In February I completed the Resilience and Well-being in Ministry intensive that Grant Bickerton teaches at Ridley College in Melbourne. Grant is a psychologist who serves with Power to Change Australia.[1] Grant has extended the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model[2] to include spiritual resources and has researched the relationship between spiritual resources and work engagement.
The JD-R model first featured in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology in 2001 and described the dual processes of strain (job demands) and motivation (job resources) associated with occupational well-being. The JD-R thesis is that job characteristics can be classified as job demands or job resources and job resources can moderate job demands. Later research found that personal resources can also moderate job demands.
Grant has explored the relationship between spiritual resources and occupational well-being.[3] His longitudinal study of Australian religious workers found that increased spiritual resources are a predictor of increased work engagement and increased work engagement is a predictor of increased job resources. It also found that increased job resources are a predictor of decreased spiritual resources and decreased spiritual resources are a predictor of decreased work engagement.[4] He concluded: ‘Engagement and increased job resources for religious workers appear to constrict the development of spiritual resources vital to the engaged state itself … The pursuit of job resources in order to reduce skill deficits must be balanced with the ongoing cultivation of spiritual resources if work engagement is to be maintained over the longer term’. His conclusion led me to consider how I have fostered spiritual practices in difficult seasons only to let them slip when the difficult season has passed.
The research measured three dimensions of spiritual/religious experience as spiritual resources: secure attachment to God; collaborative religious coping practices; and a sacred calling to the religious work by God.[5] I have been reflecting on attachment theory as it relates to God. Do I perceive/experience God as a haven of safety and comfort and a secure base for exploration, i.e., is my attachment to God anxious, avoidant, or secure? I have been reflecting on coping styles/practices. Do I passively defer responsibility for solving problems to God (deferral religious coping), do I rely on myself rather than on God (self-directed religious coping), or do I turn to God while retaining personal responsibility (collaborative religious coping). I have been reflecting on calling. Am I doing what I think/believe God wants me to do, i.e., am I living my call?
I have been considering the significance of this for those I mentor. Each have job demands. Each have personal demands. Each have job resources. Each have personal resources. Will I encourage the cultivation of spiritual resources/practices in every season of life? Will I encourage those I mentor to sustain their spiritual practices when work engagement and job resources have increased? Will I encourage them in their calling and where appropriate invite them to reflect on their attachment style and problem-solving practices?
– Luke Morgan (Professional Mentor)
[1] His research interests include occupational stress and the psychology of religion.
[2] https://www.isonderhouden.nl/doc/pdf/arnoldbakker/articles/articles_arnold_bakker_444.pdf
[3] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265297906_Spiritual_resources_in_the_job_demands-resources_model
[4] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263480536_Spiritual_resources_and_work_engagement_among_religious_workers_A_three-wave_longitudinal_study
[5] The article includes the scales and subscales used to measure these.