Salt & Light Part 2

I received a letter from a woman who wrote that a year before, she was so heavy that she had to be wheeled into the Y. Her husband would help her change and then wheel her to the handi-cap lift so she could get in the pool. Her letter shared how she can now walk in to the Y and change and get in and out of the pool unassisted. The letter noted that she was more than 100 pounds lighter. She attributed her lifestyle change to our welcome center staff calling her name and encouraging her every time she came to the Y. Basically, she had her life changed because we knew her name. That’s powerful.

As leaders, we can go about getting change out of people by doing the typical external motivational things or we can start to tap into the deeper issues of meaning and significance and the nobility of serving other people. Soon it will become a habit and ripple like a wave onto the people around us.

There is nobility in serving that we sometimes lose sight of that adds meaning and significance to work. Part of what happens to us that hurts a servant mentality is we get our scales out, and we start weighing people according to their job titles in a way that compares and dismisses them. On the heavier side we will put the full time staff, or a CEO, or an Executive. Those people might be more important and have more meaningful work.

Then in our minds, the lighter side of the scale gets filled with other management or serving positions of administrative assistant and receptionist and people behind the scenes. When we do this in our minds and in our behavior, we are operating out of a false economy. We are valuing things very differently than God values them. We would be wise to remember that the person at the front desk, or the person that drives a bus are all part of the meaningful work and part of what it means to serve. When we understand that everyone has meaningful work, our role should be to remind people of how important they are and their job is!