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April 2003, Page 8.
Index of articles.
In this issue:
(April 2003)
Vicar's letter,
Holywell,
Peace,
A working faith.
The balance of a working life
The following article appeared in “Frontline”, the magazine of Arab World Ministries, and is reprinted here because it fits in with our series on celebrating the disciplines of the Christian life. You might call it “The discipline of a Christian life with a secular job”. The writer has gone to work in a country where missionaries aren’t welcome, but hard-working foreigners are.
“Am I just lucky?
I have such a great job teaching English. It’s my own language and students are paying good money to learn it! The hours are great, too. I just go in when I have classes. There’s no heavy admin., or endless report writing like in English schools. And as a teacher I’m respected in society.
As in England, I wouldn’t try to push my beliefs in the classroom. Instead, my job gives me time to do what I really want to do here, which is to serve God. To keep life in balance, I think in terms of one ministry time each day. This began when I first came and I considered daily language practice out on the streets, or in cafes, to be an essential discipline. Often talking with people led to opportunities to share my faith.
At the moment, my daily ministry is mainly doing discipleship with individuals, and working with a small group of believers. It can take several hours a day.
So each day involves work, a time of ministry, and time for family and hobbies. They are all important and we have to make sure none of them gets squeezed out by the others. There’s also one day where we don’t work or do any ministry. We just relax and don’t feel guilty about it.
So am I just lucky? Maybe. But I think that when God calls you to leave everything to do something for him, he has already planned something better for you. And you won’t discover it until you go where he wants you to go.“
This man specially wanted to help individuals grow in their new faith (that’s what “doing discipleship” means). He found a job with hours which allow him to split up each day into three sections of “work, ministry, and family & hobbies”. Maybe you’re in a different situation from him? But I wonder if each of us could adopt his attitude to time, and find some area of serving God each day, while not neglecting work and family?
John Hartley