Let’s ‘plunder the Egyptians’ to strengthen church

Insights from business

I have become a regular reader of the Harvard Business Review. Usually each issue contains something that sparks my interest and the ques-tion: How can we apply this insight in the life of the church?
The October issue contains the article “Manage Your Energy, Not your Time” by Tony Schwartz. He says that most people in the workforce are working 12-to-14-hour days, feeling perpetually exhausted, sleeping poorly, making no time to exercise, seldom eating healthy meals and feeling guilty that they have no energy to fully engage with their families in the evenings.
Most of us respond to rising demands by working longer hours, which leads to increasing levels of distraction, frustration and soaring medical costs. Schwartz believes that the core problem with working longer hours is that time is a finite resource.
Energy is a different story. Energy comes from four main wellsprings in human beings: body, emotions, mind and spirit. Schwartz enumerates ways in which major companies are investing in their employees’ well-being.
I am glad that our annual conference is invested in the wellness program with Methodist Healthcare Ministry. We are actively promoting healthy practice among our clergy members and lay employees. I hope that all our clergy members and lay employees took advantage of the latest health screening.
Here’s another good insight from Schwartz:
”One simple but powerful ritual for defusing negative emotions is what we call ‘buying time.’ Deep abdominal breathing is one way to do that. Exhaling slowly for five or six seconds induces relaxation and recovery and turns off the fight-or flight response.
“When we began working with Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe, he had a habit of lighting up a cigarette each time something especially stressful occurred—at least two or three times a day. Otherwise he didn’t smoke. We taught him the breathing exercise as an alternative, and it worked immediately. It wasn’t the smoking that gave him relief but the relaxation prompted by the deep inhalation and exhalation.”
We Christians have known that for years in our practice of Breath Prayer. The Breath Prayer is an ancient prayer of the church. You breathe in, saying “Lord Jesus Christ,” and breathe out saying, “Have mercy on me.” Interesting that this breath exercise has become good business practice!
The second thing from Schwartz I want to highlight is his suggestion about promoting positive emotions. He says, “People can cultivate positive emotions by learning to change the stories they tell themselves about the events in their lives. Often, people in conflict cast themselves in the role of the victim, blaming others or external circumstances for their problems.
“Becoming aware of the difference between the facts in a given situation and the way we interpret those facts can be powerful in itself. It’s been a realization for many of the people we work with to discover they have a choice about how to view a given event and to recognize how powerfully the story they tell influences the emotions they feel.
“We teach them to tell the most hopeful and personally empowering story possible in any given situation, without denying or minimizing the facts. The most effective way people can change a story is to view it through any of three new lenses, which are all alternatives to seeing the world from the victim perspective.
“With the ‘reverse lens,’ for example, people ask themselves, ‘What would the other person in this conflict say and in what ways might that be true?’ With the ‘long lens,’ they ask, ‘How will I most likely view this situation in six months?’ With the ‘wide lens’ they ask themselves, ‘Regardless of the outcome of this situation, how can I grow and learn from it?’
“Each of these lenses can help people intentionally cultivate more positive emotions.”
I think that this exercise is what Christians have done in prayer for centuries. Included in Schwartz’s article is an interesting inventory entitled, “Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?”
My prayer is that we can “plunder the Egyptians” (using Wesley’s term for stealing the best practices from the secular world) to strengthen the Church of Jesus Christ.