Get Involved in God’s Story
Tools, encouragement and motivation to live life on purpose
God’s Laborers: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Calling
A laborer is a disciple in action, one who not only learns from Jesus, but who enters God’s story and lives out what He teaches. God’s looking for more people to join in … are you ready? Below are videos and articles to help you learn more about laborership and developing the most important gift you have to offer—a life forged by intimacy with God.Summer Recap: “God Equipped Me”
Summer Recap: “God Equipped Me”
Forged by Intimacy with God
Are you willing to draw near to God, our Forge? Your life was made to make an impact, one in which will only be realized as you live life up-close to God. Dwight Robertson, President and Founder of Forge, shares a powerful reminder that your intimacy with God is the greatest gift you will give this world. No matter how young or seasoned your relationship with God is, the wonder of walking in friendship with our Creator is that there’s always a new depth to experience in intimacy with Him.
After listening to this message from Hebrews 11-12, schedule some extended time alone with God in this upcoming week. Consider using these these teaching notes to help guide your time:
Forged by Intimacy with God
Relationships grow and mature. At least, that’s the way God designed them. We were never meant for stagnant, non-developing relationships. Can you imagine being born and saying to your parents, “I’m good. This is as far as I want to go”? Or, getting married and saying to your spouse, “We stood at the altar and have a certificate. That should do it, right?” As ridiculous as that may sound, that’s exactly how some people approach their relationship with God. “Didn’t I say I’m sorry way back when, Lord? Isn’t that enough?”
We were made for so much more.
We were made for an ongoing, deepening and fruit-bearing love relationship with God and people. It was never God’s intention for us to simply be in good standing with Him. His desire has always been for authentic fellowship. “Fellowship” is a Bible-word that means “knowing and doing life with another in the deepest, closest and most meaningful way.”
Laborership develops out of that constant life of fellowship with God. Far beyond an “I got saved, I’m good” posture, one becomes a Kingdom laborer through a deep desire to continually please God and intentionally make choices to love Him and others well. As our love for God and others grows, we change. That change is what is defined in scripture as “transformation.”
The Life Change graph (right) demonstrates the maturing, transforming, in-motion life of a Kingdom laborer. God, out of His love for us, draws us to Himself. Our life as an Unbeliever moves into the life of a Believer as we agree with God about our sin-problem and ask Him to take charge of our life.
“Begin” is the operative word. Our restored fellowship with God was never meant to be the end goal but “the beginning to a wonderful friendship” (as Humphrey Bogart says at the end of Casablanca). As our friendship and fellowship with God grows, our relationship with Him deepens. Transformation happens, and we move from the life of Believer to the life of Follower. The Follower wants as much of God as she or he can get. To be a Follower is to “hunger and thirst after God” and do everything possible to align our lives to His ways. The prayer of the Follower is “Lord, forge me.”
Praying such a fervent prayer as a Follower leads the Kingdom laborer to another prayer: “Lord, forge us and forge them.” The shift of focus from self to others moves the Follower to a Laborer. While personal growth with God continues, the Laborer’s central concern becomes getting active in what God is up to in His love and transformation of others. The Laborer lives a spiritually-multiplying life and is ready to offer whatever “loaves and fishes” she or he possesses. The hope of a Laborer is that they will impact others, and that in turn, those others will become transformed, multiplying Kingdom laborers themselves.
From Unbeliever to Believer to Follower to multiplying Laborer, God’s transforming love grows and matures us. The result of such transformational change? Our fellowship with Him gets sweeter as His will on earth is done as it is in heaven.
Where are you on the Life Change graph?
The Transformational Life of Laborership
A Life of Impact
Sometimes it’s the real-life examples of others that spark new vision and passion for living life on purpose for the King. Let these stories open your eyes to the many possibilities of what God can do through you—for great impact is made through ordinary people who desire to connect with God's heart to reach the broken and lost around them.Stories from the Experience: Damion Cooper
Stories from the Experience: Damion Cooper
“They just needed someone to ask”
I walked past several rows of benches filled with people crowded together, right up to the very front of the ferry. I wanted a clear view of the water as we began the short trip from Ukerewe Island back to the mainland of Tanzania. I settled myself in for the ride, closing my eyes and listening to the African music blare through the speakers almost directly over my head.
But as I sat there, a thought was nagging at the back of my mind. What about all those people?
I opened my eyes again and furrowed my brow, trying to unpack that thought. All the people we left behind after a couple of days of ministry among the albino community? All the people we were headed toward as we turned our sights to the journey back to Kenya?
No–I knew that “all those people” that were being whispered about in my head were the ones sitting behind me: row upon row of Africans who may or may not know who Jesus is. What about all those people? What if they have never heard of Jesus?
The thought, I’ll confess, is not one that typically sets up camp in my brain. Living in the United States, working in a ministry dedicated to training and equipping those who are already pursuing Jesus, it is rare that I find myself in large groups of people who don’t know about Him. So I sat, a little more uncomfortably, as the thought bunched up in my heart like an ill-fitting sweater, not fully sure what I was supposed to do about it.
I half noticed that our team leader was walking around the barge. Wandering soul that he is, I wasn’t surprised and didn’t pay him much attention. But my ears perked up as he returned and told us he’d been thinking, and felt like we had an opportunity in front of us. “So, who wants to tell all these people about Jesus?”
I thought maybe I would jump up immediately. Of course I wanted to…. Right? Wasn’t that what I had been pondering ever since I’d found my seat?
But instead, my heart dropped into my stomach. The old tentativeness and timidity that had held sway over my life for so long chose that moment to rear their unhappy and unwelcome heads. The ferry ride won’t be that long. It’s not like you’re going to have the opportunity to have really deep conversations with any of these people. What do you have to say anyway? What difference could it possibly make?
These angry thoughts buzzed around my being, poking and prodding and teasing and taunting. Frustrated, I stared a little harder out over the water–and in the midst of all the other voices, I heard the small whisper that I love the most: “Who else has held the oceans in his hand?” (Isaiah 40:12)
My mind flashed back to another time I was sitting on the edge of a boat, gazing out across the vast expanse of water stretched before my dangling feet, as I remembered this Scripture and felt so small. I remembered looking out across the water and realizing that the God I serve is so big He can hold all the waters of the universe in the palm of His hand, and when I looked down at my own hands they seemed so small, so fragile, so weak.
But in that moment, for once, feeling small didn’t carry with it disappointment or discouragement, or a stinging accusation that I should be different, stronger, better.
No. Instead I felt safe, secure, and comforted. Because those big ocean-holding hands are holding me too.
I snapped back to the present and heard the words escape my lips: “I’ll do it. I’ll tell them about Jesus.”
A couple of minutes later, I awkwardly stood up in front of the crowd as the owner of the boat lowered the music, and curious eyes and questioning grins were turned toward me. I took a deep breath and began to speak, pausing for my friend Moses to translate my words into Swahili. Before long, I was breathing more freely, realizing there really wasn’t anything to be afraid of. And before I knew what was happening, I stood back in awe as two men came to the side of the benches and got on their knees, saying they wanted to give their lives to Jesus.
I anticipated that this would be a story about me, overcoming tentativeness and timidity, refusing to let those fiends have the final say. But as the story unfolded in front of me and took shape in my heart, I realized it was about much more. While I was caught in limbo, processing the days of ministry we had just left and beginning to transition to where we were headed next, God was up to something. He was up to something in the present moment, in the in-between, along-the-way place. He was up to something more than simply stretching me (though He did that), more than simply reminding me that it is about Him and not about me (though He did that, too). He was working in deep, unseen ways in the hearts of two men who were right on the brink of saying “yes” to Him, and just needed the opportunity. They just needed someone to ask. And in a matter of moments, as a boat crossed a small stretch of water, they encountered the King.
We are small. But if we are willing, if we can learn to refuse to listen to all the reasons why we should remain silent, maybe those big hands can use us to change the world.
Because that is our Father’s business. He is changing lives, right here, right now. Will you join Him?
“They just needed someone to ask”
You’ve most likely seen it: two workers on the same job—one smiling and whistling, the other gruff and grumbling. Something within causes us to ask, “What’s the difference?” Is one just having a bad day? Is it job satisfaction, home life, or personality? Maybe. Those are all reasonable explanations for the disparity between likability and irritability on any single workday. Or has one discovered the joy of laboring?
Finding the Joy of Laboring
What’s the difference between those who joyously approach their work and those who, quite frankly, are somewhat difficult to be around? The answer: focus and desire. Those who find joy in laboring are those who find purpose and pleasure beyond the work at hand and any personal glory or gain.
Tireless and Painstaking Tasks Can Be Joyful
An eight-member heating and air conditioning crew finished the painstaking task of installing a completely new HVAC system in our recently acquired fixer-upper home. Fitting new systems in old houses is never easy. The crew worked tirelessly for 2 long days. They sweated, strained, even choked and coughed as they struggled with odd fittings and leftover dust and dirt that come with old houses. The crew, though young in age, completed the job with great diligence, skill, and… joy.
My wife, Dawn, and I were quite impressed and grateful for the team’s work. At the end of the second day, we gathered the crew to say “thank you” with some cold drinks, fresh-baked treats, and words of commendation.
How Do Words Impact Your Work?
“We just wanted you to know that your labor has not gone unnoticed,” I told them. “We can’t say enough about how hard you’ve worked, how respectful you’ve been, and what a great job you have done.” The crew smiled and seemed to really soak in the gratitude and care.
Then, the foreman of the crew spoke, “Dwight, you don’t know how much it meant to hear your words and receive the goodies you have given us over the past two days. But tonight means everything because we live and work the way we do for one reason: to hear only positive comments at the end of the job.” Something far beyond a paycheck motivated these young men to work as hard as they did with the attitude they displayed.
The Joy of What Is to Come Helps You Finish the Work
Maybe that was why Jesus could “endure the cross and scorn its shame” (Hebrews 12:2). The excruciating task in front of Jesus gave way to His desire to please God and benefit others. And what an agonizing endeavor Jesus took on. Can you even imagine the horrific weight of sin He shouldered, the loneliness and separation He experienced, the intolerable physical and emotional pain He endured?
And yet, Hebrews tells us that the “joy” of what was to come enabled Jesus to finish the work He began.
- Perhaps it was the joy of a “Well done” from the Father that helped Jesus persevere.
- Maybe the joy of knowing that salvation’s work would forever be complete kept Jesus pressing on.
- Perhaps seeing the joy that freedom brings on such faces as yours and mine helped Jesus endure each crushing blow.
Whatever the fullness of “the joy set before Him,” this we know: what enabled Jesus to keep enduring and laboring was His focus and desire to please God and benefit us. Quite simply, Jesus was motivated by real and unadulterated love—He knew the joy of laboring for a greater purpose.
Such love keeps us doing the hard things (and even the agonizingly painful things) willingly, lovingly… joyfully. With such love, the focus becomes not on how difficult or easy our work is but how much what we do will please and benefit the one for whom we are laboring.
The need for everyday laborers in God’s Kingdom is great. That being so, consider these 2 challenges:
- Let the motivating force of your laboring be a desire to please God and benefit others.
- Let your laboring be filled with and marked by… joy.
Do you find joy in laboring for Kingdom impact? Ask God to start speaking to your heart about the impact He wants to make through you.
The Joy of Laborership
Take Action to Live on Purpose
So what will it be? How will you do it? How will you uniquely put your faith into action in your family, school, workplace, community and beyond? Not sure where to start? Let God show you how, who and where. God is with you—and with Him, you can be the answer to Jesus’ prayer request for more laborers to get moving (Matthew 9:37). We would love to pray alongside you as you take action.Let us know how we can pray for you!
Caleb Bislow: “Jesus Called Us to Go”
Caleb Bislow: “Jesus Called Us to Go”
Perhaps the idea of “seeing, stopping, and spending time with” people as Jesus did may be new to you. Maybe your current thinking around loving people with intentionality could use a few fresh ideas. Or perhaps you could just use some encouragement that you’re not alone and on the right track in your “on purpose” Kingdom laboring.
Let’s be clear, the lists below are not all-inclusive. Nor are they quizzes or check-lists to determine how well you love. The lists are intended to be memory-joggers and ways of thinking creatively about opportunities to lovingly impact people in the places you do life nearly every day.
Before getting to the ideas below, consider these more general understandings of what it means to love others intentionally:
Loving others on purpose does not require a rocket science degree. It does call for a desire and willingness to genuinely love people with intentionality and sacrifice.
Loving others on purpose will necessitate depending on Jesus to lead you and to give you what is needed along the way. Only Jesus can help you love others authentically and keep you from lesser, self-serving forms of love.
Loving others calls for attentiveness. You will need to watch and listen to what others are saying, doing, and experiencing. Your appropriate response will come as you also listen attentively to God’s voice and instruction. If you’re watching closely and caring deeply, love will show you what to do.
Loving others can be as simple as asking, “What is the loving thing to do here?” and then doing it. You need not over-calculate or over-evaluate love. Just love authentically as you know how and ask God to lead you. Let love do its work. Do the loving thing and leave the results to God.
With those more general thoughts in mind, here are some more specific, intentional and practical ways to live life on purpose by loving those around you:
FAMILY & FRIENDS
- Take the smaller piece, the lesser share. Let others in your family go first at meal time, in sharing the bathroom, when picking the movie to watch, when walking through doors, etc. Take the back seat in the car. Let your sacrifice show that you consider them more highly then yourself.
- Leave a note of encouragement. Encourage them in what they are striving after. Let them know you are cheering them on.
- Be quick to say, “I missed it, I blew it, I’m sorry, please forgive me.”
- Don’t give up on a family member or friend when everyone else has. Let them know that your love, like God’s, has staying power.
- Take time to listen. What interests your family member? What are the deepest longings and fears of your friends? What do they hope for? Where do they feel inadequate? What do they really think about God and His love for them?
- Resist making your point or winning an argument that isn’t all that important. Love neither flies off the handle nor has to have its way. Ask God (perhaps whisper a prayer midstream) to let love reign amid arguments and conflict.
- Clean a sibling’s, parent’s or child’s bedroom unexpectedly. Complete an item or two on their chore list (watch them wonder why!).
- Invite your family member or friend to go out for lunch, coffee or ice cream. Pay for it. You may have no conversation at all. Or, you may ask, “Where are you these days in your relationship with God?” Let love lead you. And listen more than you talk.
- When asked, “How was your day?” say, “I’ll be glad to share that with you; but first, tell me about your day.” Give them your full attention.
- Be responsible. Let them know what real love looks like by stewarding your money and time well, keeping your word, being consistent in faith and life, following through, being dependable, etc. Love takes root and deeper conversations take place when love’s actions are consistent with love’s speech.
- Talk about what being “on mission” together as a friend group or family looks like. Seek God together for people and places to adopt (a neighborhood block, a rescue mission, a people or place you’re burdened for… anywhere in the world, etc.). Prayerfully discover ways to enter and engage your new mission field… and get after it!
- Set aside some time that you would otherwise give the TV screen or social media outlets and meet with a friend or family member. Discuss current social events and happenings locally and globally. Seek God together for truth and understanding. Ask God how He wants you to be salt and light in the situation or issue.
WORK/SCHOOL
- Have genuine interest in what’s going on in someone else’s weekend, life, or day. Make the conversation about them and resist the urge to turn it back to you.
- Take the job no one else wants to do. Do the work cheerfully and joyfully.
- Take notice when someone is having a bad day. Ask them, “Are you having a rough day?” Listen. Ask them if it would be okay to pray for them. If that isn’t possible, at least let them know that you will be praying for them (and do it!).
- Find someone on the fringes (sits alone at lunch, keeps to herself, doesn’t talk much in groups, etc). Take initiative to start a conversation with him, give her an encouraging word, invite or include him to join the group, sit with her at lunchtime, etc.
- Live consistently with humility and integrity. People will trust your love for them when they see you are doing your best to live and love as Jesus. And when you blow it, be quick to say so.
- Encourage and appreciate someone who is in authority over you. Most leaders feel under-valued, under-appreciated, and lonely. Even if you don’t agree with all they do, find something positive to compliment or appreciate. Every boss, teacher, principal and president matters to God—purposefully love them!
- Ask God for one person to intentionally love at work or school. Begin to talk to God about them. Ask God to help you love them authentically and not see them as a “spiritual project.” Ask God to give you wisdom in building a genuinely loving relationship with them. Follow through.
- Use whatever clout you have to create a loving atmosphere among your peers at school or work. Lead by example. Be first in doing “the loving thing” (no matter the courage or cost required). Let the salt and light of your love flavor and illuminate your co-workers or schoolmates. In time, they will want to know what enables you to live and love in such a way. Be ready to share with them what God has done and is doing in your life.
- Use the gifts God has given you (sports, hobbies, intelligence, music, skills, etc.) to enter community and build relationships. Work hard. Be a good teammate and dependable co-worker. As God points you to specific people or gives you opportunity to have deeper, one-on-one God-conversations, engage them with great love and intention.
- Team up with others in your school or workplace to love others “on purpose.” Pray together, encourage one another, work together in loving someone God places on your heart.
- Look for someone who needs encouraged in their relationship with Jesus. Pray for them, spend time with them, and cast vision for their life and laboring with them. Let them know they are not alone—that you are co-laboring with them.
- You are not at your workplace or school by chance. God has far more in mind than a paycheck or education to personally benefit you. Ask God about the special ways He has wired and equipped you to love people where He has placed you. Love and serve people confidently, knowing God has called you and given you every resource necessary to uniquely labor for Him where you are.
NEIGHBOR/COMMUNITY/WORLD
- Open the door for someone and smile infectiously. Pull the grocery cart out of someone’s parking spot. Pick up trash or papers someone else left. Great love in small ways matters.
- Invite a neighbor over for coffee or tea just to “catch up” or get acquainted. If it’s been awhile, you can always acknowledge, “I can’t believe we’ve lived so close for so long and haven’t gotten a chance to know each other better. I’d love to start now.”
- Invite someone to attend or watch a sporting event (or another hobby or common interest) together. Let love meet people in unthreatening and relaxed places.
- Show up during or after life’s rough moments (after a break-up, divorce, death, loss of job, home damage, car accident, miscarriage, etc.). Be present. Talk little, listen a lot. Find out how you can care for them in simple, practical ways. Do not play on their emotions. Do, however, fiercely love them.
- Offer to care for someone’s pet, water their flowers, or collect their mail if you know they are going to be gone. If they offer to pay you, tell them you simply want to be a good neighbor or that God has blessed you a lot and you just want to pay it forward.
- Ask God to make you attentive to love as you enter a meeting, a conversation, a bank transaction, a retail store, a sporting event, a church building, someone’s home, etc.
- Help someone move anything, anywhere—an entire home, a college dorm room, a piece of furniture, a plant, etc. Remember that “love” is a verb. Let your remembrance of God’s active love in your life help you serve with great joy.
- Show up at community events, neighborhood gatherings, homeowner meetings, etc. Let others know you live among them and not above them. Showing up in these places will give you opportunity to show up in more personal, relational ways with your neighbors.
- Use your skills (carpentry, finance, coaching) to enter community to begin building loving relationships. Offer to fix a screen door, volunteer at a community center, coach a little league team, etc. Put yourself where Jesus put Himself—among those who needed God’s love and relationship.
- Ask God to make you aware of someone in your everyday traveling paths—a gas station attendant, a fast food worker, a bank teller, a coffee barista, a janitor, a mailperson, etc. Ask God how to best love this person He has placed in your daily routine. Introduce yourself to them and begin a new friendship. Allow God to guide the relationship at His pace.
- Connect with others who know Jesus in your neighborhood, town or campus. Begin praying together for ways to impact your community with God’s love. Find out what the needs of your community are and strategize ways to fill those needs (babysitting, after-school programs, neighborhood watch, clean-up help after a storm, check-ins on the elderly and others, exercise groups, tutoring, leaf raking, snow-removal, etc.). Let your love through action build relationships as God draws them closer to Him through you.
- Find out how other people in your community are laboring for the Kingdom and encourage them, partner with them, and find other ways to resource them.
CHURCH
- Volunteer for the “hard to recruit” areas of ministry (children’s ministry, nursery, teachers, set-up/clean-up, etc.).
- Be attentive to those around you in worship—pray for them, take genuine interest in them, greet them as you would want to be greeted, ask and remember their names. Love and care beyond the greeting portion of the service.
- Invite someone to dinner or coffee—this could be someone new or someone you’ve gone to church with for years but haven’t gotten to really know. Ask them, “So, what does the rest of your life involve when you’re not going to church?”
- Enter leadership meetings with an attitude of love. Ask God to help you see others in love, to help you make decisions in love, to deal with differing opinion in love, and to seek His Kingdom agenda in love. Above all things, put on love with the people with whom you lead and serve.
- Ask the pastor, staff, or other ministry leaders to provide you with a name or two of someone who could use a friend, encouragement, or help. Ask God how you should go about best loving them.
- Welcome the stranger that seems to be over-looked or undervalued.
- Give generously and joyously (time, resources, money, talent) to the multiplying work of the church. Be faithful and trust God.
- Visit shut-ins, the elderly, the sick, and those in prison. Your pastor and staff will appreciate the help, and those you visit will be glad you came.
- Get eye-level with youth and children. Encourage their socks off, believe in them, and pray for them. Ask them to show or teach you something. Show up at their games or events. Make their parents aware of your desire to love intentionally and keep them involved in the process. While you’re at it, love and encourage the parent as well.
- Risk embarrassing yourself. Wondering if you’ve already met someone or feeling guilty, because “I should have known them better by now,” can keep you from building relationship and loving others. Avoid it. Let your love for others in your church trump any awkwardness or embarrassment you might experience. Remember, genuine love wins every time.
- Look for someone who is relationally hungry for God and ready to serve Him. Pray for them. Pray with them. Resource them. Share life with them. Cast vision with and for them. Study the Bible with them and teach them whatever you can. Pass the spiritual baton of faith you have received.
- Invite others to join you in praying for your church. Pray for pastor, leaders, and decision-makers. Pray for fresh and renewed vision to live with hearts on fire and lives on purpose. Pray against any “rulers, authorities, and evil forces in the heavenly realm” (Eph 6:12-14) that would hinder all God wants to do in and through your church. Pray for more laborers in God’s harvest fields (Mt 9:38). Pray for God’s multiplying, active love to be a hallmark of your church. And let your prayers move each of you to action.
Ideas for Love-in-Action Impact
How Am I Wired?
By John Boyd
Ted is a financial wizard. He can fill-out a spread sheet and forecast quarterly sales figures like nobody’s business. Ask Ted to distinguish between an oil plug and a radiator hose, however, and Ted gets a little lost under the hood of his Prius.
That’s why Ted takes his car to Sheila’s Automotive. Sheila’s been working on cars and trucks ever since she was old enough to slide underneath the front side of her family’s 1957 Impala with wrench and ratchet in hand. Sheila learned her automotive skills from her father, Gene.
Now, Gene isn’t a mechanic. Fixing cars has always just been a hobby of his. His 9 to 5 job is actually as a therapist. Somehow counseling people who are never quite “fixed” makes car repair a worthwhile diversion. Gene’s skills as a counselor, however, continue to be of great benefit to Debbie.
Debbie is coping with grief. Debbie is a fine lawyer, but her knack at good negotiating will never be enough to bring her 2-year old son, Ethan, back to life. That’s why she needs someone like Gene. And she needs someone like Lydia too. Lydia is Debbie’s friend, who is praying like crazy for God to bring Debbie out of her despair.
Where is all this going? You have a ministry that is as unique as you are.
We rarely give a second thought to seeking out specialized services from people who have certain skill sets that are unique. When it comes to laboring in God’s Kingdom, however, why do so many of us feel we just don’t measure up for the job? Somehow, we think we have to possess every spiritual gift listed in scripture, be able to win theological arguments that haven’t been settled for centuries, know the Bible with professor-like precision, win to Christ every non-believer we encounter, and when called upon, pray powerfully enough to start a revival at the drop of a hat. We aren’t super-saints. Nor does God want us to be—at least not in the way just described.
God is looking for everyday, faithful people who will willingly use what He has given them to serve Him in the unique ways He has wired them.
Ted will never repair his own car; Sheila will do it. Sheila will never file her own incorporation papers; that’s a job for Debbie. Debbie will go to Ted for taxes and if Lydia ever needs counseling, she’ll probably go to Gene. None of these people were called to do it all. They each have unique gifts that they simply share with others where and when they are able.
Is God calling you to relax and let go of the wearisome notion that being a super-saint is the necessary requirement for Kingdom laboring? Maybe it’s time to better discover the unique ways God has wired you so that you may work for Him in ways that free you and not bind you. You’ll be amazed how having a better grasp on who you are and the unique ways God has gifted you will move from a hesitant spectator to a motivated and energized, in-the-game Kingdom laborer.
Want to know more about how God has uniquely wired you?
Here are two tools we want to offer you to do just that!
- Motivational Gift Mix assessment
- Personal Ministry Inventory
