Some time ago I began noticing, the longer I worked construction the more sermons didn’t really mention construction sites. The more time I spent on a ladder, the more I noticed how much Christian books talk about working in cubicles. Then one day I began to ask others. I had to know if I was the only one noticing it. Wouldn’t you know it, everyone I asked seemed to agree that my observation was right.

No that’s not much to go on, still. I might still be crazy, or just surrounded by like minded people. I needed more objective data to know if what I had felt was a real problem or not. I obviously need more than feelings to go on, and I certainly don’t want to only complain. I began trying to figure out how I would even research such a thing.

First I had to articulate what I believe the problem is so I could even begin to figure out if it is a problem and how I could fix it. So here goes: I feel like blue-collar men and women are being unintentionally forgotten by the Modern evangelical movement.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t on purpose. I know too many pastors with good and kind hearts to believe this omission is intentional or malicious. The error is unintentional and innocent, but it is happening. Every pastor I know would want to know if a third of his church felt forgotten. This is not an indictment against Evangelical pastors, but a call for the church to reach out to blue-collar communities.

Moving forward, I will define “blue-collar”, and explain my grounding for the claim that there is a blue-collar blindspot. I see blue-collar workers like a people group in a foreign country. There are four main divides that isolate this remote country in the heart of America. A language divide, a cultural divide, a calendar divide, and a leadership divide. Each one adds together to create the borders of this small country. I will outline the problem one divide at a time, like putting legs on a stool.

For me, blue-collar describes any job that pays, on average, around 50,000 dollars a year, doesn’t require a college degree, and involves a specialized set of skills in which workers tend to use their hands more than their heads. Think mechanics, electricians, plumbers, HVAC1, factory workers, law enforcement, corrections officers, and enlisted military. I don't specifically include the service industry or retail, although the majority of my points hold true for those jobs too. I lack experience in those industries and figured I should focus on what I know.

The Language Divide

One problem facing the modern Evangelical movement is the lack of blue-collar language within books and sermons. It’s one thing to say I feel forgotten; it’s quite another to examine Amazon’s 379 best-selling Christian books from eight categories to see how blue-collar language in Christian books stacked up against white-collar language. 2

I first needed a fair metric to determine which language was most frequently used, carefully selecting five words that fit each category of work. The white-collar words were: office, conference, staff, corporation, and desk. The blue-collar words were: jobsite, factory, construction, crew, and truck. I then selected eight different “Top one hundred best-selling” lists and used Amazon’s “search inside” function to determine how many times the words were used in each book. There were a lot of overlapping book titles between the lists and not every book was searchable, so 800 books quickly became 379 books by 325 different authors. This gave me a book sample, large enough to know with some certainty if the modern Evangelical movement had indeed forgotten how to speak blue collar language.

In an average 220-page book there were just over four blue-collar words total. Meanwhile there were almost twenty-two white-collar words. As a matter of ratios, that's one blue-collar word every fifty-five pages, one white-collar word every ten pages, and five white-collar words for each blue-collar word. That means only one out of six words of occupationally-biased language speaks to blue-collar workers.

That’s just a count of words that might connect with blue-collar workers. This analysis doesn't say anything about how those words are used in the careful articulation of God’s truth, or how that truth relates to everyday life and challenges of faith. It’s just the use of words like “truck.” A lot of things could skew the numbers slightly one way or the other. One book had an entire chapter titled “The Yellow Truck” and skewed my numbers a little. It also doesn’t account for rhetorical uses of certain words. “Construction” or “office” for instance have metaphorical uses and I wasn’t able to discern how each word was used each time it occurred. The true numbers for each may be somewhat lower than my actual findings.

The numbers heavily favor white-collar language. Merely four words per 220-page book is hardly “speaking their language.” That’s only one word every fifty-five pages aimed at the blue-collar heart.

Missionaries often speak about the importance of using someone’s “heart language” to evangelize effectively. It’s possible for two people who both speak the same language to not understand each other. For example, there is a difference between Minnesotan English and Texan English. The regional dialects in English are more subtle than other languages, but they are just as real. They exist largely in pronunciation and vocabulary. In the same way, occupational dialects also exist, mostly as jargon and word choice. These dialects are non-obvious speed bumps to communication. As an electrician, we “run pipe,” “pull home-runs,” and “put whips in boxes.” Anyone who knows English could understand those phrases while having no idea what I mean. When a pastor tries to make a point that bridges the gap from Sunday to Monday, white-collar words and phrases are typically used.

Imagine you had to read a book where every time the author tried to make application to your workplace the book switched to Korean. This happens every ten pages. Now, you can read Korean, but it’s slow and you really have to try. Would you expect to get much out of the book? Would that book speak to your heart? If you were listening to a sermon in English, by a Spanish pastor—and he started speaking Spanish when he explained how to live out the Gospel in your workplace—would you feel equipped to take Christ to your job? You would be left to make the most critical sermon application by yourself. This is why I say the modern Evangelical movement isn’t speaking the language of blue-collar workers.

If you’re not speaking someone’s language, you’re not speaking to them as a person. Even if they understand most of your English, any missionary will tell you: you must speak their heart language to reach them best. They may understand you, but they won’t really connect with your message, and it can easily miss their heart. If you want to engage the construction worker, plumber, factory worker, HVAC tech, electrician, plant worker, miner, or mechanic in your congregation, you must speak a language they not only understand but connect with. In order to effectively minister to blue-collar people you must learn to speak the blue-collar language.

This is an excerpt from my book “The Blue-Collar Blindspot” grab a copy here

1Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning

2See Appendix B