Jim Valekis
I’m launching a new ministry in 2025. It’s called “Smiling Icon Ministries.” It’s designed to help every Christian in the Marketplace to be everything they can be for the Kingdom of God in 2025 and beyond. It’s designed to tap into the power of the “contagious holiness” that resides in you. And it’s designed to send powerfully infectious image-bearers of God into the Marketplace and beyond. And frankly, I’m using this article to shamelessly recruit you to become a part of it.
To be blunt, just like the military “wanted you” for the First World War, Smiling Icon wants you for an even greater battle—the battle of ideas and culture that is being waged (and frankly, often lost to our cause) in our culture today.
Let me explain.
On the Shores of Malta With the Apostle Paul
If you remember the Apostle Paul’s story in the book of Acts, he was at a “low point” in his Christian career. As told about in Acts 21 – 26, his efforts to unite the Gentile church with the Jerusalem church, two very “opposing” sects of the faith, had utterly failed. He’d been falsely accused, arrested, went through more calamitous near ruins than all the cast of Outlander combined, and was being taken as a prisoner to Rome to appeal to Caesar, his last hope in a battle that he seemed to be failing.
To top it all off the ship he was on went through a horrendous beating and frankly a break-up. He found himself having escaped by the skin of his teeth and with nothing but the clothes on his back. And he found himself on the shores of Malta (Acts 28) and perhaps it was a metaphor for his ministry career. The first thing he did was to pick up sticks with the rest of the shipwrecked passengers to build a fire.
And in his ministry, he was going to be picking up a few sticks himself, and starting his whole ministry strategy over putting one foot in front of the other and doing what God showed him to do, one next step at a time.
I found myself on my shores of Malta some seven years ago (you can the story about why in my recently released book The Christian in the Cult; And How I Discovered Humanity in Christ (The Christian in the Cult). But I had to put one foot in front of the other to see how God was going to have me expand the Kingdom of God for the rest of my life. And it resulted in the formation of “Smiling Icon Ministries,” which I hope one day, may grow to include even the likes of someone like you.
Smiling Icon Ministries has a simple mission. It’s designed to help Christians who are “At Work on Purpose” become intentional about becoming spiritual shepherds in their corner of the Marketplace.
What if I told you that yes, even you could almost immediately begin serving as a shepherd or an “unofficial” spiritual support system for your corner of the marketplace?
What if I told you too could begin connecting people by being filled with the Spirit (a condition that frankly should be normative than it is for us Christians) and that you too could start facilitating connections in the Marketplace?
What if I told you too could incarnate into your workplace as a felt presence of the Kingdom of God, and begin seeing the water of your secular world being blessed with the wine of Christ’s presence?
What if I told you that being a Joseph or a Daniel doesn’t have to be an exception, but a graspable rule to living out your Christian faith in the Marketplace?
And what if I told you that your ministry failures could be followed by your greatest ministry success as you submit to God and let him send you into the Marketplace as a “Smiling Icon,” as a potent image-bearer of God?
Why do I think this?
The Bible (and Chuck Proudfit) Tell Me So
Chuck Proudfit, founder of the successful Marketplace ministry called “At Work on Purpose” (AWOP), graciously offered to interview me about Smiling Icon Ministries on his Workwise interview platform (you can access it at Smiling Icon Workwise) and from that interview, and whole approach to helping others share the contagious holiness the Holy Spirit gives us all has “shaken out” that I’m going to share in subsequent installments of the Smiling Icon Blog. But Chuck had a biblical response he shared that I want to end with. Mark 12 tells us to give coins with Caesar’s image back to Caesar. But an implied message is this. Give ourselves, as image-bearers of God—back to God as “Smiling Icons.”
And watch the Kingdom glow and grow.
