This is a guest post by Ben Stafford, a program associate at the Kern Foundation. Ben has an incredible understanding of the relationship between faith, work, and economics, and the role pastors need to play in helping build up the church more fully in a robust biblical view of vocation.
- How might pastors affirm the basic goodness of work and make it a priority to empower people in their callings and responsibilities outside the walls of the church?
- How might pastors affirm the basic goodness of business and economic activity, and distinguish economic motives and practices based on value creation from those based on value extraction?
- How can churches affirm the importance of work done by the least advantaged and the socially marginalized, and by those whose areas of service are not always understood to be economically valuable.
- How can church leaders Encourage people to live morally and spiritually integrated lives, avoiding language and practices that cultivate a dualistic mindset. (e.g. “I left my job in order to go into full-time ministry”)
The Kern Family Foundation seeks to equip pastors with an understanding of the intersection of faith, work, and economics and empower them to lead their congregations in its active application. In pursuit of this, I would like to invite all interested pastors who see this to apply for membership in Made to Flourish: A Pastors’ Network for the Common Good.
Made to Flourish Pastors and their local church leadership teams are invited to embark on an exciting journey of knowledge-building and church implementation that will, by God’s grace, enable them to embrace daily work in homes, workplaces, and communities as a calling to serve others fruitfully and make the world a better place. In this way, the family, the economy, and the culture become arenas of service where our discipleship contributes to the flourishing of all.
What we have to offer:
- Regional Networks
- A community of likeminded pastors engaging these issues
- Region specific events
- 6 Regional networks, more on the way
- Affinity Groups
- Thought leaders and practitioners facilitating learning in one of the five pastoral pathways of faith, work, economics integration – Theology, Pastoral Care, Compassion, Youth & Family, the Common Good
- Collaborative Learning
- Multi-Year learning environment for church leadership teams to dive deep into implementation of faith, work and economics into their DNA
- Grants
- Knowledge Building – grants for Pastors and their church leadership teams to learn about the integration of faith, work, and economics for ministry that produces human flourishing.
- Church Implementation – grants for churches to take the integration of faith, work, and economics outside the leadership and to the congregation or community.
Interested? You can apply to join here. Have questions? Email Ben here.