Heaven's Kanban or What I learned from LinkedIn Learning

I wasn’t sure if taking the courses offered by LinkedIn would be worth my time, but on greater thought I decided it would not hurt. I began with a job related course like Lean Six Sigma Fundamentals and learned quite a lot about managing waste on the job. Then I took a course on using the audio program Audacity and learned about a lot of the functions I did not know about before. Recording audio for my podcast and other interests will go a lot smoother now.

And then I took a course by Chris Croft called, “Process Improvement Foundations”. I received some very good insight from across the pond that made my time doing the courses all worthwhile. All the others were good but I would like to share a little insight I got from the last one.

At work we call the “parts cage” the “kanban”. This was the first time I had ever heard this name used for parts storage and asked others at work what it meant. No one on my pay level knew. I thought maybe it was German, since the company I work for was a German owned factory. No clue from any German language app or other source. So I let it drop and just accepted it.

Then while Chris Croft spoke,on the pull system, the word kanban popped up. It turned out to be a word, that in its simplest form, described how on an assembly line parts are keep in a storage area until called for on the line. The area was called the kanban. Although our setup is not a true kanban system, it made a whole lot of sense. There was a lot more on the course that I learned and saw that some of the systems I had used before and just did not know what they were called.
Now as for the insight I received from the course, I would like to share with you. On the factory floor, it is bothersome to have more parts than you need while doing a job. So all the extra parts should be kept back until they are needed. As with things we pray for, believing we need them now, God “pulls” the Grace we need at the time we need it. I heard a story of a man who had taken a plane trip one day and while flying the plane started to fall and everyone thought it was going to crash. The man prayed out to God to save him and became very afraid. The pilot pulled the plane out and they landed safely. Later the man grew ashamed and asked God why had he become so afraid to die and where was the grace that He had promised in times of death. God replied to the man, “you were not dying”.
The things we need in life that we seek God for and wonder why we do not get them may be things that we are not ready for or we do not need altogether.
Let me share this piece of scripture with you,
”Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV)

If you find yourself needing something. You may not even have a clue what it is. I urge you to pray (send in a kanban tag request) to the Father God and ask him for the Grace that is offered to you free of strings. Grace, which is the unmerited favor of God offered through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus the Christ. Tap into Heaven’s kanban and receive life. Product cannot be released without all its parts, so also you will not be fulfilled without that missing part you secretly yearn for. Jesus!

Nonconforming Parts and the Church

When I got to work the other day, I found the QC guy and my trainer together talking over a tote of parts I had produced the day before. Then my eyes focused on a red tag that was attached to the tote. I thought, this is not good! The trainer approached me and informed me that they had found some nonconforming parts in my work. I would need to go through all the parts of this type that I had did the day before, more than a couple of hundred parts, which would be an all day job.

After finding out I had not held the test gauge correctly and misjudged the conformity to the specs of the drawings, I proceeded to check them all. To my joy there were a lot more good parts than bad, but the trainer and supervisor were not as joyed. One bad part found in a lot can cost labor and material if not found out quickly. I refrained from using the old adage, "there is never enough time to do things right but always enough time to do them over," because they were not in a good mood. The rework would take up valuable time. I completed the job with success and returned to my regular work with a greatly learned lesson.

Not only did I learn the proper way to judge conformity, but I saw a great lesson for the Church. It only takes one unfaithful church member to hurt the reputation of the church. How many times have I met someone and asked them where they attended church and judged the whole church by that person? And, how many times have I heard at the break table people say that they have seen church members at the bar they went to, so the Church must be full of hypocrites. This reminded me of a story that I try to tell people about this issue: There was a LA (Lower Alabama) pastor that was out visiting and came to a pig farm on the edge of town. Finding the farmer standing by a fence with a single pig enclosed, he struck up a conversation in which he asked the farmer why the pig was quarantined. The farmer explained that the pig was a runt, sickly, in bad shape and not worth much on the market. The pastor, getting reading to leave, asked the farmer if he would come and visit his church the next Sunday, in which the farmer replied that he would never visit his church because he had seen one of his members down at the local bar, getting drunk. The pastor said he understood and asked the farmer how much he wanted for the bad pig. In shock the farmer quoted him a price so low that the pastor had no problem coming up with the money from his billfold. After paying the farmer, he told him that he was going to take the pig into town and tell everyone what kind of pigs the farmer sells, in which the farmer exclaimed that it was unfair to judge all his pigs by that one, all the rest were healthy, fat and quite valuable. Then the farmer said that it would be unfair to judge his church by one member.

I love this story, but in truth, the farmer needed to take care of the pig and bring it up to the proper condition for market and the pastor needed to look after his drunken' sheep. Few church members really understand that how they act in public reflects on the church they attend, if not the Church in general. The teaching of living a holy life as a testimony to Christ has become badly down played. It is great to advertise a "come-as-you-are" attitude at church, but we need to add, "But leave different." And we need more lovingly presented messages on resisting the sin that so easily ensnares us, Hebrews 12:1.
Back in the early 1980s, we, as a church, were learning about what the Church was and how each of us affected the workings of the Church.

We were directed to a story in the Old Testament known as the "Sin of Achan", which is found in Joshua 6-8. Before the attack on Jericho, the people were told not to take the cursed things of Jericho but to destroy everything but the silver, gold, bronze and iron vessels that were set apart for use in the Lord's service and be placed in the "treasury of the Lord". But during the attack Achan stole items from the loot and hid them in his tent. So when the next battle came, God withheld His protection and a much smaller force at the town of Ai backed down the Hebrews and drove them back. Confused, Joshua asked the Lord why and the Lord revealed that there was Sin-in-the-Camp. On later investigation, by lot casting, Joshua found out it was Achan who had sinned and had to be dealt with. After this, the Lord's protection was restored and the Hebrews again attacked Ai and succeeded. This is an illustration from God's dealings with His people that one person's disobedience in the church can cause failure in that church's mission. A lot of churches start off with a trumpet blast and end with being ran off by a small group of enemies, because of sin.
The Apostle Paul likens the Church as being made up of many parts (or members, partakers), we the believers are those parts. When one or more of the parts are nonconforming to the benchmark part or drawings, the whole lot is affected. Romans 8:29 says, we are called to become conformed in the image of Christ and according to Romans 12:2, not to the world. We are to daily give up things in our lives to become more like Jesus who is Joshua's Captain, Commander, and Prince of the Host or Army of the Lord.

So I encourage us in the Church, let's not only live our lives as a testimony to Christ, but to set a godly example for the church we are members with. If you see someone not up to specs, don't verbally attack them, but keep them in constant prayer. If the Lord leads you to talk to them, do so, but be sure you do not make things worse. Maybe the Lord shows you someone’s faults so that you may befriend them and be an example or that person may be able to help you with your nonconformity.