A Quiet Ambition

We tend to imagine spiritual practices as something that happens in a quiet chair in the morning with our coffee, when we gather each week as a church, or as additional habits which we add on to our already full lives. Everything else — sitting in meetings, answering emails, accomplishing projects, mowing the lawn, changing diapers, making dinner — gets filed under "work" apart from "formation" somewhere else.

But in the middle of Paul's earliest letter, addressed to the church of Thessalonica, he gives us a paragraph that opens — "this is the will of God, your sanctification," that is, your formation into the likeness of Christ — but then he closes not with their morning prayer routine or ascetic disciplines, but:

Make it your ambition: to lead a quiet life, to attend to your work, to labor with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders, and so that you may be content and generous all your days.
— 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 (Ryan’s translation/paraphrase)

Over the next six weeks, we'll let this unpack this short passage in six movements as it reframes both our paid and unpaid work, our vocation itself as a spiritual practice alongside the rest, through which we become more like Jesus for the sake of others and our city.

Throughout this series, we're inviting you to write a prayer that re-situates your work as a spiritual practice — something simple and short enough to return to regularly. Below are three options to consider, but the goal for all three is to create a prayer which you can print or save and revisit at the beginning of your week or day, that keeps your work in view as a place where you're being formed into a person of love for the sake of others.

Option 1 — Rephrase Psalm 23 around your Work
David wrote Psalm 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd” as a shepherd himself. He took up the labor and tasks which dotted his days among his flocks and turned them into a way of imagining and identifying God’s work in his own life. Set aside some time with Psalm 23, and make your own paraphrase, “The Lord is my _______," filling in your job or work — Architect, Musician, Song-Writer, Farmer, Social Worker, Bookkeeper, Teacher, Mother, Engineer, Gardener, Landscaper, Barista, Painter, Writer – whatever it is — and the fill out rest of the psalm around what your work actually looks like day to day.

Additionally, consider also rephrasing the Psalm not with your work, but with those you work for: The Lord is my boss, my teacher, my supervisor, as a way of personally imagining the invitation of Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”

Print them, keep them somewhere you'll see when at work, and let them be something you return to at the start of your day or week, even taking a single line to carry as you labor. (From Leslie Leyland Fields's Nearing a Far God: Praying the Psalms with Our Whole Selves)

Example:The Lord is my Baker and The Lord is my Architect

Option 2 — Slowly Construct a Prayer around 1 Thessalonians 4.
As we progress through the series, take some time after the teaching each week to add another line of prayer or a vow concerning your work in light of that week’s theme. By the end, your prayer will have six lines moving through naming your ambition, committing to a quiet life, attending to your own work, dignifying the labor of your hands, presenting your work as a witness to the Kingdom, and stepping into a life of contentment and generosity.

Option 3 — Write your own Liturgy of Labor, in the spirit of Every Moment Holy.
If you've encountered Douglas Kaine McKelvey's prayers for ordinary life and work, look over some of his to serve as an inspiration or a template — to take up your particular labor and give it language in prayer. (Especially Volume 3: Work of the People)

Example: A Liturgy for Changing Diapers

Recommended Resources

Alongside our meditation on Scripture, the Sunday teachings, our discipleship cohorts, and the prayer-writing practice, you may want to take a deeper dive into a theology of work over this Fall. We recommend the first three books as great places to start, and the others as supplemental if you’ve already read the first three or are looking for something a bit more particular.

Every Good Endeavor, Timothy Keller & Katherine Leary Alsdorf offer what is arguably the most comprehensive, yet approachable theology of work — grounding it in creation, fall, and redemption so that even mundane tasks are reframed as participation in God's ongoing work in the world.

Garden City, John Mark Comer traces the arc from the garden in Eden to the city of New Jerusalem, making the case that work and rest are both part of God's original design — and that some of what we build, make and work now will actually carry into the new creation to come. Incredibly approachable and conversational.

Domestic Monastery, Ronald Rohlheiser turns to our focus of work past career to the home — arguing that the rhythms of ordinary domestic life (dishes, laundry, interruptions) can function like monastic discipline, forming us in patience and presence. A needed corrective for anyone who thinks "spiritual work" only happens outside the house.

Called to Business, Dallas Willard directly connects to what we've been building on in this series applying it specifically to the business world, making the case that commerce itself can be an arena of discipleship rather than a distraction from it.

Kingdom Calling, Amy Sherman contributes her framework of "vocational stewardship" — she pushes past the idea that work is merely meaningful and asks how our specific skills and positions can be deployed for the flourishing of our cities and neighbors, not just our own sanctification.

You Have a Calling, Karen Swallow Prior draws a sharp line between passion and calling — passion comes from within, but calling comes from without, given by those we're placed to serve — and pursues the good, true, and beautiful as the real measure of meaningful work rather than a dream job. Written from her years mentoring college students, it's especially suited for those wrestling with a calling that doesn't match what they're passionate about

Work, Ben Witherington III digs into the biblical and cultural background of work in the ancient world, tracing how the New Testament writers subverted Greco-Roman assumptions about labor and status. The most academically rigorous option here, best for those wanting the exegetical foundation underneath the more devotional titles above.