One of the oddities of being set aside for paid church
ministry is that we’re surrounded by Christians in the workplace. That’s a joy,
but it’s also really unusual and means that our understanding of evangelism in
the workplace is not always as accurate as it could be.
The survey responses have been very helpful at identifying
some of the blind spots in our thinking and teaching. In no particular order,
here are some of those areas:
1. “I think we head that we should tell our colleagues about
Jesus, but not really how to do that.
I think the motivation is there for many but the lack of experience lowers
confidence.”
2. Emmanuel’s teaching sometimes assumes a level of bible
literacy that our colleagues simply don’t have. This means we need to keep
working hard at linking biblical teaching with concepts and ideas that our
colleagues are more familiar with.
3. “The biggest challenge is not sharing ideas, it’s in
personal holiness.”
4. When the topic of workplace evangelism comes up, we
should be hearing more from those who are actually getting on with evangelism
in the workplace – rather than the vicar!
5. We’re very good at cheering for missionaries to Japan; we
could do more to cheer for missionaries to Aztec West (or other places of work...)
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| Missionaries to Aztec West |
6. People feel pulled by good responsibilities in too many
directions. One respondent has said,
“We want to be the best husband and father we can by making sure we’re
around for bath and bible time. We want to do the best job we can – which
usually means doing more than 37.5 hours a week. We want to take responsibility
at church. We want to make and keep friends outside of work and church.
These ‘pulls’ on our lives…make us subject to a slightly dangerous
cocktail. Whilst we know the gospel of grace, we still feel the need to be
successful in each of these areas. Wanting to do ‘good’ in each of these areas
is both a response to the gospel and potentially a way we can undermine the
gospel of grace. The impact of all this is that our time is just restricted.
Dunno how to solve it”
As a staff team we’re very grateful for the honesty of these
responses – particularly the last one.
We’ll certainly try our best to
incorporate them into our teaching and preaching. But please don’t rely just on
us. You’re the ones on the front lines in the workplace. You’re the ones who
know best how to speak God’s word in love to each other, on the way home from
work, over the phone, as you wash up the dishes together. As you take in and
live out God’s word, spur each other on to keep standing and keep speaking for
our great King.
