The Apostle Paul used his skills at tent making to help support himself according to Acts 18. He came to Corinth to start a church and found Aquilla and his wife Priscilla who were in this business and he worked with them. Along my journey of preparing for ministry, God opened the doors for me to do many different and interesting jobs in the same way. One of the more interesting was working at a daytime A.M. country music radio station in Plaquemines Parish.

I was called to serve at Port Sulphur Baptist Church during my time at seminary in New Orleans. This is at the very toe-tip of the boot-shaped state of Louisiana. The Mississippi runs on one side and marshes leading into the Gulf of Mexico are on the other side of this strip of land. I needed a summer job as I served the church, and they needed a morning “drive time” D.J. I arrived each weekday morning at 5:30 to drive through the orange grove to the little building that was the station. I made it to the transmitter in the back, threw the switch to hear it buzz into life. Then using the knobs, I tuned the dials to our assigned FCC frequency. Then on to the broadcast room where old school teletypes clacked out the news on long rolls of paper with the latest from the Associated Press and Louisiana Network News. By 6:00 I was ready to give our call-sign and read the news freshly ripped from the machines. I faked my way into knowing something about country music by reading album covers and magazine articles. All of this would be completely foreign to today’s broadcasters where everything is done on computer screens.

This job gave me access to the community we were attempting to reach with the Gospel, that I would not have had sitting in a church office. My show was called the “Good Morning Get Together Show” and some of the listeners knew I was serving a church and studying for ministry, but most did not. But I found ways to encourage, strengthen, brighten the day of many of my callers.

Maybe that’s how it worked with Paul as well. He preached in the synagogue trying to convince fellow Jews and the Gentiles, but he had daily contact with everyday people in the marketplace, relating to them as a Christian and a craftsman. Maybe the care, conversations and the integrity he brought to his daily work was the best witness he could give, even beyond his skills in preaching and debate. Paul could have learned well from his upbringing, “Whatever you do, do well. For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

I am thankful for the many doors that God opened for me in ministry and in secular work, that have helped to mold my life and have given me a variety of gifts, skills and experience to now use in ministry. I am also thankful for the many workers- delivery people, service people, cashiers, grocers, mechanics, wait staff, etc.- who share a witness for God or a positive word to me in their daily routines. May God bless your work, whatever you do, and may you see it as an avenue to share his story of love, sacrifice and salvation to those you serve.

(Steve Berger is pastor of First Methodist Church Minden, a Global Methodist Church. He is the husband of Dianne, his partner in ministry, they have two adult sons, a dachshund, and love living in Minden.)