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If God has called you into business, please don’t wish you were called somewhere else. The marketplace is a great place for Christians right now. The Charleston Marketplace is a great place to do business.
The marketplace is a more authentic showroom of Christianity.
If you were shopping for a car, you’d probably go to a showroom. Before you bought anything, you’d probably want to see if the car actually functions properly on the road. You might even ask the dealer to allow you to take the car home for a day or two to test it out.
The local church is like the showroom for Christianity. The marketplace is the test drive. The marketplace is where our unbelieving co-workers get to see if they really want what we have. Daily, they see how we react under pressure. They see how we treat people. They see how much God truly matters to us in our daily lives.
Most people aren’t even coming to the “showroom” anymore, so marketplace Christians are now serving as both the showroom and the test drive of Christianity.
The marketplace forces the Church to use all of its capabilities.
Personality-driven and super-pastor Christianity doesn’t work in the marketplace. Having a bunch of Christians sitting on the sidelines of ministry may not prevent a local church from increasing numerically, but it won’t transform the marketplace for the glory of God.
So far, most of the teaching about “marketplace ministry” has been defining marketplace ministry without regard for people’s unique spiritual gifts. For example, if I have an apostolic gift, of course I’m going to view marketplace ministry as a mandate to “ascend and take the Business Mountain for God. If I have a pastoral gift of course I’m going to view marketplace ministry as a calling to “care for the personal needs of my employees and/or co-workers.
We need to approach marketplace ministry in a way that leverages the spiritual gifts of all Christians in the marketplace. The “one-size-fits-all” approach only produces self-condemnation and ineffectiveness for marketplace Christians attempting to operate outside of their God-given spiritual gifts.
Everything gets funded from the marketplace.
All money comes from value that has been created in the marketplace, and business professionals ultimately decide what gets funded. These business professionals need to know God and His plan for their lives in order to make righteous decisions concerning money.
Although business is often thought of only as the economic engine of the Church, I hope that we will begin to see and realize its full potential for transforming society for the glory of God.
