Yesterday I mentioned my friend and former pastor Dr. Jim Singleton who has been a faithful disciple-maker for many years. In addition to spending a lot of time together leading a men’s Bible study on Tuesday mornings, we also spent a fair amount of time on the baseball field. Jim loves baseball, and managed our “Over-50” team of “has-beens” and “never-wases.” (I was in the latter group!)

Anyway, the point is, before choosing vocational Christian ministry, Jim seriously contemplated being a sportscaster. When Neil Hudson, author of Imagine Church, an advocate of “whole-life discipleship,” visited Jim’s seminary class a few years ago, Neil posed this question to the class of young seminarians:

“Would Jim have made as big an impact for the Kingdom as a sportscaster as he has as a minister?”

After some discussion, the class reached the conclusion that Jim indeed has had more of an impact as a minister than he would have as a sportscaster. Neil’s response?

This is very troubling.

It’s troubling on several fronts. First, God has used all kinds of people to advance his work, many of whom had “secular” jobs: Joseph and Daniel were prime ministers in pagan countries, David was a king, Joshua was a general, and the list goes on. Second, those in the “secular” workplace often have access to all kinds of people who would never come to church. Who’s to say in which arena Jim would have reached the most people?

Finally, and most troubling the more I think about it is that the young seminarians and many other pastors really believe that their work is more important than other people’s work. One pastor said in a sermon: “My job is to feed the sheep; your job is to serve the sheep, by, for example, keeping the nursery on Sunday mornings.” In so doing, that pastor communicated that his work was Kingdom work. The best you could do is support him on Sundays.

In fact, he had a building full of people strategically positioned all over his town and its university. People who were around people that pastor will never meet. And it didn’t occur to him that he should be fulfilling his biblical mandate to equip them. Don’t miss this:

The pastor’s job is to support the members’ ministries, not the other way around.

The Apostle Paul was clear:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service… (Ephesians 4.11, 12, NIV)

We can cheer the 14th affirmation [of the Manila Manifesto]: “We affirm that every congregation must turn itself outward to its local community in evangelistic witness and compassionate service.” But it does not say that… “Every congregation must turn itself outward in evangelistic witness and service to the communities where their people spend their time [but it should!]” – Mark Greene, Executive Director of LICC, at the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization, 2010.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2.14 – 16, ESV)