Start your day by stopping to reflect for 10 minutes. Every Tuesday morning there is a rolling programme of work-based reflections at St Stephen Walbrook (39 Walbrook, London EC4N 8BN). Every 15 minutes between 7.30am and 9.15am, a 10 minute session of reflection begins. These sessions include bible passages, meditations, music, prayers, readings and silence. Drop in on your way into work to start your day by stopping to reflect for 10 minutes.
Bible reading
... a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22. 35 – 40)
Meditation
Research undertaken by Roffey Park in the past, claimed that nearly three-quarters of workers are interested in "learning to live the spiritual side of their values" and 53% are experiencing tensions between "the spiritual side of their values and their work".
Such tension comes when we feel that the values of our faith are not aligned with the values of our organisation. In this situation we feel compromised because we are either not able to be all out for God in our workplace – where we spend a significant majority of our time – or we are not able to give our full commitment to our work and, therefore, are not as fully motivated as we would otherwise be.
It is helpful that, in more recent years, organisations have set out their values and discussed with employees how these are applied in the workplace. That provides the opportunity to consider to what extent our faith values align with the values of our organisation. The closer the fit, the more we will feel able to bring our faith to work by living out our values.
God’s call on our lives is to love him with all that we have; heart, soul and mind. That necessarily means in the whole of our life, including our working lives. Assessing the extent to which our faith values fit with those of our organisation enables us either to give ourselves fully to our work - putting heart and soul and mind into our work because there is a good fit between our faith values and our organisation’s values – or to become aware where the sources of tension in our work and faith are, so we can either seek help in living with those tensions or seek work which provides a better fit and greater motivation.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, who shaped wood as a carpenter, who taught multitudes and who came to serve others, we lift up to you our work and the values which underpin it.
We pray for a good fit between the values of our faith and the values of our organisation. Help us to see where the points of connection of may be and as these are identified, may our motivation to serve you and others through our work increase and grow.
Lord, may we love you with heart, soul and mind as we put our heart, soul and mind into our work.
We pray for any who are experiencing tension between the spiritual side of their values and their work. We ask for confidantes to whom they can talk honestly and openly about those tensions and that ways to lessen those tensions will be found.
Lord, may we love you with heart, soul and mind as we put our heart, soul and mind into our work.
We ask for guidance as we seek to bring our faith to work by living out our values in the way we approach our work and relate to our colleagues and customers. May compassion and service characterise our dealings with others.
Lord, may we love you with heart, soul and mind as we put our heart, soul and mind into our work.
We pray that the way our organisations do business will benefit others, through the products or services we provide, the way these are delivered and their broader impact on society. Enable us to be a positive influence within our organisations by seeking to live out its values to the best of our ability.
Lord, may we love you with heart, soul and mind as we put our heart, soul and mind into our work.
May we love you, Lord God, with all our heart, and soul, and mind this week as we put heart and soul and mind into our work. May your values inform all we do, say and think within our workplace and in the rest of our lives. May that blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rest upon us and remain with us always. Amen.
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Ēriks Ešenvalds - O Salutaris Hostia.
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