Speaker: 00:00:00

Welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world

become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.

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My name is George Bonoka and with me today is Pastor Joel Mosier from the Texas, the

Houston area in Texas.

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And so we're so uh glad and encouraged to have him with us.

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And so thank you brother for making time in your busy schedule.

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And what I wanted to do today is tackle this topic that you actually wrote an article

about and I'm gonna link the article in the show notes below, but

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know, evangelizing at work is a tough thing these days.

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It's a hard thing for Christians to share their faith at work.

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There's several reasons for that we're gonna try to cover here.

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But let me just start with this and I'll ask you, why do you think the workplace is one of

the hardest places for Christians to share their faith?

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Yeah, I can think of George, just a handful of reasons.

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First of all, thanks for having me back.

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I'm glad to be back and I love the exchange.

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The exchange has absolutely changed me personally, has revolutionized our church as far as

how to equip our members for personal evangelism.

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So I'm glad to be back.

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But yeah, let me answer that question.

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Why are people fearful about evangelizing at work?

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I can think of a handful just off the top of my head.

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One is very common, right?

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It's just fear of rejection or conflict, right?

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I don't want to be known as that person.

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Another one is workplace policies.

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Just the explicit, you are to keep religion and politics out of the workplace.

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the so what if HR finds out?

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I think, you know, going another one that we all struggle with just a lack of confidence.

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I don't know what's what's gonna kind of questions are gonna come.

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respect for diversity like so, for instance, one of our company's values is diversity.

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And so if I speak, you know, even in a lunch about the exclusivity of the gospel through

Christ,

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Am I gonna be written up or will that somehow find its way back?

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And then I think the last one that I just off the top of my head is just simply time and

context restraints.

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mean, work is for work.

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We are getting paid uh to produce and so this isn't a evangelistic crusade.

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anyways, fear of rejection, workplace policies.

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Lack of confidence, respect for diversity, time, and just context constraints.

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That's what immediately comes to my mind.

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Yeah, and I'd understand most of those.

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I think the unique one is the HR piece.

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So if somebody in your church walked up to you tomorrow and said, pastor, there's a person

I want to witness to, but I know there are people that would be antagonistic and report me

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to HR if I witnessed to them.

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Which is funny to me, how our culture has done this.

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We believe in diversity, except when it's

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a worldview that contradicts my worldview of inclusion, right?

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So uh we're exclusively inclusive.

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And so because of that, we've created this culture where it's like, well, I can't identify

as a Christian, but you could kind of identify as whatever you wanted to because my

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Christianity, know, offends whatever you're identifying as.

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All that aside, what would you tell practically?

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What kind of practical advice would you give to that person who says, what do I do?

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Do I take the risk?

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Is there a right way, a wrong way to do it?

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What are your thoughts?

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yeah, first of all, I don't think there's a wrong way or let me say this.

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I don't think there's an out, there's a right answer for every situation.

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I think every context is going to demand nuance.

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So let's just admit that let's be, let's be critical thinkers in and let's be like Jesus

said, wise as serpents, right?

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and harmless as doves.

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So I think we need to think through nuance.

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So what I'm about to say,

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isn't going to work and isn't going to work in every context.

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It's going to be slightly different from nuance to nuance.

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I think just generally, I would say if you're fearful about, you know, stuff getting back

to HR, we believe in evangelism, the gospel in the context of relationships.

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That doesn't mean we never get to the gospel, but it does mean that there is some

semblance of trust

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between myself and the person that I'm speaking to.

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So I think if you're, you know, I don't think wisdom is having that conversation over the

cubicle.

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Let's say that someone across the cubicle or two cubicles over says something that's kind

of provocative, but you have a relationship enough with them to bring it up.

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I don't think that exact moment is the time to address it.

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when you are, when you take a lunch break and you go off site and you're eating at

Chipotle or you know you're specifically saying, next week let's get together and eat.

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And you sit down, you could say something like, hey, do you remember when?

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And bring up some of those things.

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So that's my initial thought, George, is that we do need to think strategically and think

nuanced in how to.

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not get fired, number one, and number two, not put our coworkers in a situation where they

feel like they have to report us, but where we've established trust enough where they know

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where we're coming from.

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And if this is the first time, like if they never even knew that we went to church on a

Sunday, so I would just tell folks within our assembly, our church family, a regular piece

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of your conversation when somebody says to you, how was your weekend?

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Besides talking about your kids' soccer games on Saturday, soon thereafter needs to be,

and we had a wonderful time at our church yesterday.

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So that it's part of the fabric of who you are as a person.

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Yeah, man, I couldn't agree with you more.

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think that's number one is, and I guess we could talk about this in a second, but who you

are at work and character communicates a lot just by itself.

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It's not going to get you there all the way.

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You've got to be able to wear your faith, your worldview on your shirt sleeve, like Pastor

Jeff says, confidently without

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cramming it down people's throats at work.

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I think the other piece is just practical and you kind of made reference to it.

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Basically, you could put yourself in a situation where you're stealing from your boss time

wise, labor wise, by deciding I'm going to be evangelistic when I need to be working.

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But it's actually the opportunities to do things off site together.

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mean, work is work is the reason you might have met that person.

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But it's not working in proximity alone that

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that ought to be the main driver of the relationship.

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You should find those launch opportunities.

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Hey man, let's go grab lunch at the cafeteria.

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Or hey, let's go to Chipotle, you know, my treat.

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Or hey, how'd you like to come over our house, play board games with our family, whatever.

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Then it's like, work is just a springboard.

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I don't foresee you saying, let's turn off our phones, know, or let's turn off our work

for an hour and just sit in this cubicle and do the exchange.

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mean, you're setting yourself up for disaster.

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doing the right thing the wrong way, you know, kind of situation.

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George, I'll say this.

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It is mind boggling to me how Christian people can be lazy people.

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And if there ought to be anyone that has a work ethic in their office, at the job site,

behind a screen, if there's anyone, it ought to be

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Christian people, because God has redeemed us, not just to save us from this world to get

us to heaven, but he's redeemed everything that we do.

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He's redeemed my marriage, he's redeemed my parenting, and he has redeemed how I labor.

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And so I don't see, know, there was this phrase, right, we used to talk about the

Protestant work ethic, and Martin Luther redeemed the value of work in the context that we

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do it for the glory of God.

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And so,

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I think that when we're, as Christian people, if we have not modeled just plain hard work,

get things done on time with a measure of excellence, it's those types of activities,

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responsibilities that actually afford us then opportunities to speak into situations and

extend a measure of grace, if we will, from

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people around us because they know our work for excellence.

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Exactly.

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And I think on that level as well as character, you know, it's the broader thing behind

the excellence, the work ethic.

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you know, I remember my first job as a busser at Red Lobster.

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so bus and table 16 year old.

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You'd not believe how many times people in your workplace will invite you to go and do

something with them that's wrong.

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That's counter to what the Bible teaches.

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that would be compromising your faith.

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And so at first, I think what could happen to us as Christians in the workplace is we'll

seem very odd.

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We're gonna seem very odd, it's gonna be different.

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That guy, I mean, it's not that we're total stiffs and we're people, have personalities,

we laugh, we joke, all those things are great.

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But people are gonna notice he doesn't come drinking with us, he doesn't come in hungover

the next morning.

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He's not getting into trouble with HR because he's on his laptop or she's on her laptop

doing bad things on the internet or whatever.

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It's like there are a number of things that are gonna make you stand out just because

you're following Jesus Christ and trying to live life his way.

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But I think there also comes with that, and this is something that sometimes we don't,

maybe we're insecure about as Christians, there comes with that level of respect other

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people have for those people who

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who really do what they say they believe.

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And I think, and I've heard this from people in the military who are chaplains, that the

moment you capitulate and say, all right, well, I'm just gonna cuss because they cuss.

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I'm just gonna go drinking at the bar because they go drinking at the bar and it's gonna

be a way for me to relate to them.

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You can relate to people in the wrong ways, in the wrong areas of life.

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And so you wanna be careful that you maintain that integrity and...

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And at first people may make fun of you for it, but I think deep down people respect that

because they you're not a hypocrite.

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So I think that's important.

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Would you have any different thought on that?

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No, I mean, I really just kind of highlighting or underlining the exact same thing you

said.

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I just recently heard of a story of a guy who a Christian man, a Christian young man in

his twenties who works here in the city of Houston and uh had all of his coworkers and

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their significant others, girlfriend, wife, whatever, over for a football game into his

home.

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And he said, this is going to be different because, you know, they don't drink.

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And so he told his buddies up ahead of time, but they still came and they still had fun.

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Did he preach the gospel to him?

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No, he did not preach the gospel to them.

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They were watching, you know, whatever game it was.

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the point is, is that brother is establishing relationship.

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And when the time comes for those individuals, when they have a sole need, they're going

to go to the person where there is authenticity.

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genuineness and where they've been into that person's home.

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And so that point of character specifically is essential to our Christian witness.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Yeah, and I don't think it's hard.

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People at work are going to talk about their hobbies.

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They're going to talk about the things they like.

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And so you just find one of those things to do with them or you find an excuse to bring

them over to your house and show them some hospitality.

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It's going to make a huge, huge difference in that life.

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One of the things you say in the article is, the first step is just as you start to build

that relationship with somebody that you work with is simply love Jesus and his gospel.

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What does that look like in a work context?

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day to day.

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mean, work sometimes people's, certain people's work can be pretty monotonous or you know,

so what is, what does loving Jesus and his gospel look like for an accountant or you know,

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for somebody that has a job where it's like, all right, I'm on a factory line or whatever

you're doing.

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Yeah, that yeah, let me let me kind of try to unpack this as best I can.

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I hope I give a good answer here.

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What I'm getting at is this.

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Theologically conservative Christians, people who are or theologically orthodox, we love

our theology.

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We love our our hymns.

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We love the nuanced arguments of this theological position and this theological position

here, and we we want to kind of

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Run that out.

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And what I'm getting at is this is those things are all well and fine and good and we need

people to be thinking like that.

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And I think Christian people need to be thinking like that.

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But what what I'm concerned about is he's been as a pastor and as a Christian.

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Do I love the Jesus of my theology?

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Do I love the Jesus of my music?

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Do I love or do I just love the intellectual exercise?

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Or do I just love the rhythm and cadence of my preacher's voice or that radio preacher's

voice or that podcaster?

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Or do I actually, have I made that actually part of my idol's worship system?

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Or do I actually love Jesus?

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And part of the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I am convicted myself.

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Is the aroma of Jesus Christ

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of who I am as a Christian.

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Like take me out of the pulpit, take me out of sermon preparation.

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Do I just say, do I just sing about Jesus because I love Jesus?

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Does the name Jesus ever come across my lips to my children simply because I love my

savior?

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And so I think that it is gonna be a challenge, right?

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mean, you know.

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You're working on a spreadsheet and you can't just start singing, how I love Jesus.

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Like I get that or whatever anthem, right?

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So I get that, but I think there has to be something about us.

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And maybe that's where we talk about, however many Sundays we talk about, or Mondays we

talk about, had a great time at church, the follow-up at the appropriate time is.

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But why did you have a great time at church?

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And it's in there trying to bring in because Jesus has rescued me.

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So I'll be honest, I don't know how you would, while typing at a keyboard, say that.

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But there is the aroma of Christ that we exude by walking with Christ day in and day out.

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And I'll say this too, I think if I feel my brain,

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with political podcasts on the way into work.

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I don't think I'm gonna have the aroma of Christ.

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I'll have the aroma of political podcaster.

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And so I think that's part of how I need to shepherd my own heart.

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I think you're right.

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I think at work, we all talk about what we love.

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We do it very naturally.

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You know, people talk about, they choose to talk about the things they love in a certain

way, they portray them in a certain light, they talk about them whenever they get a

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chance.

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And I think as Christians, we ought not to be ashamed of the person we love.

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And Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the gospel.

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You know, in Romans chapter one, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And so,

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It is the power of God unto salvation.

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So I think we have, as Christians, to be admitting to our co-workers in the appropriate

times and the appropriate ways that who we love is, his name is Jesus Christ.

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And so, and unashamedly do that.

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Just like somebody at work talked about they love the Dallas Cowboys.

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Terrible team, but some people love them.

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It's like in the same way, why wouldn't I say I love Jesus?

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Why wouldn't people know that about me?

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Why wouldn't they know that I'm cheering?

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You know, I'm on his team, you know, that's the one I'm following.

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um And so I think it comes out, and I think you're right, it's subtle.

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It's like aroma, it's subtle.

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And people will get the idea.

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You may not even have to say anything.

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They might just take one look at your cubicle or desk or whatever and get the idea of, oh,

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They love Jesus and they might even derogatorily say they're a Jesus lover or whatever.

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But I think that aroma that you're talking about and it exudes because of that

relationship, our daily walk with Christ, our love for him.

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Either you love him or you don't.

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And that comes out.

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People can tell.

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Yeah, it's like when my wife is baking bread or baking cookies.

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It's just there, right?

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You can't get rid of it.

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Or like literally right down the hallway right now, one of my staff members, our staff

members is burning the candle and it smells really good.

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It's just there.

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And I think that if we spend time with Christ, we're going to have, there's gonna be joy,

there's gonna be calm.

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there's gonna be peace even in the midst of turbulence when companies are downsizing or

when families are going through difficult situations.

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I think one of the ways that we share Jesus, George, is not being afraid to talk or to

talk about trials that we're experiencing.

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um Whether it's a health issue with a spouse or children.

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whether it's, you know, my spouse lost her job and so we're trying to figure out how we're

gonna make ends meet.

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I think all these types of ways are life that we can show Christ through the highs and

through the lows.

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And I think those are ways we can show the love.

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So one of the things that I'm burdened about sometimes is where we as pastors tell people

to be different and where the Bible tells us to be different, we accidentally read in

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weird.

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And so how do you make sure that you're being different, but you're not being weird?

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How do you make sure you're being appropriately aggressive as a Christian should be in

their witness without being

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and overbearing.

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man.

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I wish, man, that is a wonderful question, George.

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And I don't know, I'm trying to, like, sometimes you just know when people are weird.

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that's really, you know, I

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You don't know what you can't describe it, but you know it when you see it.

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Yeah, it's like, why would you I think one is just awkward transitions.

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Like we were talking about the Houston Texans and you just asked me, you know, about if I

died today where I'd go is like, wait a second, we're we're still talking about the game.

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We've never even had.

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I've never even opened up at that level to for you to to

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to talk at that level of depth of relationship.

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So I think one is, has that friend, when I say opened up, I don't mean that they've

divulged every difficulty that they've walked through.

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I'm talking about as simple as them talking about, man, it's just really hard being a

step-parent, right?

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Or it's just,

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you know, my in-laws, my in-law is in the hospital and my wife's having to spend a lot of

time over there.

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And so one of the ways that we can avoid weirdness is listening to what people are telling

us and asking more questions around that topic.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, I don't know if that's helpful, George.

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Yeah, I mean, I, one of the hardest things for me is had street evangelism, and there are

awesome people that do it.

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And when they do it, it's not, it's not awkward.

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mean, it just fits them so naturally.

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So I'm not, I'm not boohooing or poo-pooing any, any, any approach here, because I think

that, you know, you, kind of need both approaches in certain instances.

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But, um but I would say in our context here in America that

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having that confrontation right on the street is pretty weird and awkward.

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I think we could do the same thing in our workplace.

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know, like for instance, you've been praying about a certain coworker, but you have zero

relationship.

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And the first time they ever say hi to you, you go right into, hey, if you were to die

tomorrow, where would you go?

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And the weirdest I felt, most awkward I've ever felt in a social interaction was with

questions like that.

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I remember one time,

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I was with a dear, friend.

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love him so much.

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And we were at the mall and he was witnessing this young lady and he asked her, he was

starting to go through the 10 Commandment thing, you know, where he's like, have you ever

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done this?

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Have you ever done that?

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And, you know, I think this question is okay if two guys are asking it to each other, but

if you're asking it to a girl and you say, have you ever lusted in your heart and there's

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two old guys looking at you, this young girl, and you're just thinking, oh this is...

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This just got awkward.

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But he's such a bold guy.

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he didn't flinch at all.

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But, know, again, I love him dearly.

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I love him to death.

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there are some things that I see us do sometimes in evangelism that I'm like, man, that's

the weirdest way you could have done that.

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You know, let's back up.

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Let's slow down.

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Let's do the relationship intentionally.

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Let's trust in God's providence and sovereignty that he will open this door.

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If he allowed this person to warm up to you enough that they start a conversation with you

to begin with, then it's no accident that you're there.

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We call those divine appointments.

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But the key is, like you said, is having this, the ability to follow the lead of the Holy

Spirit at the right times in the right ways.

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There's no magic answer to that, but that's what the scriptures tell us.

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People are, I think people, let me kind of riff on what you said about allowing the spirit

to lead us.

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um When a coworker confides in you about an upcoming that they're contemplating divorce.

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Hmm.

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That's a Holy Spirit moment.

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When you're at a lunch table and there's five of them there and someone blurts out like,

I'm thinking about getting divorced.

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I don't know that that's, I don't think that's the same thing, right?

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I, when,

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when a, this is hard for type A personalities or people who are like try to get things, we

just gotta get things done, we get things done off our checklist.

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But do you ever look into your coworkers eyes?

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Like are they tired today?

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Are those exhausted eyes?

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And are those exhausted eyes because the football game was too late last night?

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Or are those exhausted eyes because life is hard?

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And we don't, people are like, well I never think like that.

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Well, that's what Jesus, when Jesus looked on people with compassion at the people with

compassion, that's what he was seeing.

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And so I think we we need to be looking and hearing in people's, when people are talking

politics and they're angry about something, why are they angry?

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They're angry because life for them, at least in their mind as they know it is being

turned upside down.

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or they're insecure about a moment.

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um And so I think when we're hearing these things, try to go to the next level of thinking

about what they're communicating with their eyes, with those angry words, with those upset

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words, with those divulging words about my stepkids or whatever it may be, or what my ex

did this past weekend that totally threw me off.

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and is really going to mess up my finances now because she went back to the judge for the

third time.

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All of those pieces are God's way of opening people's the doors of their heart.

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And that's where so so weirdness weirdness steps in compassionate compassionate

evangelizers listen for where the spirit is at work.

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hmm.

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Yeah, it's not forced, you know, and coming from a place of care is key.

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People can sense it, people respond to it.

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It's what, you know, we talk about in giving the exchange and we've trained hundreds of

churches with this is you got to know when to turn the conversation.

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You can't go from surface level to soul level, deep conversations just like that on a

dime.

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No, it's you're at the surface level and relationship and trust builds.

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eventually they reveal a soul need like divorce or hey I'm I'm tired or I'm I'm drinking

too much or whatever and then that's the moment to say hey have you ever have you ever

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thought about getting some answers to that could I could I show you something could we do

a Bible study together when people aren't there Lois they're open to that they are open to

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that but you know in the board meeting with 30 of their colleagues in the room they're not

open to it ah

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With everybody else listening and the cubicles over, it's not the right time.

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but I think that's key.

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Well, I mean, hey, this has been an awesome conversation.

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I hope we could, we were a help to those in the workplace.

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And though we are pastors, both of us, I know both of us have had experience working in

secular environments.

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so, um and Scripture is the ultimate authority in all these things.

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So I really couldn't point to anything that we were talking about and say it was

unbiblical.

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So,

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Follow scripture first and foremost, follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

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And so we love you guys, we're praying for you, for the laborers in the harvest.

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The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

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So pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers.

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Thank you so much, Pastor Joel, and for joining us on the podcast.

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Love your heart.

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And for all of you out there, if this was a blessing, share it with somebody.

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If it wasn't a blessing, share it with somebody.

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And so we wanna help.

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We want to help Christians all over the world.

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Lord bless you guys.

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See you next week.