By David Williamson.
Summertime reminds me of occasional trips in my younger days to the famous Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) of Northern Minnesota and Southern Ontario. I have great memories of leading groups of high-school kids into this rugged and beautiful country.
This reminds me of the importance of tents – what they’re made of, how they’re made and where we located them. One of the most fun things for small children to do is make a tent in the living room or outdoors.
Christians in business have often looked to Paul’s tentmaking as a touchstone for their own efforts to integrate a life in business with a sense of mission in their work. Sometimes Paul’s tentmaking is appropriated in a dualistic way, as if there were no value in the actual tentmaking other than its provision of income as a support for evangelism, which is seen as the true “ministry.” In other cases, however, Christians in the business draw holistic inspiration from the thought that Paul, the ultimate missionary, made tents and preached the gospel as a seamless mission. (The mission was seamless; the tents may not have been.)
Throughout history, tentmakers have provided mobility and even affordable living. Today’s campers even have mobile homes or camper trucks as their “tents.” These meet the requirements of mobility and shelter more quickly than traditional tents, but are perhaps not as much fun.
Many of our large cities also contain “tent cities,” with all the challenges they represent.
Today’s tents are usually machine-manufactured by large sporting goods suppliers, but this does not mean the vocation of tentmaking is simple or automatic. Tentmaking requires quality material and skilled assembly, all of which has to come from somewhere and be brought together. Durable, lightweight and reliably rainproof materials are needed. Tentmakers also need to understand customer needs and desires for everything from the size of the tent, the quality of the material (strength, weight, etc.) and what the tent needs to capable of doing. Designs need to be field tested to make sure they serve their purpose.
While all of this does not necessarily require tentmakers to be campers themselves, personal experience obviously helps.
Robert Banks, in his book God the Worker, has an interesting and useful chapter on God as Tentmaker, including God as a camper who experiences the benefits of a well-designed and well-constructed tent. God is the co-worker who selects the appropriate material and carefully stitches the material into a design that protects the contents of the tent. And God makes sure that it is functional for the size and shape of the tent and how it is best placed and set up for maximum benefit.
God the tentmaker and camper is personally equipped to empower tentmakers in design, manufacture of materials and construction of tents. He made his home for years in the tabernacle, which travelled with God’s people until it was God’s time to build a permanent building in Jerusalem. God was the designer and caretaker of this moveable “home for God,” awaiting the permanent and eternal heavenly tabernacle designed and built by God’s self.
The Green Room 