by Fletcher Lowe

As part of my pastoral ministry, I have, over the years, visited members where they work, sitting across their desks or benches and share their Sunday-Monday faith / work connections.  Sometimes they experience an “AHA,” when they see that their real ministry is in their workplace rather than their congregation.  Here is just such a conversation with Lisa Knight, a corporate lawyer who works in Richmond, Virginia, and worships at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, one of the congregations where I have served.

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I am a corporate “transactional” attorney, which means that I work for a corporation (UPS Freight), as opposed to a law firm. I primarily work on transactions that the company is involved in, such as buying or selling real estate or entering into a contract for some type of services or goods. Because of this I work with people in many different positions within the company. From Service Center Managers that are at locations all over the country to senior management in Richmond. I negotiate and write all kinds of contracts – contracts to buy software, to lease trucks, to acquire janitorial services, to hire guards at our terminals. If it involves a contract of any type, I’m usually involved in it. They can be for very insignificant amounts or multimillion-dollar transactions.

Originally, I agreed reluctantly when Fletcher Lowe originally asked if he could visit me at work to discuss the “faith connection” –  that is, the connection between what I do to make a living and my faith.   I wasn’t reluctant to talk with Fletcher or to talk about either my work or my faith. I just wasn’t sure I saw any connection between the two. So, I agreed, but planned to rely on Fletcher to steer the conversation, because I really couldn’t draw a connection there. I mean, after all, how could working as an attorney for a trucking company tie in to God’s work anyway?

I really hoped the focus of the conversation wasn’t going to be that I needed to do more to bring my faith to work – i.e., a “spread the Good News” to my fellow employees kind of discussion. That’s admirable, but just not me!

I should have known that Fletcher had a different take. In our discussion, he challenged me to see how the gifts I have and the work I do is in fact God’s work. That drafting up a contract fairly is applying my faith and the values rooted in my faith. That treating my fellow employees with respect, behaving in an ethical manner, and being able to help two parties work through issues and come up with a problem solving approach, rather than a conflict based disagreement, is doing God’s work. That, in fact, doing what I have the skills to do, using whatever talents I may have, is God’s work.

It was a revelation to me! I tended (and still tend, it’s hard to re-train my brain after 48 years), to view “God’s work” as what the priests and choir directors and youth ministers and Mother Teresas of the world do. I viewed the “work world” as separate from the “faith world.” To my mind, God’s work is things like tutoring at Woodville, serving our homeless guests, even writing a check to the Carpenter’s Kids. Our conversation turned that assumption on its ear, helping me see that maybe simply applying the talents God gave me is, in fact, also doing “God’s work.” As dry and un-faith-like as writing up a contract sounds – it did seem possible that somehow that type of work might also serve God’s purpose. And, in that setting, St. Paul’s and the community there, isn’t separate, but is a foundation, as Fletcher likes to say, a “base camp,” for the rest of the week – a place to focus, resupply, and prepare to go back out and do whatever work is set out before me.