When God Goes to the Office

March 10, 2008

Author: Maya Dollarhide

Source: CNN/LifeWire

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/worklife/03/10/religion.at.the.office/

Rob Skinner did not expect to find a chaplain in the office when he started his sales job at Piedmont Air Conditioning in Raleigh, North Carolina. "I was a little worried because I didn't want God shoved down my throat," says Skinner, 38, a self-described liberal Christian.

Turns out Dwayne Reece, from the nonprofit, nondenominational Corporate Chaplains of America -- which provides Christian chaplains for companies that request them -- offered encouraging words instead.

Piedmont had hired him after the death of an employee, and it worked out so well, he's been visiting for nine years.

"Having him there really makes you feel that the company cares," Skinner says.

Religion, like sex and politics, once was considered inappropriate watercooler talk. Not anymore. Prayer sessions, religious diversity groups and chaplains like Reece, along with rabbis and imams, have become more common across corporate America in the past decade.