Moving Our Feet
Undercover Boss was a CBS television series where a CEO of a large corporation would go undercover to learn about their business from the perspective of those on the ground, the workers doing the everyday jobs outside of the executive offices. The show has featured companies as diverse as Subway, United Van Lines, Yankee Candle Company, and DirectTV. The bosses went through new employee orientation experiences and learned all about the company from an entirely new setting. As an undercover new employee, the boss grew to know the people and corporate culture from the ground up.
An old Haitian proverb states: "We see from where we stand." The connotation is that our perspective changes if we change our location, the place from which we view our surroundings and the world. Change the location of your feet, and you will see things differently. [1]
This is one of the reasons that traveling and intentionally interacting with those outside of our home culture is so healthy. Learning their stories and getting a glimpse of life from another perspective broadens our understanding of the world and our place within it. This is particularly true when we travel, not specifically as tourists, pursuing sites and experiences for ourselves. When we enter a new culture intending to interact as much as possible with the local population, as should be the case when traveling on Christian mission experiences, the pictures we take focus on the new friends we made rather than simply the places we visited or sites we saw.
One does not have to travel internationally to change where we stand and thus the perspective from which we understand the world. Similar experiences can be had when eating at an ethnic restaurant if we take the time to get to know those serving us. We can change the place we stand by asking questions of those in a different life stage or faith tradition. We change where we stand by prioritizing listening over speaking and hearing from others rather than working to get our points across.
The RPC congregation offers many opportunities to "move our feet." Opportunities with local mission partners, short-term, multi-generational mission trips, both international and domestic, are happening early next year, and opportunities to mingle with the new Hispanic congregation meeting at RPC all provide such potential.
We should take every opportunity to move our feet to broaden our understanding of the world God created and how our perspective impacts the lives of others. In doing so, we are likely to see more clearly the desire God has for us to live as the dynamic and diverse family of God.
[1] Main, Bruce. Why Jesus crossed the road: learning to follow the unconventional travel itinerary of a first-century carpenter and his ragtag group of friends as they hop fences, cross borders, and generally go where most people don't. Carol Stream, IL, Tyndale House Publishers, 2010.
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As RPC’s Associate Pastor for Mission Outreach, Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss, has a heart for service and a diverse array of experiences in the mission field. Be sure to subscribe to the Mission Outreach Blog to read and follow along as he documents his personal journey and shares his vision for RPC’s mission outreach commitment. Along with providing meaningful resources, this blog will help jumpstart the important conversations our church community must be having about missional living.
Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss
Rev. Dr. Dan Kreiss is the Associate Pastor for Mission Outreach at RPC. Dan is particularly passionate about encouraging the church to reflect the diversity found in its surrounding community in regard to age, gender, ethnicity, education and economic status.