Over the last few weeks, I’ve been regarded as a heretic in two very different but very important parts of my life: my faith and my career.
With my last two blog posts, I ignited a debate in the auction industry about how we should market ourselves to the outside world. I got phone calls from top elected officials and National Auctioneer Association (NAA) staff, telling me that my influential perspective was damaging (1) to our fraternity and maybe even (2) to my place as a trusted vendor within it. I was told that I didn’t understand the plight of the small business owner, even though I’ve been one for almost 14 years.
As that storm hit its zenith, I discovered that one of my former mentors thinks I’m not just a black sheep but maybe even a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In a half-hour tirade, he accused me of being a bad influence in my family, a damaging representative of Jesus, and part of a movement detrimental to the global church and those it’s trying to reach. My wife was deemed whorish (for having a back tattoo) and declared disqualified for her multiple ministerial roles. He predicted that my marriage would fail, along with the marriages of several of my close friends who also serve in seeker-style, contemporary churches.
Other than that, though, nothing major.
After some introspection, I was struck that my response to both controversies was similar and that the lessons I learned were the same.
Tell stories.
You can’t ignore a growing business. My trade association’s primary benefit is not hashtags or slogans but education. I’ve seen companies grow their transactional volume and their revenue at impressive rates from what their NAA members are learning at our industry gatherings. Those lessons arrive in classrooms, at dinner tables, and during joint venture projects. If the little guy wants to be a bigger player, he needs the inspiration and codification from the success stories that are rampant in our organization.
You can’t argue with a changed life. The lives my wife and I touch are blossoming. Worldviews are shifting. Addictions are losing their grip. Marriages are being healed. Wounds are being salved. People are looking beyond their circumstances to help others and finding a bigger purpose for their existence. Regardless of the liturgy, traditions, or idiosyncrasies of my faith system, it’s alive and active and beneficial. I don’t have to defend it; it defends itself. I just have to relay the stories.
Align yourself with innovators.
A week after my latest blog post published, another blogger wrote a hit piece on my perspective. I looked at the auctioneers who applauded it on Facebook. Then I looked at the list of auctioneers who had supported mine via Facebook and confidential email. I thought to myself, “I’ll take that list.” There were fewer bid callers on my side but more marketers. Aligned with my position were more people who’ve adapted to our culture’s media, shopping, and buying habits. It’s in my best interest and the best interest of most NAA-member auction companies to hitch our wagons to those trends and to congregate with those leading-edge thinkers.
I’ve lived more than a decade in both independent Baptist fundamentalism and the missional, nondenominational church contexts. At different times in my life, I’ve been a zealot for both. I’ve seen what happens when both perspectives are taken to extremes, when both are exported to other cultures, when both are confronted with questions. If I have to choose the support of only one of those camps, I’ll take the forward thinkers who are making a dent in culture. I’ll take a church with accountability at all levels and an infrastructure void of castes.
Be patient.
I don’t know that history actually does “always get it right,” but I trust time to reveal my intentions. I have a good idea who of today’s auctioneers will still be thriving in the auction industry fifteen years from now; and I’m willing to play the long game on that bet. Natural selection will doom either me or my detractors. In the mean time, it’s important for me to welcome discussions with my critics and to treat them as professional peers. I’ve learned valuable lessons from this debate and want to continue contributing solutions—and not just criticism.
I’m the opposite of infallible. I get a lot wrong, as I learn how to do life. Thankfully, some of that wrong is being sifted out of my life. The graph of my life looks like a stock report, but it is trending up and to the right. Instead of measuring my faith on how long I can hold the same tight line, I’m challenged to be constantly moving and changing, pushed and challenged. Since I have to be patient with myself on this journey, I have to extend patience to others on theirs. I have to trust that what I’ve found to be immutable will prove itself true to others in time.
It’s been good for me to contemplate what I believe, why I believe it. It’s healthy for all of us to ponder our journeys on a regular basis. Just in case it’s never happened to you, I can vouch for the fact that it’s also beneficial to be called a heretic every now and then. You learn who your friends are; you learn a bit about who you are; and you learn that you must not stop learning.
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Stock image purchased from iStockPhoto.com
