Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship Part II – Reflections (26)

 

“It is, therefore, also evident that in living out their secular vocations, Christians come to experience very definite limits, and that in certain cases the call into a secular vocation must of necessity be followed by the call to leave that worldly vocation…What defines these limits is our very belonging to the visible community of Christ” (page 228).

 

“The limits are reached wherever there is a clash between the space the body of Christ claims and occupies in this world for worship, offices, and the civic life of its members, and the world’s own claim for space” (page 228).

 

“That this state of affairs has been reached becomes at the same time evident in two ways. First, it becomes necessary for members of the church-community to make a visible and public confession of faith in Christ. Second, it becomes necessary for the world either wisely to withdraw or to resort to violence” (page 228).

 

Bonhoeffer then writes that those who suffer for Christ, “Join their Lord in a visible community of suffering. They now need even more the full fellowship and support of brothers and sisters in the church-community” (page 228, italics mine).

 

While I hope you are reading Discipleship (or as it is also known, The Cost of Discipleship) along with us, I’ve quoted extensively above in order to capture the flow of Bonhoeffer’s tightly woven thought.

 

Let’s keep in mind that the title of this chapter is The Visible Church-Community. Bonhoeffer is asking us, “What should we look like in the world? What space should we occupy? How should we be identified? What are the marks of the church-community?”

 

When we are asked what space we ought to occupy, and how we, as the People of God, ought to be identified, our answers may well gravitate toward church buildings on Sunday mornings – our thinking tends to be building centric, organizational centric. Who we are and what we do as Christians tends have their center of gravity in organizations and buildings. The space we occupy tends to be restricted to the address of our local church building.

 

(I am reminded of a tee-shirt a friend of mine wore which said, “I love my church.” Well now, I suppose that is nice, but how much better to proclaim, “I love the Church.” If, as a pastor, I have not taught my people to love the Church, then we still have a long way to go.)

 

When we “see” the church, do we tend to see our local congregation, our building, our organizational structure? Do we place the church in a ghetto? Have we erected walls in our minds around the church, confining it to a building, a place, an organization; limiting its expression to certain times and places?

 

When we meet Christians of other congregations, do we see the church? When we encounter Christians in the workplace, in the marketplace, do we see the church?

 

Bonhoeffer tells us that there are “very definite limits” to our vocations (as previously mentioned, the word “secular” is unfortunate). He also tells us that there are times when we must leave our vocations, and that these limits and decisions are defined by our belonging “to the visible community of Christ.” He follows this thinking up by giving examples of vocations which the Early Church deemed incompatible with discipleship, as well as vocations which society closed to Christians.

 

He also, in the above quotes, points out that conflict with the world can result in the Christian withdrawing from a vocation – this would be true of a vocation in general and a job in particular. In other words, a vocation may have, in and of itself, elements which make it incompatible with faithfulness to Jesus Christ and His People. It may also happen that a particular position in a particular organization may be incompatible with our life in Christ and in the Church; this could be due to the nature and practices of an organization.

 

Do you see challenges to Bonhoeffer’s thinking? What are the barriers to us, at least in the West, accepting what Bonhoeffer writes?

 

Here are my observations, can you expand on them?

 

The first challenge is that money has become our arbiter. That is, our decisions are guided by money, by economics. We have become so absorbed with money, the love of which is indeed the root of all evil, that the “bottom line” has come to justify our decisions without much question. Not only has money become our guide, but we dare not challenge another brother or sister’s decision in a matter if it is based on sound economic thinking.

 

The second challenge is that we live in an individualistic mindset as opposed to living as members of the Body of Christ, as members of the visible church-community. Our lives are our own, we don’t really think of them as belonging to Christ Jesus, or as belonging to His Body. We will make our own decisions about vocation, about what we do and how we do it. No one will tell us, or even suggest, that what we do or how we do it may be incompatible with the Scriptures and the Person of Jesus Christ. No one has the “right” to suggest that our jobs are harmful to humanity.

 

We fail to see that as members of Christ, what we do is what the Body of Christ does, our actions are extensions of Jesus Christ, they are expressions of the visible church-community. Shall we soil the garments of Christ? Shall we inflict harm on humanity? Shall we bring shame on the Gospel?

 

A third challenge is whether the visible church-community will support a sister or brother who must leave their vocation, or their particular job, due to obedience to Jesus Christ. If vocation XYZ is deemed incompatible with Christian discipleship and a brother or sister must leave employment in that field, will the visible church-community support that member through transition to another vocation?

 

This third challenge is present whether we speak in terms of the nature of a vocation, or in terms of faithfulness to Christ when the disciple is confronted with ungodly practices. That is, a vocation in and of itself may be wonderful, providing income to the worker and an avenue of service to society, but a situation may arise in which a disciple must choose between obedience to Jesus Christ and obedience to the ungodliness of the world. In such instances, will the visible church-community stand with the obedient disciple, encouraging and economically supporting the disciple through that season of life?

 

The limits to our vocations are defined by our belonging to the visible church-community, we represent Christ and His Body in all that we do. Our church-community establishes boundaries on both vocations (some are out of bounds) and practices within a vocation.

 

What might we consider vocations that are unacceptable to followers of Jesus Christ? What vocations are clear to us as being incompatible with our life in Christ and as members of the Body of Christ? What vocations are problematic? What vocations do our understanding wrestle with in terms of right and wrong, good and evil, acceptable and unacceptable, edifying and harmful?

 

Is it possible that we have become such prisoners of money that we cannot consider these questions?

 

Being in koinonia with the visible church-community defines and limits our vocational practice in a way that has been vital to me – the presence of my brothers and sisters is with me in my thinking and decision-making and my actions. My friendships in Christ are an element of my vocational practice, knowing that in our koinonia we have koinonia with the Trinity (1 John 1:3). The deeper the friendships, the higher the shared joy in Jesus, the greater the presence in my life of my brothers and sisters – to betray Jesus is to betray my friends in Christ, to betray my friends in Christ is to betray Jesus. To sin in my vocation, to disobey Christ Jesus in my vocation, is to also sin against my brothers and sisters in Christ who are part of my life, who are woven into my heart and soul.

 

To disobey Christ in my vocation is to pollute my koinonia with the visible church-community, and most especially with those in Christ who trust me in friendship. It is better, far better, to suffer for obedience to Jesus Christ and incur the rejection of the world, than to betray Jesus and my friends.

 

Of course, if we have never experienced intimacy in the Body of Christ, if the visible church-community is not at the core of our soul, if we do not live for the welfare of the Body and the salvation of others, then we may not relate to what I’m sharing. This is much like the truth that if we don’t really know Jesus, then we can’t truly share Him with others; we can only give away that which is ours to give.

 

The Lord willing, we’ll continue with these quotations from Bonhoeffer in our next reflection in this series.

 

Marketplace Reflections (12)

Witness

I was led into a relationship with Jesus Christ because a coworker cared enough to share the Gospel with me. Howard Wall asked me, “Bob, are you a Christian?” I said “Yes” because in the regional America of my youth unless you were Jewish you were a Christian. Howard’s question led me to the Bible, and as I read the Bible and interacted with Howard I came to know Jesus Christ.

The Church exists for three reasons; to worship God, to edify and nurture the Body of Christ, and to share Jesus with the world. This is our purpose for living - it is pretty simple, and it is not optional for a follower of Jesus. In fact, we can distinguish followers of Jesus by the way they live - Jesus says as much when He teaches that others will know we are His disciples by our love for one another (John 13:34-35), that others will know that the Father sent the Son by our unity (John 17:21 - 23) - in other words the world has a right to judge us by the way we live.

In what we call The Great Commission Jesus tells His followers to go into all the world and to make disciples (Matthew 28:16 - 20, see also Luke 24:44 - 53, Acts 1:1 - 8, and John 17:18, 20:21). Notice that He says “make disciples” - disciples are men and women and young people who follow Jesus as a way of life, it is who they are, it is how they think, how they love, how they make decisions, how they choose to spend their time and money; Jesus is the core of life for His followers. Actually, in a comprehensive sense, Jesus is everything to His followers; and because He is everything His followers need not hold back anything as they love God and love and serve others.

The subject of “witnessing” is so vast that it can be hard to know where to begin. Perhaps it is so vast because we have made it complicated, and perhaps one of the reasons it’s complicated is because we insist on knowing all of the “what-ifs” of witnessing. “What if I’m asked this question, what if I’m asked that question? If I don’t know the answer I’ll fail, be rejected, maybe even be ridiculed.” Perhaps we also make it complicated when we confuse witnessing with “apologetics”, for once we start thinking about “defending” the faith we often begin comparing ourselves with leaders in apologetics and we think that if we can’t come close to their knowledge base or communications expertise that we ought not to witness. Whatever the reason, and there are many, Christians seldom share their faith with others, at least in North America.

I’m reminded of how the Federal Reserve teaches its employees to recognize counterfeit currency - it has them study legitimate currency. There are so many variations of counterfeit truth in the world that it’s doubtful that any of us can examine them all, but we can all know the truth of Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and what the Bible teaches. We can all know Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

This may sound simplistic, but if we love God and love others we will share the Gospel. I’m not suggesting it will be easy, going against the grain is not easy; and I’m not saying that it won’t be costly, the Cross is costly; but if we love God we will share Jesus Christ with others; if we truly love and care about others we will share Jesus with them - for it is a matter of life and death.

As I write these words I am convicted and challenged and I’m asking myself, “Does my own life line-up what I am writing? Do my actions demonstrate my love for God and others?”

I believe that if we are honest with others that we will share Jesus Christ with our coworkers - so in one sense this is about whether we are honest people or deceitful people. I know this sounds harsh, but consider: If I am indeed a follower of Jesus Christ, if my life truly belongs to Him, then if I am not sharing Jesus with others - especially with those with whom I have relationships - then I am pretending to be someone I am not, I am pretending not to know Jesus. It is analogous to me pretending not to be married, to taking off my wedding ring, to speaking and acting as if I have no wife when in fact I am married - to do so would be deceitful.

A holistic witness is a credible witness, for a holistic witness is grounded on who Christ is in us and who we are in Christ - our lives are integrated in Jesus Christ. Our words, our actions, our motives, our love, our care, our decision-making - flow from our relationship with God in Christ and in our fellowship with the saints. The Great Commandment is that the Lord our God is One Lord, and that we are to love Him with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, and all of our strength...and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:12:28 - 31). A consuming obedience to the Great Commandment results in a consuming obedience to the Great Commission.

We are not called to be salespeople peddling the Gospel, we are called to be people who love God and love others. A holistic witness in the marketplace includes integrity in our work, excellence in our work, a thankful attitude, respect for authority, respect for others, telling the truth, asking forgiveness when we ought to, apologizing when we should, and praying for our coworkers, clients and customers. If we have relationships with others we have many opportunities to faithfully witness because the very nature of relationships means that subjects and issues come up to which there are distinctly Christian responses - so we have a choice, to be who we are in Christ or to suppress our identity and act as if Jesus is not our Lord.   

The nature of the human condition means that our coworkers have times of pain, suffering, sorrow, and despair, as well as seasons of joy. In our fragmented society it is unusual when others take the time to care, to express concern, to listen, to pray - or to rejoice when good things happen. The stress and anxiety in today’s workplace is such that a word of comfort, of peace, and of reflection can be like a glass of cool spring water in a desert.

Over the past few years there have been attempts to introduce various vaccines, such as the polio vaccine, into areas of the world which have resisted inoculations. Some medical professionals have been beaten, others killed. Many people in these populations do not understand what a vaccine is, others are intimidated by radical groups opposing vaccines, others brave the risk of violence and are inoculated. The medical groups keep coming back, doing their best to educate both the general population and those violently opposed to inoculation. The medical professionals see their work as a mission; opposing paralysis, debilitating disease, and early death. They desire to improve the health and wellbeing of a population unware that there is medical help that can improve their lives, and especially the lives of their children. The medical professionals fight ignorance in the general population and ignorance in the violent opposition.

There is truth to the saying, “People don’t know what they don’t know.”

What does our mission look like?

Marketplace Ponderings – 5

Speaking of Christ, Isaiah writes, “He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.” (Isaiah 9:7). The rule of Christ is rooted in righteousness and justice.

“By justice a king gives a country stability, but one who is greedy for bribes tears it down.” (Proverbs 29:4). When those in authority exercise justice and equity, those from whom they are responsible experience stability.

Christians are called to participate in the reign of Christ. Since His reign is one of justice and equity, we are called to extend justice and equity to others. This means that we apply standards uniformly. It means that everyone gets a fair shot at a job, a promotion, or a contract. It means that if we are going to be flexible on an issue, that we are flexible with everyone. It means that if we are going to show mercy that it is without regard to our personal likes and dislikes. When we are agents of equity we are agents of Christ. When we violate the principle of equity we violate the reign of Christ.

A friend assumed oversight of the payroll operations of her firm. She discovered that a number of employees were eligible to receive compensation for unused sick days they had taken over the past few years. The previous payroll supervisor had no intention of paying the employees because they were unaware of their eligibility to receive payment. The eligibility was going to expire at year-end. What was the equitable thing to do?

Tom and Frank have been with the company for the same length of time. They do the same job and their levels of performance are similar. Tom has been aggressive in salary negotiation over the years, Frank has not. There is now a wide gap between their salaries that can only be attributed to the fact that Tom is a better negotiator than Frank. Is that an equitable situation?

The person who exerts the most pressure is often the one who receives preferential treatment. We may use a number of rationales to justify our making exceptions to the rule, but the fact remains that when we apply different standards to people that we act in a way contrary to the reign of Christ. This is not to say that we should not show mercy, those in positions of authority are in those positions to (hopefully) show mercy as well as ensure accountability and to exercise their authority with wisdom and humility.

When those in authority manage and lead with justice and equity they promote stability within their organization. People know what to expect and they develop a sense of trust in the firm. As Christians in the marketplace we are stewards of God’s justice and equity. Even if our life of equity is an island in a sea of corporate capriciousness, we are called to be faithful to the character and rule of Jesus Christ. Such a life is worth more than giving out a thousand religious tracts to our coworkers, such a life provides credibility to our words of witness – we are agents of Christ in the marketplace. 

Marketplace Ponderings - 4

I was giving a breakfast talk at a local church, after which we formed small groups to further discuss the material that I had presented. Much of my focus had been on our responsibility to serve our coworkers. One of the participants in the small group said, "My daily goal is to get to work, do my job, and get home without having interaction with coworkers. Interaction can lead to problems, and I don't need problems." While I have to admit that I was taken aback by the comment, I appreciated the person's honesty.

Considering the hectic pace of life, it isn't unusual for us to have days, or perhaps weeks, where we feel that we have accomplished something by simply making it through another day, or to another paycheck. Some of us may feel that we've done well just to have finished another year with some semblance of sanity or equilibrium.

Yet, our heavenly Father has called us to be sensitive to others, even in the midst of personal turmoil and uncertainty. One of the characteristics of our Father that Jesus shares with us is that, "He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Matthew 5:45. The context of this verse is Christ's instruction that we should love and bless those who treat us badly. His point is that if our Father sends his sun and rain upon all people without discrimination, that we should also bless all people without discrimination. This includes our coworkers.

How can we be a blessing to our coworkers?

Prayer is a good place to start. Just as the sun and rain of our Father nourishes our planet, so our prayers can nourish the lives of our coworkers. As women and men whom have been called by God to a corporate priesthood, prayer for others is an integral part of our calling. Consider the fact that it is possible that you might be the only person who ever prays for a coworker, and that if you don't pray for her, then nobody will.

I have some friends who use an organizational chart as a prayer tool. I mentally walk through my firm's offices and stop at each desk and pray for the individual.

What should we pray for? Well, certainly that they will know Christ, and that if they already know him that they will grow in relationship with him. However, I also think that we ought to pray for other specific issues. Has there been a loss in the family? Is there a new baby? Is there unemployment or sickness in the family? Perhaps the person is going through a tough emotional time. Maybe there is loneliness.

Do we know our coworkers well enough to know how to pray specifically for them?

Praying for specifics helps us to be open to relational opportunities with others. When our hearts and minds are focused on others in prayer, the Holy Spirit can communicate to us concerning our relationships.

Thanksgiving for our coworkers is also important. The Scriptures teach us that we are to give thanks for all people, 1 Timothy 2:1. I have heard many a Christian share how giving thanks for a coworker has served to reduce tension and break down unseen barriers between individuals.

In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus teaches that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We have a responsibility to live as salt and light in the marketplace. While our opportunities for expression will be different, depending on our gifts and environments, we can trust our Father that there will be opportunities, for we have a purpose and destiny in Him.

Marketplace Ponderings - 3

Gracious Business:

C.S. Lewis was walking through an academic hall in which a discussion concerning Christianity was taking place. The issue at hand perplexing the participants was, “What sets Christianity apart from other religions?”

Lewis picked up on the debate while walking, stopped and said, “That’s easy. Grace.”

Grace is indeed a distinctive feature of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What Biblically literate Christian does not know Paul’s truism that “by grace you are saved through faith”? The word grace appears approximately 115 times in the New Testament. Grace is a hallmark of Jesus. Is grace a hallmark of our lives? Is grace a hallmark of our business practices?

I know that in my own life, especially in my business life, there are times when I am “grace-less” in my dealings with others.

Paul instructs us in Colossians 4:6, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”

The context of this passage is relational, Paul is writing about marriage, children, and the workplace, certainly three of life’s most intimate settings. The apostle is exhorting us to be gracious in our words, to allow our communications with others to have a certain seasoning about them that allows others to partake of them. Words can be bitter, they can be sweet, they can be well seasoned.

It is possible to deal with hard issues with gracious words. It is possible to communicate unpleasant decisions or positions graciously. When Christians fail to do so, when we adopt the communication patterns of the world, we caricature the image of Christ within us, transforming Him from one who would not destroy a bruised reed or quench smoking flax to one who would call down fire on the inhospitable.

We are called to be good stewards of our business relationships, to exercise gracious stewardship.

Michael Green points out in his book, Evangelism in the Early Church, that early Christian evangelism “was supremely a lay movement.” Christian business people were significant conduits of the Gospel in the ancient world. The avenues of commerce were the avenues of the Gospel. People engaged in commerce saw something different in the Christians with whom they did business, and one of those elements was no doubt graciousness.

While I have no doubt that Paul’s use of the word “salt” in the above Colossian passage was to emphasize seasoning, let us not forget the preservative property of salt. With that in mind, let us consider that relationships are often nurtured, preserved or destroyed by communication.  Is our communication graciously seasoned so as to preserve relationships?

When I do communicate in a grace-less fashion, I then have the opportunity to apologize, ask forgiveness and make amends. This is an opportunity to share God’s grace that I would perhaps not otherwise have had.  If I have not initially been a good steward of gracious communication, I can then, (by God’s grace!), be a good steward of my grace-less communication by humbly apologizing and thus restoring grace to the relationship.

What testimony would my employees, competitors, and suppliers give? Is there enough evidence to convict me of being a gracious Christian in the workplace?

In addition to introducing grace into my business communications, I must also extend grace into my actions. Stewardship of position, whether of executive or otherwise, entails stewardship of grace. Many believers have bought into the ungodly rationale that the “bottom line” justifies virtually anything. Oh, perhaps we’d rephrase it to indicate that the bottom-line justifies virtually anything not morally or ethically wrong or illegal. That might perhaps allow us to sleep a little better at night, but can a follower of Jesus Christ live with that maxim?

What about grace? We seem to conveniently forget that grace and mercy are often used in a forensic Biblical context, while at other times they are used in an accounting-financial context. This is especially true in Paul’s letter to the Romans. In fact, an amazing thing about Gospel grace is that it is presented in the New Testament in both a legal and accounting context.

Therefore, if God deals with us in grace within legal and accounting contexts do we really think we have a warrant for doing otherwise in our business relationships? After all, if God is simply looking at the bottom-line when viewing us outside of Christ, then the fact is that we all belong in debtors’ prison for eternity.

How can we acknowledge this Gospel reality on the one hand and on the other behave in an ungracious fashion towards others? And let’s remember that it isn’t an issue of whether others deserve such treatment – unless of course we have come to believe that we deserve God’s gracious treatment apart from Jesus Christ!

As soon as we make merit an issue of whether or not we’ll treat this or that person graciously or mercifully we cut the ground out from under our own relationship with Jesus Christ – and we caricature the witness of Christ.

And as soon as we think, “Well, Gospel grace and mercy are for spiritual matters, matters that don’t have anything to do with the material life,” we then relegate Gospel grace and mercy to a fairyland, for what could be more material, more substantive, than eternity?

If, therefore, Gospel grace and mercy are relevant for eternity, they are relevant for the present in business, for grace and mercy in Christ is the business of eternity.

If we cannot transpose Gospel grace and mercy into our business communication, practice and decision-making, if Gospel grace and mercy are not magnetic north, then what does this indicate concerning our experience of and commitment to the saving grace and mercy of Jesus Christ?

Has grace penetrated the core of our character or is it a religious play word we use on Sundays? Are we known as people of grace within the business community?

Do we really think that on that day when we stand before our Lord Jesus that He will accept our excuse, “But Lord, the financial bottom-line is what mattered.”

What testimony would my employees, competitors, and suppliers give? Is there enough evidence to convict me of being a gracious Christian in the workplace?

Marketplace Ponderings - 2

The Workplace, The Worship Place

Most of us compartmentalize our lives, we build firewalls to keep work separate from family, and worship separate from work. It is as if we live in a huge building in which each room represents a different facet of life, and most of these facets do not have connecting doors – we must go out of one room and go down the corridor to get to the next room. We live like this because we have been taught to live like this; it helps us manage our lives, it helps us avoid complications, it helps us wall-off stress – but it also causes internal and relational fragmentation, we become people with many masks – do people really know us? Do we really know ourselves?

The Biblical view of life is holistic, Biblical life is seen as an integrated whole which is grounded in God; God is the hub of the wheel and the life centered in God begins with worship. As the sun gives light and life to the earth, God gives light and life to all aspects of our lives…if we will let Him. God created humanity for relationship, and though we have marred that relationship through rebellion and sin, through Jesus Christ God our Father has restored us to Himself. The desire of God for us hasn’t changed since we were created, He wants relationship, He wants to spend not only eternity with us, He wants to spend today with us, and this brings us to worship for worship is the center of our relationship to God. When we worship God we acknowledge Him as our Creator, as our Father, and as our source of life. When we worship we give ourselves to God, loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and body.

But here’s the thing, if we live compartmentalized lives then we isolate worship to our Sunday morning experience and we risk closing God off from other areas of life, including our vocational life, including life in the workplace. For those of us who are married it is analogous to saying, “I’m married when I’m home and when I’m not home I’m not married,” for we are living as if we are saying, “I am a worshipping Christian when I’m with the church and when I’m not with the church I’m not a Christian who worships.” Just as our spouses do not want our hearts just some of the time, neither does God. Jesus makes it clear in John 4:23 – 24 that we can worship God anywhere, that our worship is not limited to certain places. This does not mean that places cannot be special, it means wherever we are we can worship.

Worship can take many forms, as our Sunday morning gatherings demonstrate. We are a diverse people and we have diverse ways to express our devotion to God and our love for Him. Paul writes in Colossians 3:17 that “whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father though Him.” So while we may not take a hymnal to work and sing, we can dedicate our workdays to God and offer our words and deeds to Him in the name of Jesus – whether or not those around us know what we are doing.  In fact, later in Colossians Paul writes, “Servants…whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.”

In other words, our work is to be our worship, and a form of our worship is to be the excellence of our work. Our work product ought to be worthy of God; this includes our integrity, honesty, craftsmanship, attention to detail, and all the other things that go into what we do in daily life. When we serve others we are to do it as serving Christ; when others are served by us it is to be as if Christ were serving them.

The foundation of every day should be our worship, and all things that we build on the foundation should be consonant with worship, they should be true to worship, acceptable to God as an offering and as a testimony to others.

Have you thought about worship at work before reading this? Do you give thanks to God when you are at work? What are the challenges to that? How can you meet those challenges? Is the quality of your work worthy to be offered to God? Do you realize that you are serving Christ at work? How does He look at your work? If others were to realize that your work is an offering to God, how would they view the quality of your offering – would they consider it excellent or just enough to get by?

“Lord Jesus, help me to worship you at work, to be thankful to you, to do the best I can at what I do so that you will be pleased and also that the quality of my work will be a testimony to you. Help me to learn to offer myself to you every day and throughout the day.”

Marketplace Ponderings – 1

Have you ever wondered what it was like for the twelve disciples to live with Jesus for the three years of his public ministry? Think of the things that they watched him confront; seeming uncertainty, betrayal, opposition, slander, needy people, acclamation, success, apparent failure...the list could go on and on, because it is a list that portrays life. I can envision that each new encounter brought with it a new opportunity for learning and growing for the disciples.

The marketplace holds similar opportunities for learning and growing in Christ. Just as it is to be a place where we are to bless others, it is also to be a place where we experience growth in our relationship with our heavenly Father.

What better place to learn to trust in the certainty of Christ, than in the uncertainty of the workplace?

What better place to learn to rest in the peace of Christ, than in the pressures of the workplace?

What better place to settle the issue of the lordship of Christ, than in an arena where money and power are too often king?

I doubt that I would have an inkling of my own vanity and pride, were it not for the workplace – what about you?

Whatever may be occurring on the surface of our work experiences, there are underlying spiritual issues in which our Lord Jesus desires partner with us. Two questions that I have found helpful over the years are: "Lord, how can I be a blessing in this situation?" and, "How do you desire to mold me into your image through this experience?" Since Christ is with us, we have the same opportunity as the twelve did to learn from him on a daily basis.

Considering the amount of time that most of us spend at work, if we are not enjoying a progressive relationship with God at work, then we have cut Him out of a substantial portion of our lives. We have also lost a wonderful relational opportunity to learn from Him.

Since our heavenly Father already knows every detail of our lives, we can confidently incorporate Him into our careers, assured in His desire for relationship with us, (Psalm 139). Paul writes that, "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," are to be found in Christ, (Colossians 2:3). Who wouldn't want to have all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge to assist her or him in negotiating the complexities of the marketplace?

However, I'm not really talking about a resource, I'm talking about a relationship. This is not about pragmatic utility, for there are times when it is our calling to "lose", as our culture defines loss. Life is not to be about ourselves, but about Christ and others. We have a higher destiny and purpose than seeking to acquire the highest position, wealth, or the most toys. Positions and resources are simply things given in trust to the Christian to be used for Christ's glory and the benefit of others.

The Lord Jesus desires us to know Him in the midst of life, including life in the marketplace. He desires us to know the same intimacy that the disciples knew who lived with Him those three years (John 17). The marketplace can be a place of relationship with our God; a place where we are transformed into His image.

Do you think about Jesus Christ being with you in your vocation? What are the challenges you face in centering your vocation in Christ?  Do you have a sense of His will and purpose for your vocation?

“Lord Jesus, please give me a sense of your presence at work. Help me to know that you have a purpose for me in my vocation that goes beyond a paycheck and a position. Help me to give my challenges to you and to look to you for wisdom and understanding.”

Secular Work?

A couple of weeks ago a pastor friend said to me, “I’m going to be preaching about prayer as it relates to work and I know you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about work, what would you say to people in secular work regarding prayer?”

I responded, “I’d gently encourage them to talk to their pastor about all work being sacred, that no work is secular, unless of course the work is sinful.” While I went on to share what prayer and work can look like, I wanted to graciously challenge my friend to think about his own approach to the work of his parishioners.

In God’s eyes is a pastor’s work first class and a teacher’s or plumber’s work second class? We are called to be worshippers, wherever we are, whatever we do, we are called to worship – whether we are fixing a pluming leak or teaching third grade, whether we are in Congress or framing a house, whether we are writing computer code or stocking shelves in a grocery store – whatever we do and wherever we are we are to worship God, serve God, and do what we do as unto God in the name of Jesus (see Colossians 3:12 – 4:1).

Alas, the sacred – secular dichotomy is alive and well; most pastors continue to view their work as superior to their parishioners and consequently their sermons have little to no relevancy to Monday – Friday. We wonder why people don’t share the Gospel as a natural fabric of life; little wonder when we’ve disenfranchised them and made them second-class Christians. We talk to them and act toward them as if what they do is less valuable than the work vocational pastors do, and then we expect them to share their faith and invite others to “come to church” – we expect them to turn their Christianity on and off like a light switch. For solutions to a lack of witnessing we turn to programs and seminars instead of looking at the sacred – secular and clergy – laity dichotomies as barriers to the witness of the church and the transformation of Christians into the image of Jesus.

How we think of people influences how we relate to people. As long as pastors think of their people as engaged in second-class work it is difficult to see how they can minister to them as first-class Christians.