Today, TGC carries my article on how churches can help those who lose their jobs to technological change:
The march of technology is relentless, and it is always both creating and destroying jobs. It brings many blessings—spiritual and material—but also great costs. For example, seven of Fast Company’s “Ten Most Endangered Jobs of 2014” are classic blue-collar jobs—mail carriers, meter readers, drill press operators, and so on. I’m surprised they left out restaurant workers, who will soon be facing widespread replacement by touch-screen ordering and kitchen automation…
Over and over in Scripture, we are admonished to pursue and treasure wisdom. Consider Proverbs, or Job’s discourse on wisdom, or the admonitions to growth and maturity in the epistles. When people come into the pastor’s office after losing their jobs, a few canned bullet points on theology of work are not enough. People want to know: Why is this happening? Is God at work in this mysterious and seemingly chaotic process of technological change? What am I supposed to do?
I offer five ideas about what the church can be for those who lose their jobs, including:
The church can be a place where people find healing. In the modern world, public institutions are becoming more and more specialized. Each organization—business, school, government, and so on—exists only to serve its particular function. If you have a problem that isn’t directly related to their function, they won’t help you. Where can people turn to find a place where the whole human being is cared for? In God’s plan, that’s primarily the home and the church. As public institutions become increasingly specialized, the home and the church will need to step up even more as centers of general caregiving. Since the home is not exactly in great shape right now, that’s all the more need for churches to be places of care and healing for the distressed…
The church can be a place of cultural entrepreneurship. Helping people one at a time is essential, but we can do more. According to Genesis 1 and Revelation 22, human beings are made to be social, cultural creatures. The gospel cannot transform every aspect of our lives if the church doesn’t have something to say, and something to do, in every domain of culture. We shouldn’t march out and try to take control of the levers of worldly power, but we can find opportunities to do things in our own God-given spheres of influence that manifest our faith…