9 to 5 Awakening

Our awakening hopes are bigger than Sunday morning. They occupy nine to five, Monday through Friday.

Most of us spend the bulk of our lives outside a church building: in jobs, classrooms, Zoom calls, and conference rooms. We're praying that those places, like Sunday mornings, would become places where God's kingdom is extended. Abraham Kuyper said there is not a square inch in all of human existence over which Christ does not cry, "Mine!" That includes your calendar, your career, and your cubicle.

Consider Acts 16. Paul crosses into Macedonia, and the gospel is about to enter Europe. Where does it start? Not in a synagogue, because Philippi doesn't have one. It starts outside the city gate, by a river, at a place of prayer. A few women are gathered. Paul sits down and speaks.

One of them is Lydia. She's a businesswoman from Thyatira, a seller of purple cloth, a luxury trade. She's a worshiper of God. And Luke tells us: "The Lord opened her heart." Before she does anything, God does something.

Then she does. She and her household are baptized. She says to Paul, "Come and stay at my house." And Luke adds, "She prevailed upon us."

Luke never tells us she preached in the marketplace. He tells us she opened her home. By the end of the chapter, the church in Philippi is meeting there. Her trade, her income, her household, her network: all of it became kingdom infrastructure.

God uses regular people. Business owners. Craftsmen. Teachers. Executives. Creatives.

I have a friend in Kentucky who has known for years that she's called to revival leadership. Contending for awakening, preparing for it, and leading when it comes. Early on she asked her mentor a fair question: how do revival leaders get paid? The honest answer is that often it isn't through a local church. So she's a wedding photographer and a small business owner. Paul made tents. Lydia sold purple cloth. The marketplace didn't distract them from the mission. It funded it, and it gave them a platform.

So let's pray two prayers. First, that God would open hearts in the places we work, the way he opened Lydia's. Second, that he would open our hands, our homes, and our businesses for his purposes in our cities.

Rev. Greg Johnson
Director, Revive New England