Grace is new to Sydney and what a joy it is to be around her. She is hospitable, fun loving and just a side note - she works at the best place on the planet = Google! She is the dessert queen and YES always dessert before main meal and there is no shame in that :) Below is what she thought of the penultimate Headstart of 2018.
The Workplace as a Training Ground
The Workplace. What do you think when you hear those words? Dread, stress, fatigue, or even boredom?
Sarah, a chartered accountant, and Martin, a structural engineer, shared on Monday, what they feel when they think about the workplace: conviction and urgency. Urgency for the gospel to be known in their workplaces.
Through their transition from owning their faith in uni to graduating to the workplace, there seemed to be a common denominator despite their different occupations: the workplace wasn’t just a place to work, but also a training ground for ministry.
This doesn’t devalue what they learnt at work, the invaluable people skills through interacting with a diverse range of people, first-hand experiences of the different barriers and difficulties when it comes to evangelising in a post-grad setting. Learning in the workplace actually showed that the people they learnt from, meet, work under need to know the gospel urgently.
As fellow Headstarters, Sarah and Martin shared that their favourite things about Headstart the community of similar-minded Christian workers, offering rich opportunities and support to accomplish just that — sharing Jesus with non-believers in the workplace. So much so that it encouraged Martin to work towards starting up a Christian group at work, which one of our current Headstarters attends (hey, Maddy!).
The key to sharing the gospel, really is to figure out what it looks like to live for Jesus in all spheres of our lives. Because once we realise that we have everything we need already in Christ, Christ’s love innately compels us forward to spread the gospel according to his perfect will.
But following Jesus isn’t just the key to evangelism. It’s also the key to living in freedom.
Getting to Walk the Red Carpet
Who here has flown business class? If you’ve ever been blessed enough to fly business, you know that amazing feeling of stretching your legs out, because there’s actually space to do so. The attendants wait on you, serve you your meals with real cutlery, and address you by your name (“Champagne, Mr. Leong?”). This is the “red carpet” treatment and special attention that everyone dreams of.
And in every culture and context, there are specific people who get to be in that spotlight. For Sydney workers, it could be CEOs, leaders, or partners. It could be doctors versus nurses, specialists versus general practitioners, or even perhaps new grads in grad programs versus full-time positions. It could be entrepreneurs with the flashy “start-up stories” that make headlines in the news.
Wherever we are, there are always models and jobs that society promotes as the roles to be in. But we can see, within our circles, that the chase always proves futile, as we can never fully achieve those ideals because they are just that — ideals. Even the craziest, richest Asian in Crazy Rich Asians still feel poor in the race to be “enough.”
Romans 6:16-18 says, “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and now we have been set free from being “slaves of sin.” Our identities don’t need to be chained down to anything of this world, no matter how luxurious or extravagant the position seems.
BUT ....
Sometimes, we can get into a habit of rejecting one ideal and replacing it with another. We could turn away a “red carpet” CEO role and enter full-time paid ministry, but we can so easily treat the ministry position as just a another “red carpet” solution.
So the problem continues in an endless rat race. Then the question becomes: is the “red carpet” just a myth?
The answer is in the last verse in the Romans passage above. We have been released from sin, but that’s not the end. We are meant to live for righteousness — essentially, to follow Jesus.
We can turn away from certain worldly ideals, but to keep ourselves turned from striving for another ideal, we need to pursue righteousness by following Jesus. It really is that simple.
Additionally, Psalm 34:15-16 declares, “The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.”
When we follow Jesus in his righteous paths and realise that God’s eyes are on us, that’s when we really start to understand that we already have all the attention we innately, deeply crave. What could be better than the eyes of the Almighty God, Creator of the Universe, King of Kings on us as his unconditionally beloved children? This God, our God, made us to be in relationship with him.
1 Peter 2:9 also says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
We are already on the red carpet we’re looking for. We don’t need to strive to become or obtain anything else to get “special treatment” when God has already given that to us. He has declared us to be his chosen people, his royal priesthood. His!
The red carpet is already rolled out before you. Will you walk on it?
