Mark 16:15  Go into all the world.

Although it is important to be a pastor, in its place, it is just important to be a layperson anyplace. For anyplace, as opposed to church, is where important decisions that affect our world are being made. In the layperson's world big things are happening: nuclear power has been discovered, lend-lease, computer chips, and Hula Hoops have been invented. Clergy ponder, dream, hope, pray, and have magnificent visions. Every last one of those is essential. But it is not in church where history's crucial acts are performed or the world's battles are joined. Even the invasion of Satan's kingdom by the army of Christ occurs in the lay world, not in the world of the clergy. Clergy train the troops, map the strategy, and equip the army. But the job is done by laypeople.

Among Christians it's almost a truism to remark that the need of the day is to get people into church. There is a need, too, to get Christian people out of the church. It is part of God's strategy that His people go into the world, invade it, and take possession of it in His name.

In the final analysis it's not a matter of getting Christians out of the church, exactly. It's a matter of getting the church out of its sanctuary, out of its preoccupation with its own machinery and interests, and into the battlefield. Interestingly the Bible does not say, "Whether you worship or pray or whatever chrchly thing you do, do it all for the glory of God." It says, "Whether you eat or drink or whatever (day to day, homely thing) you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).
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