More About Evangelizing at Work...
Let's continue our thread from last week. We're talking about how we Catholics must evangelize, specifically in the workplace.
First of all, every one of us is different. We have different strengths and weaknesses. Our personalities (I'm guessing) are all over the map: cheerful or grumpy (or some combination); tough-skinned or easily offended; highly intelligent, or less so, with most of us somewhere between genius and dunce.
You get the point? The reason I bring this up is that there's no "script" all of us can follow to evangelize, no specific words we can say, no particular way of behaving that will draw others to Christ. But where does this leave us?
Well, the first place to start evangelizing might be in the actual work you do. Here's an example:
We had a crew replacing sidewalk outside our home. They were all Hispanic. In fact out of 5 guys, at least three of them looked alike. (Maybe they were from the same family?) I observed their work from time to time to make sure that they were doing what they said they would do. In the course of my observation, I was struck by how diligent they were in accomplishing their objective. They obviously knew what they were doing, but it was their manner of working that struck me.
Outside of the occasional joking around, they didn't create inordinate noise. When I asked them a question, or, on one or two occasions pointed something out (e.g., their cement truck had broken a large limb on a tree), they listened carefully and responded politely. Then they took care of whatever needed to be done. When they asked me a question - for example, where they could hook up a hose to access water - it was polite and to the point.
(I realize this is simply the way things should go, but given other experiences I've had in similar circumstances, these guys stood out.)
When they took lunch, they sat together, conversed without vulgarity, and cleaned up after themselves. (You actually got the sense that these guys respected, even liked, each other.) Indeed, they were careful to clean up the site as thoroughly as possible after each phase (a two day project).
The work was done within the estimated time and it was done well. The whole experience was surprisingly pleasant. There was no nonsense regarding the bill. They did what they said they were going to do, in the time they estimated, for the price they quoted.
When it was all over, I assessed the whole experienced. I compared it not only to other experiences I've had, but I compared it to how I work. It was an interesting exercise. I would recommend them in a heartbeat, and not only because of the work they did, but because of all the other aspects of how they did it that we just talked about.
I have no idea if these guys were Catholic or not, but here's the point: this is a kind of baseline for us Catholics at work. Whatever we do, we need to have certain skills and we need to pursue our work diligently. We ought to respect those for whom or with whom we work, even when we don't particularly like them. When we make a commitment to a customer or our boss, we should perform our task or our project just as we said we would - or at least as close as possible, given the occasional unexpected glitches than arise from time to time.
That's pretty simple and straightforward, isn't it? More next time...
Get out of your mind that your Faith stops or is somehow on "pause" the minute the work day begins. Our Faith should inform everything we think and say and do. And there's nothing any of us does at work that is exempt from this.Okay, that's clear. But how do we actually apply this in our own situation?
First of all, every one of us is different. We have different strengths and weaknesses. Our personalities (I'm guessing) are all over the map: cheerful or grumpy (or some combination); tough-skinned or easily offended; highly intelligent, or less so, with most of us somewhere between genius and dunce.
You get the point? The reason I bring this up is that there's no "script" all of us can follow to evangelize, no specific words we can say, no particular way of behaving that will draw others to Christ. But where does this leave us?
Well, the first place to start evangelizing might be in the actual work you do. Here's an example:
We had a crew replacing sidewalk outside our home. They were all Hispanic. In fact out of 5 guys, at least three of them looked alike. (Maybe they were from the same family?) I observed their work from time to time to make sure that they were doing what they said they would do. In the course of my observation, I was struck by how diligent they were in accomplishing their objective. They obviously knew what they were doing, but it was their manner of working that struck me.
Outside of the occasional joking around, they didn't create inordinate noise. When I asked them a question, or, on one or two occasions pointed something out (e.g., their cement truck had broken a large limb on a tree), they listened carefully and responded politely. Then they took care of whatever needed to be done. When they asked me a question - for example, where they could hook up a hose to access water - it was polite and to the point.
(I realize this is simply the way things should go, but given other experiences I've had in similar circumstances, these guys stood out.)
When they took lunch, they sat together, conversed without vulgarity, and cleaned up after themselves. (You actually got the sense that these guys respected, even liked, each other.) Indeed, they were careful to clean up the site as thoroughly as possible after each phase (a two day project).
The work was done within the estimated time and it was done well. The whole experience was surprisingly pleasant. There was no nonsense regarding the bill. They did what they said they were going to do, in the time they estimated, for the price they quoted.
When it was all over, I assessed the whole experienced. I compared it not only to other experiences I've had, but I compared it to how I work. It was an interesting exercise. I would recommend them in a heartbeat, and not only because of the work they did, but because of all the other aspects of how they did it that we just talked about.
I have no idea if these guys were Catholic or not, but here's the point: this is a kind of baseline for us Catholics at work. Whatever we do, we need to have certain skills and we need to pursue our work diligently. We ought to respect those for whom or with whom we work, even when we don't particularly like them. When we make a commitment to a customer or our boss, we should perform our task or our project just as we said we would - or at least as close as possible, given the occasional unexpected glitches than arise from time to time.
That's pretty simple and straightforward, isn't it? More next time...
Comments