Purpose

Some two million Christians in this country work in the private sector - in everything from plumbing to accountancy, and from cleaning to banking. It’s where they spend much of their waking life. It’s where many of their closest relationships are. For many, it’s what they love doing and is a core part of their life’s purpose. But when they go to church on a Sunday, this work is often not acknowledged, let alone affirmed and its true value rarely understood. There is a deep disconnect between the daily lives of many church-goers and their experience of Church. We need to fix this, because the work that Christians do in the private sector is often their ministry and their mission and it should - and could - be the Church’s ministry and mission too. Bringing the two together can breathe new life into discipleship and mission.

The purpose of this Learning Lab is to bring together a group of larger churches from different contexts across the UK to explore how they support their own members who work in the private sector, to identify good practice and to work out if we could this better. The results will be shared nationally.

The Issue

Millions of Christians in the UK work in the private sector – from plumbers to captains of industry – but the Church often does not know how to support them in their work. Even worse, many churches don’t even recognise working in enterprise as important or worth affirming, as it doesn’t fit the traditional model of ‘ministry’ or ‘mission’. The Church runs worship services and supports charities, but often doesn’t know what to do with ‘business’ – it is the missing ‘tool in the box’.

This situation is part of a deeper challenge for the Church in the UK, which is that we have largely forgotten how to make ‘whole-life disciples’. The majority of the Church’s resources are invested in a great Sunday worship experience, with teaching that can be difficult to apply to real life on a Monday morning. How are we training Christians in ‘how to live life’?

In a post-Christendom country, we believe that the defining challenge for the Church in our generation is to work out how to make ‘whole life disciples’, where for most Christians, their daily work through the week is recognised as their vocation and ministry and is the cutting edge of mission for the 21st Century.

A Jubilee Vision

Where do we go from here? Could we find better ways for churches to serve their members working in the private sector? What would an ambitious vision for this look like? What would it look like on a Sunday morning? Could we find better ways to make this a mainstream ministry within our churches?

We want to work with those on the frontline of church leadership and ministry to develop and share ideas and approaches which will support the Church in serving those members who work in the private sector.  

How the Lab works

We are now working with senior leaders and elders from six churches to develop some new ideas. The six churches are from:

• Birmingham (CofE)

• Leeds (CofE)

• Cambridge (Independent)

• Edinburgh (Baptist roots)

• Manchester (Assemblies of God)

• Lincoln (Ground Level Network)

The Lab began in June 2022. Our first Discussion Paper on Reimagining Ministry and Mission has been published and explores the key issues and possibilities facing churches in this important area of endeavour. The Paper has been shared to stimulate wider debate.

Get involved

If you want to keep up to date with this Lab, and others as they launch, sign up for our free monthly news bulletin. We’re not just doing research, we’re building a national movement for change - join us!

You can also help us serve the Church nationally by donating to the Jubilee Centre so that we can grow our team and engage more people, more businesses and more churches. Every donation builds our capacity to act.