Growth Through Customer Service

I saw a truck the other day.  It was emblazoned with these profound words on it's shiny white tailgate:

                                              Growth through customer service.

I am not sure why it stuck with me as it did, but I am convinced that when such a nothing thing as a small town marketing slogan painted across the back of a business truck continues to speak long after it should, I should trust that God is up to something.  Wanting to teach me something in the words.  Or maybe in the meaning.

Later, as I dash in doors and out of doors, I jot above said slogan in my journal.  Anticipating a response from God - a teaching moment from the One who holds the whole earth together - it leaves me breathless.

I have a tendency to begin to try  figuring it out on my own.  But like the sun on a summer day, the truth appears in  my mind and then dances behind clouds, one moment clear as the blue sky and the next casting shadows where the light once was.  And so I remind myself to wait and watch.  In His time.

During the holidays, always on the tip of my tongue rolls the phrase "customer service is dead".  Long lines, temporary employees who miss the training day on greetings, or even worse - the dreaded call to computer tech support, all point to the lack of true service in my little world.  I know lots of places that will never grow at this rate.

But today.  Today I noted, probably years after those who work in the "real world", that we customers have our own set of problems.  Apparently the delay in lines at wholesale clubs turn otherwise gentile grandmothers into hotheads who demand that checkouts be done in appropriate order.  Blushing college students scanning oversize jars of spaghetti sauce wonder at the hurry of one who seems long past the days of punching a time clock.  I wouldn't normally say anything rings hollow as one who seems she has had more practice at demanding tones than she would like others to think.  Her husband's chagrined look only adds to the truth that this is not the first occurrence of such an event.

Growth through customer service.

As a Christian, one called to take up my cross daily, what role do I play in this dance between serving and being served?

I evaluate my relationships - with God and man - am I a customer?  Or am I a servant?
Has it become "all about me" without really meaning to do so?

I dwell on the role of the church:  is the church a place where I go to be served?  Or to learn how to serve?

If I am called to be a servant, then wouldn't this mean that my growth - my daily dying to self and walking closer to Christ - comes through service?

I wish that I could say the sun is shining brightly on this truth and it is now wrapped up neatly in the practice of my daily life.
It's not.
God is still speaking and teaching.
And as I have said, this is my place of working all that out.
And I believe He would use you to add to the story, so feel free to add your thoughts.