{"id":4449,"date":"2025-03-04T09:11:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T14:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4449"},"modified":"2025-03-04T09:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T14:11:15","slug":"living-the-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/04\/living-the-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

Can you identify the company that is represented by the following mission statement?

Many people know this company well.\u00a0Here is its mission \u2013 minus its name and primary product:

\u201c_________________Incorporated provides its customers quality ____________ products and the expertise required for making informed buying decisions.\u00a0We provide our products and services with a dedication to the highest degree of integrity and quality of customer satisfaction, developing long-term professional relationships with employees that develop pride, creating a stable working environment and company spirit.\u201d

Feeling inspired? Is this a place where you\u2019d like to work? Have you guessed its identity?

That\u2019s the mission statement of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

That would be the fictional workplace of NBC\u2019s classic sitcom The Office<\/em>, now enjoying daily resurrections via reruns.\u00a0

The mission statement, of course, is a joke.\u00a0According to the series storyline, Dunder Mifflin is incurably dysfunctional. It\u2019s actually rather funny that the comedy writers played it straight and composed a mission statement that reads like so many of the thousands of real-life statements that purport to guide workplaces all over the world.

Fans of The Office <\/em>can only laugh in painful recognition.

\u201cYeah, we\u2019ve got a mission statement just like that,\u201d say more than a few American workers.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s framed and hangs in the elevator and is routinely ignored by leadership and rank and file alike.\u201d

Mission statements are cheap.\u00a0But living missionally is costly.

One corporation that\u2019s endeavored to practice what it preaches is Nordstrom, the retail giant that has a reputation for extraordinary customer service.

For years, the Nordstrom Employee Handbook was just a five-inch by seven-inch card.\u00a0Here\u2019s what was printed on the back: Nordstrom Rules:\u00a0Rule #1.\u00a0Use your best judgment in all situations.\u00a0There will be no additional rules.<\/em>Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.<\/em>

That was it.\u00a0

Nordstrom decided to trust its associates.\u00a0And those employees have consistently thrived in an environment where they have been free to use their own best judgment.

One shopper liked a particular sweater.\u00a0\u201cBut I think I just saw it at another store for $10 less,\u201d she sighed.\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s OK,\u201d said a Nordstrom associate.\u00a0\u201cYou wait here and I\u2019ll go buy it for you.\u201d\u00a0While the customer drank a cup of coffee, the salesperson drove to the other store and bought the sweater. Then she put it into a Nordstrom bag and sold it to the customer for the lower price.

One of Nordstrom\u2019s goals is to create \u201ca memorable experience\u201d for those they serve.\u00a0That was a memorable experience.

A pastor I know trudged into Nordstrom feeling uneasy.\u00a0He was wearing a blue blazer he had bought there a year earlier.\u00a0But the blazer had never really been a good fit.\u00a0And now it had some wear and tear and not a few pieces of lint.

\u201cNo problem,\u201d said the Nordstrom employee.\u00a0\u201cWe have an unconditional money back guarantee.\u00a0Please pick out another blazer.\u201d\u00a0I don\u2019t remember exactly what he said to the store associate.\u00a0But I do recall that he later concluded, \u201cI sure wish the church treated me more like Nordstrom!\u201d

Nordstrom\u2019s vision is to become \u201ca place where service is an act of faith.\u201d

Management has proclaimed that too many rules, protocols, and over-regulated channels of communication tend to erode employee incentive.\u00a0Or as one observer puts it, \u201cBecause they don\u2019t have many rules, you don\u2019t worry about whether you are breaking any.\u201d

This is grace.\u00a0Not law<\/em>.\u00a0Service.\u00a0Not obligation<\/em>.\u00a0

Make no mistake:\u00a0Nordstrom\u2019s leadership is not starry-eyed. One leader admits, \u201cIt was never that we were so great, it was just that everyone else was so bad.\u00a0We know that at this moment, someone, somewhere is getting bad service at Nordstrom.\u201d

But the company has gambled that if a service culture is put into place, and rigorously reinforced, great service will happen more often than not.

Wouldn\u2019t it be great to be part of a cause that has an awesome mission statement (which it actually takes seriously) and empowers its members to use their \u201cbest judgment in all situations\u201d?

Welcome to the Jesus Movement.

The mission, which can be gleaned from a variety of New Testament texts, is simple and powerful: To know Christ and make him known<\/em>. Our call is to be lifelong learners of everything Jesus said and did, and to invite others to do the same.

Are there rules? Just two of them, in the end: Love God and love others.

This world-changing mission is to be reinforced on a daily and weekly basis in hundreds of thousands of local \u201coutlets\u201d called churches, where Christ-followers are to be reminded that they are loved, forgiven, called, equipped, and empowered by God\u2019s indwelling Spirit to serve the world as the hands and feet of Jesus.

I know, I know.<\/em>

That probably doesn\u2019t sound very much like your church. All too many congregations have succumbed to the temptation to burden their members with countless rules for serving God \u201cthe right way\u201d \u2013 some of them written, many of them not. It\u2019s a guarantee that at this very moment someone, somewhere, is being mistreated, misled, or misunderstood by a spiritual leader.

But that doesn\u2019t change our mission statement \u2013 God\u2019s call to be disciples who make more disciples.

Yes, most church members wish they were treated a lot more like Nordstrom. It\u2019s easy to rattle off mission statements. It\u2019s infinitely harder to actually live the mission.

But buoyed by Jesus\u2019 own promise that he will always be with us (Matthew 28:19-20), we can do it.

Even if we look up at church one Sunday and discover that Steve Carrell is the guest preacher.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Can you identify the company that is represented by the following mission statement? Many people know this company well.\u00a0Here is its mission \u2013 minus its name and primary product: \u201c_________________Incorporated provides its customers quality ____________ products and the expertise required for making informed buying decisions.\u00a0We provide our products and services with… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[873,419,872],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-great-commiission","tag-mission","tag-mission-statement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4451,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions\/4451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}