Supporting other Believers at Work
Previous blogs have touched on seven Kingdom-of-God reasons to get up and go to work. Here’s an eighth.
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You knew when you started this job that the boss did not share your faith. So you don’t expect him to live as a believer. But now events in your workplace have put you into what seems like a no-win situation. The man in charge has just ordered you to do something God does not allow. Of course, most of your coworkers will happily go with the flow and do whatever the chief requires. As one with faith in the true God, you are now the odd one out.
Maybe you recognized the ”you” in that story as Daniel—the same one who got hauled away from his home in Judah as a prisoner of war. His boss, King Nebuchadnezzar, expected Daniel to eat the same food he and his officials ate at the royal table. But Daniel knew that at least some of the items on that menu would defile him in God’s eyes. Thankfully, Daniel faced this on-the-job stress with the support of believing coworkers.
Standing with him: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Together, they asked their official palace guard for a ten-day trial period. During those ten days they would eat only vegetables and drink only water. The guard agreed. So they went through this test of faith side by side.
These four men provide us Christians with a biblical example of how we can not only survive but thrive in the world of work.
My Own Experience
I was twenty-six. A Christian. With a new job working as a state government employee. During those first few days, it didn’t take long for one seasoned worker to size me up. He saw a young man who had been raised in a Christian home, a fresh graduate of a Christian college, and unsophisticated in the ways of the world. I heard later that he had commented to a coworker: “This guy won’t last three weeks.”
He was wrong on that count: I continued working for the state for 11 years. But in those first months, I battled a sense of isolation and spiritual loneliness. Thankfully, in time I began to discover other Christians in my state workplaces. And as the years passed, some of us began meeting in my office during our lunch hour. That mutual bolstering from other believers helped keep “this guy” working as a state employee far longer than three weeks.
F&WM in Silicon Valley
Back then, I knew of no resources available to help me connect with other believers. Today, that has changed dramatically. I recently spoke with Roy Tinklenberg, co-founder of Faith and Work Movement Global (F&WM) in Silicon Valley, CA.
The F&WM team creates workplace groups, coaches leaders, and connects Christians with each other in the marketplace community. They also host events that help believers from over one hundred workplaces learn about faith and work integration, grow in a deep understanding of their work, and network with other like-minded people. F&WM is forming a global alliance of workplace fellowships around the world.
Some of these workplace groups meet for 30 minutes each day—preparing their hearts as they listen to worship songs, hearing one of their leaders offer encouragement from the Bible, and praying together—before having a time of daily fellowship for another 30 minutes in the cafeteria.
Tinklenberg told me of a Christian woman I’ll call Theresa employed by a multi-billion-dollar corporation. A number of negative issues had turned her company into a tension-filled work environment. Because she had never met another believer at work, she felt the need to find fellow Christians with whom she could safely share.
So she took a radical step of faith. She messaged the whole company of some 7,000 employees. “Am I the only Christian in this company? After working here two-and-a-half years, I have not met one other believer. I feel like I’m searching for a pearl on the ocean bottom.”
No one replied affirmatively—until much later. Finally, three women responded and began to pray with her. They found comfort, joy, and psychological safety. The group began to grow, with more and more mutual support. This benefited not only group members but also the company. Retention improved. Without this group, several people said, they would have quit.
Our Mandate for Mutual Encouragement
Groups like this one reflect what God instructs us to do. New Testament writers repeatedly call Christians to support each other. For example:
• “Encourage one another” II Cor. 13:11.
• “. . . encourage one another with these words” I Thess. 4:18.
• “. . . encourage one another and build each other up” I Thess. 5:11.
• “. . . encourage one another daily” Heb. 3:13.
• “. . . encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” Heb. 10:25.
I cannot recall ever hearing a single sermon urging Christians to find and support coworkers who share their faith. This strikes me as odd in light of all these New Testament calls to encourage one another.
When I mentioned this to Roy Tinklenberg, he agreed, and said: “When young people go to college and return to their home church, some dear saint will ask them, ‘Did you find a good Christian fellowship on campus?’ Why don’t we ask that same question when a young person joins the workforce? Simply to keep the Christians Christian, we need to create workplace fellowships.”
Sue Warnke, who knows Roy Tinklenberg, did just that. In this highly encouraging video, she recounts how she came to Christ and then began a Christian group in her company, Salesforce.
Beyond-Sunday Support
The daily encouragement called for in Heb. 3:13 cannot be given or received on a Sunday-only basis. Supporting each other that often fits nicely with the command, “six days you shall labor and do all your work” (Ex. 20:9; Deut. 5:13). If encouragement is vital—as the many New Testament passages say it is—then why not aim for it during those 86 percent of our days?
When Jesus sent his followers out into the world, he did not send them out on their own: “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them . . .’Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves’” (Luke 10:1-3).
Lambs among wolves! Jesus recognizes that he is sending them into the spiritual counterpart of a war zone, a jungle, a death valley. So instead of putting them out there in that danger zone as soloists, he sends them out in teams.
Today—taking our cues from Jesus—Christians in the work world need to face our inevitable challenges not alone but together. Doing so forms yet another reason—an eighth one—to get up and go to work.
God’s Kingdom Reasons for Working
Chapter 10: “Encouraging Believers”
