The big C Church is the body of Christ, all Christians, across the world, and across time.

What is the local expression of that? That is, what is the local church?

It’s easier to talk about what it’s for rather than what it is.

The local church is for equipping. Everyone agrees on that point. But disagreement comes in when it comes to the question: What is the church equipping people for?

If you know the Bible, you’ll say “ministry.”

That is correct, but what is ministry?

It is certainly the mission of evangelizing the lost and helping Christians mature.

But that is not all it is.

Did you know the word “ministry” is the same word in Hebrew for “work”?

I won’t get deep in the theological weeds, but it is interesting, isn’t it?

If ministry is work, then what is work?

Work, the noun, is an activity requiring effort to produce a result.

Work, the verb, is doing such activity.

I’m going to skip several steps and tell you that I think God put us on the earth to do activities in order to produce the results that are necessary for our abundant life (meaning: fruitful and successful life).

In other words, we were put here to work. We were put here to live.  

This is the biggest part of our ministry, because living takes up the bulk of our time. What is living? It’s working. It’s doing your job, but it’s also doing the million things every day that are required of you to live your life: cooking dinner, mowing the lawn, changing diapers, fixing the leak under the sink, instructing the children, and things like that.

The church is here to equip people to do those things faithfully and in Christlike ways. By the way, don’t you wish we could have seen Jesus doing His carpentry job? We don’t see that, but we can guess what He was like doing it. His very being glorified the Creator, His Father, so I imagine He did everything with excellence, integrity, and reliability. I’ll bet he treated His customers and coworkers with perfect respect and honesty. I bet He loved them as He loved Himself while He worked. I bet He was conscientious. I bet He was a good worker, doing “everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31).

Godspeed, and other great churches, teach the Bible so that our members can glorify God in the day-to-day of living, working—that is—ministry. Yes we equip for the work of evangelism and discipleship, but we’d be woefully remiss if we failed to equip for the activities that produce a result—work—life.