Man is a tool-using creature. Whether fashioning plows, building arks, or framing houses, our commission to “work and keep” the earth with our own two hands remains just as vital today as it was in the past.

In this 2-day class, Mortise & Tenon Magazine editor Joshua Klein will lead an immersion into the premodern world of hand-tool woodworking. Exploring the time-tested methods that built our material heritage, participants will come to understand wood grain by studying living trees and shaping wood with hand tools such as froes, handsaws, hatchets, and handplanes. We will also examine pre-industrial furniture up close to learn directly from the craftsmen’s tool marks. No prior woodworking experience is required, just an open mind and ready hands.

Instead of following our technology-obsessed culture, let us learn to walk in the way of the carpenter’s Son, the way of Wisdom. We have a lot to learn from the world that God has made, and the discipline of patient handcraft is a profound way to do that (Ecc 10:10). As we engage with the grain of reality, we learn humility, patience, attention, and perseverance, and we learn to enjoy the work of our hands. Good work is work of love and attention: it is tuned into the needs of our neighbors and directed to the glory of our Triune God.

The class runs October 15-16 at the woodshop of Mortise & Tenon Magazine in Sedgwick, Maine. (The precise address will be provided to registered participants.) Each workday begins and ends with a service of prayer adapted from the Book of Common Prayer.

Tools, materials, breakfasts, and lunches will be provided. Participants are responsible for travel and accommodations. (Area vacation rental properties found through Vrbo, AirBnB, et al., are recommended.)

REGISTRATION CLOSES SEPT. 30, 2026
All are welcome.

This event satisfies a MAP2 requirement in Greystone's Certificate in Mechanical Arts.