Is staying in your career a sin?

Here's an argument to consider...

• First Premise... All other things being equal, spending your life in full-time ministry is more strategic in the light of where God is taking this world, than spending it in secular work. In other words, full time ministry of the word is the best way for a person to be involved in God’s kingdom growing.
• Second Premise... The criterion for selecting people for full-time ministry are giftedness, godliness and opportunity.
• Conclusion... If you have the gifts, godliness and opportunity to do full-time ministry you ought to do it. In that situation, not to take up the challenge of full-time ministry is necessarily an expression of an underlying sin, eg. materialism, cowardice or insecurity.

And so the only good reasons not to enter full-time ministry are...

• Not having the right gifts for that type of ministry
  
• Lack of maturity and growth in godliness
• Lack of opportunity. That could be a family situation like needing to care for aging relatives, or being married to an unsuitable person. It could be illness.

Then the objections come flooding in...

• The Individualistic objection is simply "I don't want to". But that is just code for sin. It's the choice of personal preferences over the eschatologically shaped necessities of the present age.
  
• The Subjective objection is "I don't feel called". But the call is given to all Christians to be involved in the work of the gospel in a way which matches their gifts and opportunities.
  
• The Evangelistic objection is "We need more people in the work-place, particularly good work-place evangelists." But to suggest that there is any danger of a mass abandoning of the work-place by Christian is ridiculous. Also, the best work-place evangelists are not just excellent trainers and equippers of others, they are likely to be our best church-planters.
• The Financial objection runs like this... "I will work so I can give generously". Getting beyond the fact that this is often code for sinful materialism, even if it is genuine, I would want to argue that there is always enough money to fund ministry. In our church you only need, at the most, 6 wage-earners tithing to pay for a trained full-time minister. In other words a congregation of 300 should be able to fund 50 full-time ministers. If there is vision and direction in a ministry people will always generously fund it.
  
• The Humility objection... "I am not gifted enough. There are others far more suitable than me." But when you think more widely than our present situation you will realise that an experienced bible-study or youth-group leader in our church has more preparedness for full-time ministry than the vast majority of people presently doing that task in other parts of the country and the world.
  

The fundamental question is this... is there really a difference between going into and not going into Christian ministry, or are they just equally balanced options? If they are both equal 'goods' then if you have the gifts, godliness and opportunity, feel no obligation... just toss a coin. On the other hand, if there is a 'good' and a 'better', and you have the gifts, godliness and opportunity, the decision not to go into full-time ministry is effectively a sin.

Some things to remember...

• If we are careful to remember 1 Corinthians 12-14 we won't end up thinking in terms of elite Christians. We are all doing ministry according to our giftedness and opportunity.
  
• This is not to devalue secular work. It is a good thing and an expression of who we are as creatures. However, in the light of the fact that the thing that God is doing in the world is calling people to repentance and faith (2 Peter 3), there is a priority on the ministry of the word.
  
• To think like this is to be a despised prophet. To challenge people in this way is to be a voice in the wilderness telling people what no one else will be saying to them. Be prepared to be hated

Any thoughts?

One church plant or two?

You've just received a $100,000 donation for the on-going ministry of your church. How do you spend it?
My take is that you have only two good options...

1. Spend it on revitalizing existing congregations and ministries
2. Use it to plant a new church

What arguments would lead you to think that planting a new church is the way to go?

Many of the arguments for church planting fall into two categories.

1. There are arguments that are really just urging us to do church. Eg. Jesus' essential call in Matthew 28 was to incorporate believers into a church community. But the flaw in that argument is that, if we've already got a church to incorporate new believers into, why do we need another one?
2. There are arguments that look to the model of church-planting in the book of Acts. Paul planted churches and so should we. But the problem with that argument is that the situation then was one in which no church community existed. Once again, if we have a decent bible teaching church in our area why do we need another one?

For these arguments to work we need a change of mindset. As long as we think geographically about church (eg. parishes) it's difficult to get away from the mentality that says 'we don't need another church in our suburb'. But once we escape that way of thinking we are free to realise that there are countless people-groups in our community and networks that aren't being reached by the gospel. Faced with that reality the only gospel-minded and mission-minded response is to create new fellowships and gatherings to reach those people and groups. Only in this way will we reach the myriad of 'cities' that exist in our city. We need to be missionaries to the culture around us.

Of course there are countless practical and sociological reasons to plant churches. Here are just some... (without any accompanying evidence... just trust me on this!)

• New churches freed from the influence of established generations and cultures are better about to reach young people or new people groups.
  
• New churches can more quickly integrate new members and get them involved in ministry.
  
• A new church is far more likely to grow from amongst those who are not presently attending another church. Churches more than 10 years old tend to gain 80-90% of their new members by transfer.

So how would you spend that $100,000? One church plant or two?