On average, less than 3% of the body of Christ is engaged in conventional vocational ministry. Everyone else has their primary assignment outside the four walls. Imagine if our churches did a better job of affirming, equipping, and empowering the 97% for their calling?
We have prepared a quick start guide with practical ideas on how to help the members of your congregation become faith-active at work and better engage their Monday Morning Assignment.
- Develop a solid biblical theology of vocational work and business. Your organization should possess a personal understanding of God’s purpose for work, kingdom business, etc. The senior leader must have a vision, even if they delegate much of the execution to others.
Make sure that every department of your church has some equipping in this area so that their thinking is different—children’s ministry, young adult missions, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, etc. You can find a list of equipping resources on this site. - Do at least one sermon series a year on work life, Monday morning assignment, etc.
- Organize a special marketplace ministry event. A marketplace, ministry conference, or work-life weekend culminating with a sending Sunday—a service where you focus on work-life assignment, and have altar ministry with prayer, prophetic ministry, and commissioning to send people Into their assignment in the various spheres (mountains). Add a field to record where people work in whatever church management software you use.
- Make a point to Learn more about what your people do Monday through Friday. Talk to them about their work, their dreams and aspirations. In other words, enter into their world as much as you can. As appropriate, visit them at their place of work. Provide a real spiritual covering for them.
- Solicit prayer requests specifically for work-life issues. Many believers erroneously believe that they’re supposed to keep these worlds separate. Mobilize your prayer ministry to support people in their Monday morning assignment.
- Encourage people, where appropriate, to begin weekday workplace prayer meetings. Some have called these workplace prayer altars.
- Have a benediction (sending blessing) at the end of every service instead of a dismissal. This helps reinforce a sense of commissioning.
- Make sure that you solicit and include marketplace or work-life testimonies often. Faith-filled testimonies have the potential to spark even more testimonies, so use them often.
- Identify the champions in your church who carry a burden for the marketplace, who can teach, organize small groups, mentor, etc. The senior leader should champion an understanding of the Monday morning assignment, but others (including volunteers) can and should do much of the work and implementation.
- Teach your congregation how to share their faith in the workplace. How to move in the gifts of the spirit, etc.
- A great resource for this is “Workplace Grace” by Peel and Larimore.
- Establish a metric to measure your efforts in affirming, equipping, and empowering people for their Monday morning assignment.
- Here’s one from Dave Robinson: Post signs over your exit doors saying “service entrance” to remind people that they are being sent into their Ephesians 4:1 assignment
- Another one from Dave Robinson: map where your Ephesians 4:1 ministers (marketplace ministers) live out their assignment in your town or city.
For more tips and equipping in this area, feel free to contact the The Fellowship’s Marketplace Ministries Department.
