Well I couldn't wait to post about today's topic.  I taught from Colossians
3:17-4:6 on God's desire for us to fully embrace our Divine Calling to be missionaries in our marketplace.  The "marketplace" is a catch-all term for a variety of sectors: business, education, government, not-for-profit, or stay-at-home-parent.

So many things to talk about here:

• Marketplace Miracles — I referenced one of the facts I learned from the book, "Anointed for Business", this week.  Of the 40 supernatural events recorded in the book of Acts, only 1 of them occurred in a religious context.  And that happened in the entryway/gate of the Temple.  The other 39 of them all occurred in the marketplace/home, where God wants to work in our lives.
• Marketplace Reference — Our Student Ministries past, Josh Krzanak, referenced Acts 17:17 this morning which tells the story of Paul witnessing both in the synagogues (religious contexts) and the marketplace (secular contexts).
• My Math Blunder — Those of you in 1st worship heard me mention that the average person who works 5 hours/week times 250 days/year = 12,500 work-hours/year. (Huh???) My mind obviously misfired.  I should have multiplied 50 hours/week times 50 work-weeks = 2500 hours/year. (Supposedly, I went to Stanford to get an engineering degree!) Thank you to the new couple to Grace (3 times I think) who grabbed me after 1st worship to lovingly correct me.
• Christian-Movie Math — Regardless, I still think it's way cool that our lives in the marketplace (2500 hours/year) are the equivalent of making our co-workers watch 1250 2-hour Christian movies. In this case, our daily lives are the movie-topic, & God is the movie-star of each 2-hour movie of our life.
• Waking-Hours-Percentage Math — With my earlier mistake on the hours/year, you might be wondering where I got almost 45% of our waking hours are in the marketplace.  Here's the math:
• • Assume you sleep 7 hours/day
  • 7 days/week * 17 waking-hours/day = 119 waking-hours/week
  • 50 work-hours/week
    ÷ 119 waking-hours/week = 42% of our waking-lives are in the marketplace
    
• An Online Worshiper — Kevin Allen posted this note on my Facebook page after service: "Was good to 'attend' virtually today—good words!"
• Deadliest Catch Video — If you want to watch the short video we showed to kick off the message, check it out here on YouTube.  It's the Season 4 intro.
• Accepting the Call — At the end of our 3rd worship today, I wondered if I should have extended an invitation to everyone to "accept the call" to be a missionary in their marketplace.  Maybe even pray over them too.  (Maybe in a couple weeks…)
• Stay-At-Home-Mom Direction — Loved the transparency of @mamasada, a stay-at-home-mom, after service this morning: "While I don't think my job is a colossal waste of
  time @TimHowey, message still timely. Col 4:6 Smacked me
  upside the head!! In a good way."
• Josh's Direction — One of our regulars at Grace, a man named Josh, came to me after service saying that he had very recently been questioning his whole role regarding being called to minister to people in the marketplace.  (That's his profession.)  He said his prayer were answered today, particularly by the Scriptures of Colossians 3-4, which gave him a framework from which to view his ministry. Awesome!!
• Josh's Baptism — Josh also mentioned to me that he had been thinking about being baptized for some time and just recently, his two friends in ministry baptized him.  That's great!!

Calling all men! Don't forget to register here for the Men's/Father/Son Campout in the next couple days.  The campout will be June 25-26.