While we have to be immersed in scripture and understand it fully, we also have to know when and how to use it in public discourse.

Let me explain. G. K. Chesterton, the famous British writer, was once invited to a meeting of the leading intellectuals in England. They were asked if they were shipwrecked on an island, what would be the one book they would want to have with them. Everyone expected Chesterton, a prominent Christian, to say “the Bible.”

When it came his turn to speak, however, Chesterton said that if he were shipwrecked on a desert island, he’d like to have “Thomas’s Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”

The point is that oftentimes we need to understand things that are not covered in the Bible. And we need to understand things that help us apply biblical teaching to all of life. This is why I teach biblical worldview.

A man once told Oswald Chambers that he read only the Bible. Here’s what Chambers replied:

 “My strong advice to you is to soak, soak, soak in philosophy and psychology, until you know more of these subjects than ever you need consciously to think. It is ignorance of these subjects on the part of ministers and workers that has brought our evangelical theology to such a sorry plight…The man who reads only the Bible does not, as a rule, know it or human life.”

And when it comes to making a biblical case on any hot topic — taxes, the deficit, homosexuality, whatever — we need to understand the issue and how to make that case in a way that is accessible to believers and non-believers alike.

Brit Hume, Robby George and I have just released a DVD teaching series on ethics called Doing the Right Thing. It’s one of the most important projects I’ve undertaken in my ministry. You can get it at ColsonCenter.org. Every principle we teach on ethics is biblically based. But rarely did we cite the Bible as authority. This is because this ethics course, we believe, will be taught in secular colleges and business schools — as well as in churches and small groups. So, it’s got to be accessible to everybody.

The sad fact is that today, starting a conversation with “the Bible says” will often cause the listener to stop listening. So what you do is make arguments based on what the Reformers called common grace, or what historically has been called natural law.

This is what Paul did when he gave his famous sermon at Mars Hill, his first foray into the Greek culture. He quoted Greek poets; he referred to Greek artifacts. He thoroughly engaged their culture. And then he used their beliefs to lead directly into the gospel.

This is why we must study biblical worldview, to compare how the Bible works out in life versus how other systems of thought do. I assure you: You will see that the biblical way is the only way to make sense of the world, to live rationally in the world, and eventually, your friends will see this as well.

by Chuck Colson – WorldView Centre

Uma Devi was one of their favorite devotees. In fact, all the “holy” men were fond of her because whenever an ascetic went to her door, she always sent one of her children with freshly cooked food. She had made it a morning habit to set aside the first portion of the food for sadhus, who had renounced their own wives, children, and parents in order to find enlightenment. Her piety, however, did not prevent god Saturn from devouring her husband along with her youngest son. The truck that hit his scooter simply vanished. The tragedy became even more terrible because the scooter’s insurance had run out. Her husband had chosen not to renew it, since he was thinking of getting a loan for a small car for the family. Uma’s world fell apart: she was too shattered to be comforted even by these saints.

“Shall I commit sati?” she inquired of them in desperation.

“It is illegal,” they counseled, “but dharma still accrues to a widow who chooses that sacred path.”

“But what will happen to my children?” she cried.

“The scriptures say that your karma will benefit seven generations” they consoled her looking at her daughter (9) and son (7).

This terrible story is, of course, made up. It is intended to help us understand the cultural factors that made Indian/Arabic numerals to sustain a repressive economic system in India while becoming a foundational tool for the amazing development of the West as illustrated by the Widow Fund in Scotland . That Fund began modern insurance and risk management that undergirds contemporary economic life, while secularization or perversion of that wonderful concept of welfare scheme is an important source of the political problems of Europe, Japan, and America.

The Scottish Widow Fund, originally called, “Fund for a Provision for the Widows and Children of the Ministers of the Church of Scotland,” was the first modern, mathematics-based Insurance Company. It provided an innovative, “scientific” alternative to other ways of caring for widows – asylums, lotteries, ponzi schemes, prostitution, starvation, or sati. The Fund, which grew to over £ 100 billion, has served as a midwife to tens of thousands of economic enterprises. It has also supported educational and philanthropic initiatives such as India’s oldest continuously running liberal arts college, the Scottish Church College in Calcutta (1836), and the Scottish orphanage for girls in Mumbai that became Bombay Scottish School (1847). It began a scientific system of risk management that made it possible for people to borrow large amounts of capital to start new ventures across the continents and now into outer space. 

The Widow Fund was created by two Calvinist pastors in Scotland, Robert Wallace (1697-1771) and Alexander Webster (1708 – 1784). Both of them were mathematicians and Bible preachers. While we were condemning our upper caste widows in India to life-long solitary confinement, if not to the flames of their husband’s funeral pyres, the pro-life, pro-sex, pro-marriage, pro-widow spirituality of these pastors came together with the best available mathematics to create the world of modern finance.

Unlike our saints who had to renounce their own wives and children, these Protestant pastors were both married because the Bible teaches that the physical world – including human body and sex – are created by a good God who declares them “good.” God does not want godly men to separate from the material realm. He wanted Adam and Eve to become one in order to harness and channel their sexual energy to establish a family that will produce and nurture children to fill the earth and govern it by establishing human culture.  This outlook (worldview) enabled Robert Wallace, who became the Moderator of the Church of Scotland – that is, equivalent of a Sankaracharya or Archbishop – to write a pioneering study, “An Essay on the Principle of Population.” 

Like Wallace, Webster also began his career as a minister (pastor) in the Church of Scotland, in Culross in Fife. There he met and married Mary Erskine of Alva. While our sages thought that to be “holy” meant to renounce (take sanyas from) family commitments, Webster’s biblical spirituality freed him to celebrate his romantic and sensual love for his bride:

When I see thee, I love thee, but hearing adore,

I wonder, and think you a woman no more;

Till, mad with admiring, I cannot contain,

And, kissing those lips, find you woman again.

His love for his own wife as well as a deep concern for his friends’ widows motivated him to team up with Wallace and use his training as a mathematician to solve widows’ problems. In 1748, he published his Calculations, which set forth the scientific principles on which their scheme for widows’ pensions was based. The other mathematical prodigy who helped refine their innovation was Colin MacLaurin who had improved upon Newton’s theories when he was only 14-years old! MacLaurin was himself an orphan who grew up with his uncle – also a pastor. [Note - This article’s author is a Fellow of the MacLaurin Institute at the University of Minnesota named after Prof. Colin MacLaurin.] Unfortunately, MacLaurin died while he was still too young to see the Widow Fund flourish.

In their day, if a minister died, his widow and orphans received a stipend from the church for six months; after that they were on their own. This was unacceptable to these two mathematician-pastors because the Bible told them that “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Wallace gathered and tabulated the available information about pastors’ widows and orphans from all the presbyteries in Scotland. Using the system of actuarial calculation and five other mathematical principles developed in Europe (not in India) the two of them estimated exactly how much premium each pastor would need to contribute to create a fund which would make it possible to (a) take care of the widows, as well as (b) to invest prudently to make the Fund grow. Their calculations, predictions, and investment decisions turned out to be so exact that their system began to be followed by all the insurance companies that came after them. In 1754, Webster published, Zeal for the Civil and Religious Interests of Mankind Commended. His work helps us understand how this milestone in the history of modern finance was a result of civil (scientific) interests, combined with religious (biblical) interests. Webster’s work was of such high quality that in 1755, the government commissioned him to obtain data for the first census of Scotland.

The Wallace-Webster financial innovation succeeded because of another cultural ingredient – the democratic structure of the Scottish Church. The Greek philosopher Plato (429-347 BC) had condemned democracy as the worst of all political systems. That is why the spread of Greek culture, called hellenization, did not stir a desire for democracy in the ancient world.

It was the Protestant Reformation’s return to the Bible which birthed “modern” democracy in the Scottish church (and the Republican system of government in America). Reforming the church included replacing the autocratic rule of bishops and popes by the rule of democratically elected elders. The reformers followed the New Testament pattern of elders governing local churches. In appointing elders to manage church-affairs and finances, Christ’s apostles, in turn, followed an Old Testament pattern. After delivering the Hebrews (Jews) from their slavery in Egypt, God instructed Moses to ask the twelve tribes to “Choose some wise, understanding, and respected men from your tribes, and I will set them over you.  . . So, (MOSES) took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and appointed them to have authority over you.” (Deuteronomy 1: 13-15)  The people chose their leaders and through Moses (and later through the apostles) God anointed them. Protestant nations applied this “democratic” idea to nation-states only because it succeeded in reforming the church.

“The voice of the people” can be “the voice of God” only if the people grow in their knowledge of God and if their character becomes godly. If the people are corrupt then their voice becomes the voice of the devil. This, as we shall see, is the problem now facing secularized democratic nations in the West. Far too many people in these nations no longer want to take the responsibility to work, earn, save, wisely invest, and take care of their neighbors, widows, orphans, refugees, and other victims of natural or man-made evils. They want their governments to tax or borrow from productive people and spend it on their welfare.

Why did the Church’s “Widow’s Fund” became an enormous commercial success? Why was a fund meant for helpless widows and orphans invested wisely, not mismanaged or looted by corrupt businessmen or squandered by politicians and bureaucrats? It was because on May 12, 1743 Wallace was elected the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. The Assembly approved his scheme. That enabled him to submit it to the Lord-Advocate in London, who framed it into a legislative measure and superintended its safe progress into an Act. The democratic milieu was critical for the Fund’s success because the Presbyterian structure of the Scottish Church simultaneously cultivated godly character and nurtured grassroots democracy – ordinary church members elected wise and God-fearing elders and held them accountable; the elders elected presbyteries; which elected Synods, The General Assembly, as well as the Moderator. The Widow Fund succeeded not simply because of Mathematics but also because (a) the biblical spirituality nurtured honest, productive, compassionate, and public-spirited character, (b) the Bible’s emphasis on human sinfulness required institutionalizing accountability even among religious leaders, and (c) the biblically derived idea of local church-based grassroots democracy promoted responsible leadership all the way to the top. Wallace was elected, not because he bribed, bullied, or manipulated voters, but because he came up with a scheme that made compelling sense, as did Joseph in the book of Genesis who saved Egypt and its surrounding nations from seven-year long spell of drought and famine.

The foregoing may be hard for Indians to believe because they know that many denominational Churches in India, established by Western churches and handed over to Indian Christians, are as corrupt now as our public institutions. These skeptics may change their mind if they look at a typical Bible based local church in India (or a genuine all-India organization such as the Union of Evangelical Students of India) that is built or run mainly by contributions from its members. Denominations such as the Church of North India, Church of South India, or the Methodist Church of India tend to be corrupt because their wealth does not come from their members. A genuine biblical church, however, is inherently different from a typical Hindu temple. A devotee who goes to worship in a temple and donates money is not a “member” of that temple. He has no authority to scrutinize its accounts. In theory, the government can scrutinize a temple’s account. In practice, however, our wealthy gurus and temples have learnt the art of keeping politicians and administrators in their pockets. In contrast to our Indian religious establishments, in the democratically organized Scottish church, the donor was a member: he elected the elders and the treasurer; he approved or disapproved the budget.

Of course, there were plenty of sinful Protestants; and corrupt people always seek to control public funds. The Presbyterian structure, however, was designed for sinful people. It sought to make them godly but also instituted wise structures to minimize the abuse of public funds. Transparency of institutions and rules that governed the church and the Widow’s fund as well as public knowledge of the private lives of the church leaders helped generate the trust that ensured the Fund’s success.

It also helped that the original 930 contributors to the Fund were all pastors and that the Fund was created to look after their wives and children. They were among the most learned and public-spirited members of the community. They understood the rules and helped refine and enforce them. Success of democratic institutions depends on the knowledge and character of its members. For example, many attempts to establish medical insurance companies in India have failed (in spite of our mathematical aptitude) because the poor character of participating members, doctors, pharmacists, agents, and their lawyers. If insurance money is claimed for diseases that do not exist and procedures that have not been performed, then the calculations behind premiums become meaningless.   

The Widow’s Fund was a wonderful “welfare” scheme. It was a capitalistic or free-market enterprise. It operated under the law of the land, but was neither controlled by politicians nor run by bureaucrats. Why did deeply religious men multiply the Fund’s capital through wise business investments? Why didn’t they take sannyas from money making? They made money because they followed the Lord Jesus who, in the spirit of the Old Testament, commended such economic stewardship – turning 5 bags of gold into 10 – as true spirituality (Matthew 25:15-17). People joined the Fund because they trusted their community leaders with their money and their trust was not betrayed. Today the Fund is completely secular and it is not growing as it used to.

The Fund’s initial success in taking small amounts of money from lots of simple people and taking care of their families had profound impact on global politics. It tempted politicians to imitate it and turn entire nations into welfare states. This political attempt began in Germany with Otto van Bismark’s social insurance legislation in 1880 and soon spread to Europe, USSR, Japan, and the USA, both by the so called “Right” and even more by the “Left,” that is, by Socialist or Communist parties. 

The idea was good: the state will take wealth from those who created it and use it to take care of everyone from cradle to the grave. Taking citizens’ wealth was, of course, easy. Governments, however, are not structured to use other people’s money to create wealth. Unscrupulous and arrogant rulers use public funds for their glory. They waste money even if they don’t actually loot it. The worst part is that when a welfare state seems to succeed, it destroys citizens’ character. That, for example, is one of Japan’s problems today. It took the concept of welfare state farther than any European nation . . . but if the state is going to take care of you from birth to death, why would you take the trouble to bring up children and nurture your own family? Japanese did not lose interest in sex – the Ten Commandments that included “you shall not covet your neighbors wife” and “you shall not commit adultery” were not moral absolutes in Japanese culture to begin with – and the idea of a secular welfare state took away the need to take the trouble to harness sexual energy to build families that will produce and nurture children. As a result, Japan’s population has been declining. That means that the number of citizens who will work and pay tax is diminishing. That is unsuitable for states’ welfare schemes that are ponzi schemes, dependent on more and more people working, earning, and paying taxes to support retired people and those who no longer have the ability or willingness to hold down a job.

Governments of Europe and America have followed the same folly: the welfare state undermined the Ten Commandment that required children “To honor your father and mother.” Mothers began to abort their babies, fathers began to abandon their wives and children in favor of other women, and taking care of the elderly became the responsibility of the state. This gigantic social experiment to live without God’s law is backfiring now since the so-called welfare state has replaced the “Protestant work-ethic,” that created the modern economic miracle with a secular “Entitlement-culture.” This culture believes that citizens (and illegal aliens) have the right to this, that, and the other but no corresponding obligation to create wealth to look after themselves, their families, and their neighbors – especially widows, orphans, refugees and other poor.

We are “Backward” because while India had and has mathematical genius, our culture lacks a spirituality that promotes the creation of wealth and a passion to use wealth to love our neighbors as ourselves. We have now learned western mathematics and their application to economics, but in order to move FORWARD we also need to avoid the follies of western secularism and discover the forgotten spiritual secrets of Western civilization. 

bu Vishal Mangalwadi – Revelation Movement

In fact, so much is said and written about vision today that it is in danger of becoming nothing more than a buzz-word.

In some quarters, vision has become an industry in its own right; entire bookstores tell us how to set goals and targets for achievement.

The most successful and effective leaders, though, see vision as much more than a buzz-word, or something ‘sexy’ to juice up a seminar.

As leaders, vision keeps us alive. It keeps us focused and disciplined, enabling us to say that most difficult of words, ‘no’, to things that will distract us from our core purpose.

Without vision, we are in danger of losing our grip on what is essential for us, becoming emergency-driven responders rather than purpose-motivated leaders.

Sadly, vision is all too often replaced by things that seem easier to control. For example, a reliance on bureaucracy – the building of intricate systems of administration, which are easier to develop than a real heart-felt, inner conviction.

A surprisingly high number of leaders – and even more mangers – who do have a clear vision, do not go on to develop a clear and workable strategy.

If your vision is to become something that adds pragmatic value to people’s lives, your purposes must be married to concrete plans.

Some who have developed strategies, with clearly defined project targets, time-lines and accountability structures, have done so with too narrow a focus.

At its core, strategic thinking envisions a preferred future and devises practical steps to carry people there. In its focus, it is both long-term and what I like to call ‘wide-horizon’.

The long-term aspect of strategic thinking is well documented. Lasting influence in any sector or industry is the result of a focus on achieving long-term results which add proven, pragmatic value.

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell cites the work of Methodist founder John Wesley as an example of high-level networking skill and vision. Wesley was a far-sighted visionary, but he was also a clever strategist.

Not content with ‘marketing’ his message in public meetings, Wesley brought his most enthusiastic respondents into small clusters of no more than 12 members.

Wesley recognised that the immediate, exhilarating buzz of mass religious events would never sustain his project goals, either in terms of individual change or social reformation.

His small groups met on a weekly basis to provide mutual encouragement and accountability, but they also planned projects to regenerate the social and moral cultures around them.

It was this long-term, methodical thinking that led to the tag ‘Methodist’.

In a sense, the heart of all strategic thinking is ‘methodism’ with a small ‘m’. It looks for methods that will bring change over the long-haul.

Strategic thinkers like Mr. Wesley are the last to adopt Nike’s infamous ideology: ‘Just Do It’. A thing worth doing is worth planning out, at length, before you do it.

But strategic leaders not only think long-term; they also think and plan ‘wide-horizon’. That is, they include at the core of their planning a commitment to build for the good of their community and their world.

These days, we’ve pushed corporate social responsibility into a little box and conveniently tagged it with its own acronym CSR. Talking about ‘CSR’ is a lot less discomforting than talking about ‘social responsibility’.

Boxing up social responsibility in this way has allowed us to pretend that our responsibility to the wider community operates only at the edges of strategy.

Truly strategic thinkers recognize that the opposite is true. At the core of all successful strategy should be a question like this one: ‘What kind of city do we want to be operating in ten years from now – and what can we do now to set that in motion?’

It starts within your industry. What kind of business practice do you as a company want to see become the norm? What types of customer relations would you like to see in place in your industry?

Then, looking beyond that, what type of environment do you want for children in your city? What would you like to see in terms of services for the young, the old or the marginalised? What types of civic leadership would you like to see setting the cultural tone of the city?

These are not simply abstract questions for social philosophers; they are the province of corporate and business leaders, who have the resources and skills to solve social problems and improve the quality of life for all.

In the nineteenth century, social reform helped to drive the huge growth in British industry and commerce. In fact, many leading business people subscribed to ideas embodied in what was often called the ‘civic gospel’.

This was the forerunner to Kennedy’s idea that we shouldn’t ask what our nation can do for us, before we ask what we can do for the nation.

In contrast to this, Keynes famously said that the only moral responsibility of a company is to make a profit for its shareholders.

Actually, a ‘company’, in the original sense of the word, is a group of friends or colleagues who are held together by common interests or causes. Nothing brings people together like a worthy cause, particularly one that improves their lot and that of others around them.

I don’t use the word ‘cause’ here in the narrow sense of a charitable endeavour. I mean any idea that promotes better living and more noble priorities.

The bottom line is only ever the bottom line. If your business is only about business, you’ll quickly find that your ability to build a company – a community of people who share a common cause – is diminished.

This is especially true in the age of digital media, in which the proliferation of mass communication has given rise to a passion for mass collaboration. The digital age is turning viewers into participants and passive consumers into activists.

Now more than ever, CSR must become more than an acronym for something conveniently placed at the periphery or our strategies.

To succeed in leadership we will need a vision of a preferred, wide-horizon future and strategies to help promote that.

Those wanting a short book should get theologian Wayne Grudem’s Business for the Glory of God (Crossway, 2003). In 96 pages he shows that business glorifies God when we use our talents to employ others in an environment that allows them to be productive and creative. He looks at issues such as ownership, productivity, employment, profit, competition, borrowing and lending, poverty and inequality.

Grudem also concludes that “the only long-term solution to world poverty is business. That is because businesses produce goods, and businesses produce jobs. And businesses continue producing goods year after year, and continue providing jobs and paying wages year after year.” He notes that business activities are essentially good but we can sin by making idols of them—and when governments impede business development, they foster more poverty.

Darrow Miller’s LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for What You Do Every Day (YWAM Publishing, 2009) is four times as long and broader in its analysis. Miller points out that many evangelicals have a dualistic worldview that leads them to divide life into sacred and secular realms. He notes that in the 62 years he has been a Christian, only twice has he heard a pastor preach on this dualistic problem.

Miller knows that Christians may feel a great dissonance between what our Christian faith says about the sacredness of our work and what we may experience as the drudgery of work.

“We may know that God didn’t institute work as a curse; we may know that God created us in his own image—made us to work as he does with great purpose and reward. But to our disappointment and unease, in our actual experience work is often more about survival than the fulfillment of our destinies.”

Miller particularly criticizes a prime manifestation of this dualistic thinking among Christians, the idea that “it is best to leave the secular arena and go into the spiritual arena so we can be ‘full-time Christian workers.’ Only evangelists, church planters, pastors, missionaries, and theologians are doing full-time Christian work according to this view, because only these kinds of work are spiritual. The ‘helping professions’ (social workers, charity workers, counselors, etc.) rank a close second. . . . Accounting, carpentry, filmmaking, the arts, farming and homemaking are secular activities and thus lower.

”This split was most dramatic in medieval times, when the Catholic church taught of “two forms of life, the perfect life and the permitted life. The perfect life was higher, sacred, and contemplative. It was the life of religious workers like priests, nuns, monks, and theologians. . . . The permitted life was lower, secular, and active. This involved manual labor and was the lot of the common man, the farmer, homemaker, cabinet­maker, merchant, and artisan.”

The Protestant Reformation challenged such thinking: “Reformers like Luther and Calvin and also Ulrich Zwingli . . . recognized that there is no sacred-secular dichotomy but only a consecrated or unconsecrated life.” Luther applied the German word beruf—“calling” or “vocation,” in refer­ence to professional ecclesiastical functions—to worldly duties as well: “If righteousness is by faith, Luther reasoned, then the contemplative life of the monks and priests is neither higher nor lower than the active life of the faithful farmer, cabinetmaker, or homemaker.”

This belief changed ideas about work, and it should transform ours as well: “For Christians who understand that we are saved by grace through faith, the whole concept of work has been transformed to that of worship. Paul told Roman believers ‘to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.’” Miller quotes 19th-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle’s summary of this biblical ethic: “All true Work is sacred . . . even the poor day laborer, the weaver of your coat, the sewer of your shoes.”

Do we believe that? I suspect Miller is right when he notes that “the concept of work held today, in much of the Western world, has been framed by the materialistic or secular paradigm. In this worldview, there is no spiritual reality, only physical reality. From this perspective, what does work do? It gives us access to material things. . . . Man is an animal, a highly evolved animal, but he is basically a consumer. In this paradigm, man has no intrinsic worth. . . . Success in the workplace means moving higher up the career ladder, accumulating more money or power for the purpose of affording greater consumption.”

Some affluent people work hard in ways that provide no satisfaction. Some poor people work very hard, but others both domestically and internationally do all they can to avoid work. Miller writes, “Why are some nations poor? When you believe that work is a curse, you avoid work and don’t respect the work of others. Work and labor are demeaning.” He and I have been in “whole nations where the goal is to avoid work and where those with power corruptly live off the efforts of those who are less powerful.”

Miller also notes that “much of the blame for these stagnant economies can be laid at the feet of the greedy and corrupt behavior of the government officials and those mercantilists and tribal chiefs who control the economy. This behavior is institutionalized in laws and structures that are against freedom and either strip the poor of the fruits of their labor or rob them altogether of the opportunity to work. Autocratic leadership styles squash initiative, innovation, and creativity. Controlled economies and rampant corruption sap economic ini­tiative. Lack of property rights and copyright protections prevent hardworking people and artisans from enjoying their rightful reward.”

Here in the United States autocracy is growing but is not yet dominant. Miller points out that we do have a problem with Gnosticism, the belief (among others) that the material world is evil and profane. Miller writes that “we are showing a Gnostic orien­tation whenever we demean things of the physical world . . . or see work in the fields that deal with them as a less-than-full Christian calling. . . . Like much of the animistic world, Gnostic Christians forget that when Christ returns there will be a new heaven and a new earth; instead they see this world as vanishing.”

Miller has a different eschatology: “When Christ returns, there will be a great shaking. All that is of the kingdom of God will be left standing; all else will be in a pile of rubble. Similarly there will be a refiner’s fire. All that has been built that relates to the kingdom of God will be left by the refiner’s fire. All else will be destroyed by the fire. The earth will not disappear when Christ returns! It will be a refined, purified earth, a ‘re-newed’ earth. The kingdom of God is both now and not yet!”

Miller’s thinking also underlies the first of the two web resources I recommend. Lifework: Developing a Biblical Theology of Vocation (mondaychurch.org/theology) is a free, downloadable 84-page resource that contains an overall explanation and a series of vocation-related Bible studies on subjects from agriculture and accounting to motherhood and relief work.

Its basic message is that “God has a general calling for all of the redeemed, first to salvation—justification, and then to the Christian life—to be godly men and women, to be servants, to seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness. He also has a particular calling for each follower of Christ, a place to work for His unfolding Kingdom. We shall call the former (general calling) life and the latter (particular calling) work. Together they are one’s lifework.”

The specific studies are particularly interesting. The one on communication notes how the Gospel of John starts, “In the beginning was the Word,” and how Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image,” reflects a conversation among members of the Trinity that was going on from even before the beginning. Verses regarding ethics are crucial: Proverbs 19:22 notes that “a poor man is better than a liar,” and Ephesians 5:6 states, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

The study on business points readers to parables of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and the shrewd manager (Luke 16:1-15). It spotlights proverbs that business managers should take to heart, such as Proverbs 16:3, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established,” and 22:16, “Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth, or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.” As women move up in the workplace the work (both intellec­tual and physical) of the most celebrated woman in Proverbs is worth recalling: “She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard” (31:16).

Wayne Grudem’s short book is to Darrow Miller’s long one as the Lifework website is to the other top website resource I’ve found, that of the Theology of Work Project (theologyofwork.org). It has teams of scholars and work­place practitioners researching each book of the Bible along with 20 key topics about work, such as calling, compensa­tion, globalization, business ethics, and conflict. The goal is to produce and disseminate papers and other materials that will help people to see God’s purpose in work and workplaces.

I looked at two of the studies now available online. The study of Colossians notes, concerning chapter 3’s admonition to exchange our old, lying selves for new ones, that “it is proper and necessary for a business to make a profit, or for a nonprofit organization to create added value. But if the desire for profit becomes boundless, compulsive, excessive, and narrowed to the quest for personal gain, then sin has taken hold.”

This study at times exhibits an arch sense of humor: “Lying can result from promoting the company’s prospects or the product’s benefits inaccurately. . . . Christian workers who refuse to employ deception (whether by rejecting misleading advertising copy or balking at glorified Ponzi schemes) may find themselves making some enemies as the price of their honesty. But it also is possible that some co-workers will develop a new openness to Jesus’ way when the Securities and Exchange Commission knocks on the office door.”

Pointed questions minimize a potential Sunday school flavor: “It is likely that every workplace has people whose on- and off-hours actions make for juicy stories. It is not lying, is it, to repeat the stories? It is likely that every workplace has unfair policies, bad bosses, non-functional processes, and poor channels of communication. It is not slander, is it, to complain about those grievances?”

Well, “Paul’s exhortation is to live differently even in fallen workplaces. Putting to death the earthly nature and putting on Christ means directly confronting people who have wronged us instead of gossiping about them behind their back (Matthew 18:15-17). It means working to correct inequities in the workplace and forgiving those that do occur.”

The study also critiques a “shallow way” of doing every­thing in the name of Jesus (3:17). “The shallow way is to incorporate some Christian signs and gestures into our workplace, like a Bible verse posted on our cubicle or a Christian bumper sticker on our truck. Gestures like this can be meaningful, but in and of themselves, they do not constitute a Christ-centered work-life. A deeper way to understand Paul’s challenge is to pray specifically for the work we are in the midst of doing: ‘God, please show me how to respect both the plaintiff and the defendant in the language I use in this brief.’”

Another completed Theology of Work study takes on the book that even John Calvin did not preach about: Revelation. The commentary on chapter 4 notes that “God is praised precisely as creator of all things. The visible world is not an afterthought, or a mere prelude to heaven, but an expression of God’s glory, and the basis upon which his creatures may praise him. This again is foundational for a proper under­standing of work. If the world is simply an illusion separat­ing us from the real life of heaven, work in the world will necessarily be seen as more or less a complete waste of time. If, by contrast, the world is the good creation of God, the prospects for meaningful work become more hopeful.”

The study accurately shows how positives taken too far become idols: “If the world system were a self-evident cesspool, the temptation for Christians to fall to its allures would be small. It is precisely the genuine benefits of technological advance and extensive trading networks that constitute the danger. Babylon promises all the glories of Eden, without the intrusive presence of God. It slowly but inexorably twists the good gifts of God—economic interchange, agricultural abundance, diligent craftsmanship—into the service of false gods.”

The commentary opposes “a vision of ‘heaven’ consisting of nothing more than clouds, harps, and white robes.” The new earth to come has some rela­tion to the old: “God created humans to exercise dominion over the earth, which entails creativity. Would it be sensible for such a God to then turn and regard work done in faith as useless, and cast it aside? On balance, it seems far more likely that he would raise it up and perfect all that is done for his glory.”

by Marvin Olasky editor of World Magazine

I met her staff as well, and after work other ex-staff members started to drop in. One of them, Alisha, came in to say goodbye before heading off to her Muslim country for 8 weeks. My friend asked her if she wanted us to pray for her and before I knew it, we were passionately praying for this girl for protection and for God’s spirit to guide her and help her. The other four staff and ex-staff members present joined us in prayer and stood around Alisha and laid their hands on her. For me it was a very special moment. The Lord was here, in the middle of the work place. It was so good to see how these people loved each other and cared for each other.

It has not always been like this. At the end of last year, my friend received a phone call from a distant friend, asking her to come and help and manage a team at the call centre, which was very difficult, over the past 12 months a number of managers had given up and left. Although my friend was not keen on this job, she felt an urge from the Lord to go there.

She started working in an office where there was chaos, where people hated each other, where people arrived in intoxicated state at work and where there was no respect for each other or the manager. However, slowly things started to turn around and the staff started to confide in her.

I remember about a month after she started working there, we  had a coffee together and she told me, Martina, they all need the Lord, they are all depressed. They are so hurt and so abused, they have no self esteem. I have asked my mother and her friends to pray for all these people and for me , that they will get to know the Lord and receive healing and that I will be strong and know what the Lord wants from me.

The first one that came to her was Tom, he was addicted to drugs, and he poured out his heart on what had been happening to him in his life. Her simple answer was, I cannot help you, but I know the Lord can help you, would you like me to pray with you? And Tom agreed, so she prayed with him and handed Tom to the Lord. After that Tom was changed and the other staff noticed.

The second one came a week later, Sam, who had been abused as a child in Christian foster homes. He suffered from severe depression and alcohol abuse and he told her his life story. He told her several times before he was an atheist and did not want to have anything to do with Christianity. Now he came to her and admitted he tried to find peace at lunchtimes and went to the St Paul’s Cathedral and would just sit there for a while. He asked her if she could come with him to the Cathedral and there pray with him. Together with another new staff member, who was a Christian as well, they went to the Cathedral and prayed with him. During this praying his face changed. All the anger and bitterness disappeared .

A few months later we met again and I asked her how it was. She replied that now five out of six had now surrendered themselves to the Lord. Praise God! He was indeed powerful at work in this office, and I believe the intercessory prayer of my friends’ mother and her friends had a lot to do with that.

The third person that came to Christ was Anna, an orthodox lady, divorced with four children, and a single mum. She suffered from depression and was probably one of the most difficult ones to work with.  She and Sam hated each other and verbal abuse and swearing during the day was not uncommon. However, after she had seen the change in Sam and in his behaviour, she also longed for this peace and surrendered.

Alisha, a Muslim girl was next. This girl had been sexually abused form the age of 2, by nine different men. She had no feeling of self worth, was probably the roughest girl in the office.

The next one who came to the Lord was John, a Hindu Indian student.

That was a couple of months ago. Yesterday afternoon, when I came to my friends’ office, I heard about the last one, Nadia. She is a girl suffering from depression, was lost and had no guidance in her life. She came to the Lord and is now a true worshipper. “You are my hiding place” is her favourite song.   

All these people still need ongoing healing. But thanks to God they now have a reason for living.

They come together on a Saturday afternoon at my friends’ place to study the bible together, pray and worship.

Last night seeing them all after hearing the stories and seeing their love for each other and for God was an amazing experience. Our God does work in wonderful ways, he will search for the lost in places where we would not generally expect it.

This story has taught me so much. As Christians we are placed by our God in the positions we hold for a purpose, as messengers of the Good news. We all are called to be a living testimony of God’s love for this world. Ongoing prayer is a key to a breakthrough of the Holy Spirit. And finally, we can never expect too much, God will exceed our expectations!

By Martina Sonneveld  

MarketPlace Connections

The marketplace is the only institution that touches virtually every person on planet earth. Pastors are very limited in their direct exposure to the marketplace. At the same time, the marketplace in general terms doesn’t look to professional church staff for guidance on managing their business.  They do look to their pastors to help disciple them on how to live out their faith, but most haven’t showed them how to connect it to the marketplace.

Here is the $70 billion question.  What is our strategy to reach this world for Christ? Do we try to hire another 600,000 pastors, missionaries, worship leaders,etc??  Or do we unleash 6 million business people to take the Christian movement to the next level?

For too long, many faithful Christians have “out sourced” their responsibilities as believers.  They give generously to the church and then allow the “organized church” to do the work. Honestly, it’s easier. You can live your life in compartments.  There’s your task driven, results oriented, hard charging business world.  Then there is your church world.

But what happens when you are asked to combine your sacred activities and your spiritual activities?  Have we been indoctrinated to believe that oil and water do not mix?  No wonder many successful entrepreneurs and business owners can’t wait to “cash out” when they are 50 or 55.  For them, perhaps business was all about business.

There is a new generation of business leaders who see the world differently. For them, God has called them into business.  Their company is to be used by God for His purposes. They are passionate about creating products or services. They love marketing and sales. They are always mindful of the bottom line. But there is a higher calling. Everything that the church stands for is actually expressed in “real terms” in their business.

Most people today, don’t think this way but we need to see that more do. I’m convinced that we can discuss terms like Business as Mission and Marketplace Ministry and so many other subtleties until we are blue in the face but unless the bridge between our sacred spaces of Sunday morning is bridged with our work, then we’ll continue to struggle in living a segmented life.

Visit the Business as Mission website

by Derek Brown

Each of us spends a large amount of our time working – either in paid employment or in other forms of work. But for many, work is only something we do to survive; it has no relationship to our Christian faith. Ken Costa, a London-based investment banker, in his book ‘God at Work’ makes this powerful comment: “If the Christian faith is not relevant in the work place, it is not relevant at all.”

So let’s explore what the Bible has to say about work. The early chapters of Genesis have plenty to teach us regarding a biblical view of work. A Christian’s work is a natural, inevitable development out of God’s work. God, who works, creates us also to work. In the garden, Adam and Eve are instructed by God to gather food, cultivate the earth, name the animals and care for creation. The fall doesn’t change this mandate, but it does add to our role as co-workers, because we now assist God in his redeeming work (restoring creation to God’s original intentions).
Working with God has great significance and value. As Alistair Mackenzie has written: “The significance of work for us as Christians lies in discerning ways in which we can express through our work stewardship, service, creativity, witness, truth-telling, preservation, healing, community-building, justice and peace-making. These are clear expressions of the character and on-going work of God.”

In our society it has become accepted practice to segment public and private. In this context work is seen as part of the public realm and the church as part of that which is private. 

                  Private                                 Public
                  Work                                    Home

                  Monday -                              Church

                  Friday                                   Sunday

• Facts govern public working life and values govern private and religious life
• Women’s relational values govern Sunday
• Male competitive values govern Monday.
• Church has become focused on family values and ethics whilst forgetting the city, the workplace and boardroom ethics.

How can we turn this around?

• Need to recover an integrated view of life i.e. a Kingdom view of life
• In Scripture there is no gap between private and public, faith and work, charity and justice
• Mobilise work-place Christians – shift from “Come” to “Go” strategy infiltrating each segment of society.
• We need to be more thoroughly trinitarian and develop a three mandate/commission theology – creation commission, evangelism commission and relational commission.

So let’s summarise a brief theology of work from the Creation Commission in Genesis

1. God is a worker
2. He created men and women to be workers
3. He created them to be co-workers with God
4. Work came before the fall – it is not a result of the fall. The fall has made the context in which we work more challenging. – corruption, greed, injustice.
5. Working with God has great significance and value.
6. Work is much more than paid employment. Painting the house, getting lunches ready for the children, helping out with a Red Cross appeal – all of this is work. This means that those of us who are unemployed can still work; those of us who are not paid can still work. It also means that much of our time outside of paid employment is work.

Biblical reasons to work
• Economic – to create wealth
• Financial – to support oneself and a family
• Personal – to experience fulfillment and significance
• Social – to avoid being a burden on others
• Relational – to support other people thru cooperative effort

How should we work:

• With excellence
• With ethics and integrity
• With generosity and a servant heart
• With thoughtfulness for those we meet thru work
• With concern for justice in the work place

We are not denying the workplace can have its challenges. Costa describes the workplace as “the coalface where faith is tested and sharpened by day-to-day encounters with the ambiguity and stresses of modern commerce.” But it is a sphere in which we can advance the Kingdom – ‘the sphere of God’s goodness’.

Our actions at work, have the potential to advance the Kingdom or to hinder it – on both a macro and micro level. When we declare truth even in small measure – the Kingdom advances. This can be true when we draft documents, sell products or mark exams – indeed in any activity we do in our working day.

Most people want to make a difference with their lives. To do this we have to identify with our part in extending the Kingdom. We are agents for good – living in this world. “The workplace is where ‘most Christians spend half their waking hours and work is a divine calling. Christians can commend Christ by word of mouth, by their consistent industry, honesty, thoughtfulness and by their concern for justice in the workplace. When others can see from the quality of their daily work that this work is done to the glory of God, then the Christian worker is being a witness in deed and needs to pray for and look out for the opportunity to express the gospel in word.” (Preece)

by Eric Swanson

A small cloud is on the horizon. The winds of change are beginning to gather strength and with certainty a storm is coming…change is coming. All over our world there is a quiet movement of the Spirit of God that is causing believers to re-examine how they “do church.” Churches are throwing out the old measures of success. It’s no longer merely about size, seeker sensitivity, spiritual gifts, church health, nor the number of small groups. It’s about making a significant and sustainable difference in the lives of people around us—in our communities and in our cities.

There is a growing awareness that we cannot continue to do the same old things and expect a different result. If we want to be the salt and light, we as the church were created to be, we have to do something different…we have to be something different! Community transformation is not found in programs, strategies, campaigns or tactics. For most of us it will take nothing less than a shift of seismic proportions in what the church is to be in the 3rd millennium. A paradigm is a model consisting of shared assumptions regarding what works or what is true. A paradigm shift is that “aha!” moment when one sees things in such a new light that one can never go back to the old ways again. Each paradigm shift takes us from model of thinking that we must discard to a new model that we must embrace. A new paradigm is the new wineskins that will be needed to hold the new assumptions about what is true. To maximize our impact on our communities–urban, suburban or rural, we need changes in at least ten of our paradigms of how we currently view church.

1) From building walls to building bridges. “You are the salt of the earth…You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13,14). The first paradigm shift pertains to where we, as the church, see ourselves in relation to our communities. Will we remain outside of the community inviting people in or will we go to our communities, seeking to be a transforming agent? The church is called to be separate in lifestyle but never called to be isolated from the people it seeks to influence. For many years founding pastor, Robert Lewis, of Fellowship Bible Church (FBC) in Little Rock was content to be growing a successful suburban mega church. By his admission, FBC was a “success church.” Success churches seek to grow by having attractive programs and offerings that people can come to and benefit from. But Robert grew increasingly dissatisfied with the impact FBC was having on the community. So he made an appointment with the mayor of Little Rock and asked one question, “How can we help you?” The mayor responded with a list of challenges facing the greater Little Rock area.

FBC then challenged themselves with the question, “What can we do that would cause people to marvel and say, ‘God is at work in a wonderful way for no one could do these things unless God were with them?”’ That one question was the first step in becoming what Lewis calls a “bridge-building church.” For the past four years, FBC has joined with over 100 other churches and over 5,000 volunteers in the greater Little Rock area and served their communities by building parks and playgrounds and refurbishing nearly 50 schools. They set records for Red Cross Blood donations and have enlisted thousands of new organ donors. They began reaching out to the community through “LifeSkill” classes (on finances, marriage, wellness, aging, etc.) in public forums like banks and hotel rooms, with over 5,000 people attending. In the past four years the churches of greater Little Rock have donated nearly a million dollars to community human service organizations that are effective in meeting the needs of at-risk youth. They have renovated homes and provided school uniforms, school supplies, winter coats, and Christmas toys for hundreds of children. After getting new shelving for her classrooms, one school principle said, “I think this is the most fabulous day of my life as far as education is concerned. I’ve been in this 29 years and this is the first time a community or church project has come through for us.”

The churches of Little Rock have let their light shine in such a way that Jesus Christ is made real to the community. Once a church makes this mental shift regarding how it lives in its community, it is only limited by its creativity in how it can serve its community and be the salt and light it was meant to be. It makes the transition from providing ministry programs for the community to forever changing its relationship to a community.

2) From measuring attendance to measuring impact. “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast…mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33). In a post-modern world most people are neither impressed with the size of a church or its commitment to “truth.” Yet from the cover of TIME magazine to the front page of the Wall Street Journal, transformational community-centered ministries are grabbing the attention of the American people. Perhaps, in this century, the greatest apologetic for the reality of Jesus Christ living in a community will be observational more than propositional. To have a faith that can be observed is to be living out the truths we want others to grasp and the life of the Savior we want them to know.

When Jesus chose one passage to describe his mission and ministry, he picked up the scroll of Isaiah and read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair…” The way he “preached” best was by holistically combining proclaiming with comforting and providing. This is how Jesus did ministry. “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Likewise, the apostle Paul was as “eager to remember the poor” (Galatians 2:10) as he was “eager to preach the gospel” (Roman 1:15-17). Effective ministry has always been holistic, combining good deeds with good news (Acts 10:36-38).

When Tillie Burgin started Mission Arlington, her mission was simple—take the church to the people who were not going to church—“to hang out and hover around John 3:16.” As she ventured out to meet and minister to her neighbors, she was immediately challenged by Jehovah’s Witnesses who told her, “You’re invading our territory. Get back into your church building where you belong.” Today Mission Arlington is a house church movement of nearly 250 community house churches (and nearly 4,000 in attendance) serving over 10,000 people a week in the Arlington Texas community with food, furniture, medical and dental care, school transportation, child and adult day care, counseling, etc. What can Jesus do for a community? The people of Arlington know. Every year hundreds of people come to Christ through this transformational ministry. Lives are being touched. Lives are being changed. The church should and can make a huge difference in a community.

Windsor Village United Methodist Church has made a big difference in southwest Houston. From 25 members in 1982 Windsor Village is currently the spiritual home for more than 14,000 members. Embracing both evangelism and economic development and armed with the belief that every member is a minister, each congregant is encouraged to embrace Jesus’ mission of identifying and holistically meeting the needs of those around them. Under the leadership of pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell the church purchased a 104,000 square-foot former K-Mart that was converted into their “Power Center.” Since 1999 the Power Center has had an estimated $28.7 million impact on the community creating over 500 construction jobs and 300 regular jobs through the Power Center which serves over 9,000 families a month through Windsor Village’s over 100 ministries. Currently they are engaged in developing a 24-acre planned residential community consisting of over 450 affordable single-family homes called Corinthian Pointe and they continue to make a difference.

In 1988 Vaughn and Narlene McLaughlin moved into a depressed area of Jacksonville to begin a church designed to meet the needs of the whole person. Today their converted Bell South building called the “Multiplex” houses nearly 20 for-profit businesses including the Potter’s House Café, a credit union, a beauty salon, a graphic design studio and a Greyhound Bus terminal, all started by church members who lacked capital but had a dream. Another building serves as an incubator for two dozen new businesses. The multiplex also houses a 500-student Christian Academy. In addition to their ministries of economic empowerment and education, they also have nearly 25 other ministries such as a prison and jail ministry, youth ministry, Big and Little Brothers, and free car repair. They also have a team of 250 volunteers who “look after things in the city” even if it means to simply sweep the streets of Jacksonville. Though an outstanding preacher, to Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin, ministry is always what happens outside the church-”If you are not making an impact outside of your four walls, then you are not making an impact at all.” In 1999 Bishop McLaughlin was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Florida State University. Is it any mystery why the city and its leaders have so wholeheartedly embraced Potter’s House? The question he repeatedly asks is the question that churches in all kinds of neighborhoods are increasingly asking themselves: “Would the community weep if your church were to pull out of the city? Would anybody notice if you left? Would anybody care?”

The question, “How big is your church?” should be replaced with “How big is the impact you are having on your community?” Every other measure is interesting but not relevant. Let’s refuse to be impressed by numbers alone. There are many ways to engage the community and make an impact. The only “bad” way to engage the community in service is not to engage at all!

3) From encouraging the saints to attend the service to equipping the saints for works of service. “It is (God) who gave some to be…pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service…” (Ephesians 4:11,12) In the typical church, lay people are asked to serve in five or six capacities:

· Teach a Sunday School class
· Work in the nursery
· Lead a home Bible study or small group
· Sing in the choir
· Be an usher or greeter
· Serve on a board or committee

Little wonder pastors lament that only 20% of their members are “active.” Could it be that the service opportunities are not broad enough to engage the energies and passions of people in the church? Robert Lewis notes that when people entered his church they were excited for about 4-5 years. How could they not be excited? Fellowship Bible is a teaching church and Robert is an incredible teacher. But he observes that after around five years, people get bored with church if they are not involved in ministering to others. It was not until the church began to serve their community did members find their serving niche and continue in their growth. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City writes that the process of mobilizing members into ministers “starts by articulating clearly and regularly a theology of ‘every-member ministry’…From the pulpit, in the classes, by word of mouth, it must be communicated that every layperson is a minister and that ministry is finding needs and meeting them in the goal of the spread of the kingship of Christ.”

In the 1980’s a small group in Mariner’s Church in Costa Mesa, California met for a year to study every Scripture that had to do with the people of God and the needs of a community. They asked themselves two questions—“What could we do?” and “What should we do?” This was the beginning of Mariner’s “Lighthouse Ministries.” Today Lighthouse is employing the volunteer hearts and entrepreneurial skills to minister to the under-resourced people Orange County. In 2001 Lighthouse Ministries employed the dedication and talents of nearly 3,400 church volunteers who gave 95,000 hours of service (the equivalent of 46 full-time staff!) in the form of tutoring foster children, mentoring motel families, taking kids to camp, visiting the elderly, teaching English at one of their learning centers, working in the Mariner’s Thrift Store ($168,000 in sales last year) distributing Christmas gifts, team building with teens at their leadership camp, assistance with immigration papers, working in transitional housing or volunteering with Orange County Social Services. Despite the prolific use of volunteers, volunteering is simply the avenue to “build relationships with people in our community.” Recently they were featured on National Public Radio for their work in providing transitional housing for youth leaving foster care. Last year they touched the lives of nearly 12,000 people in their community through their relational volunteer ministries. Their mission of “Bringing Christ’s hope to those in need” is being fulfilled.

4) From “serve us” to service—from inward to outward focus. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give…” (Mark 10:45). Several years ago Chuck Colson made the observation that when the Communists took over Russian in 1917, they did not make Christianity illegal. Their constitution, in fact, did guarantee freedom of religion. But what they did make illegal was for the church to do any “good works.” No longer could the church fulfill its historic role in feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, housing the orphan, educating children or caring for the sick. What was the result? 70 years later, the church was totally irrelevant to the communities in which it dwelt. What Lenin did by diabolic design, most churches have done by default. But the result is identical. Church is irrelevant to most people. Take away service and you take away the church’s power, influence, and evangelistic effectiveness. The power of the gospel is combining the life-changing message with selfless service.

Marion Patillo is the executive director of a ministry in Dallas called Metro-link. As the name suggests, Metro-link serves as a “conduit” between volunteers from some 40 churches and 27 city blocks in South Dallas. Marion observes that when Metro-link began, there were 955 churches in South Dallas yet the area was rife with crime, alcoholism, drug addiction and prostitution. Why? It was certainly not from the lack of churches! The problem centers on the fact that most churches had not been serving this community. It is observations like this that caused Charles Chaney, former head of Southern Baptist Home Mission Board to remark, “America will not be won to Christ by existing churches, even if they should suddenly become vibrantly and evangelistically alive. Nor will the US be won to Christ by establishing more churches like the vast majority of those we now have.” The power of the church is not merely in the number of churches but the focus of those churches.

Mary Francis Boley, was the director of women’s ministry at First Baptist Church in Peachtree City, Georgia. Women from metro Atlanta would gather each week around coffee and an open Bible. But the ministry took a radical step forward when Mary Francis decided that no Bible studies could meet unless they included a component of ministry to the community. So they scoured Atlanta for the women in the “highways and hedges” who nobody else was reaching. They identified cashiers, food service employees, hairdressers, single moms, the women’s shelter, strippers and prostitutes. Mary Francis calls her ministry, “Wellspring of Living Water.” The goal of Wellspring is to get the women within the church to reach the women who are outside of the walls of the church. Mary Francis’ purpose is to “save the women in Atlanta”—and that begins with the women who are in the pews of the church every Sunday. She firmly believes that people cannot grow into Christian maturity without giving themselves away to others. By ministering to “the least of these” they invite the presence of Jesus into their ministry (Matthew 25:31-46). Lives are being touched and changed.

Churches like Vineyard Community Church of Cincinnati have also found that it is easier and more effective to recruit existing small groups to engage in ministry and service projects than it is to motivate, administer spiritual gift tests and recruit individuals to serve in a ministry. You can serve in most any ministry with your friends. Each Saturday they send out teams of people just to serve people in the city through “low touch-high grace random acts of kindness.” One day you might find them handing out free Cokes or washing cars for free. Founding pastor Steve Sjogren defines their servant evangelism as “demonstrating the kindness of God by offering to do some act of humble service with no strings attached. It’s not so much a matter of sharing information but sharing love.” Senior pastor Dave Workman notes that their church believes that it takes between 12-20 positive “bumps,” or refreshing encounters with the church, before people come to Christ. These small acts of service move people towards Christ. Though all service is with no strings attached, each year they see hundreds of people come to faith. Carved in stone over the entrance of the church are engraved the words: “small things done with great love will change the world.” Steve Sjogren’s admonition to church planters is this: “Don’t go to start a church…go to serve a city. Serve them with love and if you go after the people nobody wants, you’ll end up with the people everybody wants.”

First Baptist Church of Leesburg, Florida (population 20,000) has a prevailing influence on their community though their incarnational (John 1:14) ministry which they call ‘ministry evangelism.” The church has spawned over 70 ministries to intersect the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the people in Leesburg. Through their Men’s Shelter, Women’s Care Center, Benevolence Ministry, Latchkey Ministry, the Children’s Home etc, they regularly lead hundreds of people to Christ and disciple them towards maturity. Senior pastor Charles Roesel (since 1976) says, “The only way the gospel can be biblically shared is to focus on the whole person, with all their hurts and needs, and to involve the church in ministering to those persons and leading them to Christ. This is the essence of ministry evangelism.”

Erwin McManus of Mosaic Church in East Los Angeles says that the single biggest factor in his church retaining people is not personal follow-up or joining a small group; it is being involved from the very beginning in service to others in the community. When members have told him that they want the church to meet their needs his reply is “You ARE the church and together we are called to meet the needs of the world.” Over 1,800 members agree. We grow and are healed as we serve others. Maybe this is what Isaiah (58:6-8) had in mind when he penned God’s words to his people: “Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: To loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter…? Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear.” What if we settled for nothing less than 100% of our church members engaged at some level in meaningful ministry to the community? People (or small groups) could choose their field and level of engagement (from once a week to once a year), but non-involvement would not be an option.

5) From duplication of human services and ministries to partnering with existing services and ministries. “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work” (Ecclesiastes 4:9). Nearly every community has a number of human service agencies that are morally positive and spiritually neutral that are doing their best to meet the needs of the underserved and under-resourced people of the community. Such agencies include the local food bank, homeless shelter, emergency family housing, and safe houses for abused women etc. Equally true there are church and parachurch ministries that are effective in ministering to specific target audiences (business community, youth, college students, etc). Rather than starting a new ministry, why not form partnerships with existing groups as “partner ministries” of a local congregation? Chances are that people from your congregation are already serving in many of these organizations. Why not use the current community energy to create synergy?

The Bible is replete with examples of how God used secular people in partnership with his people to fulfill his purposes. Think of Joseph and Pharaoh, Nehemiah and Artaxerxes, and Esther and King Ahusuerus. Instead of each congregation having its own food pantry, why not partner with the local community food bank? When needy people request food, congregations could refer these folks to their “partner ministry.” In our Boulder County community, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America (BBBSA) has 200 boys on a list waiting for an older mentor yet how many churches do you know that are saying, “One of these days we’d like to begin a youth mentoring program.” Why not form a partnership with BBBSA? Let BBBSA shoulder the cost and liability for screening applicants. There is no reason to form a duplicate ministry if the service or ministry already exists and is effective in accomplishing its mission. Imagine how great it would be if your church bulletin included not only the men’s and women’s Bible study times but also a list of 20-30 “Community Partner Ministries” as well. Maybe we can effectively love our city with the love of Jesus Christ through agencies and mechanisms that already exist! Most human service agencies need what the church could readily supply–caring volunteers, financial support and even facilities. The door is always open for servants wanting to serve and help. We form partnerships not around theology but around our common concern and love for the city.

Rick Rusaw is pastor of a 2,900-member LifeBridge Christian Church in Longmont Colorado. Several years ago LifeBridge made a conscious decision to “care for their community.” They invited local human service agencies to office on their campus and encouraged members to get involved in the life of the community. “We’re just looking for ways to help the city,” Rick explains. “For example we decided we didn’t want to start a Christian school but to get involved in serving the needs of the existing public schools of our community. We don’t need to duplicate what is already out there.” Last year when a local high school student took his life, the school principle called Rick at LifeBridge and asked if they could send over 20 counselors for 3 days to be on campus with the kids. When asked about how they gained such access into a public High School, Rick responds that he sent over the same 20 folks who had been setting up chairs at assemblies and raking the long-jump pit all year long. Servants always have access to the palaces of kings. Last December over a thirteen hundred people from LifeBridge donated thousands of hours of community service over during their “Time to Serve.” Partnering with 29 human service agencies and local ministries they cleaned three elementary schools top to bottom and then spent another six weekends fixing up a mobile home park. Five auto mechanics from LifeBridge serviced over 300 cars of single moms in the Longmont area. Recently, LifeBridge members came up with 5,000 new ways they could serve their community. Rick sums up his commitment to Longmont—“I used to think I could change the world. Now I just want to change the stream…not by standing on the bank and yelling but by getting in the water. The way to make truth visible is to make ‘Christian’ a verb not just an adjective.” This past year they were on the front page of the local newspaper 30 times (the majority of which were positive!). Their commitment to their community is their letter “known and read by everybody” (2 Corinthians 3:2).

6) From fellowship to functional unity. There is a strong case to suggest that there is really only one church in a city or community (made up of all believers) that meets in several congregations around the city. In Philippians 2:2 Paul implored, “…make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” Only unity of purpose around the vision of a transformed community is strong enough to unite pastors and churches of different denominations. Jack Dennison of CitiReach writes, “While solid relationships form the basis for unity, we can’t stop there. My observation in city after city is that oftentimes unity becomes an end in itself. So we see repetitive efforts to demonstrate our unity through citywide worship events, prayer vigils…and other similar events. These activities…are wonderful symbols of our unity but they rarely produce real substance. They make us feel good and sometimes result in great newspaper coverage, but the cities remain unchanged.” Uniting the church around a common goal is preferable to trying to unite the church around a cooperative project. We align ourselves “in unity to pursue the same goals for our community while each participant determines the part it should play.” Functional unity does not exclude cooperative efforts but functional unity also implies that each church can act with a degree of sanctified independence, not waiting for permission from others to serve the community, as long as it is working toward the agreed upon vision of a healthy, transformed community. Community transformation begins at the intersection of the needs and dream of a community, the calling and capacities of the church and the mandates and desires of God for a community.

In 1990 pastors and Christian leaders in Fresno California “fueled by the pain of the city” formed a multi-sector leadership team and began praying together for their community. Emphasizing compassion over power this “no name fellowship” was the beginning of unprecedented cooperation not just among the faith community but also between the faith community and other entities serving the city. By “connecting leaders who often never cross paths,” what has come to be known simply as “One by One Leadership” is “transforming geography into community” through mentoring, tutoring, job training, community storehouse, asset-based community development, welfare to work, police / church partnerships and a myriad of other civic engagements. “It works because we love each other, we trust each other and we hold each other accountable,” says Fresno pastor Paul Binyon. Other cities like Houston, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Little Rock, New York City and several others are being changed because the church is coming together around a common vision for what the city can become through significant ministry and service.

7) From condemning the city to blessing the city and praying for it. Jeremiah 29 begins by saying; “This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem…to those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.” What follows are instructions on how to live as aliens in a foreign land. Listen to his admonition: “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (v. 7)

For too long we as the church have positioned ourselves as adversaries to our communities. The monolithic church has stood from afar and lobbed in pontific salvos condemning the city and those who are trying to serve it. Maybe it is time we began blessing the city by blessing those who have given themselves to the city! Pastors in our Colorado community have begun inviting city officials and influencers to their monthly lunches. The Mayor, the Chief of Police, District Attorney, editor of the newspaper, the university president, and others have spoken to this ministerial alliance. After these guests address the gathering they are prayed over and the ministers thank God for these folks and ask Him to bless these city servants (1 Timothy 2:1-4). Anyone can curse the city but pastors are in a unique position to really “bless” a city and her people. Each year the church in Little Rock has honored a different group of servants—the police, firefighters, schoolteachers, etc at their annual “Share Fest.” This past year Pastor Adam Hamilton of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection (COR) passed out the names of every teacher, administrator and employee of the Kansas City School District—one for every one of the 5,700 people in attendance. Each person was asked to pray regularly for that person and send a card of encouragement and appreciation. The response was overwhelming! From that one strategic blessing scores and scores of COR members are now volunteering and tutoring the children of Kansas City…and are transforming the city. Perhaps the next great reconciliation movement will be between the church and the community.

We not only need to bless our communities but we need to pray for them as well. The extent that we will impact our communities will be proportionate to how effectively each influential segment of our community (educators, business, law enforcement, arts, civic leaders, human service agencies, etc.) are being prayed for. 230 congregations in Jacksonville are praying daily for every one of the police force through their “Adopt-a-Cop” ministry. Twice a year in Little Rock over a thousand people come together to intercede on behalf of the city. In Houston, Doug Stringer of Turning Point Ministries (“Somebody Cares Houston”) writes that over 75% of Houston’s 2,700 square miles are now covered by daily prayer by the church in Houston. It’s hard to be adversaries with those you pray God’s blessings on. All over our nation, through organized efforts like Concerts of Prayer and Mission America’s Lighthouses of Prayer movement, walls are coming down. Individuals and communities are being prayed for. The church is being reconciled to the community.

From being a minister in a congregation to being a minister in a parish. “As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it…” (Luke 19:41). A congregation is made up of people who attend a local church from a community. The minister typically feels that this congregation is his flock whom he must baptize, marry and bury. They consume his time and energy. Being in a parish is different. A parish differs from a congregation in that it is a geographical scope of concern and responsibility. A congregation is a subset of a parish. So what difference does that make? Being in a parish gives one the God-given right to minister to anyone in the community, whether they are part of one’s congregation or not. Urban theologian, Ray Bakke, illuminates this point by writing that every minister has two functions; 1) to be pastor to the members and 2) chaplain to the community. Rich is a pastor of a small church in our city. His congregation is 70 but his parish is over 90,000! Rich sits comfortably serving between the human service community and the faith community. Rich’s office is the local coffee shop. His tools are his cell phone and his laptop. Rich is the person God has used to connect our community leaders to our monthly ministerial alliance meetings. His days are often filled with walking through our city and interceding for it. Isaiah 61:1-6 describes the reward of those who “rebuild…restore…(and) renew” the city. It is the city who bestows on them their titles–“And you will be called priests of the Lord, you will be named ministers of our God” (Isaiah 61:6)

9) From anecdote and speculation to valid information. Two pieces of information changed the course of Nehemiah’s life that resulted in the transformation of a community. In Nehemiah 1, Nehemiah learned that the walls and gates of Jerusalem were broken down and her people were in great distress. These two pieces of accurate information were catalytic to Nehemiah’s prayers and plans to restore a broken wall and a broken people. His burden to transform the city came from accurate information. We too need correct information about the real needs of our community as well as the resources we have to meet these needs. Do we know the demographic information of our community? Do we know the number of churches? Do we know the spiritual history of our community? Ray Bakke writes that in assessing community needs we need to identify the people in need (poor, disadvantaged, children, elderly, single parents, disabled, prisoners, sick, aliens, etc) along with the type of needs they have (physical, spiritual / moral, social, emotional or cognitive). Most information is readily available through local human service agencies and the census bureau. We also need to identify the spiritual assets of our community—the number of faith communities and believers. Together, these two research pieces give us a picture of our “mission field” and our “mission force.” Armed with accurate information, we can determine best how to go forward.

In 1994, 21 year-old Pastor Matthew Barnett began the Los Angeles “Dream Center” by walking around his neighborhood looking for unmet needs. He saw the thousands of outcast people living on the fringes of society. Today the Dream Center—“the church that never sleeps” has adopted 50 city blocks (2,100 homes!) that it serves with 200 volunteer staff. Its Franciscan Hospital campus houses 400 people in its rehab and discipleship program and feeds more than 25,000 people a week. They have a free 24-hour medical clinic, a mobile medical unit and dozens of effective ministries that are finding needs and meeting them. Scores of churches around our country have adopted the Adopt a Block strategy as a means of touching the lives of people around them.

In our town of Boulder, Colorado, the pastors realized that they knew very little about the other agencies that were serving our community. They decided to organize a one day “Magic Bus Tour” to meet with the directors of these agencies, to find out what they did and what help they needed. They visited the local shelter, the food bank, a day-care facility, a health clinic, a home for runaway youth, the AIDS project, etc—a total of eight agencies. It was the beginning of bridge-building relationships between the faith community and the community where new openness, healing and friendships have begun. Our pastors are now ministering to AIDS patients and utilizing their churches for overflow nights in partnership with the homeless shelter. One pastor, who is now taking meals to AIDS patients on a weekly basis, was drawn into this ministry by two things—“This was a group of people who were in need of the grace of God and also the group I was most uncomfortable with, so I just thought it was something God wanted me to be a part of. If anything, this ministry is changing my life.”

10) From teacher to learner. “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak…” (James 1:19). It is interesting to note that for the historic African-American churches, the concept of holistic ministry is not a new concept. They have never suffered from trying to split effective evangelism from social justice or meeting the needs of those around them. It’s how they’ve always done church. A study of 2,150 black churches by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya in their book The Black Church in the African American Experience report that nearly 70% “of black churches are involved with social service agencies and non-church programs in dealing with community problems.” The effective churches see the community as one that is full of assets more than full of problems. Churches in New York City like Concord Baptist Church of Christ, Allen AME, Bethel Gospel Assembly to those in Los Angeles like First AME, Faithful Central Bible Church and West Angeles COGIC have led the way in transforming and preserving their communities. John DiIulio, former Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, sites a study of over 400 of the roughly 2,000 community-serving congregations in Philadelphia:

Over 90 percent of urban congregations provide social services, from preschools to prison ministries, from food pantries to health clinics, from literacy programs to day-care centers, etc.
The replacement value of their services in Philadelphia alone is a very conservatively estimated quarter-billion dollars a year.
Suburban congregations have much to learn from these innovative leaders and ministries.

Where do we go from here?

From Isaiah 65:17-25 Ray Bakke outlines seven characteristics of a healthy community from the heart of God:

Public celebration and happiness (18, 19)
Public health for children and the aged (20)
Housing for all (21)
Food for all (22)
Meaningful work (22, 23)
Family support systems (23)
Absence of violence (25)

This list outlines our potential marching orders. The Spirit of God is at work. There is a good chance that the next great movement of God will involve putting the church back into community where it can be the leaven, salt and light God designed the church to be. Will we join God in this transforming work? For the sake of the gospel, the church and our communities, in faith… let’s move forward!

What are the next steps for you?

Which paradigms do you readily identify with? Which principles or illustrations speak to you most strongly?
How would you answer the question, “Tell me about the impact your church is having on your community?”
Define your “growth model” for individuals? Can those in your church grow significantly apart from service? Why or why not?
What are some natural ways you can begin building bridges into your community?
Where is the “low-hanging fruit” for your church?
Where do you sense is your first (or next) entry point into your community?
What are the internal / external barriers to entering into the life of your community?
What human service agencies would make natural “partner ministries” for your church?
How can you begin expressing “unity of purpose” with others in the faith community?
What are some ways that you can “bless” your city?
How can you begin to get good information about your community’s “mission field” and “mission force?”
Discuss the “Ten Paradigm Shifts” with your staff / board at your next leadership retreat

Scriptural Resources. For further study:

Leviticus 19:9,10, 23:22, 25:8-55
Deuteronomy 15:1-18, 24:17-22, 26:12
Nehemiah 1,2
Psalm 41:1, 68:5,6, 72
Proverbs 3:28, 14:31, 19:17
Isaiah 58:1-12
Isaiah 61:1-6
Isaiah 65:17-25
Jeremiah 22:16
Jeremiah 29:4-7
Ezekiel 16:49,50
Micah 6:8
Matthew 4:23, 5:13-16, 13:33, 25:31-46
Luke 10:25-37
John 13:1-17
Acts 4:32-37, 9:36, 10:36-38, 11:27-30
Galatians 6:10
Ephesians 2:8-10, 4:11-13, 28
James 1:27, 2:6, 2:14-18
1 John 3:14-20
1 Timothy 2:9,10, 5:9,10, 6:17-19
2 Timothy 3:16,17
Titus 2:6, 2:11-15, 3:4-8
Hebrews 10:24

Eric Swanson works for Leadership Network

Book Resources.

101 Ways to Reach Your Community Author: Steve Sjogren, Publisher: Nav Press, 2001
A Biblical Word for an Urban World Author: Raymond Bakke, Publisher: Board of International Ministries, 2000
A Theology As Big As the City Author: Ray Bakke, Publisher: Intervarsity Press, 1997

An Unstoppable Force Author: Erwin Raphael McManus, Publisher: Group, 2001
Beyond Charity Author: John Perkins, Publisher: Baker Books, 1993 Churches That Make a Difference Author: Sider, Olson, Unruh, Publisher: Baker Books, 2002
City of God, City of Satan Author: Robert Linthicum, Publisher: Zondervan, 1991
City Reaching: On the Road to Community Transformation Author: Jack Dennison, Publisher: William Carey Library, 1999 City-wide Prayer Movements Author: Tom White, Publisher: Vine Books, 2001
Conspiracy of Kindness Author: Steve Sjogren, Publisher: Servant Publications, 1993

Divided by Faith—Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America Authors: Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000 Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire Author: Jim Cymbala, Publisher: Zondervan, 1997
In His Steps Author: Charles M Sheldon, Publisher Smithmark Publishers, 1992
Loving Your City Into the Kingdom: City Reaching Strategies for a 21st Century Revival Author: Ted Haggard and Jack Hayford, Publisher: Regal, 1997
Meeting Needs, Sharing Christ Author: Charles Roesel, Publisher: Lifeway, 1995
Ministries of Mercy : The Call of the Jericho Road Author: Timothy J. Keller, Publisher: Zondervan, 1998
Restorers of Hope Author: Amy Sherman, Publisher: Crossway Books, 1997
Restoring At-Risk Communities: Doing it Together and Doing it Right Author: John M. Perkins, Publisher: Baker, 1995, 2000
Revolution and Renewal Author: Tony Campolo, Publisher: John Knox Press, 2000
Signs of Hope in the City Authors: Carle and Decaro Jr., Publisher: Judson Press, 1999
Somebody Cares Author: Doug Stringer, Publisher: Regal, 2001
Taking Our Cities For God: How to Break Spiritual Strongholds Author: John Dawson, Forward by: Jack Hayford Publisher: Creation House, 1989
The Black Church in the African American Experience Authors: C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, Publisher: Duke University Press, 1996
The Church of Irresistible Influence Author: Robert Lewis, Publisher: Zondervan, 2001
The Church That Never Sleeps Author: Matthew Barnett, Publisher: Nelson, 2000
The Triumphs of Joseph: How Today’s Community Healers Are Reviving Our Streets and Neighborhoods Author: Robert L. Woodson, Publisher: Free Press, 1998
The Way of the Bootstrapper: Nine Action Steps for Achieving your Dreams Author: Floyd Flake, Publisher: Harper Press, 1999
The Word on the Street: Performing Scriptures in the Urban Context Author: Stanley P. Saunders and Charles L. Campbell
Publisher: Eerdmans, 2000
Turn Your Church Inside Out, Author: Walt Kallestad, Publisher: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2001
Urban Churches: Vital Signs; Beyond Charity Toward Justice Author: Nile Harper, Publisher: Eerdmans, 1999