Witnessing at Work
Dear Christian friends,
One of our goals for this newsletter is to provide each of you with some practical help in witnessing for our Lord. Since most of you spend many hours each week at a job, I thought I’d start with some suggestions for witnessing at your workplace. God wants us to redeem the time. Our time at work should accomplish more than making money. Many Christians have led many people to Christ through their jobs. The great evangelist D.L.Moody got saved through the witness of a shoe salesman, while he was trying on some shoes. God wants to use you to witness to others at your job, as well as at other times. Here are some tips that I think will help you:
1. Get and keep your heart right with God. Confess and forsake any known sin. Spend time in prayer and God’s word in the morning before work. The more you are walking in the Spirit at work, the better witness you’ll be and the more you’ll hear God when He tells you to witness to someone. At the same time, don’t fall into condemnation, thinking you can’t witness because you aren’t “spiritual enough.” If you lose your temper at work (for example), apologize to those who were affected.
2. Choose the right job. Are you where God wants you? God used Jonah while he was running away from Him, but He would rather use us when we are in His perfect will. If you aren’t sure you are in the job God wants you to have, ask Him. If He wants you somewhere else, He’ll make it very clear to you. When you are preparing for future work or looking for a job, spend much time praying for God’s direction. Some jobs provide more opportunities than others to witness. This should be an important consideration in your job choice. Being used by God to witness at a job will greatly contribute to your happiness with that job.
3. Let everyone know you are a Christian from the start. The longer you work at a job without telling people, the harder it will be to do so. Also, once you tell people you are a Christian, you will be conscious of your need to maintain a good witness before them. One easy way to do this is to send each co-worker and client a personal card or letter at Easter or Christmas with a clear gospel message in it, perhaps with your testimony in it.
4. Be sensitive to each person and to the Holy Spirit as to how much you should witness to them, and the best way to do so. Everyone reaches a place of crisis in their life at some time, when they are desperate for help. If they see you as a friend and a stable person, they will be likely to turn to you for counsel.
5. Avoid self-righteousness and legalism. Most people think of Christians this way. Let them see that your relationship with God is vital and gives you joy and peace, fulfillment and direction in your life. At the same time, we do need to take a stand as to what we will and won’t do at work. We must avoid all dishonesty and other immorality. It is better to leave your job than sin against our Lord.
6. Be a friend. Invite the person to your house for dinner. Or invite them to go with you to a “non-churchy” Christian event that you think they might enjoy. Don’t gossip about them or anyone else. That way, they won’t be afraid to confide in you.
7. Use tracts. Ron Woodruff from Land and Sea Ministries worked at a glass factory when he got saved. He bought hundreds of comic-book tracts and left them in everyone’s lockers and everywhere around the factory. People avoided Ron because he wouldn’t listen to their dirty jokes and told them about Jesus. But they couldn’t deny the change they saw in his life. Within a few years, almost a third of the factory had gotten saved.
8. Become indispensable at your job. Be such a good worker that your boss can’t do without you. Your boss probably won’t mind if you witness to people as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work. Of course, this varies with the boss and the job. Once I worked at a hamburger stand and the manager (a Catholic) let me put tracts in the sack with each hamburger. Another time I worked as a cashier at a high-class restaurant. I witnessed to the waiters and quite a few customers. The owner thought it was cute and boasted of his “preacher-cashier.”
9. Don’t become a “workaholic.” Make sure your priorities are right. You need to spend time each day with God, spend time with your family, have regular church fellowship, spend time with friends, spend time in some kind of ministry activity, and have some time for rest and relaxation. If you find yourself working 50 or more hours a week, maybe you should look for a job with a better hourly wage, or simplify your lifestyle so you don’t spend so much.
10. Don’t be intimidated. Recently, the Federal Government pro posed regulations against “religious harassment” at the work place. These regulations threaten the rights of Christians to share their faith on the job. One Christian who works at a Christian-owned business recently received a directive that he was not to witness to other employees, even if they asked him. He was to direct all such inquiries to the company chaplain! This company was apparently afraid of lawsuits.
Like the apostles, we must obey God rather than men. We must be willing to obey our Lord’s command to preach the gospel in all the world, regardless of the cost. If we do not stand up for our rights, we will lose them. An employer can regulate your conduct on the job, but if he allows you to discuss non-business related items at work, he cannot say certain subjects are off-limits. And he cannot regulate your conversation during lunch breaks and non-working hours.
Ministry News
After we lost our permits at the Powell St. BART station, we were forced to obtain permits at other parks in the city. Since almost every park is surrounded by houses, I knew we would have problems with complaints from residents. As our nation turns against God, personal witnessing has become “religious harassment” and freedom of speech has become “verbal abuse” and “noise pollution.” At our last Dolores Park outreach on July 9, three police responded to complaints. They asked to see our permit, but did not say our volume was too loud, and they did not ask us to turn it down. But when we applied for new loudspeaker permits at Dolores Park, we were told we could not get them because of complaints from residents. I went to a hearing, and seven people were there, complaining about us. At this time, I have not learned whether the Chief of Police will grant our permits.
We still have two permits for Washing-ton Square (July 30 and August 20) and two for Union Square (September 10 and 24). After that, we do not know if we will be able to get future permits at these or other parks. Please do pray that God will keep the doors open for us to get park permits and continue to do “church on the street” outreaches in city parks.
A Final Word
We want to thank you for your prayers, your financial support and also those of you who have written letters of encouragement. Here is one letter we received: “Please accept my small donation and put me back on your mailing list. In the short time I didn’t get the newsletter, I realized how much the exhortation to share the Good News is lacking (in my local church.) The kind of rubber that meets the road preaching that appears in your newsletters is what makes me want to keep [witnessing.]”
A sister who attended this year’s SOS outreach wrote, “Great work on this year’s outreach. Despite the opposition–victory! Be encouraged–your labor is not in vain in the Lord! Also, the SOS Newsletter was a balm for these weary evangelistic bones! Here’s a tiny bit of seed money–apply where most needed (wish it were more.) I’m backing you in prayer for permits, etc. mentioned in newsletter. May the grace, peace, and strength of God be multiplied to you in the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.”
Please pray for those who have responded to tracts this past month: Paula, Keith and Elsa (S.F.), Lillian (Oakland), Ken (Guerneville), Kim (Livermore), Paul (Reprisa prison) and Alice (San Bruno jail). Alice wrote, “As I was reading my Bible, I saw this card that I had got from church Sunday. You know when some one does time, the first thing we do is find a Bible to read and hope it will help us go home faster. But before God will help one I now know you have to believe in God and show Him you’re going to give it your all, as much time as you put in to doing bad things to come in here. I’ve always known God but on the outs I did not read His word but I did pray at night. Here in our dorm is a lot of madness and I am feeling it. So that’s why I am here on my bed to get some peace of mind….I would like to know more about our God that is so good.”
Please pray also for Tara, a backslidden Christian. She and her husband were planning to go on the mission field but her husband got involved in phone pornography and she divorced him and turned from the Lord. She lives in a room above Polk St., heard our preaching from her window and came down to talk with us. She says she is getting tired of the world but is not ready to repent. She had backslid once before, got hit by a car, and was in a coma for a week before she repented.
We still need two men to live in our house. Please contact me right away if you are interested. I hope that many of you can join us for an outreach on Friday night or at Union Square (Powell & Geary St.) on Sat. September 10 or 24 (12-2 PM).
Our Tape of the Month is After the Fire Falls by Danny Lehmann. Danny is an evangelist and director of Youth With a Mission, Honolulu. This message is excellent for getting Christians excited about what God is doing in the world today and gently encouraging them to take part in fulfilling the Great Commission.
Jesus said, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; the night comes, when no man can work” (John 9:4). I thank God that we still have some measure of freedom to witness for Jesus Christ in this city and nation. I do not know how long this freedom will last, but I believe we must redeem the time. We must make every effort to reach as many as we can for Jesus while we have this freedom. A day may soon come when every Christian in the U.S. will be given a choice: deny Christ or face torture, imprisonment, or death. What will happen on that day to those Christians who today won’t endure the slightest inconvenience to witness for Jesus?
Yours in His love,
Larry Rosenbaum
