Based on a brief talk I gave at the Faith and Work Movement 2022 Leaders Retreat
When we started the Christian’s group at Airbnb 5 years ago, we had a very simple vision: pray for our company, our leaders, our coworkers, and for opportunities to do direct, personal evangelism. Nothing fancy, just prayer.
So, we started this prayer group to specifically pray for the good of our company…and immediately we started praying for ourselves, our promotions, and our projects. We had a desire to pray for our company and coworkers, but when push came to shove, we weren’t doing it. We found ourselves praying for what Brian Chesky, our CEO, thought was important, not what God thought was important. Our company was subtly shaping how we viewed our work, how we viewed our coworkers, and how we prayed.
Years ago, I remember walking around the Facebook campus and seeing all the propaganda posters. “Nothing at Facebook is somebody else’s problem.” “Move fast and break things.” These posters were meant to shape how people thought about their work. The company said that these values were important, and they used these ubiquitous posters to keep reminding you, to keep shaping your heart and mind.
I asked some friends who currently work at Meta about the current propaganda posters. One in particular stood out to me: “Meta, Metamates, Me.” What is this poster communicating? It’s communicating a prioritized list of needs, where you put the needs and wellbeing of your coworkers over that of your own. This is a sound, Biblical principle! Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg, for reminding us about what Jesus says about loving our neighbor! But that’s not all this sign is communicating–it’s also telling you that you are to support the abstract mega-corporation over your coworkers. Love your neighbor as yourself, but love your company more.
These signs aren’t just innocent reminders of company values–they are intentionally designed to form and shape your thinking. In the church world, we would call these things a “liturgy.” Liturgies are repeated physical actions that produce a mental habit. Through embodied repetition, liturgies subtly train us how to think.
My church happens to be more liturgical than the typical American Protestant church, so I interact with liturgy a lot. But, even if you don’t come from a liturgical spiritual tradition (or, if you consider yourself a freethinker and free from every sort of “dead” religious ritual), you’re being shaped by something. You’re always participating in someone’s liturgy, whether you recognize it or not.
Posters, perf reviews, CEO fireside chats, these are all liturgies of the modern religion sociologist Carolyn Chen calls “Techtopia”. Even as Christians devoted to serving God in the workplace, our thoughts are often more shaped by the liturgies of Techtopia than they are by our Savior.
The only counter to the liturgies of Techtopia is a robust liturgy of Jesus Christ in the workplace. If Jesus isn’t actively shaping how you think about work, then Mark Zuckerberg or Brian Chesky or Elon Musk is doing that instead.
As leaders in workplace ministry, I think the most important thing we can do is to train our people how to see their ordinary work tasks as worship. Real discipleship in the workplace is teaching people how to see every pull request, every Google Doc and Excel spreadsheet, every Keynote presentation, and every meeting as an act of worship. In the face of how our company and culture are telling us how to think about work, we need to be constantly trained to see our work as worship. We need to constantly practice work as worship lest we fall into the habits–the liturgy–of Techtopia.
To train our hearts and minds to worship Christ at Airbnb, we wrote a Workplace Liturgy. Every Tuesday morning, a small group of us gather to pray a pre-written prayer specifically crafted to help us pray for the things we originally wanted to pray for: our leaders and our coworkers. There are sections where we pray free-form for one another and our coworkers, but the majority of the prayer is constant week after week after week.
Praying the same things on a weekly basis intentionally helps us to:
- Integrate our work and our faith and to turn our work into worship
- Remind us that we are working for the Lord, not man
- Be strengthened weekly by the Holy Spirit to be a blessing to our coworkers and to demonstrate Christ to Airbnb
- Fight against the idols of work and success by centering ourselves on Christ
On top of that, it doesn’t require any prep work or leadership ability. Any group of people can do it, even if the usual leaders aren’t there.
Here is the latest version of our weekly prayer:
Almighty God, we thank You for Your work and power at Airbnb. You alone can heal our world, redeem our work from meaninglessness, and save the souls of our coworkers.
Thank You for our jobs, and for all the resources and benefits they bring. Make us wise and generous with our wealth as good stewards of what you’ve given us.
For Brian, Joe, Nate, the executive team, and the Board: That they would know You, and lead the company in a spirit of wisdom, charity, and justice.
For our hosts, guests, Airbnb alumni, and all who may be struggling financially: We pray that You would provide for them as they turn to You.
For our cities: That they would be known as a place where Your Kingdom is made manifest. We pray for justice, human flourishing, and an end to Satan’s destructive rule.
For our world: That You would glorify Yourself in our leaders and our churches. We pray that You would heal divisions, fears, loneliness, and depression.
For our coworkers: that they would know Your Son and His all-surpassing peace. Show us how we can love them like Jesus this week. We lift their names and needs up to You now.
[pray for coworkers or friends God is bringing to mind]
For us and all other Christians at Airbnb, that we would be:
Sustained in our health,
effective in our work,
bold in our witness,
blessings to whatever we are a part of,
and ever-focused on You
[prayers for ourselves]
By the blood of Your cross,
Redeem our work,
Remove our anxieties,
Bring light to our darkness,
Restore our fellowship,
And send your Spirit.
May our work not be idolatrous or consuming, but be an offering of praise to You, our Creator, Sustainer, and King.
Amen.
We’ve changed it a few times over the years to respond to COVID and layoffs, but we’ve been praying essentially this prayer nearly every week for the past 4.5 years.
This weekly act of Christian formation is really the only thing the Christians group at Airbnb currently does. We meet at 9am, share prayer requests with one another, and pray this prayer. That’s it. That’s our only meeting, and the only thing on our group’s calendar.
This simple, weekly prayer has been absolutely transformative. It’s changed the way we think about our work, our coworkers, and our careers. We pray for coworkers when they’re sick, when they’re working on a stressful project, when they get married, and when they have a death in the family. We pray for the good and the flourishing of coworkers we’re in conflict with, and we pray for the success of our managers and leaders. Week after week, we give our work to God, which releases us to do exemplary work without feeling the crushing pressure that comes from work being a source of identity.
It’s helped us to look and think more like Jesus and less like Brian Chesky.
Sometimes I wonder if our group at Airbnb needs to be doing more. Christians at other companies are doing so many more things–is the small group of believers at Airbnb being unfaithful by not sponsoring events or inviting speakers or making our website more friendly to Christian guests and hosts?
But, whenever I ask God if our workplace prayer is enough, if He is pleased with our simple liturgy of Jesus Christ in the workplace, the answer is always a resounding “Yes!”