Compartmentalization has been a struggle for Christians for quite a long time!
While hopefully we are hearing more about it these days (in places like this blog), compartmentalization isn’t a new phenomenon. Think back to the first century and Paul’s writing to the Corinthians or the Medieval days leading up to the Reformation and you see the Church has had this problem for centuries.
This is part of the problem. In many minds, compartmentalization goes on without any challenge because it is such a part of the accepted norm. Therefore, we must speak to it:
One of the attendant aims of missional evangelicalism is to challenge the compartmentalizing of the Christian faith that we see within the Western church. We are fantastic at itemizing our schedules, and even if we don’t assign God a very large bracket, we are constantly remorseful that we “haven’t made much time for him.” While such compartmentalizing — as if “time with God” can or should be hermetically sealed off from everything else — is a natural symptom of our culture and environment, it also reflects a bad theology.
The truth is, the day does not belong to us. It is not our day to do with as we please. We serve a sovereign God. He created the end from the beginning, knows our future exhaustively, and is firmly in control. He made our days and they belong to him. As such, isn’t it a bit arrogant to begin with the idea that each day is ours and then worry about fitting God in? Instead, we should work at the humble awe of knowing all of our moments, every millisecond, waking or sleeping, are perfectly accounted for within the economy of heaven.
Let us stake the flag of Christ’s kingdom into the soil of our first waking moment. Drink your coffee when you get up, of course, but drink it to the glory of God. Then carry on in this way all day, no matter the task, be it menial or notable, so that each day may be a living prayer that God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what it means to live a gospel-saturated life: it means being so conscious of the greatness of the gospel that changing diapers or cutting the grass is as much an act of
worship as singing a praise chorus in a church service…. (Gospel Wakefulness by Jared Wilson)
At CSO, we add our voice to this challenge by adding sports to the list of activities that can be just as much an act of worship. We spend a great deal of energy equipping people to play, coach, and watch their sports for the glory of God, to “saturate” their sports with the gospel, so that sports are integrated into their lives as something “meaningful” or “spiritual” or “worshipful.”
Even though compartmentalization has been around a long time, Jesus Christ is up to something new in our day. He is raising up a new generation of athletes, coaches, and spectators who:
- Long for such a life of worship
- See every aspect of life, including sports, as meaningful and spiritual
- Believe that “whether they eat or drink or whatever they do” it is to be done for the glory of God – 1Corinthians 10:31
- Want to live such a grand life, such a high calling
Do you hear his call to break this compartmentalization and join this movement?
For a couple of tools to help you renew your mind about these ideas, check out