A Missionary or A Businessman
If I'm on an airplane, and the person next to me asks me what I do for a living, what do I tell them? Until now, I would most definitely state..."I own a small business."
However, I feel very convicted now to respond..."If I tell you, do you promise to still talk to me? (assuming Yes) I'm a missionary in the business world."
Paul never led off any of his letters with "Paul, a tent maker for Jesus"...or, "Paul, tentmaker"...he always led with "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus", or something in that light.
I think my opportunities to live out the great commission will increase if I take on the right perspective, and reposition myself in God's economy, not so much in the economy of this world.
posted by Hollywood at 2:48 AM
6 Comments:
I think it takes Spirit-led wisdom to discern when to tell them you own the business and when to introduce it as a missionary to the business world.
Sometimes one approach is called for and sometimes the other.
I'd pretty much say that learning to discern what the Holy Spirit is telling you to do...because I've done both and offended both ways, and I've done both and had it go well both ways...
I'm not sure there's a hard & fast answer. You have to know your God, know yourself and know your situation. That takes all kinds of leaning on the Spirit.
10:10 AM
I'm thinking pretty surely that "my God" hasn't changed in the last 2000 years. Also the "friendship evangelism" approach of "I'll just make friends and be as much like them as I can without sinning in the hopes that they might ask me about Jesus" has been relatively fruitless for the last 14 years...and...see next entry for affirmation...
12:25 PM
Frankly, Hal, not much has worked in the last, oh, say 40 years. For examples of this, one can read the entire works of Francis A. Schaeffer to lengthy to go into here.
12:49 PM
In fact, I just heard a sermon on this very topic in Holland yesterday (see our team's Holland blog--you can link to mine from there, July 16 entry by me). I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts...
12:50 PM
The ancient paths: Just so you know, my reference to Francis Schaeffer was so far from "token." It could NOT have been more serious. I don't like the implication that it was. I did my undergraduate thesis on his work/ideas and consider it instrumental to evangelism in any context.
And, I'll no longer be commenting here, due to your misrepresenting my use of terms and contentious tone of things I didn't even mean. It's frustrating and unenjoyable. If I have anything to say to Hal, I'll simply e-mail.
8:50 AM
Disappointed. I just lost 50% of my commenters. If I were a diner, one of my two regulars just left for good.
5:05 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home