Show Notes
In this episode of Nuance, Case welcomes Tom Nelson—Lead Senior Pastor of Christ Community Church, founder of Made to Flourish, and award-winning author. Together, they explore the integration of faith and work, the significance of living out one’s faith beyond Sunday, and the Sabbath as a gift rather than a rule. Their conversation also delves into the challenges and benefits of remote work, the ethical implications of AI in the workplace, and the evolving faith-and-work movement that champions community and human flourishing.
Episode Resources:
Why Your Work Matters – https://bakerbookhouse.com/products/598820
Made to Flourish – https://www.madetoflourish.org/
Christ Community Church KC – https://cckc.church/
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website: https://wecolabor.com/
Get to know Case: https://wecolabor.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
Our aim on Nuance is to live our faith well unto the Lord in the public square, right? Well, let me tell you about the various public squares or plazas in Kansas City, Missouri, the home of today’s guest. There’s Country Club Plaza, sometimes just simply called The Plaza, Kansas City’s most famous shopping, dining, and entertainment district. With Spanish-inspired architecture, fountains, and regular events, it’s a must-visit for locals and tourists alike. Then there’s Barney Allis Plaza, a public square in downtown Kansas City right across from the municipal auditorium near the convention center. It hosts concerts, festivals, and other community events. There’s Crown Center Square, part of the Crown Center complex, home to Hallmark Cards headquarters. You know, that little crown logo you’ll see on your greeting cards. Well, it has all sorts of seasonal attractions, ice skating in the winter, festivals in the winter months, warmer months, and then the power and light district. Technically a district rather than a single Plaza, but it’s got a central courtyard that hosts KC Live! It serves as a gathering spot for concerts and such. Now, I don’t know if you, our listener, has visited any of these popular places in Kansas City, but our guest today certainly has. I’m grateful to have Tom Nelson, a well-seasoned pastor and an excellent voice in the arena of faith and work integration. He’s here to share about his new book and his deep well of wisdom on living for Jesus out there in the public square. Tom, welcome. I really appreciate you being here.
Tom Nelson
Case, it’s a delight to be with you and thanks for highlighting Kansas City right now anyway. You might start pretty big deal here.
Case Thorp
Well, you know, I wonder…now, we’re recording this before the Super Bowl. It will land afterwards, but I imagine the Chiefs are your prediction.
Tom Nelson
Of course, we’re all going through the repeat, the city has been electric. We’ve actually been spoiled for years. I mean, seven championships, anyway, so it’s amazing. But yeah, thank you for highlighting Kansas City. It’s great.
Case Thorp
Yeah, well, I don’t have a team in the match, but I will be supporting the Chiefs as well. You know, just to see Taylor all excited. Now I’m curious if any of those plazas and squares I mentioned, any of those your favorite or a preferred place to be?
Tom Nelson
Yes, the Country Club Plaza has all kinds of memories. Liz and I have in our marriage, we’ve been here a long time, and special times, special holidays, special valentines. The Country Club Plaza is a beautiful place. And so yeah, we have lots of memories. Country Club Plaza, that’s my favorite.
Case Thorp
Well, I’ve only come to Kansas City actually to visit you and Made to Flourish and it was in the dead of winter. Both of those times it was pretty miserable.
Tom Nelson
Yes, yeah we do have a winter right now. January’s been a hard winter and February doesn’t look too great right now.
Case Thorp
Well to our viewers and friends, welcome to Nuance where we seek to be faithful in the public square. I’m Case Thorp and I want to encourage you to like, subscribe, share; our numbers have really been growing. And when you do that, it helps us to get this good news and solid theology out even further. Well, so a bit about Tom Nelson, he’s an award winning author and speaker who started Christ Community Church, a multi-site congregation in Kansas City. He also founded and serves as executive chairman of Made to Flourish, a national nonprofit that helps church leaders get equipped for people every day, day to day life at work and in the economy. Tom is one of the founding council members of the Gospel Coalition and used to be on the leadership team of the Oikonomia Network. He’s the author of several books and his latest one to release soon is Why Your Work Matters from Brazos Press. Tom and his wife Liz live in Leewood, Kansas and they have two grown children. So Tom, what’d I miss? What do you want people to know about you?
Tom Nelson
The biggest thing is we now have a granddaughter. So that’s very cool. But no, thank you for that kind introduction. Yeah. It’s great to be with you.
Case Thorp
Is she your first and only granddaughter?
Tom Nelson
Yes, she’s my first and only at this point. And I guess grandparents are supposed to have nicknames. I’m Pops.
Case Thorp
Pops. Okay, what’s Liz called?
Tom Nelson
Nellie. Nellie and Pops. Nellie, yeah, because Nelson, I think that’s kind of, but Nellie. Pops and Nellie.
Case Thorp
Okay, Pops and Nellie. That’s great. Well, so Tom, I mean, you have been such a mentor to me through this faith and work conversation. I, for our listeners to know, got to work with Made to Flourish for a number of years. And as we grew the Collaborative, I was gleaning both from Redeemer’s Center for Faith and Work in New York City, and then the Made to Flourish work in Kansas City. And I felt like these two organizations and their leaders were so generous to, and I just have in mind two pictures pouring out from those cities down here on little Orlando, Florida. So in fact, Tom, I don’t know if you know that I tell people this, but I describe you as the Tim Keller of the Midwest.
Tom Nelson
That’s an honor. He was a great, great person.
Case Thorp
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, and of course he was the Tom Nelson of Manhattan.
Tom Nelson
I don’t think so. I’m the who’s that with the who’s who, but that’s okay. Tim was an amazing, a good friend and an amazing leader. We miss him.
Case Thorp
Absolutely. There is a hole in the conversation for sure. Well, I wanted you to know, and I want our listeners to know about one of your books, The Economics of Neighborly Love. And Tom, I use this with my Gotham Fellows. The other text that was recommended, it just didn’t go over as well. And this book, wow, it really helps folks to think about Jesus’ command to love our neighbor and where our work and the economy plays into that.
Tom Nelson
Fantastic. It encourages me, I mean for all of us we have our little loaves and fishes, right? They may not be that great but God can multiply them. I’m thrilled by the reception of that book.
Case Thorp
Well, I’ll put that in our show notes for those that are interested. So this latest book to come out, Why Your Work Matters, I understand it’s like a refresh, a redo of your first book that came out, yes?
Tom Nelson
Yeah, it is. I’ve never done this before, Case, but it is fascinating. Several people came to me and said, work matters. It came out in like 2010. I was one of the earlier sort of pastors to write on this and God used the book in wonderful ways. And there have been many great resources around work since then, even by pastors such as Tim, you know, and Catherine. But I think having been deeply involved in this conversation for a long time now and one of the trust thought leaders, at least contributors in the national movement…many people came to me said, we want to redo Work Matters in the sense like we want to take the best of Work Matters and update it. So I actually went with Brazos Press. I love IVP, but we went with Brazos. And the book is about 80% new content, actually. It follows the biblical narrative, which is the best part, I think, of Work Matters of how, you know, the creation of work, the fall of work, the redemption of work, the consummation of future work, and Jesus as a carpenter. So that framing stays. The first five chapters are updated with a lot of more thought that I’ve given to it. And then the last six are brand new. And it makes the transition to things like technology and work, seasons of work, burnout, our mission of work on Monday. So it is also designed not primarily for pastors. We hope pastors will love it and give it to their congregation as an equipping tool. But it’s really more and more written for that congregant in mind, that thoughtful congregant who wants to really love out their faith on Monday. So we are really hopeful in all the good resources in this conversation that this book will be a foundational one and that’s our hope with Made to Flourish. We’re really hopeful and we think it’s a much better book, more up-to-date book. So we’re hoping it’ll be a good contribution.
Case Thorp
I’ve always been moved by the way in which you use the word malpractice. I’ve heard you describe your early years of pastoral ministry with that particular word, and I think it’s just powerful, number one, the word itself, but also the honesty and transparency in how you use it. Would you share with us that story and that journey?
Tom Nelson
Sure, I would love to. I think it is the right word, at least for me, coming out of my own conviction. But yes, many years ago now, it’s over 20 some years ago, I stood before my congregation and pastors have a hard time making confession. We say confession is good for the soul but hard for pastors. So I don’t know who all your listeners are, but pastors were interesting creatures. But I really admit it to my congregation that I had failed them. And usually when a pastor makes a confession, you can hear a pin drop because it’s often around financial malfeasance or moral compromise, but this was a significant failure on my part and that was a theological impoverishment that led to my pastoral impoverishment. So I said to them, you know, this is not intentional, a lot of malpractice is not intentional, but because I’m in impoverished theology that profoundly misinformed my pastoral calling and paradigm and equipping focus, that I had spent the majority of my time, in the first 10 years or so, eight years of my pastoral work, the majority of my time equipping God’s people for the slimmest minority of their life. I was focused more on how well I did on Sunday than how God’s people lived out their faith on Monday. So I call it, Case, the majority minority disparity, that I’d spent the majority of my time equipping God’s people, which is to be my calling as a pastor, right? Help their formation, their mission. But I’d spend the smallest amount of time thinking and helping them think and apply God’s truth to their majority of their life. So that was malpractice. And I talked about the Sunday to Monday gap and my thinking because of my impoverished theology and impoverished pastoral paradigm and practice that that was going to change. So we’ve been in one little space in Kansas City trying to live in the last 25 years, it probably is now, living more into a more integral theology and a more integral mission that helps connect next Sunday to Monday. So yeah, that was the moment.
Case Thorp
How did your people receive that confession?
Tom Nelson
Well I think the first point would be they were surprised because I’ve always taken the scripture seriously and I believe a big part of a pastoral role, especially teaching role, is to teach God’s word. And many of them knew I’d spent a lot of time studying the scriptures, you know, with education and degrees. And I could see the kind of curious look like, you mean you missed this? You know, like you’ve been in the Bible, that’s your calling, pastor. So I think at first it was shock, a little bit of shock and awe, but it was a sense like, let me see. So we did an extensive series on a biblical theology of work on a Sunday morning and it was so riveting and so transformational to me and to our people that that really began to help set the change of a trajectory for Christ’s community and our focus, our culture and our mission.
Case Thorp
I Imagine there might have been some that said oh It wasn’t money or flandering. You know, it’s fine Tom. It’s fine, you’re a good guy and that might have been a little disappointing or frustrating.
Tom Nelson
Well, yeah, I think some of that, Case, was probably the reality. I think because our community here is imperfect like any local church community, but there’s a deep sense of loving God with our mind, heart and our hands. And I think because there was a deep sense of heart and hands, they took my confession to heart that I was being authentic and real. They took it seriously and then they knew that the life of the mind mattered.
Case Thorp
They took it seriously.
Tom Nelson
And so to think biblically and theologically and handle God’s word well was a value. So because of that, it was shocking. It challenged them, but I think they were more like, okay, let’s see. What do you mean? And there was an eagerness and then yeah, when we begin to connect the biblical dots from creation, from Genesis to Revelation, there was a lot of aha moments.
Case Thorp
It intrigued people. Well, thank you. That I think helps set the table, if you will, and frame for people why these conversations matter. Our podcast is aimed at Christian professionals. And I’m always careful or strategic when I speak with pastors that they make the connections with the dots. And what I love about what you’re saying there is not only your theological and biblical convictions, but even you in your own workplace, in your own work context. At the Collaborative, we being rooted at First Pres Orlando and then launched from there would often turn the mirror around and go okay, well, just because we’re Christians in ministry technically in the vocational ministry doesn’t mean we’ve integrated our faith in work and need to do that.
Tom Nelson
Yes. I think that’s exactly right. It’s easy for us to be surrounded with God stuff or even studying and talking about God, but not living into the fullness of what it means that he is present. The Spirit empowers us for our work. It’s very easy to be Christian deists as pastors, and that’s a real tragedy, but it is easy to have that Sunday to Monday gap.
Case Thorp
Well, and I see folks who are very intentional about their faith with regular Bible study and worship and growing in the Lord, but yet then never making that jump to, oh, how…
Tom Nelson
Yes, and may I just suggest, Case, I mean, you know this too, but like, if we understand the biblical theology and a whole life discipleship and that Jesus wants to be a part of every part of our life, then we understand that our Sunday does matter. We talk about that, that gathered corporate worship space is vital.
Case Thorp
Yeah, this movement doesn’t diminish that.
Tom Nelson
No, but the primary place for our worshiping God and what we do and how we love others is Monday. Not just Sunday or the primary place where we are spiritually formed is Monday, not just Sunday. In the primary place we have a gospel mission. And the common good and loving our neighbors is really Monday more than Sunday. So it’s not to minimize Sunday but to say that whole week God has called us to live whole life discipleship and bring all of Christ and Christian faith into everything we are and think and do.
Case Thorp
So in the book, Why your Work Matters, you lean into the issue of Sabbath. And I’m always wanting folks to know that when we talk about Sabbath, we don’t mean 1950s, don’t buy any liquor and stay at home, don’t play baseball. It’s more of a biblical understanding. It’s really tough to keep even today. So how do you suggest people understand it better and then understand boundaries to meet the demands of modern work?
Tom Nelson
Yeah, that’s such a big and important question. It’s an area that I’ll just say it’s a little bit of a confession to your listeners and to you. Even though I was deeply invested in the Torah and the depth of the Hebrew text, I didn’t spend enough time thinking about Sabbath. Okay. I’ve done a lot more thinking and praying and trying to live into it. So I’m just saying that’s an area of regret in my life and I threw the baby out with the bath water. So I’m just saying I am recovering. I mean I am still processing this. It’s a really important conversation. I just did a message at our church last Sunday on Sabbath. So a couple of things I would say. One is that God designed the Sabbath within creation, not as primarily some rule keeping endeavor, but relational deepening. It’s a gift, it’s designed to be a gift, not only for us, but for the earth. I quote a study in my message at Amherst University of Massachusetts, a study that if everybody on the globe, think about it, everyone on the globe took one day off from strong consumption and activity, 30% of the carbon footprint would disappear. So, I’m not making any political statement. I’m just saying the biblical design of work and rest, the six to one, the weekly distinct day that is not for efficiency, productivity, but for relationship, right, and for beauty, for slowing down and rest is a brilliant creation design. Of course, it’s reinforced in the Ten Commandments. You know, we always say the Ten Commandments are in ten suggestions. And the fourth one is not a suggestion. Now again, it gets lost in the weeds and that’s why we have to be careful it doesn’t get cluttered. But it’s really beautiful.
Case Thorp
Well, I don’t know if I got, maybe I got this from you, but the idea that if you were a slave in Egypt as our coveted ancestors, the Jews were, and you are slinging mud bricks seven days a week, like a Sabbath is a gift. It is counter-cultural. Like here’s a gift for you to actually rest. Did I get that from you?
Tom Nelson
Yes, yes, it is creational, it’s countercultural, and in Mark, for example, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus, what he does, he doesn’t eliminate the Sabbath distinct one day of a week. He reframes it and he addresses the clutter, right, of religious legalism and the suffocation of what it had become. So I do think, first of all, I think we should recover a distinct one day a week. Now, what day that is and some of our economic well-being, it’s a variety for different people. However, I would say for most followers of Jesus, Sunday is probably the best time because the ancient Sabbath was also a communal experience. So as followers of Jesus on the Lord’s Day, part of that Sabbath break is corporate worship together. So I think it’s really important that all of God’s people look at their week and look at one day that’s distinct, that is different than the rest. And ideally, I think it’s Sunday for many. But if that’s impossible, I think there’s a justice. Remember, principles are important here, and patterns, and pacing. It’s not just a rigid template that you have to fit into someone else. Seasons of life will affect it. But I don’t think it’s just to be spiritualized as an idea. I think there’s a creation rhythm of one and six that we apply to our cultural context, but it will be countercultural. It will require priority changes, lifestyle adjustments. I mean, I’m not minimizing that. When I just did this message, people were going, how do I do this? What’s the rhythm in a modern world? So we can talk more about that, but I do think if we care deeply about God’s design, we’re going to care deeply about our work, paid and unpaid work, and our faith informs that, but also our day of rest. And hopefully, for some and more, a sabbatical that’s an extended deepening period of rest periodically.
Case Thorp
And that rest, like you say, is not this legalism. If you don’t do it, God’s upset. It’s a gift of renewal. It is a chance to recharge and we need that. What would be some of those specifics that you’ve leaned into particularly with our phones?
Tom Nelson
It’s a gift. Yeah, I’ve said several things. One of the things, first of all, I think it’s a time of recharging, but it’s also a deep, I mean, Abraham Heschel wrote the best book on the Sabbath I’ve ever read. He reminds us that the Sabbath is not an interlude. It’s not just instrumental. It’s the climax of living. So I want us to also see it as yes. It does help recharge us, right? It’s designed like, give it a rest, right? But it’s also designed to be that special space of the light and beauty and relationships and joy. As Lewis would say, it’s the scent of the flower not yet seen. It’s the appetizer. It’s Edenic in the past. We remember where we’ve come from. It’s a taste of Eden, but it’s a foretaste of what is to come in Jesus. So it’s the scent of a flower not yet seen, a city not yet visited. It’s Lewis’s language of inconsolable longing. So we say that Sabbath itself is meant to be enticing, deepening, beautiful.
And how you do that, I know we need to get practical here a little bit, but like how you begin to do that I think requires first of all a deep sense of understanding what it is and what it’s for. So you guard against legalism, you guard against heavy rule keeping, you get the big picture of why. And then it’s deeply relational with God and with others. And it’s deeply about beauty and it’s deeply about slowing down and delighting in being and not just contribution, consumption and productivity. So these are the biggest principles. How you apply it, of course, is gonna be different for a season with three small kids versus an empty nester. But I do think there are principles that first of all, how are you taking baby steps to make one day of your week distinct that is not about productivity, it’s not about consumption, it’s not really…
Case Thorp
And by that, you mean work productivity for your job. Maybe that rest and renewal is going out to your carpentry shop or working in your garden. Yeah, it may have product as a part of it, but it’s about the act itself, not necessarily the outcome.
Tom Nelson
Yes, I think so. And I think the biggest thing I want to encourage people is that however you carve out your Sabbath day, it’s a time for deepening intimacy with God and deepening intimacy with those you love. And I would say also your faith community. So I see it as deeply tied to beauty. And maybe that in the garden you’re just in nature, that the beauty of that of God’s design. Because it seems to me when we do Sabbath we cease from our work to focus on God’s work. Just like God focused on His when he rested. So creation. How do you immerse yourself in beauty and creation to focus on God’s work but not on creation but redemption in Jesus and His future place He’s gonna make for us in heaven one day. So I think the principles have to guide us and then we have freedom. Like how do we make this day around those realities? Then technology, yes. Some of that technology you gotta at least minimize a great deal because that’s distracting and you need time for attentiveness. I mean there’s much more we can talk about, you know that.
Case Thorp
Well, I’m very grateful for a friend of my life, Brett Allen. He’s our minister of family life at the church and just has taught me so much about Sabbath. And when you say the word consumption there, stepping away from Amazon, stepping away from I need to spend or I have to spend because so much of our life is about spending. I was moved recently with a report about how children four and five years old know how to open a parent’s phone, go to Amazon and pick something out and like, wow, we’re training them young, aren’t we? And I think many people, again, not in a rigid way, but really eliminate almost all screen time on that day. I mean, phone’s put in a drawer, I mean, if there’s an emergency, like to, you know, again, to eliminate a lot of the screen time so you have incarnational relational time with God and others.
Yeah, my son and I talked about that on the phone this morning about the phones driving into school this morning. And I said, look, I’m just as guilty as you. So we’re going to make some good commitments and hold each other accountable. And that’s a good thing. Well, so Sabbath, this issue in our modern world that needs to be rethought, you’ve done that. You also in your book, look at the whole change we’ve experienced since COVID and working remotely, or hybrid setups, we don’t see our coworkers as much face to face. Just this week, JP Morgan Chase is opening a brand new skyscraper in Manhattan. And with it, they are calling all their workers back that we’ve built this and we want everybody here face to face. So talk to us about like physical distance and how that affects our ability to really understand and bear witness to the people we work with.
Tom Nelson
Yeah, I’m not an expert at this. I have had lots of conversations with a lot of people on different vocations on this. So a couple of things I would simply say, principle-wise, I’m not surprised, not that I have some great insight, that there’s more of a movement after COVID for a while to have more incarnational combination, whether it’s hybrid or in office every day. I’m not surprised from a creation standpoint, because we are not only people of time, we are people of space and place.
And so I think there are things that can be accomplished remotely with technology can be a gift But it’s driven mainly by efficiency rather than incarnational proximity and so I think you have to have a little bit of tension there as a Christian. Like there’s an incredible goodness of incarnation proximity face to face embodied, indwelling relationship, whether it’s nurturing a culture and a corporation, whether it’s creative innovation. It doesn’t mean that nothing can be done through technology like this, but I do think we need to be very discerning about the idolatry of efficiency and continue to watch that. Like AI, I just had this conversation this morning. AI, there’s lots of debate about AI, but one of the pushbacks of AI is its potential loss of certain incarnational aspects of human creativity and so forth. So I think remote work can be really a blessing. I think of its flexibility for many people, state of spouses, gig kind of things you can do. But I think the deepening aspect of our relational being requires more and more intentionality around incarnation, incarnational community.
Case Thorp
After COVID, or maybe through it, but afterwards, how did you lead your staff in their work placement?
Tom Nelson
Well, after COVID, I mean, in COVID, we were all, right, scrambling, trying to figure out how to do this with what limitations we had. Pretty quickly, we realized that, yes, it would be an exception if we did remote work, because we are all, Christ’s community, unlike me, we’re all in the same city.
Case Thorp
You have several campuses.
Tom Nelson
We have several campuses, but we meet together in a common location. We supplement that if someone’s ill, if there’s some particular circumstance, like a stay-at-home spouse with a sick child. Certainly people come in on Zoom or on a platform, we make a priority incarnational. And we did it pretty quickly. We’re going to be sensitive people, but concerned about sickness and so forth of COVID. But we’re deeply committed to that. And for us, we also saw our online presence as not primarily another community that is a substitute from an incarnational Sunday morning. And I’m not making criticisms of anybody else, but as an option for those who couldn’t be here on Sunday morning to participate some in the worship service. We’ve moved very much non-remote, incarnational, Made to Flourish. We have some remote employees, but literally this week all of them are in town, Kansas City, spending a week together. So there’s probably a good combination, but we need to value community, we need to value relationships, we need to value the embodiment of people and place. And I think that’s a plus for the Christian church and for Christians.
Case Thorp
Well, the temptation is to cheapen it, like you say, for the ideal of efficiency. I do some consulting with churches and I was with some leaders who, one raised the prospect of let’s turn off our online worship and hey, maybe find a login element to, for the homebound or the rare person that travels. Well, not the rare person, there’s a lot that travels, let’s don’t enable our people to disembody their faith and that really a silence fell over the room.
Tom Nelson
Well, again, I know I have friends that do more of that and see this as a strategic outreach across the country. But I do think, I mean, for us, that’s how we’ve approached it as one local church trying to live out our mission and affirm the goodness of incarnational community. We think the local church, that’s one of the greatest things we add to our culture right now is the importance of incarnational connection when we know that loneliness and mental health is at the highest level.
I mean, the local church is not just an information figurehead to the world. We have good information and truth. We want to get that out. But we’re a community. So we’ve moved more that way. I’m not saying that’s all right, but we really believe that’s important. I think that’s true in the workplace. So I tend to want to at least move to hybrid, if not encourage more more face to encounter. I think there’s greater innovation, greater creativity, greater cultural transformation. And so I think there are lots of reasons why we should be less focused on pure remote and at least do allow some hybrid and encourage more and more face to face.
Case Thorp
Well, the statistics show and even sociological studies that an individual who’s rooted in a faith community has a much higher quality of life, even longer life. And it’s that life on life engagement that keeps you engaged, keeps you growing the ups and downs of emotions and conversation and relationship keep you healthy. Now, you hit AI just a moment ago and wow, that’s certainly a big topic on everybody’s lips right now. Tell us more about what your research showed and what you’re thinking in the AI direction with our faith.
Tom Nelson
Yeah, thank you. First of all, I want to say I’m not an expert in this at all. I did do some of it in the new book. I tried to glean the best wisdom from very smart people. That is a constant, I mean, it’s growing and changing every day. So you put your words down in a book, it’s frozen in time. So I just want to make that disclaimer. I think a few things we need to think through. I’m not saying I’m a Luddite, but I do think we need to have some caution on AI and let me just give you the environmental one. That’s not usually talked about, but we know more and more the massive amount of power, electrical, how it’s changing that. And I’m just saying that’s a factor. That’s not left or right. I mean, very smart people are saying the amount of electrical power and fossil fuels and whatever power, nuclear power to do this is growing really fast. So I just think that’s practically like, what does that mean for us as a society and for the environment? And again, I’m not making any political statements. I’m just saying, I don’t hear about that. I think I read more for the book about the existential challenges of AI taking over, what it empowers one individual in a garage in LA to do that would destroy the world kind of thing. I mean, they’re very smart people concerned about the potential existential crisis with AI. Having said that, I do see some real efficiency pieces like in, you know, how do you manage things? It’s a good research assistant sometimes for certain things. But I also, and this is true in more of the creatives and intellectual property, there’s a lot of concern about what AI is doing in plagiarism or what plagiarism is, what open source is. So anyway, I have concerns about intellectual property, about the creative parts of this, human parts of creativity. And so I do have some concerns about, so we need to navigate it carefully. I think we should have policies for it. Like how do we navigate it the best we can as an organization, we’re doing that as a church. How does it relate to sermon preparation? How does it relate to doing an email, how does it to policy formulation? We’re not there yet, but I do think we need to try to have some guidelines for it.
Case Thorp
I often use ChatGPT to list out three or four scriptures that I’m looking at at one time or even reading aloud when we do our Formed for Faithfulness podcast. I read three scriptures over the course of that episode. And so I would put those in and they would pull them up. Well, and I use the NIV translation. Well, this week I was doing some recording and I put in the scriptures in NIV and it came up and it said, sorry, that is copyright protected. The King James is not, so I’ll give you those. I mean, and I thought, well now there’s a change. There’s a change.
Tom Nelson
Okay, well, I appreciate them protecting that order. Yeah, yeah. I find in different vocations, we’re listening to different vocations, I find a much more openness to the efficiency and the help in a lot of business contexts for policy formulation, for strategy. I find large pushback against this from many creative vocational colleagues, artists, writers, because of some of that potential. So I think I just share that as well.
Case Thorp
Well, as a father, my heart has been heavy. I have a daughter, sophomore in college, son, freshman in college, and a seventh grader. And I was helping my freshman son edit one of his papers. And he’s working so hard and he’s trying. And I thought, you know, how many just do the AI thing and don’t go through this struggle in this learning and how unfair that is for him. And then I’m on the other end working with my seventh grader who’s just now learning to put an argument together and form a paragraph. And these are good growing pains I want for them. And yet I can imagine in the theory in school and they watch their peers just punch these things away in an AI module and it’s it’s it’s different. It’s very different.
Tom Nelson
Yeah, we need discernment. Boy, we do that as a culture. We need discernment. But as individual followers of Jesus, we do.
Case Thorp
And I want Christians at the forefront of the technology who are shaping ethical foundations now that will perhaps last for generations. That’s to me one of the reasons why we have to help integrate faith and work.
Tom Nelson
You’re right. It’s a gift. Yes.
Case Thorp
Well, you have certainly been a leading voice in the faith and work movement and a leading organizer and doer through Made to Flourish and otherwise. I’m curious now, I mean, I’ve been in this space for, well, we’re celebrating our 10 year anniversary with Collaborative. Woohoo! And I’m curious your take on where is the movement overall and where do you see it going next?
Tom Nelson
Wonderful. Congratulations. Yeah, a couple thoughts I have. I don’t know if it’s great wisdom. I do think we’ve moved from what I call me to we. In earlier days, so much of the faith and work conversation was about my fulfillment, my work. And I still think that’s really good, but I think we’ve moved to also the implications of our collective work and that’s what just deals with economics. And we talk a lot about faith work and economics of giving access, of dealing with disparities in wealth and building capacity. And I just think there’s more of an economic realization that this collective conversation is more than just my work. It’s how our work brings human flourishing. And again, the economics of neighbor love came out of that movement to try to move it from just what I call me to we. I do think right now I’m most encouraged by the work around more about understanding human well-being, both as a worker and as a “rest-or,” if I may use that language. And I think particularly important right now is the conversation with Kirk Thompson and others in interpersonal neurobiology, that we’re beginning to understand more about human wellbeing and how we are neurologically wired and how relationships are really important in collaboration for healing, creativity, beauty. So I think that’s where I’m spending more time thinking about not only my work on Monday, but what does it mean to be a flourishing worker, a human being? And what does interpersonal neurobiology and neuroscience help me in understanding what it means to be known and to know others?
It’s deeply relational. And I’m not pushing back against technology and strategy and these things are a part of our workplace, but we’re learning more and more how deeply relational we are both for creativity, innovation, for healing, for wholeness, the mere neurons, so forth. So I’m hoping that in this movement, there’s more of a sense of not just work has meaning, which is huge from a Victor Frankl standpoint and goodness and challenges, of course, but how do we flourish in our work and how does that relate to how we are wired in community. The other thing I would say we just talked about, is I’m doing much more to think about the importance of work and rest rhythms, which is really bringing back a weekly Sabbath, the importance of it. And I do think it is beautiful in itself for human flourishing, but I think my sense is God’s design also on those six days, if we are doing a one day true rest, it’s gonna profoundly impact those six days and our joy, our creativity and energy. We don’t do it just for that, but I’m gonna spend more time and I think more of us are thinking about how rest and work are really important to talk together more. And I probably didn’t do enough in my early days to talk about rest. So I think movement needs to talk more about wholeness, well-being, mental health, wholeness, and how that’s a reality in the Monday world, or how you help nourish a culture of more wholeness and flourishing in your workplace, and the values and so forth.
Case Thorp
Right, right. I have been a little tired the last couple of years of hearing a lot of the same topics discussed again and again, and have been asking myself, okay, what’s next? What, what are the new horizons that need to be explored through this work? And so I appreciate those that you’ve shared. I also bring to attention Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando’s Institute for Faith, Work, and Culture. Have you come across their work?
Tom Nelson
I have, yes, it’s good work. Yes, I know Damein. Good work.
Case Thorp
With Damien Schitter and he has a TED’s PhD, Trinity Evangelical, your alma mater. And he is leaning in with deep theologians to work theologically through a lot of the foundational doctrines that relate to the faith and work conversation and sort of kind of going back and filling in the foundations and the gaps. But with the aim toward the practitioners in the space so that we then can be better equipped as we reach out to the larger population. Their work is pretty dense, pretty heavy academic wise, and so it wouldn’t be for the broadest of audiences. But for someone like me and my peers, it really feeds the soul, it feeds the mind that I think makes our teaching all the more rich.
Tom Nelson
Yeah, it’s such a deep well. I mean, that was part of my confession because even though I’d studied theology and systematics, I didn’t have the, and I’m constantly learning the level of robust theology, biblical theology that is the foundation of this conversation. So I am excited about more of that. And I think it’s very rich and the new book has more, it’s more robust, but it’s very accessible on the theological foundations. I’m very encouraged by their work. Yes.
Case Thorp
Well, Tom, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. And so I want to encourage everyone to check out why your work matters, how God uses our everyday vocations to transform us, our neighbors and the world. Well, friends, thank you for joining us. Remember, like share, leave a comment really helps us to get the word out. Go to wecolabor.com for all sorts of content, our website, give us your email and we’ll send you a 31 day faith and work prompt journal. Glad to send it to your snail mailbox. If you give us an email, you can find us across all the social media platforms. Don’t forget our weekly 10 minute devotional for the working Christian called Formed for Faithfulness. It follows the liturgical calendar and helps equip one for the day to day. Want to thank our sponsor for today, the Magruder foundation. I’m Case Thorp, and God’s blessings on you.
