On January 10-14, the oversight of the Theology of Work Project, Inc., passed from its ad hoc organizing group led by Haddon Robinson and Tom Phillips, to the permanent governing board, now called the Theology of Work Project, Inc. Steering Committee. Members of this committee were selected after an exhaustive solicitation of nominations, and a careful discussion of the responsibilities before acceptance. On January 14, 2007, the Steering Committee officially took control of the project from ad hoc group.
The primary objectives of the first meeting of the Steering Committee included the (a) selection of officers, (b) appointment of committees, (c) interim staff appointments, (d) approval of ad hoc committee actions, including legal and incorporation activities, (e) establishment of a governance structure, (f) discussion and approval of research, draft-writing, editing, and evaluation processes leading to the final product, (g) making beta research assignments to test the validity of the processes, (h) and expansion of the project into diverse geographic, gender and ethnic constituencies.
Six beta research projects approved. Six research projects were approved, including three from the Biblical Witness track and three from the Key Topics track. These six projects will be complete in time for the next meeting of the Steering Committee, scheduled for August 22-25, 2007. These six projects will aid the Steering Committee in assessing the present project plan.
Research methods approved. Three research methods were approved to elicit the information necessary to draft the theology of work. These include the Biblical Witness, Key Topic and Contextualized Processes methods. The Biblical Witness method involves a careful review of each book of the Bible and a recording of the obvious references to work, as well as secondary assessment and exposition of implied, inferred and intended references to work; all of which passes through at least seven layers of review prior to validation. The Key Topic method involves researching one of the key topics identified by a survey of respondents, and subjecting the results to the seven-tier process of evaluation prior to validation. The Contextualized Processes method involves discovering processes individual believers may use to answer work-related questions which may not be directly addressed in Scripture. The committee did not issue beta projects for this method, choosing instead to defer this to a later date.
Officers elected, interim staff appointments made. The Steering Committee approved the following corporate officers: President: Dr. Haddon Robinson; Vice-President: Andrew Mills; Secretary: Rev. William Messenger; Treasurer: Caleb Loring, III; Vice-Treasurer: Cheryl Kilgore. Dr. Haddon Robinson then appointed Cheryl Kilgore as Interim Project Director (title and appointment later made permanent as Project Manager) and Rev. William Messenger as (title and appointment later made permanent as Executive Editor).
Project format approved. The Steering Committee affirmed its decision to make the Theology of Work an open-source document available in the public domain. This means that no group will be excluded from using the Theology of Work, and in fact, that the Steering Committee hopes its work will assist in creating baseline information that encourages further research into God's view of work and its many topics. To achieve universal availability and to remove economic barriers to access, the Steering Committee determined to make the final product available primarily as an online document in roughly the same context as Wikipedia, but with more rigid submission/evaluation controls than that and similar open-source Internet initiatives.
Initial funding accepted. The Steering Committee gratefully acknowledged and accepted the first $50,000 in funding received from individual donors.