Dorothy Sayers on Work

This quote is on Justin Taylor's blog, Between Two Worlds. It speaks volumes, in my opinion, about the lack of understanding in broad evangelicalism about the sacred vs. secular split that divides the church from the world.

The world needs garbage collectors to do the best job they are able to do. Cleaning up garbage is part of being a good steward of the Kingdom. It keeps things decent and in order. And isn't that a 'Christian' thing?

Work in NOT a bad word!

The Only Christian Work Is Good Work Done Well unto God Posted:

18 Jan 2010 07:00 AM PSTFrom Dorothy Sayers’s essay, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949):

The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.. . .

Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade—not outside of it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meant they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meant for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.

The official Church wastes time and energy, and moreover, commits sacrilege, in demanding that secular workers should neglect their proper vocation in order to do Christian work—by which she means ecclesiastical work. The only Christian work is good work well done. Let the Church see to it that the workers are Christian people and do their work well, as to God: then all the work will be Christian work, whether it is Church embroidery or sewage-farming.

HT: Tom Nelson

I need to repent of my repentance...
Grant me never to lose sight of:
the exceeding sinfulness of sin,
the exceeding righteousness of salvation,
the exceeding glory of Christ,
the exceeding beauty of holiness,
the exceeding wonder of grace.

--from Continual Repentance in Valley of Visions