Today we saw how many of the marketplace skills that we have as believers can fit into God’s story and work in the world. Erik shared that many marketplace believers are feeling a disconnect between their marketplace skills and God’s mission in the world. Some may be feeling that they don’t have a role to play by holding a “secular” job or feel that their work may not be as “important” as the work that others are doing in God’s Kingdom on earth.
However, at the Stone Table, we believe that is challenged and redeemed by the work of Jesus on the cross! Because of His redeeming sacrifice, all work is sacred work when done to honor God and love your neighbor. This means that there is no “less than” job, but that we can embody and proclaim the Gospel wherever we are!
Erik shared a story of a brilliant business student at Indiana University who is just wrapping up his fifth year in college and graduating with his masters degree, but has also recently been wrestling with a potential call to missions work somewhere else in the world!
The student asked, “if I go into missions, have the last five years of my life been a waste?”
And I think many marketplace believers may wrestle with that same question when they sense a call to “go!” But the good news is… marketplace skills are missionary skills! In fact, as Erik shared, many of the first & second century churches were actually planted by business people! These early churches were often planted along trade routes where traveling merchants would frequent. It would seem that the Gospel was spread, proclaimed, and planted where business was done, meaning that everyday marketplace believers were being used by God to spread the Gospel as early as the first & second century! To me, this says that they were indeed spreading the Gospel “as they went,” which is fulfilling the “go” part of the Great Commission. And you can too!
As a marketplace believer, someone gifted in marketplace skills, you have the opportunity to take a job in a place of the world where the Gospel is still needing to be shared. This means you can take those very marketplace skills that you use everyday in the US and translate them to doing business somewhere like the Arabian Peninsula and join a church planting team there. Or you could join a business as mission plant somewhere in the world and start the spread of the Gospel in a place where Jesus is not yet known. Marketplace skills are needed all over the world today!
Finally, if this is you, we would simply encourage you to take a posture of humility. Keep God at the center of the story and ask Him, “how does my story fit into Your story?” When we are open, submitted, and humble before God, we give Him space to do some really cool things in, and with, our lives. We may not know how all the pieces come together or how God can or will use the skills we’ve been given for His mission & purposes, but we can continue to ask the Holy Spirit to stir up inside of us the desires of God’s heart. Let’s see what God’s best is, and pray for His will in our lives!
See the full video here
