The Leadership Divide

There are precious few indigenous Christian leaders within the blue-collar community. One of the common earmarks for success in a mission field is a self-sustaining church with indigenous leadership. This is something blue-collar men are provably lacking. Part of the data I collected in my survey of Christian literature was each author’s background.1 I had three categories: white-collar work history, graduated college and went straight to full time ministry, and work history with any blue-collar experience at all. I counted any job that took place in an office or was paid salary as white-collar. Any hourly position (including the service industry) was counted as blue-collar, including: factory work, construction, mechanic, custodial, maintenance, military experience, law enforcement, corrections, and emergency rescue services.

[This is an excerpt from my book, The Blue-Collar Blindspot in it I dig deep into how Christian Media tacitly ignores blue-collar workers and the dignity of human work. I’ll be posting more each week till I’m through the whole book.]

Here’s what I found. Although I checked 379 books, many authors had written more than one book so there were only 325 different authors. Of those authors, 195 had a white-collar background, 111 came right out of seminary and became pastors, and only nineteen had any blue-collar background at all. That’s only one in seventeen authors with any blue-collar experience. Most of it was people like Francis Chan having worked at Taco Bell, or C.S. Lewis’s military service. A few others were military officers who became senators. Precious few Christian thought leaders know what it’s like to swing a hammer, or clock in to trade your time for too-little money.

It’s true that most people who wind up as construction workers have personal skill sets and preferences tending away from scholastic pursuits. It's no accident I wound up an electrician after I dropped out of Bible college. Yet, the “Sola Scriptura” pillar of Protestant Evangelicalism requires a certain level of literacy in the laity. Proper discipleship should cultivate a desire to read and learn more about God’s word, and I believe this should lead to a basic understanding of Strong’s Concordance and a few beginner commentaries. The potential exists - and it should be the aim - that some blue-collar Christians, properly discipled, would feel called to the ministry. Maybe some might feel called to write a book, too.

I fully understand that white-collar people will tend toward scholastic pursuits. I was not surprised that the majority of authors came to ministry from a legal background, with finely honed skills in research, persuasive arguments, and precision in writing. It was not surprising that the remaining majority had been trained just for ministry and had started a church or two. I expected a very small minority of blue-collar natives to be thought leaders, or to occupy the higher office of pastor. Instead of a small minority, I didn’t find any. I didn't find one single author in the top 325 best-selling Christian authors who had been a construction worker. None had worked blue-collar more than summer jobs in college, a few military, and one emergency medical technician. Of the nineteen with some blue-collar experience, none had pursued a blue-collar career. There is clearly a dearth of native blue-collar leadership in the modern Evangelical movement.

Putting it All Together

Blue-collar workers are unintentionally being forgotten by the modern Evangelical movement. Ask yourself: if the church doesn’t speak a people’s language, doesn’t know that people's culture, they’ve never visited that people's country, and that people has no indigenous church leaders, what would you call them? The word that comes to mind is 'unreached'. The core blindspot of the modern Evangelical movement is that it has missed these things. Blue-collar workers are effectively an unreached people group.

I will say it again, I don’t believe for one second that this is intentional or malicious in any way. I know many pastors, and every one of them would want to know if even a single member of their congregation felt forgotten or unreached. That’s why I’m writing this, to do my very best to bring the blue-collar blindspot out into the open.

As a construction worker who grew up in the church, I feel a silence and an emptiness toward blue-collar men from print and from the pulpit. There is a remote country within America where blue-collar people live, but white-collar pastors tend to miss. It’s my goal to give you a passport to this country, to teach you the language and culture. I want to explain how this “blue-collar” concept is central to the savior, the gospel, the church, and the broader culture of our church and America as a whole. I want to provide a blue-collar perspective of Christ and the Gospel. I want to show how to connect with the blue-collar men of a congregation in a real and deep way.

If you’re interested in assessing your ministry or outreach, to know how blue-collar friendly it is, just pick up my free Ministry Assessment Tool it will allow you gauge what color your collar is and give tailored advice based on your score.

1See Appendix C

Image sourced from: Church of England article, “ ‘I’m a mate for the journey’ – the chaplain employed in the construction industry”