Nehemiah from FMI talks about the latest case. “Riaz Gill is a Christian man. He was promoted to senior head clerk at a hospital in Karachi. Shortly after receiving this promotion, Gill was abused and threatened by Muslim co-workers who refuse to work under the leadership of a Christian. I want to say again that Christians in Pakistan are considered outcasts and Untouchables.”

Gill’s coworkers beat and dragged him, threatening even to kill him. He stepped down from this new post, but they want him gone from the hospital entirely. The authorities have refused to intervene. Nehemiah says Pakistani Christians find it more and more difficult every day to get jobs.

A corrupt system

With corruption so rampant in Pakistani workplaces, infrastructure and social services are in shambles. Nehemiah says, “Wherever you go, you find incompetent and corrupt people, especially sitting in the government sector. When Christians try to live and practice as Christians, even in their jobs, most of them don’t like it.” 

Ask God to comfort Pakistani Christians facing this abuse. Pray their work and care for others would strengthen Pakistani society and show the love of Jesus.

The header image shows a monument in Karachi, Pakistan. (Photo courtesy of M.irfan44, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Compassion International recently received an award recognizing their ministry as a great place to work.  Jack Wilson of Compassion says that making sure the Christian workplace is a healthy, vibrant environment is an extremely important component of sharing the Gospel and being the hands and feet of Jesus.

He says, “Our mission statement is to release children from poverty in Jesus’ name. By nature, we’re a very developmental organization. That’s really what we believe God has called us to. But we also believe that the developmental necessity extends not only to our beneficiaries but to those who provide the services that God has kind of charged us with doing.”

In other words, it’s important to equip the leaders and those who are shepherding the churches where their projects take place around the world.

The award is given out by Gallup, based on an annual survey given to employees. Wilson says they’ve had a relationship with management consulting company going on ten years.

(Photo Courtesy of Compassion International)

“This is actually the sixth time we’ve won what’s called the Gallup Great Workplace Award. And this is an international award that … the competition is among the Gallup clients around the world of which there are about 350 companies and organizations.”

Compassion is the only Christian organization who received the award. Wilson says the polling process is extremely helpful to their organization because it helps provide actionable areas of improvement.

Jimmy Mellado, Compassion’s president, is a former Olympian who represented El Salvador in the 80’s. His take on this award explains why it matters for Compassion International.

Wilson shares, “When we received the award a year or two ago, he said, ‘You know, trophies are nice. I’ve one a couple of them myself,’ he said jokingly. ‘But what it means to me and this organization is not so much that there’s a trophy in a display case, but rather what it means to us as an organization: it means that we are actively working at increasing the engagement of employees throughout the organization. And, consequently, we are a better organization. And by God’s grace, we’re able to provide better services as a result of that.’”

So, you may be wondering, what exactly is employee engagement? 

“Employee engagement is the extent to which an employee actively adds his or her discretionary energy and passion into their activity. I truly believe this is a God thing. God does not want us to have a blasé existence, obviously, he wants us to thrive, he wants us to have an abundant life.”

When Compassion first started with Gallup, they had an employee engagement of about 40 percent. Today, it’s at 64 percent. Wilson says they are pleased with this progress.

“The United States workforce, when measured by different organizations, Gallup and others, they’ll tell you that about 30 percent of workers are engaged in the work that they do. The sad part, of course, is that what does that mean for the other 70 percent? What are organizations missing out on because folks, employees, are not feeling that passion, that engagement?”

(Photo courtesy of Compassion International)

Therefore, Wilson says, this survey isn’t about numbers, but it’s a matter of passion.

“Again, how does it affect the Kingdom? Going in reverse, it’s equipping the leadership, it’s equipping the staff to feel more highly engaged with the ministry and the mission. And the results are, better things are happening.”

There are many ways to come alongside Compassion International. You can start by learning more about their ministry and how they operate their child sponsorship program, here.

You can also contribute financially or sponsor a child, here.

And finally, perhaps you are passionate about the Great Commission and want to work with others who are also passionate about helping others. For more details on job openings at Compassion, click here.

“We are constantly looking for great people with great competencies to share this love of Jesus Christ, who share this desire to join us in a mission environment.”

Global Disciples is challenging Christians across North America to stop separating the sacred and the secular and to go into our workplaces each day with a missional mindset. That’s why tomorrow, September 19th, is their 1Day giving campaign and Jerry Meadows with Global Disciples says you’re invited to join the movement!

1Day

Meadows explains, “We’re asking all of us to do that September 19th, to go to work that day specifically with the unreached in mind and even to give one day’s salary or one day’s income to reach the unreached people in the world.”

There are approximately 260 work days per year. The 1Day campaign with Global Disciples is a new way to frame how we think about missions giving — challenging us to go into our workplaces and for one day think, “I’m working for the furtherance of God’s Kingdom, and whatever I make today is going to support missions outreach to the unreached.”

Global Disciples empowers the Church in 46 countries to be disciple-makers and reach the unreached with the Gospel with discipleship-mission training, small business training, and leadership training. Many of the believers they work with are near populations of unreached people where they can have a ministry.

“Point-three-percent of missions giving in North America goes to reach the unreached. Think about that. I think in this one day, this effort, this 1Day campaign, I think we can change that statistic.”

Gopa’s Story

Global Disciples has hundreds of stories of how God is moving through evangelism ministry and disciple-maker training at their website. Meadows shares one story of a man in South Asia named Gopa.

(Photo courtesy of Global Disciples via Facebook)

“Gopa went through the disciple training at his church and then the small business training. With a small grant from Global Disciples he started a grocery store, but soon had this reputation not just of having good prices, but of praying for the sick. Because Gopa and his wife had this compassion for their customers and because of God’s power to heal, he was able to lead over 200 people to Jesus Christ!

“One day, a young man walks into his store and said he was from a nearby village but it took him hours to walk there. He said, ‘I didn’t come to buy anything. I came because I heard you would pray for me.’ So Gopa prays for this young man and then says, ‘You shouldn’t walk back alone.’

“So Gopa walks back with this young man who was healed of this physical injury to his village, and all his friends and family gather around and ask, ‘How is this that you were healed?’ Gopa has the opportunity to share with them the power of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, and eight of them received Christ that day.”

Get Involved With 1Day!

The idea of working for the sacred and the advance of the Gospel in everything we do doesn’t mean everyone must be a pastor. But it’s about honoring God with our work, which advances to our Christian witness with others, and even taking a portion of what we earn to give it back to God in worship and for the advance of His Kingdom.

“So for us to show up at work with the mentality that we represent Jesus Christ there, that should be every day. And we’re taking this one day, 1Day campaign, to highlight what we can do every day of the year.”

Click here to learn more about 1Day with Global Disciples and to get involved!

Meadows adds, “Then what we’d love for people to do is to multiply it. Share it on Facebook, share it with some friends, perhaps even take it back to your church leaders and think about involvement for next year!”

Prayer Support

There is still a lot of work to be done so that every person has the opportunity to hear the Gospel and decide if they want to follow Christ. There are around 500 people groups around the world still with no Christian presence, and 90 percent of unreached people live in an area that is resistant to the Gospel.

“Let’s pray that the Lord of the harvest would send laborers. Let’s pray for the Church in restricted areas as they live courageously their faith day after day, and let’s stand in solidarity with them — not just this one day, but every day — until that day where we can say every person on the planet has had the opportunity to choose and follow Jesus Christ.”

Click here to watch a video about the 1Day campaign with Global Disciples!