Case Studies
MINISTRY MYTHS: FINDING THE MISSION WITHIN ANY CAREER
by Neal Kunde
Gary Taylor is one of the country’s leading experts in helping people find creative opportunities for ministry worldwide. He is the president of Strategic Ventures Network and a part of the management team for the U.S. Association of Tentmakers, INTENT. He also owned a business called Taylored Communications and helps businesses and non-profit ministries identify special ways they can save on long-distance telecommunications systems. A graduate of Wheaton College, he was a fighter pilot in Vietnam, a congressional liaison in the Pentagon while a captain in the Navy, a military ministry specialist with Campus Crusade for Christ, a pastor and a field coordinator for Frontiers. Gary was at Urbana ‘93, helping with survey’s for the Strategic Careers Project and INTENT.
Métier: Statistics tell us that most college graduates will not go into traditional missions work. So how can young Christians think of the job that they have now or the career that they have chosen as a mission?
GT: Two words come to mind. One is gifting and the other is intentionally. Gifting comes from God. We ought to identify that gifting and be accountable to it. While not everybody is destined for missions (with a plural, i.e. the industry), everybody is destined to mission. That’s the nature of the Great Commission, the plan of creation. So, how can we effect God’s great plan for mankind? How can we be a part of it? Gifting is the first step.
What is a gift? Well, what has God placed in me for his interests that I need to exercise? This is something that everyone needs to think about. Not just recent college graduates, but all career searchers, including the "occupationally displaced."
Where are you now? Take inventory of all you’ve been through. Take into account more than just your biblically listed spiritual gifts. I include experience as a gift from God which can be applied to the present. So your history is a part of your gifting, as are your inclinations, your education and your training.
Intentionality is taking the view that, while God is sovereign, he allows us the privilege of knowing some things. And the best things don’t happen by accident. They happen when you take advantage of where God has placed you. Intentionality regarding careers for the kingdom would be to first identify what you want to do and what you are good at doing. The bridge that gets you to a career is to find out what needs in God’s world can be met through applying your gifts. Then you do one of those things. It could be missions, or it could be serving as a teacher, or it could be serving as a public relations official. Do what you’re really good at, where you have a lot of contact with people and can find them at the moments of need. Find a path that has both impact and significance. Make a difference in life in both near-term and long-term ways.
Real intentionality is making a choice to employ those gifts where they are needed most, and where they will effect the kingdom the most. That’s a personal decision, but one that is often made with the help of some counsel. Career guiders or career influencers can have a role. So the message here isn’t just for the young people. It’s also for the career influencers of the young people.
Unfortunately, most people don’t make their way into the job force this way. "Here I am," they’ll say. "Now how can I make it count for Christ?" But that’s backwards in my opinion. I really would like to see people say, "Here’s what I’m good at, here’s what I like doing, and here’s what needs to be done for the kingdom’s sake. Let me go do that." That’s intentionality.
Métier: If many people are already in jobs and may not have gotten there intentionally, what do you tell them now that they’ve already set a course in their career?
GT: I know how they feel. That’s how I got into the Navy. Two guys came on campus after they got their pilot’s wings. I looked at the uniform and determined that I wanted to be one of those guys. I’ve always liked airplanes and I knew I could fly in the Navy. Now that wasn’t very deliberate from a kingdom perspective. But it was expressing my interest. And inclinations can be a part of God’s gifting to us.
I may not have gotten into the military through intentional thinking. But once I was there, I found myself being very intentional. I thought about what I did, who I associated with, what my personal stance was. And when the men in my unit went out on liberty, drinking and whoring, that’s when it counted that I had decided that I would be a "kingdom guy."
Métier: What did you learn at Urbana ‘93?
GT: I was trying to get students, in the midst of a strong missions environment, to try to determine their marketplace connection with missions. I wanted them to see the need of intentionality in taking their Christianity into the marketplace in an international forum. I talked about the concept of applying their gifts and putting themselves in the face of the devil, wherever they find it’s best to do that. I shared my conviction that there is a great need to bring gifts and skills to the unreached and hard-to-reach billions, including those in the world’s work force.
People are more open to doing missions per the Urbana call, but in a framework of employment. The nature of (missions specialist) Christy Wilson’s firsts book was that you can be a missionary while you are in your secular career. Marketplace positions are positions of access, and marketplace skills are tools of access.
Métier: Finally, are there any heroes of intentionality?
GT: Daniel’s ministry in a diplomatic career was full of intentional, principled, albeit risky decisions. William Carey, the cobbler and teacher, translated Scripture into Indian dialects. He went there very purposefully, very intentionally. My current heroes are the teachers, engineers, and entrepreneurs who plant themselves from China to Kazakstan as a means of being catalysts for life and eternity in obedience to Christ’s Great Commission and Great Commandment.#MP
In The Lions Den, Marketplace Métier, Spring/Summer 1994, page 5
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