Secular Press and Publications

• “5 years ago - only one conference on spirituality and the workplace; now there are hundreds.”
  - Business Week magazine
  
• 10,000 Bible and prayer groups in workplaces that meet regularly” – Business Week.
  
• 79 Books Published on Faith & Work in Year 2000, “24 Books A Month Are Being Published Today (2002)“ - Pete Hammond, Intervarsity Press
  
• “… a mostly unorganized mass of believers--a counterculture bubbling up all over corporate America--who want to bridge the traditional divide between spirituality and work. Historically, such folk operated below the radar, on their own or in small workplace groups where they prayed or studied the Bible. But now they are getting organized and going public to agitate for change.” Fortune Magazine, July 16, 2001
  
• "People who want to mix God and business are rebels on several fronts. They reject the centuries-old American conviction that spirituality is a private matter. They challenge religious thinkers who disdain business as an inherently impure pursuit. They disagree with business people who say that religion is unavoidably divisive. Fortune Magazine, July 16, 2001
  
• “Today, a spiritual revival is sweeping across Corporate America as people of all stripes are mixing mysticism into their management, importing into office corridors the lessons usually dolled out in churches, temples, and mosques. Gone is the old taboo against talking about God at work. – BusinessWeek Magazine, November 1999
  
• “Ten years ago we could identity only 25 national or international workplace ministries; today we can identify more than 900.” Mike McLoughlin, YWAM Marketplace Mission
  
• 80% of people are dissatisfied with their work.
  
• 50% of people talk about spiritual issues at work in an average week.

Biblical Precedent

• New Testament – Of Jesus’ 132 public appearances in NT, 122 were in the marketplace
  
• Of 52 parables Jesus told, 45 had a workplace context. Of 40 divine interventions recorded in Acts, 39 were in the marketplace.
• Jesus spent his adult life as a carpenter until age 30 before he went into a preaching ministry in the workplace. Jesus called 12 workplace individuals, not clergy, to build His church.
  
• Work is Worship - The Hebrew word "Avodah" is root for word from which we get the words work and worship.
  
• Work in its different forms is mentioned more than 800 times in the Bible, more than all the words used to express worship, music, praise, and singing combined.

Other Observations

• "I believe one of the next great moves of God is going to be through the believers in the workplace”. - Dr. Billy Graham.
  
• “God has begun an evangelism movement in the workplace that has the potential to transform our society as we know it”. - Franklin Graham
  
• “I've never seen the activity of God this deeply in the business community as I do right now.” - Dr. Henry Blackaby
  
• “Workplace ministry will be one of the core future innovations in church ministry.” - George Barna, Boiling Point, Regal Publishing
  
• "If Christ is not Lord of my work, He will never be Lord of my family." - Doug Sherman, author, Your Work Matters to God
  
• "Our surveys reveal that 90-97% of Christians have never heard a sermon relating biblical principles to their work life." - Doug Sherman, author, Your Work Matters to God.
  
• Survey reveals an 80% dissatisfaction rate for a person's work. - San Francisco radio station
  
• Survey reveals 50% dissatisfaction rate among executives and 80% dissatisfaction rate among general workplace population.. - Wall Street Journal
  
• 500 surveys among Christians reveal 50% dissatisfaction rate
  
• “Societal transformation is high on God’s agenda and the chief catalytic force to bring it about will be Christians ministering in the marketplace.” C. Peter Wagner, Chancellor, Wagner Leadership Institute
  
• “The church in the workplace is the purest form of the body of Christ today due to its diversity. Workplace believers are less prone to denominational differences because they have a common goal of representing Christ in their workplaces. The movement will break down denominational barriers that have been held in the past.” Os Hillman, International Coalition of Workplace Ministries
  
• “The most common self-inflicted put-down is ‘I am not a pastor—I am just a layperson.’ This is all part of a clever satanic scheme to neutralize apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers along with the entire army of disciples, already positioned in the marketplace.” Ed Silvoso, Anointed for Business, Harvest Evangelism
  
• “Indeed, as with first-century Christianity, it all begins in the marketplace, where the disciples of Jesus daily rub shoulders with the lost.” – Bill McCartney, Promise Keepers, Anointed for Business, Reqal Publishing
  
• “In today’s global community, the greatest channel of distribution for ‘salt and light’ is the business community… the marketplace.” Bill Pollard, Chairman, ServiceMaster