I recently read that one need not go overseas to be a missionary. The concept was not new, but it reminded me that I have another take on that thought I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. This is it.
You also don’t have to
be sent out by a mission organization to be an effective missionary for God. My
last ministry position and current home church is First Church of God in St
Joseph, Michigan. We have an awesome missions program that began over a hundred
years ago when a group of German immigrants gathered in St Joseph and found there
was no Church of God congregation. They started one and in so doing began one
of the greatest home, national, and international mission organizations in the
state of Michigan.
But a large amount of
our missions outreach has nothing to with our mission program. We are in the
unique position as a congregation to be in the communities the Whirlpool
Corporation and several other world class corporations call home. Working in
Whirlpool and other great companies of Southwest Michigan are a huge number of
godly men and women who love the Lord and love their jobs (or at least love
their families enough to do their jobs). They may be in church on Sunday
morning, but on Monday they may be on their way to any continent in the world. Wherever
they go in the world they take their faith with them and live it out day after
day in all the places they go. Their salaries and travel expenses are paid by
their employers and their primary concern is to do the work they are sent to
do—selling product, training workers and leaders, solving problems, or doing a
multitude of other significant tasks I can’t even comprehend.
My point is that they do
it as godly men and women who love the Lord and show it in simple, but
significant ways that impact the people with whom they work and interact in
their travels. They may work for Whirlpool or some other corporation, but they
are no less on mission for God than I was when I went to Africa as a
missionary. They go as caring, considerate individuals who lavish God’s grace
on the people they meet in the airports, hotels, and restaurants in addition to
the places where they do the work they are sent to do.
One friend often goes
to China and India. Some time ago in China, when he finished teaching a class, he
had a young lady approach him who asked if he were a Christian. My friend was a bit
shocked. He had been very careful to not be an evangelist for Christ, because
it wasn’t allowed in China, so he couldn’t imagine what he could have said that
would make her think that. He told her he was a Christian, but asked how she
knew. She said something like this, “I’m a Christian too, and I thought you acted
like a Christian.” Even in a normal Christian life, God’s grace shines through.
I’ve heard so many
stories like this. A frustrating experience in an airport with the temptation
to lose it, but by God’s grace you don’t, and God reveals himself through you
to someone who really needs to see him in a practical real-life situation—and God
gets the glory!
It doesn’t matter what
you do. If it is a job that somehow adds to the good of society you can do it
as a form of ministry that is just as significant as preaching the Gospel or “going”
on mission.
I'm Rick Blumenberg and that's My View from Tanner Creek.
