5 Ways to Bless Your Workplace

5 Ways to Bless Your Workplace

By Nick Abraham

Before working at my present job, I was a cook for five years at an Italian restaurant. If you have worked in the restaurant industry, you know that it can draw an interesting and diverse crowd of employees. During that time, I became a Christian. I never thought that I would be in a more challenging work atmosphere to share and live out my faith. While my current work atmosphere is really nothing like the restaurant (I work at Fortune 500 company), I have found an entirely new set of challenges in living out my faith at work. The truth is, there are always challenges to carrying the gospel message in a fallen world, regardless of the context.

The corporate world presents a unique veneer of professionalism, ethics, and propriety. But in reality, the guts of the day-to-day in a corporate job can be quite challenging. There are myriad moral conundrums that come up in an office. We are faced with temptations to gossip and engage in malicious chatter when others aren’t around. Many are faced with struggles with the opposite sex. The challenge for Christians is to represent the gospel well at any job.

So how do we represent Jesus well in the workplace? Here are a five ways to grace your workplace.

1. Be bold but smart. Consider Paul’s boldness before Felix in Acts 24 or Jesus’ words on being brought before governors and kings in Matthew 10. Just because we are at work, we are never exempt from the call on our lives to make much of him. However, we must be smart and keep in mind passages like 1 Peter 2:13: “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.” At work, we are subject to our bosses and to the leader or leaders of the company. So be bold, but keep in mind where you are.

2. Take risks. I realize this point somewhat contradicts the last one, but the Christian life rests in that tension between risk and prudence. Take steps in work friendships to bring up Jesus. I am a relational evangelist, meaning I like to establish some type of friendship and then bring up Jesus. I am rarely the “can I tell you about Jesus?” guy. My temptation is to never actually bring up Jesus, or to do so in softened ways. Risk a friendship, risk a promotion, risk not “fitting in,” or maybe even risk your job if God would call you to that sacrifice. Of course, we don’t want to be reckless just for the sake of being reckless.

3. Pray for your enemies. Make it a practice to pray for the people who don’t seem to like you, who you don’t really get along with, or who just always seem to have something snarky to say to or about you. This is incredibly hard, which is why you need to rely on the Spirit. You will also discover God ministering to you even as you pray. Pray for them, for their families, and for their kids. Most importantly, pray for their relationship with Jesus.

4. Use your gift(s). I am a teacher/pastor type. I usually go into a teaching or pastoral mode at some point during my faith encounters with coworkers. The church is still the church both gathered and scattered. While at work we continue to be part of the church scattered, and in the church we are called to use our gifts to build up the body. Pray about and find a way to use your gift(s). Start a Bible study; start a prayer group; take people’s prayer requests and pray for them; give of your time, talents, or treasures to those in need. Do whatever it takes to be a reconciling minister of the gospel (2 Cor. 5:18-20).

5. Work hard. Be on time, care about your job, follow the rules, get your work done, and help others. Of course, nonbelievers can be good employees, too. What makes us different is really captured in the household codes from many of the epistles. “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust” (1 Pet. 2:18). We should be that “good” employee no matter whom we work for, what the conditions are, and/or whether we like the job. In sharing these sufferings of Christ, light they may be, we can make much of Christ by working hard with integrity. Never let laziness or grumbling be your calling card.

May God bless us as we seek to serve and make much of Christ in all areas of our lives!

“To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Col. 1:27-29)

Where’s Your Happiness?: Introducing the Worship Initiative

By Shane Barnard

Okay, full disclosure. I had an ugly cry watching VeggieTales. One particular scene in one particular tale—the Christmas classic about Saint Nicholas. Little Nic jumps on a boat to explore the world and find life and meaning after his generous, Jesus-loving parents tragically pass away. Toward the end of his adventure, he stumbles into a church to find a young woman feeding the poor. What she's doing looks familiar to him since it's what he's seen his parents do all his life. And something about this woman's demeanor is right. She has the same contented look his mom and dad had. Nicolas thinks he's found it! If he does what this woman is doing, he'll finally be happy. If he can follow in his parents' footsteps by serving people, his heart will be filled. So little Nic musters up the courage to approach the woman and ask her the big question:

Miss, does this make you happy?

Chuckling, she replies something like, Oh, honey! this doesn't make me happy. I get to do this because God has made me happy.

Cue ugly cry. Through those Veggie tears, sweet gospel truth washed over me. And for the first time that particular day, I got off my boat of searching and remembered . . . I am happy. I am no longer in search of a next level. The next hit song. A larger ministry. A higher-paying job. A more respectful family. More affirming friends. Some unknown earthly pleasure.

I am happy—so long as I remember that I've stumbled on a treasure in a field (Matt. 13:44). That if I have Jesus, I have everything, and if I have everything, there's no longer anything I'm looking for. And if there's no longer anything I'm looking for, I am free to love and serve with no return.

My search has come to an end, and in his strength I can say today, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil. 3:8).

What About You?

If little Saint Nic walked up to you after you led worship or preached on a Sunday, or while you were directing cars in the parking lot, stacking chairs after Bible study, or changing the slides for the next worship song, and asked Does this make you happy? would your response be like the young woman in the VeggieTales film? Maybe it's what would come out of your mouth, but would it be true? Or perhaps your true response would sound something like:

My ministry does make me happy. I love the affirmation and the applause of people. It motivates me to continue to work hard at “ministering” to them.

or

It does make me happy. It makes me feel good about myself when I pour into others.

or

It brings a smile to God's face when I serve him in this way.

Maybe you are still on that boat today. Looking for that next stroke to relieve your restless heart. Maybe you are like me and you just need to be reminded a lot.

Nothing Compares

The gospel is so freeing. Especially to us creative folk who have a strong tendency to find our identity in what we do and not in who we are, or whose we are. It would serve us well to take some time every morning before the craziness starts to think about these things. To get into God's Word and remind ourselves of our reward. To remember that today our “flesh may fail, and our heart may fail, but God is the strength of our hearts and our portion forever” (Ps. 73:26). To see the beautiful smile of God—not because of our perfect service, because of his perfect sacrifice (2 Cor. 5:21). To daily ask for the “strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that [we] may be filled with all the fulness of God” (Eph 3:19).

What else is there, friends? What can man give to us? What can man take from us? What can man even offer us that would take our eyes off of this prize that we have in Jesus?

What can hold a candle to:

Chosen before the foundation of the world!

Blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places!

Predestined for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ!

Redemption through his blood!

Forgiveness of all our sins!

Grace lavished upon us!

The mystery of his will made known!

Peace from God our Father!

And those are just a few things from the first nine verses of Ephesians.

How could we set our sails in pursuit of other loves? What could trump the riches we have in Christ?

Even though the answer is, of course, nothing, I will wake up tomorrow morning on a boat. Feeling the weight of my sin. Hearing the groggy voice of the old man. Feeling my proneness to wander. Sensing this self-serving, self-exalting war deep inside my members, until by the power of the Spirit who lives within me, I dock my boat on the solid rock of his Word and remember again: I am happy.

Place for You

We have spent the last couple of years developing a resource that will do exactly that: daily remind us of who he is, and who we are in him. A place for creatives, worship pastors, musicians, and songwriters to be encouraged by the truth of God's Word. A place where you as a musician will also be trained and equipped in your craft in order to leverage those giftings to best bring glory to the Father.

It is called The Worship Initiative. Come visit us. We would love to meet you!