CHAPLAINS IN THE WORKPLACE
Chaplains in the workplaceARTICLE IN
Workplace chaplains are no longer the surprising exception, but a benefit welcomed by most employers.
By Joseph Allen
(September 19, 2005)
Twenty years ago, any casual observer who discovered a chaplain working in a corporate office to help employees deal with financial, emotional and familial concerns and other stresses of everyday life would have raised an eyebrow or two.
Fast forward to the present, where workplace chaplains are no longer the surprising exception but a benefit appreciated by most employers who welcome the additional help that chaplains offer with no strings of reciprical faith attached.
“We’ve had chaplains in our workplace for about five years now with strong, positive results,” said David M. Weekley, chairman of the board of David Weekley Homes, a homebuilding company with locations throughout the Southeastern United States. “Chaplains in our workplace have definitely improved morale by helping to create a nurturing environment where employees feel at ease and feel that the company is looking out for the employees’ well-being.”
Weekley’s company is one of many that employs chaplains as part of their staff. The diverse array of small businesses and large companies that have chaplains include Pilgrim’s Pride, a Texas-based poultry processor and the second-largest chicken producer in the United States; McKibbon Hotel Properties, a hotel management company in Georgia that trains its associates in service and leadership; McKinney Aerospace, a service center for large business and private jets; and McLane Pacific, a wholesale distribution center that serves the Western United States.
“The number of chaplains in the workplace is definitely expanding,” said George A. Langhorne, director of Chaplaincy/Pastoral Counseling Services for the American Baptist Churches. “We never [imagined] over 20 years ago that there would be a strong demand for workplace chaplains in businesses that range the gambit from small, family-owned businesses right on up to international Fortune 100 companies.”
The Houston-based National Institute of Business and Industrial Chaplains — an organization representing workplace ministers, priests, rabbis and laypeople — estimates that there are now nearly 4,000 trained and certified workplace chaplains working for businesses across the country.
“After World War II, employers hired former military chaplains to deal with labor unrest and problems caused by alcohol abuse, family breakup and other internal and external stresses,” said Diana Dale, executive director of the institute. “By the time companies pioneered early employee assistance programs in the 1950s, many workplace counselors were really clerics with additional training.”
Chaplains are not exactly a 20th-century innovation to American workplaces. “All throughout the 236-plus years of the United States’ existence, chaplains have been providing counseling and help to employees,” said Gil Stricklin, president of the Dallas-based Marketplace Ministries.
In just the first six months of this year, Marketplace Ministries has added 150 full-time and part-time chaplains on its nationwide staff, Stricklin said.
For decades prior to Sept. 11, police and firefighters employed chaplains at their station houses. In the late 1920s, construction companies hired missionaries to serve tent camps for workers building roads.
“People became more aware of chaplains in the workplace after the terrorist attacks of [Sept. 11], when police and fire chaplains played a more visible public role in providing aid and comfort,” Stricklin said.
“Chaplaincy in private industry has steadily increased during the past 15 years to a point where they have a more significant presence nationwide in the [American] workplace,” Dale said.
National and global social and political upheavals of the past two decades are reasons for the increase in chaplains in private business and industry, Stricklin said. “Chaplains humanize the workplace, especially when you take into account that about 70 percent of the work force does not have a priest, rabbi, minister or imam that they can turn to in times of personal need,” he said, quoting a 2001 employee benefit survey conducted by the RoperNOP, a market research firm based in New York. “It’s quite common for workplace chaplains to perform marriages and funerals because they are the only significant spiritual influence in employees’ lives.”
“Human resource managers typically just aren’t trained to provide emotional and spiritual support to their employees,” said Jo Schrader, executive director of the Association of Professional Chaplains, headquartered in Schaumburg, Ill. “HR managers are great when describing company benefits and rules and regulations, but they often fall flat in providing the emotional comfort an employee may need. Workplace chaplains are a resource HR managers can use.”
Workplace chaplains are specifically trained to provide counsel in the workplace when employees request it. They follow strict rules about worker confidentiality and freedom of religion. No proselytizing is allowed, according to the code of conduct outlined by the National Institute of Business and Industrial Chaplains (see “Thou shall respect others,” p. 13.) “We don’t want chaplains in the workplace that are there to convert people instead of helping them with the issues that are troubling them and their families,” said Langhorne, of the American Baptist Churches. “The workplace is not the proper environment for a chaplain to evangelize in.”
“Among the typical types of services a workplace chaplain can provide to an employee is financial and debt counseling, marriage counseling, and alcohol and substance abuse counseling,” said Dwayne Reece, vice president of Corporate Chaplains of America based in Wake Forest, N.C. “Workplace chaplains are also trained to intercede if domestic abuse is suspected and provide help, if needed and asked for, to the victims.”
“It’s important to remember that the employee has to come to the chaplain,” said Schrader. “The chaplain in the workforce never takes the first step in interacting with an employee.”
Education is the key in the making of a workplace chaplain. To meet the great demand businesses have placed for qualified workplace chaplains, Dallas Theological Seminary offers courses on corporate chaplaincy in its masters of theology program. Denver Seminary also offers corporate chaplaincy courses for students who want to make an impact outside the traditional pulpit arena.
“While most of our chaplains have bachelor’s of arts or bachelor’s of science degrees in biblical studies, around 80 percent of our chaplains have master’s degrees in divinity, ” said Reece.
“Yet just having an undergraduate degree in biblical studies and/or a master’s degree in divinity does not make a priest, rabbi, minister or imam qualified to become a workplace chaplain,” Reece said. That requires additional training before a chaplain can step one foot inside a business and begin ministering to the needs of the employees there.”
Each year the Association of Professional Chaplains offers 300 priests, rabbis, ministers and imams the opportunity to become board-certified workplace chaplains. “One of the first things a chaplain learns when they are undergoing training for the workplace is that they are not there to usurp the role of the traditional human resources manager,” Schrader said.
Joseph Allen is a freelanc
posted by Paschal Baute @ 11:33 PM
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Six Steps to Success
Throughout the centuries history tells of men and women with the midas touch, who achieved greatness against what seemed insurmountable odds. To some their successes appeared to be the result of blind luck, to others the reward for hard work, but the truth about the successes of men such as Andrew Carnagie and Henry Ford is much more interesting.
Success is a state of mind to which all people should aspire. Like many others you can unlock te gate to achievement and the fulfilment of yor personal desires. With the six steps outlined below anyone can arrive at a set destination, with the added advantage of renewed self-confidence and secure in the knowledge that every goal is attainable.
Step 1. Desire
The key factor involved in the process of achieving any desire lies in the response of one's mind to the objective. If a complacent attitude is apparent then there will be a lack of enthusiasm leading to failure or only half-success.
If a goal is to be reached determination is needed to carry set plans through to a successful conclusion. This determination must have enough mental 'weight' behind it to propel you forward onto the road of achievement. This mental state can only be instilled by one thing - desire!
As can be easily seen, when we look around us, it is this desire-force that has launched mankind on his frenzied zest for ever-new knowledge and has enabled him to push back the boundaries of science to never dreamed of achievement.
It is this same desire-force that must be used in our business and personal affairs if the success we seek is to materialize. It is not very hard to develop this kind of desire for all you have to do is go after what you really want - its that simple. With this desire you will have all the persistence you need to accomplish your goal. There is a great saying "you never fail until you give up"!
Take heed of what Napoleon Bonaparte said "What we ardently and constantly desire, we always get".
Step 2. Goals
If success is to come your must realise what is expected to materialize. This statement may seem obvious at first but if careful thought is given its meaning takes on deeper significance.
Many people fail to gain satisfactory results from their endeavours because they did not know what they wanted to accomplish in the first place. Your objective must not be hazy or incomplete. Before you reach your goal you must be able to identify how your life will be different when you achieve it. You must know exactly what it is that you want to achieve. How will your life be better/different? How will you feel? What way will you look? What situations will you find yourself in? Will other people in your life be effected and if so how will they react? You need a clear definite picture in your mind of what the attainment of your goal will mean to you.
Step 3. Belief
Belief is the back-up system of desire. It keep the fires of enthusiasm burning and makes us continually strive to get nearer the goal attainment. Faith can truly move mountains; the mountains of fear, inferiority, worry and low self esteem - 'the success killers'!
Once a goal is firmly fixed in mind and our desire-force is hurtling us toward seemingly insurmountable obstacles, the firm belief that we can gain a favourable outcome can spur us on to victory. When the mind has been manipulated to reflect this state, wonderful physical results can ensue, producing symptoms of success in our lives in every area imaginable.
Although many can attest to the power of belief and to the wondrous accomplishments that were achieved through nothing else except faith, it still remains that many individuals find it hard to believe that a positive outcome will be forthcoming when they are faced with momentous opposition. Whether the opposition is mental or physical the fact that nothing seems to be going right and everything seems to be wrong is enough for even the strongest of us to 'throw in the towel'. But it is in these very situations that faith can conquer all. Faith in yourself, what you are doing and belief that that your objective will be reached.
There are some who bemoan "easier said than done". This is exactly the kind of mental attitude that sustains the problems that they are trying to eradicate. If your belief power is not apparent, take hope for it can be acquired.
Each morning and night recite your intentions from a written list of your goals. Voice your belief in your own abilities. Tell yourself that in due course you will be successful. As you go about your daily affairs reflect as often as possible on your goals and affirm that they are yours now. Fool your mind into believing it and you will see your world reflect it!
Step 4. Plan
Having decided upon your goal and being determined to build your faith you need to give your desire-force a 'vehicle' through which it may materialize. This 'vehicle' will take the form of a definite plan of action.
Do you need to acquire certain skills? Do you need to know certain people or be in certain places to help you achieve your goal? Make a plan that will help you get closer to your end objective. Research your desires and get clear on what you need to do. Then do it!
Ensure that your plan is workable and realistic for you. Although your plan should remain flexible so that changes can be made when appropriate only make changes after careful consideration. Trial and error will eventually show the way to a good plan although you should be open to intuition also.
However, I should point out that, it is very likely your goal will materialize in a most unexpected way. The fact that you have set a plan for its accomplishment tends to set things in motion and like a chain reaction (or the butterfly effect) subtle changes made by you may cause dramatic changes elsewhere and your goal may come before your plan is completed.
Step 5. Visualization
Visualization is the art of creating mental movies of your completed goal. This has many beneficial effects upon your consciousness. Without going into the deeper esoteric benefits of using this art let me just say that you are truly designing your life when you use it. It has one other major benefit - it strengthens your desire and persistence because you momentarily experience the thrill of having achieved your goal!
Just form a mental picture of having achieved your goal. See what you will see. Feel how wonderful it will be. See how it effects everyone around you. Hear people congratulate you. When this state is experienced nothing will stop you in your quest for your objective and thus your belief-power will also be reinforced.
Step 6. The Subconscious Mind
It is within the subconscious part of your mind that you hold all th positive and negative beliefs about yourself - your self-image. These beliefs are reflected back to you in the form of attitudes. Therefore it is from the subconscious mind that the thought of failure or success comes.
Attitudes are just mental programs and so is your self-image. They can easily be changed (yes I said 'easily'). Any attitude or belief can be changed by using the formula outlined in this article - by combining affirmations with visualization. Henry Ford used it, as did Ralph Waldo Emerson and even Arnold Swatzeneger. It is reported in some circles that a similar technique was employed by Bill Gates to build his global empire. Andrew Carnegie used it exactly as described to attain and give away multi-millions even though he was an unschooled manual worker when he started it. Carnegie's legacy can still be seen today when you freely borrow a book from any Carnegie library of which there are thousands.
If you use these six steps there is nothing you cannot achieve. Luckily we have the advantage of living in the Twentieth Century with all its new technology and innovations such as hypnosis and subliminal programming. Use these steps in conjunction with your favourite personal development system and you are assured success. personal-development.info
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