The workplace is a (mission) field
Can our ordinary, everyday lives really make a difference for God’s kingdom?
Tim Yearsley from LICC helps us consider the opportunities before us as Christians in our workplaces, when we show up with a belief that God’s love isn’t only for Sundays.
Looking back over the last week,
how long do you think you spent in church?
On a good week, it might be about four hours.
And looking back over last week, how long did you spend working?
For many of us, it’ll be at least forty hours – ten times as much.
Making the most of our work week
So how might we live out God’s love on Monday as well as Sunday?
What does it mean to be as attuned to his presence at the desk as in the pew? What happens when we begin to live as if our work is our worship?
At LICC, we want to help Christians see how they can make a difference with God and for God wherever they are: at the school gate, in local leisure centres, on the streets where we live, and in the workplace (even if your workplace is Zoom).
work has taken on new significance as a context for discovering what life is about.
The workplace is especially significant for Christian young professionals. Young adults of all faiths and none are increasingly looking to their careers for a sense of meaning and purpose that previous generations would have found elsewhere. So work has taken on new significance as a context for discovering what life is about.
That means that, more than ever, the workplace is place in which many are ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’ (Matthew 9:38). Christians can be labourers in this harvest field!
As we show up with the kind of purposeful approach to life that their non-Christian friends are looking for; and as we show our colleagues that their work really matters when they see it in relation to something, or someone, greater.
Young adults … are increasingly looking to their careers for a sense of meaning and purpose.
Working for the Lord
Thinking of the workplace in this way also raises questions for us as Christians though:
Do we see our emails as worshipful acts, written and sent ‘for the Lord, not for human masters’ (Colossians 3:23)?
Does our attitude under pressure provoke curiosity in the people around us?
Are the meetings we attend about getting through tasks, or bringing the best out of people?
Three ways to better conversations at work
We will only earn the right to speak about our faith when people have seen the difference it makes. But when that opportunity does come – and it will – here are three guiding principles for having better conversations at work with our curious colleagues.
Be present with people, really listening to what they are saying and where they are coming from.
Be curious, asking questions and inviting opportunities for your colleagues to open up.
Be brave by sharing personally about our mistakes, struggles, and the difference Jesus makes.
Jesus modelled these principles beautifully through his whole ministry, with individuals in their workplaces: at tax collection booths, lakesides, homes, markets and wedding feasts.
We will only earn the right to speak about our faith when people have seen the difference it makes.
So look ahead to your next week: not just to how many hours you might spend in work, but to the work you have to do and the fellow workers you do it alongside.
See if you can enter your week with the presence, curiosity and bravery of Jesus.. and see what happens as God’s love flows through you, to the people he has put around you.
Join us at Work + Go Manchester 2022 to hear more from Tim and others who are working hard to inspire and equip Christians to see their workplaces as their mission field.
You can find out more about Work + Go and LICC by following them on Instagram:
@workandgo.uk
@liccltd
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