Joining Christ at Work

Only three percent of Christians work in so-called professional ministry, while the other 97 percent are elsewhere, working out in the marketplace.

"The reality is that most of the 'everybody else' are sidelined because they don't believe they're in ministry and we leave it up to the professionals. But that's not the biblical model,"explains Brett Johnson, author of Lemon Leadership.

Johnson has helped some 200 businesses align themselves to be workplace ministries.

He said, "From a biblical perspective, there's no difference between work and ministry. They come from the same root word."

One of the businesses Johnson works with is GenPlay, a company with 48 employees in Silicon Valley, the hi-tech capital of the world. GenPlay creates and sells interactive games for cell phones and PCs.

"Pastors have an hour or two every week with their congregation," said GenPlay Vice President Kevin Saber.
"We have at least 40 hours a week."

Saber and his fellow bosses represent one of the fastest growing trends in Christianity - the realization that they are ministers - and the workplace is their mission field. They are part of the Body of Christ, as much of a church as the place they go to on Sunday mornings.

Saber said, "We feel that if we can reflect His character to the people that work here, ultimately they will find Him.
And that's why we believe workplace ministry is a major key to revival."

It's the same for Scott Stanger, who heads up Stanger Industries, a commercial contractor constructing and revamping buildings in the Kansas City area.

"You go to any church in this city right now and probably 95 percent of them are vacant," Stanger said.

While the pastors only get to pour into their congregants' lives a couple of hours every week, Stanger points out that Christians can minister to those around them in the workplace nearly every day of the week.

"Hey, there's ample opportunity for me to walk down that hallway and to sow the Kingdom of God and to see it brought to life before our very lives," Stanger said.

Stanger said, "I hear so many people who are business people. They'll say, 'I just want to quit my business and go into the ministry full-time.' And I'm thinking 'You're missing the point. You've been in the ministry full-time. You don't need to leave those four walls of your business to go into the ministry. It's right there in front of your face.'"

Ministering Life at Work

"This is my church, Glad Heart Realty," said Diane Bickle. "That's where I meet with God."

Bickle sells houses. Her husband is well-known Christian leader Mike Bickle, who heads up the International House of Prayer. But she feels her work is no less holy than his.

Bickle said, "God wants His glad heart to be made known to everyone, and we feel like we get a chance to do that.
We feel like one household at a time, one seller at a time, we get to walk into somebody's living room, and we get to touch their heart while we help them sell their house."

Both Bickle and Stanger have worked with Bob Fraser, author of Marketplace Christianity.

Fraser used to think he was 'wasting his life' in the secular world till God brought powerful revival right inside Fraser's business.

"There was a period where there was more happening in my business -- spiritual activity -- than in any church I'd ever been a part of," said Fraser.

He eventually started up a ministry called The Joseph Company to pass on what he learned in that revival to other Christian business leaders.

"They're starting to discover 'I have a purpose. God created me in this unique place called the workplace to bring His Kingdom,'" Fraser said.

He said he's seen amazing things since, like what happened recently at a Minnesota bank whose owners turned it over to God.

"After 18 months they had 102 people saved in the bank,' Fraser said. "They had drive-through prayer. Literally the tellers ask people who drive through, 'Is there anything we can pray about for you?' 102 salvations and they've had healings in this bank."

Fraser knows a doctor in downtown Manhatten who's found a fine way to use his medical offices to reach out in ministry.

"He has prayer rooms and prayer meetings several times a day for people to come off the subway and have a prayer meeting before work," Fraser said.

Bickle said, "We actually get together every week and pray together as a company."

"We have a weekly devotional that we put into our employees' paychecks, and in fact, it's called 'the pink slips.' Everybody, I hope, enjoys getting a pink slip around here because it's ministering life to them," Stanger said.

Revival Beyond the Church Walls

Saber says people, even non-believers, often sense the difference when they come to a workpalce ministry like GenPlay.

"There is a level of intimacy in relationships that's typically not found between the four walls of a corporate office,"
he explained.

Stanger said, "We want to be with God everyday early in the morning, and we want then to carry His presence into our job sites, into our conference rooms, into our project managers' offices, so they can encounter God directly in a tangible way."

Joseph Awender runs a chiropractic clinic in Silicon Valley that offers to do a lot more than work on your bones.

He considers his practice his full-time ministry, and he said he's seen God move mightily right in his offices.

"We get miracles," Awender said. "Patients have regained their hearing, their vision. So we take time to pray with our patients right on the spot."

Awender and his wife pray over requests every morning that have been left by patients in the office prayer box, and he makes sure to pray with and disciple his staff.

Johnson points out people like Awender can actually help fulfill the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations, by treating those around them as their flock.

He said, "So we encourage them to begin to disciple their employees, disciple their customers, their suppliers, family members of employees -- their household if you like."

"We commune with Him in the midst of our comings and our goings," Bickle said. "We're driving to a listing appointment and asking God what He has to say about that person whose house we're about to go into."

Stanger said, "I say, 'I pastor Stanger Industries. I'm the senior pastor. This is our congregation here. We don't have robes and choir lofts and things like that, but we have people. Where people are, God is.'"

"We've been able to pray with our clients. We've been able to lead some to the Lord," Bickle said. "It's so much fun.
I could never have imagined that working could be this much fun."

Repeat that in businesses all over the land and you begin to see how God can bring revival and radically transform the vast world outside the church walls.

By Paul Strand
CBN News Sr. Washington Correspondent
November 11, 2007