Here’s a big takeaway from a new study by CAFO published in the Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion:
Working in an organization branded as “faith-based” doesn’t appear to make much difference for a person’s life satisfaction or resilience. However, serving in a Christian organization that values and actively engages practices of spiritual formation and soul care does make a difference — and a significant one at that.
Of course, that shouldn’t be a surprise. Christianity in name only doesn’t do much for people. Held up merely as a “brand” or vague spiritual notions, it may even harm us — from the hypocrisies this can spawn to the ways that shallow faith inoculates people to the real thing.
But an earnest faith lived out in tangible daily habits helps to nurture health in every aspect of life…even when things are very hard.
These findings are consistent with an array of recent studies that report high correlations between committed faith and well-being. For example, the groundbreaking Global Flourishing Study finds that an actively-practiced faith is among the factors most correlated to better health in every domain of life that the study examined. Other studies have uncovered myriad distinct benefits connected to devout faith also — from charitable giving, volunteerism, and other civic involvement, to foster care, adoption, and other service to children and families, to marriage health, psychological wellbeing and resilience, and countless other outcomes that benefit not only individuals but their wider communities as well.
The CAFO study is unique in examining whether there is a link between practices of Christian spiritual formation within an organization and the resilience and well-being of the people serving there.
We drew from a survey of more than 250 child welfare professionals across 19 countries.
Previous research confirms that people serving in child welfare face elevated risk of burnout, compassion fatigue, and diminished life satisfaction. These personal struggles, in turn, can spill into everything from high staff turnover to reduced care for clients. The study found that these risks did not appear to be notably different whether a person served in a “secular” or “faith-based” organization.
However, when employees observe that their organization actively and practically encourages and supports them to engage in tangible spiritual practices like prayer, worship, studying Scripture, and intentional solitude that ground us deeper in the life of God, employees’ markers of resilience and satisfaction with life proved measurably higher, and rates of burnout and emotional exhaustion were lower. Put simply, engaging spiritual practices within an organization drives resilience and well-being.
We’ve seen this to be true within the CAFO team, too. Ask any staff member and I think they’ll tell you that our shared practices of Christian spiritual formation cultivate a deep-down health that affects every part of our lives — from perseverance and enjoyment of serving, to marriage and family, to mental wellbeing.
These gifts don’t come just from Christian branding. As Jesus expressed, it is the person — and the organization — that not only hears his instructions but “puts them into practice” that builds their life on the rock. Storms will come — in our child welfare labors and in every realm. But a house with a foundation like that has resilience to withstand the worst.
If we’re leading a Christian organization, we have good reason to be every bit as intentional about these internal commitments and practices as we are about our external mission. Why? Because success in the latter will always flow from the former.
We nurture the spiritual life and whole-person health of our teams first as an act of love — because we deeply care about them. But we also do it knowing that it is truly essential to long-term effectiveness and productivity as an organization. As Jesus put it, healthy trees will produce good fruit.
Interested in exploring further?
Explore these links below:
The study itself: “Organization Spiritual Support, Burnout, and Well-being in Child Welfare Settings”
The study infographic: How Spiritual Support at Work Can Prevent Burnout and Improve Well-Being
CAFO’s Spiritual Formation Calendar, which includes a formation practice each month and simple ways to engage it together.
CAFO’s Strategic Plan for Thriving Souls, which lays out our vision for cultivating the whole-person health of the team and specific plans for doing so.
