Show Notes
On this episode of Nuance, Case is joined by the Reverend Dr. Damien Schitter, Senior Pastor at New City Presbyterian Church in Orlando. They explore the need for the integration of faith, work, and culture in the church, highlighting the role of Reformed Theological Seminary’s Institute for Faith, Work, and Culture in equipping pastors and leaders to bridge this critical gap. The conversation touches on the historical compartmentalization of faith and work, along with ways that the church can equip everyone from the pulpit to the pew to make the Gospel known in every aspect of public life.
Episode Resources:
https://paideiacenter.com/ifwc/
The Four E’s by David Miller (Princeton University’s Faith and Work Initiative): https://faithandwork.princeton.edu/what-we-do/research/integration-profile/four-es
Mark Greene at Lausanne Conference 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owuab_M5L3Y
Saving the Protestant Ethic: Creative Class Evangelicalism and the Crisis of Work by Andrew Lynn: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190066687
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative where we wrestle together about living our Christian faith in the public square. Nuance invites Christians to pursue the cultural and economic renewal by living out faith through work every facet of public life, including work, political engagement, the arts, philanthropy, and more.
Each episode, Dr. Case Thorp hosts conversations with Christian thinkers and leaders at the forefront of some of today’s most pressing issues around living a public faith.
Our hope is that Nuance will equip our viewers with knowledge and wisdom to engage our co-workers, neighbors, and the public square in a way that reflects the beauty and grace of the Gospel.
Learn more about The Collaborative:
Website: https://collaborativeorlando.com/
Get to know Case: https://collaborativeorlando.com/team/
Episode Transcript
Case Thorp
So you know, here on Nuance, we love to hit the public square. Well, what about Orlando’s public square? I know we’ve got a lot of local listeners, and we’ve got folks listening all over, but if you can imagine what’s sitting on our public square? Well, of course, Disney and Universal. Many of you may have come here for such things, but we’ve also got some pretty significant other institutions and cultural artifacts, if you will. So we’ve got a great arts community. I’m quite proud of the faith community here. Well, sitting on our square is the Reformed Theological Seminary, a seminary that began out of Jackson, Mississippi, actually, but now has an extension of 10 campuses that curve through the south up the eastern seaboard. And institutions in education matter. They help shape a community. They help guide its people. University of Central Florida is also here; that happens to be the second largest university in the country. That blows my mind. University of Texas is the biggest. Who knew that such an institution was here? But you know what? When you think about the needs of Martin Marietta and other space industries on the coast, it makes sense. They need a big technical type university. Well, I’m excited today to have a guest who is affiliated with Reformed Theological Seminary and going to talk to us about their new institute for faith, work and culture. Damien Schitter, thanks so much for being here.
Damien Schitter
Yeah, thanks for having me, Case.
Case Thorp
So you know, I’m grateful that Damien’s not just a great pastor and leader, but he’s a friend, and I always tell him that if God hadn’t called me to First Pres Orlando, I would be at his church, New City, just up the street. Would you have me?
Damien Schitter
We’d have you, Case, we would.
Case Thorp
I appreciate that. Well, to our viewers and friends, welcome to Nuance where we seek to be faithful in the public square. I’m Case Thorp, and I want to encourage you, like, subscribe, share. It really helps us to get the word out. Well, let me tell you a little bit about our guest. So the Reverend Dr. Damien Schitter is the senior pastor at New City, a Presbyterian church here in Orlando. He is married to the beautiful Leah, and together they have–ready–five children, my, my, my, Damien. What are their ages?
Damien Schitter
Uh, 13 and a half. See now I gotta think…13 and a half, 11, 8, 4, and five months.
Case Thorp
My, my, my, God bless you. Damien has a bachelor’s from Indiana State University, the home of Larry Bird, a master of divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary in St Louis, and a PhD from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago. He first served as a pastor in San Diego at Harbor Presbyterian Church, and came here to New City in 2014, 10 years ago. Dude, I still feel like you’re the new kid on the block.
Damien Schitter
I know, I feel that way too.
Case Thorp
Some of your church don’t know Damian and I have co-taught the Gotham Fellowship, and I have just enjoyed those experiences. I tell people that when I grow up, I want to be like Damien, and like I said, when I’m not on duty here, I slip over to New City to worship. So Damien, I want to talk to you about your new role as the executive director at Reform Seminaries, Institute for faith, work and culture. Folks, you should also know he’s an adjunct professor there, so I, you know, tell us about it and tell us why. Why is such a place needed?
Damien Schitter
Yeah, well, the institute itself, as you said, is attached to the seminary, and the seminary really has two primary aims at the core: training future leaders, pastors and leaders for the church. And then the other thing that I love about what the leadership at RTS Orlando have given themselves is to, in line with being in existence for the local church, to create partnership with local churches here in Orlando. And so one of the things that makes the Institute for faith, work and culture so so central to the the reality of RTS here in Orlando is that there’s already a strong faith and work community here in Orlando, and that’s in large part to your efforts at First Pres and through the Collaborative in bringing Gotham, but then also all the other work of the Collaborative. So it has created this awareness and this reality in Orlando, where there’s something happening in faith, working culture and various partnerships through Made to Flourish and then pastor residencies with faith and work embedded in them. All of these things continue to proliferate here in Central Florida, and so that made it real, really easy to see how that second aim of RTS Orlando, that is to serve the local churches here in Orlando, how this was a connection to that. But more broadly, really, what we want to see is we want to see pastors and leaders sent out into local churches and other ministries with faith, work and culture, not as a sticky note or something velcroed onto their philosophy of ministry wherever they serve, but to see it closer to the center of what disciple making is. And so one of the things that I say is whenever the military has this saying that whenever bullets start flying, you revert to your training. And that’s really important, right? Because your training keeps you alive. Your training helps you execute the mission. And so one thing is also true about pastoral ministry is while there aren’t literal bullets flying, there are times when it does feel like you’re at war, and that would be any leadership position. But the reality is that faith, work and culture isn’t usually near the center of the training of seminaries. And so what that means is we may have read some books, even had a class or so on faith and work, but then when the bullets start flying in our ministries, wherever that is, as we seek to equip others, the blinders sort of come in and we revert to our training. And what isn’t now in our field of vision is faith and work. And so what we really want to do at the Institute for faith, work and culture is we want to change that. We think that that will happen in part by facilitating the development of a biblically grounded, God-centered vision for integrating faith in our current students and then through them the wider church.
Case Thorp
So good, so good. You are an excellent spokesman. But you know why faith, work, and culture? Why not purple people eaters, fountain pens, and Coca Cola, like those three, very intentionally chosen. I imagine you could say we’re at reform seminary. We’re here to talk about faith, right? Of course, yes. Why those three?
Damien Schitter
Yeah. Well, I’ve heard it said that Christianity has a three letter, I’m sorry, a three-word worldview, a three-word worldview, that’s hard to say, and those three words are, Jesus is Lord. And so because Jesus is Lord, that is our faith, then that means he’s Lord over everything. And so, of course, that means our personal lives, but also the very work of our hands that he’s called us to and that’s been something that the church historically has missed, especially local churches and seminaries, has missed the fact that the very work of our hands, the thing that we spend most of our time doing, is so often quarantined to something else. So we have faith, and then we have the rest of our lives. And so work, of course, is things that we’re paid for, but it’s more than that. It is contribution, not simply remuneration, as I’ve heard it said, and so this is most of our lives. And so what we really want to do is we want our faith to be integrated into all of our life. And work is something that we do and engage in that both serves our neighbor fundamentally and creates culture. Third, work matters because the very work of our hands creates culture. And that culture could be healthy, that culture could be unhealthy, but all three of these things are core, and they flow from that three word worldview, that Jesus is Lord.
Case Thorp
Well, you know, you’re right. We do kind of say faith is for Sunday morning and, oh, gotta go to work now. I gotta be secular. And you would agree. I mean, the enlightenment, this major philosophical movement, sort of suggested back in the 17, 1800s religion’s your hobby, your pastime, your thing to do at home with your family. Don’t, don’t do that out here.
Damien Schitter
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, many people would point to the enlightenment as something significant in history that set us on a trajectory where we compartmentalize our lives into seen and unseen, into private and public, into, as Francis Schaffer said, upper story, lower story. There are these ways that we have been. Our lives have been split into pieces.
Case Thorp
Just the other day, I was reading The Wall Street Journal about a woman who was a leading executive, and they had a little side column to kind of let you know about her life, her family, her, I think, where she’s lived in the past. And they had a little section on Hobbies, and it listed gardening and bicycling, and then it said going to church. And I thought, Wow. What a…I mean, besides being offensive really to me. And I know I’m an oddball as pastors can be. I mean, just how sad that the author or the editors view religion as this side hobby, and it really, I mean, in the public square, in our society today, it is often seen that way.
Damien Schitter
Yeah, yeah. That’s such an interesting example of the way that it shows up. And you know, I bet that many people read that and didn’t think what you thought, which is to simply communicate how normal this compartmentalization has come. Yeah.
Case Thorp
Well, a friend in college once said to me she had grown up a good Lutheran, but was at a very different place in her walk with Christ. And one day, as I was trying to encourage her and going deeper, she said, look, hey, my family had the Yacht Club growing up. Y’all had the church that’s just where you met your friends and lived your life. And I was like, oh, yeah, a relationship with the Living God of creation on his mission of redemption and restoration, and you’re paralleling it with the yacht club.
Damien Schitter
Yeah, yeah, it was wild, isn’t it?
Case Thorp
So I’d make them, this is why I’m so excited for what you and Reformed Seminary are doing. A lot of times we as pastors, we get trained for the hobby. We get trained for the Sunday experience, and even we aren’t well equipped to help our people bring faith back out of being a hobby and into one’s complete worldview and reason for existence. You would agree?
Damien Schitter
Yes, I agree.
Case Thorp
The Institute helps pastors in their training to reintegrate, so that we’re kind of trained for the hobby in seminary. And yes, that’s why I’m glad y’all are doing this to reintegrate.
Damien Schitter
Yes. I love the word reintegrate. And at the same time, when you say it, I think you know what, I’m not even sure that’s the right word, mainly because I don’t know if it was ever a part of the training. Now, I could be wrong but, but this is what I mean. There’s a guy named Mark Greene. Mark Greene is, the last time I knew, he was the president of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, which was founded by John Stott, the late John Stott, yeah, so Mark Greene was the president, or whatever his title would be, and in 2010 at the conference for world evangelization, you can actually find this on YouTube, he gave to me what is sort of a war cry of what we’re talking about and what you’re referring to. And essentially, he said there are two strategies to win the world. The first strategy is for church paid workers to create programs for the people of God, to use some of their spare time to join in the mission of God. That’s that hobby thing you’re talking about. He said, that’s one strategy, but the other strategy is for the church paid workers to equip the people of God for mission in all of life. And his argument was that the second strategy is the more biblical strategy, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater of all of the truly wonderful things that were birthed from the first strategy. But nevertheless, this vision for what is most biblical and whatever this picture as you’re talking about of pastoral training, what do pastors and church leaders see as their role in disciple making? Is it to create programs for the people of God to use some of their spare time to join the church paid workers in mission. Or do church paid workers exist to disciple people for mission in all of their life and and that is the type of vision that we would love for every RTS Orlando graduate to have before they leave.
Case Thorp
We will put a link to that talk in our show notes. I’d like to see that myself. I think about my own seminary training, and I was trained to be a nursing home chaplain and to write theological papers, to stand up and read. And I say that pretty extremely to indicate the pastoral care skills were heavily emphasized, and that’s the chaplain part of it. And the reading of a theological paper was what my particular seminary thought was excellent preaching. And frankly, it was not, as I’ve discovered, in the real church. So there’s such a disconnect there with my bankers and housekeepers and plumbers and stay at home parents, the real place where real faith is lived out. You know, I’ve had to read a tool to re-equip myself on how to disciple well and help people do that integration. Now I imagine you might have hit some pushback. Were there professors either at RTS or in the greater conversation in other seminaries that have said, no, wait a minute. Come on. You’re sort of subtly criticizing what we do and what we offer by suggesting there needs to be improvement, there’s wide departments of practical theology that are different from systematic theology to try to do such a thing. Have you gotten any of that critique?
Damien Schitter
Well, not directly. We haven’t really gotten a lot of pushback, but certainly it must exist, and my my hunch is, is that, just like change in general can be nerve wracking or scary because of the sense of loss that comes with it, or the implicit indictment on our current performance and effectiveness and whatever that would be, certainly that stuff has to exist. But I think one of the things that we have discovered is there are questions around, not the end game, what we’re after, but maybe some subtle theological angles. I think that there are, there are different camps of folks that might essentially differ on some of the finer details of how we might teach and equip people in faith and work. But what I have found, and I continue to find, is that the overall vision, I think, is refreshing to people, because they have the resonance of, if they are in the pews, in general, to have a Sunday to Monday gap. In other words, what they experience in church gathered is not usually preparing them to launch into the church scattered realities Monday morning, for example. So I think that there’s a resonance there. In fact, I had this conversation one time with a person who had been in long time Christian publishing for nearly their entire career. And in that conversation, I asked this person, I said, What has the local church done to equip you for mission in all of your life? I’ll never forget this, Case. They they sort of scoffed, but without missing a beat, looked me in the eye and said, the local church has been the most disintegrating influence in my entire Christian life.
Case Thorp
Meaning what exactly?
Damien Schitter
Essentially that their experience was that church reinforced this experience they had, which was, church is not for Monday, church is for Sunday. So come here, and this is church, and then go live your life however you need to, but make sure you come back on Wednesday night and Sunday night. And that was reinforced because there was no sense in which this person, and many people experience that discipleship is for the world. Discipleship is somehow only about Bible knowledge, it sort of ends there, oftentimes or only about church related activities.
Case Thorp
Well, and I would add, I mean, you certainly hear about being moral, being holy, go out and be a good person. And for somebody who might be listening to this, they might think, well, you know, I do go Monday through Friday and try to be like Jesus. What are you calling me to, Damien, what are you asking at me?
Damien Schitter
Yeah. David Miller is a historian who’s written this the book called God at Work, and he did his Princeton seminary PhD, dissertation, historical work on this movement. And he has 4 E’s into that. One is ethics. So anything that’s touched on a faith and work discipleship has been primarily about ethics. The other one was evangelism. Faith and work is about evangelism. The other is that faith and work might be about some type of enrichment that I have a calling, and it may be related to self actualization, or me leaning into the potential that God’s given me. So ethics, evangelism, enrichment, and the fourth E is slipping my mind here, but let me talk about the first two E’s, because I think the first 2 E’s historically have been in evangelical churches have been 2 E’s that have been most emphasized.
So many people think that faith and work integration is doing a good job. And of course, it includes that. It means being ethical. It means telling the truth. It means not lying, and all these things are really good. That’s being Christian witness. Many people have been taught that the main mission of their workplace is that it is their largest mission field for evangelism, and the work essentially becomes something that occupies their time and gets them in proximity to non-believers, and then they can share their faith, which, of course, faith and work integration will include building relationships and sharing your faith.
Yeah, that’s right. Expression. That’s right. You know, one of the reasons I forget that is because I never understand exactly what he means by expression. But, let’s talk about enrichment, and let’s put enrichment and expression together.
Case Thorp
Expression looks at verbal and nonverbal communication of faith and work. It’s two sub orientations are verbal discussion of faith, evangelism and nonverbal, symbols, attire, actions.
Damien Schitter
Yes, yes. So expression, for example, some people may think that faith and work, in that case, is having a Bible on your desk, some symbol to at least put out there for anyone who’s looking. Hey, I’m not afraid to be a Christian. I’m not ashamed of being a Christian, and so I’m bearing witness.
Case Thorp
In that sense, a cross on a necklace.
Damien Schitter
That’s right. So I would say that many of those things, though left alone, are trappings of faith and work. So each one of them, they’re artifacts of faith and work. But we need what David calls the all around integrator type, which is to engage all four of these boxes and essentially bring one’s whole self to bear in faith and work. What David Miller pointed out so helpfully is that the faith and work movement itself is a desire to experience coherence or integration in one’s life, not to have a “my church life” and then “my work life,” but rather to see how they fit together. And so the person who’s out there thinking like, hey, wait a minute. I mean, I do a good job. I share my faith all these realities, I would say, Yes, amen. And there is an intrinsic value to work. And as Martin Luther said, God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does. And so the reality is that faith and work, that is to say, your daily the work of your hands, whether it’s doing dishes and changing diapers or creating spreadsheets or underwriting loans for corporations. The reality is that these are the primary ways that we’re actually serving and loving our neighbor as we’re sent out on Sunday at the benediction.
Case Thorp
Okay, you’ve done a great job helping us get a sense of the deeper vision, the theology, the hope for the Christian disciple who is influenced by a pastor that’s trained in the institute. Talk to us about the components, like, what do you do at the institute?
Damien Schitter
Yeah, yeah. Well, let me start with three goals in mind, because these goals probably won’t change, but the strategies or the things that we do might, but I’m glad to tell you what we do now. The first big goal is we want to bring the resources of Reformed theology to the faith and work conversation. One of the realities of the seminaries, sort of checking out so far in this conversation, or not engaging the conversation, is that it’s been a lay-led movement, which is really important. I don’t want to change the passion of lay leaders in this movement, but the reality is the seminary exists. It has a lane, and part of what that lane entails is theology, but theology, not mainly for the Academy, but for the church. And so we want to bring the resources of Reformed theology to the faith and work conversation. Okay, we’re not the first ones there, yep.
Case Thorp
Well, so a minute ago, let me challenge you on something, because a minute ago, you said the church hasn’t historically integrated such things. But to me, in a lot of ways, the faith and work movement is Neo Calvinism, a resurrection of where Calvin initially wrote and led and reformed the Church’s focus. So, yes, wouldn’t you say, I mean, the Calvinistic work ethic that this has been there…
Damien Schitter
I think it was there in maybe Calvin’s time. I think as we go into maybe the United States, I do think that it does show up in some of the Puritans preaching, for example. And if you look at, so Andrew Lyon has a book called Saving the Protestant Ethic. It’s Yale press. It came out last year. To me, it’s a work of sociology. And if David Miller is the historical reflection on the faith at work movement so far, I’m now convinced Andrew Lyon at UVA, he’s in a postdoc position, I think now at UVA, this is the book that describes, sociologically, case, I think, not theologically, how this began to change, if you were to trace it back, what happened in the last 100 years or. So where now the local church itself influenced even reformed and Presbyterian churches, influenced by various realities. He traces how the church actually began to participate in shrinking the vision of discipleship to essentially more morality, ethics, personal belief, as opposed to engaging civically and engaging in work and broader culture.
Case Thorp
So good, and we’ll put that in our show notes. So I, in that regard, am always touched when Richard Mouw, who has been a big influence in this conversation, a theologian and former president of Fuller Theological Seminary, my alma mater. And he grew up in Canada in a very reformed Dutch environment, and he shares at times about I’ve got to get…I may get this wrong, but Dutch Calvinist farmers and the way in which they would make associations, organizations that had a faith and work perspective deeply rooted in their whole purpose of raising sheep to the glory of God, and the prayer that they would do together for their work. And so I once had it said to me that Scott’s Presbyterianism and Dutch Calvinism were sort of kissing cousins. And it made me wonder, why is it that those Dutch Calvinists in Canada hung on to and had this integration, and yet, like you say, a lot of Presbyterianism and other camps it drifted. I think the modernist impact on the 20th century would be a reason for that. Okay, so the Institute wants to bring the riches of Reformed theology. Tell us about your other two goals.
Damien Schitter
Yes, one thing going back, it’s Andrew Lynn, not Andrew Lyon, by the way, it dawned on me that’s Andrew Lynn. But so bringing the resources of Reformed theology to faith and conversation, then the other thing is that second goal is that we want to provide RTS students, staff and faculty, with the opportunity to learn from leaders in the faith and work movement. So I already mentioned right before we took that quick detour, that we’re not the first to this conversation. And in one sense, RTS Orlando is like Johnny come lately to this, this reality that’s already happening. And so in no way do we want to basically say it can start now because we’re here and we care about this. But acknowledging that, we want to bring current leaders and practitioners into proximity with our folks at RTS Orlando, so that we can learn from them. That’s the second goal we have in mind. And the final goal is we want to broaden the application.
Case Thorp
Okay, yes, let me not challenge but let me explore that second. Yes, one healthy question that I have an answer for, but you’re the expert, so you give us the real answer. Those that will say, you know, faith and work is a fad. It’s just like Purpose Driven Life, and it’s like contemporary worship. It’s a fad. And you know, why build an institution around a fad? What would you say?
Damien Schitter
Yeah, well, I would say that this, I don’t know if it’s a fad. I don’t think it is, but let me say that the reason we chose culture as the third word is because culture will never be a fad. Culture is the thing. It is one of the primary things that God has given humanity to do, to make culture, to create culture, to preserve culture, art, beauty, what is true, good and beautiful. And we see this before the fall, and then we see it renewed with Noah, almost like a second commissioning after the flood, that humanity is still to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, which is the creating of culture. And the way that we create culture is by the work of our hands and we would want the work of our hands and the culture we make to be infused and centered around our faith, which, again, just for shorthand right now, would be that Jesus is Lord.
Case Thorp
It’s so, like you say, culture, it’s so deep and inherent in what it means to be human. One of my answers has been, you can tell it’s not a fad, simply because of the the nature of the institutions that have embraced it in in work and brought it in into their work, meaning churches, foundations like you have a study center of sort, an institute, even marketplace, corporations, nonprofits, they are such a proliferation across so many different types of organizations that. It tells me there’s an itch worth scratching. That’s right, these different groups are hungry and want to grab it and utilize it. You know, you don’t, you don’t get that with a fad.
Damien Schitter
I think that’s right. I think that fads in general, in my experience as well, you don’t have institutional buy in, but to see so many institutions both get this and invest in it and even be founded in order to continue to press into it, I do think that that’s something that at this scale doesn’t happen with a fad. I will point back again, Andrew Lynn in his book Saving the Protestant Ethic traces the development of institutions. And one of the very healthy things that he asks, he raises this question, is, how effective have we actually been with all of this money in all these institutions? And I’ll leave it, I’ll leave it up to let him for you all to go read it. It’s not all bad news. It’s not all good news, but it’s the right type of question, how effective have we actually been.
Case Thorp
Well, and so evident in this cultural moment where there’s such high mistrust, distrust of institutions by all age groups. And in some ways, I think one of the benefits of our last couple 100 years is we built great institutions, but we have maintained them poorly. They have become so unlovely in so many ways, and people are kind of fed up with it. And maybe this theological endeavor, and particular discipleship training is a way to correct that. I know that is part of my passion at the Collaborative. We really focus on those leaders who influence institutions, because I know that institutions are long lasting, multi-generational and can make a deep impact.
Damien Schitter
Yeah, and to that point, to have this institute for faith, work and culture embedded in an institution that I respect so much like RTS, and here, particularly RTS or Orlando, to your point, is really a dream come true. To know that to be able to resource and preserve anything that is birthed from this institute, to have it embedded in RTS gives me a lot of excitement.
Case Thorp
On that institutional end I am taken by a comment once that think about how Wall Street, Hollywood and Madison Avenue, the big marketing groups have shaped us as Americans, and then what if, and what would it look like if those three different places in our culture were infused with Christ-followers who cared about the common good, not to say making Christian movies, per se, those are usually pretty bad, but to have people of depth and good ethics and a care for the vulnerable and what it means to be true and beautiful. Okay, so tell us your third goal.
Damien Schitter
Yes, so the third thing we want to do is broaden the application of these faith and work principles to underserved communities and so particularly here that might be the underemployed. It may be those with disabilities, for example. Now I can get into some of the specific things that we do at the institute that would begin to bring us towards some of these goals. So I’ll start with that last one, broadening the application of faith and work principles to underserved communities. And those with disabilities being one of those underserved communities and the faith and work conversation so far, every fall we have a bob Inc lecture. And so the first lecture, the founding lecture, was given.
Case Thorp
What kind of lecture?
Damien Schitter
Yes, a Bavinck lecture. Herman named after, that’s right, exactly. Yeah. So Herman Bavinck, speaking of Neo Calvinism. He’s a contemporary of Abraham Kuyper, and he, I guess it would have been maybe like 2006 ish, 2008 ish, when his magisterial, as the theologians say his magisterial means really important, really impressive, comprehensive, his reform, dogmatics, a four volume set begin to be translated from Dutch. They’re books beyond theology, that’s right. Dogmatics, theology. These books came out. He has much more than that. But there’s been this renewed interest in translating works of Herman Bavinck into English, which has been late 1900s, early 1900s Netherlands.
Case Thorp
That’s right. So it’s kind of gotten a resurgence.
Damien Schitter
That’s right. There’s this resurgence. And one of the premier scholars on Herman, Bavinck is a guy named James Eglinton at the University of Edinburgh. We’ve had him on this podcast. Okay, perfect. So James has already talked about this, I’m sure. But James wrote, sort of the critical biography on Herman Bavinck, and he was our first speaker who came in and talked about, Well, it’s funny, as he got there, stood up and said, I’m actually going to talk about JH Bavinck and not Herman Bavinck which was Herman’s nephew, which was such a power move. I love it. So he came there.
Case Thorp
I was there. Did you know that was coming?
Damien Schitter
I didn’t know that was coming. I just assumed that Scott Swain, the president of RTS Orlando, knew it was coming. But it’s one of those deals where we were gonna let James do whatever he wanted to do. And we were so glad to have him, and it was wonderful. Last year we had Vince Bacote come and talk about culture, and he’s a professor at Wheaton College. And then this year, we have a professor from the University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen named John Swinton, who is sort of a premier scholar on disability theology, and he’s written on dementia as well as other disabilities. And he is coming to be our Bavinck lecturer to talk about faith, work and disability. So that would be a way in which we want to begin to move toward that third goal through something that we do every year, which is every fall we have a Bovinck lecture.
Case Thorp
You know, there is an increased interest in disability, ministry and theology. I have two friends, both of whom you know, who are getting PhDs in this arena. And it’s interesting to me of that new frontier, if you will.
Damien Schitter
Yes, yes. I I know. I think I know who you’re talking about in both cases. And so it really is. It’s encouraging. I think that it shows that what it means to be human has always been an important question, but in our specific cultural moment, it is, maybe it is the question that we need to explore as Christians to be able to engage all types of issues.
Case Thorp
Yeah, okay, so we’re now on what you do. So there’s the Bavink lecture, and that’s usually in the fall.
Damien Schitter
That’s right, every fall, in October, we have a Bavinck lecture. The other thing that we do is we hold colloquia, which is a gathering of people. Case was there with us at our first one this year, where we ask academics to write a paper on certain topics, and then we bring practitioners of faith and work, both marketplace leaders, pastors and teachers, like you, Case, who lead Gotham fellowship and other faith and work movements. We bring them all together, because it’s really rare for those people to convene together and have uninterrupted time to be presented with ideas that have consequences, and then engage them together. So last year we did that in theology. So we had a paper written on the doctrine of God, on creation, on sin, on redemption, that is the gospel, and then on eschatology, last things. And so we came and gathered and engaged around this, yes, eschatology, it’s the that is the the word for the doctrine of the last things, or, essentially, where is this all heading to the end of time?
So this next year, we just identified we’re going to do Old Testament themes of faith and work. And so we, all of our scholars, will be somewhere, and one of the RTS campuses. So this year, it will be all RTS institutions. And so we’ll have the Old Testament, including the Pentateuch vision, the prophet vision, the wisdom literature’s vision, those would be examples. So we’re going to keep doing this for several years, and have different themes, where we invite scholars to present ideas to practitioners, pastors and marketplace leaders, so we can begin to learn from one another. And this is part of bringing the resources of Reformed theology to the faith and work conversation.
Case Thorp
And let me just share to our listeners, like it was wonderful. It was such a rich, deep time I came out of there exhausted, my synapses were firing at such a fast, intense level for several days. It’s just…you’re brain dead, but it sparked so many ideas for the application and the next conversation that it helped. It has, and is still helping me to, I think, be a better teacher and writer and leader. So these are needed environments.
Damien Schitter
Yes, yes, I’m so glad to hear that. And that was my experience too. And for those of you who are listening and thinking, is that open to the public, how do I be a part of that? Well, we are using that time to produce a special edition, a free resource from the RTS journal. It’ll be its own faith and work edition. And so these talks, we just received final edits, and we’ve sent them off to the editor, who will do all the magic to make them look good in the journal, and that’ll be coming out in the future. That’ll be free for those who are listening. So that is the way that we’ll take this work that we do in these colloquia and and make it available to everyone. So in fact, that’s the second thing I wanted to mention, is that we will be producing these journals every year based on the topics of these gatherings. And the other thing is, I teach a class every January that will be open to anyone. You could take it for credit. You could audit it. I teach that in January. It’s a week-long intensive course. It’s called Forming Disciples for Faith and Work. And one, it’s so fun because we have future pastors, church leaders, we have marketplace leaders, we have all types of people who come. So that’s going to happen every January. And the final thing I would want you to know about is RTS Orlando. We actually have a certificate program in faith work and culture. So you can Google this, RTS Orlando certificate, Faith, Work, and Culture. And what’s wonderful about this is you don’t have to get a full degree at the seminary. You rather can get an accredited certificate. That’s, I think it’s 12 or 15 credit hours. My class is one of the required courses. But what this will do is it’ll give you the opportunity to spend some time getting further training on this topic of faith, work, and culture. So you can check out the details. For our students who are in degree programs, they can add the certificate to their degree program, but you don’t have to get a full degree well.
Case Thorp
And look, I know our listeners and viewers are a discerning audience. We don’t shoot for the masses. We shoot for those professional Christ followers, often highly educated and strong leaders. And let me tell you, you are the audience and for such a certificate program. And I want to challenge you, do you have room for this in your life? Often you’ll never have room for it. You’ve got to make room for it. But certainly, if you’re listening to this, you have an interest, and such an experience would enrich your own sense of self. It would expand your view of God. It will deepen your own walk with the Lord and enable you to see the many ways through your vocation, in your workplace, through your industry, to build the kingdom ever more widely and praise Jesus more. So let this be a challenge for you to go consider this. Yes, well, Damien, in our few minutes here, why did you accept this calling? You know, what does Damien hope to get out of this experience? Because you’re a busy pastor, you’re a way busy dad, like you didn’t have to do this, but why?
Damien Schitter
Yeah, that’s a great question. And when I was in seminary, I had my first semester, a professor in an intro course. What was it called? It was called spiritual and ministry formation. So this was an intro class, and one of the things that he assigned us was to develop a life mission statement. Now I was 20. I just had graduated college, so let’s call me 23. I was 23 years old, thinking, I mean, how long is this going to stick, but he gave us a great structure. He met with us in the middle, he met with us at the end, and then we revisited that with him at the end of seminary, in a final course before we launched out and we edited it and so on. And that exercise surprisingly stuck with me all through my adult life thus far, and it’s really been a North Star you have, and so what I wrote then, and it’s, I mean, it’s a little different, but it’s really close to what I articulated then, which is, I’m a teacher leader called by God to inform and facilitate whole person growth in Christian leaders. And so for me, right now, I do that primarily as a pastor. That’s my fundamental thing, a dad, a pastor, you name it, a teacher. But the reality is that what I learned is my core passion, Case, is wholeness. I want to see whole leaders and the work of our hands is so integral to who we are, and it almost is like a gateway, a gateway drug, so to speak, into wholeness, if we can embrace God’s vision for work and how, as Steve Garber says, vocation is integral to the mission of God, not incidental. If we can begin to embrace that vision, then I think that we can embrace wholeness and so the opportunity to be able to serve in some small way. To help lead this institute, at an institution that is training so many pastors and leaders who will have an impact on, Lord willing, hundreds and thousands of people. It is a way where I think I can steward both my desires, my gifts and my experience toward this end that God put on my heart when I was in my early 20s, I think that’s the medium answer.
Case Thorp
Praise the Lord. That’s good stuff. Well, Damien, you’re the bomb, and I really appreciate you being here.
Damien Schitter
Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Case, so glad to be here.
Case Thorp
Alright, friends, go to our show notes, and you’ll see a number of links to things we’ve talked about here. Especially if you want to learn more about the work of the Institute for faith work and culture, you can go to paideiacenter.com/ifwc, New City Church also has a great equipping podcast that I listen to quite often, called All of Life. All of Life, you can find that wherever you get your podcasts, Well friends, thank you for joining us. Remember like and share. It helps us get the word out. Leave a review wherever you get your podcasts, you can always visit collaborativeorlando.com, for all sorts of content. If you give us your name and email, we’ll mail you a 31 day faith and work prompt journal. This is something we’ve written for you and your quiet time to be prompted in some of the concepts and ideas we’ve discussed here today, and then have that conversation with God. You can also find us across the social media platforms. Don’t forget Nuance Formed for Faithfulness, our weekly 10 minute devotional for the working Christian that follows the Christian liturgical calendar, they drop every Monday. Want to thank our sponsor for today, the Stein foundation. I’m Case Thorp, and God’s blessings on you.
