Professional Schools Ministries 2007-08 Annual Review

Dear Friends: I’ve attached an annual review (summary) for Professional Schools Ministries for the academic year, 2007-08.  Thanks for your ongoing partnership in this work. I am deeply grateful. <professional-schools-ministries-2007-08-annual-review>

Work is…

In the past couple of days I have come across two reflections that have made me reflect more deeply on the meaning and significance of work.  In this post, I’d simply like to draw your attention to these resources and challenge you to jot down some of your own thoughts and ideas as you go about your daily work.  I’ve been trying to follow my own advice, and the impact has been helpful, especially as I make a transition to a new work assignment and city of residence.

The first piece comes from a former InterVarsity colleague, Pete Hammond, who has been instrumental in shaping the modern “ministry in daily life” movement.  A couple of years back he wrote a short reflection entitled “Jobs are…”, which is instructive on how we ought to think about our work as Christ followers, joys and toil, alike.  Here’s what Pete had to say:

“Jobs are… gifts from God… callings to honor God by serving co-workers, customers, suppliers.

Sacred opportunities and places for God to receive worship-filled work… invitations to use resources for the benefit of God and others.

Membership in a community of peers whom we can serve.  Chances to develop skills and gifts given to each of us by God.

Fraught with pain, sweaty toil and frustration since the Fall…

Not identical with our identity.  Much more than just a way to get a paycheck.  Not a long dark tunnel between leisure weekends.

Opportunities for delivering salt, light and leaven into broken places and troubled people.”

-Pete Hammond in Lessons, Prayers and Scripture on the Faith Journey(InterVarsity Ministry in Daily Life, 2007)

The second piece, by Peter Menzies, a national commissioner with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, is entitled 50 Things I Love about Business.  It appears in Comment Magazine, June 2008 (print edition), and the November 16, 2007, online edition.  I’ll let you find your way there via the link.  It is worth the trip, as Peter’s insights are very helpful, capturing both the exhilaration and pain we encouter as we pursue our work and callings as image bearers of God in a fallen, yet “being redeemed” world.

Starbucks: Sacred Space?

Despite their July 1st announcement that they’re closing 600 stores in the United States, Starbucks remains a massive international operation.  With approximately 15,000 outlets worldwide, many patrons across the globe have sipped (or guzzled) one of their beverages.  I have been in Starbucks establishments in the USA, Europe, and Southest Asia, and in each setting I have found a high level of service, quality and ambiance, as well as a consistently expensive menu for anything but a basic cup of coffee.  But that is a different topic for another day.

Whether or not you enjoy their beverages, one of the things that strikes me about the Starbucks experience is that it engages all the senses.  Think about it for a minute.  As soon as you walk in the door, the aroma of freshly ground coffee (and so-so muffins and scones) penetrates your nose, working up an energetic salivary response.  Soothing, eclectic, somewhat edgy music, dancing over the hum of the espresso machines and coffee grinder,  glides into your ears.  And eyes embrace a warm, inviting color palette and interior that beckons you to “take a load off” and stay for a long while.  Even the textures of the fabrics, countertops, tables, and walls are interesting, inviting your fingers to linger a bit longer than normal.

The environment is pleasing, inviting, conducive to community, sharing, and connection.  Sadly, this is not always the case in our churches, where beauty, a warm handshake, and ”sacred” space for reflection and sacrament are often extracted from the worship experience.  There are many reasons why this is so, some of which are utilitarian.  Many churches, often rightly concerned with making every dollar count, skimp or neglect aesthetics altogether.

The consequences are often perilous.  Instead of creating an atmosphere that feels safe and inviting, many churches create an environment that feels sterile, institutional, hurried, and shallow.  Friendship suffers, the imagination suffers, and hope suffers.

We who lead in the church could take helpful queues from our observances of the sacraments, which, when rightly administered serve as bold reminders of the importance of the physical and material in experiencing the fullness of the grace of God.  Aesthetics do matter!  Our senses are intended to be sensed.  Gerald L. Sittser in Water from a Deep Well, a wonderful book on the history of Christian spirituality, agrees.

“The tangible, concrete, material nature of the sacraments reminds us of the reality of Christ’s saving work.  The sacraments join material and spiritual together into a seamless whole, just as the incarnation does.  They are window that allow us to gaze into another world and receive the grace that pours from that world into ours.”

Our churches might not look like the Starbucks down the street, but they should be equally interesting, inviting, hospitable.  They ought to engage the senses, ignite the imagination, affirm beauty, and allow personal space for reflection and change.  A commitment to create “sacred space” need not be expensive and wasteful.  Sometimes the simplest expressions, such as children’s art or handwritten banners by congregants describing the attributes of God (done by my church in recent days), can be powerful reminders of God’s boundless love, grace, and mercy.  Our churches have so much to offer, which is why they ought to be at least as inviting and imaginative as the Starbucks or other local coffee house around the corner.

June 2008 John Terrill Letter of Transition

Dear Friends:  Beginning September 1, 2008, I will begin my work as the Director for the Center for Integrity in Business at Seattle Pacific University.  I will remain part-time staff with InterVarsity through the end of December and the Following Christ 2008 Conference.  Attached you will find a recent letter that I sent to friends and partners about this change.  Thanks for your ongoing friendship and partnership.  john-terrill-letter-of-transition

Sufficiency Versus Efficiency: Fighting a Clockwork World of Tasks

Robert Kanigel's biography of Frederick Winslow Taylor

A while back, I heard a speaker present a talk on the crucial difference for the Christian leader between pursuing God’s sufficiency over human efficiency.

The idea struck a chord with me, especially during a busy season of long-term ministry planning, budgeting, and vision casting. For months, I had been working on a five-year strategic plan, which I carried around in my briefcase and updated regularly. I tweaked and revised, as if my perfectly articulated vision were the key that could unlock all the doors of “ministry success.”

Now, in my mind, there is nothing wrong with careful planning. Scripture demonstrates that God values order and thoughtful preparation. But there is a fine line between ingenuity rooted in self and creativity grounded in God. It is a line, I am afraid, I cross too often. To pursue human efficiency is to live under the illusion that it is all up to me. Scripture warns against such an orientation to life and work.

Continuing to reflect in this area, I reacquainted myself with a biography on the life of Frederick Winslow Taylor. Taylor, born in 1856, was the father of scientific management and looms as one of the most important figures in the development of American industry. The book’s author, Robert Kanigel [http://robertkanigel.com/work3.htm], wrote:

“Taylor bequeathed a clockwork world of tasks timed to a hundredth of a minute, of standardized factories, machines, women, and men. He helped instill in us the fierce, unholy obsession with time, order, productivity, and efficiency that marks our age. . . .

“Today it is only a modest overstatement to say that we are all Taylorized, that from the assembly-line tasks timed to a fraction of a second, to lawyers recording their time by fractions of an hour, to standardized McDonald’s hamburgers, to information operators constrained to grant only so many seconds per call, modern life has become Taylorized” (from The One Best Way, Viking Press).

Whether you agree or disagree with Taylor’s methods and insights, the impact this one man had on our systems of work and production were revolutionary. As Kanigel rightly observes, “His ceaseless quest for the ‘one best way’ changed the very texture of twentieth-century life.”

As much as I value efficient systems and “smart work,” I worry that much has been lost in our modern workplace. Too often, the clock, sales quotas, shifting consumer demands, and tempermental financial markets rule the day. I am no more exempt from such pressures because I work for a Christian ministry. At times, I engage my work with a greater allegiance to Taylor than to Jesus. If I can only do things faster, more efficiently, more intelligently, then, and only then, will the ministry grow.

However, God’s economy—his kingdom—is much different. It is like a mustard seed, Jesus tells us, the smallest of all seeds, “yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32, NIV).

Sure, I want to be more efficient and to plan well. No doubt, I will continue to labor over a strategic plan. But I hope to grow in a minute-by-minute dependency upon God. This, contrary to Taylor, is truly the “one best way.”

Originally appeared with only minor changes as:

Sufficiency Versus Efficiency: Fighting A Clockwork World of Tasks

by John Terrill in Student Leadership journal, Summer 2005.

© InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA

Why the Blog Name, Apprentice Place?

Apprentice Place was the name of the street on which I bought my first home.  I loved (and still love) the name, because it reminds me daily that as a Christ follower, I am to be attentive, learning, open to the teaching of God and the wisdom of others.  Dallas Willard, philosophy professor and author, talks about discipleship as apprenticeship, a system dating back to the Middle Ages in which younger generations were trained in skilled crafts.  Learning a craft or trade takes time, practice, and hard work.  Learning to follow Jesus well is no different.  We need wise mentors, teachers; we need each other.

The journey of faith has peril.  It is no easy trek, but Jesus promises to be present with us.  In his final words to his disciples just prior to his arrest and crucifixion, Jesus comforts his apprentices by promising his ongoing presence, training, teaching.

“…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

This blog is a travel journey, of sorts.  It will track some of my observations and experiences along the path of life, especially as they relate to the integration of faith and work.  I’d welcome your company as you see fit.  And I’d welcome your own thoughts and reflections as we journey together as apprentices under the careful guidance and mentorship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  May his peace be our peace as we set forth.

June 2008 Professional Schools Ministries Newsletter

Dear Friends: Attached you will find a copy of my June 2008 newlsetter.  Thanks for your ongoing support of InterVarsity’s Professional Schools Ministries: June-2008-Newsletter-Terrill