day 858: Group On

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

The name of the company that has built a popular business on bringing us together to purchase at a better price from local retailers, is "Groupon". It's a nice play on words with the words "group" and "coupon" getting put together makes perfect sense when you hear or read the name. Up until Groupon, the best collective purchasing power we had was insurance and that was never that satisfying was it? So when Groupon showed up it was hard to not have wanted to participate. The same was true when other competitive services appeared like Living Social. It is debatable whether or not these business models can survive, and only time will tell, but the idea of coming together with others, whether we ever know our fellow purchasers or not, we like this benefit of grouping. Grouping can be powerful if we figure out how to tap and harness that power. Technology certainly is helping us today and the way business will be done in the future will have to take in account the collective as much as the individual. It is in the knowledge of the group and how it behaves and desires that we can learn what works best for reaching, marketing and selling.

We have long known the power of grouping in our faith. Jesus himself tells us that if we gather as two or more in His name that He will be there with us also. We should not ignore this basic lesson in our work lives. Somewhere in the office is another believer who we know. We might even go to church with them. But do we think to get together, even for a few minutes and together ask God to come into our workplaces and strengthen us as we go about working to bring glory to Him, as our purpose. We can be assured that God's desire for us to group in His name is the most powerful return and reward that we could ever imagine. What group can you form today, for Him?

Reference: Matthew 18:20 (King James)