Dispelling Myths about Christianity 

Many myths exist about Christianity and Christians, from the simple one of “I just need to be a good person to go to heaven”, to the more bizarre, often inspired by Dan Brown novels or stories on the internet.

How then can a Christian Workplace Group help to show that the heart of Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus, who is alive and wants to come close to all his creation?

Sometimes a great opportunity comes along. One of these is Learning at Work Week, organised by The Campaign for Learning, a national charity working towards social inclusion through learning. Learning at Work Week has been taken up by many companies as a way to engage staff and to promote learning within the workplace.

So how does a Christian group take advantage of this? Learning at Work Week is typically coordinated by Human Resources so if the group is recognised the opportunities are there.

At Thames Water, the Christian group is fully recognised by HR and is a part of the company’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy. The Inclusion manager invited all the connected groups who wished to, to put together a one-hour seminar for the week.

So for the last two years, alongside seminars on “How the Company’s Finances Work”, “Developing your Leadership Skills” and “Transgender Awareness”, there have been seminars on Christianity.

The aim with these has not been to evangelise directly, but to dispel myths about Christianity and plant a seed of an idea with people. 

Each year the week has a theme. Last year it was “Networking for Learning” and the Christian group’s seminar was “Christianity: Living Networks”, particularly focused on how the Church encompasses people from all walks of life - the rich, the poor, the old and the young, the black and the white, who all come together across the world to worship Jesus as sons and daughters. The group asked nothing more as follow up but did make sure that people could take away details both of the group and its meetings and of the Alpha course.

Could your Christian Workplace group do this? The theme for this year’s Learning at Work Week, from 13th to 19th May, is “Shaping the Future”. Could you come up with a seminar about how Christianity is “Shaping the Future”?

If your group decides to do this or if you know of any other similar opportunities, we would love to hear about it!
 
Dave Law
Thames Water EDI lead for Christianity and Transform Work UK Lead Ambassador – Thames Valley