The Evangelist
When I moved to Washington for my career," Angie Tracey says, "I became a Baptist, mainly because I was seeking more education on the Bible itself. That was where the Lord led me, to really get that foundation in his word. . . . There are so many misconceptions. People nowadays have a tendency to write God's word by their own standards instead of reading and studying and learning what God's plan is for us. They're not just restrictions. . . . It's really a guideline for how to live a healthy, joyous, happy, fruitful life. It's God's secret to success. It's just a pleasure to know what he's all about and grow closer to him."
That passionate belief in the power of God has inspired Tracey to become one of the leaders of the movement for ministry in the federal workplace. As the founder of the first Christian federal employee association, the Christian Fellowship Group at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she has become an outspoken advocate for the powerful role that prayer and religious fellowship can play in making employees happier, more effective and more fulfilled.
"When I moved to CDC, I recognized that our agency is embroiled on a daily basis in dealing with life-threatening diseases, dealing with biological and chemical agents, and prevention," she says. "Some of our folks are put in harm's way when they travel abroad. I thought if any agency needs to have the blessings of God, it's ours."
Tracey says she prayed for years for God to send a leader to CDC who could help her organize a small gathering of her Christian co-workers. Because she doesn't have a seminary education, she didn't feel qualified to lead her fellow employees in Bible study. But while praying in a women's ministry at her church, Tracey heard the minister tell the assembled worshippers, "If you wait until you feel you're a biblical scholar to do something for the Lord, you will never do something for the Lord."
"I cannot even describe to you what happened inside me," Tracey says. "I just felt this sense of euphoria, and I felt God just whisper to my heart, 'I've been trying to tell you I want you to do this.' "
She discovered, however, that there was a complex application process at CDC. She would have to seek approval from a superior she thought would not be receptive, and the committee that approves applications met infrequently. But Tracey persevered. She sees God's hand in the surprising ease with which the group came to be: The center's deputy director whose reaction Tracey had feared ended up saying the group was the best idea Tracey had ever had. An emergency brought the approval committee together just after she turned in her application.
Six days after the Christian Fellowship Group was chartered in September 2001, planes hit the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington and crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa. Tracey says the sense of urgency she felt after years of prayer must have come because her office and her colleagues would have a pressing need for prayers and Christian fellowship in the aftermath of the attacks.
"CDC deployed over 150 employees to New York to deal with the aftermath of that. They didn't know what they were entering into. As everyone was throughout the country, people were searching for God and meaning, and clinging to each other. We just feel that God was right on time in our workplace," Tracey remembers.
Two hundred and thirty people came to her first event. Almost every CDC campus has a Bible study now, and the largest events draw 400 employees, according to Tracey. Every step of the way, she says, God has helped provide for the group's needs, bringing in a CDC employee who also happens to be a music minister to help conduct meetings, drawing together a Web designer, a code writer and a graphic designer to put together a site for the CDC intranet, and even providing an offer of pro bono legal help when it appeared the group's charter might be challenged.
"I think that God has really protected us," Tracey says. "He's using [the group] to show people that there's a different way to work, to love each other, to work with each other."
Every Monday, members operate a prayer phone line during their lunch hours. They serve on CDC diversity committees. Tracey says the group has even helped resolve disputes between employers and employees. She cites one example when a CDC employee threatened to sue a supervisor for racial discrimination and came to Tracey for help. "We read in the Scriptures about respecting authority. And I said that what's in my heart is there may be a point of confusion between you and your supervisor. . . . Pray that her heart may be open to you, and that God may reveal to you any wrongdoing," Tracey says.
"God guided them to a meeting of minds and now they're friends, they go to lunch every week. They have a wonderful fellowship now, and we prevented what was going to be a taxing and draining situation for the supervisor and the employee, and we saved the agency money. It's not a matter of this nice little thing that we can do to support our employees. It's how can we shift our ideas to conduct business differently."
She's taken that message on the road, speaking at a seminar sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and working with her counterparts in workplace ministries at Coca-Cola and in the Canadian government.
But the vision of a different workplace, shaped by God's instructions, inspires Tracey every day in her own work as well - she is now CDC's coordinator for faith intiatives and programs. "In my faith, it teaches me to care about people, to love each other, to provide for each other and to need each other," she says. "I do my work as excellence unto the Lord. It's to the benefit of my workplace to have that."
COMMENTS
- This person's & her followers' belief system might be admirable (to them certainly) but has absolutely no right to be included nor even "tacitly approved" in our government workplace! I agree that it is simply more proselytizing by a particular religious sect which has continued to be fostered by the current faith-based presidential administration. There is quite enough fundamentalist-inspired horror in our world today without more evangelical zealots like these even being permitted to meet & create the potential for hurt and dissension in the workplace... I thought our country was supposed to wisely keep any kind of official religion out of government! Why can't these people just be happy & comfortable with their beliefs and leave others (including the workplace) alone?... They appear to need constant self and public exposure to reinforce their worth as human beings... How sad..., and dangerous. Robert Posted November 30, 2007 7:43 AM
- Out of a 24 hour day and five day work week federal employees spend 1/3 of each day and 1/4 of their week at the minimum at work. For any faith group (Christian or the many other alternatives) that believe the best faith is that lived out in daily life this is a large chunk of that life. It would be hypocritical for any faithful believer (and I emphasize all faith backgrounds) to leave their faith at home when they go to the office. Beyond this many federal employees encounter events on the job that can impact them spiritually not to mention emotionally, mentally, and physically; a serious issue when we consider that many faith groups and medical science emphasize the whole person with all of these aspects impacting each other. The military has chaplains, why should civilian employees of other agencies be denied spiritual connection in the workplace? Too many people fear people of faith (and here I emphasize Christians and Muslims) when the vast majority of faithful people are not problematic but in fact a benefit to the organizations where they work. Do we need to establish rules of interaction to insure people have the right to say no to religious interaction in the workplace? Yes. Does this mean that faithful people should not pray or get together in the workplace? No. Separation of Church and State does not mean removal of religious expression in the federal workplace (Christian or otherwise). What it does mean is that individuals should not be forced to adhere to any one faith tradition and should be free to express their faith in a significant area of their lives (the workplace). This is the law as defined by the Constitution of the United States and the Supreme Court. Ben Wetherill Posted November 30, 2007 1:01 AM
- Annoyed: your position is correct. First off, all of the people who keep espousing the nation being founded on "Christian principles" need to read more history. Many of our founding fathers were atheists and agnostics, including Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. A good percentage of them read more David Hume than they did the bible. Secondly, for all the people who see nothing wrong with witnessing / evangalizing in the workplace, what would happen if you worked with Muslims / Buddhists / Hindus who constantly tried to convert you to their religion(s) in the workplace? What if an atheist consistently tried to get you to abandon your faith while on-the-clock? If either of these scenarios makes you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable, then WHY does Christianity get a free pass? And, to say "Because Christianity is the one true religion" is to do nothing more than assume what you're trying to prove and thereby degingerate into circular reasoning. David Posted November 29, 2007 4:03 PM
