The Pastor’s Piece, Kevin Cernek, Chaplain – September 15, 2024

FCFI

September 15, 2024

People are an interesting lot. We live in a time where surveys are taken for just about everything. Most of the time when you buy something online, immediately after you send your order in, a survey arrives in your inbox asking a bunch of questions about your experience in making the purchase. Sometimes there are surveys on top of surveys.

I remember reading about the marketing strategy for a certain laundry detergent. The company put together an impressive set of commercials in an effort to convince their audience of the superiority of their product, only to be disappointed at the end of the advertising period to find very little movement in sales. After an extensive survey of asking grocery store shoppers what motivated them to buy a certain brand, they were amazed to discover that it wasn’t advertising or performance or something else that convinced shoppers to prefer one brand over another. They simply said: “I use such and such brand laundry soap, because that’s what my mom used.”

What motivates individuals? That question is always on my mind. Early in my career I worked at a place that had a variety of people with all different backgrounds working there. The guy who operated the machine next to me was very cynical and negative. In his mind, the boss was out to screw him over and he didn’t trust anyone. He was about 20 years older than me and was grouchy all the time. It was the first job I ever had outside of working for my dad, and I wanted to impress my boss so I worked hard at learning the job skills needed for the job and I wanted to produce more than was required. It only took a few days and I was making more product than he was. He scolded me for my ambitious efforts because he said I was making him look bad. That was a shocker because in my youthful exuberance, I thought he barely made quota because it took everything he had to get the output he was getting. Silly me. I also realized I was not making him look bad, he was responsible for that himself.

There was another guy about his age, who was also cynical. Only his cynicism wasn’t so negative as it was something else – something more like, I-don’t-care-it-doesn’t-matter. He had lost a brother in a motorcycle accident a couple years earlier. They were close and it affected this man tremendously. He realized how fragile life is and didn’t want to waste any time worrying about the non-essentials. Trouble was, he adopted a dangerous fate-will-have-its-way approach to all of life and he lived precariously on the dangerous edge not caring if he lived or died. And, he paid very little attention to where he would spend his eternity.

There was an older guy there who, in his words, had seen it all. I was young and ambitious and only had one goal in mind, and that was to do my job well, hopefully be noticed by someone higher up in the company and get a promotion. This guy had none of those ambitions. All he wanted was to come to work every day, do his job, not be bothered, and take a paycheck home on Thursday night. He did his job and didn’t interact much with anyone. On break, he’d go outside and have a smoke and drink a cup of coffee. I remember him telling me that us young guys could go for the gusto, he was happy just making enough to pay the bills, grill out on the weekend and watch football. Fair enough.

Then there was the guy who was just in life for the good time. Together, my wife and I made enough money to pay our bills and save a little for a house later on. My friend made enough to pay his rent, buy groceries, and weed. He loved his weed. I never smoked weed and didn’t quite understand his fascination with the stuff but that was his life. Our work stations were next to each other so we did a lot of interacting over the course of the work week. He laughed a lot and it seemed nothing ever really bothered him, that is until his girlfriend died suddenly. Then life got a little more serious.

I wasn’t Catholic, but I was going to Bible college, and the rumor got around that I was studying to be a priest. People were cautious around me with what they said and how they talked. Many times they apologized for foul language or for hating on someone. I tried to explain that they didn’t need to apologize to me, it wasn’t my name they were taking in vain and slandering. They needed to talk to God about it.

Back to the survey up at the top. Parents have a lot of influence on their children not only when their children are still at home, but long after that. Literally everyone I have met in life, talks about their parents in one context or another. I was fortunate to have parents who left a very positive impact on my life. Pretty much all of our decisions come down to what we witnessed from our parents during our formative years.

Proverbs 20:29: “The glory of young men is their strength, and the honor of old men is their gray hair.”

(Kevin Cernek is Lead Pastor of Martintown Community Church in Martintown, Wisconsin).