There was a young company that had been doing quite well within its division of the world market. It had had been expanding its employee base for the past 30 years. Yet the interesting thing about this company was that its employee base was all relatives and lifetime friends of the CEO. Each employee had been grandfathered in and trained by someone in the family. Now this was actually a very good thing for the company. It had contributed to its rapid rise to success in the past 29 years. However, the company was becoming quite large and the complications of internal affairs were of a very ingrown nature. It was becoming more and more obvious to everyone in the company that the health of the company rested upon new hires from the outside.
Now, throughout the years, the company had made available new hire applications to the public, in case it wanted to hire on a dime. However, these applications were distributed in a pick-up box near the front door of the company. Needless to say the box was quite neglected and there was a deposit box beside it for the return of the completed applications. Yet, the dark secret was that the CEO himself took care of the deposit box. When nobody was watching, he took all the carefully prepared applications, tore them up for good measure and threw them in a bin in the dank basement of the company’s headquarters.
So, there was an internal meeting and the very next day the company opened an H. R. office for the first time. Then they proceeded to hire the first person that walked into the waiting room with a completed application. To make a long story short, the new hire added to the distress of the internal family affairs and worse robbed the company until she was caught and fired. To hire so quickly was a stupid move and the company realized it. It also realized it was yet incapable of processing potential new hires and following through to the successful integration of a good candidate.
Meanwhile, the waiting room of the H.R. office filled slowly with new potential employees. They left their applications and rang back for follow-up interviews. The H.R. office politely took their applications and filed them in a filing cabinet. They took the calls and politely gave as much information as was appropriate and accurate. Some of the applicants were persistent. Others just left their paperwork. Yet the CEO worked night and day studying employee hiring processes. He even organized a task force to help his employees participate in the process with consultants in the business. He knew that a new hire from the outside was vital to the health of his company. He regretted the torn-up dank applications in the basement. But he could do nothing to salvage them now. Yet he had faith in the future of his company, in the policy changes he had proposed and the efforts of his taskforce, H.R. office and ultimately in the employees he had not hired or identified yet.
If anyone can discern the particular meaning this parable has for me—you deserve a prize. But if the general message is potent enough for you—that is more than great.
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11 comments:
Sounds like the Bjork video for Batchelorette that I showed you. Sometimes we get caught up in our own stories, but it can't go on forever.
It sounds like a bishop, I mean CEO, in an offshoot church, I mean corporation, who wants to run things according to his own personal agenda, rather than doing what is morally correct for the church family, I mean corporation.
Job applicants and workers will become disgruntled and disappointed, and will form their own offshoot church, I mean corporation.
History tells us that new church, I mean corporation, will follow a similar path of the original corporation, and the cycle will repeat.
This parable could also be taken to refer to a blood family with unmarried children, with potential suitors applying for available openings.
Do I get a prize? =)
Only the All-Mighty Creator and Supreme Ruler of the Universe is perfekt.
Fear. It has the ability to propel us forward or it has the ability to paralyze us. If we allow fear to paralyze us, we no longer experience change. When we no longer experience change we cease to grow. The biological definition of death is lack of growth. Thus, when we are not growing we are dying. When we are not changing we are dying. Paralyzing fear is death. It does not really matter WHY we are afraid, it only matters that we ARE afraid. When humanity realizes that it is paralyzed by fear and no longer chooses to discount and dismiss 'outsiders' because of this fear, then growth happens: in our hearts, in our minds, in our neighborhoods, in our cities, in our countries and in our churches. Do you allow fear to paralyze you or propell you?
Pastor M
Being ingrown is likely my biggest pet peeve—actually, it’s more than an irritant. It often sustains and escalates serious damage to organizations, self, social groups, people groups and churches. Being caught in your own story is one way of expressing the rampant narcissistic phenomenon of today—deification of personal ingrownness and self-absorption. I shudder at the thought of it. It’s incredibly ugly.
As for awarding prizes—Mr. Ms. anonymous got the closest. I would award you my unadulterated delight. However, when it comes to awarding prizes—no one ever awards the prize to anonymity. Imagine, the Olympics, “...and now we award Ms. anonymous the gold medal.” They place a coatrack on the platform and hang the gold medal on it.
Pastor M.
Good sermonette on fear…
I’ve always been in intrigued by the charge of fear, that runs through the body. It makes one acutely alert. I don’t know if someone can be addicted to that feeling but I have this weird attraction to it. Standing on the precipice of retreat or plunging headlong into something you fear more than anything thus far encountered puts one at the pinnacle of terror and elation at the same time. Fear and fun are emotions that stand next to each other. Think of it—why do people go to amusement parks. Before any speaking engagement, any project deadline, character development exercise, there is a point where I encounter a realization that utter failure is completely possible and success is completely dependant upon my actions. I want to die. I want to be sick. I want to do anything but take the plunge. BUT I grit my teeth and take the plunge.
"For me it’s maybe a little like writing mild profanity on the employee application of a church (er, I mean corperation)…"
Is mild profanity a sin or a shame? Healthy shame leads to humility, which is supposed to be a good thing.
But why do we become so ingrown into worldly ways, and considered verbal descriptions of nudity and God-given physical characteristics to be profane? Are not all babes born unclothed, as their Creator intended them to be? Adam and Eve were influenced to clothe themselves after exposure to the Devil. They did not clothe themselves out of righteousness.
"These two posts will self destruct soon after you read them. Look at it this way. I don’t ever cry over a little spilt milk but I do wipe it up—otherwise, it might stink after a few days."
Censoring truthfulness that conflicts with our ingrown belief structures? Is that the path to outgrowth, or continued ingrowth?
As for filling out an employee application for a corporation, we need to remember that corporations are legal fictions, which conflicts with literal truth. They are a figment of the imagination. To apply at a corporation would be to endorse the lie of the existence of the corporation. Is it righteous to support a falsehood?
The concept of one submitting an application to a church makes no literal sense, unless the church rejects the New Testament, and still operates under Old Testament teachings. Under New Testament doctrines, God is within us. We no longer need a church organization as a bridge to reach Heaven.
Do we apply to a church, or are we the church when we gather with another?
Please sr. mdm. anonymous
Last time I used humour this time I insist. ...no further down this road.
Do whatever you will, say whatever you will elsewhere. These are my boundaries. I have my reasons. (The remnants of one of those reasons remain on this blog somewhere)
I don't want you to say those things to me nor do I want anyone else on here to read them. You can whine and complain and throw a fit or argue. Or you can recognize I won't budge.
The Good Book teaches that a good tree does not produce bad fruit. A bad tree does not produce good fruit. We should examine the fruit to determine the state of the tree.
I believe that if one perceives innocent comments about nudity and birthmarks to be profane or lewd, it is because their mind is full of indecent things. The core of their tree is rotten.
I believe that we should try to cull out the bad parts of our personal trees. Refusing to budge allows the rotten ingrowth to contaminate further.
Do with your tree as you wish. I believe your Creator will judge your fruits when he makes his harvest.
Your reaction only reinforces the stereotype that so-called followers of Christ produce bad fruit.
...like I said...please no further. That is all. I truely did assume innocence. I enjoy the response but can we please stop now? It was a simple request--that is all. No more no less.
That is all for me. Enjoy your evening.
The agony of being in a hopelessly ingrown church, business, or non-profit is matched by few other agonies. Yet there is a point at which one must draw boundaries against predators. This line is one which forward-thinking leaders must define, all the while knowing they will be challenged on either side. And where is that line? I don't know.
Please understand. I am not trying to be erratic in my monitoring of what gets printed on this site. I don’t allow things that are offensive to Amish Mennonites and I make a valiant attempt to not allow things that are considered inappropriate to “the mainstream.” You seem most confused by the things that are offensive to Amish Mennonites. Making boarderline to gross sexual comments and references to indecency is very offensive to Amish Mennonites. The level of offense is about as potent as making racial slurs. There are a number of Mennonites who read this and I don’t want to subject them to unnecessary offense. My mom occasionally reads this blog. I love my mom. And my mom loves me and often worries about me. She has ten children she has “let loose” into the “big scary world”—the back yard in which you are quite comfortable in. I am marginally comfortable in it. I know more-or-less how to navigate it. But my mom is not comfortable in your back yard. In fact she is terrified in your back yard. But she has just let 10 of her children loose in your back yard. Now, when she comes on here and reads some of the things people are saying to her child—offensive things. She believes she has reason to worry profusely about the well-being of her child. Then multiply that by 10 and you’ve got yourself a basket case. Recently, my mom has been having “health issues.” She’ll have these “spells”—30 seconds of something between fainting and disorientation. The doctors have no explanation for it. Medically, my mom is in good health. Nobody knows what is wrong. A month ago, my mom went to a Mennonite women’s conference where she was cared for, prayed for, loved and encouraged in a language and manner she understood. Someone counseled with her about her fears and concerns. She didn’t have any of those spells for about a week. Then she began to worry again.
Now because I love my mom, I will stop someone from saying things that will offend her or give her reason to worry. I will also stop someone from saying things that are offensive to “my people” I will also request that someone not speak untruths and curses into me as well. I find certain language offensive. Language is powerful. I believe we speak that which does not yet exist into existence with our words. We reflect our Creator when we name a thing or speak life or death into a thing. We either draw a person into a good place or a bad place when we paint pictures with our words.
This is my blog. I take responsibility for it. I aim to cultivate life here for good things and death for bad things. If you take issue with by judgment of that which is good and that which is bad, please express yourself and perhaps there can be a discussion.
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