Serve God by doing what you like

/ Steinar Opheim

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Steinar Opheim

What does a little boy bringing food to Jesus and a European comedy show have to do with tentmaking?

The boy who came with bread and fish to Jesus was too small to be a professional himself. Probably he had not even prepared the food he is bringing in front of Jesus. Still a drawing of this little, faithful young man has become an illustration for the GO Equipped TENTmaking courses that are run several places in the world. The main reason for this is that the boy is making what he has available for Jesus in order for the Lord to use it. And because he has this attitude, he and the others present become witnesses of one of the greatest miracles the world has ever seen.

God´s calling to all of us is to bring what we have in front of him so that it can be of use to him. That also includes our professions.

God and desires

It is probably not by chance that you chose the profession you did. God has designed us in different ways. His design also defines what we are interested in. And our interests will again direct us when it comes to choice of profession.

Many people are concerned about what God´s will for their life is. A good way of finding the answer is to ask what interests the Lord has given to you and what you would like to work with. God is not a father that gives us desires and interests in order to test if we are willing to sacrifice everything to follow him. He usually wants us to use his gifts to glorify him.

A Bible school teacher working for a conservative, Lutheran school in Europe once said that his standard reply to young students seeking the Lord´s will for their lives was as follows: “Until God shows you something else, you should think that he wants you to do and work with whatever you like the most.”

This may of course sound like self-fulfillment, but it isn´t.  As believers we have a calling to develop our God given gifts in order to glorify him. If our aim becomes to glorify ourselves, we have missed the point.

Move your skills

When it comes to tentmaking and Business as Mission, you are not asked to leave your profession to serve God. The question is whether you are willing to bring your skills and God given gifts with you to another culture in order to be God´s ambassador there? If your answer is yes or maybe, you should consider attending one of the upcoming GO Equipped TENTmaking courses. The next one is in Florida March 2-6. You can find information on this one and on all the other courses and seminars on www.globalopps.org.

Let us go back to the little boy bringing food to Jesus. A few years ago some European comedians made a TV-show where they pretended that they were teaching people to prepare food. They had bought five loaves of bread and two fishes. Then they held a Bible in front of the camera saying: “According to this book this will be enough food for 5000 people.” Everyone laughed, but of course the recipe was not right. They had forgotten the most important ingredient: God´s blessing.

When we bring our professions and what else we have in front of God, he can use it for his purpose, and he can make us a blessing to many nations. (Gen 12)

“Huge increase in American tentmakers”

/ Steinar Opheim

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Steinar Opheim

The US is sending out more tentmakers today than ever before according to statistics from US mission agencies.

From 2005 to 2008 the number of tentmakers deployed by US agencies grew a dramatic 73.4 percent, an annual growth of 20.1 percent, writes professor A. Scott Moreau in the latest issue of International Bulletin of Missionary Research (IBMR).

Figures in the bulletin show that 3,354 US citizens were serving overseas as tentmakers in 2008. Ten years earlier the number of tentmakers was 1,853.

Overall fifty-nine agencies reported more tentmakers than in 2005, while sixty-two agencies reported fewer, writes Moreau.

Unclear definitions

This is great news and it is wonderful to see that so many agencies make more use of tentmakers in their work. At the same time the IBMR-article raises some crucial questions regarding the nature of the tentmakers reported.

Certainly one advantage to agencies in a tighter economy is that tentmakers can earn at least a part of their salary through their employment or business ventures, states Moreau. This indicates that many of the tentmakers in the statistic cannot live by the money they make and are therefore partly supported by their sending agencies.

The title “tentmaker” is not protected in any way, and anyone who wants to may call themselves tentmakers. Often we hear people describing themselves as tentmakers even when they work and live in their own culture. As long as this label is helping people to gain an identity of being God´s ambassadors where they are this is very well. Then God´s kingdom is made known in new circles and more people are led to Christ. 

Great advantages

In the GO-Tent alliance however we promote tentmakers as people crossing cultural borders in order to bring the gospel onwards through their professional work. Most of the people we work with are fully supported through their jobs or through the businesses they have created. There are several advantages to this way of doing tentmaking. Here are some of them:

– When you get your full salary from your job you live under the same conditions as the people around you. Thus you can model what it means to follow Jesus Christ in a common, everyday life.

– Through your work you´ll get in touch with a lot of people in a natural way.

– No one needs to ask you where you are getting money from since you have your full salary from your work.

– All nations are open to Christian professionals. Even countries that are closed to missions have a desire to recruit skilled, Christian workers.

The most sad part of GO´s and Tents jobs as tentmaking mobilizers is to face the fact that we are unable to find workers for so many of the wonderful job openings we get information about in places where Christ´s love is not known. Maybe it is time for you to sign up? 

Getting Your Life in Order

/ Phill

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Phill Sandahl

A term often used in discussions of tentmakers troubles me. It is frequently used by those who are pastoring a church but also holding another job to make ends meet financially. That term is “bi-vocational”

The term may, or may not, be used correctly but that is not what bothers me. What disturbs me is that it reinforces the unbiblical concept of a secular-sacred divide. It gives a mistaken understanding of the biblical teaching on work and leads to a number of other problems.

Conversations about being bi-vocational often center around how hard the person has to work doing two jobs. Then there are problems of maintaining balance – whether in the use of time, the management of finances, or some other aspect of life.

This approach is not helpful. What is called for is some perspective. When there is a problem resolving a conflict of interests it is best to look for an overarching principle that addresses all of them.

Consider this:

• For the Apostle Paul tentmaking was not a Plan B when funds ran low, but rather, his preferred, intentional strategy (see Why Did Paul Make Tents). It is a legitimate model and in the early church the predominant one.

• Vocation – the term is related to the word for calling. When one says that he is bi-vocational he is saying that he has two distinct callings, and that they are in conflict. God may ask a person to do a number of different things in his life, but there is one calling.

• When there appears to be a conflict, either one or more options are wrong, or we are not looking at the problem correctly. In most cases there is, in fact, a greater overarching call which can properly align the subsidiary activities.

• All Christians are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and called to build his Kingdom.

• The church is God’s vehicle to transform all of society – Not the building. Not even the institution. But the people. (see companion article Travel Light).

• Life is frequently divided into different domains or sectors: family, leisure, professional, financial, etc. Each person participates in each of these domains and connects with other people within them. However, there is no separate domain for faith. Effective faith should permeate all the domains speaking across all of them.

• Each of us has received a unique personality, skills, gifting, and training to prepare us to do the will of the Father. Life, like the body, consists of many parts, all necessary and working together.

When we focus on the Kingdom of God we see that God calls each of us to contribute in different ways to building His Kingdom and taking back territory from the Enemy. 
To that end He uniquely equips us to transform all sectors of society, by living out our faith where He places us.

We need to change the image of life. It is not the juggling of multiple disparate activities. Rather it follows the dynamic model of an atom. It is a single entity consisting of multiple moving components interacting together to achieve one purpose – building the Kingdom.

Travel Light

/ Phill

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Leave Your Baggage Behind

“IT’S a LIE. The sign in front of our new church building is a lie,” the pastor declared to his congregation. “It reads First Baptist Church. It should say, The Place Where the First Baptist Church Meets.” He had a good point. Ones understanding of what the church is influences how he participates in his church and community.

When working in another culture it is even more important to understand the difference between the essence of the church and cultural expressions of the church. We may not recognize how God is moving because we are looking for something familiar and comfortable. Worse, we may be tempted to make the church in another culture conform to our liking. In the process we make it alien to the people of that culture.

Keep It Simple

Brian Hogan, an unreached peoples church planter, identifies two major obstacles to successful church planting. COMPLEXITY – what we are doing is too complex. Church planters need to strip away the cultural elements to the bare New Testament essentials. HOLY SPIRIT – because of a deep distrust of the Holy Spirit to do his work in the life of believers, foreigner churchmen set up barriers blocking new believers from leadership. When complexity is removed, and we trust the Holy Spirit, God will shape the church to best serve in that culture.

In the Global Opportunities GO Equipped Tentmaking course we dedicate several sessions to the essence of the church. For instance, George Patterson identifies seven key elements that define every church. Other elements may be good, but they are not required. Even the essentials may be expressed differently from culture to culture.

If you had to identify the essence of the church, what practices would be on your list?

In Conclusion

While pondering this subject I recalled two teachings from my childhood. I guess I had the answer all along.

What I Learned in Sunday School
“Here’s the church, here’s the steeple;  
Open the door and see all the people; 
You can have a church without a steeple,
But you can’t have a church without the people.”

Jesus said, “For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

Phill Sandahl