c. 1997 Religion News Service

MOUNT JOY, Pa. _ Employees of the family-run Country Table Restaurant describe it as a wholesome, markedly Christian workplace.

Still, like any thriving restaurant, it can be a pressure-cooker for employees during peak hours. And few who work there have the luxury of retreating to a quiet space when tension flares, or when personal woes beset them.

“We’re certainly not problem-free,” said Reba Buckwalter, who owns Country Table with her husband, John, and John’s son, Judd.

“We know that when (the employees) walk through the back door, they’re carrying a lot with them.”

With this in mind, the Buckwalters decided earlier this year to hire chaplains to minister to their workers. They took on three part-time chaplains through Marketplace Ministries Inc., a Texas-based company that has placed chaplains in more than 270 workplaces across the country since it was founded in 1984.

While many companies offer employee assistance programs that focus on mental and physical health, a growing number of businesses now offer their workers spiritual counseling.

Gil A. Stricklin, founder and president of Marketplace Ministries, which has blazed the trail of workplace pastoral care, said his company is trying to foster compassion.

“The four-letter word that I like to use in the workplace is love,” Stricklin said. “Some hard-charging businessmen would never use this word. But there should be loving, caring, in the workplace.”

People spend perhaps 60 percent of their waking hours at work. “Work does not have to be miserable,” said Stricklin, an ordained Baptist minister who worked for a time as a special assistant to evangelist Billy Graham.

Stricklin said his chaplains are professionally trained and often have secular work experience, as well as backgrounds in ministry. They take a nondenominational approach and are expected to be able to serve people of all faiths, as well as those with none. Typically dressed like the rest of the work force, the chaplains signal their role merely with a special badge or maybe a hard hat emblazoned with a cross.

The corporate chaplains are called on to do everything from weddings to burials to seminars on personal development. They also offer confidential counseling to employees and their families.

For these services, a little business with 20 or so workers will pay $100 a month, while a big one with a staff of 10,000 has a monthly bill “in the six figures,” according to Marketplace Ministries.

Workers at some companies initially are disconcerted to learn a minister will be in their midst, “until they realize we’re not coming there to push religion on them,” or to find out if they are cheating on their spouses, or to be management spies, Stricklin said.

Gary D. Heinke is Marketplace Ministries’ chaplain coordinator in Pennsylvania, and also serves as chaplain at Country Table and four other firms in the area, including Weaber Inc., a sawmill in nearby Lebanon County. He is happy to work with both the willing and the wary.

A former Navy chaplain, Heinke said he has experience working with people of all religious persuasions.

“Most people, regardless of what faith background they have, they’ll utilize you because you’re here,” Heinke said.

“We’re not carrying a Bible when we come into the workplace. We’re not twisting their arms to make sure they’re attending church. … Your faith allows you to be there at their level of need.”

Galen Weaber, owner of Weaber, signed on with Marketplace Ministries earlier this year. His sawmill employs about 500 people.

“It’s just a wise decision to take care of your people,” Weaber said.

If, for instance, an employee goes through a divorce, “you literally almost lose them for two or three years up here,” he said, tapping his head.

Weaber, a conservative Christian, is convinced the Bible _ as opposed to secular counseling _ holds the answers to human problems.”How many psychology books are out there? Do they agree with each other? … This (the Bible) is the only one I know that works. It’s time-tested.”

For all his strong beliefs, however, Weaber said, “I don’t go out there preaching in the workplace. And I don’t allow others to.”

He told his employees the chaplain program is for their benefit.

“No one has to use it,” Weaber said. “That door is there. If (they) want to knock on it, it’s there.”

MJP END RNS