It’s Monday morning. Some of us are returning to our workplaces or schools with varying degrees of dread, excitement, or something in between. Others are settling into weekly rhythms that involve caring for others, volunteering, or tending to needs in our community. No matter where we are or what we’re doing, we probably have tasks in front of us and people we interact with regularly.
Have you ever thought about the work you do during the week as a holy calling, something set apart for God to use for his purposes? It can be easy to treat some vocations this way, but you don’t need to work for a church or mission organization to be called by God to your current field of ministry.
The church down through history has understood itself as a priesthood of believers. In this family of priests, each member is important to our gathering and caring for each other. But each is also important to the church’s mission of showing Jesus to the world and making disciples.
This is not a job only for paid church “professionals”! The early church exploded in numeric growth not merely because of its leaders but also through the witness of farmers, tradespeople, merchants, teachers, parents, and doctors in daily interactions within their communities.
In our priestly calling, how then ought we to view the labor we engage in? Let me offer six non-exhaustive angles to consider.
1. Attitude: Our responses to challenges can bear witness to the gospel. Sin brought a curse (Genesis 3:17-19) on the good gift of work (Genesis 2:15), but in Jesus, God is restoring and reconciling all things (Colossians 1:19-20, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19), including our work. What might this look like when you are exhausted with the demands of another deadline or a change in your routine?
2. Motive: We labor in different ways to provide for the needs of our families, to care for others, to satisfy various demands or desires for our lives, or maybe to keep ourselves busy. None of these is inherently bad. But as those transformed by Jesus and his saving work, we acknowledge and submit to his purposes above all (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). No matter what we do during the week, we should primarily see these activities as serving God and his kingdom (Colossians 3:23-24). How can we live this out when confronted with decisions of various kinds?
3. Impact: Take a minute to step back and view your work through the lens of what it contributes to your community. At its core, your work is not editing files, reviewing lesson plans, cleaning bathrooms, or writing policies. You are participating in the flourishing of a society that, though imperfect, is the setting you have been called to and placed in (Jeremiah 29:4-7). A sense of fulfillment with the minutiae of our daily work can often be hard to come by, so be sure to see the bigger picture and embrace your role in it.
4. Image-bearing: As those created in God’s image, we individually and collectively bear his image (Genesis 1:27, James 3:9). We possess the ability to love, seek justice, cultivate the earth, steward its resources, and enjoy relationships. Though ruined by sin, we are able through Jesus to be renewed and transformed into our original calling as divine image-bearers (Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:23-24). How might we submit our daily work to the Holy Spirit’s work of conforming us into this image?
5. Image-recognizing: You and I are not the only ones who were made in God’s image. Every person we meet is created and loved by God, from the difficult customer to the unreasonable manager to the weary patient. Each one faces unseen burdens and deserves the same grace Jesus extended to us. His offer of salvation, renewal, and transformation is their deepest need. How should this transform the way we pursue justice, healing, and wholeness for all people through the avenues available to us in our vocations?
6. Verbal evangelism: The first five items all serve to advance God’s kingdom as we bear witness to the transforming power of the gospel. This kind of living and working might seem different to some around us (1 Peter 2:11-12), so we must also be prepared to explain why we, in Jesus, are able to choose a different path (1 Peter 3:9-17). Verbally sharing the gospel will take different forms in each of our contexts. How might we pray for more opportunities to explicitly make Christ known in our workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods?
With all this in mind, we’d like to invite you to participate in a special worship service this Sunday, September 6 at 10:30 a.m. All you need to do is bring in one item that represents something you spend significant time doing from Monday to Saturday. It could be a tool you use, an object that represents your industry, a picture of a physical place or people you work with, or anything along those lines. Be creative!
We’ll have an opportunity to bring these items up front and place them on a table during our service. With these items in front of us, we’ll pray for God to work through us to advance his kingdom as we scatter to our various contexts. Then at the end of the service, we’ll collect these items and take them with us, going back into our world as ambassadors of Jesus and his reconciling work.
