June 13, 2025

Jesus told his followers: 

“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 

...tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” 

Luke 10:2-3, 9

One might ask: Who or what is a kingdom worker? For our purposes, a kingdom worker is defined as anyone, anywhere who responds to Jesus’ call for workers, as recorded in the verses above, and is willing to tell people about Jesus and invite them into His wonderful kingdom. 

Since the time of the early church, laypeople—followers of Christ who are nonordained members of the church—have been doing missionary work. Persecuted Christian laypeople who had been scattered throughout Judea and Samaria preached the word wherever they went. (See Acts 8:1-4). Clearly, every believer has a place in God’s mission and could be called a missionary. The problem is that most laypeople have difficulty identifying with the term “missionary”. Call yourself a one, and you are liable to get some interesting questions like, “Oh, you are a missionary? Where did you serve?” For many folks it just does not seem plausible to be a missionary while serving behind a computer, waiting in a doctor’s office, hanging out at a playground, teaching in the classroom, or many of the other places laypeople serve in the course of their everyday lives.

An examination of personal conversations, public expressions, and written contexts to see how the term missionary was commonly used revealed that it was overwhelmingly linked with people whose primary, dedicated, full-time work involved serving in the mission outreach of the church, usually by fully immersing themselves in cultures other than their own, and most often overseas. It is meaningful to have such a term for these specially called people, and we should use it in such cases. However, this restricted understanding of the term missionary appears to make laypeople extremely reluctant to use it to describe themselves. 

The question, then, is this: Is there a term that laypeople will accept, one that might encourage them and motivate them in their work for the sake of God’s mission? A close study of Scriptures reveals something quite surprising: Jesus never actually called anyone a missionary or used the word mission! What He did speak about frequently, though, was the kingdom of heaven and the need for workers to tell people about this kingdom. As Jesus considered the tremendous harvest of lost souls, one need stood out above all others: the need for workers. So, Jesus told his followers, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field” (Luke 10:2). 

It is clear that the desire of Jesus’ heart was to pray and ask for workers. But He did not stop there. With his next breath, He emphatically said, “Go!” and then, “...tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you’” (Luke 10:9b). Jesus wanted his disciples to go beyond praying for workers: He also wanted them to get on the move. He organized some of his devoted followers into teams and mobilized them to go out into the harvest fields. Therefore, the term “kingdom worker” is really Jesus’ term. Jesus wants to bring everyone into His kingdom and, as odd as it seems, His plan is to do so through human teams of willing workers who will tell people about Him and invite them into His marvelous kingdom. 

As far as we can tell, those early kingdom workers did not have any special credentials, titles, or degrees; they were simply willing to trust the Lord for strength and guidance as they worked to bring in the harvest of souls. Today, millions of believers carry on the work of the Lord’s kingdom, regardless of what anyone calls them, good or bad. In the end, titles, labels, or special terms will not affect anyone’s salvation. However, the term “kingdom worker” can help us communicate our call and identify a community of people who are willing to tell lost people about Jesus and invite them into His kingdom.

Jeanne M. Burger