No Margin, No Mission

A good friend of mine is an executive at our local YMCA corporate office. He said someone once gave him great advice regarding the importance of finances within the local YMCA branches, "No margin, no mission." In other words, the Y must be financially solvent or they will not be able to serve the community.

Michael Pink had this to say in his Blog:

The purpose of a business is to make a profit. There it is. I said it. That ugly word in the minds of so many Christians, which might explain why so many are so broke in the business world. They think profit is evil or bad or at the very least, inappropriate - unless it happens by accident or as a result of doing other things well but minus the profit motive. Believe it or not, you can desire a profit and work hard to generate one without being guilty of coveting or piercing yourself through with many sorrows due to the love of money. But that requires spiritual maturity. Selah.

Before I get too many angry emails, let me also say I believe that our businesses, our sales careers, in fact all of our vocational life should truly bring glory to God. That is to say, when others see our companies, our track records, our job performance, they attribute our success to the God whom we serve. But if we fail in business, regardless of how nice we were or how pious, they will not be able to see that God is indeed Lord in all areas of life. That He is only relevant to “spiritual” issues and perhaps “marital” issues, but completely irrelevant to the business / commerce side of life and therefore to be ignored until a major crisis comes up.

Let me further add, that I also believe business is merely a context for building relationships. First of all with God - if we choose - and then with others. God loves work and so does Jesus (John 5:17) and He quite enjoys going to work with us and helping us build quite the business. Not necessarily a large business, but an excellent one.