Work, Ministry...Ministry, Work...

Okay, I admit I'm one of those people who have talked about "work" separate from "ministry" - but it's not true. This article really says it well. Very timely for me as I return to "work" 1/2 time in the very near future. From Worklife Coaching newsletter  Working Christians often hear a call to "capture the boardrooms for Jesus" or to "transform the marketplace for Christ."  Those missions miss the mark entirely. We should not aspire to be a Christian workplace but rather a workplace filled with Christians. The battle is about character, not culture. The difference is huge. The distinction is significant. Becoming a Christian workplace focuses our energies on capturing control of an organization or institution, thinking if we control its structure we assure ourselves a God-honoring environment. Unfortunately, experience (and sinful human nature) has taught us the same workplace stresses, struggles, and foibles exist in Christian organizations that are found in corporate workplaces. We burn off energy targeting influential people because we believe their positions offer us a chance to capture the environments they control. Instead of seeing those influential people as sinners needing Christ (or Christians needing encouragement), we see them as means to an end, tools to be used for objectives we set. Our goals should always be grassroots in nature, focused on individuals and not institutions. Our objective must always be to introduce others to Christ and to encourage those who already know Christ to grow in their understanding of His call on their lives. Revival sweeps a culture one person at a time. It starts when an auditor decides she cares so much for the other workers on her team that she swallows her fears and begins to share Christ with them. It grows when a programmer moves alongside another programmer and helps him grow in his budding faith. It is enhanced when Christians in the workplace begin to let their faith influence their individual actions on the job. And revival can really explode when the followers of Christ in a corporation commit themselves to honoring each other rather than fighting the finer points of faith, so others see the bonds that bind and not the dogma that divides. We do not need a movement that sweeps like a glacier through the culture of our work worlds. We need one person deciding to completely surrender herself to Christ, inspiring one more person to surrender himself completely to Christ, inspiring one more person to surrender...and so on. Then those who don't know Christ will see Christ in us, and some of them will want to know Him, too.  Let our faith today not be governed by a desire to control institutions but a desire to honor God and a desire to lead coworkers we care about from the terrible fate that awaits them in an eternity separated from Him. What do you think?