Page 21 - Empowering Missional Artists - Jim Mills.pdf

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when he or she plays for the Sunday morning worship service or for the next outreach to the

homeless? Does a schoolteacher only begin to serve God when they teach a Sunday school

class? What about those who serve in the medical profession: are they only serving God when

they go on a summer of service to the African continent with Doctors Without Borders? Do

people only serve God when they go ‘on mission’ to Africa, Asia or Europe? The Bible declares

that all God’s people are His servants. The prophet Malachi made it clear when he announced,

“So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves

God and one who does not.” (Malachi 3:18) In reality there are only two kinds of people in the

world: those that serve God and those that do not.

It appears we are failing to help those in our charge to recognize the relevance of there

career as a part of the mission of the church. We are not aiding them in the discovery of their

gifts nor assisting them in identifying their assignment of service for Christ in the real world. We

must ask ourselves, as church leaders, do we possess a vision for empowering career people

including artists into their place of service in society in the context of culture? Leighton Ford, in

his chapter on the “leader as a seer” says it profoundly this way:

The vision of a surgeon, a scientist, a teacher, or a businesswoman in Christ is just as
spiritual as that of a pastor or an evangelist. If we take seriously the truth that Jesus Christ
lives in all of his people and in every part of their lives, then nothing a person in Christ
does can be called secular.” (Ford 1991, 106-07)

Finally, the ‘secular must become sacred’ in our thinking as church leaders, so that we can

empower a generation of servants and leaders in society to are active agents for Christ sake.

In his book The Making of a Leader, Robert J Clinton’s definition of leadership is sadly

revealing: “Leadership is the dynamic process in which a man or woman with God-given capacity

influences a specific group of God’s people toward His purpose for the group.” (Clinton 1988,

14). It reduces Christian leadership to that which only takes place in the context of the church

culture. We circle around ourselves when we need to be commissioning God’s agents as

leaders for formation for our world. Francis Schaefer wrote a book called, The God who is