Audience of One

Gospel work vs. secular work?

I’m coming up to the end of my second year of uni and so have started thinking about what I want to do when I leave. I’ve always assumed that I would do some kind of apprenticeship, maybe alongside Cornhill or other theological training. In fact, I’ve always assumed that in the long term full-time work for a church or Christian organisation was where I was heading.

Recently, as I’ve got into more depth in certain parts of my degree, I’ve realised that I could now see myself in a secular work environment, whether the media or some part of the music industry. I’ve also realised that the New Testament pattern for finding church leaders was by the pastors and elders appointing them, not themselves volunteering. Secular work has value of itself, and just because I could become a full-time pastor-teacher, youth worker, church music director or whatever, doesn’t necessarily mean that I should.

Contrasting with that is the realisation that the world needs to hear the saving message of Jesus, and that as a member of a UK church I not only have the financial resources but the Biblical knowledge to be of great help in the mission field. When the Christian Union movement started in the UK, the first members went all over the world to reach students of all nations. Maurice McCracken writes near the end about his prayers for students of our time – that they would do the same. How can that not be a good prayer?

Not only that, but this country needs more church leaders. It’s not often you hear about staffing crises for church leaders (though they do happen), so it’s easy to think there’s no great need. That’s probably because we’re not planting enough churches. This country, as much as any other, needs to hear the good news about Jesus.

Howard Guinness, one of the students who left the UK to reach students around the world, was quoted by John Piper at New Word Alive:

Where are the young men and women of this generation who will hold their lives cheap and be faithful even unto death? Where are those who will lose their lives for Christ’s sake – flinging them away for love of Him? Where are those who will live dangerously, and be reckless in His service?

Piper’s implication was: “They’re here”. He was speaking to a group of two thousand students from across the UK. He and Richard Cunningham challenged all of us to be those people, people whose whole lives would be sacrificial worship to the one who deserves it.

There are so many needs all over the country, all round the world, all of which would be great things for me, or my friends, or you, to go and do. We could go as Bible translators, church planters, itinerant evangelists to jungle villages, student workers, relief workers in Muslim or communist areas cut off from missionaries – the list goes on. All would be great things to do. There’s a problem though: what should we do? How can we know?

Is secular work therefore worthless, and not an option worth bothering with, given so many apparently “better” things to be doing? Is it a waste of our lives to go work in an office, or a school, or for a theatre company, or be a politician, or a computer programmer? Or to take two examples, is the only reason it might be worthwhile for me to work as a sound engineer because it would give me opportunities to share the gospel with colleagues in the studio? Or are Christian doctors only doing a worthwhile job if they manage to talk to their patients about Christ? Do secular jobs have value in themselves, or only so far as they allow us to tell others the gospel?

I’m pretty certain the answer is that they do have value in themselves – after all, God created us to work (Genesis 2:15), and while work is now imperfect because of the fall, [the command isn’t taken away (Genesis 3:23). Julian Hardyman’s book Glory Days is on a very similar topic, that of dividing our lives into the “glory bits” (the spiritual stuff we do for God) and the rest (our hobbies, jobs, chores etc.). We live the whole of our lives for God’s glory, so we can’t make this distinction. How does the desperate need for gospel workers worldwide fit in though?

I’m in a situation where I could get a secular job, serve God by working as if working for the Lord (Ephesians 6:7-8), serve my church, pray for the world, and give money to missionaries; or, I could go work for a church, or a Christian charity, whether here or abroad. How do I know what I should do? Is this a matter of Christian freedom (you can serve God either way, so it doesn’t matter), or is one inherently better, or of more eternal worth than the other?

Currently, I’ve got no real answers. Anyone got any wisdom on this?

(Just as an aside, I think this is the first blog entry since I restarted writing that doesn’t sound like I know everything and am trying to pass it on those less enlightened. Either my wisdom ran out, or my arrogance did.)

Matthew @ 16:00, April 19, 2008 to Discussions | Comments (2)