Fellow church leaders,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thank you for visiting our site. Please take time to give us any feedback you think might be helpful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a church leader myself, I\u2019m aware of the possibilities and challenges that come with a specialized \u2018faith and work\u2019 ministry in a local church. On the one hand, there is the hope that the professionals in your congregation will increasingly find their place in God\u2019s story, and with it, their place in the church \u2013 but on the other hand, there may be the apprehension that such a ministry might distract them from engaging more fully with the other important expressions of church life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From personal experience, I have seen that the single most important factor in either outcome, is the degree to which the church leader\/s embrace the outworking of faith at work as part of normal Christian discipleship. If it is anything other than that, it cannot be a priority for any Bible-believing church; but if it is, then it cannot possibly be optional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s my take on the matter. Simply put, our role as church leaders is to prepare God\u2019s people to bring him glory in everything they do. When you consider that most adults spend up to 80 percent of their lives not at home, or at church \u2013 but at work and public life in general; it stands to reason that a great deal of our efforts to \u2018prepare\u2019 them must focus on this aspect of their lives!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, God cares about the teachers, lawyers, artists and politicians in your church; but he also cares about education, law, art and politics \u2013 because all these societal spheres are part of his Creation! So, as part of normal Christian discipleship, we must endeavour to equip our teachers to engage biblically with education, our lawyers with law, our artists with art, and our politicians with politics. This takes nothing away from the priority of gospel proclamation; and in fact, when done properly, it actually creates new opportunities for Christians to share their faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends, there is no conflict between discipleship and \u2018faith and work\u2019 ministry. Equipping our members to be agents of redemption in their workplaces, vocational spheres and industries must be an essential part of our discipleship strategy, because that\u2019s where God has placed them, and that\u2019s why God has placed them there. For the Christian, there is no secular\/sacred divide; everything is sacred; everything is \u201cfor Him, through Him and to Him\u201d (Romans 11:36).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We plan to launch a special track for church leaders that will help you to master the relevant theology so that you can confidently guide your professionals through their respective journeys. Alongside that, we\u2019re establishing a national church leader\u2019s network as a forum for encouragement, sharing ideas and practices, and building relationships through which God will do beyond what we could possibly imagine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We do hope you\u2019ll join us as we stand together to equip the saints! If so, please contact us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God bless,
\nSibs Sibanda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fellow church leaders, Thank you for visiting our site. Please take time to give us any feedback you think might be helpful. As a church leader myself, I\u2019m aware of the possibilities and challenges that come with a specialized \u2018faith and work\u2019 ministry in a local church. On the one hand, there is the hope … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “A Message to Church Leaders”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","entry"],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders.jpg",1500,988,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders-300x198.jpg",300,198,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders-768x506.jpg",640,422,true],"large":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders-1024x674.jpg",640,421,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders.jpg",1500,988,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders.jpg",1500,988,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/A-Message-to-Church-Leaders.jpg",1500,988,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":" Fellow church leaders, Thank you for visiting our site. Please take time to give us any feedback you think might be helpful. As a church leader myself, I\u2019m aware of the possibilities and challenges that come with a specialized \u2018faith and work\u2019 ministry in a local church. On the one hand, there is the hope that the professionals in your congregation will increasingly find their place in God\u2019s story, and with it, their place in the church \u2013 but on the other hand, there may be the apprehension that such a ministry might distract them from engaging more fully with…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"Articles<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"Moderator","url":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/author\/moderator\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faithandwork.co.za\/pg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}