For all of those who find that managing their home is their primary responsibility, be encouraged. And for those whom it is secondary and even under appreciated, then think again. The interview below is an important one for everyone regardless of our roles in all things related to the home/family. Kristin Brown, Vice President of Communications for the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics (IFWE), interviews Courtney Reissig for a recent IFWE blog.
Championing At-Home Work…
(by Kristin Brown)
We’ve had some rich conversations on the IFWE blog recently on women and work—both on working women and the church and the value of homemaking in God’s economy. Recently, I had the privilege of interviewing Courtney Reissig, author of the newly released Glory in the Ordinary: Why Your Work in the Home Matters to God (Crossway, April 30, 2017).
Kristin Brown (KB): You talk about the problem of “frequent disillusionment” about work done in the home. Who did you write this book for?
Courtney Reissig (CR): Anyone doing the work of the home. Research (and experience) shows that the bulk of at-home work is done by women, so my audience is primarily women. But I hope that even men who do the work of the home, even if they aren’t the primary parent at home, can find encouragement that the at-home work they do is just as significant to God as their work outside of the home.
I wrote the book to encourage the one who struggles to see the work as valuable, and hopefully provide a theological and practical framework for seeing all work as important to God regardless of compensation.
KB: What are the lies that we believe about at-home work?
CR: That (1) work must be paid to be meaningful, and (2) work must accomplish something great in the world’s eyes to be meaningful. Both of these lies run contrary to scripture’s teaching that in the Lord our labor is never in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). These lies also devalue at-home work because it is not compensated work, nor is it work that looks like it’s accomplishing something great. But God’s standard is not the world’s standard, and we have to remember that.
KB: One of the themes throughout your book is being an “image-bearer” of God. Why is this theme so foundational?
Thanks to Julián Gentilezza for her photo on Unsplash
