Work and Witness: Shouldn’t Be Two Separate Things…

Many churches and denominations have a missions ministry dealing with something like work and witness.  In the Church of the Nazarene, we actually have a missions ministry called “Work and Witness”, and they have done an amazing job for many years.  And while I know that you cannot judge a book by its cover, I have been thinking lately that the name “Work and Witness” does not fully embody everything that we can and should be with our missions.  Let me explain a little bit.

“Work and Witness” separates the two things.  It makes it sound like our “work” is separate from our “witness”.  And this should not be the mindset.  Our compassionate work is our witness.  The things that we do in these communities should be both evangelical and compassionate – because you should not separate these two things.  They both enhance each other.  They both connect with each other.  They are a part of each other.  And they should not be separated.

Really, it should just be considered “Life” or “Love” or “Compassion”.  We cannot have a mindset that puts things in separate boxes anymore.  We must think about life and faith and compassion and missions in terms of life and the Kingdom of God.  It is all connected.  It is all entangled beautifully together.  And it should not be separated.

So if you have a missions mindset that is compartmentalized – take some time to think about it.  Should we put things in terms of “work” and then “witness”?  Or should we simply put things in terms of life and compassion with the knowledge that it includes our work, our witness, our faith, ourselves, and everything else?

I hope that makes a little bit of sense.  And I hope that we can continue to live a life and faith that is not separated, but that includes everything that we are and are trying to do under one mindset.