Respect #1

For me respect has always been something you earn and I still believe that when I am thinking about myself. However, I am trying to not be as self-centered these days so when I think about respect in that context I realize that the people around me don't need to earn my respect, I need to give it to them. Even writing that now, it is a foreign thought to me. However, I want to give my respect to others.

As an introduction I have pasted an excerpt from a document I wrote a few weeks ago. Hopefully it makes sense to you and gives you an opportunity to think about respect. I am looking forward to the next 6 posts to discuss it. Your comments are welcome.

Respect is the greatest gift we can give each other as teammates. Many things make up the act of respect. It is an action not just a word. We have many different people on this team from many different backgrounds. Some have seminary degrees, some have business degrees. Some have worked in the church world their entire career while others have worked in businesses until recently. None of us are inherently better than others none of our experiences are necessarily greater. The truth is that the mixture of all our experiences and education make for a very diverse and effective team. The only thing that can get in our way is our lack of respect for each other.