Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Cor 10:31b ESV
Our workers’ newsletters, prayer updates, and praise reports from around the world inspire me! We have workers using their gifts, skills, experiences, wisdom, and knowledge in many areas of society and in many challenging locations: we have workers serving as doctors, nurses, disciplers, teachers, counselors, Bible translators, engineers and administrators, among others. We have ministry activities that are conducted by our workers, including both lay and ordained ministers, as a “priesthood of all believers.” Some activities require our workers to have specific professional training and certification while others do not. All are involved in kingdom activities. All are commissioned by Christ. All are called to bring the Good News of Christ to those with limited access.
I have reflected on WMPL’s emphasis on commissioned living and I have wondered what relationship or importance professionalism plays or how it might even threaten our work.
Several influential Christian pastors and theologians warn of the dangers of professionalizing ministry. One of those is John Piper, who makes that poignantly clear in his book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry. It’s a book I began reading out of a desire to understand his perspective, and what this might mean to the World Mission Prayer League as an organization. He writes,
The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness (Matt. 18:3); there is no professional tenderheartedness (Eph. 4:32); there is no professional panting after God (Ps. 42:1). But our first business is to pant after God in prayer. Our business is to weep over our sins (James 4:9).1
Piper’s admonition to pastors to abandon the professionalization of the pastorate and pursue the prophetic call of God is well-taken. Following models that lead ministries toward seeking numbers and setting performance metrics is how the world plans for success. Setting the wrong goals and metrics, void of the Holy Spirit’s guidance, will wreak havoc in ministry and direct the emphasis away from its rightful focus of glorifying God and building up his body.
I also believe there are professionals in ministry that Piper did not intend to criticize. There is a need for those with professional skills in Christian mission and the church. Many are fully invested in God’s work. We don’t want to be ineffective in the work that requires planning and competence. But dividing our roles along the lines of temporal and eternal, secular and spiritual, or mundane and sacred bears a danger. Charles Spurgeon captured this well in a sermon entitled, “All for Jesus”:
To a man who lives unto God nothing is secular, everything is sacred. He puts on his workday garment and it is a vestment to him. He sits down to his meal and it is a sacrament. He goes forth to his labor, and therein exercises the office of the priesthood….To draw a hard and fast line and say, “This is sacred and this is secular,” is, to my mind, diametrically opposed to the teaching of Christ and the spirit of the gospel.
Having lived and worked among professionals in hot, humid, oppressive environments, I have witnessed loving, commissioned living at its finest. I’ve seen Charles Spurgeon’s description lived out by fellow workers who use their professional talents and God-given gifts in love to win the hearts of the lost.
Our WMPL Handbook states,
We may find many opportunities for partnership and service in many domains of human society. But the only service that leads others to heaven is announcement of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. In every partnership and every service, whatever its domain, we will watch for opportunity to share the heavenly word of God. (¶ 206)
There is no distinction among those in the body of Christ, whether professionally trained or not, whether working within the church or outside. We are all saved by God’s grace. We are all called to abide in Christ and obediently live as he has commanded. Let’s share the Good News!
- Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical
Ministry. John Piper. © 2013, Desiring God Foundation. ↩︎