Christians have a crucial role to play in influencing companies, organisations and society for good. The odds against them doing so are, in worldly terms, formidable. Christians often feel desperately outnumbered at their place of work. The distinctive contribution which they bring to bear on events may seem negligible. As they look back on their actions at the end of a day, or even at the end of a career, they may well be inclined to ask themselves: 'Do not even pagans do that?' [Matthew 5:47]. The New Testament does not encourage a spirit of naive triumphalism. The forces of evil are powerful, and they are still alive and kicking. But the rise of the early Christian church, allied to the teaching of Jesus, gives grounds for hope that great things can develop from distinctly modest beginnings. Jesus talked about the kingdom of heaven as a mustard seed, the smallest of seeds which grows into the greatest of shrubs. He also uses the image of leaven: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened" [Matthew 13:33]. Christians who are truly worth their salt (which was another metaphor Jesus used about them) are infiltrators of the world in which they operate, permeating and purifying and penetrating for the forces of good and of God.

(c. Richard Higginson 'Called to Account')