Torch, Spring 2000

ministers of reconciliation—those who feel deeply the brokenness of the world of work and who both recognize and respond to the deep spiritual poverty of most human organizations. In 2 Cor. 1:3-4, Paul exhorts believers to be ministers of comfort to others because they have themselves experienced God’s comforting touch. And in 2 Cor. 5:18, he calls believers to embrace a ministry of reconciliation. Every workplace abounds with strife and fighting. Flawed human nature gives rise to “hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, and dissensions” (Gal. 5:20). The fallen world of organizations is such that these things are taken as inevitable and even (in the case of selfish ambition) applauded. Christian leaders know in a very personal and very immediate way that the most important issues at work are spiritual, not financial. Beneath the buzz of activity in organizations ranging from hospitals to factories are the very real facts that (1) most people are separated from the God who created them; (2) separation from God has resulted in insurmountable Torch 5 (continued on page 10) Christians can be tempted to assume that their organizational position (as president or pastor, as chief or chairman) bestows on them an extra measure of knowledge and ability not available to others. Followers want leaders to have it all together. They want to believe their leaders have special abilities and unique power. Everything the leader sees and hears reinforces the image that he or she is special and different from all the others around him or her. Leadership can be a heady experience. Christ’s admonition in this verse is to get beyond the glitter of larger offices and larger desks and to acknowledge our total dependency on God for having any eternal, larger impact on others at work. Matt. 5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” Leaders who have an impact for Christ are sensitively aware of the pain and rebellion of a fallen world. To mourn is to feel deeply the harm and hurt of sin. A person who mourns knows the tragedy of loss and separation and seeks comfort from that pain. Ultimately, he or she will seek to comfort others. In the push for results and change, it is easy to overlook the human toll of work in a fallen world. Conflicts are covered over with superficial apologies. Feelings of alienation are pushed aside as the whining of those too weak to pay the price of growth. Christians have been commissioned by God to be barriers between people; and (3) Christ is the only bridge between God and people and between one person and another. Matt. 5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Leaders who have an impact for Christ are humbly submissive to God’s authority. Many organizations thrive on aggressiveness and hubris. Strength and cunning are prized, while submissiveness and humility are seen as weakness and naiveté. The Jews of Jesus’ day were a proud people lying uneasily beneath the boot of the Roman Empire. Jesus’ teaching that meekness in the face of tyranny would result in a victorious inheritance must have been greeted by some as simply muddle-headed softness. Even today we can hear someone fighting his or her way to the top on the corporate battleground saying, “Look, it’s a battle out here for the survival of the fittest. You’ve got to look out for yourself. Humility is a career killer.”