Mission in Action

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? Today the new church planting/missional training scheme run by TCH begins – the Porterbrook Network.? It’s an exciting day and 17 or so people are beginning the two year, one-day-per-week program.? That includes Duncan, who co-leads our household congregation.? You can see what Porterbrook Network is all about here.? You’ll notice there’s a distance education wing to PN; we plan to run this in Perth from 2009.

Now what can I tell you about Duncan? Duncan is a mean sax player.? He blows people away – literally – down at the Broadfield Tavern on a Sunday night with his skills. He’s a people person who organises many of the social activities that our congregation is involved in. Duncan is also? a hard worker. He’s employed by the SHeffield City Council to encourage businesses and companies to find alternative methods of transport into the city, rather than simplying relying on the one-person-per-car routine.? ? He is giving up his holidays to spend a day a week training for mission.

As? a congregation we’re encouraged by his participation.? We want mission to inform his work,? but we also want work to inform his mission.? That’s why it is good for those who? are in the so-called “secular” work environment to be involved in something such as PN.? ? Our first intake has? a balance between? workers involved in church work and workers from outside that setting.

Too many? Christians don’t know what to do with work.? Work is to the Christian body as the spleen is to the human body – an appendage? no one really understands, or knows what would happen if it went missing.? Too often work is either worshiped (yes, by Christians too), or it is relegated to the status of a necessary evil: something that can earn money for ministry, or simply a mission field in itself.? I have met a number of ex-Christian? Union? students who, when they finally leave uni and get a job,? feel depressed or confused because they weren’t equipped to think? theologically about the nature of work.? They go to work ready to evangelism? in the same way they did on campus and discover? a level of disinterest they were not expecting.? Work is a privatised sphere in which you keep your views to yourself.

But God can and does “redeem” work.? In my view Duncan isn’t simply finding alternative ways to? travel into Sheffield,? but he is reflecting his Creator and his love of the creation.? Duncan’s concern for the natural and social environments of? the city reflect God’s concerns for it too, and is, as he performs it “as unto the Lord” an act of workship.? ? He’s performing his tasks conscious that he is God’s person fulfilling the creation mandate, and because work is going to make it into age-to-come, God’s new creation mandate too.

We? need to uncover biblical ways of looking at work, and keep reminding ourselves of it.? If you want to hear some excellent MP3s on work then go here and download the Tim Keller’s talks on it.

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written by Steve

Our household congregation threw? Steve a bit of party after church tonight.

We played pin the hat on the Steve:

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? The likeness is uncanny.