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SfK Ministries
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Newsletter - August 2017
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
Business as Service...
Business as Service
An excerpt from The Missional Entrepreneur by Mark
Russell
Jesus said He “did not come to be served, but to serve”
(Matthew 20:28). This act of serving is one of the greatest virtues of the
Christian faith and is expressed in numerous parables, teachings, and
commandments. Paul encouraged his readers to “serve one another in love”
(Galatians 5:13). In the context of work, he told employees to “serve
wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord and not men” (Ephesians 6:7).
Peter said we should use our gifts “to serve others” (1 Peter 4:10). He
encouraged church leaders to be “not greedy for money, but eager to serve” (1
Peter 5:2). John reminded us that our ultimate purpose is to “serve God”
(Revelation 1:6; 5:10).
Serving
people is a foundational Christian teaching. Jesus taught what has been called
the Golden Rule: “Do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matthew
7:12). Serving people, by treating them the way we desire to be treated, tends
to produce reciprocal action. If you treat people right then they will tend to
treat you right. Furthermore, there is an internal liberation that occurs when
we serve others that strengthens us and makes us better equipped to deal with
the challenges of life.
As
previously defined, a business is an organization that creates and/or
distributes goods and/or services and relies on financial profit for survival,
success, and expansion capability. Although profit is a controversial aspect of
business, it is also an indication that business is effectively distributing
its goods and services. If society does not want or need these goods and
services, then this is reflected in the related loss of profits to the
business. This causes the business to respond and adapt, either serving its
people in a meaningful way or closing shop. Business cannot survive much less
thrive if it is not serving people. Service is a way to imitate the Creator. As
C. William Pollard, former CEO of ServiceMaster, writes in Serving Two Masters? Reflections on God and Profit, “We seek to
honor God as an end goal and
recognize that growing profitably is a means
goal.”1
Though
society needs many different activities, including many that are not
profit-oriented, the profit mechanism ensures that businesses are at least
serving some people. Profit should not be the guiding rule of thumb for all
organizations, but it is an effective tool in many cases for business. One of
the weaknesses of many nonprofit and faith-based organizations is that they do
not have internal feedback mechanisms to properly evaluate if they are truly
serving their constituents. I have consulted with several nonprofit
organizations and churches that had no idea if they were effectively serving
their people. They had no built-in system to determine that. Many even rejected
the idea that they should develop such a system, preferring to “trust God.” But
if we really want to serve people and serve them well, we need to have a means
of determining whether or not we are achieving this goal.
However, it
should be noted that just because a business is making a profit does not mean
that it is truly serving people. It could be manipulating them, exploiting
them, or providing them with a destructive product, like drugs, pornography,
and the like. There is also the issue of the production of perceived needs
through advertising. Unfortunately, many businesses attempt to make consumers
believe they need a product that they really do not. This has been a criticism
of many pharmaceutical companies. As one medical doctor told me, “The medicine
with the most life-saving potential for people over 50 is aspirin. Look through
all your news mags and pore through all the full-page ads for expensive drugs,
but you will see none for aspirin. If pharmaceutical companies were interested
in people’s heath, they would put out big ads for aspirin, but since aspirin is
cheaper than dirt, they don’t try to sell it.”
Obviously,
businesses need money to survive but to fulfill their spiritual mission
businesses should seek to serve the most people as effectively as possible.
This means that when inexpensive means exist they should not falsely create the
perception that a more expensive and less effective item is needed. This is a
disservice to society.
However,
for a legitimate business to make a profit, it must serve people. This is
beneficial to society and can be an authentic spiritual act. Serving people
aligns us once again with the way the Creator designed us to be. Functioning in
accordance with our created design not only has personal benefits, but also
benefits society and increases the effectiveness of human activity. Service is
an inherently spiritual part of business. The benefits of a service orientation
for business are widely acknowledged.
Of course,
a pastor or theologian may be tempted to critique business in this regard
saying that the acts of service are diminished because they are done in pursuit
of profit. Clearly the heart’s intent of a person’s actions does have spiritual
consequences. If a person habitually engages in seemingly righteous behavior
for personal monetary gain, then that person needs to be corrected in order to
live an authentic spiritual life. However, serving people to increase
effectiveness and the productivity of a business should not be perceived as wrong.
Rather it is authentically spiritual because it is a natural way that business
aligns human activity with our original created design.
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