LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Assignment Title: Equipping Churches Release and Support Their People for Work Outside the
Church
Course: CHMN 699 - Internship
Student: Kristine Sage
Date: January 29, 2022
Professor: Dr. Joel Breidenbaugh
Equipping Churches Release and Support Their People for Work outside the Church
Equipping churches encourage their people to build relationships with both Christians and
non-Christians in the marketplace. They recognise that this may mean some people have less
time available for church roles. They resist the fear that emphasising the importance of ministry
in daily life might undermine the recruitment of people for other important church leadership
functions. They believe that people will be more committed to supporting a church that sets in
front of them a large and exciting vision of God at work in their world and that helps them to
discern their part in this and resources them for it. As Miroslav Volf says, ‘We need to build and
strengthen mature communities of vision and character who celebrate faith as a way of life as
they gather before God for worship and who, sent by God, live it out as they scatter to pursue
various tasks in the world.’
This article has been produced by a mixture of pastors and marketplace people and
homemakers. We are very aware that, even as we seek to live more seamless lives that
integrate faith better with our daily work, we are still guilty of living unintegrated lives that
accentuate the gap between Sunday and Monday in many ways. We have not done as much as
we could to bridge the gap between pastors and workplace Christians so that we can explore
and express our faith together rather than being isolated in separate worlds. We have not done
enough to initiate dialogue that transforms energy currently dissipated by frustration at the
workplace into enabling energy that changes workplace environments. Nor have we done
enough to transform energy consumed by frustrations within churches into positive
movements towards more effective mission. We are on the same team, but we will only
become effective when we learn from each other. We have to both educate each other and to
be educated by each other in a spirit of humility.
Billions of people go to work each day to earn their living. Most church-goers are part of
that workforce but many are not exercising their calling. They are not effectively using their
gifts and the call God has given them to transform their workplace into an environment where
God can move freely and change lives. The challenge facing the church today is to equip,
encourage and enable workplace Christians to live out that calling effectively. Workplace
Christians want to change their world and to be active in God’s plan to do so. They want their
pastors to be an integral part of what God wants to do in their workplaces. However, until
workplace Christians and pastors move proactively together to bridge the current gap between
church on Sunday and work on Monday, this gap will remain. The cultures represented in the
Bible (and those in many places still around the world) see humans more holistically as
combining body, soul and spirit and all life activities as sacred. The idea that one goes from a
sacred into a non-sacred activity or environment is alien to these groups. We need to learn
from the Bible and more holistic cultures how to live life seamlessly. We confess that we have
much more to learn about living seamlessly. We cannot expect others to do this for us. We
must take responsibility ourselves. We can support each other better and work to start
changing the environment within our own spheres of influence.
Most churches have ministries to serve the communities around them, which often are
called compassion, outreach or service ministries. Equipping churches include programs to
equip those they serve to be successful in their own workplaces. Such ministries include
business incubators, job transition or employment programs, economic, community and social
development programs, trade schools, women’s business cooperatives, re-entry programs for
former prisoners, and banks and finance corporations, to name just a few. Often churches draw
on the expertise their members have developed in these areas through their occupations. In
the USA, the Christian Community Development Association is a network of about 1000
churches and other organizations with development ministries. Churches with such ministries
include:
Abyssinian Baptist Church Development Corporation
Bright Star Community Outreach
Lawndale Community Church Development Corporation
Voice of Calvary Fellowship Church – Voice of Calvary Ministries
Wooddale Church Job Transition Support Group
Calvary Baptist Church JustWork
Christians in every kind of legitimate work are called to work according to God’s vision for
the world. Doing so requires training, support, and encouragement. Most Christians have no
place besides their church to be equipped for this work. Many churches do a great job of
equipping people for other aspects of the life of faith, and this is vitally important. However,
most churches are not yet capable of equipping their people for the workplace.
There is no single way for a church to become an equipping church. We have provided a
glimpse of some methods, techniques, programs and ideas that have been pioneered at
churches and workplaces around the world. Hopefully, some of these might be useful at your
church too. However, becoming an equipping church does not happen by slapping on a few
methods and programs. Instead it takes a deep belief that the daily work of people in all
occupations is — or could be — service to God. It takes a commitment to keep trying,
practicing, and adapting ways to prepare and support the work of every member. We hope that
the resources on the Theology of Work Project website can be of use to churches and
workplace Christians in this regard, and we welcome people to send us materials and
evaluations of resources they have tried.
