Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Dr. Timothy Keller book: Every Good Endeavor

There’s a deep disconnect between the lives of many church members and many pastors. I don’t think it’s wrong for a man to go from high school straight to college, and from there straight to seminary only to wind up leading a church with very little work experience outside the church. Many of the men who have done so have become very good pastors.

But church members have careers, jobs, vocations, occupations, or whatever you want to call what they do with the majority of their working time, away from anything remotely related to the church. Men especially tend to identify with their work. If they identify with their work and their work is not related to church, then they experience that disconnect I mentioned. Church is something they visit once or twice a week. “Real life” isn’t church.

I’m not sure most pastors have a clue. As long as they see people in the pews everything seems okay, that is until that person falls into some sort of sin. When that happens the pastor is left baffled as to how this person could have turned without realizing that this person has a more significant identity outside of the church.

Dr. Timothy Keller has made some inroads into this mysterious area of church life with a new book Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work.

Based on short biographical sketches, Keller seems to be one of those who doesn’t have much of a work history outside the church. Having not read the book, I don’t know if he covers everything well, but he gave an interview to Desiring God where he discusses some of the points in his book. If this is any indication, then he seems to handle the theology very well and accurately assesses the impact of culture on our working world.

God's Work and Ours: And Interview with Timothy Keller

Based on this interview it’s probably worth reading on those aspect alone. I plan to get hold of this book and read it. It might be worth your while as well.

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