Evangelism is more important than <everything_else> (Part 3)

To round out this series on evangelism being 'more important' than anything else, I want to talk not just about evangelism, but all those activities which are specifically Christian — that is, things that only Christians can do, including:

• praying;
• speaking and applying the word of God (whether to believers or unbelievers);
• living as a community of God’s people in such a way as to show his grace and reconciliation;
• setting up organizations specifically geared for redemption work.

For the sake of convenience, I'll call this 'redemption work', as opposed to 'creation work'. Creation work is that work which is common to all humans, Christian or not — building bridges, pulling teeth, raising children, painting murals, and so on.

Some will claim that redemption work is 'more important' than creation work, but as I said before, this is an error because both are necessary.

More than this, however, saying one is 'more important' than the other obscures the actual relationship between them. Creation work and redemption work are not opposed: they work together, and even depend on one another:

• Without redemption work, there would be no church to do either creation or redemption work. And without creation work, there would be no people at all. Man does not live by bread alone, but he does live by bread.
• Much redemption work depends on creation work either directly or indirectly. Directly, your evangelistic meeting requires a building, a sound system, and payment for the speaker — all products of creation work. Indirectly, many of the guests at your event have come because of relationships with church members. These relationships were forged in the context of creation work — as colleagues, or at a play group, or in a sporting team.
• Redemption work should give rise to better creation work. That is, the redemption work of teaching God's word should equip the saints for works of service (Ephesians 4). So as people better learn from God's word how to live as his people, they will do better creation work as employees, spouses, parents, citizens, and so on.
• In turn, this better creation work might give rise to more redemption work. As people notice the difference in the way Christians live, they catch glimpses of Jesus and may want to know more about him (Titus 2; 1 Peter 2:12; 3:15).

The ideas in this post are drawn from the Groundwork module Good Work: a labour of love