Transforming Work

Today you installed a shower/taught long division/wrote a compliance policy/cut hair/changed nine nappies/led a Bible study. Does God care what you did? Does he care how you did it?

In Christian circles, there can be a lot of confusion about whether our work matters, and how our work relates to God’s work. The Bible paints a very rich picture showing us the unique significance of the Lord’s work, while also showing us all the valuable ways in which we exert ourselves in obedience to God—whether at home, for our employers, in study, in church, and in doing good.

In Transforming Work, Simon Flinders and Paul Grimmond invite you to rethink the how and why of work by exploring what God tells us in his word, making sense of the Bible both praising work and lamenting it. They delve with warmth and insight into questions around relationships and responsibilities, and why ‘just get on with it’ and ‘work–life balance’ aren’t satisfying solutions to work difficulties. Ultimately, you’ll marvel with them at the day in history that transformed the meaning of your work forever.

Whatever form of work God has set before you, Transforming Work will re-orient you so that your heart steers your hands in worship of God even in the most everyday of tasks.

Delight or drudgery? Understanding and defining work

1. God’s work and ours: Working through the Bible

2. Everybody wants to rule the world: Working, ruling and imaging God

3. What are we made for? Working and resting

4. Work wiser, not harder: Working wisely

5. It’s not about you: Working for others

6. The family business: Working in church

7. A way of being and behaving: Working with others

8. Never in vain: Working for the Lord

Afterword

Acknowledgements

Simon Flinders lives in Sydney’s north, is married to Tamara, and is a father to three daughters. He has served as an ordained Anglican minister in Sydney for the past 25 years. He currently serves as the Archdeacon (Chief of Staff) to the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, but for most of his ‘working life’ he has been a pastor in local churches where has sought to walk alongside people seeking to live for Jesus in various kinds of work. Simon has written numerous articles on the Christian life and Christian ministry. This is his first book.

Paul Grimmond loves his job at Moore College, where he trains future ministry leaders in how to love God and love people with the truth of God’s word. Before college, he spent many years talking to university students about the value and place of their work and what it looks like to honour God with all that we do. Paul has written a number of other books, including When the Noise Won’t Stop and Water for My Camels. Paul is looking forward to that day when none of our work will be vain any more and when we will enjoy eternal rest with our heavenly Father.

In a world that often misunderstands the purpose of work, Transforming Work is a refreshing and helpful corrective. The authors show from Scripture that all work—whether paid or unpaid—matters to God when it is done in the service of others, and that every task can become a part of our worship when done for the Lord. With clarity, as well as pastoral warmth and sensitivity, this book cuts through cultural confusion and offers an encouraging God-centred vision of work, while also challenging our own potential misconceptions and priorities. An important read for anyone looking to connect their daily labour with their faith in Christ.

—Andrew Laird, Executive team, City Bible Forum, Australia; Author, I Am What I Do

Simon Flinders and Paul Grimmond have served us well in writing this new book on a subject with which we are all intimately concerned but often more shaped by the cultural milieu than the word of God. One of the features to appreciate in Transforming Work is the compelling exposition of biblical and theological themes in a way that is both rigorously faithful and cheerfully grateful. Flinders and Grimmond combine doctrine and devotion in bringing to light surprising and liberating truths: God is less interested in what we do than how we do it; we are to work for rest, not the other way around; we work for others.

Transforming Work teems with insights to stimulate fresh thinking, thanksgiving, and prayerful dedication in light of our creation for good and wise works that serve others, and the good work of Jesus for our sakes. I’m delighted by the inclusion of a prayer at the end of each chapter.

This is a highly engaging work that displays sensitivity to both the breadth and telos of Scripture, and the ordinariness of how most of us experience ‘work’. Workers of all kinds (and that’s all of us) will find much to encourage, challenge and reform their view of themselves as workers in the world, and labourers for the Lord.

—Kanishka Raffel, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney

This thorough and careful survey of the Bible’s teaching about work is both liberating and challenging. It calls the reader to think much more Christianly about the subject—and then to live it out wherever he or she works. It will, I trust, cause many of us not only to work “as unto the Lord”, but also to engage steadfastly and immovably in “the work of the Lord”.

—William Taylor, Rector, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, London, UK

This is the theological reset many of us need for thinking about our daily work. Flinders and Grimmond remind us that God cares less about what job we have and more about how we do it: with faith, love, and integrity. They handle 1 Corinthians 15:58 with refreshing clarity, showing that sharing and building up others in the gospel has a special place in God’s plans, yet all work done for the Lord truly matters. With a great chapter on the church as God’s ‘family business’ and short, heartfelt prayers throughout, this is a wise and encouraging book for every believer who wants their work to count for Christ.

—David Pitt, CEO, City Bible Forum, Australia

Transforming Work is one of those books that you wish you had read when you were younger! Simon Flinders and Paul Grimmond bring together biblical insight and pastoral wisdom to give us a comprehensive biblical theology of work. Starting in Genesis with the proposition of God as the divine worker in creation, they show us that work is far wider in scope and far richer than we typically think. There is much here that encourages and liberates us from the often narrow, and frequently negative, way we view work. I shall be giving copies to my children!

—Simon Pillar, Founder, Pacific Equity Partners, UK

Having worked as a high school teacher, a ministry trainee, and now a stay-at-home mum, navigating my attitude and understanding of work over the years has been somewhat of a perplexing journey. This book brings refreshing joy, vision, and clarity to the way God speaks about and cares about the work I do, seen and unseen, paid and unpaid. It addresses work’s mundane exasperations (e.g. that never-ending pile of laundry) but also probes into bigger-picture identity questions for me of why my work as ‘just a mum’ sometimes doesn’t feel significant enough.

This book digs unashamedly into the Bible for answers, asks hard-hitting questions piercing to the heart, and lifts my eyes to the beauty of being God’s worker in the home, in the church body, and in evangelism. It has encouraged and energized me to follow in the humble footsteps of Jesus’ radical self-forgetfulness in every sphere of work he has given me.

—Lilian Ireland, Ministry wife and stay-at-home mum, Sydney, Australia

Paul and Simon have given us a helpful primer on the theology of work that avoids exalting one biblical truth to the neglect of others but rather engages with the full counsel of God on the topic. The result is a book that can sing the praises of work while bemoaning its frustrations; gets you excited about work while recognizing its limitations; and recognizes the impact of our jobs in this life while highlighting work that lasts for eternity. The authors persuade us of the goodness of the biblical teaching on work and the right way to flourish in it.

—Matt Fuller, Senior Pastor, Christ Church Mayfair, UK

I approached Transforming Work sceptical that more could or needed to be said on this topic, yet the authors’ promise to explore this topic from “more than one camera angle” delivers a rich, fresh, and thought-provoking exploration of why we work; what we might achieve through our work; and who we are becoming as we work. After 25 years in education as a teacher, leader, and academic, I found the reflections on relationships deeply resonant as both a source of joy and a necessity of burden sharing; both gift and challenge. This book is no manual of techniques but a call to follow and imitate a person. I finished encouraged, equipped, and reminded that our work, done for others, can truly be transformative.

—Dr Rob Loe, Deputy Principal, The Scots College, Sydney, Australia

There are some areas where Christians are confused. Work is one. This important and carefully written book by Simon Flinders and Paul Grimmond brings much-needed clarity. The authors explain what the Bible says about work, including the difference between the Lord’s work and all other work. The Lord’s work is gospel proclamation—work to which all Christians are called when they are converted, with some set apart to do it full-time. Others have two jobs, the Lord’s work and their other work. Both the Lord’s work and other work are valued by God, but they are different. It is only the Lord’s work that saves people—specifically the proclamation of the gospel through the local church.

There are many implications flowing from this. It corrects the misunderstanding that a full-time electrician or doctor can serve God in the same way as a full-time gospel worker; or that electrical work and gospel work are ministry in the same way. They are not. This misunderstanding is one of the reasons people are not training to be gospel workers. Why would you, if you can do the same ministry in another job?

Please read this important book. 

—Robin Sydserff, Director, Proclamation Trust, UK

I have been working for MTS, in Australia, for 25 years. We want to win the world for Christ by multiplying gospel workers through ministry apprenticeships. We encourage godly men and women to consider giving up their current occupation and becoming ministry apprentices. One of the biggest hinderances to recruiting is a flawed understanding of work. So many Christians are worldly in their thinking about work.

I’ve been waiting three decades for this book. It is excellent. I commend it to you.

A theology of work is like a theology of love. It impacts every part of life: every relationship, every plan, every ambition, every expenditure of energy … and more.

This is an excellent book. Biblically deep. Insightful. Funny. Real. Honest. Raw. Liberating. Chapter 8 is worth the price of the book itself.

Flinders and Grimmond are in their fifties, but this book feels like it’s written by a C.S. Lewis or a Don Carson. It is deep, thoughtful, rich and true. It is a mature book that sifts the chaff from the wheat on the topic of work. 

It humbles the exalted and exalts the humble. I commend it to you.

—Ben Pfahlert, National Director, Ministry Training Strategy, Australia