Called to Work

By Mike Henry Sr.

Are we called to work?

Do you serve as a volunteer at your church? Or do you lead worship or teach a class? Do you keep kids in the nursery? Maybe you serve in a ministry that helps people by paying bills, fixing cars or distributing groceries? Do you help with setup? Are you involved in men’s or women’s ministry, ministry to seniors or people who are sick? So, there are many ways to “serve” through most local churches. Our church asks each week if we feel called to serve. We’re actively looking for people to volunteer in all of these areas and many more.

Called to Serve

Maybe you serve in “missions.” Missions is church-lingo for reaching out to people we don’t know, who may not know or follow Jesus. Missions means we build relationships with those people for the purpose of introducing them to Jesus. We hope through our service and our new relationship, we might talk to them about Jesus.
Some people focus solely on “missions” in their church – going on or supporting a missions trip somewhere.

I’ve probably missed a few, but you get the idea. Most active, vibrant churches create opportunities for these activities and more. Yet, I wonder how many churches see more than 30% of their people in one of those volunteer roles. Let’s say for the benefit of argument, that your church has 60% – 6 out of every 10 adult members of your church volunteer in a similar activity to help people who attend your church or who live in your community.

A Calling for All?

What do you think God would have the other 4 people do? Did he fail to “call” them? Do they have 0 bars? Maybe God calls them but they’re not receiving. Or, maybe they’re just too busy. Maybe this isn’t the “season” for their ministry, or maybe people just have enough to do. They don’t need anything else right now.

Often, I wondered why God didn’t just take us to heaven when he saves us. So then, I wondered what God wanted me to do. I had a full-time job and worked hard to provide for our family and pay our bills. Most of the things going on at church weren’t the kind of thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I’ve taught Sunday school, I’ve volunteered in men’s ministry and taken mission trips to the inner city and to prisons. I’ve led and participated in small groups of couples or men who meet to discuss personal issues with living according to my desire to follow Jesus.

But are we all “called to work”? Does God have a job for each of us?

Or does God give us time off? Are there seasons where we’re not “called to serve?” If we follow Jesus, and we’re not “called to serve” haven’t we created some type of problem? Bob Dylan famously said we all have to serve somebody. In reality, We all serve. We may serve Jesus, or we may serve anything else. Do we all hold some degree of disbelief that the best life is one that is given away? Can we be only partially sacrificed (See Romans 12:1)?

Called to Work

I wonder if there aren’t a few people who would “serve” Jesus but they don’t want to do any of the things listed above. For those people, we created the Marketplace Mission Trip. If you’re curious, check out the link and sign up. This is a 2-week investment of time in your relationship with Jesus for the purpose of serving the people you see every day. Join us?

Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash

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