Businesses Get Spiritual Boost In Cutthroat World, Meetings Remind Christians To Value People Over Capital

Twice a month, some of the Spokane area’s most powerful executives meet to discuss business and the Bible.

The group, which includes the presidents of companies such as Tidyman’s and Telect, is one of hundreds of small gatherings popping up among white-collar workers throughout the Inland Northwest.

“People don’t feel you can be a good businessman and a good Christian,” said Tidyman’s President Jack Heuston.

The emergence of these groups is a sign of the changing roles of both business and religion, said Rich Lang, co-founder of Workplace Connections, a network representing more than 450 Spokane businessmen and women and created to “nurture the soul of business.”

“We live in a meaner world,” Lang said. “There is a tremendous amount of stress involved in daily work.”

Issues such as balancing work and home life, corporate downsizing, rapidly growing technology and a shaky economy make everyone feel vulnerable at work, he said.

At the same time, the country has become increasingly secular. Christians often find it hard to live out biblical values at home, let alone in the workplace, he said.

The typical religious business group involves six to 15 men, said Lang, who teaches at Whitworth College and runs Lay Ministries Northwest, an organization dedicated to strengthening Christians.

The first groups were conservative and evangelical, Lang said. Now, they often involve a broad range of ideologies. Mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics have been more likely to get involved in the last two years.

Most groups are dominated by, if not exclusive to, men. But women are getting involved now, too.

“Conservatives are just now com ing to grips with the role of women in the workplace,” Lang said. “And it’s not because conservative Christian women aren’t in the workplace. Reality is they are just as present as anyone else. And they are just now figuring out how to help each other out.”

More than schools or even churches, businesses will affect society in the future, Lang said. He worries that as middle-class jobs disappear, America will become a society of haves and have-nots.

“It’s in our enlightened self-interest to practice a high level of ethics,” he said. “The middle class provides a buffer of civility in this country.”

So it heartens Lang to see people such as Telect founder Bill Williams and Tidyman’s Heuston participating in Bible studies.

“We find a lot of direction in the Bible as to how you should act toward people and the type of example you set,” said Heuston, who employs more than 1,300 people. “In fact, any good businessman operates by the same principles.”

The misconception is that people who operate by Christian principles are somehow soft or too nice. In fact, it’s just the opposite, Heuston said.

“Of all the people in the world who are firm and have precise direction, God is one of them,” he said. “And he wants his people to be that way, not backing down on things that are morally wrong.”

While he always has believed in God, Heuston, 59, said his faith has been strengthened in the last six years. Now he realizes he can’t separate his beliefs from his professional life.

Roger Smith, president of Teknon Corp., said God may be the only hope for businesses trying to survive. His company, formerly Teledynamics, wires corporations all over the country for computers, telephones and other technology. He started with two employees in 1982 and now employs about 400 people.

“I believe it is much more difficult to make a profit these days,” he said. “We are in a very competitive and cutthroat business. But I believe that God has protected us.”

Smith and his senior management team meet once a month for devotions and Bible study. Three times a week, they exchange messages of encouragement - often from the Men’s Devotional Bible - by voice mail. And 20 managers from the company attended a recent Promise Keepers conference along with Smith.

“You can’t separate business and your walk with Christ,” Smith said. “They are one in the same.”

As the business world grows more competitive, many see Christian businessmen and women as the last shot at bringing corporate America back to valuing people over capital.

“It’s got to be about more than the bottom line,” said Williams, co-founder and owner of Telect, a fiber-optics company that employs about 600 people. “You go through your life and you establish an objective for every day, a value system. For my wife and me, that has been the Christian lifestyle.

“If you are just in it for the profit, then you would sacrifice anything to obtain that,” he said. “For us, we are in business as Christians. One of the results is profitability.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: Group health Workplace Connections, a network representing more than 450 Spokane businessmen and women, was created to “nurture the soul of business.”