Reconciliation in the Workplace
Equity, Diversity and Justice Lead, Yining Chiu, is one of 2 panelists speaking on "Seeking Unity and Shaping Culture" during Work as Globalocal Mission 2021. Yining shares her personal journey learning what it means to bring the kingdom of God into her own workplace as a launchpad to discuss how God calls us as Christians to operate as reconcilers in the marketplace.
Discussion Questions
Contributors: Valerie Kosiadi, Customer Success, MainStreet; Enping Hong, Senior Scientist / Pharmaceutical Industry
Yining shares how God showed her that the root of all injustices and divisions she witnessed at work is pride. She defines pride as: ”the belief that we get to exalt ourselves over a fellow human being made in the image of God, so that we can advance ourselves.” How do you define pride? How might pride relate to the divisions you’ve witnessed or experienced at work?
According to Yining, stewarding the ministry of reconciliation requires us to first invite the Holy Spirit to show us how we need to be reconciled to the kingdom of heaven. She shares her own experience giving her supervisor feedback about the stratification in roles, pay, and ethnic identity at her organization, and how God lovingly exposed that in that moment, she was motivated more by being right than by sharing the kingdom. Yining says that even if she had won the argument, any solution would have been superficial if it wasn’t rooted in a Gospel vision of reconciliation. To what extent can you relate to this experience? How might God be inviting you to seek the kingdom of God over your own agenda at your current work?
Yining shares that stewarding the ministry of reconciliation requires us to ask ourselves and others how we can help people in our spheres of influence choose righteousness. She says: “Humbling ourselves and surrendering our desire to judge so we can help others choose righteousness is the way to reconciliation, even if it’s not the kind we can expect to have recognized. Jesus is a servant of all, and his ways can look foolish or even not be seen as valuable. But it is the only way to pursue heaven on Earth.” What might God be calling you to surrender today so that you can help others choose righteousness? What might “helping others choose righteousness” look like for you in your current workplace?
Yining shares her journey towards realizing that the kingdom of God manifests when she follows Jesus’ way. She says that even though Jesus was born into a time just as violently divided, toxic, and stratified by ethnicity, gender, and class, in contrast to worldly leaders like Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, Jesus’ methods of unification were defined by sacrificial love. In a status-quo culture dominated by force, manipulation, and elimination of difference, how do you think we can pursue a culture of unity defined by the sacrificial love of Christ?