FOR THE PASTOR…from a concerned Artist who is a Christian.

If you accept as a foundational belief that all the sheep under your care are also full-time servants of Christ, you will no doubt be wanting to continue to learn as much as you can to enable them to fulfill their services (as indicated esp. in Ephesians ).

The institutional church does not have a good record in training or encouraging its people to see their work places as full time service and ministry. It is usually seen essentially as a place to make a living and to provide for their families. They are also encouraged to see what goes on at the local church as the key missional or kingdom activity. Thus they are encouraged to volunteer their services within the framework, oversight and programs of the local church. This of course affirms the paid church workers in their roles, and affirms those who put in much volunteer time in implementing the church programs.

But this is counter-productive to the ordinary Christians seeing the significance of serving God in their own work places, homes, neighbourhoods and other activities. They will have grown to become dependent on the Pastor/s to do or lead in the ‘real kingdom work’ rather than take the other six days of the week that seriously.

If Pastors wish to really empower their flock to serve God full-time, there are several ways that they could break down in their own minds as well as their people’s minds, this heirarchy of service thnking which has plagued the Protestant church as much as the Roman church for generations.

1. Make the commissioning and reporting back to the body, the primary and on-going focus of your Sunday gatherings. Speak on the place and purpose of each individual in each profession and type of work represented among your people. Like with any commissioning, it is acknowledging that each member goes out to serve God in the power of the Holy Spirit to spread the Good News about the reign of Christ. They are not there to earn an income, but to serve Christ. Their income is simply a provision of God to enable them to do this. (N.B. Not all mission work is evangelism or church planting.)

2. Build support groups for each profession, and challenge them to come up with a Christian view of how this profession functions within the Biblical themes of Creation, Fall, Redemption. This is a generations-long task and can be formalized however you see fit, but it should act as an accountability group as well as a support group. They should be encouraged to wrestle with the issues involved in bringing their area under the ‘footstool of Christ’ (under His compassionate rule) and work practically towards positive change in the workplace, and to see this as their full-time service.

3. Be their resource person. Find materials that show what other Christians have already discovered about this their area of service and encourage, no, exhort the groups to read and take note of what is relevant for them.They should keep track of their own progress so they can pass it on to the next generation or to new members. There are some wonderful materials out there. If some are too academic, be the translator for your people.

4. Make the work that your people are doing in their work places the central theme of all normal Sunday gatherings. This will not only enable them to see their work as kingdom work, but it is guaranteed to make “church relevant”, and will send them into Monday fired up as servants who can make a difference. God will surely bless the workers, will harvest more, and will also ‘bless the city’ ( Jeremiah 28).

[Name Withheld].