I replied, “There’s a Christian group?!”

She quickly fired off an email and arranged for me to be added to the group’s distribution list.

Within the fortnight I found myself at the KPMG lunchtime Bible study, where I was meeting other Christians in the firm. We reflected on how passages of Scripture relate to my work and prayed for things happening in the firm and in one another’s lives.

I felt like I was getting trained to be a Christian at work and was growing in my faith.

Then COVID struck and we were all sent home. It appeared that we were not going to be able to meet together for some time. But with the change to online working also came new opportunities to meet online in our Christian network.

The advantages of becoming an official group

During this time, one of our group members – who worked with the People, Performance and Culture team at KPMG – had been working hard to get the Christian group recognised as an official KPMG club. This gave us access to people in the firm across the whole country and the ability to publicise our group in the firm’s daily newsletter and intranet. We could also set up a national MS Teams group to facilitate online meetings.

Now, others like me don’t have to wait to find the group by accident. Instead, they can read about the group online and join one of our fortnightly prayer meetings on MS Teams.

I love my Christian workplace group and I’m thankful I found it

In the months that followed us becoming an official KPMG club, our group grew to more than 170 members – with 20-30 of us meeting fortnightly online to read the Bible and pray together.

I’ve enjoyed meeting colleagues who work in other cities. I have been particularly encouraged by the way my Melbourne colleagues, during lockdowns, have turned to God in such periods of uncertainty. They continued to depend on him – and, now, it’s my turn.

Another highlight of our workplace group has been firm-wide outreach events organised in partnership with City Bible Forum. We did this last Christmas and also at Easter this year.

Part of something bigger

I am helping to organise another outreach event on October 7 this year, where Sam Chan from City Bible Forum will be speaking on Mental Health.

We are inviting other Christian groups in the area to join us onsite with their guests in our Sydney office. We will also stream the event so that other groups around Australia (and beyond) can take advantage of this opportunity.

I love my Christian workplace group and I’m thankful I found it by ‘accident’ through my friend’s mum.

*City Bible Forum. Republished with permission.

Anastasya Lonergan is a member of KPMG’s Finance, Strategy and Performance team, within the Management Consulting Division.

City Bible Forum works with numerous Christian workplace groups inside companies, firms and government, for example KPMG, CBA, Westpac, Reserve Bank, Qantas and Cochlear. It helps these groups by providing resources, training, speakers for events and peer to peer encouragement. Contact Craig Josling for more information.