In continuing my blog post series on my big WHY, I want to share how some of my experiences in my corporate job impacted my to create His Kingdom Matters.
I remember a mission to encourage team building and build morale. I have organized many of these events over my 25-years in corporate and they are always fun and rewarding. One of my favorites was a scavenger hunt that we organized throughout the city of Louisville. We piled into several cars and competed as we made our way from the office to the home of our amazing manager that was grilling lunch as we arrived.
One year, I was asked to help increase team spirit and my first thought was to use one of the company benefits. An easy way to go about this was to take advantage of the 12-hours of paid time off per year to volunteer. As I organized this and prepared the communication to our team, I drafted a list of volunteer activities as examples for employees to rally together and serve the community. In the past, we had built a home for Habitat for Humanity, pulled weeds for a local park, built garden boxes for local families, and painted classrooms. It’s a great way to leave the office and have fun as a team.
Instead of sending the message out, I was told that I could not make such a list because they were all Christian organizations. I needed to find non-Christian places for the employees to devote their time to. My frustration with this response was that the list was an exhaustive list of all the volunteer opportunities in town. It was not a selective list of church related activities. The list included organizations like the homeless shelter, the senior living center, United Way, and the Salvation Army. As a general rule of thumb, most places that are ministering to others are Christian by default. Unfortunately, this became a lost opportunity as the leaders of the organization would not allow the message to be sent.
I am curious about your experiences. Have you received pushback from your organization when trying to do something good because they misconstrue the motive or are in search of a hidden agenda? How did you handle it?
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