You will spend 3,500 days of your life at work. Or at least you will if you’re an average British worker. If you’re in the UK that’s 84,000 hours however if you're in China then it’s probably far more. One graduate who recently returned messaged me to say he’s working 9am - 9pm, 7 days a week and that he considers that normal! Whichever country you're in, work will fill more of our waking hours than anything else in your life. So, if you’re serious about Jesus being Lord of your life, you must know what the Bible says about the largest part of your day. But is this the case for most Christians?
Ken Costa says “many people do not see God as a 24/7 God, but as a withdrawn actor confined to a Sunday show”. He talks of how a ‘sacred/secular’ divide means that many see the church service, prayer meeting and Alpha course as far more worthy than the office, classroom, and hospital. This view is influenced far more by Greek thought than the Bible, where God is described as an artist (Genesis 1:1), a potter (Isaiah 64:8), a shepherd (John 10:11) a builder (Hebrews 3:4) and ‘always at work’ (John 5:17). Although many of us know in our heads that God is interested in everything we do, the sacred/secular divide, is amazingly pervasive.
I realised this a while back, a couple of years into working with international students. I had started to get more and more emails from those who’d recently graduated telling me how they struggled to connect their Christian faith to their work. What to do about the long hours? Should they ‘bend’ the rules? When did ‘chatting’ become ‘gossip’? And other such questions. I looked at what we, Transformations Leeds, and local churches, had taught them in our discipleship, particularly as many of them had become Christians at university. I noticed that we’d covered how to pray, how to read the Bible, how to share their faith, why church is important but we’d never even mentioned the workplace in our discipleship! No wonder they had questions!!
That was when I vowed to make sure we covered the topic of work through our ministry and encouraged our church partners to do the same. We’ve used Ken Costa’s excellent ‘God at work’ material, and have theology of work as a key component in our Apprenticeship programme. This has certainly made a difference. More students respond to the teaching like Janet from India: “I now believe that the place to work out your faith isn’t just at church. What you do in your workplace is ministry, just as much as singing in the choir is at church.”
However, one thing that students were still asking for was the opportunity to learn from older Christians in their sphere of work. This request was, in part, behind why we started our annual conference ‘Transforming your World’, equipping Christians to be godly influencers in their workplace and culture. This year it’s online, so you can easily benefit from it as well. Whether you’re a recent graduate or someone who’s been working for a while Transforming your World will help you Biblically and introduce you to some inspiring Christians from all around the world.
Krish Kandiah will give us Biblical principles for the workplace from the book of Daniel and there will be seminars from experienced Christians in the areas of business, health, education and the charitable sector. There’s even an early bird discount up until April 3rd. So, why not invest some time in understanding God’s view of work. Investing 7 hours now can make all the difference to how you spend your 84,000 hours at work!
