Work Smarter Not Harder Week 6： The Baker and The Battle Cry

In one paragraph

Week six of Work Smarter Not Harder landed on Father's Day, and Pastor Brian used the story of Gideon to draw a clear line between occupation and ministry. The central question was simple: how does the work you do to make a living relate to the difference you are called to make in people's lives? The series has been building a vocabulary, one word at a time. So far the conversation has covered...

Read together

1. 1 Kings 5:6 series springboard verse about the Sidonians cutting timber, used to introduce the idea of keeping tools sharp
2. Judges 6:11-12 angel of the Lord appears to Gideon threshing wheat and calls him a mighty man of valor
3. Judges 7:12-14 dream of the barley loaf rolling through the Midianite camp, used to suggest Gideon's occupation as a baker
4. Judges 6:27-32 Gideon tears down the altar of Baal at night and his father Joash defends him before the mob
5. Judges 6:33-35 Spirit of the Lord clothes Gideon and he blows the ram's horn, rallying the men of Abiezer and surrounding tribes
6. Judges 7:2-8 God reduces Gideon's army from 32000 to 300 men who lapped water, collecting their ram's horns
7. Judges 8:22-23 Israelites ask Gideon to rule over them and he refuses, saying the Lord will rule over them
8. Judges 6:34 Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon with power and he blew the ram's horn as a call to arms

What was said

• Download the Blue Letter Bible app and look up the meaning of Gideon's name in Hebrew, then sit with what that connection tells you about your own story.
• Write down the people who keep crossing your path in an unexpected pattern and ask God if that group is where your ministry is right now.
• Think about one thing in your past that has tried to kill you and ask God how he might be turning that into your testimony and your ministry.
• Go back into your job this week with one question in mind: where in the middle of my occupation is God already placing people I am uniquely positioned to reach.
• Come to Revival at the Rodeo at the Jackson Hole Rodeo on Monday at 7pm and bring one friend who does not yet know the Lord.

Talk about it

1. Brian drew a distinction between occupation and ministry: occupation is how you make a living, ministry is how you make a difference. Where do you see those two things overlapping in your own life, and where do they feel completely separate?
2. Gideon was hiding in a winepress, afraid, when God called him a mighty man of valor. Has there been a moment when God or someone else spoke words of identity over you that felt completely at odds with how you saw yourself at the time? What happened?
3. Brian pointed out that the very clan of Abiezer who wanted to kill Gideon ended up rallying to follow him, and he said that sometimes your ministry comes out of what has tried to kill you. Is there a hard or painful chapter of your life that you can now see shaping a ministry or a burden for a particular kind of person?
4. Several people in the room noticed that God kept bringing a particular kind of person across Brian's path before he recognized it as a ministry. What patterns, if any, do you notice about who keeps showing up in your orbit or who you seem to have unusual favor with?
5. Brian mentioned that Gideon had a secret weapon, the ram's horn, that was unrelated to his occupation but amplified his effectiveness in ministry. What might your equivalent of that be, a skill, a background, an experience, that does not define you but that God seems to use when you step into ministry?