Note: Our Member Spotlight series continues with Will Messenger. A transcript of the interview appears below.
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Greg
Hello, welcome to our latest Member Spotlight interview. I’m Greg Forster with Karam Fellowship, and joining us this time we have Will Messenger of the Theology of Work Project. Will, thank you so much for being with us.
Will
Glad to be here, Greg.
Greg
Will, tell us about what’s going well at TOW.
Will
The thing that’s most exciting, that’s going best for us right now, is partnerships, especially partnerships where we have direct connection with users. Our ministry, Theology of Work Project, is mostly an intermediated channel. So we produce materials that are mostly available by website, YouTube, whatever. That lets us reach millions of people, which is wonderful, of course. But we’ve begun to focus more on the depth of relationships or the depth of interaction we have with people, hoping for some kind of transformation. Undoubtedly, transformation can happen in a 2-minute website visit or listening to a great 30-minute podcast, but we have a feeling it happens more often in groups.
Two new exciting things are happening that we’re just thrilled about. One is called PRS.Work. PRS is “Public Reading of Scripture,” and we’ve partnered with an organization called Scripture at Work to do a series of listening to the Bible. Listening to the Bible in community might be the best way to describe it. You actually listen to several chapters of the Bible read out loud in a group and then consider how this applies to your work. I’m actually part of these groups. We’re trying to catalyze the development of hundreds or thousands of groups, so I don’t expect to be part of every one. But I’ve been a part of a couple of these groups, and it’s just so encouraging to have a depth of interaction with the Word of God, but through the lens of applying it in daily life. I find it’s more spiritually meaningful and more practically meaningful. We’re just thrilled to have this partner, and there’s others in this collection of people using this PRS approach.
The other is one you know personally, Greg, because we’ve partnered with Karam Fellowship. You’re one of our partners in producing something called “Cuentistas,” which is Spanish for “storytellers.” This is a pastor’s training program funded by the Lilly Endowment, to whom we’re also indebted, not only as a funding partner, but also a resource partner. They provide a lot of training and connections to help us understand compelling preaching. It’s about compelling preaching, and our approach to compelling preaching is helping Hispanic pastors, Spanish-speaking pastors to prepare compelling sermons focused on exegesis, good hermeneutics, good preaching, and application to work, which is exciting because a majority of Spanish-speaking pastors in the United States are bivocational or covocational. In other words, they have jobs besides being pastors, often the same kind of jobs that people in their congregations have. Helping them relate how the Christian faith is active in their own work, whether or not as a pastor, can be very compelling to their congregations. You were the keynote speaker at our first national conference for this event, so I’m glad to be partnered with Karam Fellowship in this.
Greg
And we’re glad as well. I was delighted to be able to be part of that, and one of the first questions from the floor was about bivocational (or bi-occupational, I like to say, because of course we all have only one real vocation, which is to follow Jesus). It was a ton of fun.
The public reading of scripture point takes me back to a decade ago at the first Faith at Work Summit when Paul Williams, now of the UK Bible Society, said, “We teach people that this is on every page of the Bible, this faith and work thing, and yet they go read their Bibles and they don’t see it. So the way we teach people to read their Bibles is the real problem.” He said this in a breakout group that was for people in theological education, and the whole room exploded. There was tremendous discussion of it. We’re still hammering away at getting this right, but getting to that point about how we read the Bible is the core issue here. I wonder if you can say some more about your experience in those groups on that issue.
Will
The core material of the Theology at Work Project is the Theology at Work Bible Commentary. That’s the resource that we created when we began. We now have a commentary that covers most of the Bible, every book of the Bible, most passages, that says something about how the passage applies to work. It might be something as direct as the Parable of the Talents, which is about investing, or at least the activity that occurs is investing. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a manual for how to be a wealth manager.
Greg
But it does assume that investing is one place where faith gets lived out.
Will
That’s right. And so it would come to your mind, probably, that this might have something to do with work, at least one kind of work. Although, having said that, when we do talk about even that parable, people are very surprised, even though it’s set in a workplace, to think that this actually might have something to do with work. Other parts of scripture would not necessarily be set in a workplace or refer to an occupation or a particular type of work. But something like “let your yes be yes and your no be no” clearly applies, at least I think it’s clear, to the kind of speech you use at work, the way you interact with a customer or a coworker, and it pushes against or refutes the idea that prevails in many workplaces, that there’s a different standard or a different understanding of what proper speech is or what’s okay.
Greg
We need to learn to see those statements like “let your yes be yes” and think about all of life. That means being intentional about the workplace, since that’s the place we typically don’t place it.
Will
And so when we do PRS with work in mind, we’ll be listening to those passages or any other passages, and the commentary often will just note, “Have you thought about how this applies to work?” The group I’m part of is mostly people in financial services, so this one we just talked about could be direct. They’ve never really thought about how “let your yes be yes, let your no be no” has anything to do with bond sales or corporate finance or wealth management. Just the acknowledgment that this has a direct application can lead to 30 minutes of great discussion.
Greg
I tell pastors that if I could only ask them for one thing, I would ask them for illustrations and applications in their sermons. Every sermon should have at least one application or illustration that makes the connection to the workplace. And that’s easy. I’m literally preaching to the choir now.
Will
Well, you are preaching to the to the choir, which is exactly why we asked you to preach or to give the keynote at the Cuentistas. That’s what this program is all about, mentioning and, if possible, illustrating your sermon, in the Spanish language as it happens, with applications of how this applies to the work you do, the work your people do. Years ago I taught this at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary’s doctor of ministry program in English. Most English-speaking pastors, at least the ones who came to our program, were full-time pastors. I hate to use these terms because…
Greg
Of course, pastoring is work, right?
Will
But they were not also working some other paid job. So, for them, it was quite a bit more difficult to make that transition. They found it difficult to find examples. They would say to Haddon Robinson, who cotaught this, “I’d like to do what you’re saying, but I’ll just get it wrong. I’ll give an example about what I think someone’s work is like, and then people won’t recognize it. They’ll say I got it wrong. I’m just afraid.” With the Cuentistas, that’s set aside, because these people are in the same workplaces, generally, as their congregants. But that doesn’t let you off the hook if you’re a pastor who doesn’t have another paid job. First of all, work occurs at places besides your paid job. So any kind of work you’re doing, parenting, for example, or the work of being a spouse or civic engagement also count. I hope pastors do some of that. If not, the people in their congregations work, and talking to them, visiting them, asking about their work is just an incredible source of potential engagement.
Greg
Charlie Self has said you can’t be a good shepherd if you don’t care what your sheep do all day. But let me move on to my next question. I think we’re already talking about this, Will, but what is life-giving for you?
Will
What’s life-giving for me is seeing people grasp it. Most of the people I come to have a love of scripture already. They’re in the Christian faith. The scripture has already had some powerful, wonderful impact in their life. But seeing their face when they realize this isn’t just something that connects them to God, joy, amendment of life, encouragement on Sunday morning. A lot of people enjoy the realizations that they get from a good sermon, or just from listening to scripture in church. But they’re usually church related or related to an hour a day.
I’m overgeneralizing. People go to church because they get something out of it. But then I see them making this connection and realizing this doesn’t just apply to a few hours of their day, it’s for all the hours of the day. The rip they feel inside between trying to be the kind of person that they feel like they can be on Sunday, but really, didn’t know they could be on Monday; just seeing that realization is life-giving. And then, hearing a story of someone who’s worked it out, sometimes with success, or sometimes with failure. They tried, but it was a lot harder than they thought. Having that kind of conversation, where scripture is truly the foundation of people’s view of life and path forward, that’s what gives me life.
Greg
I remember very well the process I went through when something like scales fell from my eyes, and I realized that the gospel is for all of life. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to help people have that realization.
Let me ask you, finally, what are one or two challenges that you see coming ahead for the work that we’re all doing, helping to theologically educate God’s people? And how can we get ready?
Will
The biggest challenge that I see, at least in the English-speaking world (we’re a worldwide ministry, and I see this less in the other languages that our work is in – Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese) is the decline in church attendance by Christians. I’m not even talking about the decline of Christians as a percentage of the population, which is actually not that steep compared to the decline in church attendance by people who are believers. In one sense, I’m already complaining, I’m implying, anyway, that churches and pastors and preachers in particular don’t do enough to equip their people for life at work. I could say, “The church hasn’t really fulfilled its mission to equip people the way I think it should. So what do I care if people go to church or not?” But actually, I don’t agree with that at all. The church is, must be, should be, appointed as the bride of Christ for the purpose of equipping the saints for ministry of every kind. So a decline in church attendance reduces even further the formation of people for their lives of work and all of life.
Greg
That’s why I got into seminary education, because the visible church is God’s plan A for equipping the saints. And if God has a plan A, there’s not a plan B. So what’s the story you see there play out?
Will
So-called parachurch ministries – this is another case where I think the language isn’t suitable – but if you use that shorthand, then I’m sure you’d probably consider Theology of Work to be 90 percent a parachurch ministry, because 90 percent of our engagements are with laypeople directly, rather than in the context of their congregations. People are coming to our website, individually, spontaneously from wherever they happen to be. So, on the one hand, we are doing these pastor-training programs, starting in Spanish, but hopefully, increasingly in other languages, to help churches be more compelling. That’s what this Lilly program is all about. They gave 81 grants last year, so they’re not just depending on our little organization. They really believe, as we do, that churches can become more compelling through the preaching, primarily by reaching people, equipping people for daily life. And that will swim up against the tide, or hopefully turn the tide of church attendance.
Before the pandemic, most people thought if you’re Christian, you’re supposed to go to church. Even if they didn’t go to church, I think they thought they’re supposed to. Something about the pandemic changed this, probably more among younger people than older. Even if you’re a Christian, you only go to church for a purpose, a pragmatic purpose of getting equipped, or getting entertained, or who knows what it might be. Although I don’t agree with that mindset, it is the reality we live in. The church is more than capable of providing something really worthwhile that people would say helps them get through the week. If we can be part of that, that’s great.
We’re willing to serve as that one-on-one conduit, when people come to us outside of the church because they have a pressing issue, and they hope that we can help them. The challenge we’re facing there is AI. People find us mostly by Googling. They’ll have a question like “What does the Parable of the Talents mean?” Or the number-one is “What’s my calling?” Our number two is “Help, I have a bad boss.” Those are the two top reasons people come to us. Those haven’t changed, but what’s happening now is, along with the rest of the internet, 20 percent to 30 percent of the people now get a response that offers an AI summary of the answer to their question. Only then, below that, so far they never bother to scroll, they get the links. So instead of coming to our website through a link, they read the AI; not surprisingly, the theological capability of Google’s AI is pretty low. We’d be fine if AI gave them reliable answers, even if they didn’t necessarily credit the Theology of Work Project, because we don’t depend on a revenue stream from Google search. It’s just making it a lot more challenging to reach people at the same time that church attendance is making it more challenging.
Greg
Well, that’s a pretty big challenge. New enough that you don’t have to have an answer yet for how we deal with that. But I’m sure we all need to be thinking about it.
Will
Just today, I got a demonstration of AI on our own website. About a quarter of our users come to us directly. They’re looking for an answer quickly. They don’t want to scroll, they don’t want to browse. So, we actually have an AI so we control the universe, not necessarily only our own material, but we control the universe that it’s trained on. I don’t think Google is going to maintain the same domination; I think there’ll be lots of different AI interfaces. So, the problem gets more complex, but also not under the control of just one algorithm that they won’t even tell you how it works. So I’m actually pretty hopeful about the way forward.
Greg
I’m sure that many of our viewers are going to come to this with a different initial impression of AI. So that’s a fascinating perspective, if it’s helpful, especially if you control what it’s trained on, which seems to be one of the primary challenges for AI. For many of us in the academy, AI is first and foremost a source of cheating, and we have to worry about that. But there is a larger issue. I was at a higher education conference where a number of people said, “Well, why don’t we let our students use AI, because they’ll be able to do it in the real world?” And I said, “Well, it depends on what you want them to learn. Do you want them to learn how to process this information at a deeper level?” But since you’re reaching people with a website, I’m glad you have tools that are working.
Will
I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you, but it may to some in academia, that some large percentage, I’m going to say – based on anecdote, not data – for a third of sermons, AI has prepared the first drafts. Some preachers whom I respect have told me privately that’s what they do. That’s where they start. If it takes them two or three hours of writing the first draft, that’s two or three more hours they have to put in the illustrations, or to refine it. You can approve or disapprove, but wouldn’t it be great if they got a more biblically reliable, biblically trained, theologically astute, whatever theological students might need, AI, but that they got an AI that gave them a better first draft.
Greg
Will, it’s always great to talk to you. I remember when you were one of the speakers at our first Karam Forum event, and, in the middle of a panel conversation, you turned to me in the audience and asked, “Greg, how controversial am I allowed to get?” And I said, “Go for it.” And you talked about how the PhD trains people in a too-narrow and over-specialized mindset (you’re not the only person in our group who thinks that). It’s great to have the hot and spicy opinions that we always serve up in Karam Fellowship. But Will, thanks so much for joining us.
Will
My pleasure, Greg.
Will Messenger, executive editor, Theology of Work Project
