Within churches, marketplace discipleship is unavoidably general.

It is not your Pastors’ fault. In a church of 500 members, for instance, it is not possible to speak into all 500 in the unique context of their jobs. In a church of 1,000, members may be working in, say, 600 different companies in 200 different industries.

So marketplace discipleship within the church is necessarily generic: “Work hard; don’t cheat your boss; don’t cut corners; don’t jiak zhua (skive).” But this may be generic to the point of not being practical.

So what happens is you get church members feeling that their church doesn’t sufficiently equip them to face the challenges of their industry and their workplace. As a result, we see many Christians struggling to see and live out God’s purpose for them in the marketplace.

How do you live out your faith at work?

In 2017, in the lead-up to the launch of Salt&Light, we conducted a survey where we asked close to 2,000 Christians: “What is most helpful for you in living out your faith at work?”

Up to 71% said their top source of help for living out their faith at work is Christian colleagues in the same workplace. Below that, you see Christian seminars specific to work and faith. Then below that 63% said Christian literature, books, magazines, websites, is helpful to them. (Remember, this was one year before Salt&Light was launched, so hopefully it’s changed since then!)

Pastors and church leaders came in last at 62%.

Yet in another question in the same survey, 85% said they would like their church to teach and equip them more for faith at work. This doesn’t mean the church wasn’t doing anything. It just means our members want and need more, because that’s where they spend so much of their life.

So that’s the state of the marketplace Christian. They are crying out for more!

And while a church may only be able to give general marketplace discipleship, from our experience, we find that specific industry-based discipleship is best.

A teacher knows best what a teacher is going through. A Christian financial planner knows best the struggles a Christian financial planner faces. Christians within the same industry who journey with one another know full well the temptations and struggles that their colleagues face, the struggles that they face and the ethical dilemmas. Industry-based discipleship provides much more relevant, contextualised and impactful discipleship.

So this is our vision at Salt&Light: To kickstart a marketplace discipleship approach. We call this G.R.O.W. the Marketplace.

G.R.O.W. the marketplace

1. Gather

We hope to gather believers within the same industry – industry by industry. We’ve already done so for teachers with the National Christian Educators Conference, and for Christian Adult Educators. Another upcoming gathering is in partnership with N5, for the financial planner industry.

Industry by industry – banking, property, healthcare – we hope to create opportunities to gather believers together, regardless of their church, regardless of their denomination.

2. Rally

As we gather, we rally the troops. We take time to refresh, remind and point marketplace disciples back to their calling. If you are a nurse, do you remember why God made you a nurse? If you are a teacher, do you see why God has made you a teacher?

3. Organise

The key to this vision is not in the occasional big gathering, but in organising believers into smaller, ongoing groups – such as the praying educators network who might meet monthly or quarterly, or the praying bankers network and so forth.

Because that’s where the key marketplace discipleship will take place. Not an annual gathering. Not on weekends where we go to church – that may not always address our marketplace needs. But at ongoing marketplace discipleship groups that know and address our needs and context at our workplace.

Every believer should have their Saturday/Sunday church. But our heart is to grow their Monday to Friday Church, when they go into the workplace and have believers with them on the journey, exhorting them, supporting them, encouraging them to be salt and light out there beyond church walls.

4. Witness

We organise disciples into industry groups for the sake of W: Witness. Sharing the Gospel, living out godly values and transforming the realm that God has put them in.

This is something Salt&Light will be doing, industry by industry, over the coming years. If you visualise the actual church locations in Singapore, they look like a bunch of dots scattered sparsely around the country. But if you picture where every believer is – we would cover the whole nation. If we want to be a sending-out Church, we need to be a Church that equips our members for the work of ministry beyond church walls.

This would be a revolution in the church realm.

If we can send out all believers as missional believers, if we equip them and encourage them to live out the Gospel and share the Gospel beyond church walls, we will dramatically shift the needle. This nation will turn Godward.

If every one of our members is activated, not merely for the Saturday/Sunday Church, not just as a good worship leader, but to be evangelists from Monday to Friday, they will truly be salt and light.

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