In this season of Christmas shopping (at least in America where I presently reside), it seems fitting to ask… How do you choose the checkout line?
For those who do not know: a check out line (or queue) is the line for the cash register where you pay. At very large stores, like Walmart, there could be 25 or 30 of these lines. Some are self-checkout, where you bag your own stuff and pay for it using an automated checkout system. Some are express lines, for people who have just a few items. And some are full lines for people with many things in their shopping baskets.
More efficient queuing systems have been devised. In http://datafl.ws/15ms one such system is presented which is also used in America: in stores like Marshalls and in government offices (sometimes augmented by the take-a-number system).
I have occasionally wondered why, if this system is so much more efficient, it is not used by larger stores (such as supermarkets like Walmart or grocery stores) for their check out lines. Perhaps it is because it doesn’t work so well when the queuing line would have to span 20+ lines. Or, cynically, perhaps the stores think its better to leave the customer blaming themselves if they pick a slow line.
But I have another theory which may be equally cynical. I think perhaps that when a store gets large masses of Americans in one place, it gets a little leery of crossing that independent American spirit. “Herding us like cattle… Trying to tell ME which line to take…” Everyone has their little strategy or method for how to choose a line. You probably have your own.
Some people just take the first available line. Others scope it out and take the line with the fewest people in it, or get even more precise and try to take the line with the people who have the fewest products in it. Some will pray about it and try to find the line God sends them to.
The reality is, if there 20 lines, there is a 20 to 1 probability that you are not in the fastest line. Someone else has a slightly faster checkout lady, or your line will happen to have the one mispriced product that takes 20 minutes to figure out, or a coupon that doesn’t scan, or… Usually you don’t notice this 20:1 disparity, of course. Aisle 20 is a long way from aisle 1. But worse, of course, is that you have a 2 in 3 chance of being slower than at least one of you adjoining aisles. You’ll notice that, had you just chosen the aisle to the left (or to the right), you would already be out the door. You only have a 1 in 3 chance of beating your neighbors.
People deal with the loss in the checkout counter race in different ways. Some just take it prosaically, standing there, talking on their phones or checking email. Some get annoyed. Some might be tempted to shift lines. Some might even look for the God-given reason they are delayed (the person they were meant to talk to, or the accident avoided, for example).
By now you are probably wondering what this has to do with missions. It’s this: choosing an unreached people group to focus on is a bit like choosing a queue line at the store.
It’s true just taking the group an agency offers you is a very simple and efficient way to pick a group. But the reality is, many folks won’t appreciate that approach. They have their own predispositions and ideas about where they should go, and who they should engage. While some have written about the need for missionary candidates who will offer themselves as slaves for Christ who will go without complaint wherever they are sent, the truth is this scenario is fairly unlikely for most missionary candidates (and particularly, it must be admitted, individualistic Western ones).
However, checkout lines still offer another possibility that we can learn from. Not long ago around a holiday season–America’s Thanksgiving holiday–we were in a large grocery store and even though there were a number of checkout lines, all were full and everything was moving very slow. Suddenly, up came a clerk with a barcode scanning device. She began scanning all of our groceries while we were standing in line. When she finished, she handed me a slip of paper with a bar coded number printed on it. “Just hand this to the cashier when you get up there,” I was told. And indeed, when I got to the register, they didn’t need to check all of my groceries–they just scanned the little piece of paper and told me what I owed.
The scanning lady had moved into the time when I could do nothing but stand there, waiting to check out, and helped me enormously by scanning my groceries so that, when I finally got to the register, I wouldn’t have to wait longer. Perhaps this is something we in mobilization can learn from: that rather trying to build a perfect system for getting candidates into agencies and then spending a lot of time getting agencies to pursue it, we ought to train and equip mobilizers to understand the requirements of the agencies, but then step into the process on the side of the candidate. Mobilizers who will help the candidate prepare and select the agency that fits them the best.
We live in a complicated situation and while there are ways to simplify matters, we need to distinguish between what is efficient and what will actually be used. I have written in the past about basic standards and requirements for candidates. In the future I will be writing more about how churches and church-based mobilizers can build better processes for recruiting workers, and exploring some tools being used effectively by churches today.
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love your example justin. i think with some of the young people i’m around, they are like you guys waiting in the queue. they have a lot of the gifting, talents, desires and maybe just need someone to come alongside them, inventory that stuff for them and help them along their way. fun perspective!
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