THE THIRD SPACE

In Acts 17, we are told the story of Paul in Athens the Greek city many of us are familiar with. In this city he engaged 3 people groups: the religious or what we would say today are the church goers, the business people in the market place, and finally  the intelligentsia and those who would sit and develop policies for the city. Os Guinness has distinguished the 3 groups as representing the 3 spaces of society, with the church being the first space, the marketplace as the second space and the intelligentsia and policy makers being the third space.

For the Christian today, the emphasis has been on the first space as many consider this their area of calling or the only ‘space’ where they can serve God. As such the church has developed a lot of programs and requests the participation of members to serve in these programs. If one is not serving  in the church or  in any of these programs, they are at times considered to be second class or weak Christians. That is the general perception among Christians, in order to show how Christian you are, you must serve in the church or minister in some way.

As a result of this, many leave the church on Sunday satisfied that they have done their bit for God, they have served Him whether in the ushering team, the choir/praise and worship team, Sunday school etc. During the week, they no longer serve God but go on about their own business, unless they are cell leaders which means they have at least one more day with the week to serve God. Yet, as I pointed out in an earlier post “A Theology of Work”, Christians spend much more time away from the church, for some this is as many as 6 days of the week since on the 7^th day they are in church and this may only be for a few hours.

Yet, Paul shows us an example. He first went to the church where he preached, but he proceeded also to  the marketplace. Now we are just told that he preached in the marketplace,  but from elsewhere we know that he was a tent maker and at times during his ministry he had plied his trade where he went to preach in order to make a living i.e. to make money to cover for his expenses. I would like to take that angle, from the account we are given of his activities in Athens, I would like to  believe that wherever he plied his trade, he would also take time to preach the gospel and thus serve God. In other words, he took his ministry to the marketplace.

Today, many Christians want to separate their life at church from their life at work or the marketplace (I would define the marketplace as where you work, outside of the church, to make a living). We want to appear to be Christians only at church and we leave God at church and this means restricting our service to Him to the church. The rest of the week we are doing our own thing where we are our own masters. However, a good reading through the scriptures will reveal that Christianity is not to be compartmentalized. In 1 Corinthians 6 for example, we are told that we were bought with a price, we are no longer our own. In Matthew 28:19 we are told to go and make disciples of all nations and some commentaries say the word nations here refers to cultures or people groups and not just people living within a particular political boundary. This would mean the different people groups including the different professions that we find on earth. For the workplace believer, this then means that even where you work, you have a mission field. 2 Corinthians 5 further tells us that we are God’s ambassadors, meaning wherever we go we are to represent God and His Kingdom.

If you are a workplace believer, I want to encourage you. You are not a second class Christian, you have a mission field which is your workplace. You are God’s ambassador to your workplace. Do not restrict evangelism to just what you have on the church programs, do not compartmentalize your Christianity. May your light shine even in the workplace. When Jesus said you are the salt of the earth, He meant the whole earth. You are in that profession to represent the kingdom of God, ministry is not restricted to just the church, the first space, go beyond it to the marketplace, the second space.

It is as you function and operate in the second space that the third space recognizes you and invites you as it did Paul. From Acts 17 we are told that, someone heard Paul preach in the marketplace and asked him to come and share this new philosophy of his to the Areopagus where the thinkers/philosophers met. It was these people who generated ideas which the whole city would embrace and live by. They determined the course of culture in the city and based on the influence of Athens, this spread to other cities as well. So Paul was invited to the third space and from there he won some converts for the kingdom of God. In fact I have heard that there was a street named after Dionysius who was a judge of the Aeropagus and one of the converts.

I am saying all this to spur you my fellow Christian to desire to enter this third space. Lance Wallnau in the Foreword to OS Hillman’s Change Agent says “We are praying for a move of God, but what is needed is a move of people from the periphery in the bleachers to the very center of the coliseum floor where decisions are made and culture is produced.” The Church today is praying for changes in the society, nation and world, but to bring about this change God will use men and women who have given themselves by making themselves available to the move of God. God will answer the prayers for changes in the culture through people and these people will have to be placed at those areas of influence. Os Hillman says, “It doesn’t matter if the majority of the culture is made up of Christians. It only matters who has the greatest influence over that culture.” And Lance Wallnau says, “it is a mistake to think that the majority shapes the culture- it is quite the opposite; it is always a remnant at the top.”

What we need in the church today is to develop a kingdom mentality. Jesus came to bring us into the kingdom of God and our duty as Christians today is to ensure that the influence of this kingdom spreads..."your kingdom come" says what has been called the Lord's Prayer. How does this kingdom come but through the agency of God's people, you the Christian. Wherever you are, you are His ambassador, His representative, called to display forth His virtues as Peter tells us (1 Peter 2:9) or to manifest the manifold wisdom of God as Paul writes (Ephesians 3:10). Your excellence in the work place will set you apart, your integrity and work ethic. These should set you apart as they did for Daniel and his friends or Mordecai. This is they way you are going to bring the influence of the kingdom of God to where you are.. for the call to be a Christian is a call to be a person of influence.

I have made it my goal to be a good representative of the kingdom of God and with His help to enter that third space.