In Every Good Endeavor, in a passage resonant with Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy or N. T. Wright in The Resurrection of the Son of God, Tim Keller firmly rejects a relatively common distortion of Christian eschatology and asserts the world “is not the temporary theater for our individual salvation stories, after which we go to live disembodied lives in a different dimension.” In fact, “this world is the forerunner of the new heavens and new earth, which will be purified, restored, and enhanced at the ‘renewable of all things.’”
And that means?
“Caring for and cultivating this material world” has worth. “‘Secular’ work has no less dignity and nobility than the ‘sacred’ work of ministry.”
Alternatively, I could put it this way: all work can be “ministry” if, by “ministry,’ we mean to refer to work that is sacred, i.e., set apart for God and his glory.
Working Prototype 