deTheos

Timmy Brister has compiled his thoughts on Missional Work . His intro:

I want to take a moment to share with you a strategy or paradigm of sorts that I have used in seeking to invest myself in the mission God has given me in my workplace. Recognizing that this is something I have been developing in recent months, I know that there are some aspects to be challenged, critiqued, or contributed to, so feel free to share your thoughts.

There are four areas or facets of work that I would like to elaborate in this post. They are: the work of the mind (exegesis), the work of the heart (prayer), the work of the hands (service), and the work of the lips (gospel).

I like that: mind, heart, hands, lips — all for the glory of God, displaying the excellency of Christ and His Gospel, and engaged in the love of people.

Brister’s brief synopsis has a helpful conclusion:

There will be times or days where you will be able to do all four areas of work, but that is not often. Rather, one day you will find yourself given more to the work of the mind in cultural exegesis as you are surrounded by other coworkers; other days, you will be given considerable time alone where you can do the work of the heart in prayerful participation; hopefully, there will be days were you will have opportunity to do the work of the lips in gospel proclamation. But we are to do all four of them and do them well. Do you see the difference between simply showing up for work, doing what is minimally expected of you, collecting a paycheck, and going home–as compared to what I have mentioned above? That is the difference between work and missional work. The former is meaningless; the latter is missional; the former is wasted; the latter is worshipful; the former is ritualistic; the latter is redemptive; the former is self-centered; the latter is God-centered and others-directed.

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• Read the whole thing: "A Working Paradigm for Missional Work " by Timmy Brister
• You may also want to read his gripping recount of sharing the Gospel while on the graveyard shift at UPS: "The Cross Isn’t Sexy: A Dying Man’s Confession "

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UPDATE : Timmy posted a compilation of all related posts about the Missional Work (and in one PDF to save for later).

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Blog, Theology, missional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.