Greg Forster, director of the Oikonomia Network (a network of theological seminaries and faculty), speaks to how valuable integrating your faith with work and economics can be for your church, your community, and your Christian walk.

Transcript:

People spend most of their lives working when you add up work in the home, work in workplaces, work in neighborhoods and communities and schools and all kinds of other places.

If we don’t put our faith into our work the Christianity really becomes a leisure time activity. But Christianity can’t be what the Bible says it is if it’s only a leisure time activity. It has to be something that we live out 24/7.

If the church isn’t helping people integrate their faith with their work, then the church has a tendency to become simply a provider of religious goods and services. But the Christian faith really needs to be about a transformation of the whole life.

People have to change the way they live and what they believe and live out a new way of life. That’s the gospel. If we aren’t prompting people to put their faith into the activity that takes up the majority of their lives, then I think that’s a real danger sign that we’re slipping back into that provider of religious goods and services model.

When local churches help people make that integration, it deepens their discipleship. It helps them transition for a discipleship that’s defined as engaging in a few special activities, to a discipleship that is really a transformation of the whole life. It also has an impact far beyond the boundaries of the church. It shines the light of the gospel into the culture as Christians go out into workplaces and neighborhoods and do their work in a way that reflects their faith. In addition to discipleship and cultural impact, it also puts the gospel itself in front of our neighbors. So, this one thing actually works in all three ways, almost as if it were all being designed by somebody who knew what he was doing.

This video serves as an illustration in The Equipping Church Overview at www.theologyofwork.org.

Special thanks to the Oikonomia Network.