A Blessing Called Work Part 2

On Emerging Universalist, Dena posted about her experience at the recent House2House simple church conference she recently attended. In the post, she mentioned Michael Tummillo. The name sounded familiar so, curiosity piqued, I googled him. His website is called "Your Town 4 Jesus". A brief biography and 184 or so of his nearly 900 articles can be found on Ezine Articles. His ministry is described as a "workplace" ministry.

Pastor Michael is a licensed/ordained non-denominational minister and a certified Workplace Chaplain. He has served in ministry since 1993, always while working a secular job, according to the example of Jesus and Paul. Says Michael, "A person with problems at home still has those problems at work. We need to be there for them at the one place where they spend the majority of their time...the workplace."

One of the first things I came across was a link to an e-book he's written called 8 Things I Hate About Jesus. Interesting book, quick read. Reminded me a bit of Phillip Yancey's Book, The Jesus I Never Knew. One particular portion jumped out at me...

Consider this: there you are, a real-life Spirit-being, all decked out in your birthday suit…an earth suit actually, divinely crafted as to allow you to blend in. You don your "camo" just as any American soldier will at the start of every day. Thing is,your camo may be a nurse’s scrubs or a fancy Italian business suit. You might put on a hard hat or the uniform of a civil servant. Truth is, however we camouflage our-selves, wherever God may have assigned us, our mission is the same: share the Fatherhood of God to the brotherhood of man.

We are here to advance God’s Kingdom by embracing and sharing the Cause of Christ. Prayerfully, as we press on into enemy territory, we must seek out Divine Appointments, always keenly watching out for that “person of peace" with whom we can either share the mission or work together to share the Word, ever on the lookout for those weary souls to whom we can speak a word of encouragement in due season.

When you think of missionaries, I know what you think of: Those determined souls who drop everything and head into the bush to live in grass huts as they attempt to plant churches among the indigenous peoples.

Well, doesn’t that describe YOU, too? After all, as one in whom the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead has made His abode, you are, quite literally, the Second Coming of Christ every time you come on the scene, anywhere in the world. In the workplace, the homeplace or the schoolplace, the very people that we quite often see as an interruption, and imposition,and an inconvenience are actually our PURPOSE for getting up that day with a pulse.

Do you believe that? Certainly God didn’t have in mind for you to simply get a job – any ol’ job – so that you can pay a mortgage or buy new hub caps, y’think? That message won’t play in…let’s say, Pakistan, where Christians are free from the burden of buying stuff.

So, here’s your mission, if you choose to accept it: go and be salt and light to the world in which you participate. Love the next person that God places in front of you…at work, at school, in the dorm, even at home. You are to be Christ Jesus with skin on, as it were. Every one of us is a minister in a Kingdom of Priests and Kings.

Wow...More in my next post....