Your Job is More than a Mission Field

I have a heart for “mere Christians” — those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals, but who work as entrepreneurs, teachers, and baristas. 

By God’s grace alone, I’ve worked to help millions of mere Christians see how their work matters to God. And here’s what I’ve noticed: When you tell believers that their work “matters for eternity,” the most typical response you hear is, “Amen! My job is my mission field.”

That is, of course, gloriously true. But if the only way your work matters for eternity is because you can use your job to “share the gospel,” then most of us are wasting most of our time.

Think about it. How much time do you spend explicitly witnessing to a coworker in a given month? Fifteen minutes? An hour? Let’s be absurdly generous and say you spend three hours every month sharing the gospel. That means that only about one percent of your time matters for eternity.

I don’t know about you, but I find that deeply depressing. More importantly, it’s deeply unbiblical. 

God’s Word makes it clear that all “labor in the Lord” — that is, any work done for God’s glory rather than our own — “is not in vain” (see 1 Cor 15:58). Every Zoom meeting you lead, every Uber you drive, every story you write, and every diaper you change in accordance with God’s commands matters for eternity.

Why is it so hard to see and believe that truth? Because the Great Commission has functionally become the only commission that pastors and other religious professionals call Christians to today.

In one of the bestselling books of all time, one pastor said, “The consequences of your mission [and here he’s talking exclusively about the Great Commission] will last forever; the consequences of your job will not.” Another popular Bible teacher says, “This side of heaven, the only investments with eternal significance are people.”

Pastor John Mark Comer admits that “the church — mine included — has usually focused way more on the calling to make disciples” than the other callings of the Christian life. But here’s what’s fascinating: Turning the Great Commission into the only commission is brand spanking new in church history. Which raises an interesting question: When did the Great Commission become the only commission?

The great commission or greatest commission?

The short answer? Very, very recently. This pervasive idea that evangelism is the only thing Jesus called us to is relatively new in Christian history, which, of course, should make it highly suspect. 

Professor Robbie Castleman says this about the Great Commission text found in Matthew 28: “For the first 1,600 years of … the life of church, this passage was read and understood … not as fanfare for missiology.” Three faculty members at the conservative Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary agree, saying, “Before at least the 17th century, the [Great Commission] was largely ignored when discussing the church’s missional assignment.”

Please read that again. Before 400 years ago, Christians didn’t interpret the call to make disciples as the exclusive call on a Christian’s life. But somehow, in the last few centuries, we’ve begun acting like sharing the gospel is the only eternally significant thing we do, perhaps in part because of the label we’ve attached to this command, turning it from a commission to the singular great one.

But don’t forget that the term “Great Commission” isn’t even part of the original biblical manuscripts. It’s a man-written heading that, as the preface to the NIV Bible clarifies, is “not to be regarded as part of the biblical text.”

And get this: The label “Great Commission” didn’t even show up in print until the 1600s. And it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the phrase became popular when Hudson Taylor used it to recruit people to serve as missionaries in China. The term “Great Commission” isn’t part of the inerrant Word of God. It’s simply the catchiest marketing slogan of the modern missions movement.

Now the command itself? That’s a different story. 

Hudson Taylor was right when he said, “The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.” And my family and I are deeply passionate about obeying that command — constantly looking for opportunities to leverage our lives and work to the instrumental end of sharing the gospel with our neighbors, classmates, and coworkers.

Using our jobs to make disciples is clearly one of the ways our work matters for eternity. But it’s far from the only way.

Thankfully, many leaders of the modern missions machine are beginning to agree. One of those leaders is Andrew Scott, the CEO of Operation Mobilization, a large traditional missions agency, who says, “I may be labeled a heretic here, [but] I actually think that we have overplayed the Great Commission.”

I don’t think that sounds heretical at all. Based on what we’ve just seen, I think that sounds conservative and orthodox. “The real heresy,” says my pastor, Chris Basham, “is hurting our people by devaluing the 99 percent of their lives in which they’re not explicitly preaching the gospel.”

Lest I be misinterpreted, let me state this as clearly as I can: The Great Commission is indeed great. It’s just not only. And there is great danger in treating it as the only commission Jesus gave us. And one of those dangers is that it ironically makes us less effective at the Great Commission. 

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7 (connected) ways for Christians to make disciples at work

1

Pray

It can be tempting to think that it’s up to us to pry open doors to share the gospel with those we work with. But it’s God alone who can make people receptive to his good news. If we want to see our co-workers come to faith in Christ, we must begin by praying for their salvation.

2

Be so good they can’t ignore you.

I think this is part of what the apostle Paul is getting at in 1 Thessalonians 4:11–12 when he says, “You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders.” In 2 Corinthians 6:3–5, he goes even further, saying that we must engage in excellent “hard work” so that our witness “will not be discredited.” Those are strong words, but Paul, of course, is exactly right. Mediocrity doesn’t “win the respect of outsiders.” Mastery does. 

3

Be a friend.

In John 13:34– 35, Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.” In addition to being known as exceptional professionals, we need to be known as exceptional people— ones who genuinely love those we work with and not just the product of their work. Being a friend is simple, but it’s not easy. It requires that we sacrifice time, energy, and money.

4

Identify yourself as a Christian.

We can’t just pray for the salvation of our co-workers and do our work with excellence and love. If we want to make disciples of Jesus Christ, at some point we have to raise our hand and say that we are disciples of Jesus Christ. 

5

Look for opportunities to move from the surface, to the serious, to the spiritual. 

By default, the conversations we have with our co- workers tend to be largely superficial. We talk about sports, the weather, and our plans for the weekend. But I’ve found that, with just a little bit of intentionality (and a lot of God’s grace), it’s easy to steer conversations from the surface, to the serious, to the spiritual. This framework in mind as you talk with your co-workers can be enormously helpful, as it gives you a mental map to spot where you are and where you want to take a conversation.

6

Be prepared to give a reason for your faith.

Eventually somebody is going to ask you,  “Why do you never respond to emails on Sundays?”  “What is this small group I keep hearing you talk about?”  “My mom is dying, and I know you’re religious: What do you believe about the afterlife?” The apostle Peter said that before those questions are ever asked, we are to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15). That’s the question underneath all the questions above, isn’t it? What is the source of your hope?

7

Be prepared to clear your calendar.

If you want to make disciples at work, you should be prepared to make time and space on your calendar to talk with those who are ready to go from the surface to the serious to the spiritual. But, remember, we need to prayerfully consider when and where we share the gospel with those we work with, as we’re called to obey both the Great Commission and Scripture’s repeated command that we serve our employers with excellence (see Ephesians 6:5–8; Colossians 3:22–25). But make the time we must.

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Why the ‘only commission’ makes us less effective at the Great Commission

First, it is when Christians are the most earthly good that Christianity becomes the most attractive. In the words of N.T. Wright, 

It is when the church … acts with decisive power in the real world—to build and run a successful school, or medical clinic; to free slaves or remit debts; to establish a housing project … or a credit union for those ashamed to go into a bank; to enable drug users and pushers to kick the habit and the lifestyle … that people will take the message of Jesus seriously.

Second, when we turn the Great Commission into the only commission, Christians feel guilty for working in the very places where they’re most likely to carry out the Great Commission.

In How to Reach the West Again, Tim Keller points out that “80 percent or more of evangelism in the early church was done not by ministers or evangelists” but by mere Christians working as farmers, tentmakers, and mothers. That was true in the early church, and likely to be true for the foreseeable future as non-Christians are more reticent than ever to darken the door of a church and entire nations are closing their doors to Christian missionaries.

When the Great Commission is the only commission we hear preached, and when the only people we see on the stages of our churches are pastors and full-time missionaries, we inevitably feel guilty about working anywhere other than the “mission field.” Most dramatically, that guilt will lead us to leave the very workplaces where we’re most likely to make disciples. At a minimum, it will make us half-hearted creatures while we stay there.

The mere Christians I know who are most effective at the Great Commission are those who understand how 100 percent of their lives can matter for eternity, and not just the one percent of the time they spend walking others through the Romans Road. Why? Because when you know that God cares about every detail of your life and work, it makes you come fully alive. And fully alive people attract the lost like honey attracts bees.

Third, making the Great Commission the only commission creates unbiblical obstacles to following Jesus. We’ve all heard the statistics about young people leaving the church after they graduate high school. Each time one of these studies is published, we love to blame “liberals.” We love to blame “culture.” But I think our overemphasis on the Great Commission is partially to blame. Because after our kids “walked the aisle” and “prayed the prayer,” we never validated their God-given desires to work for the betterment of this world.

In elevating one of Jesus’ commissions to the great and only one, we’ve told our young people that if they really love Jesus, they will move to a mud hut 5,000 miles away from home to work as a full-time missionary. But for many, that just doesn’t seem like who God made them to be or what he’s called them to do. They’re willing to follow God wherever he might call them, but missions as we’ve defined it just doesn’t seem like their thing. 

As pastor Skye Jethani explains, “Young people, perhaps more than previous generations, have a strong sense of their specific callings. They believe God has called them into business, the arts, government, the household, education, the media, the social sector, or health care, and they are often very committed to these venues of cultural engagement. But when their specific callings are not acknowledged by the institutional church … the young are unlikely to engage.”

And in the most extreme cases, overemphasizing the Great Commission keeps people from ever committing to Christ in the first place. I was reminded of this recently when a friend was telling me about his teenage son. This young man admits he’s a sinner and believes that Christ’s death and resurrection is the only way he can be forgiven of his sins. But he can’t seem to confess Jesus as the Lord of his life. When his father asked him why, he replied, “Because I don’t think I want to move away from you and Mom to be a missionary.”

As I listened to this grieving father share this story, I grew apoplectic. My blood was boiling. Our turning the Great Commission into the only commission has blocked this kid from seeing how he can even be a Christian without being a donor-supported missionary. Tragically, I’ve heard many more stories just like this one.

If we want to be effective at the Great Commission in this cultural moment, we have to stop treating the Great Commission as the only commission Jesus gave us. We must embrace their dual vocation — the Great Commission and the First Commission God gave us in Genesis 1:26-28 simply to make the world more useful and enjoyable for God’s glory and the good of others. In short, we need to see how all good work matters to God.