Dave English

Ten Steps to Going as a Tentmaker

/ Guest Contributor

Don’t worry if you are not good in all these areas. No one is. These are key steps to preparing to be an effective tentmaker. Many can be pursued simultaneously. .

1.    Build your relationship with God.  Everything flows from the strength of your relationship with God. How are you doing at being filled and renewed daily through time alone with God in devotional reading and in prayer? What else do you need to do? Develop your strength in spiritual warfare. Sin and temptation assault us through the evil world system and our own sinful vulnerability. Strengthen your ability to maintain spiritual vitality under pressure in an alien culture with minimal support.

2.    Build inductive Bible study skills & Biblical understanding. Aim to know that you are seeing what the original author was doing in a passage, not just what you’ve been told, or have always thought because of your background. Steadily study whole sections of Scripture, learning better how to observe what the passage really says, interpret what the writer meant, and apply it to your life today. Keep building your understanding of Biblical truth and principles to gain more and more of God’s mind about all areas of life. Memorize key passages for personal use, evangelism, and discipling.

3.    Cultivate healthy family relationships. You will face great stress in a new culture. Work proactively on your family life. Build family patterns of eating, talking, working, and having fun together. Read, attend seminars, and seek counsel from sharp, godly couples. How ready are you for the stress of cross-cultural work and witness? What else can you do to prepare?

4.    Develop workplace discipleship. Work is central to humans created in the image of God. God is the great worker and we were designed to be co-workers with him and rulers under him to manage and care for the world. Thus legitimate work is a sacred, God-honoring activity through which we “feel God’s pleasure.” We are called to servanthood toward bosses, customers, co-workers, and the larger community. Excellence, godly ethics, genuine caring, Kingdom values, and natural, meaningful witness should define us. We are also called to influence the thought world of our vocation. Where can you grow in these areas and what specific steps will you take?

5.    Learn to do workplace evangelism.  Tentmakers answer questions from seekers made hungry for God by observing them—their integrity, quality work, caring relationships and words about God. They integrate work and witness and share Christ naturally by fitting comments about God in normal conversation followed by thoughtful responses to co-workers’ questions. Deliberately work on developing workplace evangelism.

6.    Learn to lead Bible study discussions, whether evangelistic or discipleship. Ask questions to lead participants to discover the truth in the text for themselves versus telling them what it says. Lead the group to respond to the truth of the passage. Find opportunities to lead or participate in seeker Bible studies. Learn how to make seekers really comfortable.

7.    Help start a simple church. Self-reproducing, indigenous churches are the end goal in making disciples. Develop your understanding of what moves a discipleship group into becoming a simple house church—issues like baptism, communion, church leadership. Look for opportunity to be involved in starting or helping a simple house church. Ask God to give you opportunity to lead people to Christ, disciple them in a group, and coach them into becoming a church which is led by leaders from within the group.

8.    Get missions training, especially GO tentmaker training. Read and get training in the biblical basis of missions, history, geography, growth, trends, issues, strategies, cross-cultural living, workplace witness, discipling, church-planting, church multiplication, indigeneity/dependency, etc. Perspectives is the single, best course on missions and covers all these areas. This semester-long evening course is available in many locations around the US and Canada. Take it at the college level for greatest value. For training in tentmaking,This unique course is totally focused on the principles and skills you need to be effective overseas. Also, get involved cross-culturally with another ethnic group and church near you. Build friendships. Learn the culture. Share Christ. Even start learning the language.

9.    Research the global job market. Use the Internet to research jobs needed related to your profession, the credentials required, the companies and organizations involved, and how to customize your resume or CV to fit openings. This research can help you determine where you might need additional training and experience.
10. Get needed degrees & experience. Most positions require at least a bachelor’s degree. However, we’ve helped a number of tentmakers go without a college degree. Sometimes experience counts more than a degree. While there are entry-level jobs, you generally need two or more years’ experience. TEFL/ESL is an exception even to this. Schools often accept any native English speaker. Always remember that as Christians we want to serve people well and honor Christ. Successful cross-cultural experience enhances desirability to employers. To get such experience, consider work study programs, internships abroad, multinational organizations, Peace Corps, the Mennonite Central Committee, etc.

Do You Need a “Special Call?”

/ Guest Contributor

Back in college, I was greatly moved by a small InterVarsity Press booklet titled “Called, But Not Going.” 
It confronted the issue of Christians who sensed God calling them into missions or ministry, but then over the years, allowed “the cares of this world” to kill the call of God so that they never went. The booklet sought to turn them back to God’s call.

It was very compelling, but as I understood more of the Bible, I became troubled by one major implication of this booklet—that it only applied to a special group who had received a “special” call to “the ministry,” i.e., to full-timeservice. It did not apply to the vast majority of regular Christians who never received such a call. They were not called to the same level of commitment, godliness, and ministry. With no “special call,” everyday Christians are mostly off the hook for the Great Commission and relegated to a secondary role to pay, pray, and obey.

The result of this theology is a huge gap between clergy (those in full-time ministry) and lay people. I saw this gap profoundly illustrated when I helped our church host its annual regional pastor’s conference. I met some wonderful pastors. But their statements showed the size of the clergy/laity gap. Pastors spoke repeatedly about how “God called me into the ministry,” “before (and after) I was called into the ministry,” “those of us in the ministry,” etc. By implication, the rest of the church was not in the ministry.

While this was one of the strongest clergy/laity divisions I’ve witnessed, this thinking permeates the church. Lay Christians are considered a separate class from those in the ministry. Since they do not have the training, the time, or the special call, the church cannot expect that much from them. They are reduced to a secondary support role and largely relieved of the full calling of God in the New Testament.

The late Pete Hammond of Ministry in Daily Life (www.urbana.org/whole-life-stewardship) said, “We have established a two tier community of faith with the exaltation of pastors, missionaries and ‘full-time workers’ as the elite strike force of the kingdom. Everyone else is quietly, but terribly effectively relegated to a ‘pray, pay and obey’ passivity. Lord, forgive our blindness!”  (October 1998)

While the Bible tells how God called people to specific tasks, it says nothing of a special call which elevates some Christians to a special class with a higher calling and level of discipleship than other Christians who live at a lower level. This terrible theology has deeply harmed the church.

God’s call is primarily to himself. This is the innate meaning of calling—that someone, in this case God, summons another person to himself. God calls all Christians to submit all of their lives to him as Lord. As Lord, he owns us, and in salvation, we return our lives to him and receive his incredible pardon for our rebellion. As Paul says, Christians are“called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Rm. 1:5-7)

And this means all their lives so that “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Co 10:31) If Christians are called to honor God in such basic habits as eating and drinking, then they are certainly called to do so in all other parts of their lives. Depending on where God has placed them, God has a calling for Christians as workers, as bosses, as spouses, as children, as parents, as neighbors, as landlords, as citizens, and so forth.

In all these callings, Christians are to think, live and speak Christianly, demonstrating the divine difference the gospel makes in their lives. The implications of these callings are innumerable. Let me mention one important one. Christians are called to stand quietly, but firmly for what is good and right in the workplace, community, and nation, even in the face of social, political, and legal pressure.

Joined with God’s call to submit all of life to him is his call to bring others to him as Lord to receive his extravagant, undeserved pardon and love—in other words, to make disciples. Every Christian is called to seek for Jesus’ kingdom (his reign) to come, for his will to be done, and for every knee to bow to him. (Mt. 6:10; Php. 2:10; Rm. 14:11) One of the great insights of the Reformation was the rediscovery that all Christians are called to be priests who reconcile others to God. Sadly, this has yet to be fully implemented.

As Christians follow Christ, they internalize his heart and long to see people become disciples from every people and nation. (Mt. 28:19) They cannot be satisfied reaching only their own people. And Christians are called to do this primarily through living and speaking for God in all areas of their lives.

This is God’s call to all Christians. There is no lesser calling!

Biblically, this is why tentmakers and everyday disciples are so important. Full-time Christians cannot impact society alone. Only workplace Christians can demonstrate the gospel in all of life and make disciples in all sectors of society. And it is they who have regular contact with nonbelievers in all walks of life.

Many people see Christianity as irrelevant. The church is losing influence in society. Most people are Biblically illiterate. Despite mega-churches, the church is shrinking. It is rapidly losing young people—75% during college years.

This cannot be remedied by better worship services and programs. People need to see the power of the gospel in the nitty-gritty of life—that it works for everyday people under the demands, pressures, and joys of everyday life, not just for full-time workers who get paid to be spiritual and talk about God. They must see supernaturally transformed, ordinary Christians. Unless the church transforms people rather than programs, it will fade away, though it may look good for awhile longer. And we will continue to export the same weaknesses overseas through our missions work.

Only workplace Christians can live out the gospel under the demands of everyday life. Only they can steadily influence co-workers and neighbors through their godly example and moral insight. It was this diffusion of Christian thinking and morals which made America so successful. And only this can transform nations today. Everyday Christians fulfilling God’s calling are absolutely indispensable for God’s purposes.

Imagine the impact if everyday Christians recovered their high calling before the watching world. Imagine the reaction if all Christians showed up at work next Monday and served their boss as if they were serving the Lord himself (Eph 6:5-8, Col 3:22-23). And imagine this happening in all areas of Christians’ lives! It would astonish the world!

God has called us to such a high calling that we need no “special call.” We just need to grab hold of his calling with all our being, willing to go wherever he leads, whether to our local workplace or to another country. If we do this, Jesus will surely be with us, lead us and empower us “with all authority in heaven and on earth.” (Mt. 28:18-20) And he will make a difference through us

“If only I had gotten this before going!” You can, at GO Equipped! Oct. 21-25, Pasadena, CA

/ Guest Contributor

In a comedy movie, Chevy Chase plays a spy who is forced to hide his identity as a famous surgeon. Naturally, he gets trapped into performing a delicate surgery on a patient while a room full of doctors is looking on. If you’ve not seen it, you can image how humorous this could be. 

        But how would you feel if such a “surgeon” was about to operate on you? Even more, imagine being called upon to operate on someone yourself without training. It would be terrifying and ludicrous. No one practices surgery without years of serving as an apprentice under skilled surgeons. The same thing applies to airline pilots, firemen, plumbers, etc. You would never accept a pilot flying for you who had only read books on flying, nor a fireman who had only read manuals. To a lesser degree, this applies to all professions. Academic training is never enough, especially when it involves complex, high-risk tasks. 

        Does this apply to tentmaking? You bet it does. In spades. Integrating all of life-work, family, neighbors, community, ministry, etc.-under Christ’s Lordship is challenging. So is leading people to Christ, discipling them, and nurturing them into simple house churches. Sadly, many tentmakers and missionaries are not very effective because they weren’t effective before going; they had inadequate godliness and ministry skills. We find the biggest need of prospective tentmakers is to become equipped and effective before going into another culture. They need to learn under a skilled surgeon before operating on people, before going as tentmakers.

        Jesus understood this. So he chose twelve “to be with him and to be sent out to preach.” (Mk. 3:14) These men never received Bible school or seminary training. He trained them by taking them “with him” on-the-job as he loved, healed, proclaimed, and discipled. They watched him and copied him. Only later did Jesus send them out to “preach.” When he did, they did what they had seen him do and were tremendously effective. They were so effective that a huge crowd followed them in order to hear Jesus-a crowd of 5000 men plus thousands of women and children whom he miraculously fed. After Jesus’ resurrection, these men turned the ancient world upside down. 

         Jesus’ apprenticeship model worked because imitating others is the way humans really learn. Paul understood this, so he told the Corinthians, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” (1 Co. 11:1) This was his discipling “strategy,” not classroom lectures, not handouts, etc. He demonstrated what he taught-he lived it. He knew that godliness is more “caught than taught,” that people copy what they see, not what they hear. In Paul, people saw joy in the midst of suffering, faith in the face of mortal danger, unflagging love for failing, even hurtful people, passionate zeal for God, exemplary work practices, compelling preaching and teaching, effective discipling, wise, Christ-like leading, etc. And they saw Paul do all this as a full-time worker supporting himself. 

        They saw the same example in Paul’s co-workers-Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, and the rest. They were all tentmakers who worked for their living. The early converts saw everyday working Christians living lives of powerful godliness and ministry. Paul and his team showed the supernatural power of God, and made serious discipleship and disciple-making normal for regular Christians. Early Christians found it easy to believe God worked like this through ordinary disciples because they saw it with their own eyes. To them, this was normal Christianity. 

        These stories tell us exactly what training is ideal to make us effective tentmakers-working as apprentices to a master tentmaker. This is what Timothy and Titus did. This is what early church leaders did. Unfortunately, it’s very hard to do today because there are few master tentmakers. 

        This model of making disciples through exhibiting the gospel, working personally with a few, and leading by example and word, is very simple and powerful. It works. Regular workplace Christians can do it. In fact, God is using workplace Christians as effective tentmakers around the world. But this model has been largely replaced by an organizational, impersonal, program-oriented, and academic model. And this has become our mental model of church and ministry. And we do what we see. What we need is to replace the old mental model with the simpler, more powerful New Testament model. This is why we need effective tentmakers to show us how to do it. This is also why there are few master tentmakers for us to work with as apprentices. 

        So is there an alternative? What about bringing some effective tentmakers together to share stories of how they were effective? Their stories enable us to “watch” them after the fact. They let us “see” and grasp a model of effectiveness we’ve never seen before, especially as they explain the Biblical principles of why it works. 

        If we could gather these leaders for a concentrated, 4-5 day course, built around the core principles of tentmaking, then any motivated potential tentmaker can get this powerful training by simply taking a few days off. We have done this with the GO Equipped! Tentmaking Course. We created a course built around the core Biblical principles of tentmaking using stories told by effective tentmakers. 

        Ari Rocklin is one of the tentmakers who will share his story. But he learned it the hard way, through much questioning and work. When he joined Global Opportunities and first helped with our course, he said, “If only I had gotten this before going!” Other tentmakers have expressed the same thing. 

        You can get his training for a fairly small investment of time and money. And you can sit and talk with tentmakers who have done it and who keep on learning from working with tentmakers. Sign up now to take advantage of this crucial training before you attempt to perform tentmaking surgery! 

Light in the Darkness

/ Guest Contributor

“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” ~Matthew 5:14-16

In the 1960s, Jackie Pullinger, a young British woman, felt called by God to the Far East. With a degree in music, she wrote the Hong Kong government seeking a teaching post. They replied that they had no positions. So she tried a mission agency, but they said she was “too young.” Acting in faith, with no job, Jackie boarded a ship for Hong Kong.  

Upon arriving, she met Auntie Donnie, who showed her a primary school she ran in “The Walled City,” an area overrun by every imaginable crime. Also named “Hak Nam,” meaning darkness, Jackie learned it was “a place of terrible darkness, both physical and spiritual.” On that first visit, Auntie Donnie asked her to teach there. “Before I had fully realized what I was letting myself in for, I had agreed to teach percussion band, singing, and English conversation three afternoons a week.” Jackie also picked up another “regular job teaching in a primary school in the mornings.”


Through her work, Jackie started a youth club, especially because of the influence of one of her young male students. Teaching gave her natural contact with young people, out of which her ministry grew. Her work gained credibility and identification with the people. One student dialoged with her like this:


“Poon Siu Jeh (Jackie’s name “Pullinger” in Chinese), I haven’t got a job and I’ve run out of money.”
“But I’m afraid I haven’t got any money.”
“Oh, but you have–you’re terribly rich.”
“No, no, really I haven’t got any money.”
“Oh yes you have, because you’ve got a church in America like the rest of them.”
“No really I haven’t got a church in America. Actually I am from England, but no church sent me.”
A plane flew over head. “Huh, one day I expect you’ll get into one of those and fly back to where you came from.”
“No, there’s no danger of that because I haven’t got enough money to get on one,” I replied honestly.
“Well, your parents can send you the money anyway–there is plenty of money where you came from–we’ve seen how all those English people live up the peak.”
“No,” I said, “you’re wrong about that. My parents haven’t got any money either.”

Pullinger wrote, “This kind of conversation took place many times; it was an indictment of those evangelists who flew into Hong Kong, sang sweet songs about the love of Jesus on stage and on Hong Kong TV, then jumped back into their planes and flew away again.”

Slowly Jackie gained credibility because she lived and worked like the people did, and stayed long term. It took years. In fact, for years, as hard as she tried, nobody paid any attention because they had heard it before–from people who never stayed or lived like they did. But as Jackie continued to work among the people year after year, they began to trust the Jesus she told them about both on and off the job.

Jackie shined Christ’s light into the darkness by working for her living among the people. Through her persevering work, they saw “her good deeds and praised [her] Father in heaven.” God enlarged her ministry far beyond anything she had ever imagined. Without working, the light would never have shown so clearly. Will you use your profession to bring the Light to a dark part of the world?