The following article is reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, October 19,1995

Tackling Workplace Problems With Prayer

By Matt Murray
Staff Reporter of
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Over breakfast on a weekday morning, Dick Horn quietly unburdens himself to a half-dozen acquaintances in a downtown Pittsburgh restaurant.

His workload is too heavy, he says. Two friends have cancer. Busy weekends with his family are getting overscheduled. How do I deal with that but, still maintain a balance?" asks Mr. Horn, a thin, fortyish vice president and general counsel at Health America Pennsylvania Inc., a managed-care company.

His tablemates offer no answers, but all agree to pray for him. They pray, too, as they finish their meal and prepare to head to work: "Lord, thank you for this time this morning."

Welcome to a weekly meeting of The Pittsburgh Experiment, a 40-year-old Christian ministry whose mission field is the workplace. This breakfast group is one of about 40 groups of Pittsburgh workers that meet regularly in restaurants, conference rooms or living rooms. Under the direction of a layperson drawn from their own ranks, they discuss their jobs and personal concerns at sessions that are part prayer meeting, part support group.

"It is an opportunity to be yourself and to share the weekly joys and struggles of your life in an open and confidential setting that you certainly don't find in the workplace and often you don't at church," says Kerry Fraas, a lawyer who has been attending a Thursday lunch group since 1978.

Members say the need for organizations like The Experiment has become greater in an age when corporate compassion seems to be drying up and job security is rising. Layoffs, takeovers and ever increasing workloads frequently dominate discussions. Over the years, members have included steel executives downsized out, laid-off bank employees and people relocated their firms.

"Paternalism is absent in corporate America today," says the Rev, Gregory S. Hammond, executive director of The Experiment and a former small-business man. "With the gap that exists between employees and management, where does one turn? One has to turn outside the corporation.'

But perennial concerns-office politics, marriage, aging parents-also have been a staple of the groups since the early days. Sometimes members come not because of a crisis at work, but because they have found something hollow at the core of success. Mr. Hammond says, "The classic Experimenter is a person in his middle 40s who is asking the question at the end of the day, 'Am I happy with my life where it is now?""Businessmen are very pragmatic and practical, but what they're finding with downsizing is change in the corporate world is nonstop and it's escalating," says Robert J. Tamasy, director of publications for the CBMC. "This has helped many people say, 'If I can't trust in business, where can I find an anchor?' "

Unlike some groups, The Experiment does no proselytizing and takes an ecumenical approach: Its ranks have included Jews, Hindus, even atheists. Workplace groups sometimes use company space for their meetings, but they meet quietly, without posting notices. Members say the light touch is part of its appeal. "It's not a Bible study any more than it's a hymn sing," says Mr. Fraas.

Mr. Hammond and his secretary, the only paid staff, work out of a cramped, five-room office in downtown Pittsburgh. The nonprofit ministry raises all its money from contributions, mainly from individuals, a handful of local churches and several foundations. Advertising is simply word-of-mouth.

Over the years groups have been formed to meet special needs. One consists of corporate women, another solely of workers at Westinghouse Electric Corp. That group has written a "Prayer for the Workplace," which thanks God "for this workplace and the livelihood it provides to our many associates and families."

Though The Experiment is meant only to supplement its members’ churchgoing, many longtime Experimenters see it as a key component of their religious lives. James D. Roy, who joined in 1965 at his father-in-law's urging, credits his group with seeing him through a crisis in 1987, when he was fired from a senior-level post at Mellon Bank Corp. by new management. Members' constant calls, prayers and advice proved essential, says Mr. Roy, who eventually was hired as president and chief executive of Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh. "Without these guys that were kind of showing me in the flesh the Christ that I believed in, I don't know where I'd be," says Mr. Roy, now a director on The Experiment's board.

At Dick Horn's meeting, the talk, set against the backdrop of clattering plates and Muzak, is rather serious. Each member takes a turn to speak, while others scribble down prayer requests in thick notebooks.

All listen intently as Tony Plassio, an accountant struggling to build a consulting business, worries that his faith is slipping away. "I probably need to have an Experiment gathering twice a day, let alone once a week," he tells the group. He says he no longer feels a need for God, but adds, "That's a cold thing to say. I don't think God particularly likes that attitude. I need to refresh myself."

Then Suzanne Eynon speaks of her worries about aging parents, Ms. Eynon, a registered nurse and medical legal consultant, has just moved her 91-yearold mother-in-law into a nursing home.

Later, she reflects on the void she feels whenever she has to miss a meeting. "It's the support, the love," she says. "God is with you, truly, through other people."

Reprinted by permission of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, @ 1995 Dow Jones and Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

The ministry continues to be a spiritual resource and inspiration to business and working people in Pittsburgh, as well as other cities throughout the country.

This article appeared on the front page of the MARKETPLACE section of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL on Thursday, October 19, 1995. The Pittsburgh Experiment celebrated 40 years of ministry to the city of Pittsburgh in February of 1995

The Experiment grew out of lectures that Samuel Moor Shoemaker, the pastor of Pittsburgh's Calvary Episcopal Church in the 1950s, used to deliver at the Pittsburgh Golf Club. He founded the group with Ben Moreell, then the chairman of Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (now LTV Corp.). Though downsizing wasn't even on the horizon and steel was still going strong, the two men were worried that the young businessmen they had met were drifting away from church as they found success. The organization's goal: "To make Pittsburgh as famous for God as it is for steel."

Over the years, The Experiment hasn't been the only ministry to tie Christianity to the workplace. In Richmond, Va., Needle's Eye Ministries Inc. holds monthly luncheons, seminars and retreats for working Christians. Its executive director, the Rev. Buddy Childress, founded Needle's Eye in 1977, shortly after quitting his salesman's job to attend a seminary.

Fellowship of Companies for Christ International Inc., based in Atlanta, supports only chairmen and chief executive officers, on the theory that they can talk most freely to one another. And the oldest such group, the Christian Business Men's Committee, of Chattanooga, Tenn. started during the Depression. Today it has some 16,000 members and is still growing.