From: "Brian Pickering" <picksaa@...>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 20:40:39 +1100

GOD IN THE WORKPLACE: A labour of love

In an article in "Across the Board", a business leaders' magazine,
writer Laura Nash says, "Business people who claim to love their
churches have difficulty identifying any ways in which their religion
is a positive resource for them in their working lives."

Nash is a senior research fellow at Harvard Business School.
According to Nash, the split between commerce and church can be
attributed to Christianity's long-standing dismissal of business
as "a legitimate focus of religious expression."

The result for many business people, she says, "is a form of
schizophrenia. "[They] assume one worldview and identity on Sunday,
but another on Monday morning. They cannot see how a single, church-
based faith can be an ethical resource for leadership in a postmodern
world." Yet in the latest issue of Fortune Magazine, Nash is quoted
as saying: "Spirituality in the workplace is exploding."

That issue of Fortune, devoted to "God and Business," profiles a
group of executives who belong to Business Leaders for Excellence,
Ethics, and Justice (BEEJ). For more than a decade, said Fortune,
these people have wrestled with big questions: How can business
promote family life? What is a just wage? When are layoffs justified?

The executives say the struggle to integrate faith with work is never-
ending. Lately they find their numbers have grown a lot.

"Why would we want to look for God in our work?" asks BEEJ co-founder
Gregory F.A. Pierce, a publishing executive. "The simple answer is
most of us spend so much time working, it would be a shame if we
couldn't find God there. A more complex answer is that there is a
creative energy in work that is somehow tied to God's creative
energy. If we can understand that connection, perhaps we can use it
to transform the workplace into something remarkable."

According to Fortune, these executives are in the vanguard of a
diverse, mostly unorganized mass of believers - a counterculture
bubbling up all over corporate America - who want to bridge the
traditional divide between spirituality and work. Historically, says
Fortune, "such folk operated below the radar, on their own or in
small workplace groups where they prayed or studied the Bible." But
now they are becoming more organized.

"Employees don't leave their problems at the door when they punch
in," says Gil Stricklin, founder and president of Marketplace
Ministries. Stricklin heads an effort to place chaplains in work
places.

His vision for the ministry started while he was serving as an army
chaplain. "I saw that the people I took care of would call me when
they were not on active duty. Whatever the problem was, they didn't
have a pastor, and they would call me to ask for help."

Since 1984, Marketplace Ministries has been providing chaplains that
can offer advice, encouragement, and spiritual counsel to employees
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Today, more than 230 companies have
seen the value of hiring a chaplain from the organization.

What makes a company want to hire the services of a Christian
chaplain? Well, for one thing, it's good for business. "It saves us a
lot of time," comments a CEO of a printing company. "The chaplains
help to handle the personal issues the employees have - and the
chaplains are the first ones to arrive when an employee's family
faces a tragedy." Other benefits include improved employee morale,
increased productivity, and the meeting of employees' spiritual needs.

The chaplains are already trained in ministry, but Marketplace
Ministries prepares them for the needs that appear at almost every
job site. "We see families hurting, marriages breaking up, and racial
tension," comments Stricklin. "And if these workers don't go to
church, they can feel as if they have nowhere to turn."

Henry Blackaby, author of "Experiencing God," agrees that God is
moving in a major way in today's workplace. "I'm hearing a heart-cry
from the CEOs in the business world."

According to Blackaby, "There is an avalanche of CEOs from major
companies - the movers and shakers across the nation - who want to be
involved. They want to know, 'How do I relate my relationship to God
as a Christian CEO to the workplace?'

"When we talk with them about the fact that, in the Bible, most all
of the activity of God that changed society was done in the workplace
and not in the church, suddenly the lights come on and they say, 'How
can I then make decisions in the workplace that make a radical
difference?'"

Meanwhile the secular world remains wary. "As much as Americans say
they believe in God, most also believe in religious freedom, and
hence in the separation of church and boardroom," claims
Fortune. "And considering all the crimes committed in the name of one
god or another, it's only natural to imagine zealous executives doing
more harm than good. So while the business world has found ways to
talk about race, gender equity, sexuality, disability, and even
mental illness, religion has remained the last taboo."
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