Suggestions on How to Integrate Your Faith and Work
What was it like for me to serve the Lord as a leader in a Fortune 50 organization, spending half of my time in the Administrative Services department and half in a large and diverse I.T. department? How did I try to live for Jesus in the workplace? How did I use the platform He had given me? How did I try to shine His Light to others? In other words, how did I try to integrate my faith with my work?
Tim Keller tells us “To be a Christian in business means much more than just being honest or not sleeping with your coworkers. It even means more than personal evangelism or holding a Bible study at the office. Rather, it means thinking out the implications of the gospel worldview and God’s purposes for your whole work life – and for the whole of the organization under your influence.”
Here are some ways I personally tried to integrate my faith with my work. Hopefully they will be helpful to you as well:
Do excellent work. I believe that Christians should be the best workers. The rest of these items I mention don’t matter much if I’m not a good worker. And we glorify God when we give credit to Him for what we achieve, rather than claiming the credit for ourselves.
Let’s look at this a little further.
Is it true that Christians should always be the best workers? It depends.
I remember one of the pastors at our church telling me years ago about a comment that one of their seminary professors had made in class. They said that if the married students were consistently getting straight “A’s” in class, they were obviously not spending enough time with their families. I think I know what the professor was getting at. If we apply it to our work, we could ask that if we consistently excel at work, could we be giving a lesser effort (time, energy, engagement) to our families, ministry work, and our relationship with God. Excelling at work includes more than just the effort and results you achieve during the regular workday. It also includes taking job-related classes and studying for exams, be they industry designations or certifications, or a Master’s Degree. In other words, it takes a lot of our time.
My introduction to connecting my faith and work was when I read John Piper’s 1997 book of daily readings A Godward Life. In that book of 120 readings was one that particularly impacted me in regards to my work. It was titled Lord Focused Living at Work. That article was life-changing for me as far as how I approached my work. For years I kept a laminated copy of the article in my notebook at work (when we used to carry notebooks, that is), and handed out many copies to co-workers and supervisors to explain how I approached my work – basically doing my work for the Lord as opposed to any earthly supervisor or organization. I do remember one time getting an odd look from one of my leaders when I shared that, with him probably thinking I should be doing my work for him or the organization, not the Lord.
My two favorite scripture verses that I use for my approach to work are:
- Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Colossians 3:23-24
- So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)
I do believe that Christians should be the best workers in whatever situation we are in. Why? Because we are doing our work for the Lord, and what we do reflects on Him. That should be motivation enough. But I’ve unfortunately worked with professing Christians who were poor performers at work. They didn’t represent themselves or Jesus well in the workplace.
Piper suggests we ask the following questions about our work:
- Why would the Lord like this done?
- How would the Lord like this done?
- When would the Lord like this done?
- Will the Lord help me do this?
- What affect will this have for the Lord’s honor?
Building on the idea of doing our work for King Jesus, Piper writes that what we are asked to do by a supervisor should generally be viewed as an appeal from the Lord.
Do your work for the Lord (Colossians 3:23). This is related to the idea of Christians being the best workers. In their book The Gospel at Work: How Working for King Jesus Gives Purpose and Meaning to Our Jobs by Sebastian Traeger and Greg Gilbert tell us that no matter what our job is or who our boss is, what we do in our jobs is actually done in service to King Jesus. And that our work has purpose and meaning because we are ultimately doing it for the King. In other words, who we work for is more important than what we do.
Maintain a high level of integrity in all your actions. Are you a person of your word? Can people depend on you? If you say you will do something, do you do it? Former football coach and current football television analyst Tony Dungy has written that dishonesty will eventually catch up with you. We can’t control our reputation (what others think of us), but we can control our integrity. An example of demonstrating integrity is how we utilize resources at work. We shouldn’t steal from our employers, be it how we use our time, or company resources such as computers, office supplies and copy machines.
Be a person of character. I’ve heard character defined as doing the right thing when nobody is watching. Trust is closely related to character. I would tell new team members that they had my trust, that’s how we started our relationship. They don’t have to earn it. It was up to them to lose it.
Be a role model. Tony Dungy wrote in his book The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently, that right or wrong, someone is always watching you and that it’s important to see yourself as a role model. We need to be above reproach, be role models, and have a strong “brand”, which is what distinguishes you from others, or what makes you different from others.
Next time, we’ll continue with part 4 of our series on living out our faith at work.