Husband, father, follower of Jesus, Dave Warman has worked in the Education sector for over 15 years, helping vulnerable children in times of crisis. He is currently the CEO of Shaped, an organisation set up to support young people struggling in the mainstream school environment. We caught up with Dave about his experiences of living out his faith in the workplace.

When did you find God?

I don’t know if it was me finding God, but more God finding me. My parents were lay leaders in our church as a kid, so they had their careers as well as being actively involved in leading the church we attended. One of my earliest memories of committing myself to God was when I was ten, where I started to understand personally how much God loves us. So that process of transformation and maturing in my faith has been a journey I’ve been on for most of my life.

A big part of how I follow Jesus now is in looking for – and seeing – him at work all the time, in my life and the lives of others, in this city, country, and the world. I try to look for what God is doing, and then ask myself, “What is my role in this?”. On some days I do this better than others, but this is my walk with Jesus: him with me, me with him, looking for what the Father is doing.

It has been the process of transformation at work in me: Jesus renewing my mind, to see with his eyes, be his hands and feet, in whatever I find myself doing.

How have you navigated being a Christian in the workplace?

For me, it’s about continuing to walk with Jesus out of Sunday and into Monday and throughout the week, in all the interactions that day-to-day life throws at you. It has been a process of learning to be more attentive to what is driving the way I behave and respond to people, and seeking to better understand those around me.

Absolutely key to this has been the search for integrity and transparency in my life, finding an alignment between my internal life and values, and how I can express them in the world around me. Then continuously seeking God’s heart for the work that I have been involved in, and doing my best to respond to this in a way that honours God.

How do you find the balance between staying true to your faith and respecting the boundaries of others?

There are two verses in the Bible that have really stuck with me throughout my working life:

‘So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.’
Romans 12: Verse 1 and 2, Message Translation

I got into working in secondary education because I was given an opportunity that I said yes to. I did not think it would be something I would do for the rest of my life.

I’d often ask God, ‘What I’m doing now is great, but what do you actually want me to do?’ I was often looking for the next thing to do in life. It wasn’t until I was about 30 years old when I really felt God say ‘I’ve got you exactly where I want you.’

It was around then that I started to recognise the process I was going through. It’s not so much about what I do, but more about who I am. It’s about developing a character in me which is able to honour Him in any situation.

What can Christians offer in the workplace?

Once I started to develop confidence in who I am in Christ, and how I want to honour God in everything I do, it changed how I responded to some very difficult situations that I’ve been in as part of my job. Whether it’s a disagreement with a headteacher or member of staff, or helping young people in crisis in some way, I often feel out of my depth, but I do know who I am, and Who I have in my corner.

That’s the posture that I adopt when I enter the workplace. I know who I am in Christ, and I know that whatever I’m faced with, I’ll be attentive to what’s going on around me, and respond in a way that honours God and honours those around me.

I also think that being a passionate Christian is about helping to put love at the heart of our communities, whatever our workplace or sector. When we do that, we’re inviting the love of God into those communities, and bringing that love into my interactions in my day-to-day life has been one of the joys of being in contact with lots of people who haven’t yet encountered Jesus.

I was on a training course a few months ago – part of a national trauma-informed schools agenda – which was discussing how we need to bring professional love and empathy back into the workplace: stuff we as Christians have been talking about and doing all along.

How do people react when you tell them you’re a Christian?

That’s an interesting one. I’m not shy about saying I’m a Christian, but I don’t try to squeeze it into every conversation. So if or when someone asks me what I’ve been up to at the weekend, I’ll say what I did and just mention ‘and I had a great time at church on Sunday’. Sometimes people are surprised, sometimes they’re intrigued, sometimes they’re puzzled. More often than not though, most people are very relaxed about it.

By just saying, ‘This is who I am, this is what I believe’ in a very simple way, you are also inviting them to discuss their own experiences, with church, what they believe or otherwise. It’s more of a conversation; it’s a process and a journey, like all relationships. And that’s what I try to reflect in the workplace.

The other part of that is investing in people and relationships – whether colleagues or young people – with no ulterior motive, not trying to get them to believe in Jesus. God is already doing that, and He’s way better at that than me. But what I will do is, I will show love to people, and try to see people as they truly are, the way God sees them.

Because I think that’s what Jesus did; He saw people, and looked for what was going on beneath the surface, on the inside, and responded in a way that honoured God.

And that’s the key thing: staying true to yourself and true to God, even when things get difficult. There was an instance where I was part of a leadership team in a school and during a particularly stressful period of time, my line manager – the deputy head – asked me how I cope with it all.

I could only be honest with them so my response was: ‘I pray and I get peace from God.’ In work – where sometimes the challenges can be overwhelming – we need to know the Source of our hope, and then we need to go there regularly.

What are some of the results of being open with your faith?

Being open with my faith has helped me connect with other Christians in my workplace. Wherever I’ve worked, I’ve helped organise Christians to pray together, for the students, for our colleagues, for each other. And there’s something really empowering in that community of faith within the workplace. To know that there are other Christians in your workplace, and to be able to pray with them, is a wonderful privilege.

As well as that, I’ve found that being comfortable and open about my faith gives others an opportunity to see Jesus in my own character and express interest in learning more about him.

There’s that saying that salvation happens at the speed of relationships, and relationships happen at the speed of trust. So people need to be able to trust you before they can open up about themselves.

I have found that being open and letting my own guard down, whilst risky, also invites this from others, and I have found God often moves in those opportunities, when you connect with someone on a deeper level.

How can Christians in Sheffield get involved with what you are doing?

Well, ‘Shaped’ is an education organisation that has been set up to create alternative education environments for young people struggling in mainstream schools. We are growing and developing our curriculum all the time, and you can find out more about us at www.shaped.org.uk. One thing that you can do is to continue to pray for all our young people in this city, that God will be working for the good of all young people and for the peace and prosperity of this city.

Also as an Education Ambassador with Together for Sheffield, one of the communities we’re building is ‘Together for Schools’, which we hope will create a prayer and support network for all Christians that work in schools across Sheffield. We’re meeting over Zoom each half term, and the next meeting is taking place on Thursday 18 November. Email becky@togetherforsheffield.co.uk for the Zoom details.

There are loads of Christians working in schools across Sheffield, and my hope is that they can all be a part of this network where we can pray for each other, and for the world of Education in Sheffield. It is one thing to discover and be confident in our own identity in Christ, but it is another thing entirely for us to operate within a confident collective identity, which is His church, within the Education Sector. This is my prayer.

Faith at Work