The Mission to Work Committee is committed to developing theologically informed research on work and work-related matters.  We will feature research by our members, theologically informed research from the former Creative Ministries Network, and links to studies and other material we have found that strengthen our mission.

Mission to Work Research

The Mission to Work Committee Coordinator, Rev. John Bottomley shared a presentation which offers an important methodological consideration in ‘Humanising Research Work’.  The presentation was for a symposium on the theme of ‘humanising work: precarious work’ at Morling College, Sydney on 27 October 2017.

Creative Ministries Network Research

• A vocational and faith survey of ten Victorian Unitingcare CEO's  aims to better understand how they provide leadership to their agencies.  It explores how the culture of modernity shaped the professional and business acumen of the CEOs at the same time as this culture’s hostility to Christian faith has become problematic for the vocation (‘calling’) of their agencies and faith formation. The report studies vocation and faith from sociological and theological perspectives.

 

• Data from a recent National Church Life Survey (NCLS) is used to examine the Uniting Church’s commitment  made at its 1977 inauguration to social justice, specifically in the field of work. Nearly 40 years on, the Uniting Church has increasingly abandoned the public world of work for the sanctity of the family and home. The challenge for Christian formation and the Australian church’s mission are discussed.

       

Links and other sources

  The decline in religious orders have communities of US sisters exploring contemplative prayer to listen deeply for God’s calling to renew their way of life. They reflects silently on global events of the past two years and how these events shape their mission, they consider what new realities might be emerging and what responses to these realities are being called forth. This process suspends rational Western thinking to focus on a contemplative way ‘of seeing what God sees’.   https://www.ncronline.org/news/lcwr-begins-next-step-reexamination-religious-life