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Ministry
bridges gap between the Almighty,quest for almighty dollar
This
article was in The Lancaster Sunday News on November 14, 1999,
in the Business section.
by
Helen Colwell Adams
Sunday News Staff Writer
Most
Christians go to church on Sunday and to work on Monday, David
Miller says, "and never the twain shall meet."
It's
a gulf he's trying to bridge.
Miller
knows about having one foot on either side of the divide.
He's a
doctoral candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary, but
not so long
ago he was an investment banker in London, "doing mergers
and
acquisitions and cross-border finance deals."
And
enjoying it.
"I
love the cut and thrust of the business world, all its challenges,"
he says, rocking gently in a chair in his mother's Lancaster
home. "I
felt my calling was to be salt and light in that world.
"It
was as much a surprise to me as anyone when I began to discern
gradual whispers, as I call them, or tuggings in my prayer
life _ things
that would jump out to me in sermons.
"...
I sensed God was wanting to make a change, which was much
to my
chagrin _ Hello, God, I'm very happy here, what's wrong with
this
picture?"
Miller's
new calling, as described in last month's Parade magazine,
is
to minister to the business world, to help executives and
average
workers learn to integrate job and faith in a way that doesn't
happen in
most people's lives. With some more divine intervention from
a Chicago chief executive officer, Miller has formed an institute
to study and promote that work/faith connection.
"I
sometimes use the metaphor that I'm a linguist," he says.
"Now my
first language is business speak and business talk, and the
world of P&L
(profit and loss) is where I'm at home. And now I'm learning
God talk.
"... I'm a bridge person, moving in and out of these
spheres, the world
of God talk and the world of money talk or business talk."
The
need for such a bridge, Miller says, became evident as soon
as he
began informing friends and business associates that he was
giving up
his career as a banker to enter seminary.
"The
reaction of people as I began to tell them _ after they picked
their jaw up off the ground _ was amazing," he says.
"I thought a lot of
people would sort of mock, or sneer ...
"I
had just the opposite reaction _ people saying, "Wow,
I've got to
talk to you. I can't talk to my priest or my rabbi or my minister;
they
don't understand my problems in the business world; they don't
understand quarterly pressures; they don't understand having
to lay off
500 people, or whatever the issue; they don't understand that
life isn't
black and white; there are some ethical choices that sometimes
are
tricky.' "
Most
ministers and priests and rabbis, he says, just aren't trained
to
deal with the business world.
"There's
a huge disconnect between Sunday and Monday," he says.
"It might be a powerful sermon, and you go gosh, that's
great. OK, now
I go back Monday, and my boss is a jerk and my colleague is
stealing
credit for my work _ what's my Christian faith say about this,
or is it
indifferent?
"Most
of us are sort of compartmentalized."
Yet
the Bible, Miller says, is a guide for business ethics.
"As
I study the Bible more and more, I wouldn't call it an economics
manual, but it's all about the marketplace, it's all about
the world of
commerce and trade and how people survive.
"If
you read it through that lens, it's incredible how much the
Old
Testament and the New Testament have to say about behavior
in the
marketplace and ethics _ fair trade, fair weights and measures
and
justice, not ripping people off and honoring your pledges
and paying
your debts and not charging exorbitant interest rates _ in
other words,
not taking advantage of someone when they're down."
How,
for instance, do Christian teachings on compassion apply when
an
executive has to lay off workers? Miller notes that while
furloughs
aren't compassionate to those losing their jobs, they may
be
compassionate toward the remaining employees whose jobs are
saved by the cutbacks.
"I've
come to observe that when you really recognize there's a tension,
it actually can be very creative. You can get new ideas, as
opposed to
being in denial about it.
"I've
heard some people say, "There's no conflict between my
faith and
my work.' Like, yeah, right, what planet are you on? ... I
think for the
majority of people, they struggle."
Lancastrians
who read the Oct. 17 Parade magazine may not have realized
that the David Miller of Key Biscayne, Fla., photographed
knee-deep in
the water in a story about career-changing clergy, is the
son of
Lancaster community activist Peggie Miller.
David
Miller, now 42, was already at Bucknell University when the
family moved to Lancaster from New Jersey in 1977. But he
credits a
former pastor of Lancaster's First United Methodist Church,
the Rev.
Charles Scott Kerr, with being a spiritual mentor.
Kerr,
who married Miller and his wife, Karen, 20 years ago, helped
to
lay the foundation for Miller's switch into ministry.
"God has a funny sense of humor," Miller says.
First
there was the call in 1995 from life as a partner in a private
investment bank in London, and his wife's life as a lawyer
and law
professor, and their Georgian home in Hampstead, to move into
married
student quarters at Princeton. (The Millers also have a home
in Key
Biscayne.)
Then
there was the pull to enter the seminary's doctoral program
in
social ethics _ he has another two or three years to go _
after Miller
got his master's degree in divinity.
Then,
as Miller was beginning to wonder how his ministry to the
business world would take shape, there was the man from Chicago,
Bill
Pollard, CEO of ServiceMaster, who had heard about Miller's
work in
leading retreats and teaching seminars on business and faith.
Pollard
asked what Miller intended to do once he finished seminary.
"I said, my dream, I think, is to start up a foundation,
an institute
that would be 100 percent focused on working with men and
women in the
business world, to help them see these connections between
their faith,
or for some people, helping them to find their faith.
"...
And he laughed and pulls out of his desk a "straw man,'
a white
paper he had written, a 15-page paper with an idea for an
institute."
It's called the Avodah Institute, a Hebrew word that sometimes
is
translated in the Bible as work and sometimes as worship.
"The
old Israelites got it right, that work rightly done could
be a way
of serving God and worshiping God, and work wrongly done could
become a form of idolatry or problematic, just like anything
else in life,"
Miller, the president, says.
"And
when I saw it, I said bingo, that's the name."
Avodah
will conduct forums and seminars, sponsor academic research
on work and faith and underwrite other groups' efforts in
the same field.
And
it will work toward building that bridge between Sunday and
Monday. "The whole week," Miller says, "is
sacred."
For
information on the Avodah Institute, phone (609) 924-8244;
e-mail
to: DavidMiller@AvodahInstitute.com
or visit the Web site: www.AvodahInstitute.com
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