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Ep. 27 - You Don’t Need to Quit Your Job to Do Ministry
0 Playsin 8 hours
In this episode, Ken Freire and Patrick Lowndes dismantle the belief that meaningful ministry only happens inside churches or nonprofits. They explore how the Bible consistently shows God working through people in positions of influence across governments, businesses, and everyday workplaces. The conversation reframes the marketplace as a powerful mission field and gives practical steps for living out your faith at work through prayer, intentional relationships, and everyday gospel conversations.
Timestamps
- 00:01 – Introduction: The false belief that you must quit your job to do real ministry.
- 02:06 – Biblical Examples of Marketplace Influence: Joseph, Daniel, and Paul as examples of God working through people in influential or business contexts.
- 05:05 – Why Christians Should Stay in the Marketplace: The danger of abandoning cultural influence and why believers are needed across industries.
- 07:39 – Prayerful Presence: Praying intentionally for coworkers and recognizing your workplace as a God-appointed assignment.
- 09:20 – Relational Intentionality: Building genuine relationships with coworkers and caring about their lives beyond work.
- 11:13 – Gospel Conversations & Gospel Fluency: Being ready to naturally share your faith and explain the hope you have.
- 14:09 – Final Charge: Don’t just survive your job—embrace it as a place God has called you to minister.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to 'Buried Talent'
00:00:08
Ken Freire
Welcome to Buried Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are. I'm Ken Freire, and I'm here with Patrick Lowndes. And today we're talking about you don't need to quit your job to do ministry.
The Secular and Sacred Divide
00:00:26
Ken Freire
And Patrick, this is something I know you are really passionate about because we tend to have a large secular and sacred divide still, even though we talk about it quite a bit.
00:00:26
Patrick
That's right.
00:00:37
Ken Freire
It's a big issue.
00:00:38
Patrick
That's right. And yeah, especially again, we invented this word in the 1300s and it's not helping us. It's one of the things that Martin Luther was trying to reform like literally 600 years ago and we're still struggling with it.
00:00:53
Patrick
And some even church traditions are really like, they're so in over their head, glorifying something that Jesus himself did not glorify in the same way. And I think there's some things we got to repent of.
Business Impact vs. Vocational Ministry
00:01:06
Patrick
So, yeah, it's going to be heavy hitting.
00:01:09
Patrick
Yeah.
00:01:09
Ken Freire
Yeah, Patrick is like ready to go. He's like, there's no quick intro.
00:01:11
Patrick
Yeah.
00:01:13
Ken Freire
He's like, he's like, come on, just give me the mic.
00:01:15
Ken Freire
But, but Patrick, let's talk about Because I think this is if people listen to this and find the true unlock about how they could really find fulfillment in the marketplace at work where they're at right now, they don't need to feel like they have to quit their job.
00:01:32
Ken Freire
I will add one quick caveat here. Sometimes there is this holy discontentment you have about your job because it might not be the right skill set or gifting or God is really trying to move you.
00:01:44
Ken Freire
We're not talking about that today. We're specifically talking about this false belief that people believe that real impact only happens in vocational ministry, whether it's like a nonprofit or a church, and that business is only just about providing.
00:01:58
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
00:02:01
Ken Freire
That's what we're really focused on here is like, that's a lie that true impact could happen in both
Marketplace Influence of Biblical Figures
00:02:06
Ken Freire
places. But let's walk through this, Patrick, how does this even get fleshed out in people's lives?
00:02:12
Patrick
Yeah. Wow. Such a big topic. think what comes to my mind is that we think about where and how God has influenced cultures and societies throughout the biblical narrative. Just stop for a second and think.
00:02:25
Patrick
I mean, Joseph... in Egypt, like literally influencing as the second in command of a very powerful nation. Daniel, same thing, like faithful to the Lord and as an exile was exalted in really high levels of government.
00:02:42
Patrick
right. And then you also look at other examples where maybe you're not influencing an entire nation, but you're still using a leveraging business as a way to, bring the kingdom. You know, I, I like how, you know, so Paul, there's a lot, there's not a lot to talk about his business, but there's a pretty expensive set of three or four missionary journeys. Some guys have actually said that the cost of those journeys, if you tried to interpret them in today's could have been three quarters of a million dollars.
00:03:08
Patrick
It's $750,000. And you can't run like a rinky dink, like maybe I make money this month, maybe I don't. You have to actually be running a pretty legitimate operation to pull that off.
Money and Marketplace as a Platform
00:03:18
Patrick
And so I think we underestimate a lot of times the power and the influence that comes in the marketplace. Why?
00:03:28
Patrick
think it's because money is probably one of the number one competitors to the God we serve. Right. And so if you can come inside and not be owned by the love of mammon or money and the power that comes with that, the God-like power in the marketplace that money can provide, man, it's such a powerful platform to show people a better way. Who's the true king in the true kingdom? So I'm going to park it right there, but man, I'm excited about this. Hmm.
00:03:56
Ken Freire
Well, you know, and I think for all of you who are listening to this, it's important to realize, one, I'm going to, I know Patrick would never do it, so I'm going to do it for him. Patrick, you're a fantastic example of what you just talked about, not letting money be your ruler, right?
00:04:11
Ken Freire
And because you, for all intents purposes, people might have been like, you've arrived. You could just sit back and chill and you could do whatever you want. you're like, no, no, I'm going to go serve people. And that's what the kingdom is.
00:04:29
Patrick
Yeah.
00:04:29
Ken Freire
Don't let that get to your head. But what I am saying is that you have decided to start Frontier Operators for this very purpose is to help people see that where they're at right now, God can utilize them powerfully.
00:04:44
Patrick
Mm-hmm.
00:04:45
Ken Freire
They don't need to wait to go to another place. There can be so many opportunities.
Christians in Influential Spaces
00:04:50
Ken Freire
And I'll just say this. I want you to think about this before we kind of go into how we want you to think about being in the marketplace.
00:04:58
Patrick
Mm.
00:04:58
Ken Freire
If all the Christians were to leave the marketplace to do, quote unquote, church ministry, right?
00:05:02
Patrick
Mm.
00:05:07
Ken Freire
Who would be there to evangelize and to minister to all of the people in the marketplace? Right. right? Like there's going to be people who are called there and I'm just going to do a little one step deeper.
00:05:12
Patrick
Mm.
00:05:19
Ken Freire
I believe Christians are called to be in influential places in leadership, in our culture, in our politics, in our schools, in our businesses.
00:05:29
Ken Freire
Like we want more believers inundated, throughout all of our society versus walking away or running away. So now the big question becomes, how do we actually double down and stay in the marketplace and consider marketplace as ministry versus feeling like it's just provision?
00:05:38
Patrick
Yeah.
00:05:49
Patrick
That's right. That's right. And if you're listening to this and you're probably attending a church, if you're listening to this and you're leading a church or administering, like, hey, these guys are like throwing shade at my, like, hey, I'm trying to get people to join my nonprofit or I'm trying to get people to get excited about one day being a pastor or something. God is calling and orchestrating some people to play that role, that leader, or working on the front lines of a really impactful nonprofit. And that is awesome. Praise God for that.
00:06:15
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:06:15
Patrick
I would just venture to guess that I might say as high as seven or eight out of 10 people that are really gifted in some kind of trade or skillset or capacity, I would say seven or eight out of 10 people probably are not called to do that thing full time, but they're probably called to be the aroma of Christ, to show what the kingdom is like in whatever sphere and sector of society in which they operate. i would say that it's unhealthy to just only have people if you're if you're trying you know work in some other part of the world you only have that two or three people that are like oh i'm you know ministry ministry ministry and have zero impact in in the culture in the broader marketplace that you're working in i feel like that's just short-sighted ken like that's just not the biblical example of influencing industries and culture so
00:07:01
Patrick
We're going to dive in. Ken, this is a teaser for what we talk about in Frontier Operators. We talk about this at nauseam, at depth, helping people develop. Give us the first of three points. We're just going to give you a little bite-sized taste of what we typically talk about. What's the first tip we want to give for people to think about their marketplace as their assignment, as their calling, as a place where they could do ministry?
Prayerful Presence in the Workplace
00:07:25
Patrick
Kick us off.
00:07:25
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:07:27
Ken Freire
The first one is, prayful presence. Yeah. And let me say that again, because I don't want you to miss it.
00:07:30
Patrick
Mm.
00:07:32
Ken Freire
It's prayful presence. You are not randomly seated there. God in his providence has put you there, and he wants you to be praying always, like it says in scripture, for those around you.
00:07:44
Ken Freire
There might be other believers around you that you guys can come together and be praying, but there might be unbelievers there. There might be situations that happening. You are praying for God to give, for a couple of things. One, God to give you opportunities to have gospel conversations. You are praying for people's souls to be open to the, for the Holy Spirit to change. And you're just seeing how can God truly move in your workplace.
00:08:10
Ken Freire
So real practical today, one of the things that you could do is pick three co-workers, three co-workers that you just want to start praying for and pray for them daily, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it takes that you just double down on their souls and think about how are you now positioned in a place where God has put you there to save their, to give them an opportunity to be saved.
00:08:34
Patrick
Yeah, wow. Would you do that? Would you actually pick three people? Like even as an accountability, some of you listen with your friends to Buried Talent, text your friend who listens to Buried Talent, hey, here are three names of people.
00:08:47
Patrick
Just do that right now. Like pause it right now. Yeah, if you're still listening, you're not taking the challenge, hit pause, unless you're driving. But then you can do voice to text, it's all good. But pause it and send those three names. Use your time to be more effective, like right now, start with praying with three people.
Building Genuine Relationships
00:09:06
Patrick
That's one. Okay, number two, relational intentionality. Now, that one is key because many times when we look at Jesus' life and the way that he made Talmudin, or disciples, if you're going to talk about the rabbinic tradition where they have followers called Talmudin, his students, I think in the chosen, he says, my students, right?
00:09:26
Patrick
That's more the English translation.
00:09:27
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:09:27
Patrick
Right. But they would fall. They would spend a lot of time with each other like all day long. And so with your coworkers, obviously you're not going to go like hang out on their cubicle all day. Right. But with your coworkers, can you just start by this?
00:09:41
Patrick
Do you know, does your, obviously your coworkers name, that's baseline. Do you know if they have an SO, a significant other, right? they have a partner? have a friend? they have roommates? Do you know anything about their life outside of work?
00:09:54
Patrick
Let's just start with that. If you know about that and you demonstrate that you care about that, then there starts to be this relationship thing going on where you're not just all business. And as believers, when we work, yes, we're bringing excellent work, we're doing all these things, but when we care about people, it gives us the ability to go deeper with them and talk with them about things that are going on in life, things that might matter, things that might be underneath the surface that you're having to deal with the surface level stuff on a project or on a team, and there's other stuff going on in the basement or outside of work
00:10:29
Patrick
you know, in the basement relationally that you could figure out and you could actually meet them where maybe they need someone to hear them. And so there's a whole lot more we're going to say on this in a future couple episodes where we teach about this. We're going give you a few more, you know, snippets and soundbites. But yeah, relational intentionality is key. Do you know enough or anything about your coworkers? Ken, give us the third one and then we'll wrap it up.
Sharing the Gospel in Everyday Life
00:10:53
Ken Freire
Yeah, the third one is gospel conversations or gospel fluency. What we're trying to do here is like, you're not trying to be like hardcore evangelism, like let's go Romans Road or street preaching, you know, on the street. But you're trying to say like, are you ready to articulate the gospel when you have these opportunities?
00:11:12
Ken Freire
So want you think about this. If you've been praying for three people, right? Right. God may open up doors and opportunities because of you being relationally intentional. Imagine taking those people out to lunch, hanging out with them, or inviting them over for dinner.
00:11:28
Ken Freire
You're being relationally intentional. All of a sudden, it's going to open up conversations for you to have gospel conversations. And this might not mean that they're going to get saved on the first conversation, but it's about sharing your testimony, sharing why you believe what you believe, how God is trusting you, what God is doing in your life. The second thing is that it's also going to show the more that you are a part of their lives, they're going to see an integrity about you. They're see the Holy Spirit moving in you very differently than how they may be acting or behaving.
00:12:03
Ken Freire
If you were listening last week's episode about disappointment, if your friends see that you're disappointed in something and the way you handle it, man, all of sudden they're like, dude, something different about this person and I want what they want.
00:12:03
Patrick
right.
00:12:14
Ken Freire
And that's what this gives you an opportunity for.
00:12:15
Patrick
That's right.
00:12:19
Patrick
Yeah. And as you think about it, you know, first Peter talks about, you know, having a reason for the hope that you have, right? If you're not living in such a way where they're even curious about any hope that you might have, that's probably an indictment on your own ability to follow Jesus and live differently, right? So we need to be thinking about, yeah, how am I living? And is it any, would anybody be able to look in from the outside and say, wow, you know,
00:12:46
Patrick
you don't just live exactly the way the world lives and exactly like how
Secular Jobs as Ministry
00:12:49
Patrick
I would expect you to live. You kind of do this different thing. I kind of get this a lot in Seattle. They talk about the Seattle, you know, uh, freeze, uh, the Seattle freeze is like, people don't want They're not very friendly.
00:12:59
Patrick
They don't to talk to you. So many times I get, I get kind of this look like you're not from around here. Are you, If I actually am from around here, I'm just intentionally the antifreeze.
00:13:09
Patrick
And then they'll usually laugh because we all know what that means.
00:13:10
Ken Freire
Yeah.
00:13:12
Patrick
So I think you summed it up really nicely, Ken. think I want to finish with one more piece here that if you are in a – there are some groups like a case manager where it's like every eight hours a day, you're dealing with deep issues that people are getting through off the street or they're dealing with abuse. Clearly, there are some ministries, there's some nonprofits, there's work in all different kinds of sectors that can lend you to, I'll say, more frequent conversations. What we're trying to say is,
00:13:40
Patrick
If you're not in one of those areas and you're not feeling called to one of them, you're probably like the 70% to 80% of the rest of us who are out there working jobs. Don't just let your paycheck and your opportunities go to waste by saying, oh, I'm just going to donate to a couple ministries and that's my contribution to God's kingdom. Embrace the power of the marketplace and your role, your relationships, and your ability to reveal a better way, a better king, a better kingdom. in that. So can any final words that kind of bring us home?
Embracing Your Job as a Calling
00:14:10
Ken Freire
I think for those of you who might be thinking about that, I just want to reiterate what Patrick was just saying. Don't feel like you have to quit your day job. Your day job is exactly where God has you.
00:14:22
Ken Freire
This is where God wants you today work. And there may be a time when he's gonna move you onto something else.
00:14:26
Patrick
Hmm.
00:14:30
Ken Freire
But in the moment that you're in today, that is what you've been called to. God has providentially called you today to minister where you're at. Don't forsake it.
00:14:39
Patrick
Mm. Mm.
00:14:40
Ken Freire
Don't try to just cope with it or just survive it. Embrace it and know that God is gonna be using you And until next time, stay tuned because we're going to bring some great heaters next week on Buried Talent.