While the church offered copious amounts of advice on what sort of language to avoid at work, how to evangelize co-workers, how to handle alcohol and avoid inappropriate jokes, and how to contribute to the work of the church, there was never once a discussion among the dozen or so B-2 pilots who attended our church as to whether or not a follower of Jesus should fly a bomber capable of dropping nuclear bombs.
World Devon Worship
In the spring of 2024, Lamppost Farm hosted the World Devon Conference (WDC). The WDC is an organization that exists to support and connect farmers who raise Devon cattle. This year marked the 400th anniversary of the first Devon cattle to arrive in North America, and the WDC hosted a conference that traveled to several farms around the country culminating in New England where the first Devon Cattle arrived. My brother has been on the board of the WDC for several years, and as a Devon farmer, he offered to host an event at Lamppost Farm as part of the WDC Tour. The farms that hosted stops on the tour were given permission to fill the day with whatever events would allow participants to see the farm and appreciate the ‘why’ behind raising Devon cattle. So Steve, who has a propensity for thinking well outside the box, said to me, “Let’s do a worship service!”
Steve spent several busy months coordinating the entire WDC Tour along with preparing to host the WDC at Lamppost Farm, so he asked me to write the worship service. I had no idea who would be in attendance, but I decided I would try to create opportunities for a large group of farmers who don’t know each other very well and who come from different countries and different faith backgrounds to tell each other about their Trumpets and Tears in farming.
I opened with a welcome and invitation for them to look at their farming work through the lens of the Gospel, and we did a Call to Worship along those lines. We read some Scripture together and sang a few fairly well-known hymns. We asked the guests to break into groups of about 5 people, and I wrote a few simple questions for discussion about the highs and lows of farming and explained that the Gospel is all about Redemption. I wrote some corporate prayers which we read together before we turned to communion. I wrote Words of Institution that took the themes of brokenness and redemption and tied them to the highs and lows of farming that they had discussed.
Communion is perfect for this! My conviction is that the Gospel addresses our deepest disappointments and our greatest hopes and longings, and Communion is the best expression of the Gospel that we have. Communion perfectly expresses our Tears: nothing is more serious about the brokenness of the world than the death of the Son of God. But it also perfectly expresses our Trumpets: there is no satisfaction of desire more complete than the redemption achieved by Christ on the Cross!
We closed with another hymn and a benediction. I saw a few tears on the weather-worn cheeks of some seasoned Devon farmers, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
The Gospel really does shine a brilliant light into the shadowy parts of our work. It infuses our work with real significance, real meaning, and real purpose the very moment it begins to address the work itself. I was circling that idea without much clarity for most of my adult life. Over the years, there were a few vivid moments when I sensed the connection between my faith and my work, but I never saw when and how those connections formed, and they were gone before I could see them clearly. So much of my effort was aimed at reconstructing those connections with right thinking.
The watershed moment came when I read the section about Laments in Chapter 11 of Work and Worship. I have always understood that thanksgiving and praise belong in worship. And I understood that repentance belongs in worship. Somehow, I did not understand that lament belongs there too. Lament—frustration, sadness, disappointment, irritation, disillusionment with my work—not because of something I’ve done wrong, but just because the ground is cursed and often makes thorns and thistles. That was never part of my worship. I had this unexamined idea that there had to be some sort of resolution in worship, but lament doesn’t have a resolution. In fact, that’s part of the lament. In lament, I say, “Lord, this is hard. And I think it’s always going to be hard.” But the lament goes to Him. It belongs at the altar along with our praise, and repentance, and offerings. He doesn’t fix it. Sometimes He doesn’t even seem to address it. But sometimes He gives grace in the form of perspective, or renewed energy, or real hope: a vision of the day when the ground will once again bear abundant fruit!
Now, I love giving other men the opportunity to express lament in worship. The liturgy for workplace laments practically writes itself, and so many men are eager to participate in a service that actually addresses the underlying disappointment they carry alone for most of their lives.
I like the Trumpets, Ashes, Fruit, and Petitions too, but the lament is especially sweet to me because of the pathways it has opened in my heart—those fragile connections where my faith begins to actually bear upon my work. I suspect that laments are His tool on my heart precisely because they lack resolution. As it turns out, resolution is not the goal. He calls me again and again to bring my work (and all my life) to Him not for a quick fixing of the situation so I can be on my way, but rather so that lacking a resolution I may learn to abide in Him. The goal, it turns out, has always been Relationship.
