The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is hosting a conference in Pittsburgh this week, not to convert unbelievers but to persuade the converted to apply their faith in the workplace.

"We really believe that workplace ministry is about integrating your faith and values into your work life every day. It has to do with caring for people, it has to do with integrity, it has to do with the character of Christ. This is not about proclamation evangelism," said Jack Munday, managing director of strategic ventures in the training division of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

"We want to guard against people thinking that being a Christian at work is only about having the biggest Bible or Bible study. It's about the character of the life that they live and the work ethic that they have."

God's Presence In Your Work Life opens at 5 p.m. tomorrow in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and continues through Saturday afternoon. Registration is $59, with a $29 student rate. Keynote speakers include Kent Humphreys, a businessman who now mentors other business leaders on Christian ethics, and the Rev. Henry Blackaby, author of the best-selling Bible study guide, Experiencing God. The opening keynoter is Steelers back-up quarterback Tommy Maddox, who will address leadership under adversity. Others include Allegheny County Common Pleas Court Judge Cheryl Allen and the Rev. Ron O'Guinn, pastor of a very small Texas church that has nevertheless made a big impact on the work environment in his community.

The conference is one of several new initiatives to have stemmed from the Billy Graham organization as its aged founder stepped back from his public role as an evangelist. When searching for ways to build on Graham's legacy, "We found an unprecedented number of business leaders who were at a point in their life where they were saying, 'There has to be more to this,' " Munday said.

"They were looking for biblical principles for how to do business more effectively and efficiently, and for how to be more honoring to their employees."

Christian organizations geared toward workplace ministry had multiplied from 25 in 1992 to more than 1,100 in 2003, he said. But nearly all of those either provided ministry to top executives or supplied chaplains to secular workplaces. The Graham organization saw a need to help all working people apply their faith to their daily work.

For six to eight months afterward, churches throughout the area will host follow-up sessions.

Although its focus is not on evangelizing co-workers, it includes a legal workshop to help people distinguish between expressing their beliefs and improperly imposing them on others, said Cindy Scott, a Sewickley businesswoman and co-chair of the conference.

"A lot of that is just common sense, and we want to make sure we are within the letter of the law," she said. Scott and co-chair John Stahl-Wert, president of the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation, lobbied for the conference.

In a culture where business ethics seemed to be a thing of the past, she discovered a strong movement in the opposite direction.

"I had thought that my job was something separate from what God wants for my life," said Scott, who started Choice Counsel Inc., which supplies temporary attorneys and paralegals to law firms. "So often we think that being a pastor is the great Christian calling. But each one of our jobs is a holy calling."

For more information call 1-800-950-2092 or see www.bgtc.info.