Do you live to work or work to live? How do you think about your work and how do you relate the ideas of work to the whole of your life? In this Topic we will explore our understanding of work and discuss ways in which we can see work as more than just a job. We will explore the different kinds of work we do and share our ideas about what work means for us and seek to define what we mean by work.  These ideas will help us to think more about how we connect our daily work with each other and with God.

It is all too easy to keep parts of our working lives in separate compartments and to imagine the God is mainly interested in certain things we do.  The Church sometimes reinforces this point of view by suggesting that some work is more spiritual.  Moreover is there anything distinctive about a Christian at work?  This unit explores these issues and imagines how God might be involed in what we do each day.

How do we imagine God and in what ways do we believe God is interested in and involved in the ongoing work of creation? By exploring a range of images and metaphors used to describe God, we will share and explore what kind of God we believe we are relating to.  We will consider the implication of this for our own work and what ways God is interested and involved in our own work.  This will enable us to look again at our own work with a fresh perspective.

While there are many creation and redemption stories in Scripture, the two creation stories outlined in Genesis 1-3 present different insights into how we imagine God’s creative and redemptive work and our part in it. We will explore the different ways there are of reading and interpreting them and explore the implications for how we deal with the complexities and challenges of daily work.  We will also reflect on how these creation stories have shaped our attitudes to our everyday work and life.   

Do you find that some parts of your work seem creative and fulfilling whilst other parts feel like a drudge and a real struggle to get through? How do we make sense of these different aspects of work as a whole?  In this unit we will explore the idea of work and seek to discover how we might describe the work that is central to who we are.  We will have a chance to reflect on ways that we might enahnce the joy and satisfaction we and others experience through our work.

Work is vital to our wellbeing as human beings and is much more than just a means to an end.  However, our experience of work is not always positive.  Why is this and what can we do about it?  Through sharing our experience and ideas we will identify together practical ways to address the issues and challenges of work. These ideas will help you and others to influence our own work context and help others to flourish too.

Work can exhaust us mentally, emotionally and physically.  Rest is vital if we are to be sustained and fulfilled.  What is a good rest and how is rest different from leisure? Is there a Christian perspective on the subject of rest and how did it emerge?  How might we develop a way of living that values rest? We will explore these questions and hopefully find ways to think about rest in fresh ways.