Full-time Christian service?

This is a term that we hear mentioned from time to time in Christian churches, and seems to refer only to those who are paid or supported by someone else in order to do their service for God.

I feel I must challenge this viewpoint, because if you can explain how a Christian can be a part-time Christian, I'll accept this viewpoint. Surely, from the moment a Christian is born into the family of God, he is from that very instant a full-time Christian, and therefore in full-time service for Christ.

What has brought this to my attention was the practice that the church was to pray for doctors, nurses and teachers, et al, who were doing this work in a country other than their own, but the same care is not taken to pray for Christians who are doing these same jobs at home. What is different about these situations? Only location. These Christians are doing what they are doing as their service for Christ, even if the Department of Health and Social Services, or the Department of Education, is paying their salaries.

I think that this false distinction has a discouraging effect on Christians who are serving Christ at home, and tends to place a halo above the heads of those who do the same work overseas.

The church must begin to see things through more biblical eyes, and not get involved in Roman-like halo placing for some Christians, and not for all. Why ought it to be thought a great thing for a Christian to serve Christ overseas, yet it is not so great a thing to serve Him at home? Why is a nurse or a teacher working at home not prayed for with the same enthusiasm as the same professional is who is working abroad? This does not stand to biblical sense.

What a mighty difference it would make to the effectiveness of Christian service were the church to pray as fervently for Christians working at home as she does for those working abroad! Surely we do a massive dis-service to all those good Christians who serve Christ faithfully at home, and depreciate and discredit their service for Christ.

As a Christian, I serve Christ in a full-time capacity, and it is when I believe that I am not in His service that I go astray. I would find it very difficult to argue from Scripture or from experience that Christians can serve Christ casually.

We need to take a fresh look at this aspect of church life, and hopefully be drawn to more biblical conclusions.