What’s more impressive than a seminary that has an annual weeklong seminar on theology of work that gathers the president, administrators, faculty, staff and student leaders to talk about how we can glorify God in our work at the school? How about a project in the most challenged neighborhoods of Cape Town that empowers the most vulnerable to serve and provide through the dignity of work?
Karam Forum is proud to host an annual Global Session, connecting with theological educators in different parts of the world to hear front-line reports on what God is doing in their midst. Past sessions have focused on Australia and Asia. At Karam Forum 2022, our focus was Africa. We heard from Bernard Boyo of Daystar University in Kenya, who shared how his school gathers for a full week each year to explore how God works through their work, and Linda Chonco of Regent College, who described ministry in Cape Town.
Below are selections from the conversation. Check out the full video for more!
Bernard Boyo: Daystar University’s Annual Weeklong Theology of Work Seminar
If you are familiar with Daystar, we are a Christian non-denominational university, and one of our core values is to ensure that we retain our Christian distinctiveness, both in teaching as well as in work. And therefore, the top leadership of the university has always been interested in ensuring that both the teaching staff and the non-teaching staff bears that vision and that mission.
And therefore we have had a series of trainings for all our teaching staff in the area of integration of faith and life. The need to have that arose out of the desire to ensure that those who are working at the university themselves are well equipped. And so we carried sessions on integration of faith and life.
And then we noted that there was a great desire to rethink how we work. And through the funding that came from the Mustard Seed Foundation, we were able to get a grant to carry out a theology-of-work training seminar, which we carried out – a whole week – once a year for the last six years.
Now that is amazing. And who gets to go to that? Is it just the faculty, or is it all staff at the university?
We started, actually, with the very top leadership, from the Vice Chancellor – that’s the president of the school – the management, and the senate, the teaching staff and the non-teaching staff, as well as student leaders. Because we noted that they are also very critical in terms of inculcating values to the rest of the students….
We cover issues related to workplace and worldview, stewardship and ethics, our workplace, culture and decision making. We look at issues that have to do with the transformation of not only the institution, but also how we…can be able to be a conduit of Christ, to be able to transform nations….Also looking at professions, career and God’s calling.
But most specifically we look at the area of work and spirituality. Because that is very core and, essentially, we engage significantly on God’s calling….We consider that God calls us in whatever area of our work, so that we can render service to him, and therefore issues of giftedness and teamwork, issues of professionalism, issues of employee-employer engagement. And we try to relate that to our strategic plan, so that we can be able to incorporate it within what the university is all about.
Of course, we engage a little bit with African realities. You know, what we call ABCD – the assets-based community development approach. So, in a sense, we are able to incorporate every aspect of the university – those who are part of the leadership of the university, and those who are teaching the students, so that we can all say that we are living the faith that we profess.
Linda Chonco: Restoring Work and Dignity in Cape Town
Cape Town – as many people know, it’s a very beautiful city. But at the same time, there’s lots of inequality in Cape Town and in our country. We currently have a 33% unemployment rate, and that excludes those who have actually given up even searching for work.
And so, our project focused on people who are unemployed, and it was started by our church, particularly in the townships where I grew up with this. It’s also informal settlements, and people said:
There are no jobs. They cannot find jobs. They don’t know how to. They don’t have resources.
And when we did an assessment with businesses around at the time – that was before the recession – and businesses were saying: Well, we do have jobs, but people are not work ready. And there are so many issues that obviously contribute to that in in our context in South Africa. People don’t have access to internet, computers, and education levels are not necessarily helpful either. And then also just the brokenness of families.
Some basics that people take for granted at work. I’ll use a silly example: understanding that if you are not coming to work, you contact your manager, rather than your manager having to phone and ask, “Where are you?”
And so we came up with the training, which we felt was holistic, which was going to help people. And as we did this, we also discovered something….Yes, people need tools, how to put together – how to find work, and how to be in the workplace. But there’s homelessness. There are the issues that are standing in the way of people actually even being able to show up for that interview as themselves.
And so, we had to look at issues like identity. Who am I? Because people then would see themselves and even family members as useless, as hopeless. And in our culture, in which we have extended families, voice, your voice, is important. And sometimes, if you’re not working, the men particularly struggled with this thing. Your importance is no longer important as the head.
And so it’s really been just amazing work, in the sense that we not only see people finding work and able to retain work, but I think the gift really has been just the restored dignity, the sense of purpose and even relationships restored. Because we look at the whole person, and we tell them about Christ. And above all, it’s not more about telling them, it’s about loving them, so they can see that they have worth.
