This week, 17 marketplace Christians met in Maidstone with a vision to walk out their call to ministry in their day to day lives, right where God has placed them. Here’s the background:
Discovering Marketplace Ministry
When I set up a business with my wife Jo in 1998, we knew that Jesus must be its CEO. In fact, he had to be King over the business. I don’t think I would have had the courage to try to run a business without knowing it was God’s business!
Since that day, we started to discover what it really meant to dedicate our business to Jesus, inviting him to use it for his purposes. It’s been an exciting journey so far and we are still on it. Among the lessons we have learned, God showed us that while we had a heart to be a blessing through financial giving, the primary way He would use us in business was more about our relationship with the marketplace than the financial impact we could make.
We learned that our primary area of Church ministry is in the marketplace, alongside others called as ‘marketplace ministers’ into areas like education, government, healthcare, and in our own neighbourhoods.
In fact, I believe that the only way we will see our towns, cities and nation discipled is through the Church operating effectively in the marketplace.
And others have joined us on this journey – eight years ago I set up Business for Christ to envision and equip Christians in business. We then ran a year of equipping for marketplace ministers; and created a six-week training course, ‘Training for Transformation’ to teach principles of marketplace transformation to the Church.
In 2006 I was introduced to Ed Silvoso and his team at Harvest Evangelism, and we have been walking with them since then. Ed and his team are behind a rich collection of resources on marketplace ministry including Transform our World, and have inspired our ministry and teaching as we operate under Ed Silvoso’s covering.
Today we see God stirring up His people in the marketplace in the UK where we live. People who want to be effective day to day for Him, to see God’s purpose at work in their daily lives, to play their part in discipling their nation. People like you, perhaps?
So now in this season we believe it’s time to bring people together again across the Church, to seek God, determined to be part of what He is doing in this generation.
What is a Marketplace Minister?
A marketplace minister operates in the marketplace – such as in business, education, government or their neighbourhood – and recognises that God is using them there to minister to others: to serve and to be a blessing for the sake of the His kingdom.
Biblical examples of marketplace ministers include Daniel, Joseph, Esther; as well as Jesus and his closest disciples, and the Apostle Paul. Many of the heroes of our faith were in fact marketplace ministers!
Today we hear testimonies from all around the world of how God is using marketplace ministers to bring about the transformation of cities and towns. Like Elk River, Minnesota, where church and marketplace leaders work in partnership to touch the whole city.
A monthly meeting for Marketplace Ministers in Kent, UK
We’ve just launched a new monthly meeting in Maidstone for Marketplace Ministers in the South East of England. We’ll meet with people who do not want to simply operate in the mundane but want to see God at work in us every day; to see the power of the Holy Spirit at work to touch lives around us and to see miracles at work; to catch God’s heart for our workplaces, neighbourhoods, schools, towns, nation and to be part of what God is doing here in the UK.
We’ll be praying together; teaching; applying what we learn and coming back together to share experiences and testimonies. We’ll be using resources including books, DVDs, personal testimonies, and we’ll be drawing on input from Harvest Evangelism at every opportunity as members of the team visit us in the UK over the course of the year.
The big vision
My dream for these Marketplace Ministers meetings is that we develop our own testimonies here in the South East of England; that our faith grows as we share and walk this out in practice, believing God to work through us. That we’ll grow together, seeing God doing new things among us as we apply what He shows us. So that the testimonies to inspire this movement of God in the UK will come from within the UK itself, not only from around the world.
If you would like to know more about Marketplace Ministers meetings or to get involved, please do get in touch.
