Do you sometimes feel expressing your faith in the workplace is like a high-wire balancing act? Where any misstep might mean certain death as you plummet to the ground below?
I felt that way while I was working in the corporate world. And truth be told, I still feel that way sometimes, even though I spend most of my time surrounded by other Christians engaged in ministry.
Last week we explored Two Ways to Let Your Light Shine in The Workplace. Jesus modeled how He engaged with many people rather than sitting in a holy huddle surrounded by other believers. He also spoke the truth in love to all those who came to Him with an open heart.
With that as a foundation, let’s get practical this week and think about how we can express our faith in the workplace without falling off the high-wire. There are two aspects of expressing our faith in the workplace. First, there is witnessing or proclaiming our faith. Second, there is defending the faith against a secular worldview.
Witnessing our Faith
Witnessing, or proclaiming our faith, is presenting the Gospel to coworkers, so it brings them into a relationship with God. In its simplest form, witnessing is telling the story of what God has done in our lives and how we have changed because of maintaining a relationship with Him.
In the workplace, this process usually has four distinct elements: signaling, listening, relating, and engaging.
Signaling
Remember Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 5:14-16 not to hide our light under a bowl? How can we let our light shine in the workplace? One way is through signaling our faith. Signaling our faith is perhaps the easiest and least intrusive thing we can do to let our light shine.
Here are a few simple ways to signal our faith in the workplace:
- Pictures or plaques that display a verse important to you in your workspace.
- Christian jewelry (a cross necklace or ring).
- Reading scripture during lunch hour or a work break.
- When asked about what you did last night or over the weekend, mention your bible study or attending church.
There are many ways to signal our faith in the workplace naturally and unobtrusively. Signaling is one way you can let your light shine.
Listening
Listening is the most important thing we can do to prepare ourselves to share our faith in the workplace.
Casual conversations abound in the workplace. If we listen, really listen, to our coworkers share their stories from last night or over the weekend, we’ll hear about experiences and emotions we relate to personally.
As coworkers share their experiences, they express their hopes, dreams, and fears. Listen for words that describe hopes, dreams, fears, worries, disappointments, rejections, insecurities, and so on.
Knowing their hopes, dreams, and fears provides a bridge for us to build relationships that will eventually offer the opportunity to share our faith.
Relating
We need to relate to or empathize with someone enduring a trial in their life. We need not have experienced the same situation to relate to them. We do, however, need to relate to what they are going through. Someone experiencing fear needs courage, someone experiencing anger needs patience, and someone experiencing emptiness needs a sense of purpose.
We may never have experienced the same thing, but perhaps we’ve gone through something similar—that gives us a common bond of shared experience.
Engaging
The last step in the process is to tell the story of how God has changed our life. This comes naturally when 1) we’ve opened the door through signaling to let others know about our faith, 2) listening carefully to their hopes, dreams, and fears, and 3) find ways to relate to their experience.
Now we simply tell the story of how God changed our life.
Defending our Faith
Defending our faith against the secular worldview is where most Christians struggle. It is tough to know what to say and do when keeping our jobs means conforming to a secular organization’s demands.
For example, in 2010, the Affordable Care Act was passed wherein the Federal government mandated all medical insurance plans cover abortion. Even Catholic nuns were forced to buy medical plans that covered abortion. Ultimately, many organizations and faith-based business leaders sued the Federal government to win the right to be excluded from the abortion requirement.
On a more personal level, how do you, as an individual, respond when a boss tells you to fudge the numbers for a report or violate company policy to make a sale? Do you say “no,” even though it may cost you your job?
Biblical Response
The Biblical response is to obey earthly masters except for when they run counter to God’s commands.
In the Old Testament, we learn about Daniel, who openly prayed to God three times a day despite the king’s order to pray only to him (Daniel 6). Daniel’s refusal to pray to the king cost Daniel a night in the lion’s den, but he honored the first commandment, “You shall have no other Gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).
In the New Testament, the apostles were teaching about Jesus in Jerusalem. The religious leaders ordered them to stop, but they continued proclaiming the Gospel. When confronted by the religious leaders, Peter replied, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29).
Paul concisely summarizes the need to obey earthly masters when not running counter to God.
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free” (Ephesians 6:5-8 NIV).
We must:
- obey earthly masters sincerely, just as we would obey Christ,
- serve wholeheartedly as though serving the Lord, not men, and
- do the will of God.
Like Daniel and Peter, we must first do the will of God. Second, we must obey sincerely and wholeheartedly our earthly masters, knowing our reward comes from God because of our obedience to Him.
We can trust in God as we put our faith in Him first and obey man second!
More Articles
I have written many articles on interpersonal relationships. You can find them by typing “Interpersonal Relationships” in the search bar. Meanwhile, here are several of my favorites.
- #328: Our Employees Need Doctors More Than Judges!
- #310: From A Somebody To A Nobody and Back Again
- #308: Is All This Division and Animosity Necessary?
- #270: Acceptance and Approval Are NOT the Same Things!
Join the Conversation
As always, questions and comments are welcome. Have there been times when you struggled knowing how to be a witness of your faith or defend your faith in a secular workplace? What happened?
I’d love your help. This blog is read primarily because of people like you who share it with friends. Would you be kind enough to share it by pressing the share button?
Category: Relationships | Interpersonal Relationships
When I was a young patrolman, the police chief selected me and my sergeant to become department peer counselors. We were sent to a five day training course. The instructors interviewed my sergeant in class, as a demonstration, and surprisingly my sergeant tearfully opened up about painful childhood memories with his mean spirited father. After class, one of the students approached my sergeant in the parking lot and said he was moved by my sergeant’s story. Then he blurted out, “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?” My sergeant, an agnostic bordering on atheist, was immediately turned off. He abruptly said, “Thanks, but I’m not religious.” At dinner that night, he brought it up again, how annoyed he was. I said, “I’m sure he meant well. And to be honest, I find a lot of comfort in my faith that there’s a purpose for why we’re here.” This indirect expression of faith opened the door to a longer conversation. Morale of my story: Sometimes one’s testimony is more effective with gentle engagement versus challenges of faith. Know your audience, as they say.
I had a similar out of the blue “Have you accepted Jesus Christ?” when I was a young manager. It was off-putting to me as well. Since then, I’ve found building relational bridges is the first step toward opening up a deeper conversation. People often respond more openly when they realize you share similar experiences.