To some in the Christian community, “business” is a dirty word, connotative themes of unbridled greed and ethical compromise. While it is true the worldly temptations of the private sector are ever present and can certainly bring out the worst in people, business also provides some of the most redemptive spiritual opportunities. I asked my good friend and business owner, Chuck Proudfit, to give us some insights from his daily work.

Re-Envisioning the Role in Business

My ‘tent making’ takes the form of business consulting. As the founder and president of SKILL SOURCE, I lead a practice that develops strong leadership, healthy culture, and winning strategy for our clients. As a working Christian, consulting becomes a powerful platform for me to bring the light of Christ to the darkest corners of the marketplace.

The private sector is a complicated, fast-paced venue filled with disruptive change and intractable challenges. It is the wisdom of God’s Word, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that gives Christians superior solutions to business problems. Every time I deliver excellence in a consulting project, I earn the credibility to speak about my faith.

Jesus anticipated all of this in Luke 10. As He sends out the seventy disciples to reach surrounding towns and villages and share the Good News of Christ, He provided a process for successful spiritual engagement that I have adapted to consulting.

We are to go about our business and give a warm greeting to those we encounter. Where we are rebuffed, we simply move on to build relationships with those who warm to us. As we get to know them and learn of their challenges, we minister to their felt needs. When they express appreciation or inquire about us, they open the door for us to share our faith testimonies. From there, conversations can go anywhere.”

Empowering Others through Work

I have followed this process with excellent results. As I solve client problems—my version of “ministering to the sick”—I earn the credibility to speak spiritually into their lives. Over the years, I’ve had dozens of faith conversations, sparked a wide range of spiritual searches, and led people to the Lord!

I follow this process not just with clients, but across all the stakeholders in my consulting work, including employees, contractors, suppliers, regulators, investors, and even competitors.”

Jesus’ direction in Luke 10 is easily adaptable to any form of work. If every working Christian were following it, we would have a dramatic impact, very much like the Early Church. In The Rise of Christianity, Rodney Stark recounts how this first took place, with the Church growing from 120 believers in the Upper Room in Jerusalem to half the adult population of the Roman Empire within just 250 years.

I realize that contemporary Christianity gravitates to ministry ‘projects’ through the local church, where we go out en-masse for community service, or embark on mission trips that take us all over the world. My point is we can see our everyday work as our mission field and the people around us at work as those to whom we can minister.

Reflection

To the everyday working Christian, the local church can be a catalyst for this type of faith integration at work. Anything that isn’t sinful is sacred, so all work is worship, and secularism is a non-biblical concept.

When pastors preach this foundation on Sunday from the stage and then celebrate the spiritual impact of working Christians on stage, it affirms—it can literally launch—working Christians to become faith active at work.

Even more powerful is the local church pastor who visits congregants’ workplaces to learn about their weekday lives, offer spiritual encouragement, and share spiritual insights.“When Christians see business as our vocation and work as worship, then we become a transformational force for spiritual change throughout the marketplace.

If one Christian can contribute to spiritual flourishing in a narrow segment of business, can we imagine the flourishing that all of us can bring together to our communities, and to our nations, where we work and where we live?

An Excerpt from the book, “Church for Monday” by Dr. Svetlana Papazov.

Svetlana Papazov is Lead Pastor and Founder of Real Life Church, President/Founder of Real Life Center for Entrepreneurial and Leadership Excellence, a first of its kind model of church and business incubator that educates in entrepreneurship, leadership and faith praxis.