Kingdom Workers

Who or what is a Kingdom worker?

Jesus told his followers, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go!...tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near" (Luke 10:2-3a, 9).
Anyone, anywhere, who actively responds to these verses, who is willing to tell people about Jesus and invite them into His wonderful Kingdom, is a Kingdom worker.

More About Kingdom Workers...

For a few years now the members and friends of New Life Lutheran Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana, have been using the term "Kingdom worker" to refer to God's people working for God's mission. How did this term come into use among us? You can blame it on two things: the call God placed on my heart to help laypeople discover their place in God's mission, and the fact that writers like to play with words.

Since the time of the early church, laypeople have been doing missionary work. Persecuted Christian laypeople, who were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria, "preached the word wherever they went." (Acts 8:1-4) Clearly, every believer has a place in God's mission and could be called a missionary. The problem is that most laypeople have difficulty identifying with the term missionary. I know this because I have heard as much from a lot of laypeople and because I have had a hard time accepting the term myself. Call yourself a missionary and you are liable to get some interesting questions like, "Oh, you are a missionary? Where did you serve?" For many folks it just doesn't seem plausible to be a missionary serving behind a computer, waiting in a doctor's office, hanging out at a playground, teaching in the classroom or many of the other places laypeople serve in the course of their everyday lives.

Intrigued, as any investigative writer might be, I examined personal conversations, public expressions and written contexts to see how the term missionary was commonly used and discovered it was overwhelmingly linked with those people whose primary, dedicated, full-time work was focused on serving in the mission outreach of the church, usually by fully immersing themselves in cultures other than their own, and most often overseas. It is meaningful to have such a term for these specially called people, and we should use it in this case. However, this restricted understanding of the term missionary appears to make laypeople extremely reluctant to use it to describe themselves.

So, the question became, should we fight on to change people's minds about the title, or come up with a new term? A close study of scripture revealed something quite surprising that led to the answer. Jesus never actually called anyone a missionary or used the word mission! What He did speak about frequently though, was the Kingdom of heaven and the need for workers to tell people about this Kingdom. As Jesus considered the tremendous harvest of lost souls, one need stood out above all others-the need for workers. So, Jesus told his followers, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. (Luke 10:2-3a)

The desire of Jesus' heart was clear-Pray and ask for workers. But He did not stop there. With his next breath, He said, Go!...tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is near." (Luke 10:9b) Jesus didn't want his disciples to just pray about workers, He also wanted them to get on the move. He organized some of his devoted followers into teams and mobilized them to go out into the harvest fields. Thus, the term Kingdom worker comes from these verses. It is really Jesus' term. Jesus wants to bring everyone into His Kingdom and, odd as it seems, His plan is to do so through human teams of willing workers who will tell people about Him and invite them into His marvelous Kingdom.

As far as we can tell, those early Kingdom workers didn't have any special credentials, titles or degrees; they were simply willing to trust the Lord for strength and guidance as they worked to bring in the harvest of souls. Today, millions of believers carry on the work of the Lord's Kingdom, regardless of what anyone calls them, good or bad. In the end, titles, labels or special terms won't affect anyone's salvation; but, in the meantime, the term Kingdom worker can help us communicate a call, connect a community, provide an identity, and finally allow one writer a little rest from her word-playing.

Jeanne M. Burger