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.

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.

It is staggering to think of the vast amount of time and effort that goes into resolving workplace conflict. Will it ever end? The prophet Isaiah believes it will.

In Week Three of our Advent blog series, we find hope in Isaiah 2 and reflect on the promise that upon His return, Christ will act as the ultimate adjudicator—bringing peace to workplaces around the world.

There is an incredible variety of kinds of work—from farming, to finance, to the fitness industry. But one thing all work has in common is the fruit we seek to gain from our labor.

In Week Two of our Advent blog series, Robert Covolo explores the story of Sisyphus alongside the words of Isaiah to unpack the longing we all experience—in the immediate sense and in the enduring sense—for meaningful work.

Isaiah tells us the hope of Christ coming is about a change in leadership. Join us as Robert Covolo begins our Advent blog series with a story from his own life and the shared anticipation of the coming of the leader of leaders this world deeply needs.