On this week's episode, 7 Reasons Why the Marketplace is a Great Place for Christians. Welcome back to Theology of Business. I'm your host, Darren Scheer, author of the book Marketing Like Jesus, and this is a show that helps marketplace leaders to partner with God in business to change the world and make a difference in eternity. The Theology of Business podcast is sponsored by High Bridge Books, which provides professional Christian book publishing services for inspiring thought leaders. You can take the next step toward getting your leadership, business, or personal growth book published by requesting our free three video author training course at highbridgebooks.com forward slash course. And of course you can email me at any time at Darren D-A-R-R-E-N at highbridgebooks.com. If God has called you into business, please folks do not wish you were called somewhere else. The marketplace is a great place for Christians right now. And on this episode, I want to share seven reasons why I believe that's the case. The first reason is that almost all non-Christians are in the marketplace. And what are we here for? They carry out the Great Commission. Today less than 20% of Americans attend church regularly. And if you're in European countries, you know that in many of those countries the percentages are much lower. And at this current rate, at least in the United States, regular church attendance is projected to drop to 11.7% by the year 2050. But the good news is that these same people who aren't attending church will still be waking up to go to work alongside their Christian coworkers in the marketplace each morning. And by the way, we're not just talking about non-Christians that aren't going to church, we're talking about Christians. But the good news is that almost all Christians are in the marketplace. At least 85% of the Christian workforce spends about 60 to 70% of their waking hours in the marketplace. And in addition to serving our families in our local churches, the marketplace is the primary context where we're supposed to be using our spiritual gifts. And the ministry potential for Christians using their spiritual gifts collaboratively in the marketplace is just mind-boggling to me. And I've done a couple of episodes on this already, and I've got a book coming out about it to kind of take you, help you to take the next step in your journey toward applying your spiritual gifts in the marketplace and recognizing your spiritual gifts. So if you don't know what your gifts are, this book is going to provide a spiritual gifts assessment as well as some teaching and examples on how you can use your specific gifts for ministry in the marketplace. The third reason I want to share is that discipleship actually can happen in the marketplace because for a long time church leaders have been criticized for the lack of discipleship and spiritual growth among their congregations. But I think we need to give our pastors a break. I mean, how much discipleship can actually happen during a two-hour church service on Sunday? And that's about all our pastors get us for, is about two hours on Sunday. Discipleship, which by definition is becoming more like Jesus, it really happens every day of our lives, and it happens in our everyday life. Discipleship, of course, can happen anywhere, even during a two-hour lecture style event on Sunday, but the potential for discipleship and ministry investment in a weekly service is just a fraction of what's possible during an entire work week spent with our coworkers, clients, and customers and everybody else that we come in contact with in the marketplace. The fourth reason why I think it's a great opportunity for Christians to be in the marketplace is that the marketplace is a more authentic showroom of Christianity. What do I mean by showroom? If you were shopping for a car, you'd probably go to a showroom at your maybe your local dealer. But before you buy anything, you'd probably want to see if the car actually functions properly on the road. So you might ask a dealer to allow you to take the car home for a day or two so that you can test it out and kind of get a feel for it. I think the local church is kind of like the showroom for Christianity, but the marketplace is the test drive for people. The marketplace is where our unbelieving coworkers get to see if they really want what we have. They get to see it modeled for us. They get to see it modeled for them, rather. Daily, they see how we react under pressure, they see how we treat people, and they see how much God truly matters to us because it's in our daily lives. And as I mentioned just a little bit ago, and reason number one, most people unfortunately aren't coming to the showroom anymore. And I'm gonna again by showroom I mean your local church. They're not coming to the showroom so much anymore. So marketplace Christians in many ways are now serving as both the showroom and the test drive of Christianity to really show people what it's all about and if it works. Reason number five is that the marketplace forces the church to use all of its capabilities. This personality-driven and sort of super pastor approach to Christianity where the pastor is expected to basically be the sum total of all of the spiritual gifts and have to handle all of the ministry, it doesn't work in the marketplace. And having a bunch of Christians sitting on the sidelines of ministry may not prevent a local church from increasing numerically. I mean, the church may be able to continue to go about its programs and to you know have a have a sermon and have music on Sunday morning, but it won't transform the marketplace for the glory of God. And then on the flip side, in the marketplace, uh I found that a lot of the teaching about marketplace ministry has been defining marketplace ministry really without regard for people's unique spiritual gifts. And for example, if I have uh an apostolic gift, of course I'm gonna view the marketplace as a mandate to ascend and and take the business mountain for God. If if you're familiar with the Seven Mountains teaching, basically we need to take authority and dominion. That's what that's what apostles do, that's their gift. But not everybody has that gift. And then if I have a pastoral gift, like uh somebody that maybe works for one of the marketplace chaplaincy organizations, of course I'm going to view marketplace ministry as a calling to care for the personal needs of my employees and my coworkers, or if I am uh if I'm a boss in a company that my focus is taking care of the sheep and really kind of being in that pastoral role. But we need to approach marketplace ministry not with sort of this one size fits all approach, but in a way that leverages the spiritual gifts of all Christians in the marketplace. This one size fits all approach, in my experience, it only produces self-condemnation and ineffectiveness for marketplace Christians who are trying to operate outside of their God-given spiritual gifts because they've been taught that if you're going to take the business mountain or if you're going to do marketplace ministry, then it looks like this. And it usually is kind of defined around whoever whatever that person's spiritual gift is that is that is explaining what marketplace ministry is all about. But we need a more holistic view of marketplace ministry so that we can leverage the spiritual gifts of all of the Christians in the marketplace. The sixth reason why it's being in the marketplace is a great place for a Christian to do ministry, is that denominational divisions are less destructive and less pronounced in the marketplace. Now we can choose whether to attend a Baptist church or a Pentecostal charismatic church or a Presbyterian or a non-denominational church on Sunday, but most of us don't have the luxury of working with only people, only Christians with whom we agree theologically. Because the marketplace has a way of diluting some of these differences, which opens the door then to collaborative ministry beyond the walls of our local churches and our local church traditions. The seventh and final reason that I want to share, and usually this reason tends to be kind of the dominant reason, I think, in a lot of people's minds, when they think about the ministry potential of the marketplace and doing business as ministry. They usually only think about it sort of in monetary terms, but I hope that I've shared a few reasons leading up to this that'll help us understand that that's not necessarily just the case. But at any rate, everything gets funded from the marketplace, and that's reason number seven why being a Christian in the marketplace is a great place to do ministry. All money comes from value that has been created in the marketplace, and business professionals ultimately decide what gets funded. So these business professionals need to know God and they need to know his plan for their lives so that they can make righteous decisions concerning money. And it's our responsibility as Christians in the marketplace to make disciples of these people that are out there making these decisions that are affecting all of our culture, all of the world, in fact, because of the power of economics. Although business is often thought of as primarily or only the economic engine of the church, I really hope that we'll begin to see and realize its full potential for transforming society for the glory of God. So I'm going to leave you with this discussion question. I'd love to hear your thoughts at theologyofbusiness.com on this particular episode. In addition to these seven reasons, what's another reason or whether what what's another couple of reasons for why God is now mobilizing Christian business professionals for ministry in the marketplace? That's all for this week. I'm looking for stories to feature in a book that I'm currently working on. So if you have a story of how you're using spiritual gifts in your work and business, I'd love to hear from you. You can contact me through the contact form at theologyofbusiness.com or you can email me at Darren at hybridbooks.com. Thanks for listening and keep partnering with God in your business.