Creating a Gospel Culture at the Office

I want to challenge you to be a culture maker and not just a culture critic. We live in a society that criticizes culture and cancels everything and everyone we don’t agree with, but that’s not a healthy culture, nor is it a sustainable culture. We need to responsibly create a culture that embraces the broken and helps them find redemption. Moreover, we need to curate a culture that restores people to their original design and purpose to maximize the uniqueness of a human being and their respective calling in life.

To do that we have to first understand what culture is. Culture is basically the things that we say we believe plus the beliefs we actually practice, or the byproduct of our actions and attitudes.

So what do we believe our culture should be? If you’re a church leader, or a Christian leader in a secular workplace what you believe is the gospel. Yes, as a Christ follower, regardless of where you are employed, you believe in the gospel. More specifically, that God is great, God is glorious, God is good, and God is gracious. Tim Chester, a pastor and seminary professor breaks down believing the gospel of Jesus Christ as actually believing four truths I just mentioned. When we look at how Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection embodies these four truths, we can see how Jesus, in every single one of our circumstances is able to redeem us or save us from our situations.

We want our culture to be gospel centric meaning that we don’t have to be in control; we don’t have to fear others; we don’t have to look elsewhere; and that we don’t have to prove ourselves. We don’t have to do any of those things because God is great, glorious, good, and gracious to us.

Think about all the wrongs that would be healed, the misunderstandings forgiven, the decisions not clouded by second-thoughts. It would revolutionize how we see other human beings, but also ourselves. There would be an underlying sentiment of love that would permeate our intentions.

If culture is the byproduct of our belief in action, then the there are four steps we must take:

1. Point to the destination – John 6:40. “For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” We want the gospel to manifest everything we do because it underlies everything we believe.
2. Shrink the change – most people keep sinning or continue to tolerate sin because the the belief that Jesus can rescue from their small sins seems too big. So start small, and then incrementally work your way up. Same as the debt snowball that Dave Ramsey advocates for. Call it the snowball of belief. Engage people with how Jesus redeems small things, so people can see victory, and then work your way up to bigger items.
3. Disciple People – this is not telling people what to believe and how to practice their beliefs. It is to teaching people why they believe the gospel and how that impacts their practice. Then it is setting people free to act in what they believe. If sin wins, then you come back and teach what we believe and help them see the gospel.
4. Rally People – retell stories of God’s victories in specific people’s lives. Make sure you highlight the fallen conditions, broken solutions, and the application of the gospel and how the fruits of the gospel are manifesting. Share transparently your struggles and tensions with your own fallen condition and application of the gospel. Invite people into your life to speak candidly with love.