The Faith at Work Summit in Cincinnati brought together 400 leaders from across the faith-and-work movement, representing four key spheres: academia, the church, workplace ministries, and business. It was refreshing to see this intentional mix reflected not only among the attendees but also on the stage. After each keynote, panel discussions brought together voices from these different sectors, allowing the audience to hear diverse perspectives on a shared mission.
One speaker made a statement that has stayed with me: “Collaboration is not optional. It is obedience.” He followed it with a challenging question: “What if the greatest threat to Kingdom impact is isolation?”
That question is worth pondering.
We often talk about ministries operating in silos, churches and denominations struggling to work together, and organizations competing rather than cooperating. But this speaker pushed the conversation beyond strategy. Collaboration is not simply a helpful organizational practice—it is an act of obedience. If that is true, then isolation is more than an inconvenience; it is a significant obstacle to seeing God’s Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
Collaboration emerged as one of the central themes of the summit. Whole-life discipleship will require these four sectors—academia, churches, workplace ministries, and businesses—to work together, each contributing its unique gifts to equip believers for every sphere of influence.
This conviction has also been foundational to the work of Discipling Marketplace Leaders (DML). We intentionally invest our time, treasure, and talent in partnerships on both sides of the bridge we seek to build between the church and the marketplace. Collaboration is rarely easy. Sometimes it feels like two steps forward and one step back. Other times it feels like one step forward and two steps back. It raises an important question: How much time, treasure, and talent should we continue investing when collaboration feels more like pushing than being pulled together by a shared vision?
Perhaps the answer begins much earlier than organizational strategy.
Collaboration is woven into creation itself. It reflects the very nature of God and the way He designed the world to function. Businesses understand this intuitively. It takes millions of people, most of whom will never meet, to produce something as simple as a pencil. Farmers grow food for factory workers. Engineers build machinery. Miners extract graphite. Loggers harvest timber. Transportation networks move materials. Manufacturers assemble the pieces. Retailers distribute the finished product. Every participant depends on countless others.
We often define creativity too narrowly, limiting it to artists, musicians, or writers. Yet creativity is profoundly collaborative. Innovation depends on administrators who create order, logisticians who coordinate systems, accountants who steward resources, builders who construct infrastructure, and entrepreneurs who bring ideas to life. God designed a world where people flourish together. The call is not merely to create—it is to create collaboratively.
Yet collaboration remains one of our greatest struggles.
Businesspeople criticize the church. Churches criticize businesspeople. The sacred-secular divide remains deeply embedded in our thinking. Yet from the very beginning, Scripture presents a different picture. Before humanity was even created, God declared, “Let us make mankind in our image” (Genesis 1:26). Collaboration is present within the very nature of God Himself. If we are created in His image, collaboration should be one of our defining characteristics.
The summit provided inspiring examples of what this can look like.
One speaker shared that the average church uses its facilities only 2.5% of the available time while spending nearly 30% of its budget maintaining those buildings. Rather than leaving their facility empty throughout the week, their church opened its doors to the community. Businesses began using the space for dance classes, daycare, early childhood education, catering, shared office space, music and theatre, recording studios, and conferences.
The result was more than increased building usage. As members of the community regularly entered the church for everyday activities, they began referring to it as “their church.” Relationships developed naturally, and many eventually sought out the church for pastoral care and Sunday worship.
That is a beautiful example of bringing the community into the church. But perhaps an even greater opportunity is releasing every believer to be the church in their workplace, supported, encouraged, and equipped by their pastors and church community.
Another ministry shared findings from surveys involving more than 7,000 believers across multiple churches:
- Seventy percent said they had never heard their pastor teach a theology of work, yet they wanted to.
- Sixty-five percent said they were not connected with other believers in similar professions but wished they were.
- Sixty-four percent desired pastoral guidance for their work but had never received it.
- Half of those surveyed wanted their pastors to visit them in their workplaces.
These findings reveal a tremendous opportunity. The workplace is the largest mission field in the world, and believers are asking to be equipped for it.
If collaboration truly is obedience, then churches, businesses, workplace ministries, and academic institutions cannot afford to work in isolation. God created us to depend on one another, to contribute our unique gifts, and to participate together in His work of renewing all things.
God created us to collaborate. As we do, we become better equipped to release believers for whole-life discipleship and to extend the Kingdom of heaven into every workplace, every community, and every sphere of influence.
