What is Market Place Ministry?

Global School of Ministry

Course 121 Marketplace Ministry #1

Introduction & Preamble
In these last days, it has become necessary to defreeze the Church and release her latent energies. For this to take place, we must stop the practice of ignoring or down grading Market place ministry. We must also stop the self destructive system of harassing thoseGod has called to market place ministry out of their glorious assignment in order to be“full time” ministers.

These questions are relevant:
• What is market place ministry?
• What is the biblical basis of market place ministry?
• What models do we have in the bible?
• What are the snares and pitfalls of market place ministry?
• What are the divine provisions for success in market place ministry?
• What is the one outstanding fact of market place ministry in the bible?

Section A: Preamble
In John 10:10, Jesus gave us a clue to a three prong strategy of Satan in dealing with things of God: to Steal, Kill and destroy. Jesus Himself, on the other hand is the giver of abundant life. The word abundant connotes the following “full measure”, “prosper”, and “bloom”. Most times, children of God read the bible in a religious context and therefore miss the wider implications of the divine counsel. Here, Jesus was not just telling the disciples how Satan attacks Christians; He was speaking of the universal principles that undergird the intent and work of Satan in all situations.

If you translate this principle to the Church which Jesus activated in the Upper Room on the day of Pentecost, it is clear that Satan would seek to:
• Steal the strength of the Church
• Kill the very spiritual body of Jesus Christ like he tried to do with its head at Calvary
• Destroy the mission of the Church the Body of Christ on earth so that it is unable to manifest His exalted Person and nature to those who are under the grip of Satan. Ultimately, the enemy delights to hinder the capacity of the Church to be the harbinger of the eternal state of the Kingdom of God.

Thank God that John 10:10 has two parts. While much emphasis has always been laid on part a, the real deal is on part b! What this means, when translated to the issue of the Church of Jesus Christ are these:
• Jesus came to give life to His Church.
• The life of Jesus in His Church is to be abundant – so real and tangible in every respect that people will know that it is a divine institution anywhere and everywhere they encounter the saints. This is of extreme import in the end times when heaven is decorating the Church anew for the ultimate marriage supper of all time. As Ephesians 5: 27 says, Jesus will decorate His Church to be radiant and dazzling before He returns.
Today, as we begin this epic exploration into the Word to mine out, by the Spirit, what it has to say about Ministry in the Market Place and download what Jesus is saying to His Church in this last generation, let us bear the afore-mentioned principles in mind.



The True Church
The True Church was not ordained for and cannot be confined to a building of brick and mortar with a religious architecture. The Church is, simply put, the people of God who have been called out of the world system, redeemed by the Blood of Jesus and have confessed Him as their Lord and Saviour! The Church was ordained to go forth into the entire world and preach the gospel to every creature. It was not to stop there. The Church – (not the building or denominations of churchianity) - was charged to disciple the nations or bring them under subjection to the ordinance of the King and His Kingdom so that they will live and prosper by those principles. Individuals who believed would be saved from their sins and the devil and translated from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God. In this new setting, they become His Church or called out ones where their new identities in God will be marked by the spiritual gifts and callings they receive in their spirit-man. The ethnic, racial, gender, age and other demographics of old which were instruments of separation were to give way to a new common identity. That identity is that we are the royal priesthood – all of us and not a few designated as “clergy”.

This dynamic paradigm of Jesus for His Church to be the present phase of the Kingdom of God and catalyst to disciple the nations of earth to “kiss the Son, lest He be angry”(Psalm 2) has been lost because Satan systematically injected a religious spirit which was expressly designed to steal the strength of the Church, Kill the divine vision and Destroy its capacity to disciple the nations.
Churchianity, which Satan introduced, was to make the backslidden church look inwards rather than outwards. For this to happen, Satan systematically let these things happen to God’s people as prophesied variously in scripture:
• Caused the backslidden church to see itself as a replacement of the plan and purpose of God for the Jews.
• With replacement theology, the backslidden church needed to construct magnificent buildings for worship which would replace the old Temple at Jerusalem.
• The people of God could live their normal lives for six days any where they were and on the seventh day which replaced the Sabbath, stream to the cathedrals and special buildings to “encounter” God for one, two or more hours.
• To service the spiritual needs of the people when they “came to church” was a professional clergy. This professional clergy was patterned after the old Levitical priesthood as an exclusive priestly caste who was nearer and therefore had special access to God. With this access, they became, so to say, mediators between the Holy God and unholy people. Ablutions such as confession were therefore necessary for the priests to cleanse the people of their guilt and make them worthy to partake of the sacraments offered during church services.
• It is necessary to take a fresh look at the Great Commission and its implications and the true identity of the Church as expressed in these scriptures: Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-18; Acts 1:5-8; Ephesians 1: 314, 18 – 23; Ephesians 2: 1-22; Colossians 1:12-18; Colossians 2: 11-15

..............to be continued ......