Musings of a Young Lady (Part 2)

3) Market Place Ministry

In the past 3 years at GIC, I've been so blessed to be part of a christian fellowship that meets up every thursday at lunch time to worship, pray andshare with one another. I've been tremendously blessed by SY and R's leading of the fellowship, as well as participating in some of theplannings of the vision and purposes of the fellowship. Our CF also links up with other CFers in the CBD area, for example last 2 years at christmas, we combined our christmas celebration. We also had outreaches e.g. showing Ravi Zacharias - Can men live without God video.It was wonderfully edifying to share, pray and encourage one another in the workplace.

I also met C, and asked her to be my mentor, and it has been such a blessing being able to share my life with her, and hear from her experiences. There are indeed certain unique experiences that we christians can share with one another in the office, afterall, person X also knows boss Y, while person Z also knows how difficult handling system W can be. I believe the mkt place ministry is important. It is the place where mostof us spend our time. Where else but the office? The corporate world is filled with its stresses, mundane tasks, and underlying, the question that everyone needs to know is, why am I here? What am I doing? Is there any purpose & meaning at all to this work? Christians can serve as an encouragement to brothers and sisters going through pain. And yes, shine alight in the midst of darkness. Change and revitalise the whole mkt place! And make it shine for God. Bring God's kingdom values of kindness,compassion, justice, hope, righteousness into the whole environment. And from there, let people see the difference in the way we live our lives, from the way structures are made.

I questioned a lot about my calling in the mkt place. Whether I shd belong here. But alas, even though I feel for my colleagues and have established such good relationships with them, i feel that ultimately my calling was not here (at this season at least) but amongst the poor. Nevertheless I think everyone should care about making disciples and spreading the gospel. And it is sad if the only reason why we are working in the office is because we want a comfortable life and money. I think wherever we choose to work, we have to choose it because we are called. We are all called to make disciples, the question is where are "you" called to make disciples?

Other than "official" platforms of outreaches, I had the blessing of being close to many of my colleagues. I really enjoyed their company, and on andoff have tried to share some of my values with them. I wrote cards and emails and chatted with colleagues to encourage them in their work! As mentioned earlier, getting involved in the recreation club comm svc was away in which I felt kingdom values could spread in the company. I felt that serving the community was a challenge to the values of the work place whereby the promotion of self interest and competitiveness is somewhatinevitable. To take time off to care for the community, with no benefit to self is a radical challenge to the values of self interest. Ofcos, some say that people are altruistic for personal reasons- e.g. feelings of fulfilment, happiness etc etc. I don't think these are bad, but I think these happy feelings shd be the fruit of our good works rather than theaim! Anyway, staying back later in the office cos of meetings to discuss the projects, sending emails to participants, liaising with charities, fundraising, pasting posters etc. I felt joyful in doing so. I met a lot of non-christians who sacrificed their time and money as well, and I was really encouraged! I believe inside every human being is a kindness and compassion we have towards others, and exercising it will in a way help usto express the goodness of our creator. I hope these experiences draws them closer to know the ultimate source of goodness.

As I announced I was changing jobs, even more opportunities arose for me to share Christ with my colleagues. As many expressed their envy that I could pursue something I liked (I believe also the ability to let go of money and comfort and to go into uncertainty), I had opportunity to share that it was not simply a passion that could drive one to give up comforts. It has to be a belief that what one was pursuing was of higher value than what one wasgiving up on. And also, doing good works by itself is not the thing that is fulfiling. The greatest calling is to know God. And so as we talked, I realised a lot of my colleagues don't really enjoy their work, but they have to hang on anyway because they want the salary. I am absolutely NOT condemning them, or going by a holier-than-thou attitude. Absolutely not. Ijust feel that the mkt place needs a whole lot of prayer and intercession,that people's eyes may be unveiled up to see Christ, so that He may bring meaning to lives.

Glorifying God in our work is ofcos another impt element that needs to be said. Work, I believe, is a form of worship unto God when we do in joyfully and acknowledge His Lordship over every task. Something an indonesian lady who started a halfway house told me, whenever she does her housework,whether it is sweeping the floors or washing dishes, she sees it as a worship unto God, and she gives thanks to God! In spite of me spending time at the recreation club, God has blessed my work. Though many times stressful, this shall be elaborated later, yet He blessed my projects.There were days however, whereby I fought hard to be joyful in doing my work. Some of the tasks seemed insummountable. Sometimes it was a challenge to do the things I find I don't really enjoy, like writing user specs which got quite technical (afterall God created us to enjoy different things), yet at the end of it I give thanks as I was able to finish my work.

Excellence in work I believe is important. People like Daniel & Joseph in the bible were wonderful testimonies of how God could use people to bring light into the work environment, and raise them up to positions of influence. However, I do not think all christians are Daniels and Josephs, and we can make a difference in our society in different manners.