A further sacrifice

Steve Timmis in his article, ‘A sacrifice too far’ (October EN), argued that the church should turn ‘good people’ away from full-time gospel ministry, where they work in the main with Christians, and rather encourage them to remain in ‘secular’ work so that they remain in close contact with non-Christians.

My interest in this issue is that I took the decision not to go into full-time gospel ministry, but instead to remain in secular work so that I would always be in contact with non-Christians. The decision was driven during my student days, when I formed an excellent group of vehemently non-Christian friends, was strangely (in my view!) overlooked for any leadership role in the Christian Union, and then stood and was rather surprisingly (in my view!) elected President of the College Student Union. At this stage, I realised that I was unusual as a Christian in that I had many more non-Christian contacts than a ‘normal’ Christian, and the decision to enter secular employment was confirmed.

My CV

Since then I have worked as a policeman (PC AH774 Horn) in the Sussex police, where I was noted as the PC who refused to watch porn (confiscated from members of the public!), and where I was routinely told off by my Sergeant for being too polite (but he couldn’t argue that I ever failed in my duty). I then moved to IT, where I worked in six different jobs during the last 15 years. My career has not been a fantastic success, probably because I have not striven for promotions/recognition in the same way as my more successful colleagues.

In addition, I have been heavily involved in sport, first in club running and managing athletics teams and then playing a good standard of club rugby. Here I was known as the only non-drinking, non-smoking, non-swearing second row, who still put his body on the line every Saturday.

I have always been known as a Christian and can think of many different gospel conversations with many different people in these years (and many more missed opportunities), but it depresses me to say that I have not seen any folk become Christians.

Throughout this time, I have been involved in a number of churches and Steve’s article has set me thinking on how these churches could have assisted me with this role and what I could have done better. Here are my suggestions.

Church responsibilities

* Partnership

Churches should seek to put these ‘good people’ in contact with each other so that they can work in partnership. We need to be encouraging each other, challenging each other, sympathising with and, above all, praying for each other.

The challenge to churches is to allow this to happen, given that these ‘good people’ are the folk who are usually relied on to lead home groups and organise church activities. Who will fill this vacuum?

* Encouragement

This often comes in small groups. In my current role, I work close to St. Helen’s in the City of London, which runs excellent lunchtime talks during the week. These are reminiscent of Christian Unions, in that they do not have the ‘cringe’ factor associated with many church services (e.g. actions with songs, endless repetition of chorus’, offerings, holding hands in final prayer, etc.) and so are good places to invite friends to.

In addition, St. Helen’s makes staff available to assist in the start-up and on-going work of smaller office based prayer/evangelism groups.

* Recognition

‘Secular’ workers should, at least, be given an equal footing with missionaries. Their work needs to be acknowledged publicly by interviews in church, progress updates and prayer.

* Opportunities

It is my experience that church leaders are often very unwilling to allow ‘lay’ people to perform roles that are seen as ‘professional’. Preaching, leading services, running discussion groups are invariably performed by the ‘professionals’ to the exclusion of everyone else. Just because our choice has been to follow Christ in ‘secular employment’, it does not follow that our voice should be excluded from the church. It has often been my prayer that if I can’t speak God’s words in church, that I may be able to speak them out of church.

* Curriculum

What is the subject matter in church/home group?

Churches only do evangelism and this is limited to telling people that ‘God loves them’. None of my non-Christian friends find a direct gospel message remotely relevant or interesting and struggle to relate God’s love to the turmoil of their lives and the world.

What they need is pre-evangelism. They need someone to engage with them, respond to the questions they raise and challenge the views they hold. In the end, they need to be shown the inadequacy of their beliefs (obviously with great courtesy) before they can be remotely receptive to the Christian message. Most have been thoroughly innoculated against any positive interaction with Christianity by a combination of school assemblies, religious education, the Vicar of Dibley and the media presentation of the church as being irrelevant (e.g. not allowing women/homosexual vicars).

Churches need to equip people to start nearer the beginning, by changing the content of the Sunday message and the topics studied in home groups.

* Flexibility

Weekday church activities should be arranged with as much flexibility as possible. It appears to me that these meetings are scheduled around the leaders’ diaries rather than for the benefit of members. I remember pleading (successfully) to move home group night from Tuesday to Wednesday so that I could go rugby training (although I did doubt the wisdom of this on freezing Tuesdays in January).

My responsibilities

* A love for God and a clear mind

In recent years, I have worked in central London. The train journey has meant that I have had time to read books for the first time since my student days. This has revitalised my Christian faith, providing me with much greater confidence in the truth of orthodox Christianity and deepening my relationship with Jesus. I could recommend a huge number of books, but key Christian authors would be Francis Schaeffer, Don Carson, David Wells and John Stott.

* Non-Christian reading

It is always good to be prepared for conversation and to try to understand the thinking of your friends. I therefore try to alternate a good Christian book with a non-Christian book (or an ‘off-the-rails’ ‘Christian’ book). It is amazing how many basic Christian beliefs are just assumed by non-Christian authors who generally accept without question the fact that love is better than hate, that ‘might is right’ is wrong, that the truth is worth defending (even if they deny it exists)…

In addition, I often try to read books that my colleagues are reading so that conversations start more easily (e.g. The Da Vinci Code, Selfish Gene) and it is good to leave them lying on your desk as conversations often start with a colleague picking the book up and asking questions.

* Ambition

To be successful and promoted at work is obviously something to aim for, but it is not the primary reason for working. For me this has three elements: to do a good job, to be in contact/witness to non-Christians and to provide salary for family/church. In my experience, too much ambition can easily ruin friendships with colleagues and sour the workplace environment… (or am I justifying my less than meteoric performance?).

* Life/church balance

Churches have a knack of ensuring that all Christians are very rapidly involved in many church-based activities and make many good Christian friends. This is fine until there is no time left for friendship with non-Christians. It is often hard to keep a correct balance, but it is vital to be able to provide time for social contact with work friends and neighbours.

My challenge would be to ask you to check your diary over the last six months for the people with whom you have shared a meal. It is often shocking to see how low the proportion of non-Christians is to Christians.