When the idea of a ‘Christian Business’ is discussed, there are widely different opinions. Some would say a business can never be ‘Christian’ – it is a ‘thing’, not a person or soul. A business can’t be ‘saved’. Others argue that a business can be a platform for advancing God’s kingdom.
At the heart of every business are people working together. It is no accident that we call it a ‘company’ (cum panis – with bread). The people in a business are not simply human resources or assets, they are people in relationships with other people. Every business is community.
All businesses must achieve lasting financial sustainability to stay in existence but that doesn’t need to be the end of the story. They also all have the opportunity to make the world a better place. Every business can pursue ‘kingdom’ outcomes.
When we look at so-called business excellence we can see that best-practice often goes some way towards delivering kingdom: ensuring employee well-being; trusted stakeholder relationships; financial probity and environmental responsibility, for example.
When we look at well-run businesses through a kingdom lens (faith, hope, and love), we can see that there are clear gaps and occasional contradictions. A company that meets all its legal obligations to employees may still make light of deeply selfish behaviour from ‘bad fruit’ attitudes. A proper focus on cash flow may be at the disadvantage of small suppliers. Leading high tech companies are shedding jobs with apparently little conscience.
In any business, there are thus reasons to be thankful, subjects for prayer, areas for seeking wisdom, opportunities for witness, moral dilemmas, and a need for healing of relationships. A business that sets itself up to achieve kingdom outcomes may invite spiritual opposition. There is always scope for evil and destruction in the workplace. It is hard to imagine a ‘kingdom business’ that doesn’t need to embrace prayer and worship. The question is how that can be achieved.
Monastic communities have given us an example of a life built on an alternating rhythm of work and prayer. One of the best books on practical prayer (The Practice of the Presence of God) came from a French monastery, although Brother Lawrence was a lay brother, more kitchen than chapel. Some ‘new monastics’ (modern day dispersed communities) follow a rule-of-life that is prompted through their mobile phone apps.
Working from home makes it easier to carve out time for worship. When working with a Muslim team in a factory in Malaysia, where they would regularly stop for prayer time, it oddly took Christians a day or two to adopt these gaps for prayer too. In war-time factories, it was the practice to read prayers through the PA system during lunch breaks. The House of Commons starts each day with prayers. A software business in the Netherlands rather surprised some visitors when the management team stopped to pray before lunch. A consultancy business makes time for an annual retreat for its employees. In each of these examples, prayer and worship is intentionally designed into the pattern of work.
Excellent businesses will seek to delight their customers by exceeding their expectations. Every employee has the opportunity personally to contribute excellent service through their own creativity and their own performance. Baristas make imaginative pictures in coffee cups. Hotel managers go out of their way to make people feel welcome. Companies design ‘delighters’ that customers don’t expect.
Is it possible that work done to delight and honour others may also please and honour God?
Is it possible that work done to delight and honour others may also please and honour God? It’s a step in faith but not a wild leap. If so, it offers us multiple opportunities to praise God every day. This needn’t conflict with justification by faith. A housewife once explained that pegging out her washing, rather than using her tumble dryer, was a way she honoured God. We can accept that artists, composers, musicians or Cathedral stonemasons, for example, glorify God through their work. Why shouldn’t the same apply to salesmen, engineers and accountants? A Christian building company is able to stand out from the crowd through its quality, service and integrity as much as by what it builds.
Worship can take many forms. Businesses have unique opportunities for witness. Airport terminals play worship music, coffee shops and pubs host Alpha courses; a business invites employees and families to an annual carol service; a residential home invites its local church to run services for dementia sufferers; a toyshop chain doesn’t open its stores on Sundays. All these are acts that advance the kingdom.
We have written elsewhere of how (even secular) businesses can set kingdom goals for a better world. If Christians take that opportunity there are many essential considerations but one of them is how (and not whether) they will embrace some form of corporate worship and prayer.
Philip Hansen is an engineer who spent 30 years working with IBM Engineering. Since then, he has been Principal Industrial Fellow at the Institute for Manufacturing at Cambridge, and is ordained in the Church of England.
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