WORK, LEISURE AND WORSHIP

1
WORK, LEISURE AND WORSHIP

• WE WORSHIP OUR
• WORK,
• WE WORK AT OUR
• LEISURE, AND
• WE PLAY AT OUR
• WORSHIP

2
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN WORSHIP AND LEISURE

• Free Will
• Integration
• Personal Well Being

3
PURPOSE OF WORK

• BRING DOMINION OVER THE EARTH
• RESTRAINS INHERENT EVIL
• ESSENTIAL TO SATISFACTION, FULFILLMENT, PURPOSE,
  MEANING TO LIFE
• MEET THE NEEDS OF THE TRULY NEEDY

4
Work/Toil

• Work
• Not an unessisary evil
• Process of participating in creation
• Work is highest form of worship also
• Perfection of ourselves, others and creation

• Toil
• Drudgery when separated from this goal
• decrease
• self worth
• relationships
• environment
• productivity

5
QUESTIONS

• What about Chapel (does it fit)
• What is appropriate/inappropriates behavior on
  the sabbath
• How much would it take to get you to work on
  the sabbath
• If your education is leisure, then is studying
  and homework appropriate on the sabbath
• What sabbath rituals did your have as a child and
  intend to keep or not keep

6
HANSELS FOURCOMMANDMENTS OF CONTENTMENT

• Thou Shalt live the here and now
• Thou Shalt not take thyself too seriously
• Thou Shalt not hurry
• Thou Shalt be grateful
• Dont hurry your work but enjoy the process
• Work is work and leisure is leisure
• Love those for whom you work with a servants
  attitude

7
Similarities between Leisure and the Christian
Faith

• Celebration
• Free Will
• Expression of Whole Self
• Self realization
• Search for the authentic
• Involves ritual

8
How to Build an Ethic

• John Wesleys Quadrilateral
• 1. Scripture
• 2. Life
  experience
• 3. Tradition
• 
  4. Reason

9
SCRIPTURE

• Gen 126-28
• Gen 3 17-19
• Eccles 224 312-13
• Ephes 428

10
THREE CLASSICAL MODELS

• GREEK
• Leisure is truly worthwhile and for the
  privileged
• work is disdained and only for slaves
• Through leisure we realize our true humanity
• contemplation, thinking, dreaming, appreciation
  of beauty, relationships
• PROTESTANT
• Industry, individualism, frugality, ambition,
  success all have virtue
• Leisure is time off from work and a reward for
  hard work
• Leisure activities family welfare, worship,
  catharsis, purpose
• reading, writing family budget, visiting friends,
  sewing, chopping wood
• HEBRAIC
• Balance of work and leisure
• Leisure is evident in dance, feasts, celebration
  of life, hospitality to travelers, time for
  relationships
• Johnston says this model most typifies Biblical
  Christianity
• Says we may look in vain for fully developed
  theology of leisure

11
Biblical Norms for Work and Career Choices

• 1. Calling
• 2. Service
• 3. Work
• 4. Human responsibility

12
Biblical norms for Career Choices

• 1. Calling
• (divinely appointed career)
• Specially chosen vocation which reflects who you
  are
• Call to be saved, a disciple and member of the
  body
• Decision is made in prayer with God
• God will first put the desire in your heart to
  follow a particular career
• Problems
• Only one right choice
• Anxiety of making a wrong choice
• Defense that others cannot question the choice
• 2. Serving (Service)
• One who waits on tables and who washes feet
• 1. Meet needs of others
• 2. Have to ability to fulfill those needs

13
Norms (cont)

• 3. Work
• Curse of God transformed the nature of work from
  satisfaction/joy to toil/sweat
• The grace of God in Christ makes work both toil
  and joy, sweat and satisfaction
• Work can be both good and bad depending upon
  whether or not it is performed in faithful
  obedience to Gods will DT 3010
• 4. Human Responsibility
• We are created capable to make choices and
  either suffer or enjoy the consequences
• It is not an either-or but our responsibility to
  choose
• God has given us the ability, opportunity and
  requirement to decide
• 1. Gaining accurate self knowledge
• 2. Gaining accurate knowledge about specific
  vocations
• 3. Gaining accurate knowledge about the needs of
  the Kingdom