“I can’t lie flat, and I can’t keep up either.”

A working professional said that in our workplace small group. Everyone around him, he explained, was either “lying flat” or caught up in “involution” — and he was neither. On my end of the screen, I was speechless. Because I knew he wasn’t only asking about his job. He was asking about his whole life.

CAN SUNDAY’S SPARK SURVIVE MONDAY?

On Sunday you lead worship and Bible study at church, praying with real power. At nine on Monday morning, you’re the newest hire in the office, needing help just to clear a paper jam in the copier.

Sunday’s sermon moved you so much you filled a whole page with notes. The next morning, work comes crashing down, and your boss calls you into a conference room and lets you have it.

We rarely name this disconnect out loud, but it has a name: the sacred-secular divide. It cuts life in two. The spiritual half happens at church, a few hours a week; everything else — including the forty-plus hours a week you spend working — becomes a blank space where faith supposedly doesn’t reach. No wonder we’re exhausted. We’re constantly switching identities between two worlds.

But Scripture doesn’t see it that way. The very first charge God gave humanity was to rule the earth and steward all things. Your desk was inside that charge from the beginning.

A BOOK BY A WORKING PROFESSIONAL, FOR WORKING PROFESSIONALS

I’m not a seminary professor, and I’m not a full-time minister. I’m a translator at a law firm, a father of two, and a deacon ordained by my church for workplace ministry. Every chapter of this book is something I walked through together with more than forty working professionals at my church, across eight sessions.

We tend to assume that “marketplace theology” is too difficult — something seminary professors teach — and that “mission in the workplace” is a distant thing reserved for missionaries. So I’ve tried to write in language you can follow in your office, on the subway, or late at night in the middle of overtime. The examples are Taiwanese and contemporary: overtime culture, KPIs, getting reamed out by your boss, gray areas, getting along with coworkers, whether to change jobs.

I also didn’t want to write a hero’s story. You’ll read about the document I ruined, the rejection letter I received, and the night I was so busy I lost my patience. Not so you’ll be like me, but so that through the stories of ordinary people you’ll see the God who has been at work in the workplace all along.

HOW THIS BOOK WALKS WITH YOU

The book is divided into three parts and eight chapters, matching the eight sessions. Each chapter ends with three reflection questions and a week-long practice. At the back you’ll find a guide for small group leaders and an at-a-glance overview of all eight lessons, so that a leader with no theological training can pick it up and lead straight from the book.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

• Working professionals who are newly baptized or within three years of entering the workforce — and graduating seniors and graduate students too.

• Anyone caught between “involution” and “lying flat,” when neither is what you want.

• Anyone more than ten years into a career who still feels that faith and work are two separate worlds.

• Pastors, ministers, and small group leaders who want to start a workplace ministry but don’t know where to begin.

USE IT FREELY WITH YOUR GROUP

My hope is simple: that working people, pastors, and small group leaders everywhere would use this book, share it, and pass it on — and take it straight into a workplace small group. Good resources are meant to be shared.

ENDORSEMENTS

“What I especially appreciate is that Sam doesn’t stop at theological concepts — he starts from the real problems young working professionals actually face: too busy to have personal devotions, getting reprimanded by a boss, navigating gray areas, how to share the gospel — the very things we all run into every day… May this book help every reader rediscover that work is not something separate from faith, but part of how God calls us to worship, to serve, to love others, and to glorify him. Every day we walk into the workplace, we are walking into the field God has entrusted to us.”

— Joseph Pai (former Chairman, Ogilvy Taiwan; Marketplace Theology Instructor, China Evangelical Seminary)

“Sam’s translation work is no longer simply a matter of converting one language into another — it’s a conversion of culture and workplace context, so that ordinary Chinese-speaking people can understand the theology behind the things around them. This book, written for workplace believers in the church, was born out of this remarkable journey. I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside Sam’s growth, and I look forward to seeing how God will use him to bring even more blessing to workplace believers.”

— Andre Chen (Chairman, IMT Taiwan; Lecturer in Marketplace Theology, China Evangelical Seminary)

“I’m glad to recommend this book, especially to three kinds of readers. First, working professionals who feel they can’t integrate faith and work… Second, pastors and ministers who want to start a workplace ministry at their church but don’t know where to begin… Third, every working brother and sister, whether you’ve been at it for one year or ten, twenty, or thirty — every workplace disciple needs the convictions and truths in this book to help you bring God’s presence into your workplace.”

— Alex Tsai (Pastor, Taiwan Churches of Christ)

CONTENTS

Preface: One Working Professional’s Letter to Another

Introduction: Can Sunday’s Spark Survive Monday?

Part One: Rediscovering Your Work (Foundations)

Chapter One: Why Do I Work? — Work isn’t about earning a living; it’s about joining in God’s own work

Chapter Two: Before I’m a Working Professional, I’m a Disciple — Holding on to your relationship with God as you move from student to professional

Chapter Three: What Is God Calling Me to Do? — A calling isn’t a single moment; it’s a journey

Part Two: Living Out Monday Through Friday (Practice)

Chapter Four: Too Busy at Work for Anything Else! — Martha’s problem wasn’t doing too much

Chapter Five: What Do I Do When I Keep Messing Up and My Boss Comes Down on Me? — Faithfulness is not the same as success

Chapter Six: How Do I Handle a Workplace Where Right and Wrong Blur? — Resolve before the temptation arrives

Part Three: Making Your Work a Blessing to Others (Mission)

Chapter Seven: How Can I Be “Salt and Light” at Work? — Being, belonging, believing

Chapter Eight: “Mission in the Workplace” Isn’t as Hard as You Think — What God prepares for the lonely is coworkers

Appendix 1: A Guide for Small Group Leaders

Appendix 2: Eight Lessons at a Glance

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam (Cheng-Chia) Lin (Chinese: ???) is a senior translator, a working professional, a father of two, and a Deacon for Workplace Ministry.

He is a graduate of the Graduate Institute of Translation and Interpretation of National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) and completed an Extension Certificate in Theology at China Evangelical Seminary (CES), where he is currently pursuing a Master of Christian Studies. As of 2026, he has more than a decade of experience in the finance and legal industries and currently serves as a senior translator at a well-known law firm in Taiwan. In 2019, he founded an English Conversation Club to bring Christian coworkers together to influence their colleagues and help transform their workplace culture. In 2021, he was ordained a Deacon for Workplace Ministry by Taiwan Churches of Christ (TCOC), where he now leads a team of seven coworkers running workplace small groups and book clubs that disciple the church’s working professionals. That same year, he launched the Translate4God Studio, adopting the personal motto “Translate for God.” After being admitted to CES’s main campus in 2025, he completed four courses in marketplace theology, served in seminary classrooms as a two-way Chinese-English interpreter for R. Paul Stevens, a well-known marketplace theologian, and has translated several of his books.

Eight Lessons for Workplace Disciples

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