The Privilege of Work: To Bless the World

Does your business have a Mission Statement, or do you as an entrepreneur have a Why? These powerful principles are what you keep in mind as you make countless decisions every day. When I created Marketing to Mission, I had something a little different that I always wanted to rely on for my guiding principle:

“Work for the well-being of the city where I have sent you.” ~Jeremiah 29:7

As a Christian, I use the Bible to stay in the right frame of mind about everything in my daily life. Of course, I miss the mark quite a bit, but keeping these words in front of me will always point me back in the correct direction when it comes to how I operate my business.

These words were spoken to a group of people who were living in exile. Even though they weren’t in their homeland, God still wanted them to work for the benefit of the people around them. This verse is a reminder to me to work for the benefit of the greater community in which I live (which is why we only work with clients in Southeastern PA).

This verse also can be a reminder that I was created by God to work. Now, if you hang in with me, I promise I’ll bring this back to marketing at the end.

It might be hard to believe, but God created humans for work (and we’ll say here that “work” includes both paid vocational work as well as the work of life, such as raising children, maintaining a house, cooking meals, creative works like painting and writing, etc.). We are made in the image of God, and He works, so we have the privilege of working as well. In the book of Genesis, God commanded Adam and Eve to work. He made the Garden of Eden and placed the humans in it. He had created the entire universe, but it wasn’t a finished product. They were to cultivate the garden, subdue the earth, and fill it with people, and this was even before sin entered the world. So, work was always good, and in a sense, work was one of God’s first gifts to His children (Sacredness of Secular Work, 17). It was after sin entered the world that work became more complicated and challenging. But it is still our calling, and it is still good.

Remember that Work is Good

I routinely think about the goodness of work, even paid work. As a Christian in the business world, I regularly witness the challenges that other Christians face to balance work and what is traditionally called “ministry”. These are the questions that people grapple with:

• Should I quit my job/close my business to work in a ministry profession?

• Is it okay to charge competitive prices and earn a profit?

• Does my business or job matter less because it’s not explicitly centered on God?

• Is it okay for me to earn an income even while I have young children?

It breaks my heart to hear how some people think that their vocational work is somehow less important than traditional ministry work. All the work that we all do matters! It matters to God, and it matters to the culture and society in which we live. Many people are absolutely called to work exclusively in ministry, even sometimes called out of secular work in order to pursue it. But that is not what God expects of everyone. We have a lot of different things to do that keep this world running, and that means there are a lot of ways for people to work.

One of the primary purposes of work is to make the world beneficial and useful for all of us. In his book, The Sacredness of Secular Work, Jordan Raynor quotes the general editor of the ESV Study Bible, Wayne Grudem, to explain that the word “subdue” in Genesis 1:28 meant “to make the earth useful for human beings.” (Sacredness of Secular Work, 11). God wanted humans to “subdue” the earth, making it more useful for the humans that would continue to live in it. Therefore, our work is all about other people. It becomes a huge factor in how we engage in relationships with one another. And everyone who works is participating in a system that allows other people to work or to satisfy their needs.

I’ll make the point here that this is assuming that work is done excellently, meaning it’s done in love for others. There are, of course, businesses that are run by individuals who are motivated only by greed and power, who corrupt this system by making life harder for others. But this is a result of sin at work in the world. The ultimate purpose of work is good, but it can be distorted by fallen humans.

The drive to work is given to us by God, and we should honor that as good. When we put our talents, skills, education, and passion into our work, we are showing evidence of God in the world. Furthermore, as Christians, when we work, we are creating spaces where things are operating as they would under King Jesus, and that reveals the Kingdom of Heaven. This idea can be related to “what Celtic Christians call “‘thin spaces’...where the curtain between heaven and earth seems almost transparent.”” (Sacredness of Secular Work, 109). It’s giving a taste of the coming New Creation right now here on Earth.

All Work is Not the Same, But All Work is About People

Not all work is the same. It’s absolutely true that some people work extremely hard in physical labor, some people work mostly with their minds, some people work in ways that seem glamorous, and some do work that is undesirable to most people. By our work, we might create beauty, save lives, give knowledge, feed others, manage waste, offer leisure, or supply a want. 

Everyone works at something different, but what stays the same is that work always connects us to other people. Work is not just a means to an end (earning money so we can do things with that money), but it serves a purpose in and of itself. Our work helps others and that makes it valuable.

What You Need to Do Marketing Well

Now it’s time to bring it back around to marketing, as promised.

There are so many ways that marketing gets complicated - the ever-evolving technology, the pressure to make profits, and the vast options for how to get the message out there. I’ve both seen and experienced the paralysis that comes from trying to figure out what the heck to do in marketing. 

Often what business owners and leaders default to in their marketing efforts is talking about how wonderful the goods and services they provide are in as many places as possible. And while promoting your services is a part of marketing, it’s not the starting point nor the most important aspect. If you want to do good marketing, you have to start with and stay focused on the people you are helping, this is what I call Persona work.

Both in doing my own marketing and my work for clients, I have found that when I come back to this question of “Who are you helping?” it helps to simplify and clarify the marketing path forward. It refocuses me to the ultimate goal and why we’re even doing this in the first place - to make the world more beneficial and useful for others.

So, I’ll ask again - who are you helping and how? When you answer that question, you will have the basis of your core message and marketing strategy. 

Marketing is the Work of Connecting People

One of the reasons I love doing the work of marketing (see what I did there?) is that I get to see what a blessing work is for other people. I see the value that others are putting into the world, whether that’s imparting safe driving skills to teenagers, helping children stay healthy, making a wedding beautiful, transporting goods across the country, or protecting families’ financial assets. I get to help them reach the people who will benefit the most from what they are doing.

I am honored to see the passion, talents, and skills that drive small business owners in their mission to provide something that helps people. There is a chain reaction of blessings when we connect and support others with our work. My work is to help them identify the right people to help and develop messaging that will resonate very well with those people. Both my client and I enjoy the benefits of doing our work well and supporting our families as a result.

I encourage everyone - business owners, employees, parents, and students - to keep this view of work in mind. What we do for work, including and especially our paid work, is something that matters, because it continues to make the world a useful and beautiful place to be.

Recently, I began teaching this guiding principle to my toddler. One day while playing with him (while my husband was working), he asked me “Why does Dada work?” I first explained to him that we work to earn money for our family, which allows us to have a home, food, toys, and clothes. But I knew that if I want my children to have the same beliefs about honoring God with their work that I need to lead with the perspective that work is a privilege. So, I expanded my explanation to include that we get to work, and that’s wonderful. Work allows us to help people, to use the gifts and talents God gave us, to get to know other people, and to help others see the goodness of God. God gave us work for this purpose, and it brings glory to Him when we “work for the well-being of our city.”

If you’re grappling with how to identify the people who benefit most from your work or how to explain how your work helps them, please reach out. Together, we can uncover the core messaging that reveals the benefits of your work.

Resources cited and used for this article:

With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God, by Skye Jethani

The Sacredness of Secular Work, by Jordan Raynor