Make someone What’s a Christian business? happy
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hat does it look like when we run our business in a Christian manner? Keith Knight has some ideas. He is executive director of the Ontario-based Canadian Christian Business Federation, which has 15 chapters across Canada. (The CCBF, which has Christian Reformed roots, has a historic connection with MEDA. When its founders were developing the organization they attended a MEDA convention to get ideas, and for a number of years sent copies of The Marketplace to their members.) In an article in The Light Magazine (published in British Columbia) Knight offers answers to the opening question: • We work to ensure the wise use of resources and produce goods and services with respect and care for creation. • We encourage a business structure that allows for responsible Christian activities. • We promote harmonious labor relations and meaningful work experiences for our employees. • We treat employees fairly, providing a fair wage and being sensitive to their personal and family needs. • As employees, we respect and honour our bosses, put in a fair day’s work for a fair wage, call in sick only when we are actually sick, and represent our company to customers with integrity and honesty.
“I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” — Film critic Roger Ebert in Life Itself: A Memoir
Glimpses of faith on the job
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hat do young people think about exercising faith on the job? Canadian Mennonite magazine recently gave a sample: Tony Kasdorf, 26, project manager of his father’s printing business in Winnipeg, tries to bring a good work ethic to his shop by being innovative, respectful and honest with the people he deals with. “I make every effort to follow through with my promises,” he says. “We try to create a stable environment at our shop,” he adds. “The main focus for us is that people come to work and we’re treating them equally, we’re treating them respectfully. If there are errors being made, it’s dealt with with constructive criticism, rather than putting them down.” For Saskatoon residential designer Dustin Bueckert, 28, faith is “something I want to keep in the forefront of my mind while I’m working.... [It’s] rattling around in my brain all the time — finding a way to incorporate all the values of my life and incorporate that with working with clients.... I work hard for all of them and try to just emanate the Spirit of Christ.” Tim Dyck, 27, an assistant at the Mennonite Heritage Gallery in Winnipeg, says striving to do his best is one ingredient of living out his faith on the job. “As a Mennonite ... there’s this dedication to hard work and doing good work,” he says, “and I feel that there’s a history of doing what you do well and being a good example at it.”
The Marketplace January February 2012
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