Steve Timmis in his article, ‘A sacrifice too far’ (October EN), argued that the church should turn ‘good people’ away from full-time gospel ministry, where they work in the main with Christians, and rather encourage them to remain in ‘secular’ work so that they remain in close contact with non-Christians.
My interest in this issue is that I took the decision not to go into full-time gospel ministry, but instead to remain in secular work so that I would always be in contact with non-Christians. The decision was driven during my student days, when I formed an excellent group of vehemently non-Christian friends, was strangely (in my view!) overlooked for any leadership role in the Christian Union, and then stood and was rather surprisingly (in my view!) elected President of the College Student Union. At this stage, I realised that I was unusual as a Christian in that I had many more non-Christian contacts than a ‘normal’ Christian, and the decision to enter secular employment was confirmed.
My CV
Since then I have worked as a policeman (PC AH774 Horn) in the Sussex police, where I was noted as the PC who refused to watch porn (confiscated from members of the public!), and where I was routinely told off by my Sergeant for being too polite (but he couldn’t argue that I ever failed in my duty). I then moved to IT, where I worked in six different jobs during the last 15 years. My career has not been a fantastic success, probably because I have not striven for promotions/recognition in the same way as my more successful colleagues.
