Encouragement

I borrowed this from Mike Benson. He writes a email a lot like mine. I hope you don’t mind reading something borrowed. This was too good to not share.

MARY KAY ASH encouraged her employees at Mary Kay with a an attitude of celebration and blessing...

She signed hundreds of birthday cards offering free lunch and a free movie. She commemorated employees' "blessed events" such as weddings and babies with personal gifts. She put flowers and white tablecloths in the company cafeteria, and perfume and makeup (Mary Kay brand, of course) in the rest rooms. A sign outside her office read "Department of Sunshine and Rainbows." Her credo was "Appreciation is the oil that makes things run." Ash realized that constant verbal and physical demonstrations of encouragement are necessary for the achievement of ambitious goals and to make employees feel truly valued.

THOUGHT: Moses knew the encouraging power of encouragement. When the desert sands seemed unending, when food became scarce, and when internal dissidents threatened to undermine the organization's purpose ("Let's return to Egypt!), Moses reminded the Israelites of their goal, a "land of milk and honey" that truly existed, even if they had never seen it.

Sid

Who Cares?

I grew up in a time when churches cared. We cared about what version of the Bible you read. We cared about whether you had a kitchen in the building. We cared whether you let women participate in the worship service. We cared about your eschatology (the body of religious doctrines concerning the human soul in its relation to death, judgment, heaven, and hell). we cared about whether you were a liberal or a conservative religiously. We cared about which church you attended. Maybe caring is not the right word, but it mattered to us.

Today things are different. We don’t care which translation you read. We don’t care if you have a kitchen. We don’t care if women are involved. We don’t care if your are Premillennial, Amillennial, or Post-millennial. We don’t care if you are a liberal or conservative. And most of all we don’t care which church you attend. Again, caring may not be the right word.

In today’s world we just want you to care about God. I wonder if we have become so accepting of our diversities that we have forgotten to care about what we should care about? It just seems to me that we are to be concerned about what God is concerned about. Novel idea! Scripture seems to be more concerned about impactful worship, holiness, self-denial, service, maturity, and faithfulness. Those are some of the things that we need to be concerned with.

Sectarianism has led us down a path where now we accept almost anything. We need to be accepting of people, but challenge, encourage, and spur them on to be like Jesus. To live for God like they have never lived. Pray, study, and be people of discipline. We need to care. Oh, we need to care. But we need to not make our list, but have God’s list. Help us Father to seek you for we know that you care about us.