All I can say is wow.

I found this on UCCTruths.com. Quite amusing.

~Shane

March 2, 2006

Ooops... Sometimes it's not God that's speaking

St. James UCC of Limerick PA recently had a bible quote on it's web site in a banner above the "God is Still Speaking" logo which said... "If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine" (Luke 4:7).

Unfortunately, the quote is attributed to Satan in his temptation of Christ. The quote has been removed and there's a note about it on the site:

For those of you who were kind enough to inform us about our previously inaccurate quote...we thank you! We were recently made aware that the former quote we had posted in the header on our site was actually not based on the word of Jesus but was a quote posed to him during his temptation. As soon as we were made aware of this we removed the quote from our site.

Store conversations

Sometimes I overhear customer conversations.

OK, I don't do it on purpose, it just happens.

So, a 24 year-old was looking at some music, and his phone rings.

"Hey, did you know that Blindside has a new album?
Yeah, it's called The Great Depression. You do?
Wow, you're way ahead of me. Hey, can you hook me up?
OK, I'll be over in 10 minutes."

End of conversation.

This guy puts the CD down that he was about to buy, and leaves the store to go to his friend's house to claim his brand spankin' new illegal copy.

This is not a good situation... for us or for the artist. We lose. They lose.

And the person making the illegal copy, and in doing so breaking the law, sins. And they lose.

What else can I say?

~Shane

I've been thinking about love.

OK, so it's February, and the topic of love comes up a lot this month. But that's not really why I've been thinking about it. I heard about a bookstore that also has a cafe (one of the few cafe's in town). Starbucks moved into their town. Engaging in a little friendly retail combat, this bookstore decided to advertise on a roadside billboard. The advertisement said something like this -

"So, what's coffee without love? (Store Name)"

I laughed when I heard this.
But for some reason, I kept thinking about it.

In the meantime, I've been listening this week to a CD from CBA Independants Day, January 2006. There was a panel of store owners talking about their strengths, differences etc. The moderator asked the panel if they read the book, "The Myth of Excellence" and asked the panel which area they excelled in: price, product, access, experience, and service. Most of the panel said that they excelled in experience. They also talked about what made their stores different, and I was hearing a lot of neat ideas. But there was no talk about loving the customer.

So, what's a book without love?
or
So, what's a Christian Bookstore without love?

I serve my customers every day, but not always out of love.

The past couple of days, I've been trying to serve my customers, and love them. I think I've been inspired by Father Tim, from Jan Karon's Mitford series. This guy isn't perfect, but he is always serving and loving. Even when he questions himself and his motives, he's still serving. And, he loves the people he serves.

I've been asking myself, "what does it look like to love a customer?"

One thing I've decided is that I should try to limit multitasking when helping a customer - they get my full attention. This is, for the most part, pretty difficult for me. When I'm in mulitask mode I'm still thinking about what I was working on while I'm pulled away from it. Instead of being totally present with a person, I'm mentally partially there, and partially somewhere else.

I've been reminding myself that customers need and deserve my full attention, so I'm able to serve and love them fully (they have, after all, made time to go out of their way to come visit the store) .

I'd like to say more, but I have to go help a customer.

Shane