I recently experienced a big change in my life…my wife and I became home owners. We bought a house two miles southeast of the Downtown Campus, originally built in 1897. From out of nowhere, a new desire arose within me to do home improvement and renovation projects. Overnight, my YouTube algorithm changed and it began almost exclusively suggesting DIY tutorial videos for house projects. 

Upon taking possession of the house, I repainted the entire interior of the house within a week. I had paint on the brain; I was either painting, eating, or dreaming about painting that entire week. Shortly afterward, we had our crumbling chimney fixed, the roof replaced, and a rotted out cellar door and stairs redone. Other numerous smaller home projects, as expected with a nearly 130-year-old home, have filled my weekends ever since we became homeowners. Although exhausting and frustrating at times, the feeling of a job well done (or at least done to the best of my ability!) has been an unexpected gift of home ownership.

 

A Workplace Visit

Around the same time, my fellow pastors and I visited the workplace of someone from our church, Reda Ibrahim, who started a general contracting construction business called RK Contractors. Reda is originally from Egypt and has a passion to help minorities, refugees, displaced persons, and people needing a second chance find their place as professionals. His business’ outstanding work in the Historic Northeast of Kansas City and across our city was recognized by the KC Chamber as one of the top ten small businesses in 2022.

Workplace visits are one of my favorite things about pastoring at Christ Community. Congregants visit my workplace every Sunday, so it’s only fair that I get a chance to see some of their workplaces during the week! As I see where our people spend the majority of their time and talk with them about the joys and challenges of their work, I can help them experience how their work matters to God. More than that, I benefit as I learn about a different industry or occupation outside of my daily experience. This visit with Reda was no different. 

 

The Four Chapter Story 

At Christ Community, we like to summarize the overall biblical storyline of the good news as The Four Chapter Story: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Renewal.

Creation: How the world once was and ought to be.

Fall: How the world is broken and needs redemption.

Redemption: How what’s broken can be fixed through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.

Renewal: How the world will be when Jesus returns and completes our redemption.

The four words ought, is, can, will are a great way to remember this story and communicate it to others in a natural way.

Each time pastors visit someone’s workplace, we love to talk through their work using the lens of the Four Chapter Story. We talk about what their work ought to be like, what it is like because of sin and brokenness, how Jesus can redeem their work, and what their work will one day look like when Jesus makes everything right.

While eating lunch with Reda’s crew, we started talking about their work through the lens of The Four Chapter Story, and I was touched by their insight. As a new amateur home project DIYer, I was excited to hang out with the professionals, but I got even more out of this experience than I originally had expected!

 

The Gospel According to Home Renovation

Initially, the theological concepts of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Renewal weren’t landing in our conversation, but all of a sudden it clicked for one of Reda’s crew members. He remarked how their work is almost a mirror image to The Four Chapter Story. They step into a run down home that was originally built for and ought to be a safe and beautiful place for a family to live. But over time, through neglect and broader systemic brokenness in our city, that building falls into disrepair and is ugly, dangerous, and not usable as a home. Reda and his team work toward restoring that house because they believe it can be a home again. As they work through the fixes and renovations with all the ups and downs, they look forward to the end goal of what the house will be like when it is fully restored, and another family makes it their home.

 

Our Hearts Long for Redemption

What a beautiful picture of the good news! Theologians have long marveled how God, as Creator and Sustainer of all things, has placed echoes of his good news story of redemption and restoration throughout the world. One marker of this is the human fascination with fixing and restoring physical things, especially homes. Whether you are a professional tradesmen or an amateur DIYer, whether you have a home that is being renovated or you just binge home improvement videos in your free time, there is something about being human that longs for and delights in seeing something restored. This points outside itself to the redeeming work of God as he is making a broken, ugly world beautiful and whole again.

May this truth turn us to praise and worship God, the Ultimate Renovator, as we do this work ourselves or are blessed by this work from others!