The 9 To 5 Window

by Os Hillman

  The Miracle of Invention

  George Washington Carver was born into slavery and grew up at the height of racial discrimination at the close of the Civil War. Yet he overcame all these obstacles to become one of the most influential men in the history of the United States. Persevering through many trials, Carver ended up with several agricultural degrees.

  The economy of the farming south had been devastated by years of civil war and the fact that the plantations no longer employed slave labor. Decades of growing only cotton and tobacco had depleted the soils of the southern United States. Carver was able to convince the southern farmers to plant peanuts and sweet potatoes, instead of cotton, to replenish the soil. This led to his greatest trial. When the farmers began to grow peanuts and sweet potatoes, they lost even more money because there was no market for these crops.

  Carver cried out daily to the Lord, “Why did you make the peanut!” and each day God would give him new ideas on ways to use the peanut. He ultimately discovered some 300 marketable products from the peanut and hundreds of uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes, and his contributions were a key part to helping the region recover.

  Carver did not patent or profit from most of his products, but freely gave his discoveries to mankind. “God gave them to me,” he would say about his ideas. “How can I sell them to someone else?” He was offered six-figure income opportunities from Henry Ford and became friends with presidents of his day, yet he never became wealthy. His epitaph read, “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”1

  Miraculous Protection

  Boet Pretorius is a farmer in Zimbabwe, Africa, where there had been much turmoil. Many farmers had lost their lives and their farms due to militant political initiatives in the country. Boet was faced with the same prospect.

  At one point, Boet was visited by the head of police and war veterans who accused him of training militia on his farm. However, they found that the only training that was going on was spiritual, for Boet taught the Bible to his workers on his farm. Nevertheless, death threats were made against him and he was informed that he was on a hit list of a militant government group. Boet and his family lived in constant fear, and they often spent nights at his neighbors’ houses.

  Boet began to pray about this fear. The Lord spoke to him and said, “You fear because you declare that you have died and live in Me, yet you live apart from Me. The threats are not against you as a person but against Christ in you; against the body of Christ.” Boet repented about allowing the fear to grip him and returned to the farm and remained there. The war vets returned and demanded $500,000 in Zimbabwe dollars to take him off their hit list. Boet prayed with his workers on the farm, and the Lord replied, “If you walk in the light, you walk in God’s protection.” He refused to pay the money, and as a result the war vets kidnapped him and threatened his life.

  During this time, God was speaking to Boet about dying to himself and giving up all his rights. As soon as Boet felt submission to the will of God in his heart, the Lord opened an opportunity for him to share the gospel with his captors. The leader wept and asked Boet for a Bible. The war vets released him, but his troubles were not over.

  A few days later, about 70 other people invaded the farm during a heavy rainstorm. The farmers were always advised not to let these people in behind their security fences, as they might never be able to get them out. Yet when Boet and his workers prayed, they felt that they should offer these people shelter and food, so he opened the barns to the invaders.

  The next night, Boet showed these invaders the Campus Crusade for Christ film called Jesus, and many accepted Christ. The following morning, Boet discovered that his workers had been praying and counseling the invaders all night long and had not slept all night. A few days later, the invaders came to Boet, announced they were going home and invited him to visit their people to share the gospel with them. The invaders proclaimed that his farm belonged to Jesus, and they left without harming Boet or any of his workers. God had performed miracles after Boet submitted to Him. It was a great testimony to his workers and the invaders who came to harm him.

  The Miracle of Healing

  Larry and Rose Ihle own a dental lab in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In addition to using the business as a means of serving the Lord, Larry and Rose also serve in a prayer ministry in their conservative denominational church. One Sunday, Rose came into the prayer room to report that there was a man in the foyer who needed prayer. Larry went upstairs to look for the man and discovered he was in a wheelchair. Larry greeted him warmly and asked, “May we pray for you?”

  The man opened his mouth, but was only able to mutter in a very bad stutter, “y… ye… yes. I wo… wou… would like that.” Larry helped the man to the prayer room.

  As Larry looked at the man, he had an overwhelming sense that he was to pray a prayer of deliverance from a “spirit of stutter.” Meanwhile, some ladies of the church were looking on, wondering what he was doing. Prayers of deliverance were not normally a part of this conservative church. Larry began to pray, “In the name of Jesus, spirit of stutter, come out of him!” Larry immediately felt the pressure of the situation. What if nothing happens? he thought.

  After Larry finished saying this prayer, the man still stuttered as before. So Larry prayed again, “In the name of Jesus, spirit of stutter, come out of him!” He waited a few moments and then asked the man a question. The man answered—with no stutter. As Larry talked to the man, they both realized that something miraculous had happened. The man no longer stuttered. God had healed him, but Larry still felt there was more to pray for.

  “How long have you been in a wheelchair?” Larry asked.

  “Since I was 12 years old,” replied the man (he was now 53 years old).

  Larry asked if he wanted to walk. The man said he did. Larry looked into his eyes and said a simple prayer: “In the name of Jesus, stand up.” The man made an effort to stand up from his wheelchair. His arms began to shake as he moved upward. He stood up, shaky and unsure, but standing. He could not believe what he was doing. He was standing by himself for the first time since he was 12 years old!

  The man began to take baby steps around the room. He was walking. He was walking! God had done a great miracle in this man who thought he was simply coming to another church service to hear a sermon. God had changed his life through a businessman who was willing to pray for the miraculous.

  Larry asked the man to stay for the service and invited him to sit in the front pew. The man responded, “If you don’t mind, I believe I will just stand.”

  Larry is a good friend of mine, and recently he took me to his church to meet with the church staff. He introduced me to a man standing at the information booth, whom he referred to as the “miracle man.” I was delighted to meet the man who had been in the wheelchair, but who now walks and talks without a stutter.

  The Miracle of Evangelism

  A cab driver in the Philippines got radically saved. He was taught that he now had the power of God in his life to transform his community. Because he had not had any prior religious training to the contrary, he took a literal approach to believing what the Bible says about prayer and miracles.

  He decided that the best mission field for him was the local bar in his neighborhood. So he began to visit this bar to find the most qualified sinner he could find in order to minister to him. He met the bartender and determined that he was a great prospect because he was also a gay drug addict and a pimp to 35 prostitutes. The cab driver visited the bar regularly and got to know the bartender while drinking his “usual”—a Coke. Eventually, the Lord used the cab driver to win this man to Christ.

  The power of God moved greatly in the bartender, and he was delivered from his homosexual lifestyle. He began to change his life and share Jesus with the prostitutes. All 35 of them became Christians, and they began meeting in the bar for Bible study.

  Soon, the owner of the bar b
egan to notice the change in these people, and he also was saved. The bar became a church, and the group started 10 cell group churches in the neighborhood. That is a miraculous transformation!2

  No matter what situation we find ourselves in, we should always remain aware that God might want to intervene. He desires a moment-by-moment relationship with us, and sometimes He wants to demonstrate His loving power. We can approach God about any situation, for there is nothing that is too small or too great for Him.

  Miracles at your workplace? Yes!

  How About You?

  1. Have you ever experienced a miracle as you have used your vocation? How did it happen?

  2. Why do you think we don’t experience more miracles in our workplaces?

  CHAPTER 13

  TRANSFORMING A CITY

  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me.

  JOHN 17 : 22 - 23

  Can a city be truly transformed for Jesus Christ? Does it seem like such a lofty goal that few will ever attain it? Well the reality is that today there are no fewer than 200 cities across the world that are in some form of transformation, according to Alistair Petrie, who spoke at the 2004 International Coalition of Workplace Ministries (ICWM) Workplace Transformation Summit. Petrie cited these cities as having a level of transformation in every aspect of their public, governmental and business life.

  Webster’s Dictionary defines transformation this way: “to change in nature, disposition, heart, or the like; to convert… a thorough or radical change.”1 A transformed city is the answer to Jesus’ prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). It is God’s kingdom manifested here on Earth. What does a transformed city look like? It is one that has experienced a spiritual awakening or revival, a declining crime rate and an increase in economic stability.

  Workplace Leaders Are Key to City Transformation

  One of the first cities in the Bible to be transformed was Sychar, in Samaria, when the Samaritan woman met Jesus at the town well. As we read in John 4:7-26, when Jesus revealed to the woman that He knew she had had five husbands, she was amazed and came to believe in Him. She shared her newfound faith with others in the city, and “many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony” (John 4:39).

  One of the first things that must take place for a city to be transformed is that Jesus must be invited into that city through the city “gatekeepers.” This is what happened in Sychar and what is happening in cities where transformation is taking place today. One such city is Kampala, in Uganda. At one point, 33.3 percent of the population of Uganda had AIDS. The World Health Organization predicted that the nation’s economy would collapse by the year 2000 because there would be only widows and orphans left. So people sought the Lord and prayed. The results?

  New city leaders invited Jesus into their city to be Lord over it. Christians have replaced the evil dictatorship of Idi Amin, whose brutality in the 1970s led to the executions of hundreds of thousands of people and plunged the nation into chaos and poverty. Today, the people in Parliament pray, the police fax prayer requests to judges, and a major bank even plays praise music on all 11 floors. In some communities, crime is down 70 percent and AIDS has dropped to 5 percent.2

  Another important step is that the city must repent of its sins. Jesus went into the cities and did great miracles. Yet many of those cities did not repent, and this angered the Lord. “Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent” (Matt. 11:20).

  Workplace leaders are important to city transformation because they are often in places of power to make changes. Dr. Peter Wagner makes the following observations in the foreword to my book, The Faith@Work Movement:

  For years we have sought after transformation of our cities. We have prayed, held pastor prayer conferences, prayer-walked our cities, etc. Still, not one U.S. city has been transformed. Why is that? I feel I finally know the answer to that question. It lies in the fact that pastors and church leaders do not hold the authority in the cities where the change must originate. Business and government leaders hold that authority. So, until we in the church equip and release the apostles in the workplace, we will never see our cities transformed by Jesus Christ.3

  Dawie Spangenberg and his wife, Isebel, lead a worldwide prayer initiative called Transformation Africa. He once made a startling comment to a Christian workplace lunch group in Atlanta: “If a business owner is operating a business in a city and is not directly involved in transforming that city, he is raping that city. He needs to leave that city!” These are strong words, but Spangenberg is convinced that business leaders need to stop trying to see what a business can do for them, start determining why God gave them their business, and then seek to build the kingdom of God in their communities.

  The problem that exists today is that workplace apostles are not being recognized—nor do they even recognize themselves. They have not seen their careers as holy callings and have not understood the redemptive nature of their work and calling. Consequently, they often resign themselves to being financiers of God’s work instead of being major catalysts for transformation of their workplaces and cities. And yet, when a man or a woman becomes willing to be used in the context of the work-place, God can accomplish a great deal.

  Jeremiah Lanphier is a good example of what I’m talking about. He was a businessman in New York City in the mid-1800s. A simple prayer, a willing heart and an act of obedience resulted in city transformation throughout the United States. Here’s his story:

  In a small, darkened room, in the back of one of New York City’s lesser churches, a man prayed alone. His request of God was simple, but earth-shattering: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

  He was a man approaching midlife, without a wife or family, but he had financial means. He had made a decision to reject the “success syndrome” that drove the city’s businessmen and bankers. God used this businessman to turn New York City’s commercial empire on its head. He began a businessmen’s prayer meeting on September 23, 1857.

  The meetings began slowly, but within a few months 20 noonday meetings were convening daily throughout the city. The New York Tribune and the New York Herald issued articles of revival. It had become the city’s biggest news. Now a full-fledged revival, it moved outside New York. By spring of 1858, 2,000 met daily in Chicago’s Metropolitan Theatre, and in Philadelphia the meetings mushroomed into a four-month long tent meeting. Meetings were held in Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, Chicago, New Orleans, and Mobile. Thousands met to pray because one man stepped out. This was an extraordinary move of God through one man.4

  Learning from a Pioneer

  When it comes to city transformation, it is hard to write about the subject without acknowledging Ed Silvoso, founder and president of Harvest Evangelism. He is one of the modern-day pioneers and a leading authority on the subject. His books My City, God’s City; Prayer Evangelism; and Anointed for Business are three must-read titles. Ed became more involved directly with the workplace movement in 2002, when he saw how important the workplace was to reaching a city. He has discovered four ingredients that must be in place for us to begin to change the spiritual climate in a city. These include:

  1. Speaking peace to the lost. Blessing opens the door to unbiased fellowship.

  2. Fellowshipping with them. Fellowship establishes a level of trust, allowing our neighbors to share with us their felt needs.

  3. Taking care of their needs. Prayer addresses these felt needs.

  4. Proclaim the good news. When we intercede for our neighbors, God comes near them in a tangible way.5

  Ed Silvoso’s ministry has a proven track record that originates from his work in Resistencia, Argentina. In 1990, this city of 400,000 had an estimated 5,100 believers scattered among 70 congregations (68 of which were the result of a church split). The city was notorious for
being a spiritual cemetery. However, today there are over 100,000 Christians in the city and 220,000 in the province, making it the most evangelical province in the nation.

  Silvoso reports breakthroughs in Argentina at high levels of government and business. In the fall of 2004, he made his annual trip to Argentina with a group of marketplace leaders and intercessors. During that trip, the president of a political party received the Lord and invited Jesus to be the head of it; the entire management team of the Argentine equivalent of the Mayo Clinic received the Lord and invited Jesus into the clinic; and the Argentine equivalent of Donald Trump and his wife— one of the most influential couples in the nation—received the Lord and invited Jesus to be the CEO of their business group.6

  Silvoso cites the workplace (which he terms the “marketplace”) as key to winning a city for Jesus Christ:

  The heart of the city is not the Church, much less the church building. The Church is the light of the city, but the heart is in the marketplace. Cities are often known by a signature skyline made up of buildings that represent the leading corporations in town. This is where the action needs to be if we are to reach our cities.

  The first European convert was a businesswoman who dealt in expensive apparel (see Acts 16:14,15). This was immediately followed by a power encounter in the marketplace involving a slave girl with a spirit of divination (see Acts 16:16-21). Luke recounts 22 power encounters in the book of Acts—all of them but one happened in nonreligious meetings, most of them in the marketplace. These events had a profound effect on the cities and, in some cases, the outlying regions.