The Salt Shaker Booklet No. 3
Wyn Fountain
Which is more spiritual, our worship in the Sunday service or our work during the week?
We might be excused if we have gathered the impression that our worship is sacred whilst our work is secular, because there is so little said in church about our work and creativity outside of the church context, but...
OUR CREATIVITY IS IMPORTANT TO GOD
The 20th century must have been the most creative century in history. Can we see the hand of God in all this? If you were God and you knew that the Messiah is about to return to rule this planet, would you accelerate the creativity on earth in preparation for that coming rule of the Kingdom of God on earth?
That seems to me to be worth thinking about.
The last century has also been the most destructive century in history. But this is also the result of tremendous creativity, though misdirected. It boggles the imagination when we think of two world wars and many smaller ones and the misdirected creativity represented in the logistics, energy, expense and cost in lives. What pain this must bring to the heart of the creator who made man in his own image, creative, in order to employ his creativity to the glory of God.
But let's concentrate now on the positive side of creativity, on all that has been created and developed during the 20th century. As I write this, news has come through of the death of the British Queen Mother. In her lifetime the world has seen more change than any other century in history.
At the beginning of the century there were no cars, no internal combustion engines, no planes nor rockets, plastics, man-made fibres, electric lighting, radio, sewing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators and all kinds of electric appliances in their thousands. The early settlers in N.Z., even just before World War I, built the cities and everything with horses and carts, spades, shovels and wheelbarrows. Horses pulled the trams. Even I can remember the gas lamps in the streets being lit by hand! Now, computers control the illumination of a whole country. At the turn of the century there were no anti-biotics, no frozen food, no television, no transistors, no lasers, no nuclear energy, there was no social security or D.P.B.
In 1912 Immunisation was developed against diphtheria and tetanus.
In 1921 the hormone insulin was isolated.
In 1928 Penicillin was discovered.
In 1954 Salk developed the first effective polio vaccine.
Recent discoveries have had more impact on our lives than ever before.
WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH GOD'S PLAN OF SALVATION FOR US?
Is there anything spiritual about all this creativity?
One could get the impression that this has nothing to do with our faith by the way that the question of our creativity receives so little attention in church apart from perhaps creativity in worship, music and preaching. But this is the stuff that life is made up of. This creativity affects every one of us profoundly, so why does it receive so little attention. Why? Obviously it is because those who run the churches regard the creativity out there in society as secular, not related to the Kingdom of God. Most church members would have accepted that attitude. But that creativity is the essence of life as it is lived. We are co-creators with God.
No wonder that about four-fifths of our population never attend our church services. They regard them as irrelevant, when so little reference is made to our creativity as a spiritual offering unto the Lord of Creation. An eschatology has prevailed that has deprecated creation and the material world, because our future is in heaven. But in the Salt Shaker booklet No. 1 we have demonstrated that creation has a big part to play in the future plans God has for us.
Romans 8:21 "Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God".
We are made in God's image, we are told. Surely it is our creativity as much as anything else that reflects his image. The creation of wealth is God's idea although He doesn't measure wealth merely in terms of money and possessions. They are only part of it. Wealth and creativity embraces the whole of life including material commodities, but also intangible things such as the atmosphere in our homes.
"May you prosper even as your soul prospers" III John 2
An aspect that we often overlook is that our creativity is not primarily for our enjoyment and satisfaction, but for our Lord's. "I am he that blots out your transgressions for my own sake".
CHRIST'S DYING ON THE CROSS WAS PRIMARILY FOR GOD'S SAKE
The cross was the means of providing God with people who, as co-heirs and co-creators with Christ, would prepare themselves to take control of our planet and prepare it for his habitation. He said to Adam, "You take dominion", that command has never been withdrawn. It is clear that Christ is to return to this world, "Then comes the end, (The "end", telos in the Greek, means 'the final issue or result of a process') when he (Christ) shall have delivered up the kingdom to God." I Cor.15:24 "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God". Rev. 21: 3 "The Kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord" Rev. 11:15
This is the purpose of our creativity. This is the meaning of life. This is the reason for our existence, our 'Raison d'être'. Everything we do is preparing for that great and wonderful day of the Lord. Most of us employ our creativity for our own enjoyment, and we may be sure God wants us to enjoy it, but God also wants us to understand that we have an ulterior motive, ('Ulterior' means something beyond, not necessarily sinister). It is the glorious motive of being part of God's big plan and purpose for creation. This is the basic paradigm of life.
We cannot escape the fact that what we are doing is preparation for that day. We are either doing it well, with mediocrity or badly. Nobody can escape that fact. We cannot opt out, whether we want to or not. That is what the judgement is all about when Christ returns, it is not about who goes to hell and who goes to heaven, but what we have done with our talents according to the parable of the talents. "Talents" is not just money, but everything we are stewarding for God.
We all have creative talents, the point is what are we doing with them.
We don't have to go into a monastery or a theological college. Jesus made it very easy for us, he just talked about everyday living like looking after the widows and the fatherless, not cheating people in business. He never inferred that we had to be a Michael Angelo or a Billy Graham. He said "inasmuch as you do it to the least of these, you do it unto me".
Jonathon Sacks is the Chief Rabbi for the Commonwealth synagogues. He has made an interesting statement in this connection.
ON THE CREATION OF WEALTH.
"By our labour we become, in the striking Rabbinic phrase, 'partners with God in the work of creation".
"Animals FIND sustenance, only man CREATES it".
"The active participation of man in the creation of his own wealth is a sign of spiritual greatness".
"No less important than the value placed on work is Judaism's positive attitude to the creation of wealth. Asceticism and self-denial have little place in Jewish spirituality. The world is God's creation, therefore it is good and prosperity is a sign of God's blessing. God has handed the world over to human stewardship, commanding 'Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.' God deliberately left the world unfinished so that it could be completed by the work of man. Industry is more than mere labour. It is the arena in which
we transform the world." "Economic growth has religious significance because it allows us to alleviate poverty which is not a 'blessed" condition as in some faiths. The rabbis taught that poverty is a kind of death, worse than fifty plagues."
"The sages were not so much concerned with the elimination of poverty through the redistributive taxation. Instead, what they sought to create was a society in which the poor had access to help when they needed it, but also and especially through job creation. Hence with wealth came responsibility. Successful businessmen were supposed to set an example of philanthropy and to take on positions of community leadership. Conspicuous consumption was frowned upon. Wealth was a divine blessing and therefore with it carried the obligation
to use it for the benefit of the whole community".
In whatever field you care to name, whether it is in literature, art, entertainment, science, education, commerce or politics, there will always be internationally known Jews at the top of the field. C.P.Snow, the British novelist and physicist stated, "The record is remarkable and
outside the probability of all statistical possibility. By any test of achievement, the Jews performance has not only been disproportionate, but ridiculously disproportionate".
In Romans10: 19, Paul quotes scripture that says that we Christians are supposed to make the Jews jealous. I'm afraid that as far as I am concerned it is the other way around. For centuries the church has followed the Greeks who divided between the secular and the sacred, whilst the Jews never did. It is high time we restored our paradigms to conform with our Hebrew roots.
Rev.19:7 says, "The Bride has made herself ready" Could it be that the return of Jesus is delayed because the Bride has not made herself read because she has failed to embrace creativity in the whole of life as a spiritual offering? Jesus did not die on the cross merely to save us going to hell. Nor did he die on the cross so that we could spend eternity in heaven. He died to provide God with creative beings who would, as co-heirs with Jesus Christ, be equal to ruling the world. "Don't you know", says Paul, "you are going to rule the world". Are we ready for the wedding?
JESUS WORKED CREATIVELY AS A CARPENTER UNTIL HE WAS THIRTY
Why did he waste all that time before he got into his real ministry? Paul also spent a lot of time tent-making. Shouldn't the believers have supported him so that he could have been "fulltime" in the Lord's work?
The term "tent-making" is used today to describe working at a job part-time, in order to support oneself the rest of the time, in the "Lord's work".
But when writing to the Thessalonians in II Thess. 3:10, Paul says,
"If a man will not work, he shall not eat".
Then again in I Thess.4:11
"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to look after your own
business and to work with your hands just as we told you.
SO THAT YOUR DAILY LIFE MAY WIN THE RESPECT OFOUTSIDERS
AND SO THAT YOU WILL NOT BE DEPENDENT ON ANYBODY."
So is that what work is all about, winning the respect of outsiders and not being dependent on anybody? Did Paul mean then that nobody should be supported by the generosity of others so that they could work fulltime in "The Lord's Work"? I doubt that, although by his example a good case could be made. He went out of his way not to be a burden on those to whom he was ministering and there is no evidence of his being supported from his home church.
There are some tasks, however, that provide a service that calls for a full-time application where it is obviously a misdirection of energy to engage in "tent-making" and in fact quite impossible. Wherever it is possible, those being served should provide the support, but in many cases such as missionary work in a poor country, such support may not be possible. In any case the service is primarily unto the Lord and He knows what He wants done, who He wants to do it and who should pay for it. Many who work in such an environment have discovered that the Lord's work done in the Lord's way gets the Lord's provision.
The essential question is "Has the Lord called me to this task?" not "Is this a good idea?"
CALLING IS OF THE ESSENCE
If God has called, the job is important to Him. He doesn't call everybody into so-called "full-time" service. There appears to be a wide-spread acceptance of the concept that if one is going into "fulltime" ministry one needs to be "called", but if one is going into "secular" work, that is a choice one makes for oneself. Therein lies one of the great weaknesses of the Bride of Christ today. She is not "making herself ready" for the wedding of the Lamb, she is
"DOING HER OWN THING"
During my lifetime I have never heard a sermon on hearing the call of God when it comes to choosing a career or occupation. I have heard many on hearing the call of God to become a missionary or "fulltime" worker. I just may not have been in the right churches, but I wonder how many could say that they have been so instructed. Fortunately for me, the calling to go into business was very clear through 1Thess. 4:11 quoted above and other scriptures.
If we are to hope for the transformation of society, no amount of church building, or professionalism in the worship teams or local church activity is ever going to achieve that transformation, unless it results in ordinary "lay" folk winning the respect of outsiders, where they live and work. We first have to get credibility by demonstrating the kingdom of God in our daily life at home, work and recreation. That is why our work is important to God.
Don't let' s talk about our "secular" work, let's embrace it all in the Kingdom of God, as he does.
If we can't earn the respect of outsiders at home, at work and at recreation with people we mix with regularly, don't let's go door-knocking, distributing gospel literature or out into the streets where nobody knows how we live during the week, pretending we have the answers for life. Some of us work next to people all week regarding our work as secular then in the weekend we engage in evangelism with people that we do not know, as a spiritual exercise.
During the Great Awakening in Britain, John Wesley, ostracised by the churches, went out to where the people lived and worked. He discipled a whole nation through a lay movement in which thousands of small groups encouraged believers to go back into the mines, factories, hospitals and prisons to demonstrate the kingdom of God in life where they lived and worked. The great majority of converts did not go back into the churches, but they achieved a transformation, the effect of which we experience today.
Will the churches be unable to change until another Great Awakening comes about and the move of God moves out into small groups? That is happening in places like China. Do we have to wait until "missionaries" come to our land from China to restore normal Christian life here?
During the last century the evangelical church has lost the dynamic of the Great Awakening for a variety of reasons, the main one being that the church has again been lead by pastors and "clergy" who divide between sacred and secular. Being a minister or a missionary is first class work. Involvement in so-called "secular" is second class. Can I hear some howls of protest from some pastors?
Tell me why it is then, that when someone graduates from Bible College and goes to the mission field we gather around and pray for them commissioning them into "full-time service". Yet, when a Church member graduates from the Teachers
Training College or University and goes into business do you do the same? The message comes through loud and clear that the teacher or accountant is in "secular" work and the missionary is in sacred "full-time" service. One church I know did have a special service early in the New Year to commission all those who had graduated into "secular" occupations.
Wonderful, but how many do that?
It is because of this dichotomy that people are saying that the church is irrelevant. They hear sermons on the same theme week after week. That theme is about what our salvation means to us. How often do we hear about what our daily work means to God? What opportunities are there for people to talk with others about their daily life in relation to the kingdom of God? Have you ever attended a small group when someone has been talking about some issue of work that is important to them, and the leader says, "perhaps we should get on with the bible study ". The message gets through loud and clear "Your life is not important, it is our programme that is important".
If we are to hope for the transformation of society it is not enough to go to church, and prayer meetings, singing praises. Our relationship to Jesus Christ and our spirituality must embrace our work and creativity seven days a week. Our behaviour during the week is more important than our behaviour in church.
If our work is to be sanctified as unto the Lord as much as our praise and worship, there are concepts and ideas that must be accepted as foundational to our worldview.
IDEAS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
The motivation to regard our daily work as a spiritual offering unto the Lord, needs a set of dynamic ideas and concepts. Ideas and concepts create our worldview and our worldview dictates our daily behaviour.
The idea at FIRST BASE is to "Begin with the End in Mind", to establish OUR DESTINY, which we dealt with in booklet No. 1. Most of us would put our salvation as first base. But if we ask, "From God's point of view, what are we saved for?" we realise that our salvation is a means to an end, not the end in itself, therefore keeping our destiny ( "the End") in mind, is first base.
Our focus must not primarily be on the spiritual entertainment of believers in well-organised meetings, nor even on compassion for the lost, but rather on compassion for God himself. He created man with whom he wanted intimate friendship, gave him freewill and said go and "take Dominion" of his precious earth on which he wants to establish his kingdom. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son". For millennia he has been waiting for the Bride to "Make herself ready" (Rev. 21:9), to rule planet earth.
If you truly love God, feel his heart as century after century he watches his people make a mess of things. How he must long for those who will make themselves ready and not be consumed with what they can get out of the "big sugar daddy in the skies". Paul said, " Don't you know you are going to judge (or rule) the world". That is the reason for our existence. That is what we are preparing for.
The idea at SECOND BASE is to establish that there is no division between secular and sacred in the KINGDOM OF GOD. Dealt with in No. 2 booklet, "Is the Local Church Irrelevant?" wherein we contrasted the worldview of today's local church leaders with that of John Wesley and William Carey. Their worldview reached far beyond the local church.
The idea at THIRD BASE we are dealing with now. For us who believe, our spirituality is exercised through our occupations. Ministry means service. Firstly towards God and then mankind. "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus ...who took on the form of a servant". Jesus started his ministry (service) ministering to people at the point of their perceived needs. His first miracle was to turn water into wine. He healed people, fed them, and raised them from the dead. None of which was what we would call "spiritual", but it was all related to the kingdom of God. He didn't do his secular thing feeding the thousands and then get into his spiritual ministry on the beatitudes.
All our occupations are vehicles of service.
The entrenched mind-set over many centuries is to divide the secular from the sacred. Can we expect that things will change? Yes, we can. The industrial chaplaincy movement is growing and the Bible Colleges and Theological Colleges are providing courses on such topics as the Marketplace Ministries and Faith at Work. This will seep through eventually to the local churches where both the clergy and the members are so rooted in thought patterns, paradigms and traditions that they are finding it hard to accept that there is a need for change.
In time it will happen. But we haven't got a lot of time. Post-modernism is with us. The greatest obstacle to the expansion of the Kingdom of God on earth in the future will no longer be the anti-supernaturalism of the atheistic Darwinists and the scientific materialists. It will be instead the post-modern super-naturalists who will provide a spirituality that in all of the forms invented, provide a spiritual dimension that is experienced in the fabric of life where it is lived. If the church fails to abandon the dichotomy between sacred and secular it will increasingly be perceived as irrelevant. Can you blame people who are hungry for spiritual reality in everyday life, turning from a church system that conveys the message in so many ways, that life outside the church ghetto is secular?
WHAT IS SACRED ABOUT BUSINESS?
It may be comparatively easy for a mother and a homemaker or someone in the medical or educational professions to be able to relate their jobs to the kingdom of God. There are many, unfortunately, who find it hard to reconcile business to the kingdom. There are many clergy who regard socialism as more "Christian " than capitalism, because they see capitalism as being based on self-interest, the law of the jungle, callous, without compassion and frequently cruel. But they overlook the fact that socialism has manifested all of those evils, so has sex. Even the most bigoted clergy must also admit that history records that the church itself has been guilty of such evil. It is not socialism or capitalism, sex or the church that is evil, but the sinfulness of mankind that has corrupted each one. Neither is business evil in itself.
In one Saturday issue of the N.Z. Herald there were two articles, one was headed "Corporate Cancer Rampant". After describing how billions of dollars were fleeced from shareholders and others, the article then stated, "The Enron affair is not an isolated case of corporate misbehaviour". The other article was about Bill Gates, who earlier in his career had said, "The best thing I can do for the community is to have this business succeed". The assets of the Gates Philanthropic Foundation now stands at NZ $57 billion (not million) and the primary focus is improving the lot of the poor, particularly in third world countries. The juxtaposition of these two articles confirms my assertion that it is the heart of mankind, not the system that creates poverty.
SO WHAT IS THE BASIC FUNCTION OF BUSINESS?
Business is the vehicle of distribution of the bounty that God has provided in creation. Take the distribution out of the hands of corrupt businessmen and put it in the hands of corrupt government officials and we have the corruption that collapsed Communism and socialism. The basic problem is not the system, but just old fashioned sin. So how do we overcome that from a common sense everyday point of view?
Michael Novak, the world famous Catholic economist, who converted from socialism to capitalism, has written " The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism". In this book he says that although he is convinced that capitalism is a better system than socialism, unless it is controlled by a good conscience in man, it will fail, as socialism has, and for the same reason, man's unwillingness to be governed by his conscience. But a good conscience requires a point of reference outside of itself, otherwise man's pleasure becomes the measure. For the believer that point of reference is the God-given purpose for our existence, which is to use this life on earth to prepare for the Kingdom of God on earth when Christ returns, according to the parable of the talents. In that case nothing is secular, not even business.
Ever since Adam we have wanted to "eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". That is, to choose for ourselves what is right and what is wrong, rather than listen to our conscience which is the vehicle of communication between the Holy Spirit of God and our own spirit.
CAN BUSINESS EVER BECOME THE VEHICLE OF THE GRACE OF GOD?
Anita Roddick is the founder of the world-wide retail chain of Body Shops and one of the founders of Businesses for Social Responsibility, of which I am a member. This is what she said when she visited Auckland. "In terms of power and influence, you can forget politics, forget the church. There is no more
powerful institution in society than business. I believe that it is now more important than ever before for business to assume moral leadership. The business of business should not be about money; it should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed." (Perhaps she should have said, "business should not be solely about making money", because if business doesn't make money, society collapses.) Not all businessmen agree with her dictum, even with my amendment. From where I stand, however, it seems to me that every believing businessman or woman should strive to use their business to reflect the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and thus reflect the glory of God. The trouble is that we are so aware of our own imperfections, inadequacies and failures, that we do not feel equal to the challenge. If you are like me, the greatest deterrent to speaking boldly about relationship with Jesus Christ in the business context, will not be
your lack of faith in Jesus, but it will be your own self-doubt about whether your life reflects HIS. Of course, if we cannot demonstrate HIS life in ours, we have reason to be reluctant to declare that the Kingdom of God embraces business. Someone may think, "I can't hear what you say, because what you are speaks so loud". We will find it much easier when we have a God's-eye perspective. To get that let us re-assess our attitude to our work by recognising that:
EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON BUSINESS. Even the local church
* Without business there are no salaries and wages.
* There is no tax to run hospitals and public services.
* There can be no welfare.
* There is no money to give to the local churches, or charities. Without business, society grinds to a halt.
* It is business that makes the world go around.
* Anything so fundamental to human life on earth must demand a high priority in the Kingdom of God. God must be interested.
Why? Because business is all-pervasive and is essentially service
It's all-pervasive.
The essence of business is contract.
The essence of contract is offer and acceptance.
Everybody is offering a service of some sort, (including church staff and office employees), that is accepted and paid for. There is no "free lunch". The only exception may be people on a benefit (incidentally isn't that a good reason why those who can, should work for their benefit?). Even for voluntary workers, although the satisfaction of making a contribution is its own reward, somebody, either themselves or somebody else pays for their living costs. Service is ministry. The fact that when believers speak of "The Ministry", they mean the "Lord's work", is clear evidence of the extent to which the Greek dichotomy between sacred and secular controls our thinking, instead of the Hebrew perception of Paul. 1 Cor. 10:31 "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God".
THE FIVE-FOLD ASCENSION GIFT MINISTRIES ARE FOR BUSINESSES AS MUCH AS FOR CHURCHES
They do not describe a sort of clergy class. Ephesians 4:11 says "He gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, etc... to prepare God's people for works of service". Vine's Expository Dictionary says: "NOT in the sense of an ecclesiastical function".
These so-called "ascension gifts" are for service seven days a week! May I suggest that you discuss this change of paradigm and the following statements below, with others?
* Our conduct in the marketplace reveals the depth of our faith and love towards God
* It reveals our sense of responsibility as stewards of his creation
* Business should be a vehicle of worship for believers, as we offer our creativity as "a living sacrifice".
* Conducted in righteousness it brings praise and honour to the Lord from those outside the churches, more than our sessions of praise and worship in church, because our conduct in business, is the bible that the world (that never darkens the church door) reads.
* The way we conduct our business has a good deal more potential for evangelism than the services that are never attended by the people we do business with.
To summarise:
Capitalism needs to be controlled by conscience.
Conscience requires a point of reference outside of itself.
For the believers that point of reference is our God-given destiny, i.e. To rule by servant leadership with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God on earth, present and future.
I have been asked why I am so passionate about the Kingdom of God embracing our business life. It is because it is in business life more than in anything else that I have experienced the power of God.