Elective Study - Question A
A music student in your CU / MN group emails you out of the blue asking to go for a coffee because they would value your advice on their future. They came to music college / university convinced they wanted to be an orchestral player, but they’re wondering whether in fact they’d be more useful to God by going into ministry
What advice would you give? What things would you try to cover? What questions would you ask them? To which passages of the Bible might you take them?
I’m encouraged that your motive for potentially changing careers is because you want to be as useful to God as possible. That is a good thing to want. Though I want to question your idea of what actually makes a person more or less useful to God, and what the Bible has to say on it. I don’t think I can think of anywhere that specifies Christians are more useful if in ministry roles than if in secular jobs. One passage that may be used in defence of that view could be Matthew 4:18-22 when He calls His first disciples. They are seen leaving their boats and fishermen careers to follow Jesus and be ‘fishers of men’; which can be assumed to have been more important than what they had been doing. Though this example is specifically to the first disciples and apostles of the Church, being delegated the very important of mission of starting the Church. It might be worth asking here how much have you prayed about your career path, directly to God. Has it been enough for you to be at peace with an option yet? Since we also learn from Paul, that ‘we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us’ (Romans 12:6-8), it’s reasonable to assume that different gifts will look differently when being used. Not everyone is called to be preachers. Some are teachers, prophets, servers, encouragers, givers, leaders, mercy-showers. Most of these gifts can be exercised in secular jobs. As we also learn from the Parable of the Talents, later on in Matthew 25, what God gifts us is for us to use and invest. It is therefore okay to conclude that if our gift is to show mercy, then we are called to show mercy wherever we are, and that our gift is not anymore useful in a ministry role than it is in the secular workplace.
Apart from the fact that Christians are equally useful in both secular and ministry jobs, I would also like to assure you how work in general is integrated with your faith - and your work as a musician doesn’t need to be seen as separate from your service to God. The workplace can be used for personal evangelism and probably will be a place you end up needing to publicly declare your faith; but apart from evangelism, work in general exists for other reasons; and need not be seen as less useful because it serves a different purpose to ministry roles. These different purposes are shown from Genesis, before evangelism was even required. God worked to create and name all things, then put mankind to upkeep His creation, work the ground (Genesis 2:15); and later to fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28). God worked to care and provide for His creation - He plants a garden, waters it and fashions a wife for him (Genesis 1:6,8,21-22). God’s creation was good, yet He chose to leave humans with the potential for its development - unlock-able through labour. He also gives man the task of continuing His creative endeavour in naming things for Him (Genesis 2:19) - since He could have named everything Himself.
In chapter 1, we also see God pausing after each stage of creation to delight in the goodness of His work, even choosing to rest on the seventh day to really enjoy the work. God also didn’t needn’t rest, but He’s showing us what it means to be made in His image. When we work with joy and rest after work, we reflect God’s image in us, therefore revealing His good purpose and glorifying Him through that rest and enjoyment; by saying ‘this is the purpose God has set for these things.’ We cannot think it is for our glory, since we are also told in various places in the Bible how when we fulfill God’s purpose it is God working through us, because this is the way He’s chosen to accomplish His work - through and with us. For example, in Psalm 127:1, we are told that ‘unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labour in vain’ - showing that ultimately it is God’s will that will last through people’s work. Any work done not in accordance with His will, will not last.
In conclusion, the notion of people in specific work like ministry roles being more useful to God than people in other work, we’ve seen, is arguably a false one. One is not more useful than the other - we need both as much as the other. We’ve also seen that work in itself was made to be enjoyed and is part of living a fulfilled life with God - not separate to it. This might all be new to you, or you may need time to ponder over your decision, so I think you should go away again and pray about it. Don’t make a rash decision; be at peace, be sure - there’s no rush to change careers - you can have more than one in a lifetime. Feel free to keep orchestral playing as a hobby, if you really are sure you are being called into a full-time ministry role. Just remember that God does not arbitrarily favour one career over the other. You will be used by God wherever He places you if you do it for His glory, as you seem to be doing. Isaiah 6 is a great chapter to go away with and meditate on - to be sure that God equips those He calls.
Written on: Tuesday 10th December 2019
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