Sharing the Gospel at Work

I had a negative experience sharing the gospel at one of my former workplaces. At that time, I felt like it was almost time for me to be leaving my workplace and it would be the last opportunities to do so. On the last day, I wrote a few people thank you cards and shared the good news with them on the card, and also included gospel tracts. Oddly, that day, none of them were at their desk to receive these cards directly from me. I believe now it was God's protection from direct conflict which I would not know how to handle back then (even now I would have no clue). However, as much as I felt relieved for doing so, ultimately I received feedback from the workplace advising me not to share the gospel. They had also advised everyone in the department of what had happened and given the same advice to all my former colleagues to not to share about faith at the workplace. It was the first "formal" rejection I received from a workplace for sharing about my faith, and it left me wary about sharing the gospel at future workplaces. Was this really God's plan, to have me share the gospel and then be blacklisted from the workplace? I worried that given how small the industry I work in, everyone would soon know and brand me as the strange girl, or worse still, tell other people about what had happened. I received some peace from scripture that though there may not have been a positive result from sharing, I was only answerable to God, for
1 Thes 2:4 just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts. 
Still, however, I recognize the weakness in my heart. Especially times when the industry is so tough to be in, I sometimes almost regret doing what I did and effectively ruining the once high possibility of working there.

At another workplace, I had an orientation session, where they screened a video from the Ministry of Labour portraying a Christian sharing about his church and encouraging his coworker who had issues with his spouse to attend counselling at his church. The video filmed the christian-related displays he had in his office and presented the Christian as if he was committing evil. The conclusion of the video was of course not to share about your religion/faith at work.

Given all the hostility about faith at workplace, it has been a challenge to share and for me sometimes even slightly traumatizing to think about because of bad memories. It was only till yesterday at a BSF teaching that it finally made sense to me. People will be offended by the gospel message if they don't feel love from you. Love is only felt where there is a genuine relationship with other, and when they have experienced care and concern from you, and know that they can trust you and that you mean for their good. Although people say love is telling people the truth, which is that the wages of sin is death and knowing Jesus is the only way, how many colleagues would accept that if I was more or less a stranger in their life? I look back on the times where I did share with coworkers and where it was received, it was with people whom I could call friends. Two weren't, but at least we were comfortable chatting and the conversation came up really naturally.  Where we had more serious conversations, for me, none of it was during work hours.

It will still take wisdom and discernment as there will still be people who take offense. One of my experiences was that the coworker initiated an email directly to me with a rant about Christianity, but at least that was an open dialogue about faith. Different situations calls for different approaches, but generally for myself in today's North American context, I think I will view future workplace faith sharing, as something more on a personal level and established on a relationship with love in order to tell the gospel, rather than a "preaching-message heralding-hard truth" stance. It will also be equally important to live out the Bible in our own lives as part of the testimony, as a preacher said, "we are the only bible many people will ever read in their lives" .