Mentoring for Global Impact

by Jacob, a faith-work mentor

Craig came to faith five years ago at the age of 35 and is on fire for Christ. He was recently hired to lead an edgy, high-profile firm in East Asia in need of a turn-around.

Craig told his employers of his faith before they hired him. “I’m a Christian, and I will bring my Christian values with me if you appoint me to this role,” he said during his interview.

“Fine,” they said. “We need things shaken up.”

With permission granted to “shake things up,” Craig wondered where to start. Addressing LGBT benefits or sexually driven marketing? Tightening the highly creative but largely unproductive work environment? Many employees feared Craig’s outdated Christian values, and threatened to quit just weeks after his appointment.

When Craig and I met at a faith-work integration event, he wanted to talk further about how to bring his faith into his business role. So we met for lunch the next day.

“Is the company in imminent danger of collapsing?” I asked him. “Or do you have time to better assess the situation before making critical decisions? Will leadership grant you time to do some critical discovery to understand the landscape and make informed decisions?”

“The company’s not in imminent danger,” Craig said. “But the trend is strongly negative and I’ve been hired to fix it. I have a great relationship with the owners. They trust me and will give me time and space to move as I see fit.”

“Do you know who your most critical players are?” I asked. “Who would it be very damaging to lose? Who are your problem people, and who are you far better off without?”

“I don’t know yet, though I’m gaining a sense of this.”

One more question: “Do you have a plan for effectively integrating your faith in how you lead through all this change? A plan to introduce people to the transforming person of Jesus Christ even as you seek to transform the company?”

“No, I don’t,” Craig said. “Can you help?”

Like many others I’ve met in my travels, Craig needs a mentor. The Lord has scattered thousands of Craigs all over the world in places closed to mission workers but open to Christ-following marketplace workers in business, engineering, design, management, medicine, education, construction, hospitality, agriculture, government, and more.

Many of them already see their careers as belonging to the Lord and themselves as stewards to integrate their faith with their work. Many others don’t have that global marketplace vision yet. But they all need mentors who can help them catch the vision and carry it out where they live and work. They need mentors who will help them be “living letters of Christ” (2 Corinthians 3), bringing the transforming power of the gospel to the darkest places on earth.

The people in this story are real, but their names have been changed to protect their privacy.