Book Review - Work Excellence by Chuck Garriott

I'm finally getting around to doing some way overdue book reviews.  After this one, I'll have another one out later in the week (hopefully) and maybe one or two next week.

Today I am reviewing Work Excellence by Chuck Garriott.  This is published by Riott publishing out of Washington DC and was sent to me eons ago by Tim Challies.  So, the obligatory disclaimer is that I am not being compensated in any way for this review.

This is a decent book, a good book, but not a great book.  And part of the reason I am saying it is not a great book may be due to my expectations.  When I saw that this book was on the subject of "work" I was hoping for an in-depth examination of the concept of vocation or calling and how this animates and guides our work lives.  This is more of a practical book geared to helping people give their best at work in service to God. 

In that respect, I think it has value for those in so-called "secular" work as it deals with many practical issues related to how we can be excellent workers in the sight of God.  The book does affirm that all who work do so because they are called of God to that line of work, it calls us to examine our attitudes toward work and it calls us to a superior level of work.  It talks about the place of the gospel in the workplace and the need for workers to be transformed by the gospel to be the kinds of workers God wants us to be.

I would like to have seen the author tease out the relationship between worship and work a little.  He has a chapter on how work affects our worship and vice versa where he properly calls us to relate the two.  However, I felt he stopped short of where he could have gone with this topic in explaining how work actually is worship, and what that implies.

All in all I can see the book having value for a bible study class discussing how to be better workers, but for more in-depth examination of the place of work in God's creation you will probably need to read some of the neo-calvinists, starting with Al Wolters Creation Regained.

Comments

[Brendt]

OK, I'll place my ignorance on display. What's a neo-Calvinist? Is that a Calvinist who really liked The Matrix? And if so, do you have to like the 2 sequels, too?