The Faith + Work LA Podcast Center for Faith + Work LA

As we look forward to our Annual Faith + Work Conference: Meaningful Work in an Age of Disruption this Saturday, April 2, 2022, the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles is proud to present Part 2 of the conversation with one of our thoughtful speakers, Michaela O'Donnell. Michaela is Executive Director of the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary and will be talking with our own Robert Covolo, Director of Vocational Discipleship at CFWLA.

In this episode, they discuss the way work forms us + seeing the fruit in our work, the importance of relationships and people in all types of work, the problem of "pursuing our passions" and the role ambiguity plays in vocation.

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On why "pursuing your passions" is a problem (Michaela O'Donnell; 7:56)

"It's very us-focused...when we are the center of what's going to make things happy for us, I worry a lot about that it feels dissonant with the Christian story."

On ambiguities at work (Michaela O'Donnell; 11:43)

"Tetherball. You have a tire on the ground, a pole that goes up, and a large string with a ball attached to it. And you try to hit it back and forth and you're trying to get the ball to go all the way around. And when I picture what we're going to need / what it's going to feel like to tolerate ambiguity. I picture it kind of like that, we are going to probably be whipped around by the wind and change. But, we are attached, we are tethered to Jesus Christ, the story of God, what we know to be the arch of God's mission in the world and what God continues to reveal through the Holy Spirit."

As we anticipate our Annual Faith + Work Conference: Meaningful Work in an Age of Disruption on April 2, 2022, the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles is proud to present this two-part conversation with one of our esteemed speakers, Michaela O'Donnell. Michaela is Executive Director of the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Seminary and will be talking with our own Robert Covolo, Director of Vocational Discipleship at CFWLA.

In this episode, they discuss the road that brought Michaela where she is today—from her inclination to entrepreneurship, to the challenges she's faced in her career. Michaela and Robert will also explore the need for creativity, flexibility and lamentation in all believers' vocations.

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On the winding road that brought her where she is today (Michaela O'Donnell; 2:00)

"The fact that I am somebody who teaches who myself likes to start things, who likes to encourage others to start things and who teaches people who will never be entrepreneurs, more about the root things that they can adopt for their own life. I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm still surprised."

On the importance of lament and the capacity to endure failure (Michaela O'Donnell; 11:25)

"The capacity to deal with failure, I think is strengthened by the practice of lament for Christians. Lament is a biblical framework for being able to go and shake our fist at God, tell God, hey, we're really mad, we're gonna complain about what's happening. And in the same breath, we trust you God, we love you, God. And this thing totally sucks. Right? And, and we trust you, right? It's got this back and forth."

As a follow-up to his three-part blog series, CFWLA friend, Robert Covolo sits down for a conversation with Matthew Kaemingk & Cory B. Wilson, authors of the new book Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy. 

In this episode, they discuss how and why the book came together, the intersection of work + worship, what we can learn from the Old Testament and the early church on the relationship between work + worship, and how to best respond in our lives today.

AUTHOR BIOS

Matthew Kaemingk (Ph.D.) is associate dean and assistant professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary. Matthew also serves as a fellow at the Center for Public Justice and a scholar-in-residence at the De Pree Center for Christian Leadership.

Cory B. Wilson (Ph.D.) is Jake and Betsy Tuls Associate Professor of Missiology and Missional Ministry and directs the Institute for Global Church Planting and Renewal at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Robert Covolo is a Cultural Theologian and Author of Fashion Theology. He is a regular contributor and friend to us here at the Center for Faith + Work Los Angeles.

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On The Symmetry Between Work And Sunday Worship: (Matthew Kaemingk; 9:46)

“So what we want to see Sunday morning to be is not a moment of worship, but the beginning of a whole week of worship. And Sunday morning is really part of a training ground in God's economy. That on a Sunday morning we learn to live and work by God's patterns, after God's work in the world, so that when we go out into the week, we extend those patterns of grace and beauty in our working lives. So rather than saying Sunday morning as an escape from the world or as an escape from our work, it's just another aspect of what it means to live before the face of God.”

On How Israel's Relationship To Work Can Help Us: (Cory B. Wison; 27:32)

“…So their idolatry made a lot of sense. And when you read through the prophets, and say “Oh, my gosh, I can't believe Israel's going back to those idols again.” You need to stop short of that. And need to actually, bring yourself under the examining light of scripture to say, where are you tempted to buy into the practices of the market that are unjust, that, you know, are unjust.”

On Bringing Our Working Selves to our Worshipping Selves: (Matthew Kaemingk; 50:00)

“Bring your work to God. He will transform, lift it up, and redirect it. He is faithful and throughout scripture, we are encouraged not to come before God empty-handed, but to bring him the beauty and the brokenness that we experience, his yoke is easy, his burden is light. And so it's good news that we can be our full selves and we can bring our work to him.”

Mishal Montgomery wants to enhance the common good. Through her work in city government in Anaheim, Mishal traverses the ups and downs of the political landscape because she believes in the systemic change that is wrought through service with the local government. In this episode of the CFWLA Podcast. Mishal shares about her own entry into the political landscape, remembers a professor who reshaped the arc of her career, and outlines why curiosity can be the cure to cynicism in our current political landscape.

MISHAL BIO

Mishal is the principal at Mishal Montgomery Strategies, a public affairs consulting firm she founded in late 2018. Prior to her consulting role, Mishal was a senior public policy advisor in city and county government, serving elected officials in Orange County and the Greater Los Angeles area.

On What Others Should Know About Government Workers: (19:42-20:24)

“I think there needs to be a curiosity in how things run and how things are done rather than the tendency we all have—I have it, you have it, we all have it—to be knee-jerk in our thoughts. We go from zero to ten quickly in our assumptions about why a decision was made rather than trying to unpack a bit how a decision was made, whether it was a local school board that made a decision that you didn’t like or your local city council, trying to unpack why something happened and being curious about how it happened.”

On How to Handle Political Conflict With Coworkers and Neighbors: (26:15-26:44)

“I’ve often heard this phrase and I’ve embraced it for my own kind of value system and that is, in my conversations every day that clarity is more important than agreement, and it’s helped guide the way I navigate public policy. It’s understanding what the other person is saying and making it clear and saying it out loud.”

On the Beauty and Goodness of Local Government and Politics: (44:40-45:15)

“I think it’s exciting to see that at the end of the day what we’re all trying to achieve is a version of what we think ought to be for humans, for the human dignity that we all want to strive for. I just love the multi-faceted nature of local government and the satisfaction of seeing good things come to pass and also learning from our mistakes.”

Courtney Davis is committed to loving her students well. In her role as Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Azusa Pacific University, Courtney helps her students realize the importance between communication and its impact on their own work and participation in the world. In this episode of the CFWLA Podcast, Courtney chronicles her inspiration for work in the higher-education space, speaks on the piety that accompanies a robust theology of work, and unpacks the challenges educators face in this cultural moment.

COURTNEY BIO

Courtney Wong Davis, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of communication studies at Azusa Pacific University, where she teaches organizational, small group, and professional communication. Her research interests include organizational socialization and assimilation, specifically focused on organizational entry and exit, in addition to intergenerational communication and organizational identification. Her scholarship has been published in the Western Journal of Communication, Communication Quarterly, and The Handbook of Intergroup Communication. Having fully enjoyed her collegiate experience at the University of Southern California and doctoral work at UC Santa Barbara, Davis is passionate about teaching and mentoring both in and outside the classroom, equipping undergraduate students for their post-collegiate endeavors, and encouraging personal and professional growth in her students.

On Discerning Career Callings: (14:50-15:22)

“If God is sovereign, then he’ll have complete understanding and providence over all these pieces move. But (he) also ordains every single one of our days, the very mundane and ordinary ones, and the very mundane and ordinary conversations and layer the mundane and ordinary to some really extraordinary things, both vocationally and otherwise and the opportunities to do what we get to do. We just forget sometimes.”

On Embracing and Implementing a Theology of Work: (25:09-25:58)

“As those of us who get to teach and work in this space about a theology of work we’ve got opportunities to encourage those who might not be affirmed by the world and that is a way in which we get to articulate our set-apartness. To speak to the receptionist, because they are actually the great gatekeepers of organizations, they have so much more power than the fact that they don’t even appear on organizational charts. There are just so many people that you get to see and inherently value by seeing them that is more distinctive because of a more robust theology of work.

On Pushing Back Against Darkness in Education: (38:41-39:24)

“There is a lot of work to be done there, to say, ‘You guys, if your grades are the most important thing you’re getting out of this class, you’ve missed it and I’ve failed you.’ There is a real working-against-the-culture of the education system to say it’s not just about checking boxes, but you get to decide what you are taking with you. It turns out that your college diploma will get you five bucks and a cup of coffee. But education is what you can actually articulate and live out once you leave the university space.”

Sophia Lee wants you to believe all journalists aren’t corrupt. In an age of social media, public outrage, and clickbait, it can be hard to find hope in journalism. Yet, through Sophia’s work at WORLD Magazine, she and others are seeking to embody redemptive journalism, in telling stories that matter and impact others while keeping the dignity of those they’re covering in the crosshairs of all they say, write, and do. In this episode of the CFWLA Podcast, Sophia shares about the folly of her career drivenness, her own battles with perfectionism, and how God has ministered to her in the ways she helps raise media literacy on oft-controversial topics like homelessness and immigration.

SOPHIA BIO

Sophia Lee is a senior reporter for World Magazine, a national evangelical publication. Over the last six years, she's covered a multitude of topics such as mental illness, Hollywood, homelessness, immigration, and abuse in the church. She also writes a weekly column called "Sophia's World" for the World Magazine website.

On Doing Journalism in the Public Square: (3:45-4:42)

“People think that journalism is all about being objective, but that’s not true. There really isn’t genuine objectivity or no bias in journalism. There is always a bias. Even choosing to cover a Pride Festival or look at it from a certain perspective presents a certain angle, and interviewing certain people already reveals that person’s worldview. So for me, coming from a Christian worldview, it’s in stark contrast to the secular worldview. A lot of the secular publications have a certain worldview. For me, as a journalist, with a Christian worldview that’s rooted in what the BIble says, there are going to be some challenges ahead.”

On Navigating Skepticism as a Journalist: (21:00-21:55)

“For me, I am never ever shocked by the depth of human sin. Even if it’s someone who’s a highly-respected Christian leader. I am never shocked by what he or she did in the dark because the BIble is very clear about sin. The bible is very clear that we have an enemy, and the bible is very clear that the world is unjust and filled with brokenness and suffering until Jesus Christ comes back. But there you go: until Jesus comes back. But for me, as much as I am not shocked by people’s sins and darkness, I am also never shocked by the ability to be redeemed.”

On the Ongoing Battle with Pride: (39:29-40:03)

“I can’t just rest on my testimony many years ago. I still have to struggle with my pride. That didn’t completely die. I’m still a human being. So I still daily struggle with trying to bring glory to God and focusing on the glory of God and trying to live out my mission as healthily and obediently as I can.”