REGATHERED

 

Tim Keller, a pastor whose wisdom and work I deeply respect, talks about how the church is the gathered church on Sunday mornings when we come together to worship our savior, Jesus Christ. We are one body, one fellowship, united by the body and blood of the Messiah as we partake in communion at the Lord’s table. 

 

Then, as we depart to our homes and go to work on Monday morning, we're the scattered church. God sends us all out to faithfully represent Jesus to our families, neighbors, and various places of work. Since God scatters us, like seeds scattered by the Sower, to different workplaces, we're the scattered church with potential to yield 30, 60, or 100x what he has sown!

 

When Jesus sent out his disciples and “scattered” them to various villages, he sent them out two by two. (Mark 6:7) They were not sent out alone. They were meant to represent the kingdom of God together. 

 

Why is that important? Because we are stronger together. Even a cord of two strands is stronger than one, and a cord of three strands is, as Ecclesiastes says, “not easily broken.”

 

Alone. Isolated. Alienated. Broken. 

 

Those words probably resonate with you as you consider the feeling of being scattered into the world. Into the workplace. Into corporate culture. But wouldn’t these words be better? 

 

Together. Connected. Aligned. Whole. 

 

That’s why at Faith and Work Movement Global, we encourage faith-filled employees to take Tim Keller’s scattered church analogy a step further. 

 

Rather than being on mission alone as the only person from your church in your workplace, we encourage you to find other brothers and sisters from the big C church to create a psychologically safe space for believers in Jesus to come together - an encouraging workplace fellowship of followers of Christ who understand the difficulties of being a Christian in your workplace. A kingdom of God gathering of fellow ambassadors who are on mission together to be faithful representatives of Jesus. No longer the Sunday gathered church, nor the Monday morning scattered church, but the united, workplace regathered church. 

 

Being the regathered church is not always easy. In fact, it's often quite messy; because you get cessationists, continuationists, and charismatics in the same workplace fellowship. You get everybody from all different ethnicities, political stripes, denominations, and social agendas that call themselves Christian in the same corporate Christian ERG (employee resource group). 

 

But this is nothing new. When the church went beyond the religious center of Jerusalem to the commercial center of Antioch, the new church had Orthodox Jews worshipping together with Gentile Greeks, and Cyrians, …

 

They intentionally overcame their differences in order to embrace their calling to faithfully represent Jesus wherever he sent them. We are called to do the same. 

 

Today above all, in that same Spirit, we are all called to do one thing, faithfully represent Jesus. Let me say it again, faithfully represent Jesus. That is your commission. So let us help you regather the church in your workplace because you can’t be on a co-mission alone.

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Reflection:

Take a moment to come before the Lord about your work and workplace. Be still and know He cares more about your work and workplace than you do. Ask Him what He wants to reveal to you. 

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By Roy Tinklenberg

 

We know that we are all inundated with info and content. Our intention in these words that you took precious time to read is simply to encourage you. We invite you to pause a moment from your daily grind and consider God’s great resource of Himself to you and your work. Our hope is that if these thoughts resonate with you, we will have the privilege to have further conversation and to build relationship with you. We gladly invite you into this global alliance of fellowships among marketplace believers that our Lord is building in every corner of the world.

 

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