This One is Up For Discussion:
How Can We Be Christian Leaders at Work?
The concept of being a Christian is a fairly easy idea to grasp when you are safe within the walls of the church sitting in a pew, listening to worship music. But what does it mean to be a Christian leader at your job? Topics such as; leading with integrity, holding to your Christian values, and even sharing the Gospel with co-workers are challenging.
When I worked at Perot Systems installing and maintaining computer networks, I faced these on a daily basis. The great news is the two main bosses I had were also Christians. Both set me up to succeed both in terms of “business” and in terms of living out my faith. The biggest challenge I had was when I traveled.
For about six months I worked in a suburb of Atlanta. Every Monday a team of us would fly down and every Friday we’d fly back. Often in the evenings, a group would head downtown to Buckhead. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but being a young guy at the time I thought it was wise for me to hang back with another couple guys at the hotel and pass on the “entertainment.” This saved me from being in many awkward positions. Not the least of which was when the group decided to go to places where lust was inevitable. Had I gone, I would have been stuck. We’re in a group. We’re sharing a car. I couldn’t just back out and head home easily. Fortunately, God protected me during that time. Sometimes it was because I made a good choice earlier in the day. Sometimes I’m sure God protected me from myself.
I don’t want to make it sound like I always made the best choices. I didn’t. But by thinking through how my actions would set me up to succeed or fail as a Christian helped. Not to mention my ability to be a good witness. Now that I’m older, and would like to think more mature, the lines I would set for myself may be in different places. Now I’m a lot more self confident and I’d probably be more willing to vocalize my preferences for what types of places we go to and be more confident volunteering to be the DD. It’s all part of being aware of ourselves, including both our strengths, and our weaknesses.
-Pat Furgerson