Issue 199
Next time you are with a group of Christians, look around you. There will be people concerned about their workload, their future, their pension, their health, their work-life balance, their approaching deadlines, their working relationships and a million and one other work related issues. Not all are sad; many love their work and find it exhilarating to go to work each day. But whatever the state of their week, they all need covering and care.
Good managers, HR departments and colleagues know this and if they have any sense will try to take great care of the ‘human capital’. Even given that the motivation for such care may not always be people’s well-being but rather increased productivity, you can still have the well-being while you are at it.
Unfortunately, not all churches know this. It is a great irony that most congregations have someone called a vicar or pastor but the ‘vicaring’ and ‘pastoring’ is not directed regularly enough towards the workplace.
Rather than despair, I suggest we grab the sheep by the wool and prepare each other to go into the harsh realities of the dog-eat-dog daily round.
It is amazing how many self-help, self-pastoring approaches there are now to this. Before we go any further however, a couple of tips:
Christians want to tell their work story. A huge part of pastoring and preparing each other can be achieved by meeting and telling – without fixing or healing. Just the opportunity to communicate the content of the working week can be a huge relief for many.
Secondly, people seem to tell their stories the most easily when there are listeners who can quickly understand the issues. Put another way, it is people who are working in similar levels, even though they may be in different sectors, who may well prepare each other the most. So meet with senior if you are senior, middle if you are middle and junior if you are junior.
Before you throw your hands up in egalitarian horror, let me concede that of course there is a place for a wide variety of people to meet, but for pastoral support you will need empathy and real understanding.
If you are a pastoral type you may already be caring for others in a variety of contexts. Now is the time to transfer skills along with care.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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