Thanks a Lot, Church

I work in the printing industry. If you know anything about the printing industry, you know that it is a pretty rough industry. Printers are not known for being choir boys. I've been told that there have been studies conducted that show that the printing industry has the second-highest rate of alcoholism, and I believe it. Alcoholics, drug users, felons, wife-beaters, pain pill addicts - all very common. I've worked with them all at one time or another. I work with many of them still. It's really a pretty profane industry. You don't usually find that a high percentage of people working in the printing industry are Christians. Not that I have come across, anyway. It's tough sometimes, being a Christian in an industry such as mine. And I'll tell you what makes it even tougher - churches.

Everyone I work with knows where I stand. They know that I am a Christ-follower. They know that I am active in my church. They respect that fact, for the most part. And while many of them may be messed up in one way or another, they are still basically good guys. But they do need Jesus. And, because I like these guys, because they are my friends, I want to help them find Jesus. It can be tough being the only Christian, or one of only a few, in a workplace full of non-Christians. You see, I am one of the only people representing Christ that many of these people know, and they watch me. They watch to see how I handle certain situations, they watch to see how I act or react in certain situations, they listen to how I speak when I am mad or when I am stressed. Sometimes it feels like I let them down, like I let God down by not representing Him as I should. I am human. I make mistakes. I say things I shouldn't sometimes. I react in ways I shouldn't sometimes. But for the most part, I think I do a pretty decent job at being different, of setting an example for these guys. And then the church comes along and screws it all up.

We deal with just about every kind of company imaginable. We do work for banks, schools, insurance companies, car dealerships, hospitals, retail stores, advertising agencies, non-profit organizations, government agencies, musicians, authors, sports teams, etc. Name an industry or an occupation. I'm sure we do work for at least one person or company in any industry you can think of. And, oh yeah, we do work for churches. And I wish we didn't. I could get my co-workers to buy into what I am trying to talk to the about, about Jesus, if we didn't do work for churches.

You see, of all the companies, organizations, and industries we do work fro, churches are by far the worst. They are the most demanding, the most unreasonable, the most condescending, the most rude, and by far the most cheap. Churches are notorious for asking us to produce the most unreasonable jobs in the most unrealistic time lines for the most ridiculous low price. Standard turnaround time of 5-7 days? Not good enough for the church. They want, no, they demand, it in two days. For no other reason than that we are a church, they represent God, their work is more important, so we should drop everything else and cater to them. But guess what? The people I work with don't care who you are or what you represent. You are just another job on the schedule.

The church really needs to be careful about the people they have representing them to those outside the church. The biggest jerks we have to deal with are people who represent churches. Make a mistake and mess up a normal customers job and they might get made mad, but they usually realize that these things happen from time to time, and as long as you correct the problem and make things right for them, it's okay. Make a mistake and mess up a job for a church and they go ballistic 95% of the time. I'm talking absolutely ape-poop mad. They take it as a personal assault on them and they lash out. They yell, and scream, and threaten to take their business elsewhere (churches make that threat more than anybody else). They show you none of the grace, mercy or forgiveness that the church is supposed to stand for. And it is always a good thing to roll-up to the print shop for a press check in your $70,000 Escalade and proceed to treat everyone in the building like they are your personal servants who are not even worthy enough to shine your shoes. Acting like your time is more important than theirs. Acting like you are more important or more worthy than they are. After all, you work for a church. You work for God. Nice witness, bozo.

This is not something that is new. This is something that I have noticed for years. I do want to clarify that not all churches are like this, but sadly, a majority of them are. And this is really bothering me right now. This past week, the guys who work in our shop have had to deal with this twice. Each instance was a different church. And when a co-worker who I have been trying to reach for three years says to me after you leave, "Hey Travis, is that how all the people at your church act? They don't seem very Christian to me," you have ruined all the work that I have done in trying to reach this person for the Lord. i can assure them that my church is not like that until I am blue in the face, but if all the churches he is coming into contact with are like that, he has no reason to believe my church will be any different. So thanks a lot, church.

Call me crazy, but i think it should be the other way around. I think churches should be the most pleasant organizations to do work for. I think that the people representing churches should be the nicest people we come into contact with. Not creepy, smiley, Joel Osteen fake nice, but genuinely nice and kind people. They should be understanding. They should not ask for the unreasonable. They should not ask for special treatment for the sole fact that they are a church. if something goes wrong, they should handle the situation with grace and with love. You don't have to be pushovers, but you definitely don't need to be pompous jerks. You need to represent the love of God in all of your dealings, not just on Sundays. You need to realize that they way you conduct yourselves during the week while doing the business of the church will directly influence how those who do not know the Lord view him and His church. You need to realize that there might just be one or two Christ-followers who are doing their best to set an example and show the love of the Lord to these people in hopes of one day leading them to Jesus. Please stop ruining all our hard work.