Advent is the season leading up to the birth of Christ. During this season Christians are called to enter a posture of hopeful anticipation as they re-enter the long-expected arrival of the Messiah. This is a season of hope—a season where we experience the power of anticipation. But Advent is not unique to the Christmas season. And hope is not merely a driver for religious people. The truth is, we are all narrative creatures living with desired outcomes (“hopes”) and, whether we see it or not, these hopes are the engines that drive our lives.
Continue reading as Robert Covolo illustrates why we should reflect on the power of hope this Advent season.
This year’s Year-End Giving Campaign highlights stories from CFWLA participants who have experienced profound transformation through our programming. These stories reveal how their vision of work, relationship with God, and outlook on life have been renewed.
We invited participants to reflect on their journey and share how they see God at work—both in their workplaces and in the larger story He’s writing in the world. Each week we will be adding a new testimony.
Here, Robert shares a prayer from our recent Reimagining Work event. Join us in prayer over our public servants and the important work they do for the flourishing of our communities.
Our twelfth Reimagining Work gathering, focused on public policy in Los Angeles, brought together distinguished guests and panelists for an inspiring evening of insights and collaboration.
Labor Day is seen by most Angelinos as the last gasp of summer; a three-day weekend serving as summer’s conclusion—the bookend to Memorial Day’s launch of summer. It is well known that Memorial Day honors those who died in the armed forces defending our country, but less is known about the significance of Labor Day. Is it a secular holiday—a materialist nod to the role workers play in building the economic prosperity of the United States? Or should we include Labor Day among holidays Christians take note of?
Read on to hear more as Robert Covolo explores why Christians have good reason to enter Labor Day with celebration.
Modern Americans might love “Dirty Jobs,” but the show would have found little traction in the Ancient World. We would find the same “consumer trend” when it came to religion in the ancient world. The gods of the Ancient Near East were noted for their lives of luxury. In stark contrast to these gods is the God of the Bible. Read on to hear more as Robert Covolo explores God’s dirty jobs and the ultimate expression in the birth our Savior.
Earlier this month at Reimagining Work Vol. 11: Biblical Equity at Work, Myesha Reynolds, Founder of Equity Lens Consultants guided attendees through a conversation on understanding equity from a Biblical perspective—specifically in the workplace—and how can we confront misconceptions about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Read on as Myesha shares with us a prayer of encouragement and blessing when navigating this topic in our lives.
My surfing career reached its zenith in graduate school wherein my school schedule afforded surf most days. To top it off, I would celebrate the end of a semester by taking a solo surf trip in my VW camper up the coast. I met a lot of interesting people as I hit various surf spots from LA to Portland. It was on one of these trips while catching some early Sunday waves, I invited a guy I had met to go with me to church. His response was classic, “Nah brah, the ocean is where I worship.”
In my last blog (see “Working for the Weekend”) I explored work’s relationship to the weekend. There I argued that we were made to embrace both work and rest as those made in the image of the God who works and rests. In passing, the blog touches on the fascinating and rich Biblical concept of the Sabbath. And here in Part II, Robert Covolo concludes his series with this second installment’s sights set on what the Bible teaches about the Sabbath.
In 1981 the rock band Loverboy immortalized the line “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend.” The line was written by band member Paul Dean. According to Dean, one Wednesday afternoon he noticed the beach was empty and concluded, “Well, I guess they're all waiting for the weekend." It took well over three decades for the band Dirty Heads to respond to Dean’s lyric with their own infamous line, “A-a-ay, I'm on vacation every single day 'cause I love my occupation.”
Do we work for the weekend? Or do we make our vocation our vacation?
Read on as Robert Covolo begins a two-part series on the sabbath, starting with a personal account of seeking rest in the San Bernardino Mountains.
I grew up in a nominally Catholic home. My family rarely darkened the doors of the church, save Midnight Mass. This singular experience of church stood out in my young mind. Nowhere else did I find myself in an entirely other-worldly space. The architecture, the art, the strange crowd reciting things I didn’t know—it all struck me as odd. But most striking were the priests dressed in their ornate vestments. Who were these ominous people?
What comes to your mind when you think of a priest? Do you conjure up long beards and clerical collars? And what comes to your mind when you think of the work of a priest? Do you picture someone hearing a confession, performing a Mass, or standing before an altar with a sacrifice? For most of us, a priest is an austere individual, and their work is about as different from our own as we can imagine.
But is it? What if I told you that every Christian is a priest? Read on as we dive into how God’s people can learn to reclaim their priestly callings for Monday through Friday.
I like to read. But I am a slow reader. This has left me with a growing stack of unread must-reads which sometimes feels like a metaphor for other areas of life. Elements in our work lives can feel similar. We often wish much of our labor could be different, better, or more.
I recently slowed down and re-read Kara Martin’s Workship: How to Use Your Work to Worship God. The resources she provides help keep us moving forward in balance with all that God desires, especially in our work lives. Read on as we explore her insights and how they provide a very realistic overview of how to have an integrated life of faith and work.
Last week at Reimagining Work Vol. 10: Film in LA, our moderator and CFWLA Advisory Board member, Caleb Monroe, artfully walked our panelists through a conversation on how the work of those in film echoes the work of the Creator and how filmmaking itself provides ways for believers in the industry to serve + love their neighbors. Read on as Caleb graces us all again with a prayer of encouragement and blessing.
The last three decades have seen an exponential demand for jobs in the creative sector. Indeed, some are so desperate to find “creative” employment that they will take on demanding internships with no pay. But nobody works in the service industry for free. Jobs as a cashier, food server and housekeeper are viewed as less rewarding. Yet a joyful cashier I met at Target was telling a different story. Rather than her work hampering her joy, her joy transformed her job.
How does this kind of joy at work happen? How is it possible to maintain consistent joy in the face of monotonous, discouraging, or difficult work?
In our final week—Week Four of our Advent blog series—we reflect on a Target cashier, Isaiah, and Brother Lawerence to see how to engage work in a different way and experience the fullness of the Lord’s joy in the process.
