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Good morning everyone! My hope for you all today is that you are finding yourself in God’s blessings. I know that personally for me, I’ve been so stuck on the negative. Work has been very difficult. I’m sure that others are also battling with the very real circumstances as I am in their work places.  Always short staffed, lack of authority and leadership, no accountability and it almost feels like it’s fruitless to even emotionally engage with your job at all. It’s as though the more invested you try to become for the sake of being a better employee, the more frustrated you get. The harder you work seems to make you the target for everyone else’s workload at times.
Well, instead of being critical minded or portray that I’m some super employee (because I’m definitely not), I would like to share some thoughts and to be a help today. Lately I’ve been so stumped on how to navigate the workplace as a Christian. We all know what the Bible says, to work as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23). But what does that mean? How do we know what that looks like in a workplace that almost seems to have no standards anymore?
About three weeks ago I was at work about to clock in like I always do and I happened to notice a flyer that was hanging near the time clock. It read “on (such and such a date and time) we are having pizza delivered during break times. We have many new faces and what better way to break the ice than over some food?” Now at first glance that sounds very nice and it seems like a commendable and positive thing for an employer to do to build morale. Some of you may even wish that your workplace would do something like this. But that day this sign hit me different. It actually really bothered me and I had to pray to God about it.
After some time in silence and meditation, it really hit me. It seems that the work environment and workplace has become a high school cafeteria where we make friends rather than the place where we go to perform a professional service for a pay check. I really had to search to the depths of why I had such a red flag in my gut. I totally get that the philosophy of these corporate companies is to build “morale and team” because down the line they believe that it will encourage efficiency when people work together. It will boost morale. But the problem with this is when we become more concerned with one another on a friendship level rather than holding each other accountable to a standard that’s expected for employees, there is great compromise. As Carl R. Truman writes in his book “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self”, our society has completely moved away from the idea that we must be challenged to meet a higher standard that causes us to grow and change and become better. Now we make our schools, institutions and workplace bend and change to accommodate to the employee. The employee isn’t to be challenged or accountable anymore. This is because our society has moved to a place where everyone lives by and does what is right in their own eyes.
So we are told by our employers that we need to buy into their philosophy to get along. We are told that we need to buy into these philosophies so that the workplace will be a positive experience. The Bible tells us to be mindful and careful of who we make friends with. God’s wisdom would tell us that we need to learn how to separate friends from professional work relationships. When we go mixing up our boundaries and finding people we shouldn’t maybe be friends with it causes discord in our souls and keeps us from being professional where we need to be professional. For pride month, my company felt the need to tell me that “They celebrate pride”. I’m being told what I celebrate because am I not an employee of this company? My faith is in direct conflict with this lifestyle. I’m bothered because I get paid to do a service, not have my beliefs and convictions exploited for the sake of corporate gain. And unfortunately many people buy into this at their jobs. They love that sense of community that is being established. I get that part totally, which leads to me my last point.
This is why I believe that Jesus gave us His church. Each one of us longs to be a part of something bigger and have a role to play in the advancement of that greater good. We get duped by our flesh by believing that a job can satisfy this. Ever since COVID people have been second guessing their lives outside of work and have been on a search for more fulfilling work. They’ve been calling this movement “The Great Resignation”. The problem is they are leaving one job for another that has been just as afflicted by our cultural decay as the one they were at was. We will never find that ultimate connection that God created us for in the workplace or the communities that a secular society has to offer. I’m not saying they are all bad. Some can be good for health and other positive purposes. But if you are investing yourself in a system for the very reasons that you should invest yourself in the church, it will only lead to disappointment and a short coming of fulfillment in the end. That’s why God has called us to serve with Him in the advancing of the gospel. And unfortunately the world has hijacked it and has labeled it “The American Dream”.
I encourage you today as we look at the declining numbers in our churches, could it be that God wants us to see that everything we are looking to be a part of was supposed to be found in the context of the local church? I really believe so. These are the people that I’m supposed to share my values and convictions with. These are the people that I need to be eating pizza with, laughing with, crying with because our common purpose is found in the creator of the universe. Not in the investment in a business that I won’t be a second thought to when I retire. But when God retires me from this earth He will remember me in the lamb’s book of life. That should get us all excited and spur us on.  In this dark culture and in our dark work atmosphere Christ’s church should be a beacon that is piercing the darkness. The place where people are laughing together, growing together, worshiping together. A place where the world looks and says to themselves, “that’s what I want to be a part of!” So I believe that God has placed us, His church, in the midst of a dissatisfied culture where things may look bleak to grow His church exponentially. May we be a testimony and a witness to people to show them what they are really longing for.