Practicing Balance: How Congregations Can Support Harmony in Work and Life
David Edman Gray
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Work-life imbalance is a problem that has personal, national, and religious implications. Millions of Americans sense that they are rushing through life and that their work and non-work lives compete with one another. Many of us are harming our health through overwork. David Gray’s Practicing Balance demonstrates why congregational leaders should take work-life imbalance seriously. The issue gets in the way of spiritual development, church attendance, and member involvement. As leaders look to help their congregations grow, particularly by attracting families with children, they would do well to understand and account for the problem.
If you are struggling with finding balance in life, this book can help. Practicing Balance contains ideas and experiences that can help church members and all people develop spiritual practices for a healthy life. It tackles the time crunch challenges that are threatening so many families. It can help Christians realize God's calling for their life and how the way they use their time and set their schedules can draw them closer to God. For anyone interested in the fields of work life and work family, this book breaks new ground in discussing how people of faith are and can be involved in encouraging balance and in addressing the structure of American workplaces.
Through his experience reading the social science research, listening to people’s struggles, studying theology as a pastor, and dealing with his own work-life imbalance, Gray has come to believe that increasing workplace flexibility and deepening individual spiritual practice are two of the most important solutions that can help Americans, particularly Christians in congregations, live a balanced life. Gray shows how members of congregations, acting both individually and collectively, can use the resources of their faith to implement these two solutions.
Practicing Balance will help all of us make balance a higher priority and draw on the resources of our faith as we seek to balance the many activities of our life.
Praise for the book
"This book on religion and work-life needed to be written and must be read. David Gray offers profound redefinitions (the real balance is between activities that deplete versus enhance our energy), insightful questions for reflection, and extremely helpful advice about how religious practices can make us live calmer and more purposeful lives."
—Ellen Galinsky, president, Families and Work Institute and author of Mind in the Making
"David Gray’s work is not just a handbook for the new generation of American Church leaders, he offers us a refreshing testimony to the way spiritual practice and flexibility can ensure the high wire act of balancing work inside and outside the home becomes—truly—a closer walk with God."
—Chloe Breyer, executive director, the interfaith center of New York; associate priest at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in New York; and author of The Close
"For increasing communities of American culture, religious life is overwhelmed by secular busyness and complexity. Families hungry for faith are struggling to survive the flood. David Gray sees this silent tsunami and offers a lifeboat of ancient practice to carry church leaders forward to a faith filled habitable land."
—Gareth W. Icenogle, pastor, the West Side Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, New Jersey
About the Author
David Edman Gray serves as head pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD and director of the Workforce and Family Program at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. when he is not trying to stay balanced chasing his four small children.
ISBN# 978-1-56699-430-9
Alban No. 430
paper
2012
In stock
$17.00
($13.60 for members)
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