Earlier this year, Tim Yearsley from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity (LICC) shared with us the opportunities and impact of living out God's love in the workplace as part of an OM online event, Ordinary Lives.

We might spend up to ten hours serving God in church-based activities every week, but is it as easy to see how we might serve God in the 110 hours in the rest of our waking weeks?

At LICC, we want to help Christians see how they can make a difference with God and for God wherever they are: at the school gate, in local leisure centres, on the streets where we live, and in the workplace (even if your workplace is Zoom).

The workplace is especially significant for Christian young professionals. It seems that young adults, of all faiths and none, are looking to their careers for a sense of meaning and purpose that previous generations would have found elsewhere.

So work has taken on new significance as a context for discovering what life is about.

This means that, more than ever, the workplace is a mission field. Could Christians learn to show up there with the kind of purposeful approach to life that their non Christian friends are looking for? To show their colleagues that their work really matters, but that their purpose needs to come from something greater?

It also raises questions for us as Christians though: Are we approaching our work in a way that is different? Do we see our emails as worshipful acts, written and sent ‘as if for the Lord Christ, not for men’ (Col 3:23)? Does our attitude under pressure provoke curiosity in the people around us? We will only earn the right to speak about our faith when people have seen the difference it makes.

But when that opportunity does come – and it will - I have three guiding principles for having better conversations at work. Three things that I see Jesus himself doing in the conversations He had at workplaces, on streets, and in people’s homes.

The first is to be present with people, really listening to what they are saying and where they are coming from. The second is to be curious, asking questions and inviting opportunities for your colleagues to open up. Lastly, we can be brave by sharing personally about the difference the Gospel makes to us.

In helping Christian young professionals to join the dots between their faith and their work in all these ways, we want to enliven discipleship and empower mission with the next generation. May it be so!

You can find out more about Tim and his work at LICC by following them on Instagram @liccltd

Live out Love beyond the UK

Could God be prompting you to make the workplace your mission field in a country where there are unlikely to be any other Jesus followers sharing His love in their office? 

Find out more about using your profession overseas and explore opportunities below!

Using your profession