IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

Marketplace ministry includes a very practical component - helping Christians improve business outcomes. Working and doing business can be God honoring and is worthy of doing well. Work is not a 2nd rate activity for the Christian but God ordained for the vast majority of the saints. A vocational calling can be embraced with passion and served out in dignity.

During the 1980s a movement began that has enabled many Christians to connect their faith and their work. Marketplace ministries sprang up and books about work began to appear in the Christian bookstores. One of the important books that remade the case for the dignity of work is Your Work Matters to God. In their text Doug Sherman and William Hendricks conclude that since man is made in the image of God and that God works, work has an intrinsic value. Further, they show from the

Scriptures how work also has the following instrumental value because through work we:

• Serve people
• Meet our own needs
• Meet our family's needs
• Earn money to give to others
• Love God

Work serves and meets needs. In Colossians 3:23, Paul instructs us to work with all of our heart regardless what we do. We are to do so as if we were working for the Lord. Work deserves our best.

There are also many Scriptures that point to the increase God provides. He desires that our efforts produce good fruit. Consistent with his nature, God is continually providing new resources and understanding that enables our work to be more and more productive - to meet more and more needs. Effective God-honoring work is a noble goal deserving of the Christian’s commitment.