“Is citywide marketplace ministry the same thing as marketplace ministries in a city”?
Almost every city has ministries doing important spiritual work in the marketplace, but not all cities have “citywide” marketplace ministry in the way At Work on Purpose is experiencing it. We’ve observed four distinctive elements in our expression of citywide marketplace ministry:
- There is a holistic vision to restore the city’s marketplace for Christ. In Greater Cincinnati, our headquarters city, the total population is about 2 million people. Of those, about 1 million are working or looking for work; and of those, about 350,000 are self identified as working Christians. Only about 5% of working Christians consistently integrate faith and work, so right now we have about 18,000 “faith active” working Christians. Our Big Holy Audacious Goal is that a day would come when all 350,000 of Cincinnati’s working Christians embrace work as worship.
- Participation is ecumenical. At Work on Purpose is intentional to build working Christian participation across church homes, denominations, zip codes and ministries. We have a diversity of worship during the weekends, but we have the common cause of Christ through the work week. While there is a natural tendency for Christians to segregate across traditional ministry lines, the marketplace is an open space for spiritual connection and community.
- Ministry grows through a cultural network of influence. Like the Early Church in the New Testament, marketplace ministry has the flavor of an “Ekklesia” that sparks spiritual relationship and collaboration in a decentralized and organic way. The At Work on Purpose community is essentially a “network of networks” where working Christians can connect “needs” and “means” as they serve spiritually in the jobs, industries and sectors where God has deployed them.
- Marketplace resources are invested for the common good of the city. Every Monday morning, the places where we go to work are spiritual mission fields. Our first focus is to “bring Christ to the cubicle”, to be the Church at work. Beyond this though, we have an opportunity to route some of the resources God grants us at work for the flourishing of the surrounding communities where we work and where we live.
We believe that God will bless multiple expressions of citywide marketplace ministry, and we are cultivating them alongside the city gospel movement.
At Work on Purpose is on call to guide you towards citywide marketplace ministry. Fill out the form below about your situation, and we’ll get back to you promptly.