A Business Owner Has to be a Servant

As I thought of what to blog about, what came to mind was: service. It was the first lesson God had to teach me when starting my company. Service is many things; it’s sacrificial, trust, fulfilling, difficult, tiring, humbling, painful etc. I suppose it was God’s desire to teach me that this is what I was really created for in order to be the best business owner I could be.

As the owner of a Christian Urban PR, Marketing and Branding Firm for 8 years our motto is: “Serving You, Serves God.” These four words could have only been given to us By God.
Personally, when starting my own company, I would have NEVER written anything like this. I wanted to be clever and creative writing the company motto; it had to represent us and the vision for the company, right? God, however, knew I needed to write it down in order to see it and believe it; because I had yet to grasp the description of a true servant and PR is about service. My mind needed to be transformed – COMPLETELY.

I had to learn that a servant: dies to him/her self daily, always thinks of others, undergoes consistent heart surgery and is identified by Christ. My definition allowed me to contractualize relationships and say, “I’ll serve you when and if I feel like it”. What I should have been saying was, “No matter what, I was created for service and I’ll serve you because that pleases God.” This way of thnking is the pinnacle of a covenant relationship . This was a totally new concept for me and I had to implement this into my daily work.

With this as my foundation, I knew God was seeking to transform the hearts and minds of those who ever interacted with us. They were going to encounter servants of God who would go above and beyond the call of duty; looking for nothing in return except to be a blessing to them. They were going to encounter a genuine Christian business, owned and operated by a Christian.

There is something to be said for making your business people-centered as opposed to money-centered. How revolutionary to know that we exist primarily to serve others/clients; to make a profit, yes, but not solely.

Each day, as a business owner, I am given the opportunity to serve God and others. I say, we should never rest on our laurels and rely simply on the fact that we are in a service industry, and let our client roster, bank accounts or anything else define our service, we must step up and step out and get excited about our purpose of serving, welcome it and live it out daily. Isn’t that what Jesus did? Wasn’t He the ultimate Servant?