Reflections
SOUL IN THE WORKPLACE
By David Miller
What do you do if your company encourages you to use high pressure sales tactics, but your religious beliefs counsel against such practices? When a 65 hour work week is the norm, but your faith tells you to put your family first? When you can't find a way to use your God-given talents in the work you do? Recently, a group of 47 people gathered together to discuss questions like these.
The setting was "Soul in the Workplace" and participants came from the two sponsoring churches (Nassau Presbyterian and Trinity Episcopal in Princeton, NJ), from the community at large and from as far away as Washington, DC to ponder questions about how their faith and work intersect. Their work titles ranged from "secretary" to "CEO."
Based on Christian teachings, "Soul in the Workplace" was designed to provide people with a framework for exploring how their faith can become a source of motivation, creativity, inspiration and strength in their work. Its organizers were professionals from varied backgrounds, who have focused on issues of faith and work in their own careers. David Prescott, long active on the board of the Institute for Servant leadership, is a senior executive in the investment business.
Patricia Kidd, a founder of Nassau Presbyterian Church's "Faith in the Workplace" group, is a market researcher. Whitworth Ferguson, formerly Editor, Management & Finance at the Economist Intelligence Unit, is now a first year student of the Master of Divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary. I was formerly a partner in an investment bank in London, England, and am now in the second year of the Master of Divinity candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary.
The workshop was structured to encourage participants to reflect on the potential role of their faith in dealing with workplace challenges.
The Friday evening session focused on building a sense of community through personal introductions and an interactive exercise. Led by David Prescott, it helped people think about their attitudes toward their work and to what extent to their faith plays a role in their work.
As the participants introduced themselves and spoke about what they hoped to gain from the weekend, it was clear that many were actively searching for ways to incorporate their faith in their work but felt isolated in their efforts. The most frequently echoed comment was, " I'm so happy to find other people who are asking the same question I am...I thought I was the only one! "
Mr. Prescott's exercise, based on a Taoist poem called, " The Woodcarver ," led participants to reflect on the way in which they approach their own work and the potential for faith to bring personal integrity into every job, even mundane tasks.
I began the Saturday session by presenting a conceptual structure for thinking about the conflicts that can arise between work and faith. Drawing on Scripture and experience we explored the ways people could seek to resolve these conflicts. I also presented "Seven Creative Tensions," based on a study done by Laura Nash, a professor of management at Boston University. [Ed. note: Dr. Nash is the author of " Believers In Business ," one of our ten best picks for the 1990s.]
Using this conceptual framework, participants divided into small-group discussions to work through a series of case studies, each of which embodied one or more conflicts between the demands of faith and the individual's work responsibilities. Participants were instructed to focus on the process that could be used to arrive at a faithful way of dealing with the conflict, rather than trying to find a solution to the problem presented in the case.
On Saturday afternoon, Mr. Prescott led an exercise based upon an essay, "Leading From Within," that had been written by Parker Palmer. Respondents divided into pairs and discussed situations in which they had "cast light" on a conflict by bringing their own faithful values into play, as well as one in which they had "cast shadow" by ignoring those values. The exercise helped participants look at the active role they play in resolving work/faith conflicts.
As a closing exercise, the participants wrote letters to themselves, which would be mailed to them in 60 days as a reminder of the lessons they learned. At the end of the workshop, one participant summed up the sentiments of many others, " The workshop helped me realize how vital we Christians are in the workplace and that God's calling can be fulfilled very meaningfully at our workplace ."
Based on the success of this event and the encouragement of all the participants, we are already beginning to plan for a second retreat.-MP
David Miller is studying for his Master of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary, after a 16 year career in international banking. David is very interested in assisting others in connecting their faith with their work.
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