is a good thing. That's what this podcast is all about. How do we do our most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others? Why should Christians care? I know you have a very long theology of work that we can spend hours unpacking, but what's the quick answer to why should we have the highest standards for excellence in our work? Why is that important?
[0:17:42.3] MW: I mean, I can think of about five ways to answer this question.But I'll start with because Jesus cared, God cares, he's asked us to do this. If we're in this already, but not yet time, Jesus has already come, but he's not yet come again. Then we have been invited to be the vice-regent to usher in the new kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Every single minute we're spending at work, we're either ushering it in, or not. That's why we should care.
I just met with someone an hour ago who did a faith and work lesson over a number of weeks at the Nashville Rescue Mission with some of our city's most vulnerable. This man came in and said that what he had really learned was that – he was in charge of cleaning bathrooms in a really terrible place, where the bathrooms were horrible. I can't remember where he was cleaning them. Anyway, he came in and he said, “Because of the inspirations of this class, I was about to be off duty and there's one of the worst bathrooms you could possibly have to clean. And I could have easily checked out and left it for the next guy. I cleaned it.” He said, “I cleaned it. I cleaned it, because the next person that was going to come in and sit on that commode was the [inaudible 0:19:00.4] and you taught me that.”
I think that's such a beautiful picture who we'd been called to be. We've been called to usher in, “I didn't want to clean that bathroom. But I've been a job. I wonder if I would have walked on. I bet I would. I bet I would have not cleaned that last bathroom.” When we're really in partnership with God to bring excellence to everything that we do, it's a reflection on the image of God within us.
[0:19:29.7] JR: I want to talk to that guy on the podcast.
[0:19:32.0] MW: Well. I'll find him.
[0:19:33.8] JR: Yeah, that would be fantastic. I really would love to talk about that. So, hey, one of the reasons why I wanted you to come on, I really do respect you as a masterful leader. You've built a tremendously effective organization in Nashville that I've respected for a long time.
One thing that I found and we don't know each other that well, but from what I've observed, I think you track with other masterful leaders in that you're very disciplined, you're very productive. I'm very curious, especially with all the craziness of life and kids who are older and going off to school, what does your typical day look like? What's a day in the life of Missy Wallace from the moment you wake up, to the moment you go to bed? Walk us through one of your days.
[0:20:13.3] MW: Okay. See, you've made a grand assumption that is very complimentary, but not necessarily true. I would say this one is actually a weakness of mine. I have surrounded myself with teammates that call me out on that and help me with that. I have Ashauna in your life. She's my teammate that really helps keep the trains on the track, because I'm more of a ready, fire, aim visionary type.
So, I do have three children. Two of them are in college, one of them is still in high school. I have a husband who I adore. I have friends and family. I want to take care of my body through exercise. I want to have leisure time with my friends. I have this amazing organization to steward. I don't have a routine day. But I would say I do have an ideal routine week. I do have a day that I block only for preparations for our classes. Or only for strategic meetings that push something very important forward. I don't take any external meetings, or any pastoral type meetings, or anything on that day.
Then I have my teaching days and prep time built in from my teaching days. I have the rhythm of course, of things when board meetings are and things like that. Then the rest of it is fill in. I will say one thing, I really try to stay true to is spiritual rhythms. I've started taking quarterly quiet days and I'm one behind.
[0:21:48.0] JR: Interesting. Okay, I want to talk about this. Yeah, what does this look like for you.
[0:21:52.0] MW: A quarterly quiet day can buoy me spiritually for a while. What it looks like is I usually do it with a group of people and it's usually Lectio Divina around one or two passages over eight to 10 hours. The only rules of a quiet day are A, that it would be quiet. And B, you can't do anything productive. You can walk around on the outdoors on the trails, unless you're trying to get your 10,000 steps. You can spend time in the bible and areas other than the scripture you've been assigned and let it flood the meaning, do not talk to me in my – let me just get it done today. The productivity has to be slayed on that day.
[0:22:30.4] JR: Strivings cease in the words of Kristyn Getty. Yeah.
[0:22:34.3] MW: Striving cease. It's really all about being physically available to hear what Jesus has to say. The other part of my rhythms that I think has been helpful is what I call redeeming my commute. I'm in the car a lot and I have two apps that I use for guided devotion, or prayer time in my car. I teach a lot really early in the morning. And then I teach some at night, our classes. When I have the mornings at home, I want to give a 100% of myself to my daughter that's still home and my husband, which means for me to do my devotion time in my home, means I got to get up really early which I’m, honestly, just remember I said I was in this once. I just hit that snooze button.
Redeeming the commute has been awesome to me. I have found these apps that will have me marinating in particular scriptures over my 20 or 30-minute commute. I think working in a job of which now you're a professional Christian, instead of a lay Christian, sometimes there's a difference between reading about Jesus and studying Jesus and preparing for a class and tell other people about Jesus and about their theology and their work and actually being personally available and intimate with Jesus. I fight it all the time. I'm constantly working on the rhythms for that.
[0:23:48.8] JR: What are those apps that you're listening to in your car?
[0:23:51.8] MW: There's two. One's called Abide. Abide, that one, that was written by –
[0:23:55.8] JR: I know Abide. Yeah.
[0:23:57.4] MW: Yeah. Google programmers, Christians at Google. The other one is called Pray As You Go. It's actually a Catholic app and I'm not Catholic. But it is the Lectio Divina. I really appreciate the Lectio Divina.
[0:24:11.1] JR: For those that don't know the Lectio Divina, can you explain that? Because I'm a big fan of this as well.
[0:24:15.1] MW: Huge fan of Lectio Divina. It's part of our year-long intensive is to learn different ways to hear God's voice. Lectio Divina is a way to read scripture in a very different way. It's a method of praying before you read the scripture, reading the scripture three times and it’s very short amount of scripture, three times. Not chapters. Very short amount of scriptures three times, really noticing what passage or words are God’s pointing out to you. Praying and marinating and meditating with God on that part of the scripture and what the spirit might need to say to you about that part of the scripture. Then taking some time to just slow down and stop and be with Jesus and hear what might be said. I'm probably not explaining it technically correctly. But the summary is that it is a short amount of scripture ingested very slowly with the spirit speaking to you alive about the scripture.
[0:25:13.2] JR: I've only done Lectio Divina a couple of times, but I'm a big fan of it. I actually did it at Praxis,at an event from our friends at Praxis up in New York, who are both fans of. I wholeheartedly endorse that, also wholeheartedly endorse the quarterly day of quiet. Mine looks a little bit different, but I've been doing this once a quarter a day to myself, just to walk and think and pray. It's been a game-changer. I'm a big fan of that.
[0:25:36.7] MW: I think the key for me is no productivity. No to-do list. No workout the strategic plan, none of that. Just be present.
[0:25:47.5] JR: That's my problem. If I'm away for a day, my mind immediately goes to strategic planning or thinking about the next hire or the next podcast episode, whatever it is. The line that I just keep coming back to mentally over and over again is from in Christ alone, right? When strivings cease, striving cease, that's the picture. Stop trying. Stop striving. Stop being productive. Just stop and be and walk with the Lord.
So, hey Missy, we're releasing this episode on Christmas Day, a day in which were celebrating Jesus’s incarnation. I think I wrote about this in Called To Create, but I've always been fascinated by the fact that God could have placed Jesus in any household. In the household of a Pharisee. In the household of I don't know, a priest, but he placed Jesus in the home of a carpenter, of Joseph. Is that significant to you? If so, talk about why.
[0:26:36.8] MW: I don't think I've ever thought of the question quite like that. But what I do think is significant is that he was a worker. He was a worker from the beginning and I bet his – some people say he was a carpenter and some people say he’s a stonemason. They tell you. I bet, let's just say he made tables, or walls. I bet his tables were never crooked. What he did could have been seen – at that part of his life, wasn't a spiritual job. But I bet he brought a lot of the spirit in that job. I think it's meaningful that he was doing something that contributed to the flourishing of others.
Whether he was making a table, or making walls, his communities needed those things. And whether your listeners are making Internet bandwidth, or helping people with their banking or refinancing, community's needs that’s flourish.
[0:27:36.7] JR: It was spiritual, even if it wasn't teaching and preaching and overtly spiritual, because he's God. When we go to work as you say, creating widgets, creating programs, creating processes, we're filled with his image. We’re filled with the image of the creator God, who spent decade plus of his life working to reveal the character of a creative working father. I think we gloss over this. If there's any day to celebrate that, it's today. We're releasing this on Christmas Day to thank God for reminding us of his creative character, in the 18 or however many years of Jesus's 33 years on this earth, of just reminding us the work is good, that work is beautiful, that work is how we fill and subdue the earth, right? Love neighbor as self and bring about flourishing in the lives of others.
You mentioned in your bio, here let me pull it up real quick. Yeah, you say that you're inspired to study the intersection of faith and work after quote, “Realizing that work can be a part of God's unfolding story if we allow him to guide it, rather than our false idols.” We talked about this unfolding story a little bit. Get a little bit more specific. Go a level deeper. How do we create for the kingdom as N.T. Wright says, how do we unfold God's story practically day in, day out?
[0:29:05.1] MW: The short version is love people, places and things to life. The longer version is much longer. But there's not a single industry I can come up with that's not taking chaos and bringing structure and trying to call it good, which is I know you've written a lot about that, Jordan. That's the very first thing God did in Genesis.
If you think of your role as going in every day as a vice-regent and that you're not just loving people, which is the harder one, but the more obvious one. But you're also loving places and things. Let's just pick a bank. Let's take if you're a middle manager running the credit analysis at a bank, that might not feel very holy, right? Your credit analysis is pivotal to whether this next person can expand their business without getting overextended. It's pivotal to that company flourishing, to that individual flourishing, that company not going bankrupt.
Imagine if we were still – some people are like, “Oh, the banks are so greedy.” Imagine if we were still trying to trade goat’s milk for corn husks, right? I mean, we're too complex. It doesn't matter, right? It doesn't work anymore. How does that work? Literally, almost any job that you can come up with, from that man we talked about earlier cleaning the commode, to the bank analyst, to – I was thinking while you're talking about Christmas Day, thinking about Mary's work as a mother. She did all that work to take the chaos and the baby and needing milk, needing to go to the bathroom and whining and bringing that to work to fruition, to launch this adult into the world.
All this work is taking chaos, bring structure, trying to call it good and believing that what's right before you is where you need to be loving people, places and things to life. There's a lot of broken systems we all see in our work. Look for them, shine light on it.
[0:31:05.7] JR: Have you read Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright?
[0:31:07.7] MW: Yes.
[0:31:08.4] JR: I'm re-reading it right now. I think a lot of our bad theology about work stems from a bad theology of heaven, right? Today we're celebrating the first coming of our Lord into this earth. How does the promise of the resurrection give shape to our work? Does that make sense? You're getting all the hardest questions, because I respect you so much and I know your thoughts are deeply about that. Yeah.
[0:31:32.1] MW: Okay. I love that book. That book surprised me. I have a funny anecdote about that. I didn't realize he was such a big deal author. I loved that book so much and I happen to be going to Scotland for work. We got there, I finished that book. I just like, fire off a little e-mail. “Hey, N. T. What's up? You want to meet me for coffee?” He's like, “Well, I'd love to, but I'm touring the world right now for my speaking engagements.” He said it so generously. Then I researched him and then I'm like, “Who am I like to just be random?” He's a big deal, but he's very gracious. He got right back to me.
That book was so helpful for me, because I had never thought much about heaven, because I thought it was unknowable. And so, I focused my time trying to figure that out. I knew it was good and I knew it's a place of eternal life and with God. I was on the white fluffy cloud club. In my mind, it was white fluffy clouds with harps. Then when I read that book, to think of heaven on earth and to think of the buildings we're creating now might matter. To think about the doctors are probably going to be unemployed, because people won't be sick anymore and maybe the police officers will be unemployed.
To think about heaven on earth and to think about what we're doing now matters, it really changes your thought process to realizing, I worked with a pastor. He says and still encourage it about it recently. He was like, “God has wired me to do more than sit on a cloud and listen to a harp.” How amazing that when he comes back, I get to do what I'm wired to do without the toil. How fun will that be?” Your best day at work, the day where you're like, “Yes. This is an awesome day.” You get to have that all the time, that'll be fun.
[0:33:13.3] JR: I think there's a case to be made. I heard Keller preached a sermon on this years ago. It’s phenomenal. That some of the things that we create in this life, Jesus will take and use to create the New Jerusalem. There's a beautiful scene in Isaiah of all the nations coming back into the city. It's the reversal of Babel, right? They're coming back with the same. They have cultural goods with them. The ships of Tarshish and all this other stuff. Go look it up in Isaiah. It's fantastic.
By the way, if you have no idea what Missy and I are talking about, go read Surprised by Hope but by N. T. Wright. Or if you want something far less academic and dense, go check out Heaven by Randy Alcorn, which I found to be a tremendous resource here and really framing your theology of heaven.
Missy, I want to ask you this, so the vast majority of our audience are working outside of the four walls of the church. I know we do have a fair number of pastors and ministry leaders who listen and they're trying to understand how they can better make the connection from Sunday to Monday for their congregants, right? For their parishioners. Do you have any best practices that you can share for how ministry leaders can do this really effectively?
[0:34:18.8] MW: Well, I don't know if they're best practices, but they're goals that we aim for. Nashville Institute for Faith and Work is actually an outpouring of a particular church. Then we have several other churches whose people have participated. We use Christ Presbyterian as a petri dish for ways that we can try to be, I don't know, “best in class.” Things that we think about are the following: Does every single sermon have an example of the workplace? When you're doing your sermon examples, it's so easy to do ones about your personal life, or about something with your children, or about your kids. Find one in the workplace. If you can't, if you don't feel quite secure that you know enough about banking, or that you know enough about songwriting when you did one in my city, or if you know about healthcare delivery. I bet one of your congregants, would love to share.
With building your library of examples, made to flourish taught me this. What if every time someone called you and said, “Hey, pastor. Can I come sit down with you? I have a problem.” How about offering, “Yeah, why don't I come to you? I'll come meet you in your office.”
[0:35:30.2] JR: I love that.
[0:35:31.2] MW: Just all of a sudden over – A lot of them will say no. Maybe they need privacy or something, but say you hit five offices a month, over a year you've hit 60. Over three years, do the math. Suddenly, you've seen hundreds of industries in five years and then you feel a lot more secure, that you can speak to the workplace. Sing the songs about the workplace, put those in your song line ups. There's the Porter’s Gate group has all those great new songs that establish the work of your hands and your labor is not in vain. These songs are amazingly beautiful worship songs. Put those in your worship lineup.
We have started doing vocational prayers. Every month, we pick an industry, we pray for those folks in that industry and commission them to go be the scattered church. You're working in healthcare, your work was created, the fall happened to it, you're redeeming in that industry, go forth. You in the military, go forth. Healthcare, design and delivery, go forth. Each month, we focus on praying and getting the word out.
[0:36:33.7] JR: I love that. Very practical examples. We don't have time to dive deep into this. For those listening really interested in this topic, go check out the This Time Tomorrow interview template, the Made to Flourish promotes. I'm such a huge fan of it. Basically, interviewing somebody from a different walk of life every Sunday, once a month, whatever, on stage, in front of a whole church and unpacking how that work is extending God's kingdom and creating for the kingdom. It’s a really, really beautiful practical way that ministers, full-time, my least favorite term, full-time ministers, pastoral ministers, can help make this connection for their congregants. Three final questions I like to end every conversation with Missy. Number one, which books do you recommend, or gift the most?
[0:37:17.7] MW: That is such a good question. I'm going to go with four books. One is Every Good Endeavor. Just an easy ramp.
[0:37:23.7] JR: Of course. Yeah.
[0:37:24.6] MW: Two is there's one about spiritual discernment as a group in your workplace. It's really written more for traditionally Christian workplaces, but I think it's helpful for everybody, by Ruth Barton. I don't remember the name, Jordan. I'm going to have to look it up. Number three is Strong and Weak by Andy Crouch, really and understand stewarding influence. Number four, there's a new one out by Denise Daniels about spiritual practices in the workplace that I'm a fan of. She's at Seattle Pacific.
[0:37:55.5] JR: I got to check that out. Okay, great. What one person would you most like to hear talk about the intersection of their faith and their work on this podcast?
[0:38:05.7] MW: Jeff Bezos. I don't know that he has a faith and work intersection, but that would be super interesting.
[0:38:11.8] JR: Super interesting. Yeah, the answer I'm getting most commonly now is Kanye, which would be fascinating whenever we can get him on. All right last one, you're leading an organization, lots of people listening to the show or pursuing mastery at the art of leadership, what one piece of advice would you leave those people with as they leave their entities?
[0:38:31.4] MW: Your blind spot are also your gifts. Find them and understand them and see them as something to steward and give away to someone else on your team to lead with. I think I'm like a pointee leader and that there are some things I am so good at and there are some things that I am so bad at. I know what I'm not good at and I try to surround myself with people that are good at this thing.
[0:38:58.7] JR: It's the whole point of Master of One, right? I love is. I've never thought about that. Blind spots, weaknesses are gifts. Maybe not for us, but the recognition of them is a gift. That we can give those things over to other people who are exceptionally gifted at those things. That's really beautiful.
Hey Missy, I just want to commend you for the work that you're doing. I'm such a fan of you. I'm such a fan of the way you think, of the work that you guys are doing in Nashville. Thank you for helping people in Nashville and outside of that great city, make the connection between their faith and their work and do their most exceptional work, not primarily for their own happiness, not primarily for their own fame or fortune, but primarily for the glory of God, the good of others and the fame of Jesus Christ who we’re all celebrating today on Christmas Day.
Missy's doing some exceptional work. If you want to learn more about her, you can go to nifw.org. That’s the Nashville Institute for Faith and work .org. Missy, thanks so much for being here.
[0:39:55.3] MW: Thank you. It's a joy to get to know you and see your work flourish and look forward to many more conversations to come.
[0:40:02.4] JR: Absolutely.
[END OF EPISODE]
[0:40:04.8] JR: I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as much as I enjoyed talking with Missy. Hey, Missy is one of the many impressive people who have endorsed my next book, Master of One. Alongside Missy, you got Greg McKeown, the author of Essentialism, one of my all-time favorite books whose graciously endorsed Master of One. Emily P. Freeman host of The Next Right Thing. Jon Acuff, Tony Dungy, Bobby Bowden. Guys, if these people can’t convince you to pre-order Master of One, I'm never going to. So, I'll just give up.
Seriously, if you want to go deeper on the topics that Missy and I talked about in this conversation, pre-order Master of One and enter the sweepstakes at jordanraynor.com. We're giving you a trip to Europe for you and a friend, all right? It’s a great gift to give somebody that you forgot to buy a Christmas present for. You guys, thank you so much for listening to Call to Mastery. I hope you guys are having a wonderful Christmas, taking time to worship our savior, taking time to thank God for even in how he sent Jesus in the world, celebrating the goodness of work, of creative work that you and I do each and every day. I'll see you guys next week.
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