Clive* became a member of MDE in 2016 and works in our Disciple Making Employee division. Here is his response to the question, “What does MDE mean to you?”
MDE helps me stay grounded. Bi-weekly meetings with my MDE mentor remind me why I chose to work where I do and how this work intersects with the story of Christ and our mission to make disciples. My mentor holds me accountable to pursue the Lord in prayer and Bible study and to reach out to specific coworkers we have discussed.
My constant challenge is that I am motivated to be a good employee and to bring value to the company. When I took a job in East Asia several years ago, the workplace practice was 9/9/6 –employees worked from 9:00am until 9:00pm, six days a week. This schedule made it easy to forget the “why” behind my work. As a cocky young kid of 21, I thought I could change the workplace culture for good just by showing up. I failed to realize that the work culture would change me.
I now serve in management in a different organization. As a Christian, I stand for practices that will benefit our employees. Daily I choose to be kind, give clear expectations, and honor our employees. At one point, I realized that our company had a disturbing culture of disrespecting employees after they were fired. We would use phrases like, “they were never really a good fit.” This damaged the workplace environment. I spoke to my CEO about it, and now we focus on the value that these departing employees brought to our company.
Recently at a virtual “happy hour,” two other employees and I had a spiritual conversation. Everyone knows I am a Christian. Somehow we got on the topic of abortion. My coworker in Portugal stated his pro-abortion opinion that we should not allow poor people to keep having children. My coworker in California stated his opinion. They were surprised to know that I had a foundation for my opinion in Scripture – that life begins at conception and that God would have us protect the most vulnerable.
This led to a discussion about human suffering. I quoted Timothy Keller, (I love that I can quote smart people and appear smart), who says we might not know the meaning of suffering, but we know what it does not mean. We believe that Christ suffered and died for us out of love, therefore we know that our suffering does not mean God does not love us. Christianity is truly unique in its approach; other worldviews are shattered in the face of human suffering.
Please pray for Clive and the gospel influence God is bringing to this company through him. Pray also for the MDE mentors as they provide invaluable support to our members.
*Name changed for privacy.