Drilling down

So what does it take to build this thing we call a “Christian worldview”? What specific blueprint do you follow if you want your children and your children’s children to think in a biblically directed manner? How do you nudge the folks in your workplace—or the voters at your precinct polling place—to make their decisions with a God-centered agenda?

If only we could commandeer the nation’s media, some say. No, others counter; it’s the schools, the colleges, the universities. That’s where we’d find the most leverage. Still others ask: What about the pulpits of our nation? Is anybody listening?

Expect no cheap answers here. WORLD magazine in general, and this column in particular, have no one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, we tend to say: “All of the above.” We prefer a good dose of caution when anyone tells us that they’ve found the universal key to teaching Christian worldview. It’s more likely to happen, we think, in bite-size chunks.

Which is why the office décor at the headquarters of CapRock Oil Tools Inc. just south of Houston, Texas, grabbed my attention recently. CapRock fabricates, and then sharpens, monster drilling bits used by big oil explorers as they bore deep into the earth. CapRock’s owner and CEO, Glenn Gault, is a serious Christian who is eager for those around him to know more about his faith in Jesus—and how that faith affects even his business life. How, he wondered for several years, could he do that in a winsome, enduring manner? He already offered a weekly session where as many of his 45 employees who wanted to could gather for prayer and a bit of mutual encouragement. But what else could he do?

That’s when the idea hit him: What about hanging half a dozen colorful and attractive posters around the plant, spelling out in nonpreachy language some of the biblical values and resulting principles that make CapRock what it is? The cost would be minimal. The message would be repetitive. The audience would quietly include employees, customers, salespeople, other vendors, and visitors of all kinds—including nosy magazine publishers.

The result was a series of seven jumbo posters, done by professional graphic designers, and scattered from CapRock’s entryway to the engineering center to the break room to the rough and tumble fabricating facility. Even a casual visitor is compelled to ask: So how does this “value” work out in the day-to-day operation of CapRock? Glenn Gault loves those opportunities for further discussion.

Folks with other businesses have asked whether the posters might be available to them—sometimes offering to pay for duplicate copies. The CapRock posters, though, are pretty “company-specific.” The poster highlighting “spiritual growth,” for example, announces bluntly: “If an organism or entity is not growing, it is dying. This is true of our spiritual life, our personal life, and the life of our company. At CapRock, it is our intention to grow. We want to grow our employees’ skills as well as their spiritual well-being and the end result will be a growing and vibrant company.”

CapRock didn’t set out to teach Christian worldview thinking. But CapRock was blessed to have an owner who took seriously what he, bit by gritty bit, could do right within his modest headquarters. It’s been amazing to see how God changes the subject from oil drilling to even deeper matters.

Email jbelz@worldmag.com