Marketplace Ministry Revisited

Here is a noteworthy post from OPEN by Mike Melvin.

Jesus made 132 public appearances in the NT, 122 were in the marketplace. Out of the 52 parables Jesus told, 45 had a workplace context. Of the 40 divine interventions recorded in Acts, 39 were in the marketplace. Jesus spent his adult life as a carpenter until age 30 before he went into a preaching ministry in the workplace. Jesus called 12 workplace individuals, not clergy, to build His church.

Work is Worship - The Hebrew word "Avodah" is the root word from which we get the words work and worship. Work in its different forms is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible, more than all the words used to express worship, music, praise, and singing combined.

"I believe that one of the next great moves of God is going to be through believers in the workplace." Dr. Billy Graham

"There is a distinction between church work and the work of the church. Church work is what you do for the organized institution of the church. The work of the church is what is done between Sundays when the church is scattered all over the metropolitan area where it is located - in homes, schools, offices, on construction jobs, in market places." - Dick Halverson

"The spiritual manifests itself in a life which knows no division into sacred and secular." Oswald Chambers

"Spirituality in the workplace is exploding." Laura Nash, Business Ethicist, Harvard University

"God is marshalling his people in the workplace as never before in history. God is up to something. The next spiritual awakening could take place in the marketplace."
-Henry Blackaby

"Workplace ministry will be one of the core future innovations in church ministry." George Barna, Boiling Point, Regal Publishing

"We reviewed 52 movements in the body of Christ. We narrowed it down to 28, then 12, then 4 to invest our resources in the coming years. The workplace is one of those because this is an area where we see God working." Chad Hammond, Director, New Ventures (division of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assoc.)

"Our surveys reveal that 90-97% of Christians have never heard a sermon relating biblical principles to their work life." Doug Sherman, author, Your Work Matters to God.

"Societal transformation is high on God's agenda and the chief catalytic force to bring it about will be Christians ministering in the marketplace." C. Peter Wagner, Chancellor, Wagner Leadership Institute

"The church in the workplace is the purest form of the body of Christ today due to its diversity. Workplace believers are less prone to denominational differences because they have a common goal of representing Christ in their workplaces. The movement will break down denominational barriers that have been held in the past." Os Hillman, International Coalition of Workplace Ministries

"The most common self-inflicted put-down is 'I am not a pastor-I am just a layperson. This is all part of a clever satanic scheme to neutralize apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers along with the entire army of disciples, already positioned in the marketplace." Ed Silvoso, Anointed for Business, Harvest Evangelism

"Indeed, as with first-century Christianity, it all begins in the marketplace, where the disciples of Jesus daily rub shoulders with the
lost."- Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers, Anointed for Business, Regal Publishing

"In today's global community, the greatest channel of distribution for 'salt and light' is the business community - the marketplace." Bill Pollard, Chairman, Service Master

"Someone recently said that the "First" Reformation took the Word of God to the common man and woman; the "Second" Reformation is taking the work of God to the common man and woman. That time is now. The greatest potential ministry in the world today is the marketplace. Christ's greatest labor force is those men and women already in that environment." Tom Phillips, VP of Training , Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

"The workplace is where a majority of a church congregation, spends a majority of their time, interacting with a majority of the unchurched world. The Church on Monday is evidence that the Church on Sunday is real!" Doug Spada, His Church at Work.org

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