the Philips

God has placed this wonderful family in my life and their journey has been an incredible encouragement to me. I just wanted to share a little glimpse of how Christ-centered their ministry is. If you want to read more about them, their blog is christoandmelissa.com

Miguel’s life put into focus something God has laid on my heart more and more clearly over the past few years about full time Christian work vs part-time or vocational work. I’ll begin by putting out my thesis – I think this dichotomy of full-time vs part-time work/ministry is a false dichotomy and one that I don’t find Biblical evidence for. I started thinking about this issue over the past few years because several times I’ve been asked by those in the Christian community when I would do full-time ministry work vs continuing in a secular profession like medicine. At first, I tried my best to answer that question with this response: “There are those who are called to full time ministry – leading and teaching from the Word, while there are others who are called to primarily work in a profession and then through that lead people to Christ. I would consider myself in the latter group.”

After a few times of answering that question, I became more troubled by that answer and felt that my answer was not Biblical or honoring to God. It was as though I elevated ministerial work – preaching and teaching the Word as more spiritual than the mundane work that everyone else did. I want to begin this discussion with a disclaimer. I’m in no way suggesting that there is not value or a unique role that people who are called to full time teaching and preaching perform in the spiritual life of the church. Clearly we see multiple examples in the Bible of apostles who spent the vast majority of their life exhorting the church and teaching Christians sound doctrine. In fact, those that are gifted as preachers, pastors, teachers and counselors have a very unique role to play in giving the church exhortation and keeping the Word of God central in the life of the Christian. However, I do call into question the notion that people are somehow higher on the spiritual totem pole when they do those primary tasks compared to everyone else who works their Monday through Friday secular job. In many Christian churches, we expect that as people grow in their walk with God, then naturally they should eventually come to a point where they leave their secular careers and move into full time ministry if they are really spiritual.

I think this idea is wrong and counterproductive to how we as Christians can continue to have a deep and changing impact on the society around us. Too often we take cover from our secular workplaces and shelter behind the cloistered walls of the church. When in reality the battle for peoples’ hearts and minds and the redemptive function of the church to care for the wounded and minister to the physically, emotionally and spiritually sick through mercy, love and justice take place outside those walls.

When we leave behind a vocation and the skills it brings with it, we are also leaving behind the relationships and opportunities they provide by working in a secular workplace among both believers and non-Christians alike. The bulk of non-believers will never wander aimlessly through the doors of a church on a Sunday morning but they are willing to do a number of activities and hold numerous conversations about the philosophical and mundane with the people who fill their daily lives.

As we have now attended several churches during our years of training, I have been saddened to see so many of the most committed Christians leaving behind their jobs and professions to pursue full-time ministry which so often means completely divorcing themselves from their previous training. I’ve seen bright agricultural and industrial engineers, businessmen, computer scientists, teachers, nurses who have left their professions to do primarily church planting or teaching work. Although, I’m sure many of them felt a direct calling that God was asking them to take up church based work, I wonder how many of them did that because they felt pressure from the Christian community because that was what spiritual people are supposed to do.

I think we have to adopt what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Whatever I do – be that I may be a preacher, teacher, janitor, doctor, nurse, engineer, accountant, hair dresser, or cashier I do my job in such a way that it brings glory to God. God wants His church to be a blessing to the people, communities and countries we dwell amongst and that blessing often takes place through people doing their jobs…when businesspeople create or lead businesses, when teachers teach, when nurses nurse, when cleaners clean, when builders build. Any work can be done to the glory of God and in a unique way that reflects His impact on our lives and the work we do should be for the betterment and blessing of the people around us.

My challenge to those that have endured my musings so far is this: What if God has asked you to stay where you are, in your sphere of influence, in your profession and use that to declare the amazing and redeeming work of the Gospel? To those in business, how can you use your skills to start businesses, foster the running of a company well that show the Biblical qualities of integrity, hard work and servant leadership? How many people can you impact by doing your work as a business person so well that the people around you who are not Christians come to you when their relationships at home are broken, when they are sick, when they are scared about the future? What if God has called you to be an engineer? Can God use your work as an engineer, with all the stresses that go with it, the multiple people you interact with, as an avenue to build authentic relationships with those who don’t yet know the Savior? What if God has called you to be a farmer? Can you work with honesty, care for your neighbor, giving your extra to those who don’t have enough and hard work say much about the God you serve? What if God has called you to be janitor? Can the work that you do silently behind closed doors so that others have a clean place to work, eat and sleep be exalting to God? Can the clean floors and toilets demonstrate the diligence to your work and the pride you take in doing it well, point people to the one who humbled himself to take the state of lowly man?

As Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

So as I think about reaching the world and living missionally, I think they are two sides of the same coin. You reach those around you by living your life in the profession God has called you to in such a way that your work is found of such outstanding quality that it points people to the person of Christ. Your work and character should be so excellent that there should be no doubt to others that any good in you comes from the transforming work of Christ. In the same way, perhaps the best way to reach the world is to take what you already do and do it in a different context. If you are a lawyer why not use your skills to advocate for the poor and those that are oppressed in our cities and around the world? Why not use your skills to free those in physical and sexual slavery? If you are an accountant why not take your skills as an accountant to a developing country that struggles with corruption and do your work in such a way that they see that a Christian accountant is different because he or she is a man of integrity? If your profession is as an engineer why not use your skills to develop the world in such a way that we are good stewards of the world around us while at the same time providing for affordable and dependable homes for those that have none? The examples are countless! God does not need you to quit your profession and do something different for the Gospel, in fact sometimes the most effective way to reach those around us is to take your skills and just use them in a place where a Christian has not served before. Many times your profession will open doors into a country that is otherwise hostile to the message of Christ.

devotion

God of my end, it is my greatest, noblest pleasure to be acquainted with Thee and with my rational, immortal soul; it is sweet and entertaining to look into my being when all my powers and passions are united and engaged in pursuit of Thee, when my soul longs and passionately breathes after conformity to Thee and the full enjoyment of Thee; no hours pass away with so much pleasure as those spent in communion with Thee and with my heart.

O how desirable, how profitable to the Christian life is a spirit of holy watchfulness and godly jealousy over myself when my soul is afraid of nothing except grieving and offending Thee, the blessed God, my Father and friend, whom I then love and long to please, rather than be happy in myself! Knowing, as I do, that this is the pious temper, worthy of the highest ambition, and closest pursuit of intelligent creatures and holy Christians, may my joy derive from glorifying and delighting Thee. I long to fill all my time for Thee, whether at home or in the way; to place all my concerns in Thy hands; to be entirely at Thy disposal, having no will or interest of my own. Help me to live to Thee for ever, to make Thee my last and only end, so that I may never more in one instance love my sinful self.

- Puritan prayer

someone

Sometimes I wish there was a person in this world who understood me close to the level that God understands me,
someone who could listen and not be tired,
someone who is always there when you need him/her and doesn't leave until you're done,
someone who loves you just the way you are but helps you become the person you want to be,
someone who sits with you in the silence and laughs with you in the good times,
someone who knows you.

I know that if I already have Jesus in my life, it doesn't make sense for me to want something less, but sometimes my little human mind can't wrap around how much this big God satisfies my every need and I let my flesh win and I wish for that someone.

the Holy Spirit

And when he comes, he will convict world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement. - John 16:8

I didn't realize this before, but when I first attended CCF and shared my story with a bunch of then-strangers, it was the Holy Spirit who convicted me of my sin and God's righteousness. I didn't even see it until after I had shared everything and was left with just myself in brokenness before the throne of God. The Lord works in mysterious ways, no? The Holy Spirit interceded on my behalf with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26), and he asked according to God's will that I might be convicted of my sin and turn and believe.