The Future of Work
By Joanna La Fleur
After Hours Millennial Host
What can we say to young people coming into the current workforce?
Inflation is on the rise, making entry salaries not go as far. Many are staying home longer with parents because of the inaccessible cost of home ownership. What we thought would be short lived because of the pandemic; remote work, has become a massive change in how businesses operate, with new rules for those who want to succeed and rise up the ladder. WIth the rapid pace of technological change, many are walking into a job market where the jobs they have to prepare for and will have in the future don’t even exist yet.
So how can they prepare for an unknown future? What can we do to support Gen Z growing up in a world changing so rapidly? What can we offer them as parents, pastors, mentors, aunts and uncles?
Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
In these changing times for the next generation navigating their careers and calling- the person and invitation of Jesus to come follow him remain the same. It’s a timeless message and as relevant as ever. He is the stable rock in whom we can trust in shifting sands. He is the one who calls us to purpose and meaning in our lives.
Jesus warns us that we cannot serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). When we discuss issues of money, getting rich, building wealth, and the career direction of our lives, he shows us a true and free way to live! With great joy to receive and give our money away as we steward it in our lives.
Instead of chasing all the things that our culture says are most valuable- beauty, wealth, youth, power- Jesus resets our thinking and gives us a transformation of the heart, reminding us that our true happiness, fulfillment, and calling in our careers and whole life is to give our lives away for the sake of others. To serve God by serving others. To offer ourselves as a living sacrifice.
I love how Eugene Peterson wrote it in the Message version of Romans 12:1-2.
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
Let’s cast this vision and give this truth to the next generation as they become future leaders!
Watch our After Hours Episode on Career and Calling here!