I’ve just finished reading “Thank God it’s Monday: Ministry in the Workplace” by Mark Greene (published by Scripture Union) and I highly recommend it to anyone who is working or ministering to workers. It’s full of good points and good ideas!

I have written to Scripture Union in the UK to get his permission to quote sections, but here is the blurb from the back cover (I think this is okay!):

Fun, fast and full of stories, this highly practical book looks at how we can make the most of the time we spend at work.

Now updated and expanded, the new edition of “Thank God it’s Monday” loses none of the exuberance of the original, but takes into account the realities of life in the late nineties – longer hours, Sunday working, insecurity, ethical pressure…

Fresh material includes:

[list]A new chapter on truth in the workplace
A revised and expanded chapter on ethics at work
An expanded chapter on getting the church to work
A resource section[/list:u]

“Thank God it’s written!” – Church of England Newspaper

“Brilliant one-liners – excellent illustrations” – David Coffey, General Secretary of the Baptist Union

Mark Greene spent ten years working for the advertising agency, Ogilvy and Mather, in London and New York. He is now a vice-principal and Lecturer in Communications at London Bible College.

I am getting a “proxy error” when I click on it at Koorong, so I won’t link it, but there are two versions available and it’s an easy and enjoyable read for anyone serving God in their workplace.

I would be interested to hear thoughts and comments if anyone has read or does read it.

Cheers,
Han

[quote author="Hannah Gordon"]I have written to Scripture Union in the UK to get his permission to quote sections…

As I understand it, it is OK to quote sections for the purpose of criticism or review without permission from the copyright holder. This is certainly the case in Australia (some info is available here ). So, Hannah, if you are able to provide a review of the work which includes quotes, you’re probably on safe ground, but the Australian Copyright Centre may be able to help with issues related to international works (that’s if you don’t hear back from the UK or else get an unfavourable response).

I’m so glad that someone else has taken an interest in the faith at work issue. On ya Hannah!

As longer standing forum participants might remember, one of my keen interests is in living out our faith at work. Some of my thoughts, and a few others’ responses, are here:

I haven’t read the book you mentioned, Hannah, but I’ve heard of it and it’s list of contents shows that it addresses a lot of important topics.

I get the impression that some Christians have a problem with the whole “faith at work” thing, because they have a view that the only real ministry is paid Christian work. I’ve heard people talk about how christians with the intellect to go to university should use their intelligence by going to bible college, joining MTS or whatever, and then getting out there and doing “real” ministry, rather than “wasting their time” getting a job in - heaven forbid! - an office.  (Emphasis above is on “some” - please don’t misread me as having a go at bible colleges or the MTS program.)

Yet the reality is that most of us will go into the “normal” workforce and that being there will bring us into contact with a lot of people that the organised church and it’s staff will never meet. How we interact with them - in both word and deed - is having a powerful impact for the gospel. Sometimes that impact is negative, when Christians live hypocritically, not taking love, joy, peace, etc to their workplaces. (Contrast Romans 12:9-21.)

But that’s the point of the faith at work movement - to help, encourage and resource Christians to have a positive impact for the gospel at their places of employment.

It’s not just teaching people how to ‘talk the talk’ at work. The significance of the faith at work movement around the world is that it is trying to go beyond evangelism by words only. It is trying to explore authentic christian living in the workplace.

This is good in its own right. Many older Christians (including the reformers) have believed that we all have a vocation, a place in the temporal world, that is ordained by God through the sort of person He has created. The mathematicians, the writers, the organisers, the details people, the helpful people, the creative people, the leaders, the implementers, etc, etc. The work we do impacts the world for good or ill.

Of course, it’s also vital to help us to ‘walk the talk’ too. Faith at Work seeks to encourage us to learn how to show Christ to our colleagues in the way we behave, treat them, etc. It’s fleshing out the general biblical principles of passages like Ephesians 6:5-9, or applying the Ten Commandments to the hours we spend at work, making sure that Jesus is our Lord in every corner of our lives.

Which all plays a big part in workplace evangelism, in that it paves the way for some people to be more open to the gospel having watched a Christian colleague behave in a Christ-like way. I mightn’t go quite as far as he did, but when Francis of Assissi said ‘witness always, if necessary use words’, he was onto something.

So thanks, Hannah, for raising the topic once again. I can only encourage everyone to read that book or similar resources. I linked on the other thread to some excellent internet sites that provide some helpful resources - as with anything, you have to sift the stuff as there are some things that are more helpful than others. (EG one of the sites is aimed more at the senior management level, people like corporate CEO’s and the like, who are in a position to set the cultural tone of a company.)

I repeat those links here for anyone who’s interested:

Edit:  and of course I should add Mark Greene’s website, the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

Hi Guys,
How about a plug for ECOM ministries ( ), and also City Bible Forum ( ) as two very practical ways of putting evangelism and Christianity on the agenda at work.

Pete

Great topic. Can’t contribute much but want to spend the next six months thinking this over in the back of my head. Um, someone invent a time machine.

Rod

P.S. I tried to find a copy of the book mentioned so I could flip through it but it was not on the library shelf, doh! I hope its not misplaced, it will be lost forever.

P.S. Reminds me of someone who the other day calculated that they could only read another 3000 books (aprox) in their remaining years, this was a concern, they were now having to be more selective.

There is an interesting thread here Hannah which comes into the same thread as what you are discussing.

A book I would recommend reading. Since I reread that book I have been doing a lot of reflection on that subject.

craig

Nerdiest definition of God ever:
[quote author="Larry Wall in ‘The state of the Onion 2003’"]Okay, if you happen to be a Christian of the trinitarian persuasion like me, then you believe that God is a structured object that is simultaneously singular and plural depending on how you look at it. Of course, nobody ever fights about that sort of thing, right?

(For the uninitiated, Larry Wall is the creator of the Perl programing language)