JLR Conference 2025
The second Christians in the Workplace Conference was held on Saturday March 1st 2025 at the Jaguar
Landrover (JLR) Gaydon facility with about 240 attendees, up from 160 last year.
The event started with Ana’s testimony on how the Holy Spirit led and guided her through getting a job
working with children.
Simon and Diego, the JLR Christian Workplace Group (CWG) co-chairs introduced and compered the
conference.
JLR D&I groups have an exec sponsor and Gregor McLachlan gave a short address as the CWG exec
sponsor. It was encouraging to see exec sponsorship – a model worth replicating in other companies.
The faith network lead, Elizabeth Hill, spoke about the wider faith networks in JLR, with 4 faiths
currently represented with the faith network acting as an umbrella network. As all networks are people
led, then hopefully representatives of other faiths will also participate. Networks are seen as a safe
place to flourish and also JLR are looking to increase connection between networks. Aim of all
networks is to enable JLR employees to bring their whole self to work.
Grant Smith gave a summary of his 2024 talk. Main question he posed was:
“What are you built for?”.
Grant reminded us of his work supporting indigenous Christians to respond to poverty. In Kenya, a
development on land owned by a church has enabled that church to generate $250k/year income for the
church in Kenya. His work has been a real roller coaster whilst seeking to demonstrate Jesus in places
people did not expect to find Him.
The missions champion at LICC, Mark Greene, author of books such as “Thank God It’s Monday” is also a workplace conference speaker and commented on this being the largest workplace gathering he had attended.
Mark described how we need to be James Bond, going on a mission. JB is always briefed, trained,
resourced, commissioned and supported.
Mark did comment on how teachers can be prayed for to support Sunday school but prayer for their
time at school itself is often neglected. An area some churches are starting to realise they can do better
at.
Mark asked “How fruitful do we feel we are?”. We need to beware of “Tomato Syndrom” – when we
think what we have done is a vegetable but God thinks it is a fruit. John 15:5 – if we are in Jesus, we
WILL bear fruit.
Mark shared on the 6 Ms – criteria for work. 1: Model Godly Character; 2: Make good work; 3:
Minister grace and love; 4: Mold culture; 5: Mouthpiece for truth & justice; 6: Messenger for the
gospel.
Beverley Shepherd asked us to remember 3 things:
1: Who God is
2: Who we are
3: There is an enemy.
One of the keys to fruitfulness is beware scarcity mentality. Be prepared to step into the gap in the workplace. Notice how we are and our energy. Be mindful on what you are agreeing with.
The 2025 prophetic network word is “Release the fighters”. Our weapons are praise & worship, prayer, thanksgiving and joy.
We are all witnesses, so pray for the conversations we have at work. We are pipelines of blessing, so why not bless every meeting you go to and bless everyone who will be there. Do not use the weapons of this world. Confront pride with humility. Take authority over the room you are in; the office you work in; the project you are involved with. Stand in the gap for your organisation. Pray for your leaders. Remember your real boss is God.
Simon and Diego gave an overview of the JLR CWG journey.
Gal 6:9 Do not become weary, but in due time will reap. JLR CWG is part of the wider faith network but maintains its distinctiveness.
Marie Aitken from Alpha shared a personal video from the Gumbels for the conference.
JLR are running Alpha starting May 7th 2025 weekly for one hour. Intention is to open this to online groups in
other companies.
The conference sessions started with excellent times of praise and worship and the conference
concluded with a time of worship and prayer.