Journey into the Marketplace
Having spent the majority of my adult life focused on full time ministry, it severely caught me off guard when God instructed me to redirect my attention to establishing myself as a business man. Truth be told, it’s been just over 5 years since that shift happened and the process has only deepened. What comes to my mind in pondering this shift, is what is ministry? The answer wasn’t as complicated as I had originally made it, though I still have my wrestle between what I expected it to be and what it has personally evolved into. Ministry is being Jesus to the world we live in WHEREVER WE ARE. Contrary to the belief system I had embraced throughout the majority of my life, ministry is not limited to the 4 walls of a church building. Ministry is not limited to short term or long term missions. Ministry is doing our very best to let Christ live and walk through our every movement amongst those He passionately died and rose again to save.
“Ministry is being Jesus to the world we live in WHEREVER WE ARE.”
It dawned on me throughout these last 5 years that many of the people who need Jesus the most will be the last to ever surround themselves with “Christian circles”. What’s most sad is much like the Priest and Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan, most Christians ignore and disregard those who need Jesus the most in the name of doing “more important Christian things”. It’s literally an identity crisis. We are called to seek and save the lost, not the Believer. How then will they ever come to know Christ if His representatives refuse to do as He commanded and GO into all the world and every sector of society?
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and obey My words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always [remaining with you perpetually—regardless of circumstance, and on every occasion], even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:16-20 AMP
In addition to Christs clear instruction to go to the lost and not just expect them to come by going to a church, we can see soberingly that without Believers preaching the good new and being Jesus amongst the people, they will not come to know Him.
“But how will people call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher (messenger)? 15 And how will they preach unless they are commissioned and sent [for that purpose]? Just as it is written and forever remains written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!” Romans 10:14-15 AMP
My previous paradigm for ministry was flawed. It required a mic, a platform, and a staff position. While this model is the most common, it’s not the definition of ministry or MINISTER. Most of the time, as has been shared already, the people furthest from the Gospel will never freely walk into one of our illustrious state of the art Christian facilities on their own nor be willing to come to one. When we as Believers become willing to become the hands and feet of Jesus the Christ to an unchurched people — eye to eye, side by side, heart to heart, that’s when they will become interested in Him. Long before they’ve grown convicted of sin or convinced of His Righteousness, our witness in their presence will do the preaching. We won’t always have the opportunity to speak the A, B, C’s of the Gospel message, but we will have ample opportunity to display a love that they have never felt before. A love that has no take backs or “I owe you’s” attached. A love that embraces where those who should have embraced them rejected them.
“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13 NLT
This scripture embodies what Christ did for us all. He physically gave up His life so that we could become His friends, His brothers, and fellow heirs of His Kingdom. If He did all that for us, how much more should we do so for the lost waiting to be reconciled with their Creator through the Gospel?
You have a mandate. Go do it. Go be it.
