“The Workplace is the New Evangelistic Field”
astor Andrew Harewood, on his plenary presentation at this year’s Adventist Laymen’s Services and Industries Inter-America (ASi-IAD) annual convention in Nassau, The Bahamas, on August 22, 2019. Harewood, a motivational leader, counselor, and army chaplain from the United States, told Seventh-day Adventist church members and leaders that the workplace is the new evangelistic field. “This new reality should inform everything we do, from worship to outreach to evangelistic endeavors,” he said. Photo: Marcos Paseggi/IAD
August 29, 2019 | Nassau, The Bahamas | Marcos Paseggi for Inter-American Division News
“The workplace is the new evangelistic field,” said Pastor Andrew Harewood on his plenary presentation at this year’s Adventist Laymen’s Services and Industries Inter-America (ASi-IAD) annual convention in Nassau, The Bahamas, on August 22, 2019. Harewood, a motivational leader, counselor, and army chaplain from the United States, told Seventh-day Adventist church members and leaders that this new reality should inform everything they do, from worship to outreach to evangelistic endeavors.
“To be a leader in the 21st century, it is essential to understand what contemporary leadership entails,” Pastor Harewood said. “The key is to learn how to mentor today for leadership that looks beyond tomorrow.”
Understanding how organizations work
One of the critical elements for leaders to be successful, Harewood said, is to understand how organizations work. Quoting management consultant and educator Peter Drucker, Harewood explained that “only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.” It is the reason, Drucker and others believed, that leaders should be intentional about what they want to achieve.
As a faith-based organization, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is also part of this dynamics, Pastor Harewood said. “But why is this notion of leadership important for any organization, including the Seventh-day Adventist Church?” asked Harewood. Quoting author Patrick Lencioni, he explained, “If you could get all the people in any organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”
Pastor Harewood explained that reaching organizational greatness implies at least four characteristics, namely, sustained superior performance, loyal members, engaged members, and a distinctive contribution. “It is what takes an organization from being good to being great,” he said.
The role of leaders
For any church or lay-led initiative to be successful, Pastor Harewood said that we should never underestimate the role of great leaders. He defined great leaders as people who inspire trust, clarify purpose, align systems, and unleash talent. “Great leaders understand that leadership is action, not position,” he reminded.
Great leaders also respect what Pastor Harewood called “the Ten Commandments of Leadership.” Among others, he mentioned the leaders’ efforts to affirm rather than belittle, to communicate clearly and by example, to view rank as a responsibility, not a privilege, and to be competent and confident enough to take risks. Quoting author Stephen Covey, Pastor Harewood called his audience to remember that “leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves.”
A shift in focus
At the same time, Pastor Harewood reminded that for Adventist outreach initiatives to be successful, it is crucial leaders are aware of current societal trends. “Remember that especially for young people, the center of societal focus has shifted from a church-centered approach to something substantially different,” he said.
It is a shift that is producing substantial changes in people’s behavior, Pastor Harewood said. “Every relevant survey shows that for new generations, spirituality is more important than [organized] religion. Many young people grew up in the church but never attend a church,” he shared. “The truth is that nowadays, you can shape leaders at your workplace much faster than leaders can do.”
The operating environment of society itself is changing, Pastor Harewood explained. “Historically, it went from a nomadic civilization to an irrigation civilization and now to a knowledge civilization,” he said. Thus, he explained, the current operating environment shows that people have moved from finding community in their village to seeing it at their workplace.
Implications for the church
It is something, Pastor Harewood said, that presents challenges for the outreach work of the church. “As that village-centered religious connection disappears, the church needs to find ways of nurturing that religious connection in the workplace,” he said.
It’s all about adapting our methods to connect people to a religious community, Pastor Harewood emphasized. “The workplace can be that place where the sacred and the secular intersect,” he said, “a place that becomes a spiritual domain and where our Christian identity is defined and discussed. Indeed, the workplace is the new evangelistic field.”