My reflections on Engage conference (part 3)
I want to raise a concern I had about the weekend. I’m not sure if I misread or misunderstood the vibe. If you were there, can you please let me know what your impressions were? If you were there and disagree with my impressions, please comment, so that others who read this don’t get my biased view.
My concern is that it felt very this-worldly. One of the reasons I thought this was the video interviews. I don’t want to spoil it for those going this weekend. So, if you are going and don’t want the surprise ruined, please stop reading now. Can I encourage you to read John 5 or Mark 10 instead, in preparation for the talks?
There were four interviews, one for each session. I can’t recall any of them mentioning Jesus. The first was cute, ie involved a small child. The child was asked about work, chores, earning money and the global financial crisis. Yet, for a weekend in which we’re not just thinking about work, but being Christians at work, the kid was never asked about Jesus. Also, if it’s a minister’s kid, and I think it was, chances are they’d be an incredible evangelist and present a great challenge to all of us sitting there.
The second looked fake and inauthentic, as in two guys pretending to be the people they were characterising. There was no depth of either character – one who worked in the fashion industry, one who worked for a charity. People were laughing at them, which I took to support my impression that they weren’t for real. Even if they were, it gave the impression that the one in charity work had a more fulfilling job than the one in the fashion industry. Yet if the fashion guy was a Christian and the charity worker not, then in God’s eyes the first one would be better off. However, the focus was on their jobs and the only comment afterward was mention of these ‘genuine’ people. (If they were genuine, then the jokes on me because it really didn’t look it.)
The third interview was very challenging. A non-Christian woman talking about her job and recognising the sadness of the industry she was a part of. Sure she wasn’t expected to have a Christian worldview, but it didn’t seem like she was even asked about things beyond work, study and her day to day life.
Lastly, and most disturbingly, was a guy who I presume was a Christian (He’s studying theology). He’s also working at making the world a better place. His challenge to a client was to spend a bit of money on an orphanage in a poor country in the world. For though your house and your car won’t love you, at least 60 kids somewhere in the world would. It was disappointing that an interview with a Christian guy didn’t challenge us to consider something beyond our times, this life or this world.
Maybe I’m getting old and grumpy and too uncool for school. I might have misunderstood the purpose of the video interviews. (There were other face-to-face interviews.) It’s just that I would have liked to have seen mentioned Jesus and his impact on those people, or questions that made them ponder about eternity.
Hiya.
I didn’t go to Engage this year, but I was there last year. Sounds similar. My feeling about the video interviews were that they were thoroughly depressing. They were all about how being a Christian out in the workforce is really hard, and it just doesn’t get any easier, you know? Which was a strange theme to run with, I thought.
2 of the live up-front interviews were also strangely pitched. One was with a builder who kept saying that his work was unfulfilling – it sounded like he was wanting to say he was keen on doing ministry, but couldn’t because ‘this is the worker conference’. The other was with Don Carson, and there were a number of embarrassingly bold questions trying to lead him to talk about when he was ‘our’ age and feeling the tug of the world above God, but he was quite resolutely honest (and humble) about his godliness.
It still makes me feel awkward and embarrassed thinking about it.
Sam.
First up I’d like to clarify that I am Josh’s sister in law, a part time worker in secular work and a part time worker in a church.
I did not go to Engage either last or this year but would like to say two things which comment on the ideas you’ve both raised.
Firstly my experience of being a Christian in the workforce is that it is hard, really hard so if that is what the videos from year one (as Sam described) said then they knocked the nail on the head. That said just because it is hard doesn’t make it the wrong option in life pursuit or the wrong option to be a secular worker for the gospel. Secular work has been the place that I have been stretched in my own understanding of God’s work in the world and seen his encouragement of me in action the most, it is where I have been most challenged to find ways to communicate Jesus’ love and God’s power to a bunch of people who have voiced their disdain for God and the church. It is the place I have made the most mistakes as a Christian and made me much more aware of Paul’s call to speak the gospel with gentleness and respect and I hope I have by that, got better at it.
Secondly Josh’s comment on the last video, the guy who was a ‘presumed christian’ I share your concern but think it probably was a really what happens most of the time (not that that is a good thing): the hardest thing I experience at work is how to not tone down the reason for my ‘good deeds’ at work. Most of my colleauges in secular work think my church work is ‘good,nice, charity stuff – helping the community’ (which I hope it is) but if they don’t know that all that stuff is motivated by Christ’s love then to my shame, I have probably woosed out at some point and not been clear about my identity as a christian.
Laura
Sam, I wasn’t at Engage last year, so can’t comment on the specifics.
For both Sam and Laura, I don’t want to give the impression that work is not hard, challenging or unfulfilling. It is hard as I have fond memories of the six years I worked in secular work. That time for me was thought provoking as I tried to work out how to be a Christian in a workplace. I needed to maintain a professional relationship with those around me because I would work with them the following day.
Yet there seemed to be a missed opportunity at a gathering of so many workers away at a conference to not just remind them of the week they’ve just had. Rather to inspire and encourage them to greater godliness. We were in a context without our work colleagues and without the office pressures.
One way I thought this could have been done was through reminding us of the eternal perspective to life Christianity brings.
They were just real people telling their story, JK. They were never meant to be the end in themselves. The speakers proclaimed Christ and the hope we have in him. Workers too.
(Oh, and the kid is just 5 years old! He was just having fun, right? Nothing wrong with that.)
@Justin Moffatt
Justin, of course there’s nothing wrong in having fun. Please don’t hear me saying that.
Also, was I wrong in thinking the second interview was staged? Like I said, I could easily have misunderstood it and am happy to be corrected.
Lastly, I think it is a very powerful thing for real people to tell their story. I guess that’s why I was concerned. If they weren’t an end in themselves, doesn’t this imply the need for comment/reflection afterwards? All the more so since stories are so powerful.
I hope this weekend goes well. I have been praying for you, Tim, the Engage team and the speakers.
The second interview was by no means staged. The two friends spoke for an hour.
Loose ends are OK, aren’t they? Even for powerful stories.
In the second weekend, the speakers — esp William — commented more on the videos.
Thanks for your prayers, JK.