Creative Service

By Joseph Sunde

Amid the array of quaint and compelling Christmas tales, O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” continues to endure as a uniquely captivating portrait of the power of sacrificial love.

I first met Karl Fisher, founder of Alabaster Coffee Roaster + Tea Company, while dancing in a hotel lobby with a handful of college kids. It was during the annual Jubilee conference in Pittsburgh. Having made a glorious fool of myself, I looked over to see his face curiously peering from around a booth.

This post originally appeared at the Denver Institute for Faith and Work, where Mr. Haanen is executive director. It is republished here with permission.

By Jeff Haanen

Occasionally you meet somebody that shines with such virtue that you are, perhaps for the first time, made aware of your own poverty of spirit.

By Chris Horst

For two summers during college, I worked ten-hour days under the hot and humid Pennsylvania sun as a mason tender—or more commonly, as a mud boy. I mixed concrete, hauled cement blocks and attempted to assist our masons. Some days I lugged, stacked, and mixed like a champ. Other days I became the target of creative expletives.

By Rev. Gregory Jensen

By Joseph Sunde

In our efforts to serve others and seek justice in the world, we have a remarkable tendency to fall short, no matter how carefully constructed or well intended our plans may be. Across our culture-making endeavors — whether in the family or work, politics and policymaking — we are easily lured by the contours of our own designs.

By Joseph Sunde

The American economy has undergone a range of transitions, from agrarian to industrial to information-driven. Given our new-found status, manual labor is increasingly cast down in the popular imagination, replaced by romanticized dreams about white-collar jobs, bachelor’s degrees, and ladder-climbing of a similar sort.

By Joseph Sunde

For most musicians, the prospect of a long and stable career in the arts is a lifelong dream. For those who actually “make it,” however, aspirations can sometimes shift in surprising ways.

By Jordan Ballor

Something as mundane as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich has something profound to teach us about the social nature of the human person. We were, to put it bluntly, made to trade. God created us to live in community with one another and placed within us a disposition both to give and receive good things from each other.

By Joseph Sunde

When we think about “stewardship,” our minds will often revert to the material and predictable. We think about money or the allocation of resources. We think about growing crops or creating goods or financial investment and generosity.