I’m a woodworker and I love it. I love woodworking because I can start with a literal stack of boards and build a fine piece of furniture. With a little time and effort, I have taken rough lumber and turned it into a crib for my son or a beautiful clock. It feels good to start a job and have a finished product. It is a beautiful thing to know that when I build a table and apply the finish it is completely done. Apart from a touch up now and again it will never need me to work on it again.

Woodworking is a great hobby for those in ministry, or others in the people business — teachers, the medical field, public safety, counselors and others like that because in those fields the work is never done. When you work with people you are dealing with lifelong projects. People never stop needing to learn, they never arrive at a place of spiritual perfection where they don’t need the input of spiritual leaders. The work is never finished, and while this might ensure job security, it can be discouraging at times. As important as our work with people is, so much of it is intangible. Don’t get me wrong, it can be deeply satisfying and bear eternal consequences, but I can’t always see learning, or spiritual growth. When I’m working with wood I can feel that, I can produce a thing — a table, or chair, or a build a gift to share with another.

I came to love woodworking kind of like I came to love preaching. When I was training for ministry in college I had no inkling that I would come to be passionate about preaching. My passion for it grew the more I had to do it as a part of my job. I had shop class in junior high like all the other kids. I made the usual collection of tooth brush holders and step stools, and though I had always enjoyed working my hands, I wasn’t left longing for more projects. But after college and working at my first full time ministry position I had a landlord who was generous with the use of his tools. After dabbling a bit and building a few simple projects, bird feeders if I remember correctly, I wanted to be a woodworker. That, combined with a regular diet of The New Yankee Workshop on PBS and I was hooked. Several years later, after a generous pastor appreciation gift I started building my tool collection.

I love woodworking because I can start a project and finish it. I can produce a tangible product. I also experience the satisfaction of working with my hands. One final aspect that makes woodworking such a great hobby for me is that I can produce useful things with it. I have nothing against golf, I don’t begrudge anyone from having it as their hobby and I have even enjoyed playing the game — but strictly speaking only for myself, I know even if I enjoy playing golf occasionally it will only ever be a bottomless hole for me to pour money into. But when I work with wood I receive all the other benefits of it and I get something back. For instance, everyone in my family sleeps in a bed that I built with my own hands. I’m writing this on a desk that I made in my own shop. Woodworking gives something back to me and those I love. Not many hobbies do that.