FAN FAVE FLASHBACK: Mimi Chan (Head of Seasonal Events at Amazon Books)

Hey everybody, welcome to the Mir Christians podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mirror Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as writers in speech therapists and dieticians, that's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to my friend Mimi Chan. She's the head of seasonal events at Amazon Book. So if you're a reader in Amazon devotee like I have, you're going to love this episode. Mimi and I sat down to talk about how to speak up for the powerless in your office. We talked about how to take a stand for God's way in a God honoring way at work, especially when you disagree with your employer's policies. And we talked about why we need Christians rushing into secular quote unquote workplaces in order to claim them as sacred. I loved this episode. And if you're working in a place that is dark and growing increasingly darker, this may be the most encouraging episode of the podcast. For you, we've ever produced, please enjoy this conversation with Mimi Chan. Mimi Chan, so good to have you on the podcast. Thanks for being here. It is a delight Jordan. So we were just talking before we started recording. You just got back from Israel. How was that? It was incredible. Is this your first time? It was my first time to Israel. And everybody tells you that it's life changing because you go and you get to walk and same places, right? That Jesus wanted to hear your in the corner and you're reading him, talk about the bed of life while you're in a synagogue where he actually spoke it. You know, you're on the mat of olives looking down at the temple mount and you know, you're reading just like, if you had to, it's just all of it. It feels surreal. Did it meet the hype? Because I feel like I've heard so many life changing experiences about Israel that I feel like it would be a lead down if I actually went. I'm sure it's not the case, but what you're taking on this, having just returned. I think it depends on what you do or what you expect from going to Israel. So my expectation was that I wanted to have a deeper heart for Israel because I realized that for most of my life, I hadn't made that connection. How important the Jewish people are really to Christianity and what we all expect to happen, right? And the ways that we end up play with each other as a community is really critical. Yet, a lot of people don't think about, you know, the importance of Israel to a rest of the world. It's kind of like the separate group that we know has a lot of persecution. And when I was there, I expected to, I don't know, feel like the weight of that. But what I found was actually that, yes, that was there. But there was also just a lot of beauty and joy and this like a tangible sense of like promise and expectation. And when you go, you can either do like one of those big tours where you just visit like every single site and you stop by the site for like 10 minutes, I think if you did that, you would feel really packed in terms of like having to visit so many great historic places and probably getting a lot of download from your tour guide. But that's your expectation. Like I think that could meet that, but I actually found it today better to like, of course, I didn't do the tour. I can't really compare. But what I went through was we had this kind of like self-guided experience where we just took our time at places. We would just go and sometimes we would spend like half a day just sitting, you know, at the edges of the sea of gravity and imagining Jesus walk across that. Or we kept super early to do like a sunrise hike to Mount Amalos or sunrise hike to Masada. Those experiences to me were more compelling as well as just the people that we met along the way. There were really divine encounters. Jordan, there was one day we were at Capron and we saw a pastor that we knew, we're like, "Hey, those pastor bribalists are like, "Hi, pastor bribalists. How are you doing?" You know, you've come to our church. We love talking to you. And he goes, "Yeah, we should take a picture." You know, and send us back to your pastor. And we're like, "Great, let's do it." And he can erase his hand. And he goes, "Lakray, come take a picture with us." That's so good. Of course, Brian Lawrence is hanging out with Lakray. Right. So he's kind of like divine encounters, like blew my expectations. Right. That's so good. Brian's amazing. I'm a bit corny. I'm a bit corny. Yeah, you should bring him on. That's so good. So yeah, so there's times like that that like blow your expectations. And under our times when you go to a place where you're like, "Is this really the garden tomb? Did Jesus really lay in this?" So I think you have like a little healthy bit of skepticism for that. But if you just take as a whole, like whatever God brings, a counter he gives you, like those are actually at the precious moments. It's those like unintended, you know, times when you're in a place and just everything's blowing in the one of season round. Or when you meet with somebody like that. I love it. So you aren't a new role. So we connected initially when you are the Goodreads team, PS, the only social media app I use on a consistent basis, a huge Goodreads fan. Thank you very much. We love that. You're in a new role now. Tell us about your new role at Amazon Books. So at Amazon Books, we have a number of different times of the year where we see a height of interest in kind of read different books, right? Read more because maybe it's summer and you want to have books to take with you, you know, on a trip like to Israel. Maybe it's because it's holiday. You're looking for books to buy for your family and your friends. And so I had up all the different, what we call events across those different seasons in order to help surface the right books to the right customer or the right fact. Got it. And especially as you guys are doing like multiple prime days now. Yeah. Yeah. So one's a prime big, others, but we call like a prime early access. So but yes, we have a lot of special events just for prime customers now. And I do like healthy, concordinate all of those. I love it. That's awesome. Specifically with books. My team was stalking you on Instagram. I'm hoping you'd like to prepare for this episode. And they came across this post where you were thanking someone who helped you quote, clarify the purpose of your life and quote. So I'm curious, how do you articulate the purpose of your life? Vimey. Mm hmm. When I think about my purpose, it's on a very general level. It's about pursuing this like what a reference and I call like our one thing lifestyle, which is and you know this story and like we're not good multi taskers as humans. We think we're good at multi task. We are not good at multi tasking. And so if you try and think of like your entire life having it like one singular task, then for me that one task is just really like putting that first in everything that I do. And it's being true to him, also being true to who I am and might have who he is. And also like being on mission for what is the humus of accomplish here on earth and then like in heaven, right? So that means for instance within the work context, how do I make sure that I'm like actually advancing his kingdom in the workplace? How do I make his like make heaven real, make God real in my work and to my co-workers? It could be also on a daily basis like making heart twizzes about like where do I go? What do I do? Should I be, you know, I had a lot of time where I played about should I actually be going to Israel? Is that something that he's calling me to do? Or should I actually be spending that time doing some other thing that he wants, whether it's a big work project that I should be focusing on as staying home for or if it's spending time helping out with, you know, because justice matters, it's just like a church organization that I really am passionate about. So it's a number of choices and trying to make sure that you're alive to like what God wants you to do with all these different choices and that it is something when you're trying to him to really steward those choices or steward even like your resources that help enable those choices. Yeah. I love how you articulated that like making heaven real, making the kingdom real, making God real at work. What does that look like for you? Like, can you give us a couple of examples of how you have made God more real in your place of work at a big corporation like Amazon? When I think about, and like an example that comes to my mind is I have a coworker who once asked me, you know, I can see that you are a smart woman that you understand the business, you know, you're doing really innovative things that are big big, you know, that are changing the directory of what we can do for authors or, you know, the revenue line of, you know, this whole product. But I don't understand how, you know, someone who, you know, is like such a great, high achiever at the same time like stay so positive and clearly has this belief in God. That doesn't make sense to me because, you know, I've been disappointed by my experience in church and by some of the hypocrisy I've seen and, you know, in other people who believe in Jesus. And so how do you understand like, how do you live that way? Like, what is different? How could someone so smart still, you know, believe in Jesus? And the reason I bring up this example is because I wasn't actively trying to show this person God, but in just my daily ways in which I was, you know, making decisions about, you you know, my products, times when I had to make choices about, you know, Do we, you know, price it this way or price it that way? Do we say one thing or another in our marketing and always trying to make sure that those things were true and, you know, then they would help the customer and know that we're making decisions that weren't just selfishly for profit. Like those are decisions that are driven by like what I feel is like my belief system and my purpose, right, to show that that's how God has kingdom behaves. That it's one that's true, that serves other people, that looks to, you know, help, you know, your customers or your, you know, those people around you, that by living that out, just in like those days, decisions, what that coworker picked up on was that you're a Christian who lives out what you believe and it doesn't sync up with what I've seen of other Christians, but it does for you. Like your life is cohesive and has integrity. And because of that, he wanted to know more about who Jesus is and how I could believe what I did. And like that was just like a beautiful door opening that I didn't expect. Yeah. And you were just a faithful presence, right? Just going to work doing your work with excellence in love and accordance with God's commands and Holy Spirit opens up that door for that conversation. And work co-heusions like really interesting to me. Like I feel like it's part of the reason why I'm so passionate about this podcast is to help our listeners as mere Christians feel more cohesive between what they're studying in their Bibles in the morning and what they're plugging away at their laptop doing in the afternoon, right? And I think because I think that cohesion is really when some to all people, Christians and non-Christians alike, it sounds like that's what that coworker was saying to you. He'd long for that sort of, you know, integration, kind of singularity of purpose and living, right? Yes. Yes. I do agree. There's a lot of people at work that I think they compartmentalize and they separate it who they are at work versus who they are at home. And one of the keys to, you know, being cohesive to who you are is being really transparent about what you believe as well. And it doesn't mean that you're asking other people to, you know, believe what you believe is not necessarily a matter of like the force in your service. Not other people say it's not what you want to do. But I think you want to just be really transparent about this is who I am. When you asked or before, like, how do you live out that purpose at work? One of the things that for me had been really blessed that from the very beginning of my career, probably because I had a coworker who from like they one, you know, came to me and was like, Hey, I want to know more about you and I want to share more about who I am. And right up front, you told me, you know, I'm a Christian. I would love to invite you to church. And I think for the rest of my career, that felt really natural and normal to be able to talk about Jesus in that way, even with people who you don't know whether or not like what they believe, but to be able to say, Hey, you know, I have a belief in Jesus. And so I am really transparent about that at work. Most of my coworkers know like if they ask me what I do this weekend, it's going to be, you know, I went to Israel with a bunch of my friends who, you know, were all Christians together in tech or it's going to be, I don't, you know, I went to church and now open up the door. Where do I go? So what was that like? Well, you want to know just come join me. You're welcome at any time. So it's those kinds of like casual conversations that I think actually end up helping me fulfill that purpose in a workplace more than a big platform times when I'm able to, you know, like invest in my co-workers life, learn about the pains and things that they're going through, have that opportunity just to pray for them. That's what really opens up the door and helps me to advance the kingdom. Just one one in those relationships. It's seemingly so small, but I hope listeners, you're like picking up on a theme. We hear this all the time from our guests, right? Make it disciples at work is as simple as raising your hand and saying that you're a Christian in like, when some non aggressive ways, IE, what did you do this week? And I had a great time at church. I went to Israel. If you're awesome, like me, me, a chance, right? And then living a life that can grew in with that statement of belief and living your life in a way that shows that there's something distinct about you because you're apprenticeship to Jesus. Maybe I think the first line in your bio, at least the one I read on LinkedIn points of this. Here's what it says. It says, quote, "Early in my career, a mentor told me to speak up." Very common advice, right? As a leader, I have learned most importantly to speak up for others and quote, all right? That's distinctly Christian. I am curious though, who are you standing up for exactly? Who because of your faith do you feel called to speak up for oftentimes? I myself speaking up for are those who would not think that speak up for themselves. This usually happens. So it's people like people who, for instance, it works also talking in a work context, like people at work who I see just, you know, toiling away, doing a really great job, not necessarily expecting, you know, praise for that work. And sometimes people actually will praise someone else for the work that they did. And that's the point where I was down and be like, Hey, I want to be able to recognize that this person actually, you know, went through all the pain and hard work of making, you know, this project happen. And I want to make sure that that person gets recognized. Or if someone is speaking against them, you know, to be able to say, Hey, you know, I can see that you, you know, maybe has frustrated transaction with that person, but, you know, have you spoken with them? Have you talked to them about that? Have you maybe considered, you know, asking them what happened, what, you know, what their perspective was? Because that could change your relationship and how you interact with each other. And basically like heal and reconcile that work relationship. And that's why I see a lot of times is a lot of broken relationships where one side is just tearing the other side down, but no one's speaking up, right? No one's depending that other person is so much easier to jump on the bandwagon. Oh, yeah, you know, that was wrong. What they did versus saying, you know, that may not have been the best way of doing that. But, you know, the better path is a look to how can we change that? What is it we can do to improve? And being one to have that difficult conversation is something that a lot of people don't want to do. Frankly, speaking up for somebody else can be difficult. Nevermind then actually, you know, talking to someone that you're having conflict with and trying to resolve that situation. And so I find myself speaking up in a lot of situations like that, speaking up for people or encouraging people to have that car conversation, and then speak up for themselves. Yeah, there is a lot of risk here. Yes. There is a lot of risk. Right. Talk for a little bit about, I'm assuming this is connected to the example you see in Christ and kind of our response to the gospels. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me if I am. What's the connection here? Like, how does the gospel inspire you to run into these hard things and these hard conversations? So one of the things that we talk about a lot is like what your identity is, right? When you're having these conversations. And if you're solid in your identity in Jesus and who's you are, not just who you are, then these conversations become a lot easier. And again, the crux of a lot of these conversations is how people feel about like who they are in the midst of these difficult conversations. You know what you're saying about the identity matters. It influences the trajectory of that relationship. And so when I have these conversations, I'm often thinking about like, how do I build up somebody's identity in Jesus and who they could be even in that identity? Instead of looking for ways to again, like to tear them down. And if you start from that place of identity of recognizing somebody as, you know, a beloved son or daughter of Jesus or something like grounding yourself in your own identity in Jesus, it removes, I think, a lot of the risk in that conversation. Because if you already know where you stand and who you are, then you can go in that and even the conversation goes badly. Even if it means that, you know, at the end of that conversation, your relationship is broken or you do something, you know, valuable to you, whether it's a person or a position or whatever it is. If you come out of that, then, then, technically, knowing like, I was true again, who I am in my identity in Jesus. And this is the conversation that Jesus wanted to have. Then it becomes so much easier to accept the consequences of taking that risk. And so that's how I think of it in terms of like, how do you minimize the risk of that? Know who you are in Jesus, know, you know, what your purpose is and going into that conversation. And then, you know, be true to like how Jesus guides you in that. And if you're doing all those things, then it's really easy to accept the consequences and the risk are a lot less. And it's not because you lose less because you might still lose as much. Yeah. But you're, it's almost like you're confident in that law that you did the right thing. That's how it should be. How it ended up is the way God intended. And that he'll do something with that. Yeah. That's so good. Because I think a lot of times, you know, we feel called to speak up for somebody who's being overlooked. We feel called to speak up for maybe even injustice that we see at the workplace. But there's fear of I lose my job. I speak it up about this or even like something to seemingly small like, I don't have time. I got to get my work done. And as you were talking, it reminded me of Paul's words in 2nd Corinthians. I pulled it up here in 2nd Corinthians 9, 7, 3, 8. It's in the context of financial sacrifice. But Paul says this, each one should give what he has decided in his heart to give. And God is able to make all grace abound to you. So that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. So basically, hey, we can sacrifice money, knowing that God will provide for us all that we need to continue to do the good works. He's prepared an advance for us to do, right? Again, spoken in the context of financial sacrifice. But I'm curious if you've seen this play out in sacrificing your time and potential reputation and speaking up for others. As you've taken these risks, have you seen God provide what you need to continue to abound in the good works he's called you to do? Yeah, I can think of this one situation with someone in our office who actually had a lot of conflict with a lot of other people, but he had a reputation for being really solid as a like a technical person in our office. And I had to have a hard conversation with him because something that he said that basically kind of like put my reputation on the line and would have made it difficult for other teams, other technical teams to want to work with me. And so I asked to meet with him and talk with him and he invited a bunch of other people to the same meeting. You would have the difficult conversations one-on-one, but we ended up having this meeting with several other people present to talk about what happened. And it was not necessarily a fun conversation, but I was just really open about the mistakes I made and stayed also really open about ways in which I could improve, open to their advice and their feedback on what they would like to see me do differently. And then because of that, I think God really smoothed over a lot of those relationships, with not just him, but a lot of the other people on the team that I didn't even realize that probably had been influenced by how he saw me, right, as well. And so I then, at the end of that, actually had a separate conversation at the end of that, he's like, "Well, it's all resolved." And you know, I'm out of here and I was like, "No, no, no, we, you and I still need to have a conversation about the ways in which we like spoke to each other, right? Not just the work and that, which we're able to resolve, but also like, how do we interact better, one-on-one with each other in the future?" And so we then had like this other level of conversation that could have been risky, he could have come out of there being like, you know, no way, it was all your fault, what you said, you know, so on and so forth. But he didn't necessarily agree, but he had a better understanding of where I came from. And out of that conversation at the end of that, I also had a better understanding of who he was, and later that year, you know, I was able to recognize like, "Hey, this person, that he may be kind of rough over here and working with people, and that's why, you know, I'm not the only person I complex with, that in these other areas I could see why, you know, people really, you know, applauded his technical efforts. And I did the same actually. I was like, you know what, this person is really good at this. And so I'm speaking up for this person that actually isn't that popular with people to say that, you know, "Hey, there's something that we can appreciate him for and that we should appreciate him for." And he actually had the idea that they got an award for that aspect of his work, based on things like me speaking up for, you know, an applaud and also like giving him props what he did. And all of that actually at the end of the day led to just like a better relationship with that person to the point where we, you know, were actually friendly and we could like collaborate more deeply and he would invite me to be like part of his different, you know, different things that he did with his team. So that took time to like shift that. But when I think about like the ways in which, you know, God like turned something into like a more rewarding relationship through those like little steps that, you know, they took of having those conversations. I was speaking out for somebody, I was speaking out for myself and then speaking out for them like all of that, I think plays into what you described earlier about, you know, how God takes something that, you know, maybe could have been meant for, you know, evil and he turns it to good. He does that a lot. I actually see that haven't many, many times, especially in my work context. We talked about how, you know, for me a lot of what's rewarding about living as Christian or workplaces, those one-on-one conversations, but I also like manage our, you know, multi-thousand group of Christians at Amazon. And you know, things like this happen all the time, which are big conflicts, you know, people are expressing really different opinions. And I jump in to speak up for like one group already, other. And again, like what might have been meant for evil, God turns really, really good and sweet. And so absolutely, I see that happen. Play out in both these like really small ways and on these really like, in these really like big groups as well where there's really difficult conversations going on about really hot topics. And he'll take that and, you know, I think of like one example where we had this really difficult conversation about, you know, a halt cultural topic and we got covered by this insider and not in a positive way. And a couple weeks after that, like we saw like our group like membership drop, you know, like 10%, but then within like a couple weeks after that, we saw rise up and actually like what dropped by 10% like increased by like 20%, we're like, what is happening? And then we saw some people join that we were like, okay, you know, how did these people even find out about us? And we talked to one of them and there's a potential that one of them will now actually become one of our sect of sponsors, someone who's only like a few levels up, you know, below like Andy Jassy and Jeff Bezos, like someone that we would never expect to find out about us. And after that person found out about our group through that business insider article because of the difficult conversations and that had been happening within our group. So something that could have really divided our group that could have caused us to, you know, lose a credibility that could have gotten, you know, us broken apart because of the ways in which we handle that we did a lot of the parade of bastard over it. And we had a lot of really again direct conversations with people, we encourage people to be, you know, to be really respectful, but also have like be able to loosen to other people and try to have ears of like understanding, seeking to understand, not just to be heard. And through that process of doing that, we're able to like preserve the integrity of our group to, you know, we, because of that also put in like more guidelines that helped foster healthier conversations will be forward because of the coverage we got from the difficult conversations we had, you know, people find out about us that when usually found out about us our group grew. We actually, you know, got an executive sponsor from it. So like all these things that like that God like did out of, I could have been so bad, turned out to be so good. Like I think those are the times where I just look at him and I just wonder like, I don't know how you did it. But for me, it was just like taking a step at a time and not knowing exactly where it would lead, but trusting that that God was in control of it all. I'm so glad you brought this up because this is one of the top questions I'm getting from my audience right now is, hey, I work at a big company. I feel cold to be salt and light there, but I disagree with X, Y, or Z policy that this company is implementing. How do I stand up against something that's clearly contradictory to God's word in a God honoring way? So it sounds like that's the experience you and these, your fellow believers at Amazon have recently gone through. What lessons, if you could be explicit, would you give to our audience in that regard? How to take a stand for God's way in a God honoring way? One, I would say express, but you believe in like your understanding is such a way that it's really like your testimony because nobody can refigure testimony. We all look at this. Like this is why I believe and this is why. Don't try to let us say it the Lord. Yes, don't try to tell people what they should believe. That is where you'll actually get in trouble. We've experienced that. Three, when you express what you believe, also be open to listening and hearing what other people believe in why. Like invite that conversation. It should be a two-way conversation. It shouldn't just be people listening to you or you being forced to listen to someone else. It should be both ways. And then having the ability to agree to disagree, right? Don't go into conversation. Like your purpose shouldn't be, I'm going to win this person over to what I believe. Always my purpose going in is understanding. And when I understand why that person believes what they do and why, was it the root of that? Why did they believe something so differently than me? Can I learn something from that? Is there something that I can share that would help that person? If you go in with that kind of a mindset of that mental model, then you're going to have a healthy open conversation. And we encourage that. We encourage healthy open conversations on hot topics and to, and as long as credit, they've been really supportive of us having these open form as well. They've never taken down anything that we've put up that we've said. There's been times where we've asked people to, be respectful and consider taking down something that was not respectful. And they're, you know, like that's happened. The company's been really supportive of us being able to have these really open conversation. It's actually very Amazonian because we have a principle that's to agree to disagree. And then, you know, once a decision has been made, though, you commit. And so, I think that's how we kind of behave within our context here. And that's what I would encourage for people who are, like, how do I speak up? Is, you know, be open, be transparent, be truthful, but don't be legalistic or try to convince other people of what people are. And then the last thing I would say is that there's an element of this where you kind of have no fear. So, when I was looking at the CEO Galley, I was thinking about Jesus crossing that water and telling those typos, you know, if you're not, you know, why are you afraid? Because I'm with you. And a lot of times, I think in the workplace, we feel like God isn't there. That Jesus He's not gonna back me up. I'm alone in this. So many times I hear Christians say, you know, I'm alone. I felt like I was alone in the workplace as a Christian. I didn't know any other Christians. And that fear is debilitating. It keeps you from speaking up. And so if you can eliminate that fear, if you can eliminate that fear of being judged or of being somehow that would impact your career or that you would have a, you know, be a good witness for Jesus. But if instead you can just, you know, walk into that and tell yourself like, there's no reason for me to be afraid. Jesus is telling me like, I just, you know, you just step out the boat. (laughs) I just want to keep your eye on him. You know, know that he is with you. You are not alone. And chances are that what you want to express is exactly how someone else is feeling who also thinks that they are alone in this in the workplace. - Yeah, that's so good, Mimi. Yeah, I just, I talk to people a lot who are struggling with this and which is like, oh man, my company is taking some stances on issues that I know are sin and I just feel like this place is increasingly dark and I feel like I need to escape to a quote unquote "holier workplace." And I just don't think that's the example of Christ. - Don't do that. (laughs) - Please don't do that. Please. - I'll just say I'm really, I'm supposed to, please don't do that. - Don't do that. Please don't do that. You know why? Because this is why you don't feel like you can say these things in the workplace today because somebody before you left the workplace instead of speaking up. - Amen. - And as people started leaving, it became harder and harder to speak up because there weren't any of those voices there, right? Those voices started getting silenced and one of the reasons why, like I took the job I did is because I was explicitly praying to God for a place where his voice needed to be heard, where I could try and help remove that vibe between the secular and the spiritual, you know, that's what's happened around the world today, right? They separate those two things, what was meant to be together, our work is supposed to be worshiped. And instead we separate it. We say our work is not worshiped. Worship is something completely separate that I do on a Sunday, right? But Jesus says, you know, go, you know, and make disciples. And by going, what he means is like, as you work, go isn't like leave work and go somewhere else to talk about Jesus. Go is, go as you work, as you go along in your work. That's how you should be interpreting that verse. Yeah, and that's why we, like secular, what do we mean by this word secular? I love definitions. Secular means without God. You want to make that secular workplace over their sacred? You as a Christian in dwelt with the Holy Spirit of God step through the front doors and that is now a sacred place of work. Your body is where heaven earth meet. Like that is where the kingdom lives is in you. So if you bring yourself into a workplace, like that alone will help advance the kingdom because you're bringing a little bit of the kingdom with you, right? Right now. And so I get the same thing. I have people who are like strong Christians or leaders, right, in our group. And they get to a point where they tell me, I just have this like moral tension that I can't resolve about how the company, you know, doing something I just don't believe in. And the reality is that any company you go to is going to do something that you probably won't believe in. And even if you go to the ministry, run by Christians and go by the way, also these global ministries. Exactly. All of them have something that you don't exactly line up with what you believe. That's why there's so many denominations out there. There's no perfect place, right? But so the better question to ask yourself, isn't, you know, where can I go or where their beliefs are going to lie with me? The better question to ask yourself is, where can I go to make the biggest difference for God and to advance His kingdom? Like, where am I most needed? Where can like my purpose in life most align with what God is doing in, you know, in His revival, right? What is the greatest mission field that I can go to? And I remember when I was praying for that before I took this job at Amazon, I had a conversation with Bosch and I asked who wrote the call. And-- Of Oz. Yes, you do. And I was like, I was talking exactly the same thing. So I go into ministry, should I go into like back into a workplace, I love what I do when I volunteer at church, isn't that where I should go, right? Because I feel like, "Light, that's life's giving to me." And he looks at me and he's like, he very much said exactly the same thing. No, don't do that. What are you thinking? Where your need is, where there is no God, right? Where your need is, where God is not exist. Like, that is where your voice is needed. That is where you need to go. And it shifted how I thought about that. About what my purpose would be. And so I came, specifically, came into this job with this thought in my head that my real purpose, my real job is to, again, like put God first and make him apparent, transparent, make him real. And everything I do so people can discover is like, the workplace to me is the greatest mission I feel I could have. At the time when I took the job with Amazon, I didn't know a single Christian here. I met a bunch of Christians and a bunch of other tech companies, big tech companies, that Christian organizations, that group on Facebook, that's interviewing, but those as well. And then I got the job offer here and I thought, OK, why here? I had to have a met a single Christian. There's no Christian organization here. There was about maybe 250,000 people, maybe 300,000 people working at Amazon at that point. That was smaller than the company I come from. I was like, this doesn't make sense to me, but God made it really clear. This is where I wanted to go. So I took the job. And it took about a year. There was a year I felt the same thing a lot of other people did. I'm alone here. No one I know here is Christian. Even though I tell people I go to church, I know it's responding. At the end of the year, a woman I saw every single day told me, oh, I'm going to full-time missions. I'm like, how in the world in a year could we not have talked about this thing that we both, so central to our lives? How does that happen? And then why again, are you going somewhere else as missions when for a whole year, BCI experience a place that felt like the void of Jesus that needed Jesus? And after that, I then connected with faith and work and met other Christians through an external organization. Not within Amazon, outside of Amazon and met Christians that were here. And then I started to pray with some of those people. And then the group grow. And then I met more people. And they got it made clear. We want you to start something that can reach more people. So let's do something. Let's create an organization. Let's build a stronger community. That's where Christians at Amazon prove out of. So we have found that. And the model that we feel for is one that we want it to be as flat as possible. We want as much as possible for everyone to be looking directly at God and not at some leader or head of a Christian group. Because we really believe that if you do that, then you're just going to end up building with Peter Sonani Kahl's like a pyramid. And we don't want that. Not to come in as flat. He wants to have a direct one and one relationship with every single person. So that's what we encourage. And at the end of the day, my prayer for going into a place where I could be a voice for God, let us create this community, this group, in a company that now is the second largest company in the world behind Walmart. I would not have expected when I prayed, forgot to give me, put me in a company where I could have like be his voice in the biggest way possible, that the company itself would grow so huge. And that this could-- just logically thinking, this company probably has one of the most number of Christians worldwide in the company. Oh, yeah. For sure. We just why it's been one of the great honors for me over the last couple of years to be able to speak with your group a couple times and do Q&As. I want to encourage believers in the Amazon's and the Walmart's of the world to stay exactly where they are for the glory of God in the advancement of this kingdom. Hey, Mimi, three questions. We love to wrap up every conversation with, I can't wait to ask you this one. Which books do you find yourself recommending or gifting most frequently these days on the whole? I know it's very specific for individual people, but in general, what are you recommending? So I always recommend-- and this will not surprise you because you talked about this a lot-- always recommend difficult conversations. It's a book by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Hane. It only came out like-- it came out maybe 20 years ago. But it's a book that is timeless. And the earlier you read that book, the better off you'll be in all your relationships for the rest of your life. The other book that I think is really great for people who are trying to build organizations where people could have one-on-one relationship with God in the workplace or in any other-- in any other organization, really, is the starfish and the spider. That's a book by Laurie Brockman and Rob Beckstrom. And it's about the power of leaderless organizations. And so that is actually a really biblical model. I've never heard of this. This is interesting. Yeah, I think you'll really like it, Jordan. And then a book that I'm actually just starting, I think-- my suspicion is that this will be very impactful. And it's a book that was handed to me on the strip of Israel is Equip. And so this is a book, again, by Peter Sukahira. And it's basically a week by week study on how to become a disciple of Jesus. Especially in the context of a workplace. Oh, interesting. I definitely have to check this out. It's on fast-paced. I think they're doing it. All right, Jordan. I'll take that out. Neemi, what's the most entertaining book? This is Off the Cuff. We don't ask this. What's the most entertaining thing you've read this year? Oh, the most entertaining. You read pretty broadly, right? I do. I do. I think, as a matter of fact, the only thing I don't read that much is-- core because it genuinely is playing here. You know, we give it. TV a lot of work. I know. I was in that one book that has been really powerful for me is Take Back Your Power by Deva Lou. Yeah, we so we're just about to release Debs episode. Are you? Oh, you love it. I was going to record in this. It's so good. It's so actionable. Yeah. It's so simple and clear things that were mysterious to me before. Like, how do I get a mentor? She's like, Oh, just do this. Yeah. You know, that's amazing. She's phenomenal. Yeah. You guys are going to love that book. Amazing. Hey, me, other than Debleu, who do you want to hear on this podcast talking about the gospel influences their work? We're talking before this about some of the like authors that I know like a Bob DeGoni, Laura and author, like, Veronica Rod. I know that you would necessarily think our Christian, you know, in their vocation, I think are really fascinating to hear like how they still have been infused Christ in everything that they do. Yeah, they're not faith forward, but they're faith based. You and I talked about John Grishan before. Yes. It would be amazing. He would be absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Let me know if I can help you with that. You can help me with that. We said, Sinjana text. I know you got him on speed dial. Yeah, that would be terrific. By the way, did you read the James Patterson autobiography? No, I did not. This author is an anti-addominist. It's fantastic. So I don't read fiction at all. But yeah, I mean, listen, when you sell 300 million books in your author, you should probably like pay attention to whoever's selling that many books. So I thought it was extraordinary. I thought it was really, really great. I've been recommending a lot to people. All right, Mimi. Before we sign off, what's one thing from our conversation today? You want to reiterate to our listeners. This audience of mere Christians out the world working at places like Amazon for the glory gotten the good others. He goes back to what we said earlier, Jordan, is stay where you can have the most impact, which is often in the workplace. This is your mission field. As a matter of fact, during COVID, there's statistics that, you know, about like half of people of ministry are looking to leave ministry for a variety of reasons. And I think that's intentional. God is purposely sending people who are mission-minded into the workplace. All the time, I've seen people who are pastors who've been seminary trained, who, you know, were accepted directors and ministries. Like, they're coming into the workplace and we need you there. We need you so badly. So please, like, as Christians come into the workplace, you will find revival here. Like, this is the staging around for the next revival. And so I really hope that more people become a part of that. It's an exciting place to be. Amen. Nini, I want to commend you for doing just that. For staying in this corporate environment and doing just exceptional work day in day out for the glory of God and the good of others. Thank you for reminding us that we are called to sacrifice our power by speaking up on behalf of others. And thank you for encouraging our audience to stay put and lean into their work to make their workplaces a little bit more like heaven on earth. Guys, you could find Mimi on Goodreads. I know Mimi, Chandanier friends, they are. You can also find me there. It's pretty much the only place that I personally spend time in this social universe. Mimi, thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Thank you. It's been such a pleasure. And I just look forward to seeing like, what that does more and more through you Jordan. He's doing something new and he says, like, don't you perceive it? You know, he's doing something new and I can see him doing that through you Jordan. So God bless you on your ministry. Thank you, Mimi. I don't think I've ever said amen more in the nephys of mere Christians podcast. Consult the transcripts and we'll find out. Guys, if you're enjoying the podcast, please go leave a review on Apple on Spotify, wherever you listen to the show. Thank you guys so much for listening. Hey, actually before I run, I'm really digging into this topic on how to take a stand in the workplace for Christ in a winsome respectful biblical way. If you've got something to say on that topic, I want you to let me know at JordanRainer.com/contact. With that, thank you guys for tuning in. I'll see you next week. [Music]