How to do Christianity Explored at work

Christianity Explored is a ten-week evangelistic course, prepared by Rico Tice, which takes people through the Gospel of Mark.

It has been used successfully in many churches as friends have been invited along to share a meal, get to grips with the material and ask any questions they like.

But some people find it hard to make time in a busy schedule to fit this in, and anyway others have real difficulty about entering a church building or a Christian’s home to do the course. They prefer much more ‘neutral’ territory.

EN recently contacted two men, who with the help of others are running Christianity Explored (CE) at their places of work. Here is what they told us.

Hugh’s experience

Hugh is a Christian who works in an IT company in the south of England. This is what he told us about how Christianity Explored got going and what has happened.

‘I meet regularly with three other Christian guys to pray on a Monday lunchtime at work. One week in December 2007, during our meeting, we discussed work place evangelism and I floated the idea of doing a cut down Christianity Explored course for seven consecutive lunchtimes in the New Year. It’s so easy to talk without doing. God must have been speaking to all of us along these lines. The desire to do something was unanimous and decisive.

‘I’d led on the course at church and been a punter of CE before, so I felt comfortable with the quality and the content of the course. The others checked the DVD presentation featuring Rico Tice and the foundation was in place. We decided to go for a lunchtime to run the course in a cut-down format. We split the time — ten minutes for lunch, paid for by ourselves, provided by onsite catering; 20 minutes to watch the Christianity Explored DVD; followed by 20-25 minutes’ discussion. The latter was easy to springboard as the DVD finishes by displaying two or so questions that can be paused for reference. We played the DVD on a computer and projected it on a meeting room wall.

Downsized and open

‘Ten weeks seemed too long, so we cut it down to seven. This covers all the essential material about Jesus, his death, resurrection, grace, and what it means to be a Christian. It also includes an introduction. We used this as a warm up to break some myths about the course. For example, we didn’t want people coming along and thinking “my unbelief will be offensive, so I’d better not ask that difficult question”; or “religious things are going to happen, so I will be embarrassed”. It’s refreshing for colleagues to see the measure of objectivity in the course, that it is evidence based and that the issues are as real today as when Mark’s gospel was written. The neutral ground of the workplace also helps.

What could God do?

‘We ran the course in a meeting room on the company campus. It proved difficult to use the same one every week, but God provided and we always got a room that could hold enough people. On average so far (up to week five at the time of writing), we have had six people coming from various faith and non-faith backgrounds. The attendance has been up to ten and down to four. With varying work commitments, and a mobile work force, it is hard to know who will be able to come. We took the decision to get the word out and trust God with who goes with it. The response we have had from participants has been very positive. Some colleagues have lamented that we only have an hour and would like the session to last longer.

‘The thing that encouraged me most was the excitement of working together with other Christians for the cause of Christ. Our prayers became very specific and heartfelt; the issues were practical and required action; the spur to see a brother asking his colleagues to come along Ð even when it’s a “no”. God blessed our efforts and I think I was the only one who had under 50% say “yes”. Makes you wonder, what could God do in your work place? As the course comes to a finish, the prayerful question we are asking is, “What now Lord?”’.

Pete’s experience

Pete works for an engineering consultancy in the West of England. There are about 400 people in the office. As in Hugh’s case, there had been a group of four or five Christians meeting weekly at the company to pray and read the Bible together. At the beginning of last September they decided to reach out to people at work more actively and put on the Christianity Explored course.

First, they approached the head of Human Resources to say what they were going to do. They were told they were not allowed to advertise CE by sending out mass emails to everyone, but they were allowed to put up posters and personally invite or email friends about it. This they did, booking the largest meeting room with a 70-inch plasma TV screen to show the DVDs and buying lots of pizzas and ten non-Christians came to the first meeting.

Conversations

Pete says, ‘The other positive thing at the time of the launch was that lots of other colleagues became aware of what was going on, which prompted more general conversations about spiritual things outside the CE course’.

The course continued with numbers settling down to four regulars coming along each week. They ranged from a charismatic turned atheist to an interested Catholic to someone with no Bible knowledge whatsoever.

Towards the end of the autumn, instead of doing the ‘weekend away’, which is part of the usual CE course, the group were invited to ‘try church’. This involved an invite for Sunday lunch with one of the Christians, watching the last two DVD sessions and discussing them in the afternoon, followed by going to a church Christmas Carol service.

CE has finished for the moment and the Christians have gone back to their weekly meetings together. ‘Out of the CE venture’, says Pete, ‘we have not seen any definite conversions, but one of the girls who started coming to CE now comes along every week to the time of prayer and Bible reading with the Christians and is still asking lots of questions. The Lord seems to be working in her life’.

Confidence boost

Looking back on what they did, Pete had some reflections: ‘One of the challenges with holding it over a lunch-break has been the time constraint. We want to be a good witness to our bosses by getting back to work punctually, but an hour is not very long to eat, watch a DVD and discuss it. But the great thing about doing it on the premises at lunchtime is there is no perceived barrier. It is pretty easy for people to come along — at least once.’

EN asked about the possibility of repeating the course. ‘I think it is something we will do again at some point’, Pete replied. ‘For me personally, it has brought about some opportunities to speak about Jesus with my colleagues and has boosted my confidence in the truth that God has placed me in an office job for a reason!’

Materials for the Christianity Explored course are available from The Good Book Company (020 8942 0880 and http://www.thegoodbook.co.uk).