Workplace Grace: Becoming a Spiritual Influence at Work

By Bill Peel and Walt Larimore

You can take your faith to work in appropriate, engaging ways. Workplace Grace offers a simple, non-threatening approach to evangelism. Whether your work takes you to a construction site, a cramped cubical or the corner office, every Christian plays a significant role in the Great Commission. Between Sundays, you can be a pipeline for God's grace i

• Language: English
• Publisher: Foundations for Livng
• Release date: Oct 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9780989647922

Book preview

Introduction

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

—Acts 1:8

Just before departing earth, Jesus outlined His strategic plan for spreading the gospel message to the entire planet. First-century disciples embraced this mission and the church experienced immediate growth. Followers of Jesus grew from a few hundred on the day of Pentecost to more than six million by the end of the third century¹—considerable growth by anyone’s calculus.

Fast forward two thousand years. For disciples in the twenty-first century, the marching orders of Jesus have not changed, which begs a question:

Since 75 percent of Americans are looking for meaning in life,² and America has almost 340,000 churches³ lead by more than 600,000 clergy,⁴ then,

why is the Christian population in the United States declining while the non-religious population is growing at a rapid rate?⁵

In Workplace Grace, you will discover reasons behind this troubling trend and how God wants to use ordinary Christians to reverse it. You will also learn a simple, biblical, historically proven approach to evangelism that does not intimidate Christians or nonbelievers.⁶

You see, religious professionals were not the primary contributors to the exponential growth of the early church. It happened because ordinary men and women took the Great Commission personally and seriously. From dusty Jerusalem streets to soggy outposts in the British Isles, early Christians lived out their faith in bakeries, barracks, barns, and businesses, spreading the gospel with an enthusiasm that could never be produced by wages or sense of duty.

Evangelism is about relationship. It is a process, not an aggressive encounter.

Day after day, the early Christians gossiped the gospel to friends, relatives, masters, slaves, customers, coworkers, fellow soldiers, and others in their commercial networks. In other words, they took their faith to work.

The workplace was the most strategic mission field for first-century believers. Today nothing has changed. Those who are most effective at sharing their faith are ordinary Christians in the workplace who understand that evangelism is first and foremost about building relationships. It is a process, often a long one, not an aggressive encounter or a one-time conversation.

As you will discover, the journey of faith consists of a number of small, incremental decisions. Being part of someone’s journey to faith in Jesus can begin with something as simple as having a cup of coffee with a colleague, listening with compassion while a customer vents about a rough week, or going the extra mile for a boss or employee who is under stress.

When you spend time with people and intentionally watch for what the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives, you will begin to see how God can use you in His work of drawing them closer to Jesus, one step at a time. As you read and pray about the principles in Workplace Grace, you will discover how in the course of an ordinary day simple acts of service and kind, encouraging words can have a bigger impact than spiritual interruptions orchestrated out of a sense of guilt.

The most strategic mission field in the world is the workplace.

This was our premise in 1995 when we teamed up to develop a course called The Saline Solution⁷ to teach doctors how to talk about faith with patients. Again and again, doctors who attended our live presentations or watched via video commented,

I feel a load of guilt has been taken off my shoulders.

I never knew sharing my faith could be so simple.

I can do this!

They also suggested that we adapt The Saline Solution content for other professions, and that is how Workplace Grace⁸ was born. Now we hear similar remarks from teachers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and countless others who have learned a new way to think about evangelism and are helping coworkers take one step closer to Jesus.

We pray you will have the same experience.

Chapter 1

Spiritual Economics

I’ve seen far too many Christians who are more than willing to travel halfway around the world to volunteer for a week in an orphanage, but who cannot bring themselves to take the personal risk of sharing Jesus with the coworker who sits day after day in the cubicle right next to them.

—Lee Strobel

In 1921, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was stricken with polio, a disease he struggled with until his death in April 1945. On the tenth anniversary of FDR’s death, Dr. Jonas Salk announced that the polio vaccine he had developed was ready for use by the general public. More than 30 years later, in the late 1980s, thousands of doses of oral polio vaccine filled shelves in drug company refrigerators while hundreds of thousands of polio cases were still being reported around the globe. Supply was plentiful. The problem was distribution.

Rotary International stepped in and set a lofty goal to eradicate polio from the world. The organization raised more than $200 million to buy enough vaccine to meet the entire global need. But they confronted the same massive problem: distribution. Working in conjunction with the World Health Organization, Rotarians developed a strategy to identify the most needy countries and designate national vaccination days. Thousands of health officials and volunteers vaccinated entire countries against polio in a matter of weeks. By 2001, only 500 cases of polio were reported worldwide. By addressing the problem of distribution, Rotarians saved thousands from premature death or disability.

Supply, demand, and distribution are basic economic principles. A business may have abundant capital, solid management, and quality product, but without distribution, none of it matters. Even with strong demand and abundant supply in the warehouse, if a business cannot get its product to the consumer, demise is inevitable.

Many of the world’s problems stem from failure to meet the challenge of distribution.

Many of the world’s problems stem from a failure to meet the challenge of distribution. For example, food production has increased faster than the growth rate of the world’s population¹ for the last two decades. In 2013, enough food was produced to feed the entire global population.¹ Yet one person in eight went to bed hungry. A key reason: distribution problems.

THE SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE

The problem of distribution applies to the spiritual realm as well. People are looking as never before for spiritual answers and resources. Things that promised satisfaction (a bigger home, faster car, different spouse) have only disappointed, as they always will, and intensified the thirst for something deeper.

As human solutions continue to fail, more and more people are seeking spiritual help. However, unlike in the past, people are not looking to the church for answers, the former distribution hub for help with life’s big problems.

Our spiritual supply chain needs revising.

The God of the Bible is a God of unlimited resources. The apostle Paul reminded the church in Ephesus that God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20). God’s resources are limitless; His grace and love are endless. Moreover, He longs to pour out this spiritual wealth on desperate and spiritually needy people. Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi, God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19).

The challenge of evangelism in the twenty-first century is not a matter of supply; it is a problem of distribution. The methods used in the past to deliver spiritual aid and assistance are not working. The idea that we can open a distribution center on a street corner and expect those in spiritual need to come to us is not working. In fact, God did not intend for it to work. Instead of a retail business model, He chose one-on-one distribution as the primary method for His followers to dispense His grace.

The idea that we can open a distribution center on a street corner and expect those in spiritual need to come to us is not working.

GOD’S DISTRIBUTION METHOD

It is a fascinating and humbling fact: the Creator of the universe could have used any method to spread His grace to the world, yet He chose to use ordinary Christians—not a few handpicked superstars—to take His message of salvation to the human race.

God calls every Christian to be a witness for Him. So for most of us, our mission field is where we spend the bulk of our time: the workplace. Between Sundays, we can be pipelines of God’s grace to people who would never darken the door of a church. If that sounds overwhelming, hang on. You will discover how natural being part of God’s grand distribution plan can be.

Evangelism Is a Process

Many Christians learned a mechanical, aggressive approach to evangelism. We attended workshops and read books based on techniques developed by people who have the gift of evangelism.

That is the problem. When those of us who are not gifted evangelists muster up the courage to try these techniques, the results are usually disappointing—which makes us feel guilty and often offends others. We begin to think of ourselves as substandard disciples who are simply not able to share our faith. Although we want to see friends and colleagues come to Christ, we stop trying out of fear and frustration.

The problem is one of perspective, not inability. We tend to think of evangelism as an event, a point in time when we explain the gospel message and individuals put their faith in Jesus on the spot. Done!

Most Christians can name a number of people who served as links in the chain of their spiritual journey to Christ.

However, according to the Bible, evangelism is an organic process, more like farming than selling. A person’s decision to trust Christ is the climactic step, following a series of smaller steps God orchestrates to draw a person to Himself. He typically enlists a number of people with a variety of gifts. Each person plays a different but vital role to help a nonbeliever take one step closer to Jesus.

Bill Kraftson of Search Ministries observes that each Christian in a nonbeliever’s journey to faith is like a link in a chain. It’s great to be the last link in the chain, Kraftson says, but it’s not more important than any other link. We just need to make sure we’re not the missing link.

The Distribution Process

The Bible consistently uses an agrarian model to explain how God draws a person to Himself. Paul used an agrarian model with the Corinthians to describe their conversion.

I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose … (1 Cor. 3:6–8).

Jesus used an agrarian model to explain the process of evangelism to His disciples. He told them they would harvest a field cultivated and planted by others.

Do you not say, Four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying One sows and another reaps is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor (John 4:35–38).

Jesus also used agrarian terms to explain why some people respond to the word of God while others do not.

A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among