Do you see your workplace as somewhere that you can serve and share God?  Sadly many Christians don’t.  Instead they live believing a “Two-Story” view of the workplace that ranks people like this:

1.  Those in “full time ministry”

2.  Everybody else

This view basically says that people who have gone into “full time ministry” have received a higher calling from God than those who work in secular occupations.  We’re all equal in God’s eyes, but those in full time ministry are a little more equal!  There is also a slight variation that goes a little something like this:

1.  Those in full time ministry

2.  People in “helping professions” (doctors, nurses, counselors, social workers etc...)

3.  Everybody else

I doubt that Christians deliberately decide to believe this way of looking at the world but rather sub-consciously absorb it from our 21st century Christian culture.  When was the last time your church prayed for and equipped you in your “secular” job?  When was the last sermon you heard on applying the Bible to your workplace?  Or does your church talk about, pray for and even exalt more its pastors, Bible college students, and overseas missionaries?  Now before I end up with a stack of emails and people unsubscribing from this newsletter (!) let me say that those things are great!  And we need people to do them.  If this is what God is telling you to do then quit your job and do it.  But church based occupations are not the only way that you can serve God.  The Bible doesn’t separate serving God from any other part of life.  It is your life, all the time.

I don’t write this to slam people who work in a church.  I have friends in paid ministry and there are church workers on this mailing list. We are all part of the wonderful body of Christ.  My message is this: Don’t feel unusable or unapproved by God if you are not in paid ministry.  Instead, ask yourself if you are doing what God would have you do in the situation that He has placed you in.  At least for one more fortnight, I’m going to continue my new tradition of finishing by quoting songs.  Here’s something from Paul Colman’s “Pray”:

A witness is something you are
Not something you do
And if you are following Jesus then
You’re in full-time ministry too…

Best regards,
Chris McDonald