Becoming a Marketplace Minister: An Interview with Regi Campbell   [printer-friendly]

Regi Campbell has spent more than twenty years learning to be a “marketplace minister” in companies small and large. In his new book About My Father's Business — published by Multnomah — he offers proven methodology for becoming a spiritual leader at work, regardless of position or title. Leader Links editor Michael Duduit recently sat down with Campbell to talk about how Christians can carry their faith effectively into the workplace.

Leader Links: As we begin, could you tell me about your background — where you came from, some of your work background.

Campbell: I was born and grew up in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Went to the University of South Carolina, and got married while I was in college to Miriam Martin. We’ve been married 37 years. Graduated, went to work with AT&T — at that time the Bell System. Did 11 or 12 years there. I became a Christian when I was 10 years old but I think it was fire insurance only. So I found different ways to try and be significant along the way. Being funny, then being cool, then being smart, and then when I got in the corporate world it was being successful. My career was my god and everything else kind of fell in different priority order after that.

I was the district sales manager for AT&T information systems and in 1983 moved to Atlanta. My marriage, everything in my life was vibrating. Within a month of being moved to Atlanta my mentor was forced to retire, my nomination to the Strong Fellowship was being withdrawn — which was the ticket to middle and upper management. My wife and I weren’t getting along and we bought a house that she hated. So we decided that we needed to think about what we were doing and I needed to really wake up. So that was when God sort of got my attention.

I had just made a commitment that I was going to come out of the closet and live for him and be public about my faith and whatever happened would happen. Things didn’t change career wise. At that point my new boss was a guy that didn’t particularly care for me. I’d embarrassed him in front of the president of AT&T — rightfully so but I kind of burned that bridge. I left the company and I prayed to receive Christ in a genuine heartfelt way in September of 1983.

So I started looking for purpose in my life. I heard Ron Bruce speak — this is in the book — and he stated his life’s purpose statement and I said, “Wow, I need a life purpose statement.” I came to believe that God had put me on this earth to teach Christian principles in the sales and marketing workplace. So I left AT&T, started a consulting business, and went out to try and teach Christian principles in the sales and marketing workplace. Well, six months later an entrepreneur came to me and asked me if I would run this small start-up company. Through a lot of conversation it was determined that I was teaching Christian principles but I had never really lived them out, and that maybe I needed to go do that and not just talk about it.

So I came on board with this little start-up company. We changed the name of it to ASYNC. We sold voice messaging services. It was exactly as we use email today but it was just speaking messages instead of keyboarding them. God just blessed the company and it grew to $30 million in sales. I was selected as entrepreneur of the year in high technology in Georgia. The company was bought ultimately by MCI and all the shareholders made tons of money. I owned a little-bitty-bitty bit so I didn’t make tons of money but that gave me credibility as an entrepreneur and so we started another company after that and that one did really well. So I’ve been investing in start up technology-based companies and running them over the last 20 years, since committing to Christ and becoming completely in submission to him as best I can.

We all have to surrender over and over again. I really took seriously the idea of being about my faith at work. I joined the Fellowship of Companies for Christ and one fateful day I heard Bruce Wilkinson speak. He said if you’re a CEO you’re the chief priest of your company and that just stuck with me — when I looked out at my company I needed to look at it from the perspective of a pastor in a pulpit. That over here are your really close, trusted, committed people who are all about spreading the gospel and sharing their faith. But over here are people that are there for some reason that you don’t understand; they don’t know and they don’t care. And then there are all flavors in-between. I think really that was the genesis of this book. That even back then to start to recognize the people that I worked with were in all kinds of different places spiritually and my job was to look at them through the lens of being a minister to them.

So I started trying to do that and made a lot of mistakes, did a lot of things wrong, but did a few things right. And over time that whole paradigm just sort of became a process that now lives in this book. The essence of it is that you look after people in your circle of influence and without judging them you make guesses. In my experience, they sort of fall into these five categories: There are people who are just apathetic. They don’t know and they don’t care. They maybe had a bad experience with the church or God or a Christian business person. There are people who are searching. They may think they have found the answer but it’s a false answer or an interim answer or not the real answer. And there are just tons of chosen-frozen people who profess Christ but there is nothing happening about their faith.

Then there are the developing disciples that are growing, active. But Christianity for them is all about them. I have the church, I have forgiveness, I have grace. And then the E’s are the excelling person. They have moved beyond. They take up their cross. They deny themselves. They have all the benefits of their faith but they are other-focused and not self-focused. So as a business person I am to love and serve and engage people wherever they are with the intentionality in that relationship to help them move one step further. If I can help that apathetic person to just begin to search. If I can help that searching person to find the truth. If I can find that person who has fire insurance and awaken them to what’s available to them in Christ, or if I can get that disciple to take some risk and start to care about other people and I can introduce them or help them find a true meaningful life, which is going to Heaven and taking as many people as you can.

Leader Links: You talk in the book about the place of sharing your faith in the marketplace. Why is that important and what are some practical insights about how a person in the workplace can effectively, gracefully share their own faith.

Campbell: I think it starts with earning the right. I think that Barna’s research shows that the gospel being shared by a stranger repulses people. It’s perceived negatively over 50% of the time. So I think I’ve got to start with people in my work world by being a good employee, doing my job very, very well and by being a person of integrity. If my faith is authentic, even if you don’t agree with it you’ll respect it. If it’s not authentic — meaning I don’t live it consistently, my walk doesn’t match my talk — then I have no voice. So that’s step number one.

Step two, evangelism is like a chain. We talk about sowing seeds and that kind of thing; to me it’s better to grasp it as a chain, a link, a series of events linked together. We all focus on that one link when somebody walks over that line of faith. We identify that with evangelism explosion and CWT and “if you die tonight.” But I believe that you can’t take any one of those links out and still get that chain to that line of faith. So as a business person I’m looking for the opportunity to demonstrate that I love people and demonstrate that I accept them.

One of the big lies in our culture is tolerance. It’s all talk. Tolerance doesn’t have anything to do with acceptance. I can tolerate you without acceptance. And what is the opposite of love? Its not hate. It’s apathy. And tolerance so communicates apathy. The Christian community has gotten so tolerant that it has insulated itself from the opportunity to accept. And to me, actively accepting people that are different, that have different beliefs than you, is the starting point.

The other big thing that I’ve learned is it’s not my job to save somebody. John 6:44 says no one comes to the Father unless the Father draws him. And what I’ve tried to do is love people, accept them and pray for them. And a huge part of this is consistently and intentionally praying for them and then wait for disruption. How many Christians do you know have a meaningful relationship with Christ that came to them when everything was perfect? Most of the time there is some disruptive event in our life that causes us to recognize our need for God. If you have earned the right, you’re a trusted a friend, loved and accepted people and you’re there when that disruption occurs, then you’re in a position to be a link in a chain. Whether you’re the one who leads him to Christ or whether you call in the troops to reinforce you or whatever, you can be used and that’s where the fun starts.

Leader Links: We live in a pluralistic environment, a culture in which people are very open to religion — they just can’t make a choice. How do you do effective evangelism in the workplace in that kind of culture?

Campbell: I think evangelism in the traditional terminology is less effective than it’s ever been but I think a committed Christian — who is living an authentic life with a genuine personal relationship with Christ — sticks out more like a sore thumb than they ever have. Those people are like magnets in the workplace.

And you talk about leadership. To me the thing we’ve overlooked is the way you distinguish yourself as a leader is by being excellent at what you do, by telling the truth. All the books on leadership, it’s always in there. You’ve got to have someone people trust. You tell them what you’re going to do and then you do it. You can do that whether you’re the lowest person in the organization or a middle level manager or the CEO. So I think where people have that kind of life and they live the absolute truth, their opportunities for evangelism are multiplied at a greater level than they’ve ever been.

The big thing that I see is how many of us are Phase 1 Christians. We believe that Christ died for us so I have been forgiven, I have a relationship with Christ, I have great church friends, I have the Bible, I, I, I, I, I -- that’s Phase 1. Then there’s this other person. Jesus said if anyone wishes to come after me, to go where I’m going to go, he’s got to deny himself. The cross symbolizes sacrifice for others. So when I’m taking up my cross, I’m sacrificing a little bit of myself for others, meaning that my focus starts to be on others not just about me. So getting people to move from that Phase 1 Christianity to Phase 2 is a challenge. And if you look at statistics, people who say they believe are way, way up here, but people who share their faith are way down here. The dividing line between those two is: what is my life focus?

Leader Links: What can local churches do to help their members be able to move into this kind of a role within their own workplaces?

Campbell: One of the pictures that I never forget was from the Vietnam War. There was a cartoon in the paper that showed this decorated general walking out of the Pentagon and there’s a hippie across the street. The hippie has got this sign that says, “End the war,” and the general walks out of the pentagon with a sign that says, “How?” What the Lord has shown me is that there is a process that you can sort of get used to of praying for people on an intentional basis and helping them take that next step.

I think evangelism has been too much trying to take people from wherever they are — and usually we don’t even know — and in a confrontational question et them to choose Christ. This process says take it a step at a time. So I think that equipping church members means motivating and inspiring church members to be other-sensitive. We get people to understand that many if not most of the things that they do in their normal everyday lives at work are relational, but what’s the purpose?

I want people to say: I’ve got two jobs when I go to work. One is the one I get paid for and the other is to be intentional about the people that are in my circle of influence. Here’s Penny; she’s the clerk in shipping. I pray for her I know she’s mad at God I’m just going to love and accept her and she’s going to know that I love and accept her. I’m not going to have an agenda. I’m not going to try and trick her. I’m just going to love and accept her and wait for that opportunity, and when she turns to me or disruption happens in her life, then I can be there when the opportunity comes up when she’s ready. Equipping a church to do that and getting the church to buy into the fact that it’s their job. We think we pay the church staff to do all that kind of stuff. We think we’ve hired a professional disciple maker so that we can go back and just be Secular Sally. To me the job is all ours.

Leader Links: What’s the biggest mistake people make within the workplace in the process of trying to share their faith?

Campbell: They get in too big a hurry. People don’t buy solutions to problems they don’t have. Another truth you’ve heard is that a lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Just because you have a passion about Jesus Christ and you’re excited about who He is and what He’s done in your life does not create a felt need in the heart of somebody else. So we get all fired up and passionate about trying to share with people and have them have what we have and we blow it. I’ve blown it so many times its incredible because I’ve gotten ahead of God and ahead of that felt need in the other person. I think it’s just loving and serving people consistently and waiting until the Lord leads you to have that kind of confrontation or conversation.

There are people on my list that I’ve been in relationship with for years. My own brother. Even though we’ve had a relationship all of our lives I had an intentional relationship with him for years looking for the opportunity to affirm that he was a believer. I did stuff with him. I went to his hunting cabin, I went to NASCAR races, I did all kinds of stuff to build enough of a relationship with him so that I could genuinely ask him and find out for sure that he was going to be in Heaven with me. If I had just confronted him with that I wouldn’t have found out the truth.

Leader Links: Many evangelicals have been taught that there is an inherently confrontational element in evangelism. What’s the role of guilt in all of this?

Campbell: Well, I have a very clear opinion of guilt. I believe that we can confuse guilt and conviction. I believe that conviction comes from the Holy Spirit and conviction always motivates you to move to do something. It feels a lot like guilt. But guilt paralyzes. I think guilt comes straight from hell and the end result of guilt is that I feel bad about myself and I feel like a failure. I think that’s the enemy. As long as he’s working and continuing to make you feel guilty, the more powerless you’ll be.

I believe the enemy has taken very well-meaning training and terminology and pamphlets and tracts and things that had great motives and great purposes, and he created a pass/fail system for Christians. And the Church has not helped in that. Don’t hear me wrong — there are people people who can do those things and use those tools and they are obeying God, they are doing what they are called to do — one of those people played a role, they were one link in my chain — so I’m not criticizing that activity or that approach. It has its place and its time. But on the other side of it, I believe it’s created an environment for Christians: because I don’t feel like I’m competent to be an evangelist and I don’t have the courage to do it, I just feel like a failure so I don’t try.

I believe that there are a lot of other activities that are involved in evangelism like listening, like loving, like compassion. All those things that fuel that trust relationship. It’s as much a part of evangelism as asking, “if you died tonight.” When my mom was in one of the last stages of her life I called her one Friday afternoon and I could tell she was not very well. She had breast cancer that had come back and I could hear the oxygen hiss through the phone. She was so weak so I went home. I said I’ve got to go; I may not be able to see her again. So I drove three hours on a Friday night; when I get there it’s dark, ten o’clock at night. I walk in the room and she was awake. My dad’s already gone home; he was 80.

I leaned down and put my face next to my mom and just kind of hug her and say, “I love you,” and maybe ten, fifteen seconds later I felt this tear pressed between her cheek and my cheek. I said, “What’s wrong?” She said — she only finished the seventh grade — she said, “I ain’t never talked to nobody about their soul.” And I thought here’s this little lady who’s been at every funeral, she’s tied to the church, she’s never missed a WMU meeting, she’s made bridesmaid and wedding dresses for everybody in that community and wouldn’t charge them anything. She’s used her gifts to the max and here she is at the end of life scared to death because she ain’t never talked to nobody about the Lord. That just struck me so powerfully and I told her, “Mom, when you get up there you’re going to be right beside Billy Graham because you used the gifts He gave you just like Billy Graham used the gifts He gave.” And I believe that. I truly believe that.