Church @ Work – Teaching

I suspect that Jesus’ disciples, especially the Twelve, started to look like him, walk like him and talk like him. Not always. But enough that they could be picked out in a crowd.

That’s the impact of a special kind of teaching called discipling. In the old Jewish Rabbi-disciple model (like similar models in several cultures) the goal of a disciple was to become just like his/her master/mistress. (Sadly these were mostly male but the model clearly supports female teachers and adherents). Rabbi means teacher. Disciple means learner, but in a very intense way.

How do we learn to be natural, consistent and transformational as Christians at work? When we’re surrounded all day by people who don’t necessarily believe as we do, where priorities are far from being Kingdom priorities, and where values are distinctly worldly, it is hard to be a disciple. Yes, we have the Bible, and prayer, and perhaps a small group with other people where work sometimes comes up as a subject. But to look, walk, talk and act like Jesus we need far more than that.

Isn’t this where the church comes in? There we are in fact surrounded by people who, at least in principle, also share Jesus’ values and priorities, or at least want to. In the early church, Christians learned about these things at least as much from one another as from their private devotions. This wasn’t always easy - just look at the conflicts between the early leaders (e.g. Paul and Peter, Paul and Barnabus), and the descriptions of church conflicts in 1 Corinthians and other letters. The church is designed to be a crucible, where faith is tested and refined. It is designed to be a place where the members of the Body of Christ come together in dependence on one another and on the Head of the Body, to worship, to grow, and to serve.

Teaching takes many forms in this context. It occurs in the classroom, where we can have in-depth discussions of the things in daily life that we are really called to struggle with. Those of us who teach in this formal way have a wonderful opportunity to present a basis for workplace faith, to work through real issues, and to help one another grapple with specific problems. Teaching also occurs in one-on-one contexts, as we become used to sharing one another’s burdens, most of which occur in daily life and many of them in the workplace. In some context or another, we are all teachers.

Teaching also starts very young – typically with preschoolers and kindergartners. Hopefully we’re not quite ready to send them out to work. But this is where the foundations are laid – the idea of God’s unique purpose in creating each one of us, the beginnings of awareness of His Kingdom and His role for us in it. That continues through elementary, middle and high school with increasing awareness of calling, challenges and the like.

In all our teaching, let’s be inclusive of the whole of life, and especially the way we are spending the bulk of our days – at work, or school, or other calling. Let’s share with one another what it means to be called by God to this, to be privileged to be part of His Kingdom purpose. Let’s share one another’s burdens as we talk through real daily issues. Let’s help one another as disciples of the Master to increasingly look and act like him at work.