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Jose Zeilstra grew up in a church that focused on sending people oversees to share the gospel. "The feeling was if you're a true Christian, you go into full-time ministry; the business world wasn't a place for real believers," she says. Jose admits she rebelled against this mindset, eventually reaching the position of vice president at J.P. Morgan Chase. But it wasn't until she read Roaring Lambs by Bob Briner, a book in which Briner argues that Christians should be salt and light in all arenas of life, that she finally realized her career was a legitimate calling from God. "The first time I spoke publicly about my faith was for Fortune magazine," she says. "In the business world, it doesn't get more public than that." She connects her two worlds by attending and speaking at Bible studies and workplace seminars in Manhattan, as well as meeting regularly with a Christian mentor and a group of spiritually like-minded CEOs.
Angie Tracey's revelation came at a women's event. "I'd seen the value of the National Prayer Breakfast and other prayer gatherings when I worked in Washington, D.C. So when I started working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, I felt strongly that our agency could benefit from having similar meetings. I immediately started praying God would bring someone to lead them." Then, while at a women's conference, the Holy Spirit told Angie she was that leader.
"I was going to send an e-mail inviting our employees to a breakfast or lunch," says Angie. "I thought maybe I'd have 10 or 15 people respond, 20 if I was truly blessed." She quickly discovered that to use the CDC's e-mail system for this kind of solicitation, she had to establish an employee association. So Angie tackled the detailed forms and the bureaucratic layers typical of an agency with nearly 10,000 employees in 10 states. She prayed every step of the way, and to her amazement, what should have taken a year took two weeks start to finish. The first ever official Christian employee association in the federal government was born.
Within hours of approval, Angie received more than 200 e-mails and phone calls. Six days later, planes crashed into the World Trade Center. She believes God was preparing the agency to handle the extra stress from 9/11 and the war on terror. The first meeting attracted 225 employees; now the CDC Christian Fellowship Group has more than 500 members.
Jose and Angie would be the first to say they're not doing anything special. They've realized they don't have to separate their faith from their vocation; they're missionaries right where they are.
Everything Old Is New AgainBringing God to work is often referred to as workplace or worklife ministry. Os Hillman, director of the International Coalition of Workplace Ministries, defines it as "an intentional focus on equipping men and women in all spheres of work and society to understand and experience their work and life as a holy calling from God." Os points out that Jesus spent the majority of his life as a carpenter, not as a preacher; 122 of Jesus' 132 public appearances were in the marketplace, and 45 of the 52 parables are set in a work environment.
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