Grace Toronto. A church for the city in the city. Get to know us.

 By Mike Logan

My employer decided that it would be good for everyone in my Division to take a course called “Wellness: Managing Workplace Stress.” My turn was last week. This was one of those standard corporate learning things, where you go and sit in a room with 20 or 30 colleagues whom you’ve never met and you learn to be more efficient and generally a better employee.

This particular course was something like a self-help book presented as a six-hour classroom session. The instructor talked about what stress is, knowing the difference between things that are ‘important’ and things that are ‘urgent’, the importance of exercise, and something called “mind over mood.”

One of the key pieces of learning in the course was the “Wellness Wheel Personal Assessment.”

With the help of this nifty graphic, we were meant to chart how we’re doing in six aspects of wellness.

With regards to the spiritual aspects of our well-being, the instructor fostered some conversation about the importance of prayer and meditation as an outlet for stress. The conclusion of the course was actually ‘laughter is the best medicine’. The instructor presented a bunch of statistics about how laughing is good for us physically and mentally.

I don’t mean to be overly critical of the course because there was some interesting discussion and some pragmatic tips for how to approach challenges of work and home life. But it was a powerful illustration for me of just how hopeless we are without Jesus. Laughing; exercise; nutrition; hobbies; meditation; focusing on important things rather than urgent things; these are all good, but surely that is not all there is to self-actualization?

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:3-5a

As Christians we have the assurance that we have been chosen by God before the creation of the world. He has blessed us through Christ – what an indescribable privilege and an amazing truth on which to anchor our identities!

If ‘becoming everything that we are capable of becoming’ is up to our little self-help strategies, we are bound to fail. But through Christ we can take our challenges directly to the Creator of the universe and leave them at his feet knowing that he loves us as adopted children. Even when our sinful natures have succeeded in masking the joy that comes from knowing these truths, we are a part of an amazing community whose job it is to encourage each other and remind each other of our assured inheritance.

As you come to more fully understand the joy of this reality, remind yourself that you are chosen by God, but don’t stop there. Remind fellow believers of their identity in Christ to encourage and build them up. Finally, share how you find your identity in Jesus with your co-workers when you find yourself kvetching about stress on the job – I pray that God gives me the opportunity to change a hum-drum training day into another chance to share my faith with my friends at work.

By Mike Logan

Why are we at Grace so concerned with how our faith intersects with our work? Do we believe that it is God’s will that we are all successful in the business world and become rich? Is it because we feel that it is our responsibility to bring Christian Morals to the places of power in our City?

No.

We do believe that the Gospel message is so important, so freeing, that its effect should be to overwhelm all that we do in life. Some food for thought:

Unless the LORD builds the house,
its builders labour in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.

In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat -
for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Psalm 127:1-2

Work is good. When we work we reflect God’s creative nature, which is a beautiful act of worship. When we work in an office, study in a classroom, nurture our children, patrol the streets as a beat cop, or wash our dishes, He delights in our bringing order out of chaos, as he did in the Creation narrative, so long as we are living joyfully in the truth of the Gospel.

But if truth of our adoption as children of God does not overwhelm our work, we are working for our own glory. It is not the Lord who “builds the house” but ourselves. And we will undoubtedly discover that this is futile; in vain.

How do we look to the Lord for guidance in our work? How can we make sure we are working for His glory? And how do we teach ourselves that what the world says about rising early and staying up late toiling for the food we eat (and the gadgets we want) is part of our faithlessness?

That is the journey we are on. Join us.

Note: This post is part of a Faith & Work series discussing ideas that relate our faith to our work

Last year, we explored that while work is good, it is also broken (and so are we!). We experience this each day as we work at our jobs: the brokenness of the work environment, the frustration of things not going according to plan, and our sin. We are tempted to be anxious, impatient, greedy, angry, proud, or lazy. We are tempted to selfish ambition, gossip, and godlessness. We fight to consider our work as a worthy calling and a way of bearing God’s image, while our natural tendency may be to think of it as mundane.

God uses the daily tasks of our jobs to show us our need for him and to grow us into godliness. It takes constant perseverance and reliance on him, and it rarely feels like a glamourous way to live the Christian life. We often fail: we sin in our actions and in the attitude of our hearts, and our coworkers see it.

In the midst of this brokenness, we have the opportunity to deepen our trust in the gospel and share it with our colleagues.

Preaching the gospel to ourselves at work

Yes, we are more sinful than we’ll ever comprehend, and our working lives are no exception. Becoming aware of our sin in the workplace can lead to discouragement or feelings of inadequacy, making us reluctant to share our Christian faith with our coworkers, who will see our imperfect witness.

However, God has given us the righteousness of his Son! He has accepted us because of his Son’s perfect, completed work. We trust in Jesus for our right standing before God, and we trust in him, not our own strength, to continue to make us holy and obedient in the workplace.

As Christians, we have been given the ministry of reconciliation: the task of calling those around us to also place their faith in Christ. This calling is not based on our performance.

Sharing the gospel with others at work

What do we do when our coworkers see us fall short of who we are called to be as Christians? (And they will – especially if we are opening up and investing in meaningful relationships with them).

Rather than allowing our failures to discourage us from being open about our faith, we can use them as a springboard for sharing the gospel. Many non-believers have been only minimally exposed to Christianity, and see it primarily as a set of guidelines for moral, (self-) righteous living. Many have never heard about having a secure, intimate relationship with God by His grace, through faith in Christ and not based on works.

Recently, an atheist coworker saw me react badly in a frustrating situation, only to have to go back in and face it again. Discouraged by my anger and impatience, and unable to hide it, I told her “I think this is God’s way of trying to teach me something. Any illusion I had of myself being a good person is officially over right now. He’s keeping me humble.” She responded: “So, it’s not punishment, it’s a lesson.”

In Christ, we have freedom to acknowledge our shortcomings and failures to our coworkers, and then share the hope that we have in Christ: we know we are imperfect, and we see our wretched state and our need for a Saviour. Our relationship with God does not depend on our perfection. It depends on Christ’s completed work on our behalf.

I am currently sitting on a Westjet plane en route to Calgary. Listening to my iPod and enjoying a bag of snacks, I was reading an Economist article that talked about the volcano in Iceland that disrupted the airline operations in Europe for a few days. And I see on my twitter feed that Porter Airlines is planning on going public.

We often think of the airline industry as the bain of our existence. No one likes it. Once in the 20th century, it was considered to be the best representation of the capabilities of man — families traveled to the airports just to get a glimpse of these flying machines, and as you may have seen in Catch Me if You Can, pilots once enjoyed the respect of the entire society. All of that air travel glamour is lost.

But, even the work of the airline industry is good work, according to God.

We explored about a year ago that we glorify God through our work. Work glorifies God because through it, we express our love for the common good. Doesn’t that sound great? Our good God, who allows his grace to be poured out not only on believers, but the whole world, allows you and me to express His goodness to the world through the work that He has called us to.

The Airline Industry allow us to travel to places that no one has even dared to go. We now enjoy being able to see and visit our friends and family with relative ease. We can do business with those who are far away. Even those of us who don’t liked to fly gain the benefits of eating fresh fruit and vegetables that 100 years ago we wouldn’t have enjoyed. Think about it– because of the airline industry, believers can travel to places where the Gospel hasn’t reached. Just 150 years ago, we had to rely on ships to cross across the ocean. Without the airline industry, I wouldn’t be here in North America!

Through our frustrations as we experienced the disruption of flight during the volcanic activity, we can easily diss even more how frustrating flying is. But, by viewing that all work is good work, God helps us to see the beauty in all of our work. God called us to work, for the betterment of the society.

Now it’s your turn. Share with us, how is your industry/vocation good work?

A few days ago, someone messaged me about their experience in being transparent in their workplace. This is a real life story, and this happened in Toronto. I hope this encourages you in your efforts to be transparent in your work!

“So yesterday was my second year anniversary, and I was just sad about being here. I was hoping if be somewhere else by now. Anyway, God just totally blessed me and gave me perspective in such a beautiful way. At first I got a call for an interview, which was just positive and encouraging. And then my office manager came up to me and started asking me about games night and just being curious. I asked her if she wanted to come to the next one and she said she wanted to be invited to the next games night. It was so awesome. I felt so good that she felt comfortable enough to take initiative and invite herself just from seeing my postings on Facebook. I felt like i had broken a barrier with her (its been interesting to get to know her…shes just a very lonely woman).

And then later, I was talking to another coworker and she asked what I was doing that night. I said bible study and she started asking questions about it. And I ended up sharing the gospel with her. It was just a totally unexpected crazy day.

I was so frustrated a couple weeks back I was like ‘God, I don’t want to be here. but I’ve made no impact. What have I done here?’ and He just did something yesterday. I don’t know why, but He did. It gave me good perspective. I was more excited about that stuff than my interview!”

I am a football fan. Undoubtably, Superbowl is celebrated as a major holiday in my family, and the traditions of having big parties, devising an enormous technical contraption for a big screen TV and making the trip to CostCo for those big bags of chips will remain for a while.

Superbowl advertisements is another huge tradition within the superbowl culture, and a lot of controversies arise from them. And this year, like other years, there’s a controversy on an advertisement that is to air in a few days.

Tim Tebow, perhaps the most famous college football player in the last few years and a vocal believer, is making a stance against abortion. Tebow’s mother was very ill during her pregnancy and the doctors advised her to abort the baby. She refused. A few months later, Tim was born.

Putting our political views aside, we must take a deep look at Tim’s approach to football and his career. He faces an uncertain future in the NFL (many pundits say that he won’t be playing in the NFL) yet he has so many ways he could make easy money with his fame. Despite that, he used his time and his platform to stand for something he believed in. He took a stance on his view on abortion, and he put his future, his popularity, and his platform in jeopardy.

Then we see how we approach our jobs and careers. Often we “sell out” on our faith in Christ to gain ground in our careers and money. If we are honest with ourselves, we often keep our faith and our profession as far away from each other as possible so that our faith doesn’t ruin our career. In fact, we are so worried about our faith ruining our professional standing that we pre-emptively shoot down any sign of our faith. Think about the last time someone cursed God in your office. Think about your last time at the pub. Don’t we protect our career from our faith?

Most of us laugh at the “John 3:16” verses in the sporting events. Heck, I don’t even like Tim Tebow showing a verse on his eye black! But, at least they aren’t afraid of letting the world know about their devotion to Christ.

To read more about Tim Tebow’s commercial and one sportswriter’s view on it, please click here.

This past Sunday, Dan spoke about how Jesus sends us out into the world to be witnesses for him. Although challenging, our workplaces can be a great place to live out this calling.

A few months ago, I went to a cottage with several coworkers. I asked God to give me an opportunity to share the gospel clearly with each person. After a few days of water sports, games, and good food & drink, we had a quiet dinner. One of the non-Christian girls asked a question that led into a long talk about Christianity. One friend, after hearing how a Christian can relate intimately with God, asked, “How does God speak to you?” Someone else at the table said she might like to come to church. At one point, I explained that Christians don’t believe they can follow rules to earn God’s favour, but see themselves as utterly sinful and undeserving, and must put their hope completely in Christ rather than good works. Hearing this, one friend said, “I’ve never heard it explained that way before. It’s different. It’s not hypocritical.”

God amazed me with His faithful answer to prayer. Here are a handful of lessons from the experience:

• Pray for the desire to see God’s kingdom come at work. I don’t naturally view my workplace as a place to witness for Christ. Left to my own devices, I won’t give much thought to God’s kingdom or whether people at my work know Him or worship Him.
• Pray for opportunities to have spiritual conversations with coworkers. Pray also for the courage to recognize and seize opportunities.
• Party with coworkers! The most significant conversations I’ve had with my coworkers have taken place not on the job, but over food and drink in a relaxed environment. That’s also where I’ve had the privilege of getting to know and enjoy these people more, as they put aside their professional personas. I’ve been blessed by their friendship!
• Be willing to be vulnerable with coworkers. Knowing that we are accepted and loved by God in Christ means that we need not cover up our weaknesses, insecurities (or our faith!) out of a need to be liked or accepted by others.
• Be willing to be excluded and mocked. The girls who asked thoughtful questions about Christianity are the same ones who enjoy mocking it and teasing me at times. But I’m reminded of God’s word which says “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).
• The gospel is powerful. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” (Romans 1:16).  As I desire to see people at work saved by Jesus, I can trust that it is the gospel, not my persuasiveness or personality, that is the power of God for salvation. This truth frees us to proclaim the truth about Jesus, in reliance on God rather than ourselves.

by Brittany Finlay. Brittany leads the Healthcare Sector Group of Faith & Work. To contact her, please email her at faithwork@gracetoronto.ca.

I’m someone who has long sought and pondered what God has planned for me with regards to a career, and I’ve been led to share some of these experiences at Grace as part of the Faith & Work leadership team. I’m also currently on strike – a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 79, supposedly protesting the injustices brought on our 20 000 members by our employer, the City of Toronto.

(more…)