We’re made for worship as well as work, and the two don’t have to be at odds.
Work is a form of worship; in fact, the same Hebrew word (avodah) is used in the OT to mean both “work” and “worship.”
Read Psalm 148. How do the sun and moon and stars and all kinds of animals on the earth worship God? By singing on Sunday morning in church?
Nope. They simply do what they’re created to do every day. They fulfill their God-given vocation.
Of course, the special kind of worship that happens in church community, apart from the world of work, is unique and indispensable. However, the local church cannot obey the Great Commission to “make disciples” if it does not also equip people to do their work as worship all week long.
Jay Slocum, an Anglican pastor in PA, writes,
“Missionaries get gold medals, pastors get silver, and church staffers get bronze. Christian lawyers and engineers get rude jokes about how they’re cheats and they’re boring – often straight from the pulpit.”
We need to remove the separation of sacred and secular, as if only what we do at church or on the mission field matters to God.
Instead, we ought to think biblically as humans made in God’s image. As Paul says,
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:23-24)