Impacting the Market Place

by Peter Kentley

Introduction
To help gain an understanding of how God is moving in the marketplace today it is helpful to look at three paradigm shifts in the Church in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries:

19th Century Church Paradigm

Village Model
• Church objective was the village
• The village by and large lived the Eph 4:6 Christian life: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all”.
• It was an OUTFLOW church model – ‘go to you’, as Jesus commissioned in John 17:18: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world”.

Pre World War 1 Culture
• Single church in village
• Work close to church
• Low mobility
• Low alternative activities
• Time rich, mothers raised families
• Integrated faith@work
• The West was Christianised per: Matt 28:17-20, Luke 19:10 and John 17:18.

20th Century Church Paradigm Shift

Urban Model
• The Church became its own objective
• It often became internally focused (‘come and help me build my church’)
• It became the INFLOW attractional model, not the missional model
• In the end people came to the church less than 5% of their waking time (Church on Sunday and a mid week home group).

Post World War 11 Culture
• Competitive church effort
• Work became distant from church
• High mobility
• High alternative activities
• Time poor – mothers working
• Segregated Spiritual from Secular
• The West was Paganised – the John 17:18 command was largely lost.

21st Century Church Paradigm Shift

Marketplace Model
• The Objective becomes the people and their ministry
• This way the church can invest in 67% of peoples waking time
• Church returns to the OUTFLOW model – go to you

Networked Missional Culture of Churches impacting the marketplace
• Collaborative Church effort
• Work transformed to Worship (Avodah)
• Mobility reduced by the oil crisis
• More home based alternative activities
• People learns how to make better time choices
• We rediscover how to Integrate faith@work
• 24/7 Love of God returns to the church
• Resurgence of the Missional model of every Christian being in full time ministry in their sphere of influence – John 17:18 rediscovered.

In the 19th Century life was centered around the church in the village which was typically living a subsidence life. The spiritual focus was the church and the family:

 

In the 21st Century life became multi-faceted and overly busy with the following 10 domains dominating and competing for the families time, money, affections and ambitions (in alphabetical order):

• Business
• Charity and Not for Profits
• Church
• Creative Arts
• Education
• Government
• Health
• Justice
• Media and Entertainment
• Sport and Recreation

God was largely relegated outside the circle!

Even the church was largely seduced into a Greek world view of the separation of the sacred and the secular… resulting in the separation of Sunday from Monday! This resulted in the church only accessing some 5% of its peoples waking time and Christian discipleship becoming emasculated (minimising the impact of the Great Commission).

What then is the reason the West abandoned its Judeo-Christian roots?

To answer this question we have to ask another question: Where do Christians meet non-Christians most often? In the marketplace! This is where Christians are best known because it is the place where they spend some 67% of their waking time Monday to Friday. In the workforce the Christians attitudes and character are put to the realty test… this is where the Christian rubber hits the road! So if the Christian’s Monday behaviour does not reflect their Sunday belief, why would anyone believe their belief?

From this we can conclude that the BIG answer for the Church impacting the world is not in programs, as good as some of these maybe. The answer is in great discipleship and carrying that discipleship into the world: into the workforce, into the marketplace, into the shopping centres, into the schools, into the hospitals, into the courts and onto the sports fields and so on.
This is our original commission from Jesus in John 17:18 and Matt 22:37-40 and 28:17-20.

What then is God’s missional objective for the 21st Century Church?

Luke 19:10 “For the son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (or “that which was lost” – not who was lost). In other words God’s concern is about all of creation (Romans 8:21) not just the salvation of souls, important as this is.

Col 1:19-20 “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his
blood, shed on the cross.”

The Churches mission in the 21st Century is unchanged. It is to express the ministry of reconciliation through the life of its people wherever they are, as they go, seven days a week. Every Christians daily sphere of influence is God’s ministry to the world. Every sphere of influence is just as important as every other sphere of influence. This is the new wineskin church of the 21st Century and this is where every Christian has to become aligned with what God is doing in our day.

We need a Networked Missional Culture in the wider Church

To become an effective part of the 21st Century Church we have to shift our focus from the answer being the local church – to – the local church equipping its people to be missional to their daily world. The local church becomes more essential than ever as it equips and trains its people to be effective for Christ in their marketplace. All the normal church functions of supporting the family grows as the church becomes more missional. The church has to be ready to receive the converts from the marketplace, to care for them and to disciple them. But this cannot be achieved by one hour on a Sunday morning. It’s about Christian love, teaching and mentoring.

Also to become effective in the marketplace we have to abandon our fragmented Christian denominational strongholds and work together under Christ. In corporations for example, it matters not whether Christians are Anglican, Baptist or Pentecostal etc. What matters is that they work together as great Ambassadors of the Kingdom of God. This can only happen as Pastors release, encourage and support their people in this mission in their world.

As the church starts to realise this latent potential it will rise up under the unction of the Holy Spirit and start to influence the domains to become more Kingdom friendly. In other words they will influence media and Government and business etc which will result in impacting the culture for Christ. Instead of the Church being relegated into the margins of the life of the city it will start to rise up and become the influencers of the city and nations as follows:

We need to recognise that the local church pastor cannot achieve this level of influence because (usually) they doesn’t have the authority in the marketplace. But within the church leaders do arise who God elevates into these positions of authority for Hisnames sake. It is these leaders and their authority that has to be respected and supported by the local church if we want to determine what Australia will look like in 50 years time.

The Potential of the Church to influence the Marketplace

The Church is potentially the most powerful influencer for good in the 21st Century. It alone has the capacity to influence each and every marketplace domain with the following gifts and callings:

Level 5 Leaders
Men and women God has raised up into positions of responsibility in the society who are not in it for themselves but for the mission of Christ. They are highly competent and humble leaders who can inspire others for the highest good.  

Chaplains and Coaches

Christians taking these roles into the world in business, sport, government, health and justice etc.

The Gifts and Ministries of the Holy Spirit

Releasing these from relegation to church constructs to the outworking of serving God’s creation. For example releasing the calling of evangelist into the course of business life (easy to achieve in sales and marketing where there is alignment between job specification and gifting). In many cases business understands the essential needs of the five fold ministries of Eph 4:11 better than the church. Business just uses different titles such as instructor instead of teacher. But if a Christian is a gifted teacher he/she could be encouraged to be an excellent instructor in their workplace (or teacher at school) and release the blessing of their gifting to the people in their marketplace to honour Jesus.

Workplace Influencers

Every Christian has this calling on their life to be a great ambassador of Christ in the course of their daily occupation (2 Cor 5:20).

Workplace Intercessors

For Christians to be effective leaders and influencers in the marketplace they need the support of intercessors where God has placed them. They will face battles which can only be won with prayer and intercession.

Watchman

The scattered church needs watchmen to alert the church to what is happening in the world from a spiritual perspective and how God is moving.

Gate Keepers

These are the men and women who have been raised up into positions of responsibility that can let good or bad into a city. The Church has to network in the 21st Century to collaborate in support of gatekeepers who serve Christ in their daily decision making leadership in media, sport and entertainment, government, justice and business etc.

So the effective 21st century church will look something like this:

 

Peter Kentley is the director of Australian Market Place Connections