I volunteer on the board at my church. In November 2010, I was going to resign. I even told my Pastor I was doing so. I think I blogged about doing so as well.
Two months later, I rescinded the resignation. A few things changed my mind…
- The first is that I was letting my ego do the talking. Things were getting uncomfortable at church and I wanted the easy way out.
- Quitting shows a lack of courage and I know I’m not weak minded. In some situations, winners do need to quit. For example, on 1 episode of Dragon’s Den, I watched as the investors admonished a business owner who continued to invest her father’s money in a business that was no longer successful. “Your business is your drug and the addiction has to end,” said one of the Dragons. In my case, quitting the Board would mean that I was giving up BEFORE I even had a chance to do what God had put me in that position to do.
- More importantly, I was telling God that His house just didn’t matter to me. A colleague of mine highlighted this point when he told me that in the marketplace, I have a following and I do great work for my clients. Yet at church, he sees no evidence of this “greatness.” In other words, my ministry inside God’s house didn’t reflect the powerful ministry I have in the marketplace.
Then, I stumbled upon Haggai 1:2-10 in the Bible. Like, who reads Haggai? I mean, can you even find that book in the Bible? You can’t even flip to that book in the Bible because you may just miss it.
Well, somehow, thumbing through the Bible, I stumbled upon Haggai and here’s what stood out (I’m paraphrasing):
I (Leesa) was clothed and yet, I didn’t feel warm. I (Leesa) had food, but I still felt hungry. The reason? I wasn’t giving back my skills to God’s house, to God’s ministry. In essence, I was stealing from God the very giftings He blessed me with simply because I was ignoring the shambles in His house.
I know, that seems pretty harsh, but I truly believe that that was the case.
So, I started to take God’s house more seriously by doing one specific thing – I added my volunteer tasks to my working schedule during the workday and treated it just as seriously as any other client on my schedule.
In other words, I started to treat my church as one of my clients.
After just 30-days of taking care of God’s house with the giftings He blessed me with, here are the wonderful things that have happened in my business:
- A colleague gave me complimentary access to one of her training programs after I asked if she took PayPal. A totally unexpected gift.
- I was given access to the recordings AND transcripts of all the speaker sessions of an event I spoke at after asking for access to only my own. This was an unexpected gift.
- After buying access to a training program, the trainer gave me her personal email address to send any questions I may have about what I learned. Again, totally unexpected.
- I got a $20 gift card to one of my favourite coffee shops from a colleague who wanted to share her gratitude about some work I did for her recently. Salted caramel hot chocolate here I come (but not this week because I’m on a sugar cleanse).
Trust me – I don’t go into any situation expecting people to give me stuff. But these small acts of kindness by my colleagues, friends and business partners show that the Principle of Circulation is working so powerfully in my business right now (I first heard that term – Principle of Circulation – from Reverend Karen Russo on a teleclass she did with Therese Skelly).
I know that God is happy that I’m giving to His house. As a result, He can give to mine.
What areas in your business are stalled right now? What’s not moving? What small changes can you make to jump start the Principle of Circulation in your business? What small things can you do now to give of your time or money?
