Think you can only serve God in church? Think again
Mark Greene shared some inspiring stories of believers who served God on their day-to-day frontlines
Mark Greene
Where do you spend your time during the week? At home, work, the school gates, the gym? Do you know that you can be fruitful for God right where you are, wherever that might be?
These are questions Mark Greene, executive director at The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, encourages everyday Christians and church leaders to ask in order to help people see that we can all make a difference for God in our Monday-to-Sunday lives.
In a recent Reach podcast with Mark Greenwood, Mark explains how most of us doubt we’re doing that.
“One woman I met once was 34 and had turned around two failing schools in east Glasgow. She didn’t think that was significant to God, but actually, she had changed hundreds of people’s lives and obviously made a big impact on her community,” he says.
He was working with a group of talented people in their 20s and 30s who were considered to be future workplace thinkers, writers, speakers and mentors, yet none of them thought they were doing anything important for Jesus.
“They thought the only way to be fruitful for God is volunteering at their local church or through direct social action and evangelistic conversations,” he explains.
“Now, if you’re running a school, on an average day, you’re not going to do any of those things. Neither will you if you’re working at McDonald’s. “So the vast majority of people get to the end of their day and think they’ve done nothing for Jesus.”
But what if you can get people to see things differently? To get excited about the potential of the places where they spend their time and what God might want to do there? Church leaders can bring about this change with a focus on disciple-making – teaching people to walk in the way of Jesus in their contexts of parenthood, employees, spouses and more, Mark says.
For everyday Christians, being fruitful in daily life could mean modelling a godly character and bringing the fruit of the Spirit into various situations, he says. You can minister love by getting someone a cup of coffee. You can stick up for truth in the face of gossip, defending someone who is criticised unfairly and offering a different view.
The impact of this can be seen over time. “If you’ve stood up for truth for five years in a workplace or school, people will trust you. They’re more likely to believe in a God of truth or grace if you’ve forgiven them and been gracious, because they’ve seen it.”
The mission field: From the aisles of a local shop to the factory floor...
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• Thelma is 93 years old and attends a church in West Bromwich. She’s not as quick on her pins as she was when she was 89 and didn’t think she had a frontline. Then she realises she does have a mission field – the local convenience store where she does her shopping. Her friends were offering to shop for her, but through rain, sleet, snow and shine, she goes herself. Not only does a relationship with the owners develop, but she is exhilarated to be walking with Jesus in a dynamic way day by day.
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• Anita has walked down the corridor between departments in her office for years. She regularly walks past a woman from a different department and they smile at each other. Then one day they bump into each other in the car park. They have a chat, and the woman, who has obviously picked up somehow that Anita is trustworthy, opens up about her child’s eczema and the fact she is thinking about leaving her husband. Anita pops open the boot of her car, gives the woman a Bible, says she will pray for her and her husband and asks if it would be OK if she asks her home group to pray for her son. The woman becomes a Christian not long afterwards.
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• Colin used to work as a manager for a plastic extrusions company that made mouldings. They had 12 work benches but no orders, so the staff were coming in each day and just hanging around. Colin decided to pray and pulled up a chair by the first workbench. He prayed it would get busy. Then he went to the second bench and prayed the same. He did this for all 12 benches for six days in a row as the staff watched. On the seventh day, 72 orders came in.
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• Fran was a night manager at a Hilton hotel. One night, someone’s computer wasn’t working and no one could figure out why. She prayed for it and it started working. She, therefore, got a reputation for being the person to go to with tech problems. Then one evening some keys were in a safe and it wasn’t opening. This lady prayed in front of it and it opened. At the team meeting at the end of the week where such incidents are logged, it was reported that the safe wouldn’t open, then the lady prayed and it opened!
Want to explore how you can be fruitful on your frontline? Mark's book 'Thank God it's Monday: Ministry in the Workplace' is available on the LICC website.
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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