An M3 Journey

This edition of M3 Weekly is the latest installment in our series called “M3 Journeys,” highlighting the experiences of various missional enterprise practitioners. This week, we sit down with Tim1, whose entrepreneurial path includes decades of experience, both as an employee and as a business owner.

The first half of our interview is included below, describing how Tim grew out of disillusionment with the business world into an empowering understanding of the biblical theology of work. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

M3 Weekly: I would love to hear your journey of how you ended up in this thing called missional enterprise.

Tim: Early in my career, I ran an independent agency that offered services to other small businesses. It was profitable, but at the time, I completely lacked a theology of work. I didn’t know how my daily work could connect to honoring God. The business world felt like something totally separate from my walk with him. I really struggled with that and even came to resent it.

Later, for various reasons and challenges, we stepped away from that business. I took another job with a company that had long been rated as one of the best places in America to work. They had built quite a reputation, and I quickly became one of their top producers in a particular line of products. I read the press clippings and assumed this was a company that genuinely wanted to do right by its clients and employees.

But when I discovered some things that didn’t line up with that image, I felt it was appropriate to bring those concerns to leadership. To my surprise, I found that the press clippings and the reality were not the same. And despite my success in sales, I was escorted out of the building for raising the issue that clients were being mistreated.

That left me deeply disillusioned with the business world. I began to wrestle with what I had experienced, and I turned to scripture. As I studied, I saw a sharp contrast between God’s view of work and the way it was often understood in the church—where a divide is assumed between what is “sacred” and what is “secular.” I remember thinking: Something’s not right. What I had seen in the business world didn’t line up with the theology of work I was finding in scripture—especially the truth that there is no such thing as a sacred–secular divide.

Whatever You Do

M3W: What aspects of a good theology of work do you feel are critical, not just for missional entrepreneurs, but for the whole body of Christ?

Tim: I often go back to the verse: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Eating and drinking are ordinary, everyday things. If even those can be done in a way that glorifies him, then there is nothing in life that cannot be sacred. Everything we do can—and should—be done with that mindset.

For years, I ended my workdays with a sense of futility, asking myself, What have I done today that has any value or worth? That was because I didn’t understand the theology of work. But once I realized that all work can be sacred, I saw that I didn’t need to end the day thinking I had wasted my time. No! Doing business and generating economic activity in a way that honors God is anything but a waste of time. It glorifies him, advances his kingdom, and paints a picture of the gospel for the lost.

That perspective gives tremendous meaning to doing business. Sadly, much of the church is missing this. Too many believers don’t realize that their daily work can be sacred, holy, and full of meaning and purpose. Not only can those things be true of our work — they should be!

In a future edition of M3 Weekly, we will hear more of Tim’s journey.

Verse of the Week

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17 (NIV)

Let’s meditate on this verse and rejoice that whatever we do—including the work God has called us to—can be done for Jesus and in his name.