Your influence on a workplace for the gospel

It can be hard work being a Christian in the workplace. For many people, they are the only Christian in their office or in their department or on their building site. The workplace culture might be challenging. Everyone else might have different values to you and spend their time and money in wildly different ways to what you would feel comfortable doing.

How can a Christian, vastly outnumbered in the workplace, do to make a difference? How can we truly be salt and light, where a small amount makes a difference to a much larger amount? How can we be the aroma of life to those around us?

The temptation is to keep your head down and try not to attract too much attention. It is the self-preservation instinct. Just do your job, try to avoid any kind of controversial issue, and go home. This means you only have the bare minimum of engagement with your coworkers. The aim of this is to protect yourself, which is understandable. Yet it is hard to see how this will influence anyone around you at all.

I do understand that there are many challenges and policies in the modern workplace that make influencing others tricky. Many organisations have pride months and policies against sharing faith on work hours. I don’t mean to communicate that any of this is easy!

Let me give you a few ways that you can do something to make a difference to the people you work with and even the culture of your workplace:

1. Treat everyone well and talk to everyone with respect. I would hope that this comes quite naturally to Christians, but it is rarer than you might expect in the world. Many workplaces have a kind of class system operating. Professionals might limit their conversations with administrative staff. Many will want to become close to their bosses, but see less need to engage with the cleaners. If you treat everyone as being in the image of God, that will stand out. And it will possibly even change the unofficial class structure over time.
2. Work hard to build friendships with some of your coworkers. I know some Christian workplace ministries encourage workers to meet some coworkers in a different context. Maybe that is going to Friday drinks after work. Maybe that is inviting someone to your house for a meal or going to a sporting event together. Building relationships will lead to opportunities to share the hope that you have.
3. Work with integrity. There are commands about this in the Bible, to work as if you were working for God and not man. That will mean not changing your output if you work from home or your boss is not watching. It means helping coworkers who ask for help instead of being difficult. It means billing clients fairly. There are many opportunities to do this but they will vary depending on what kind of work you do.
4. Work for the good of the company. Maybe that is to identify ways that the company can do things more efficiently. Maybe it is organising a social day or training to change the culture. Ideally, the company should be a better place because you are there.

Sure, you might be the only Christian and be greatly outnumbered where you work. Yet you can make a difference. You can have a bigger influence than you think. Pray that God will open your eyes to the opportunities your workplace gives you to serve Jesus.