Is all the work that Christian’s do Kingdom work?
From Derek R. Keefe’s interview with Andy Crouch Cultivating Where We’re Planted
What does culture making look like in our churches?
I hope churches would dare to celebrate the cultivating and creating of their members that isn’t under the church’s banner, but is nevertheless deeply Christian participation in the culture around them. Church leaders are measured by their ability to motivate people to volunteer and contribute at their church. We’ve done a better job of celebrating people who teach really well in Sunday school than people who teach really well in the public school.
In their book Church on Sunday, Work on Monday, Laura Nash and Scotty McLennan tell the story of the woman who litigated the cleanup of the terribly polluted Boston Harbor for the Environmental Protection Agency—one of the major environmental breakthroughs of the 21st century. She was a member of an evangelical church, and the only time she was ever recognized from the front of this church was the year she taught second-grade Sunday school. Obviously we should celebrate our Sunday school teachers, but when one of our members acting out of vocation leads in such a tremendous restoration of God’s creation, why wouldn’t we celebrate that, too?
I’m conflicted on this. Should we celebrate people doing a good job at their job during a church service?