What to do about no hires because one won't work on the Lord's Day?

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See below. As far as response or what can be done, these at least come to mind: Don't treat the Lord's Day like a second Saturday with the Lord's hour thrown in. Make sure you are doing nothing that contributes to this anti Lord's Day culture. People that reject the Presbyterian/NonConformist/Puritan Sabbatarianism, should not be church officers, at least non in churches that purport to be in that tradition. Churches and denominations that are effectively anti Sabbatarian need to repent. Your church should have a letter they can give members detailing the Reformed view of the Christian Sabbath from their constitution and doctrinal statements to give prospective employers so it is clear this is just as official a doctrine (that we don't undo by exception, spending the day to our own pleasure, etc.) as any SDA's.

By Andy Webb:
You Say You Want Everyone to Worship Jesus But...

Today I had lunch with a member of our congregation who shared the bad news that he had been turned down for a job because he said he couldn't work on Sundays. He'd even offered to work 6 days a week and work all the holidays everyone else tries to take off. It still wasn't enough, he had to be willing to work on the Lord's Day or he couldn't have the job.

I wish I could say that this was the first person in our congregation whom this has happened to, but it's not. Over the years I've seen more and more companies involved in non-essential business (especially retail and customer service) demand that their employees work on Sunday, and not care about objections that working on Sunday violates the religious beliefs of the employee and makes it impossible for them to attend worship. It doesn't matter to them, Sunday is just another day in modern America and like the Israelites in Egypt, workers have to be available for work 24x7.

But before we lay sole blame at the feet of the companies, let's stop and consider why they are doing this. The simple answer is because there is an ever-increasing demand for their services on Sunday. The Lord's Day has become the second busiest day of the week for restaurants and retail and the people who pile out of church and head for Sunday brunch (lamenting the fact that Chick-Fil-A is closed) seldom stop to ask when the people who have been hard at work preparing their food will be able to worship themselves.

Do we ever consider when we pick up the phone to order tickets on Sunday or find out why our Amazon order was delayed that the call center employees have been answering calls like ours all day? The fact is we Christians SAY we want the world to worship Jesus Christ and become part of His Body, the Church, but we'd be furious if no one was there on Sunday to answer our customer service call, or deliver our Pizza, or serve us beer and hot dogs at the game, and we seldom stop to consider that on Sunday those employees can either serve us or serve the Lord but not both and the fact is we've been voting with our wallets for them to serve us for years now.

Isn't it time we stopped? Or must we wait till only retired people can worship on Sunday?

https://www.facebook.com/andrewjwebb/posts/10162656366550038
 
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Good stuff. 5 years ago I was turned down a job for not working on the Lord's Day. I prayed for a few weeks straight for work and the Lord blessed me with the right work for me, and now I've been there for 5 years. My pastor encouraged me by saying the Lord will honor those who honor Him.
 
I wish my elders would simply strike out the recreation and work clause out of our local church confession so we could at least not be hypocritical when we say we believe in the WCF. Don't people know The Lord gave us collage and HS football to fill up our belly with football? :)
 
Another solution is to train for a necessary job that has no set day off, such as police or nurse or doctor or fire fighter so that one can work any day without a problem of conscience. It may help the employability of some reformed folks.
 
Another solution is to train for a necessary job that has no set day off, such as police or nurse or doctor or fire fighter so that one can work any day without a problem of conscience. It may help the employability of some reformed folks.

And another solution is to be self-employed. I realize not everyone has that option, but for some 42 of the 49 years that I've been earning money through labor, God granted me that freedom (even those years when I was a pagan). I cherish it.

If a Christian wanted to work for someone like me, I'd make sure all his work would be done within the 6 days we have per week.

So yes, one part of our Sabbath honoring is to avoid contributing to markets that dishonor it. Another part is to work for opportunities that encompass honoring it.
 
Another solution is to train for a necessary job that has no set day off, such as police or nurse or doctor or fire fighter so that one can work any day without a problem of conscience. It may help the employability of some reformed folks.

Interesting in that most healthcare jobs one is required to work weekends quite often where I live. I am grateful that my job is one of necessity when I have to work Sundays (albeit rare).
 
Interesting in that most healthcare jobs one is required to work weekends quite often where I live. I am grateful that my job is one of necessity when I have to work Sundays (albeit rare).

That can be a real challenge in IT professions, too. I'm really glad that my current position doesn't have on-call obligations, which makes for fewer conscience-testing situations. Aside from some operations center jobs, you in theory have Saturday and Sunday off. But there are some outages that need to be addressed whenever they happen. It was a healthcare company, so at least real outages were usually a matter of necessity and not just trying to make sure someone could still buy their sneakers.

High risk changes also get pushed to weekends. I had to make it clear that I was not going to do deployments or other routine work on a Sunday, because sometimes some other team's manager tried to push it. (It helped that even non-sabbatarian IT engineers hate working on Sundays, too.) I also had to draw a hard line between actual outages that required my urgent on-call assistance and cases where they just wanted someone on the line in case they might be helpful. Sometimes which was which wouldn't be clear until a few minutes into the call.
 
Thank you for this. The Lords Day is such a blessing.
See below. As far as response or what can be done, these at least come to mind: Don't treat the Lord's Day like a second Saturday with the Lord's hour thrown in. Make sure you are doing nothing that contributes to this anti Lord's Day culture. People that reject the Presbyterian/NonConformist/Puritan Sabbatarianism, should not be church officers, at least non in churches that purport to be in that tradition. Churches and denominations that are effectively anti Sabbatarian need to repent. Your church should have a letter they can give members detailing the Reformed view of the Christian Sabbath from their constitution and doctrinal statements to give prospective employers so it is clear this is just as official a doctrine (that we don't undo by exception, spending the day to our own pleasure, etc.) as any SDA's.

By Andy Webb:
You Say You Want Everyone to Worship Jesus But...

Today I had lunch with a member of our congregation who shared the bad news that he had been turned down for a job because he said he couldn't work on Sundays. He'd even offered to work 6 days a week and work all the holidays everyone else tries to take off. It still wasn't enough, he had to be willing to work on the Lord's Day or he couldn't have the job.

I wish I could say that this was the first person in our congregation whom this has happened to, but it's not. Over the years I've seen more and more companies involved in non-essential business (especially retail and customer service) demand that their employees work on Sunday, and not care about objections that working on Sunday violates the religious beliefs of the employee and makes it impossible for them to attend worship. It doesn't matter to them, Sunday is just another day in modern America and like the Israelites in Egypt, workers have to be available for work 24x7.

But before we lay sole blame at the feet of the companies, let's stop and consider why they are doing this. The simple answer is because there is an ever-increasing demand for their services on Sunday. The Lord's Day has become the second busiest day of the week for restaurants and retail and the people who pile out of church and head for Sunday brunch (lamenting the fact that Chick-Fil-A is closed) seldom stop to ask when the people who have been hard at work preparing their food will be able to worship themselves.

Do we ever consider when we pick up the phone to order tickets on Sunday or find out why our Amazon order was delayed that the call center employees have been answering calls like ours all day? The fact is we Christians SAY we want the world to worship Jesus Christ and become part of His Body, the Church, but we'd be furious if no one was there on Sunday to answer our customer service call, or deliver our Pizza, or serve us beer and hot dogs at the game, and we seldom stop to consider that on Sunday those employees can either serve us or serve the Lord but not both and the fact is we've been voting with our wallets for them to serve us for years now.

Isn't it time we stopped? Or must we wait till only retired people can worship on Sunday?

https://www.facebook.com/andrewjwebb/posts/10162656366550038
 
See below. As far as response or what can be done, these at least come to mind: Don't treat the Lord's Day like a second Saturday with the Lord's hour thrown in. Make sure you are doing nothing that contributes to this anti Lord's Day culture. People that reject the Presbyterian/NonConformist/Puritan Sabbatarianism, should not be church officers, at least non in churches that purport to be in that tradition. Churches and denominations that are effectively anti Sabbatarian need to repent. Your church should have a letter they can give members detailing the Reformed view of the Christian Sabbath from their constitution and doctrinal statements to give prospective employers so it is clear this is just as official a doctrine (that we don't undo by exception, spending the day to our own pleasure, etc.) as any SDA's.

By Andy Webb:
You Say You Want Everyone to Worship Jesus But...

Today I had lunch with a member of our congregation who shared the bad news that he had been turned down for a job because he said he couldn't work on Sundays. He'd even offered to work 6 days a week and work all the holidays everyone else tries to take off. It still wasn't enough, he had to be willing to work on the Lord's Day or he couldn't have the job.

I wish I could say that this was the first person in our congregation whom this has happened to, but it's not. Over the years I've seen more and more companies involved in non-essential business (especially retail and customer service) demand that their employees work on Sunday, and not care about objections that working on Sunday violates the religious beliefs of the employee and makes it impossible for them to attend worship. It doesn't matter to them, Sunday is just another day in modern America and like the Israelites in Egypt, workers have to be available for work 24x7.

But before we lay sole blame at the feet of the companies, let's stop and consider why they are doing this. The simple answer is because there is an ever-increasing demand for their services on Sunday. The Lord's Day has become the second busiest day of the week for restaurants and retail and the people who pile out of church and head for Sunday brunch (lamenting the fact that Chick-Fil-A is closed) seldom stop to ask when the people who have been hard at work preparing their food will be able to worship themselves.

Do we ever consider when we pick up the phone to order tickets on Sunday or find out why our Amazon order was delayed that the call center employees have been answering calls like ours all day? The fact is we Christians SAY we want the world to worship Jesus Christ and become part of His Body, the Church, but we'd be furious if no one was there on Sunday to answer our customer service call, or deliver our Pizza, or serve us beer and hot dogs at the game, and we seldom stop to consider that on Sunday those employees can either serve us or serve the Lord but not both and the fact is we've been voting with our wallets for them to serve us for years now.

Isn't it time we stopped? Or must we wait till only retired people can worship on Sunday?

https://www.facebook.com/andrewjwebb/posts/10162656366550038


This is a very good post from Rev. Webb, it has made the rounds on Twitter also.

A related story has been relayed to me: There is a certain iconic Canadian coffee shop franchise in Western Ontario that employs many young people from area Canadian Reformed churches, all of whom were granted Sundays off. When a new franchise owner took over, he removed all of the schedule accommodations in the name of efficiency - as owners are wont to do. When it became clear to him that it meant that this group of young people would all be resigning as a result, and that they were among his best and most valuable employees, he quickly reversed course and re-instituted the accommodations. It is heartening that these young people were willing to suffer unemployment for the sake of keeping the Sabbath, and that they were of such good reputation that the owner changed his mind to keep them.
Unfortunately, stories such as this are few and far between.
 
You must have started work as a toddler! ;)
And another solution is to be self-employed. I realize not everyone has that option, but for some 42 of the 49 years that I've been earning money through labor, God granted me that freedom (even those years when I was a pagan). I cherish it.

If a Christian wanted to work for someone like me, I'd make sure all his work would be done within the 6 days we have per week.

So yes, one part of our Sabbath honoring is to avoid contributing to markets that dishonor it. Another part is to work for opportunities that encompass honoring it.
 
That's a good story too. In these days of overt hatred for Christianity I wonder if folks will still see their best interest over their hatred?
This is a very good post from Rev. Webb, it has made the rounds on Twitter also.

A related story has been relayed to me: There is a certain iconic Canadian coffee shop franchise in Western Ontario that employs many young people from area Canadian Reformed churches, all of whom were granted Sundays off. When a new franchise owner took over, he removed all of the schedule accommodations in the name of efficiency - as owners are wont to do. When it became clear to him that it meant that this group of young people would all be resigning as a result, and that they were among his best and most valuable employees, he quickly reversed course and re-instituted the accommodations. It is heartening that these young people were willing to suffer unemployment for the sake of keeping the Sabbath, and that they were of such good reputation that the owner changed his mind to keep them.
Unfortunately, stories such as this are few and far between.
 
That's a good story too. In these days of overt hatred for Christianity I wonder if folks will still see their best interest over their hatred?

I have a similar story from my own work experience, and it continues to be an event remembered in our family as a trial which God brought us through and used to strengthen our faith. However, I am not optimistic about the wider world (or my own career, such as it is) and frankly find the temptation to compromise when considering hypothetical situations to be strong.
I am not a transformationalist, but it would seem that more Christian-owned businesses would be a help in this way. I am familiar with a very successful landscaping company in (again) Western Ontario owned by a Reformed Christian that has a reputation for treating its employees very well. One of their standing policies is that they will always employ seminary students at a very good rate of pay whether it be part-time, during the summer or if they have a week off here and there - regardless of the level of skill of the student. I have been told that they just need to call in, state their availability and they will be assigned a job site to report to.
 
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