Customer Service and Christian Love

As many of you may know, I do a lot of leadership reading, as well as reading to improve myself.  All of this in addition to the regular educational reading I do.  (Yes, I am admittedly a nerd, and not afraid to be one.)  One thing that I see a lot in leadership reading is the thought of customer service.  I'm sure you have heard the phrase, or one similar to it.  "The customer comes first" or "The customer is always right."  Reading through sales research, it's often highlighted that the best salespeople don't sell you the product they want to sell, but the one you want to buy.  Yes, I know that seems like a fine distinction, but it's also a very important one in the area of sales.

That got me thinking about how this could possibly relate to our life in Christ.  A good salesman looks to see what is of interest to the customer.  The good salesman looks beyond his/her own ego to see things from the customer's eyes, and then attempts to see what he/she can provide that satisfies what the customer is looking for.  To put it succinctly, the best sales people try to discover what the customer is looking for, and then works to find something that fits best with the customer's need or desire.

This echoes Christian love to some small extent.  (Yes, I know a few of you may take exception to me comparing Christian love with sales, but please bear with me on this.) As Christians, we look to put aside our own wants and needs to serve others.  Just read Philippians 2 if you want to see an awesome example of this.  We look not to our own interests (in sales terms, not to sell what we want to sell), but to the interests of others (again, in sales terms, to see what truly matters to the customer, seeing things through their eyes).  We do what is right for the other, not what we wanted to do for ourselves.

Now, every example is going to always fall short, and this one is no exception.  We don't "sell" Christian love to another with the ulterior motive that we want then to become Christian.  Of course, our hope and prayer is that they will see our caring action toward them and then question why we would put their needs over our own, or they will wonder why we were so interested in them and in their life, why we wanted to make sure that they received what they needed.  Yes, we hope that we will have the opportunity to share our hope in Christ Jesus with them and see them come to believe in what He has done for them.  But, and here's the kicker, we aren't caring toward them in order to do that.  We care for them because God created us to care for one another.  If we are kind and caring toward them with the hope of their conversion, we are basically utilizing another (poor, I might add) sales tactic, called bait and switch.

In conclusion, Christian love seeks to find what is of meaning and need with the person with whom we are relating, and then doing it.  We do it without any expectation in return.  Their response is in their hands, and is guided by God and His Spirit.  That is ultimately what grace is.  Giving with no expectation in return, and then pleasantly thankful when there is some response, such as an opportunity to share Christ's forgiveness and hope, or even to say that we did it because God first cared for us in such a way. 

Dependence: Good, Bad, or Neither?

Think about phrases that describe our North American lifestyle.  Some old ones are along the lines of "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps", "Never let them see you sweat", and "You can only rely on yourself."  Still today, you hear phrases like, "If you want the job done right, do it yourself."  In other words, the sentiment is still very strong out there.  You cannot rely on others, you should only rely on yourself.

A word that is often used to sum up this idea is "independent".  Independent means that you don't have to rely upon others.  You can do what you want, the way you want, in the time that you want.  This is contrasted with being dependent.  The idea of dependent is that you cannot do anything without relying on others.  To take it to extremes (which some do), it means that you are incapable of doing something without the assistance, direction, or motivation of others.  You are incapable of accomplishing it yourself.  To many, there is a very strong aversion to dependence. 

I've seen this aversion to dependence in a variety of ways over the years.  You get someone who is recovering from illness or surgery, and they have to rely on someone to tie their shoes, or help get dressed for example.  They almost seem embarrassed that they need such help, even if it is understandable, given their circumstances.  Yes, I recognize that this is a fairly benign example, but you get the idea.  We see it with parents whose children fail to leave home during or after college, where they are often viewed as dependent (with a negative connotation toward the idea).

The question we are asking today is this.  Is such dependence, while perhaps not normal for our culture, biblical?  Paul uses the image of the body, a multitude of parts that all rely upon one another, working in coordination.  Eyes do not function on their own, but as a part of the overall body.  The same is said for ears, the brain, the spine, the legs, the arms, etc. The body, as a whole, simply cannot have one part exist independently of the rest.

Yet, we also have examples from the Bible of the need to be a functioning part of the body.  Paul would also say that the worker is due his wages.  If someone refuses to work, then they should bear the consequences of such inaction.  This creates a tension.  We are to rely upon others, but at the same time, we are also to do the "work" given us to do.  We are dependent on one another as members of the body and as members of society, and yet, we are each also expected to fulfill the roles (work) that God gives us to do.  Because of our redemption in Jesus, we do this now out of love for neighbor rather than as a means of pleasing God, but the point is, we DO it.

I would dare assert that we spend much time trying to be overly independent.  That means there are times when we must give way to our independent instincts and allow others to serve us, just as we are also to serve them in their needs.  Yes, it means putting aside our pride and dying to ourselves, but those are held up as good things throughout God's Word to us.  Just as Jesus put aside His own needs to serve others, we do the same thing as redeemed, baptized children of God. 

As an end note, I realize that this is a fairly specific use of the word dependent that I am using for this post.  There are other uses of the word which I am not addressing in here where dependence is not a good thing.  But overall, what I most would like for you to take away from this is that we actually could stand to grow in our reliance upon others, seeking to put to death our self so that we are open to others serving us, just as we want to serve them and pray for them to be open to it when we see their need.

Book Review: The Vibrant Workplace

Book Title: The Vibrant Workplace, by Paul White

In many workplaces, employees may feel unappreciated by their bosses, their department, or the overall organization.  They feel as though they are not valued, as if they are replaceable, and much of this may be tied to a lack of appreciation shown toward them.

In The Vibrant Workplace, Paul White builds upon the 5 languages of appreciation (these build off of Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages) to describe how a workplace can grow in appreciation for one another.  He describes how the lack of appreciation often leaves workers feeling unmotivated and undervalued, often simply putting in the minimal amount of work necessary.  Programmatic approaches to rewarding high achievers has not sufficiently demonstrated appreciation to workers, and in fact, often come across as impersonal, actually serving to deepen the problem.  In response, White offers an approach of genuine appreciation which serves to retain and motivate employees.

Utilizing research done in these areas, White also describes how to approach the different types of appreciation to which workers respond.  While some, such as physical contact, must be handled with caution, the point White primarily emphasizes is for management to realize that the expressions of appreciation must be genuine and fitting for each worker.  While the manager or boss may have his/her own manner of expressing appreciation, he/she must strive to discover how best to demonstrate that appreciation appropriately for each worker.

White also goes into some depth to emphasize the need to make such an approach something which is incorporated into the overall culture of the workplace.  Mere random acts of appreciation potentially  could be seen as lacking genuineness, and thus be more harmful.  Rather than changing everything about how appreciation is shown, the emphasis is instead placed on starting with one or two items and then making them more natural.  This applies not only to upper management, but to all workers, regardless of their station in the organization.  Anyone can begin showing genuine appreciation in appropriate ways and begin to change the culture of the workplace.

I highly recommend The Vibrant Workplace as a means to build up the workplace environment.  Regardless of your role in the organization, creating a starting point of building appreciation can only help a workplace that lacks genuine appreciation.

Friday Randomness

Sometimes you have so many things floating around in your mind that you just have to release them all at once.  Each one may not get the full attention it calls for, but each one has some level of importance in how your mind processes things.  With that said, a few random things that have been floating around in my mind recently.

-God's work of forming us as His people never stops while we live in this world.  We may be eight, or eighty-eight, but God continues to form us.  Yes, the work of redeeming us was done once and for all with Jesus' death and resurrection.  The work of re-creating us doesn't stop in this world as long as the sinful flesh still lives.  When we start to think that we have little left to learn, we're now resisting God's work of re-creating us.  Doesn't take us out of the realm of salvation, but definitely hinders our walk in Christ Jesus.

-It's amazing how quickly we catch on when we repeat things.  My family typically prays the Lord's Prayer each day together, at some point.  Even when my son was young, I would say the Lord's Prayer, Apostles Creed, and the Evening Prayer to him to help him sleep.  Now, not quite three, he knows the whole thing.  My daughter, a couple of years older than him, knows many verses, prayers, and songs because we repeat them.  The Small Catechism's emphasis on repetition exists for a reason, folks.

-That said, I'm also amazed how some people react to songs or hymns that repeat verses or choruses.  One criticism about some "contemporary" (I actually don't really like that word, but don't have a better one to use) songs is that they simply repeat the same thing over and over.  Yet, then the repetitiveness of things like Bible verses and the Small Catechism are emphasized.  It would seem that repeating things in song would also be a good thing.  Sure, they can have more depth, but there is a place for repeating even simple thoughts about God.

-Way too often in this world, we get caught failing to listen.  This plays itself out in many ways.  Sometimes we listen only to catch something upon which we can build our rebuttal.  That isn't actually listening.  Sometimes we make issues about something else (i.e. kneeling for an anthem in protest of racial injustice then being construed as though it's anti-military), and we fail to listen to what those others are saying with whom we disagree.  Rather than being reactionary, it's usually much better to simply shut our mouths, open our ears, and then proceed with respect and kindness.  Outrage, social media posts, and the like typically through fuel on the fire rather than serve to achieve reconciliation.

-With that said, it's amazing how much we simply want to be proven right.  The definition of sin that I learned in my theology classes is that of the self turned in on itself.  When we find that we want to be proven right, and we want to have others know how right we are, we have turned in on ourselves, and could potentially be making ourselves out to be god.  For sure, we are failing to love our neighbor as we should when we simply want to prove that we are right to them.

-We are a society still fascinated by sexual issues.  Recent revelations of sexual assault and harassment show that there is nothing new under the sun.  This has been a problem since Adam and Eve chose for themselves instead of following the Word of God.  God's Story is replete with stories of sexual sin, despite the fact that God Himself spoke about that quite often.  While it is good and right that we speak against such practices, I don't hear the desire to bring forgiveness, restoration, and reconciliation to the situations.  Most often the sense is more, "I want so and so to pay."

Well, that is a rather full post.  Since I haven't been posting regularly lately for a variety of reasons, some of these have been rattling around for some time.  Perhaps in future posts, I'll spend more time on them, but for today, they just come out shotgun style.

The Place Where Hope Ends

In my Christian tradition, every year we work through a cycle we call the "Church Year".  It starts in late November or early December each year, as we hear the promises of God sending a Savior into the world.  The first major celebration is the birth of Jesus, followed by His baptism, His transfiguration a few weeks later, His death and resurrection, His ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.  Then we focus on the continuing work that God does as the message of Good News in Jesus goes forth through the world.  Then, as November rolls around again, we anticipate Jesus' promise of reappearance, to usher in the new creation to His faithful people.

You may have looked at the title for this entry and wondered about it a bit.  "The Place Where Hope Ends."  That's not a place that we typically think that we want to be.  We want to be somewhere that hope abounds.  We don't want to think about hope ending.  After all, if hope ends, so do our dreams, our reason for pressing on.  We don't want to think about what would cause our hope to end, with the expectation that it would be painful, a dark place with no escape.

In a sense, that's true.  During our lives in this world, hope is a precious commodity, something that can give us strength even in the weakest hours.  We hope for a better life.  We hope for a better marriage, a better family, a better life situation, a better future.  If those hopes come crashing down, we mourn and weep because we have lost the thing that keeps us going.

Yet, there is a place where hope ends, but all things actually are better afterward.  That is the place and time when Jesus reappears in this world.  For those who have put their flickering trust in Him as their Redeemer and Salvation, hope ends, and gives way to reality.  A new creation, in the world that He kills and burns and then makes new.  Hope ends in the furnace of His judgment and His glorious presence, but for those who have cried out to Him, that ending actually leads to something better than before.  It leads to a place where we are with Him forever, and where nothing separates us from Him.  It's a place where the messiness, ugliness, and brokenness of this world are gone, and we are introduced to a place where none of that will ever have any effect on us again.

The place where hope ends starts with Jesus' cross, because there we see the price that is demanded.  The place where hope ends starts, for us personally, when we are touched by the water and God's Word, where God kills, but God also makes alive.  The place where hope ends, for us all, is that moment when God the Father declares that it is time and sends forth His only Son to be Judge and Redeemer, eventually to turn all things over to the Father once more.  For those who are sealed to Jesus through grace, through baptism, and through His Word, hope ends, but it actually ends to an improvement far beyond what we could ever hope for.

Book Review: Night Driving, by Chad Bird

In our day and age, many people who write about their personal journeys do so either to excuse their actions, to explain why they did what they did with an eye toward gaining more understanding for their actions, or simply to show that what they did wasn't really all that wrong.  There is none of this in Chad Bird's "Night Driving".  Even as Chad takes the reader through his personal journey, he utilizes his story to focus on someone else's story, that of our God who reveals Himself in Jesus, the Christ, who redeems lost, broken, fallen, sinful people.

Throughout his story, Chad presents his story in a way, not to gain sympathy for himself, but to show how God can truly reach into the darkest places of our broken, sinful lives, and redeem us.  His story then serves as a springboard to share so much of the message of good news in God's redemption through Jesus, and truly points to the vital role and importance of God's grace, an element of God which is sorely missing in many Christian circles today.  The scandal of grace is the very point which seems to drive Chad to write his story, linking it always back to the unfathomable grace that God has shown to His people.

Personally, there are many parts of Chad's story that resonate deeply with me.  As another Texas born and bred boy, I have followed some of the same steps.  Study at a seminary, serving in a congregation as a pastor.  I have even shared some of the goals of one day teaching and molding minds, though I came to a realization that such an outcome simply was not reasonable for me.  And while they may be different, the seductive whispers to fall away resonate strongly, and cannot be ignored.  I believe one powerful aspect of Chad sharing this story is to promote a much more open discussion and forum for talking about such things and looking for strength and support in them, rather than pridefully presenting ourselves as though we are unaffected.

Another aspect of Chad's book that would call for specific attention is how God's people react to those who are revealed as sinful among them.  As he quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it's truly saddening that we act so surprised when we realize that a true, honest to God sinner lives among us.  His story shows us that the Church's reaction to fall back on the law often brings so much more harm to a soul that is already hurting and in need of grace.  The need for grace to infiltrate throughout the Church, and especially when we realize that there really are darkly sinful people among us, is a loud call to which we would be wise to listen.

If you are looking for a story that will ultimately make you feel good about yourself, this is not the story for you.  However, if you are looking for a story that shows that God does indeed bring redemption, even into the darkest, lowest of places, then this is the story for you.  In fact, in reality this is the story of every single on of us.  Few of us are bold enough to share it with anyone who would read, much less let our story point to God's great Redeemer, our Lord Jesus.  For this, I cannot recommend "Night Driving" highly enough.

Book Review: The Myth of the Millenial

Recently I obtained a copy of "The Myth of the Millenial", by Theodore and Chelsey Doering, church planters outside of Austin, Texas.  As millenials themselves, they take a look at what is often though of millenials by other generations, and then dive into why so many of those generalizations and stereotypes may be true, as well as how these stereotypes are often found in other generations.  They also then bring very helpful suggestions in how these different generations can lovingly deal with one another, especially with the Gospel message being at the heart of what needs to be communicated.

Essentially, I would summarize what the Doerings say in just a couple of phrases.  The first phrase would be to "respectfully listen."  Listen to hear what the other person is saying, whether Millenial, Gen-X-er, Boomer, or others.  Listen, not to make your next point, but to hear what they are saying.  Listen, but as you listen, listen respectfully.  Don't automatically negate what they say by responding with stereotypes.  Show respect that they have lived their life, and that life has created questions and experiences that have impacted who they are, what their struggles are, and how the Gospel message can impact them.

The other phrase that I would use to summarize the book would be "apprenticeship", or "be a mentor."  Yes, that phrase can go both ways, as we never get too old to keep learning.  There are many things that the older generations can pass along to the younger, but it proves largely beneficial to do so in the context of a developing relationship.  Starting out by simply making efforts to get to know one another is a huge step toward being able to pass along what you have learned.  Also, as part of that, be willing to learn from what the younger generations have learned, from their experiences.  They also have much that they have done and experienced that can be of benefit to the older generations.  Ted and Chelsey bring these points out repeatedly throughout the book.

Overall, one of my best takeaways from the book is to have an intentional focus on developing relationships, no matter what generation.  This is just as important for older generations as it is for younger generations.  It is in the context of relationships that deep, meaningful conversations can take place.  We often place a higher priority on what people say to us when they have taken the effort to get to know us better.  We are often more able to hear the hard truths that they bring when we know they care about us, and want to maintain the relationship, and are looking out for our good.  The beginning of that relationship is often accomplished through respectful listening, which can lead to being a mentor to each other.  All in service to our Lord Jesus, and His message of good news.

I recommend this book highly, especially if you have a desire to connect with other generations, especially those younger than you.