Sometimes when I’m talking with people who are new to public speaking and teaching in church I ask them to simply tell me in one sentence what you want to communicate.

If you can do that then you probably have a good grip on your focus. If you can’t then you need to do some more work to get it sharpened. I sense it is the same with writing.

From the time I began working on this book one quote from Martin Robinson has been at the forefront of my mind and has shaped my thinking. Here it is:

What would it look like for a church to function in such a way that the primary goal of church life was not to attract more people into attendance and membership, but to produce people who had a profound sense of their personal relationship to God, their resource in Christ and could take that reality into the world with them.

Martin Robinson – Invading Secular Space

I find this an absolutely inspirational idea summed up so succinctly. It’s an idea I could give the next 10 years of my life to without blinking. If only we could reimagine how we approach our work then we may well see a significant transformation in the landscape.

This is not a new idea. It’s just one that has never been fully explored. Why?…

I would almost bet that if I were to ask someone in your church what their ‘ministry’ is that they would look within to something they are doing inside the church family. Very few naturally and spontaneously look to their workplace. I wonder why that is?

So my hope is to take a run at this issue in the years to come and hopefully help people re-imagine their workplace as their first port of call when it comes to ministry – not in a wacky wierdo kind of way – but simply as the place where we reflect and live out the life of Jesus and where we are visible for 38 hours of our week.

I am doing some speaking around the place on this issue, so if you think your church would find it valuable to be challenged to reframe their thinking in this way then hit me up. The rest of this year is pretty tight, but 2027 is wide open. It’s the kind of subject that is best done over a 3-4 weeks time frame so that the ideas can get developed. If you want to see a few examples then check out Riverview Church on Youtube or Parkerville Baptist where I have done some work already.