New Covenant International Blog

Greatest Potential for the Christian Movement rests on the Shoulders of Christian Business People

The greatest “unrealized potential” in the Christian movement for the next 20 years probably rests on the shoulders of Christian business people. That’s great news for every Christian person who loves business. Talk about a life of adventure. What more could you ask for when your faith and your love for business intersect?
The marketplace is the only institution that touches virtually every person on planet earth. Pastors are very limited in their direct exposure to the marketplace. At the same time, the marketplace in general terms doesn’t look to professional church staff for guidance on managing their business.  They do look to their pastors to help disciple them on how to live out their faith, but most haven’t showed them how to connect it to the marketplace.
Here is the $70 billion question.  What is our strategy to reach this world for Christ? Do we try to hire another 600,000 pastors, missionaries, worship leaders,etc??  Or do we unleash 6 million business people to take the Christian movement to the next level?

For too long, many faithful Christians have “out sourced” their responsibilities as believers.  They give generously to the church and then allow the “organized church” to do the work. Honestly, it’s easier. You can live your life in compartments.  There’s your task driven, results oriented, hard charging business world.  Then there is your church world.
But what happens when you are asked to combine your sacred activities and your spiritual activities?  Have we been indoctrinated to believe that oil and water do not mix?  No wonder many successful entrepreneurs and business owners can’t wait to “cash out” when they are 50 or 55.  For them, perhaps business was all about business.
There is a new generation of business leaders who see the world differently. For them, God has called them into business.  Their company is to be used by God for His purposes. They are passionate about creating products or services. They love marketing and sales. They are always mindful of the bottom line. But there is a higher calling. Everything that the church stands for is actually expressed in “real terms” in their business.Most people today, don’t think this way but we need to see that more do. I’m convinced that we can discuss terms like Business as Mission and Marketplace Ministry and so many other subtleties until we are blue in the face but unless the bridge between our sacred spaces of Sunday morning is bridged with our work, then we’ll continue to struggle in living a segmented life.

Labels: Sacred and Secular Divide

Everyday Evangelism: Christ in You

[Excerpted from The Monday Morning Church by Jerry Cook. Reprinted with permission from  www.jerrycook.org]

You are called not so much to do great things, as to be a great person–and that person is Jesus Christ. The Church is the resident presence of Jesus in the world.

No matter how big church attendance is on Sunday, it will never penetrate the culture with Jesus. The reason is clear: The church on Sunday is experienced by the church community; it is only observed by the unbelieving community.

However, Monday through Saturday, the church operates in the experience of non-believers. It lives on their turf, moves in their society, and operates in their culture. On Monday Jesus becomes incarnate through you. And because He can be seen and touched, He can be received or rejected. True evangelism is possible.

Your Strategic Placement
Most Christians have been trained quite well to be the church on Sunday. But what does it take to be the church on Monday?

The first step is to recognize your strategic placement. “Strategic placement” means this: each redeemed, Spirit-filled Christian has been strategically placed by Jesus, the Lord of the church. Where each believing man or woman lives and works is part of that strategy. Christians are people of destiny, purposely placed deep in our culture. We are God’s points of penetration. Because of us Jesus is present at the very heart of society. And it is this strategic presence of Christ that opens the door for his revelation as Savior to man.

Christians are people of destiny, purposely placed deep in our culture. They are God’s points of penetration.
Incarnational Christianity doesn’t try to get people to God. Many men and women don’t want to get to God. Others are unaware there is a God to get to! The incarnation was God coming to us; in a similar way, incarnational Christianity brings Jesus to man.

That’s the basis for true evangelism: in the believer the presence of Christ reaches out to others. It’s also the basis for true discipleship: in the believer the presence of Christ walks alongside the new believer. Thus, the two main activities of the church–conversion and discipling–are wed, as they were meant to be. The Great Commission, after all is not simply to go into all the world and make converts; we are to go and make disciples.

Jesus said simply, “I am the way. If you have found me, you have found God.” Unfortunately, the church often adds a debilitating step to the divine program. We say, “Jesus is the way to God, and the church is the way to Jesus. Come to the church and find Jesus, then Jesus will take you to God.” We must never allow the church institution to be the way to God. Jesus himself is the Way. The goal of the church on Monday is to make the Way present and visible in the world.

Open for Business
Of course, it does no good to have a strategic force in place if the people don’t know they are strategic, don’t know they are a force, and don’t know they are in place.

Most Christians give mental assent to this idea of strategic placement, but they have no concept of its implications. Some think of inviting hurting people to a church program, others think of using some type of soul-winning gimmick to make a convert. Most, however, don’t do anything with the idea at all. It simply floats around, untapped, in the background of their experience. They’re strategically placed, but they’re not “open for business.”

Through the gifts of the Spirit, you are fully equipped and capable of responding to the needs of others exactly the way Jesus would.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27) means you are filled with the Holy Spirit and Jesus is present wherever you go. You are capable of responding to the needs of others exactly the way Jesus would. The gifts of the Spirit are how Jesus works through you to touch people’s lives.

Our time on earth is about being Jesus in our world. Jesus didn’t come to our planet on vacation; He came on assignment. Likewise, you and I have not been born here and now accidentally. We don’t just happen to bump into hurting people. There’s divine strategy at work. You are where you are because God strategically placed you there.

I’m convinced that if more Christians were open for business, then more business would show up. Evangelism as a primary goal is often artificial and powerless. But when it’s a serendipity of spirit-filled believers being Jesus in their world, it is natural and unstoppable!

Excerpted from The Monday Morning Church by Jerry Cook. Reprinted with permission from www.jerrycook.org.

The Monday Morning Church: Out of the Sanctuary and Into the Streets

Unless there is a church on Monday, the church on Sunday makes no difference. Drawing from the book of Ephesians, Jerry clearly lays out how Christians can be the church on Monday–not just in buildings on Sunday, but 24/7 in the clutter, confusion, and hard work of everday living.

Incarnational Christianity doesn’t aim to get people to God; incarnational Christianity brings Jesus to them. As Christians we are people of destiny, purposely placed by God deep inside our culture. We are his points of incarnational penetration, his strategic presence in the world.

As God’s redeemed people, filled with his Spirit, we have been strategically deployed into a hungry world to bring the presence of Jesus into the very heart of society. Not a list of clever techniques, this book describes a way of seeing, a way of understanding, a way of responding.

It’s time we stop doing church and time we start being church–in the world, on the streets, among the people. This book will show you how to be the Monday Morning Church, open and ready for business.

Table of Contents

Part I: Where is God on Monday?

• The Power of the Church on Monday
• The Radical Relocation of God
• A Window in TimePart 2: Who You Are
• Where Confidence Begins
• Will the Real You Please Stand Up?
• Embracing Your New Identify
• You Are What You BelievePart 3: What You Have
• Hope, Wealth, and Power
• Alive and Free
• Transformed and Courageous
• Welcome to the FamilyPart 4: How You Live
• A Worthy Life
• The Christian Lifestyle
• A Life of Love
• Not in My Neighborhood!
• God’s Plan for You

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Bridging the Sunday – Monday Gap

By Derek Brown

For many Christians the highlight of their week is the Sunday service. Sadly many believe this is where the Kingdom of God is primarily expressed. Ministry is confined to that which is done within the church. This is demonstrated in the true story of a young lawyer who was asked what her ministry was. She replied “I teach Sunday school at my church” What a travesty!! Nothing she did during the week in bringing justice, compassion and resolution to the world in which she worked counted, in her mind, as having any spiritual value. How can we change people’s thinking to break free of this Sunday/Monday dichotomy?

Simply put we need to disavow the concept that divides the world into secular vs sacred, private vs public, faith vs work and charity vs justice.  When we understand the Kingdom of God it is evident that everything is sacred because God is the creator of all things and nothing exists outside of His love and compassion. Our faith makes us responsible to bring the Kingdom into every area of life. In the words of Justine, a Burundian living in Rwanda, “I see what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God. I see that it’s about changing this world, not just escaping it and retreating into our churches. If Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God is true, then everything must change. Everything must change.”

What a profound insight – when the Kingdom is expressed – everything must change. The change begins in us and then it finds its expression in the world in which we live and work. It is about bringing God’s mercy, compassion, justice and righteousness into every sphere of His creation. So our lawyer friend has the opportunity and responsibility to bring about change in her chosen field of endeavour by using her gifts, training and experience to be an agent for change – an agent for the Kingdom.

One of the reasons many people switch off from Christianity is that we represent a faith that has no relevance to them. Henry Drummond, writing to his own generation many years ago put it powerfully. “It is because to large masses of people Christianity has become synonymous with a Temple service that other large masses of people decline to touch it…..what they cannot follow, and must evermore live outside of, is a worship which ends with the worshipper, a religion expressed only in ceremony, and a faith unrelated to life.”  What a challenge – our faith has become self-centered and irrelevant to the real world.

What we are looking at is a rediscovery of Kingdom theology. This has many aspects but one of the starting points is the doctrine of the Trinity. In a recent Lausanne paper on ‘Market Place Ministry’ the following conclusion was presented. ”To bridge the gap in our partial perceptions of God’s work we need to be more thoroughly trinitarian instead of having in practice a unitarian (one person) theology playing favourites with the Trinity. We need to develop a three mandate/commission theology (see diagram)”

In these three commissions we see that the breadth of the Kingdom. “We are called to be part of God’s new creation, called to be agents of that new creation here and now. We are called to model and display that new creation in symphonies and family life, in restorative justice and poetry, in holiness and service to the poor, in politics and painting.” (Wright) The Kingdom is expressed in a wide variety of passions. Once we see the vastness of the Kingdom it helps understand how other people can be equally passionate about a range of issues that may not stir our hearts. This passion is an expression of the heart of God for His creation. We are to pursue the passion God has given us but equally to validate and appreciate the passion He has put in others.

When it comes to the church we can think of Sunday as the church ‘gathered’ and Monday as the church ‘scattered’. Sunday then becomes a time to strengthen, encourage and equip Christians to take the Kingdom into their world. As church growth expert, Eddie Gibbs says, churches should shift from an invitational, ‘Come’, seeker service strategy (which works in largely churched suburbs) to a ‘Go’ strategy of dispersal, with a sustained commitment to infiltrating each segment of this fragmenting world. The work place becomes a focal point for producing the Kingdom. As Kevin Costa, a London-based investment banker, states: “If the Christian faith is not relevant in the work place, it is not relevant at all.”

So from a Kingdom perspective there is no difference between Sunday and Monday. It can be argued in fact that what happens on Monday is more important.

So then, would you like to dialog more on these issues raised?  Well why not write direct to Derek Brown newsletter@usingthenet.com.au and discuss your point of view.