1/14/26 - 2129: Is There a Wrong Way to Live Out Your Faith at Work?

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, 13 years of covering the Faith and Work movement. I'm your host, Jim Brangenberg. Our mission is to release the testimonies of workplace believers who have learned to unleash their vocational and cultural contributions for the flourishing of the world. What's that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

So what's really the deal? What's the deal? Why is it that millions of believers go to work six or seven days a week and nobody around them knows they're Christians. There are some who bring their faith to work, but they throw it in people's faces and plaster it in the cubicle or office walls, but nothing about their behavior points to Jesus.

So what is the best way to live out your faith at work? If you aren't the boss, therefore setting the culture, how do you infiltrate your workplace with the peace, joy, and love of the spirit without alienating everyone? Is there a best way? Our guest today, Michael Cafferky, recently released his latest book, On the Brink, a story about a late thirties, early forties, mid-level executive who wrestles with this whole living out my faith at work conundrum. Let's hash this out together.

Michael Cafferky, welcome to iWork4Him.

Michael Cafferky: Thank you so much. Glad to be here. You've described it perfectly.

Jim: What's amazing about this book, and we'll get into it in a second, is that I recognize this struggle. I have asked this question but your book is brilliant and I wanna talk about it, but before we get into your book, as we do with every first time guest on this show, how did you become a follower of Jesus?

Michael Cafferky: I was raised in a Christian home, but it wasn't until about the age 20 that I was floating along and then suddenly over the space of a few days, I had a very intense conversion experience at college, as often happens at that age for people.

And from then that set me on a course. I knew right then, at least I thought I knew it, that God had called me to be a preacher. Silly me. It turns out that also fueled the start of a bunch of questions that have continued on through life. But I changed my college major, my course of study, from engineering to theology and actually after graduation went to seminary. But that's what started it, the college experience with a small group of friends in a prayer group.

Jim: Let me ask this question. How many times have you - now that you understand what you understand - how many times have you thought to yourself, I wish I'd gotten that engineering degree? I could have done a whole lot more ministry with engineers if I'd had my engineering degree, and I'd have made a ton more cash to be able to donate to people. How many times have you ever thought back? Was that right? Was that the right decision?

Michael Cafferky: Yeah, I've thought about it a few times. Not a lot. But sure. I don't think that there's one pathway in life that God has set for me or for other people. There's not just one way to follow the journey of faith. And little did I know at the time, that probably my biggest contribution to other people, would come later in life as I started really digging into these questions that I had for so many years.

Jim: I love that.

Michael Cafferky: I may not have had those, I may not have had those questions answered had I stayed as an electrical engineer inventing stuff.

Jim: I don't know. God has a way of working. I just wanna, if anybody listening today, as you're listening to the show and you are in engineering school, or you're an electrical engineer, a civil engineer, any other kind of engineer, you do not need to quit your job in order to go into full-time ministry. You just need to shift your paradigm, which we're gonna talk about today.

Michael Cafferky: I should also say that some of the things that drew me to engineering were also the things that I found so fulfilling in a career in management, and I'm still attracted to those dimensions of work life. And so it wasn't lost on me, but I didn't realize that until years later.

Jim: One of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on today, because in 2026, iWork4Him's gonna focus on next generation, what's going on in the 20 to 45 year olds in their faith at work. You wrote a book about those people called On the Brink, it's a story of Gabriel and how he was dealing with this whole thing.

And so I wanted to talk about, why did you write this book? What was the motivation behind writing the book On the Brink? And by the way, we'll have the link to how you can purchase this book on Amazon in the show notes as well. So why'd you write the book On the Brink?

Michael Cafferky: Sure. In 2007, I was at a conference and I heard a business executive stand up and tell his story that one morning he woke up at home and heading to work. He realized he wasn't that much different, even though he was a Christian, and that set him on a course to figure out what do I need to do differently in my work in my particular organization? And I thought at the time, wow, somebody needs to write that up. If he doesn't write it, somebody needs to. But I didn't.

And so fast forward 10 years and I read a story about another executive who had a major health crisis, and out of that health crisis, he realized the same thing. He wasn't that much different at work, but now he needs to be. He must be, if he's gonna be a Christian, he's gonna follow the great commission to share the gospel. He has to, he there's, it is not an option.

And when I read that story, I said, okay, time to write the story. And so, it was an amalgamation but I have to add into that a period of about 10 years of struggling with this central dilemma that Christians face at the work site. We know it's not optional to share the gospel, right? But you don't go very far down the sidewalk of sharing the gospel until you must use some heavily loaded religious terms. And that's the religious language at work that causes difficulties.

People get offended, they're worried, they're, it is divisive. And so that's the dilemma. If we're gonna be vocal ambassadors, what do we talk about? And that I said, this is what the story has to be about. My protagonist cannot be a silent witness. It won't be a story if he's a silent witness.

Jim: And Gabriel Oliver is that protagonist and he's got a great story. He's got a great backstory. He's got a great reputation for seeking truth. He's got a reputation for doing excellent work. But then, why don't you tell the story? Just do a short snippet, but take a couple minutes and tell the story what you are willing to release. I'm not gonna give away the end of the book or anything like that. Because lemme just tell you listening audience, I read 40, 50 books a year and I read half fiction, half books for the show.

Very rarely do I get to read a fiction book for this show. This was a page burner. This was a phenomenal book. I could not wait to read this book. I read it over New Year's weekend and I loved it. I could not wait to talk to Michael after the new year started. So this is a great book, On the Brink. What's the storyline?

Michael Cafferky: Sure. He is successful. He's happily married. Early in the story, we know that he and his wife are very affectionate. It's a strong marriage, right? And then he has this crisis that he encounters. He ends up in the hospital. Outta that hospital experience, actually with his hospital roommates, he realizes that God has changed him and he must now speak for God when he returns.

He does have some ambivalence about going back to work, partly because of this change, partly because he's been so depressed and isolated in the hospital for so long. But he must speak when he goes back. And so this is what he does. He's gotta speak for God and he encounters some resistance. It's not gonna be a story if there's no issues that arise, right?

Jim: But he did a natural swing thing. I wanna get that in a second.

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All right, so Michael, in your book On the Brink, you create tension. Like you said, you got tension between husband and wife, manager and direct reports, employee and owner, and this tension is caused by someone being - what he thinks - bold in his faith. Why does being bold in your faith cause tension?

Michael Cafferky: Sure. People are uncomfortable because they don't know where you're gonna take this. Are you gonna invite me to church? Are you going to lay on me this requirement that I need to believe exactly the way you believe? And it's divides people. As we see in the story, people take sides. Even Christians get worried because they're concerned about their own reputation, about the stability at work. And so just, people are uncomfortable, especially if you come on pretty strong, which I'll let the reader decide how strong Gabriel is, but people get concerned about it.

Jim: Gabriel does the very typical knee jerk kind of response when somebody says, huh, I need to be Jesus at work. I need to be talking about my faith. And just like Gabriel, many of us do this. He goes back, when he finally gets to go back to work, he goes full hog, Jesus, t-shirts, coffee mugs, pencil, wall hangings, the whole deal, screensavers with Bible verses on it, and the Bible on his desk. He does the whole thing.

And it was a lot. Oh, and praying in meetings. Does that ever work to do whole hog like that? It's it seems like that was a little bit much for Gabriel, but does it work for anybody?

Michael Cafferky: I don't want to be categorical in that answer for that.

Jim: It's okay. On this show, there's nobody to argue with that, but you and I.

 (chuckles)

Michael Cafferky: But I'm a little bit uncomfortable with going that strong because of the reasons I mentioned. We might end up doing far more harm than good, and we don't even realize it 'cause we're so interested, so eager to share our faith. In many organizations, not in every organization, but in many organizations, even some nonprofit and government organizations, it's just not allowed.

Jim: What I've found is that in the stories we've covered here on iWork4Him over the last 13 years, is that people get ridiculed for sharing their faith, whether they're working in a Christian nonprofit or a business or any other kind of organization. Gabriel, his bold faith moves eventually gets him demoted. He just gets him demoted. Demoted. He keeps his job, but he goes back to a career that he had before. He was a marketing genius, but he gets a chance to try it differently the second time. And this different approach, what does his try number two look like?

Michael Cafferky: Yeah, he realizes he must speak, but he can't use religious language. And so with his wife's question to him, he has an epiphany that he can use the language of business itself to point people to Christ without using the name Jesus Christ ever, but he can still point people using the language of business. It turns out that the chief characteristics and identifying marks of Jesus are some of the fundamental ways or supplemental reasons or foundational ideas of business. And we talk about these things a lot in business and he realizes I can talk about some of those things and he settles on one particular character trait of God and that's what he focuses on.

Jim: And we're gonna talk about that in a minute, but let's go back to the wife. Gabriel's married, you say he is happily married, yet when Gabriel almost has a serious hospital incident, which we won't go into details 'cause I don't wanna spoil the story, and he tells his wife before he goes back to work that he plans on changing and making sure that everybody knows that he's had a really, an epiphany with God. He had a face-to-face, serious, significant change in his life.

Michael Cafferky: Yeah.

Jim: And she's a little freaked out. She's a successful business person as well, but she's worried that Gabriel's gonna lose his job. She's ragging on him a little bit. Gabriel doesn't seem to listen. Michael, I don't know the answer to this question. I apologize. Normally before I ask this question, are you a married man?

Michael Cafferky: I am.

Jim: How many years you been married?

Michael Cafferky: Actually, I'm in my second marriage. My first wife passed away last year.

Jim: Oh my. So how many years were you married to your first wife?

Michael Cafferky: 50.

Jim: 50 years. Congratulations, by the way. That's fantastic. I'm sorry about your wife. I imagine she's with Jesus and a whole lot better off than being here on this planet, but 50 years is such an accomplishment. That is so awesome. But I imagine you didn't stay married 50 years by ignoring what your wife told you to do.

Michael Cafferky: Oh yeah. That's right. This theme of listening to your spouse comes up in the very first chapter of the story On the Brink, by the way.

Jim: Yeah. So we, I wanted to take that sideline for a second because I have learned - I don't think my father really ever learned this - but I learned very early in marriage, 'cause my father-in-law was a great example that when my wife comments about things that she doesn't really know a lot about, but she comments about it with some fervor, I better listen because women are given intuition and women are given insights into things that they don't necessarily know about, but they got a feeling.

And if you ignore, when your wife says, I got a bad feeling about this. If you ignore it, number one, that's what Solomon writes about, the guy who's a fool. And second of all, you're gonna pay. You're gonna pay. 'cause when you ignore your wife and you go ahead and do it, when she said, I got a bad feeling, you're gonna pay, there will be circumstances. And it's not a punish from God. He's trying to save you from yourself. That's why he gave you a spouse in the first place.

So anyway, I love that Gabriel, his wife had that tension. I feel bad that he didn't listen to her, but I just, I thought you resolved that tension a little easily though, when he gets this second job. So I wanna talk about that in a second. But everyone listening to this show would love to learn how to avoid some of the situations that Gabriel got himself into.

And one way is this, surround yourself with others who are on the same journey. At iWork4Him, we're constantly, we love the fact that we are joining forces with the US Christian Chamber of Commerce, and we invite each one of you to attend the expo, the US Christian Chamber of Commerce Expo in April of 2026 in Orlando called Yes&. Visit the website swc2026.com. s WC 2020 six.com. Use the code iWork4Him for 20% off your tickets.

Martha and I'll see you there as we're MCing the entire event. It will blow your mind to be in a room with hundreds and hundreds of Christian business people all worshiping together for the transformation of our world in the marketplace. US christian chamber.com, the April, 2026 Expo.

All right, so Michael, you have Gabriel swing pretty far to talking about from being bold and I would say obnoxious in his faith to not talking about God at all. He's not bringing up Jesus or God at all. But he's focusing - i'm just, I'm, maybe I'm gonna create a little tension here, but he does focus on this word vulnerable. Explain to me how that's still living out your faith in your work. 'cause instead of him preaching the gospel, now he's living the gospel.

Michael Cafferky: And he's talking about it. See, he knows he must speak. So he becomes a vocal leader, an advocate. This is his role as an ambassador for Christ to become a vocal ambassador. He could vocalize lots of things related to the character of God. He settles on this one of vulnerability. He went through vulnerability himself, physically, from his career point of view. He's very vulnerable because he got himself into this difficulty at work, and so this is what he focuses on.

But he's not just suggesting to people that we should help people that are disabled or other vulnerability issues in life. He's really focusing on the character of God because the whole story of redemption is about vulnerability and God's action. God takes up an active leadership role in reaching out to the vulnerable and doing something.

So it's not just being ethical at work. Now he is intentionally talking about this issue of vulnerability. What can we do to redeem the vulnerable in our roles? And more than that, it makes good business sense. And so this is what he really starts to learn and practice talking about. What's the business rationale for doing this, for following the character of God? Even though he doesn't use the word God, he focuses so much on this. People start to wonder, why are you doing this? Why are you saying all this so much? So he is talking about God, but not in religious terms.

Jim: Which religious terms, if somebody comes up to me and says, Jim, you're just one of those religious people in life. Oh no, I'm not. Religious People are the ones who killed Jesus. I'm not interested in religion at all. The religious people, it's about money, power, and control. That's not at all what I'm about. 'cause if it was, I wouldn't be running a Christian nonprofit if I was about money, power, and control.

Michael, what I love about Gabriel is when he gets his second job, still within the same company, but he gets demoted. He learned to love people a little differently. I think he loved his employees before, but he learned to love people to a different level. The vulnerable, which was everybody around him, including the vendors that service his organization, including the customers. He was focused on the vulnerable and asking those questions. That's a pretty powerful way to make an impact on your workplace. So you start loving on people. Was that on purpose that you had Gabriel loving people?

Michael Cafferky: Yeah. Everything in the book is by design.

Jim: Everything, even the evil guy you got, 'cause there's this good versus evil going on in the story, which I'm not gonna talk about at all because that makes this story so awesome, but yet he still was trying to love on that guy too. The evil guy.

Michael Cafferky: Yeah. Although as a reader, me as the reader, I thought, why is, why does he just let this guy go? No, he's allowing him some grace, some space, at the very end.

Jim: Yeah.

Michael Cafferky: And so I'm probably giving too much away.

Jim: No, you're not. Because the guy should fry, totally fry. But he doesn't. What I also love is that Gabriel's actions, his living out the gospel, impact not only his employees that he no longer had because he got demoted, the new people he is working with in his second job, but also eventually gets a chance to make an impact on the owner because of his consistent testimony.

And that's really the, that's the reason why we're even talking about this stuff. Gabriel is a guy in his late thirties or early forties, is at the pinnacle of his career, and he put it all on the line. But by shifting from being bold and ridiculous with the Jesus t-shirt and coffee cup to just loving God and loving people, it really transformed his workplace, didn't it?

Michael Cafferky: He was bold though, about talking about what they could do to help the vulnerable, even with his boss after his demotion. He was very bold about it, but he was showing the boss that there are good business reasons to do this. So it had to make sense for the organization. And I think one of the things we're called to do is to mingle with people and to desire the good, not just for them personally, but for the organization that we work for as well. But in terms that point to Jesus Christ, even if we don't use his name.

Jim: I love that. And I encourage everybody listening, and Michael's gonna share this with all people he knows, and we're gonna share with all people, get a copy of On the Brink. Michael, I didn't ask you this question either, but I'm gonna ask it now. Are you willing to give away one copy of this as somebody who reaches out to us on our website about today's show?

So the first person that sends Martha an email, Martha at iWork4Him.com. That's I work the number four him.com or you contact us on the Contacts us page on our website. I work the number four him.com. We'll get you a copy. Michael will send you a copy.

Michael Cafferky: Okay. I'll let you find out who that is.

Jim: I will, that magical person. So Michael, I wanna close out the conversation because we've got some other ideas here at iWork4Him, some ways to make it practical. 'Cause I think people, when they wanna live out their faith at work and they are totally freaked out about doing it and they don't wanna quit their jobs and start over again, I wanna present that I believe that there's a very simple solution and it goes along with what Jesus sums up.

Remember Jesus summarized the Old Testament two sentences: love God, love people. Love your neighbor as yourself and of course he also said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. We've got this thing with iWork4Him called the iWork4Him Nation Pledge, which is a covenant that you're making with God on how to shift the paradigm of how you look at your workplace from a job to a place of ministry, and it starts with just praying for the people that you work alongside each and every day by name.

Because when you pray for people, you start to see them differently, and you start to see them the way that God does. Then you'll look for ways to serve them over and above what your job requires you to do, whatever that may be. You just look, you don't just do what you gotta do, you try to help others. Then you look for ways to befriend people outside of the workplace, invite 'em into your home, after work or whatever it may be.

I didn't say a beer. I don't encourage that. Some of you may do that, and there's beer and bible places all over the place, but the encouragement is to develop a real relationship with people outside of work. They're not just a work friend. They're actually a friend. Then look for ways to pray with people when they're having a rough day. Because as Gabriel noted in the book, when people come in and he noticed that they weren't doing so good, he'd say, how you doing? What I find, Michael, is that people often say, I'm fine.

And I say - because I watched the Italian job way too many times - really? Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. Really, how are you doing? And when I shut up and listen, they tell me what's going on. And it was something from their heart because I could already tell something was wrong because I saw the look on their face and I say, can I pray with you about that right now? And they say, sure. Never had anybody tell me no, never. Atheist, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew. Agnostic. Nobody's ever told me no.

And I pray for 'em and it opens up a door because then now they see you differently because you actually caught them at a time when they were vulnerable and everybody always reaches out to God when they're vulnerable. Even the atheists. But all along, none of those things really matter if your work isn't defined by excellence. We've gotta be the best, the brightest in our job position, no matter what our work is, so that those other things really make a difference. That's called the iWork4Him Nation Pledge. We encourage you to go onto iWork4Him.com and join the iWork4Him Nation.

Michael, final thoughts? You've written a book that absolutely jazzed me up about a 30 to 40-year-old who was really trying to figure out, how do I do this? I was 40 years old when I finally found out that God actually cared about my work. I had no idea. I thought I needed to quit my job and go work in a church, but that wasn't the case. I just needed to shift my paradigm. Final thoughts from you, Dr. Michael Cafferky?

Michael Cafferky: Sure. I think some of the things you mentioned are great ideas. I had enrolled as an upper level healthcare manager, and so some of my thinking and those experiences went into the creation of this book, of course, the story.

And so I tend to look at some of the bigger questions and issues that organizations and their top level leaders have to deal with. And I look at the character traits of Christ, and I say, now it's easy for me to memorize a 60 second testimony about faith, and I can have that down. I can just deliver that at any moment, any time, anywhere, any of the elevator speech.

It's far more difficult to think about now, today in our committee meeting, we're gonna talk about strategic decision, make strategic plans. How can I bring God's character into this conversation? It's far more difficult to do that, but I think that's where the real power comes, as Gabriel experienced in his story. For example, we might say what are the strengths and weaknesses of our organization?

What are the opportunities outside of our organization, that typical SWOT analysis in strategic planning? They're great questions to ask. What about asking the question such as, what will this strategic choice we're making, given all the trade offs, all the things we're not gonna be able to do, what will this particular strategic action do in terms of our faithfulness to our current and future commitments to customers, to suppliers, to strategic partners? How will it impact our faithfulness? See, that's one of the central character traits of God faithfulness to covenants. Who is asking that question in the boardroom or in the top level manager meeting? How strategic plans will affect our faithfulness.

We want the bottom line. We want the economic profits. Are we willing to ask that question? And I think a top level leader, with confidence, can boldly ask that kind of question. How will it affect our commitment, our ability to be faithful in our commitments going forward from here?

That's a religious kind of issue, but there's a lot of business reasons to ask that kind of a question. And so I just challenge Christians to start thinking about, what are the conversations at work that are normal? That at work, you don't have to mention Jesus' name, but to begin thinking about, okay, what character trait is at stake in these conversations, at least in my world at work? And how can I frame questions and statements that draw attention to people, to the central character traits of God and then become a champion for that so much that people start to wonder, why is this so big for you? It creates a permission and openness to say far more.

Jim: Yeah, getting people to ask the questions is huge, no question. And every office is different. Every workplace is different, whether it's in an office or not, but there's people involved everywhere, and you are a missionary where you are on your workplace. You're a missionary because there are lost and hopeless people everywhere you go.

Michael Cafferky, your book On the Brink helps bridge that question, give some ideas, and also bring some enjoyment. Thanks for bringing this book to the public, and we'll make sure that everybody knows about it out there online.

Michael Cafferky: Yeah, we should also say that at the very end of the story when you turned the page what did you find when you turned the page at the end of the story? There's some questions there.

Jim: Oh, I didn't never, I didn't wanna ask the questions. I didn't look at the questions. I honestly, I never looked at... that's embarrassing. (laughing)

Michael Cafferky: You'll never find this in another novel, I think.

Jim: Yeah. No. Probably not. Listen, there's 30, 45 questions for small groups, small group discussion. That's - I totally missed that. Sorry. I read the story, I'm like, whoop, I'm done. Love this thing. I gotta get ahold of Michael. Sorry.

Michael Cafferky: This is designed for use in congregations, in workplace affinity groups, and faith at work groups, business school, Christian business schools as well, of course, to help people think about what is it that we have to do. If we're gonna speak for God, and what does it mean to speak for God? Is a silent witness enough? Is focusing on the character traits, even if you don't mention Jesus' name - is that enough? It's a debatable kind of question.

Jim: Oh, I just love this. I'm just looking at this and again, I apologize, but we're recording live and we don't, I don't have a problem if I'm wrong.

Your question number 40, I had forgotten about the pastor, because if you had been Gabriel's pastor, how would you have counseled him regarding his desire to be an ambassador for Christ at work when you know, using religious language is taboo? Yeah, the most pastors think that what Gabriel did was the right thing.

But what Gabriel did the second time was the right thing. Being an ambassador means a lot of things. But it's not about what we look like. It's about how we act. And it's that mindset that our workplace is a ministry place. We'll give it away if we talk about too much more.\

On the Brink by Dr. Michael Cafferky. He doesn't have doctor on the front. I put it on there. 'cause if you get a PhD, dog on it, you should get credit 'cause holy smokes. That's a lot of work. Michael, thanks for being with us today.

Michael Cafferky: Pleasure being here. Thank you so much, Jim.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host, Jim Brangenberg. I'm a Christ follower. My workplace, it's my mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him.