Christ in the Marketplace

By Bo Bartholomew

May 4, 2006
Prayer Breakfast Message
Nashville, TN

As you enjoy your caffeine and the wonderful food, let me give you the two points I hope to bring to light this morning. The first is that what you do matters to God. The second is that what you love matters to God.

This past week I heard a radio ad for christianjobs.com. The ad featured a Regional Vice President having a dialogue with his own conscience. His conscience was telling him, "Don't you want to wake up to a job you can care about?" The implied message is that his current job was not worth caring about and that a Christian Job with Christians would be worth caring about. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the wrong message. His job already mattered to God.

But I have not always understood this truth in my own life. In 1987 I felt a call to serve the Lord fulltime. After finishing up four years serving as an Army Engineer. As I transitioned out of the military I went to talk with several mentors, both pastors and business men I respected here in Nashville. Knowing my heart to serve the Lord, they each suggested I go to seminary. I started my seminary career at Dallas Theological Seminary. While I found my studies enriching. I struggled to find my place among men and women who were planning to make their life's work in pastoral and missionary roles. I quickly assumed that because I had been called to full time vocational ministry and because I was attending seminary that I too would have to choose an occupation in the pastoral realm. And in some ways I felt that if I did not become the next Chuck Swindoll I would not be quite as holy and serving to the Lord in a real and meaningful way. But, what the Lord has gifted me for and has called me to did not lay within these narrow parameters that I had ingrained in my mind. After two years, I transferred to Regent College, an international graduate school of Christian studies, where I learned and explored the deeper meaning of ministry. While in Vancouver, I also made the vocational decision to serve the Lord full time in the business world. I graduated from Regent College with a degree in Marketplace Theology. Upon graduation I returned to my home here in Nashville where I have spent the past four years working in the healthcare world and getting a business degree from Vanderbilt.

When people hear my story I am often asked, "How did you go from seminary to business?" While at Regent I studied the original language for the word "ministry" which comes from the root word for "service." In a very real sense all of us in this room perform a service, a ministry, in the marketplace everyday. During the medieval ages, the church reversed the meanings of the words ‘cleros' meaning clergy and ‘ laos' for laity. It is the laity that is called to minister and the clergy that is called to shepherd those who minister both to and in the world.

It is no coincidence that the counsel that I sought when I was leaving the military suggested that I go to seminary to be a pastor. They saw fulltime vocational ministry as the best way for me to serve God fulltime. You see, the context of ministry has been professionalized and placed in the hands of the clergy. I was trained that way in my early seminary career, but I do not believe that is God's full design.

Professor Paul Stevens, a professor of marketplace theology at Regent College, surveyed people worldwide and found that there is a hierarchy of holiness built into people's thinking. The martyr and missionary tend to top the list, with pastors and Para church ministers in close second. Doctors, fireman and even soldiers tend to fall in the next levels. The lawyers, bankers, and big business CEO's then round out the bottom. No offense to anyone in the room.

So, here I am. A former seminary student aspiring to be at the bottom of this hierarchy of holiness!

But scripture tells us differently. God Himself was a worker. He was the first worker. In Genesis it was God himself who rested after He worked. He then says, "Let us create man in our image." We are created in the image of God, the worker. As co-workers with God we have the opportunity to serve Him in and through the work we do, no matter what it is. Too often we view ministry as the spoken word and prayed prayer only. Ministry is service and God uses our services everyday. Speaking of the service of business, when I was in business school I was given a report from the World Economic Forum. It showed a graph where business and globalization have, in just the last 30 years, decreased the overall worldwide poverty level. There are still disparities to be sure, but God can and does use business to His glory.

To me John Chapter 21 is one of many excellent examples of how what we do matters to God. At this point in the Gospel Jesus has died and been resurrected but the ascension has not yet taken place. We find the disciples back at work fishing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, do you have any fish?" They answered him, "No." He told them, to c ast their net on the right side of the boat. When they did, they were not able to haul it in, because it was so full of fish.

At this point, Peter who was dressed for work threw himself into the sea. When the other disciples got to land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus himself then served them as a chef and a waiter. He cared about their work and asked them to bring some of their fish as well. And this is so amazing to me... Why? Because Jesus not only expects them to be at work fishing but he expects them to have a certain level of productivity in their work. In the passage we find out that there were exactly 153 fish which means they counted them. They probably celebrated over their great economic gain. Maybe their stock price just jumped 153 points?

But what is so intriguing to me is that these men have just experienced the death and resurrection of their savior. They could have forgotten their old careers, raised support and hit the road sharing the gospel with anyone who would listen. But no, they are back at their old jobs doing the same old thing, fishing. They did not have a hierarchy of holiness in their minds. They knew that their work was important. And it was in their daily, menial tasks that Jesus met them and blessed them. To Jesus, what they did mattered.

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