Connect Global has been formed around several ongoing conversations about how to serve, who to serve and why we serve.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this conversation and how it affects our decisions. In particular I’ve been thinking about who we serve.

The concept of serving others is not completely natural and we recognize that sometimes it take practice. Some, if not most, of us grew up adopting a certain way of interacting with others based on predetermined categories and policies.

We can find ourselves circling around one certain category of “others” and maybe excluding ourselves from another group of “others”. We then end up building policies that dictate how to or if we engage with either category of people.

Sometimes this is not really a bad thing. This is for most of us a simple, naturally occurring, split second decision that happens with or without us knowing.

Think about your local grocery store employee. We see him or her on a regular basis week in and week out. Without even realizing it we have categorized (Publix Employee) and created a policy for interaction (nod and smile) all in a fraction of a second.

While this particular split second decision is not bad per say, imagine with me how someone could categorize people (based on religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, background, or even ethnicity) - and then with or without thinking build a policy around that person or group in a negative way (non interaction, prejudice, alienation).

In the work we do through Connect Global we try our best to make sure we don’t categorize those who we serve in a way that would mean building any sort of policy against serving one group over another.

In fact I would consider our “policy” around this issue to be one that would allow us to err on the side of grace and openness, rather than on categories and closed-mindedness.

This is and will remain very intentional. We are willing to serve those in need not based on a category of wealth, location, or religious belief, but on the fact that we are all broken in someway and are all in need of the service of others at different times.

We will continue to Go to, Serve, and positively Change “others” based on their current need and not on any predisposed idea of who we “should” serve.

If you would like to help us Serve, I’d ask you to visit our website at http://GoServeChange.com and join the conversation about how, who, and why we serve.