Marketplace Ministers

COMMISSIONING MARKETPLACE MINISTERS

“They were lined up expectantly that Sunday morning, dozens of candidates, ready to submit their lives to the Lord as full-time ministers. They believed that God could use them to demonstrate the gospel of the Kingdom in a way that could bring in the endtime harvest. These were business and professional leaders who had discovered that “their businesses were their ministries” and they were committing them-all of them-to God. Seldom have I seen such a serious, radically committed, spiritually pumped group of people in my life.

Seeing these candidates that morning, I realized they were not really a new breed. Rather, they were a newly released group of individuals… who had found God’s call and lived it out in the context of their daily work. Here was a group of men and women who were ready to take on California’s Silicon Valley. They were no longer content to just work; they were going to minister. Their weapons of warfare were intimacy with God, intercession, integrity, moral character, passion for the lost, and compassion for the hurting. They were committed to building relationships with those who needed Jesus, and they carried one additional weapon in their hands – blessing.

The idea for the (commissioning) had come about quite unexpectedly. What I had thought to be a couple of messages to business and professional leaders about making their business their ministry; had turned into an on-going series of messages. In the middle of one of these, I was proclaiming, “You are in the ministry. The call of God is for all of us. God did not call just a select few. He has called you. Your business is your ministry.” My next words were totally unplanned, but I believe they were from God “Since you are called of God into the ministry of business, we should (commission) you.”

But how do you “commission” the business or professional person? And of even greater importance, is it biblical? As I began to study again the biblical concept of ordination, I became even more convinced. Yes, God really does have a very special plan for the business and professional Christian, and it is quite appropriate from a biblical context to set apart those that are answering that call.

As the men and women knelt to receive from the Lord, we sensed something was about to break forth in the heavenly realms. This was – is – a new day, a day in which ministry is moved out of the church building and into the marketplace. The nameless, faceless crowd, like the 70 sent out by Jesus in Luke chapter 10, are coming. They are being released.”

(Adapted from God@Work by Rich Marshall, pp.25-30)