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

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as writers and speech therapists and dietitians? 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 Books. So if you're a reader and Amazon devotee like I am, 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 Channel. 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 start 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 in the same places, right, that Jesus walked. Or you're in Capernaum and you're reading him talk about the Bread of life while you're in a synagogue where he actually spoke it. Or, you know, you're on the Mount 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 letdown if I actually went. I'm sure that's not the case. But what's your take 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 to how important the Jewish people are really to Christianity and what we all expect to happen right when Jesus returns. And the ways that we interplay 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 the rest of the world. It's kind of like the separate group that we know, you know, has, you know, 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's also just a lot of beauty and joy and just like sense of, 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 at a site for like 10 minutes. I think if you did that, you would feel really packed in terms of like having visit so many great historic places and probably getting a lot of download from your tour guide. If that's your expectation. Like, I think that could meet that. But I actually found it to be better to like, of course I didn't do the tour, so 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 just go. And sometimes we would spend like half a day just sitting, you know, at the edges of the Sea of Galilee and imagining Jesus walk across that or waking up super early to do like a sunrise hike to the Mount of Olives 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 Capernaum and we saw a pastor that we knew. We're like, hey, it was Pastor Brian Lawrence. Like, hi, Pastor Brian Lawrence. 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 raises his hand, he goes, lecrae, come take a picture with us.

That's amazing. That's so good. Of course, Brian Lawrence is hanging out with Lecrae, right?

So these kind of like divine encounters, like blew my expectations, right?

That's so good. Brian's amazing.

Yeah, you should bring him on. So there's times like that that like blow your expectations. And then there are times when you go to a place 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 skeptical for that. But if you just take it as a whole, like Whatever God brings encounter, he gives you. Like, those actually are the precious moments. It's those, like, unintended, you know, times when you're in a place and just everything's flowing and no one else is around, or when you meet with somebody like that.

I love it. So you are in a new role. So we connected initially when you were on The Goodreads team. P.S. 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 trying to read different books. Right. Read more. Because maybe it's summer and you want to have books to take with you on a trip, like to Israel. Maybe it's because it's a holiday and you're looking for books to buy for your family and your friends. And so I head up all the different, what we call vents across those different seasons in order to help surface the right books to the right customer at the right time.

Got it. Especially as you guys are doing, like, multiple prime days now.

Yes. Well, one's a prime day. The other is what we call, like, a prime early access sale. But yes, we have a lot of special events just for prime customers now. And I do, like, healthy and coordinate all of those.

I love it. That's awesome. Specifically with books. You know, my team was stalking you on Instagram in preparation for this episode, and they came across this post where you were thanking someone who helped you, quote, clarify the purpose of your life. End quote. So I'm curious, how do you articulate the purpose of your life?

Mimi? When I think about my purpose, it's on a very general level. It's about pursuing this, like, what some friends and I call, like, our a one thing lifestyle, which is. And you know, this, Jordan. Like, we're not good multitaskers as humans. We think we're good at multitasking. We are not good at multitasking. And so if you try and think of, like, your entire life having, like, one singular task, then for me, that one task is just really like, putting God first in everything that I do. And that means being true to him, also being true to who I am in light of who he is. And also, like, being on mission for what it is that he wants to 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, you know, on a daily basis making hard choices about, like, where do I go, what do I do? Should I be, you know, I had a lot of time where I prayed about, should I actually be going to Israel? Is that something that he's calling me to do? Or should I actually be, you know, spending that time doing some other thing that he wants? Whether it's, you know, a big work project that I should be focusing on and staying home for, or if it's, you know, spending time helping out with, you know, because Justice Matters, which is like a charitable organization that, you know, that I really am passionate about. So it's a number of choices and trying to make sure that you're aligned to what God wants you to do with all these different choices. And, and that it is something where 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 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 think big, you know, that are changing the trajectory of what we can do for authors or, you know, the revenue line of, you know, this one product. 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 help me 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 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, like, those things were true and, you know, and that they would help the customer and know that we were making decisions that weren't just selfishly for profit. Like, those are decisions are driven by, like, what I feel is, like, my belief system and my purpose. Right. To show, like, that that's how God in his 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 daily 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 that 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.

Going to work, doing your work with excellence and love and in accordance with God's commands and the Holy Spirit opens up that door for that conversation. That word cohesion is, 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 winsome to all people, Christians and non Christians alike. It sounds like that's what that co worker was saying to you. He longed 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 in 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, forcing your beliefs on other people's throats. That'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 before, like, how do you live out that purpose at work. One of the things that for me I've been really blessed that from the very beginning of my career, probably because I had a coworker who from like day 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 she 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 happen to believe 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 to, you know, we're all Christians together in tech. Or it's going to be I, you know, I went to church and that'll open up a door where it'll ask what was that like? And I'll be 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 any, like big platform times when I'm able to, you know, like invest in my coworkers life, learn about the pains and things that they're going through, have the opportunity just to pray for them. That's what really opens at the door and helps me to advance the kingdom just one on 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? Making disciples at work is as simple as raising your hand and saying that you're a Christian in like winsome non aggressive ways, I. E. What'd you do this weekend? I had a great time at church. I went to Israel. If you're awesome like Mimi Chan, right? And then living a life that's congruent with that statement of belief and living your life in a way that shows that there's something distinct about you because your apprenticeship to Jesus. Mimi, I think the first line in your bio, at least the one I read on LinkedIn, points to 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. End quote.

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 who I find myself speaking up for are those who would not think that speak up for themselves is usually what happens. So it's people, like, people who, for instance, if we're still talking in a work context, like people at work who I see just toying away, doing a really great job, not necessarily expecting 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'll stand in and be like, hey, I want to be able to recognize that this person actually 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've, you know, maybe had frustrating 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 what 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 defending that other person is so much easier to jump on the bandwagon of. Oh, yeah, you know, that was wrong, what they did versus saying, you know what? That may not have been the best way of doing that, but, you know, the better path is to look to how can we change that? What is it we can do to improve? And being willing 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. Never mind then, actually, you know, talking to someone that you're having conflict with and trying to resolve that situation. And so. So I find myself speaking up in a lot of situations like that. Speaking up for people or encouraging people to have that hard conversation and speak up for themselves.

Yeah, there is a lot of risk here.

Yes, there is a lot of risk.

Right. So 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 gospel. Maybe I'm wrong. Tell me if I Am.

No, it is.

What's the connection here? Like, how does the gospel inspire you to run into these hard things in 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. And if you're solid in your identity in Jesus and whose 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 that 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, beloved son or daughter of Jesus or cementing, 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, like, where you stand and who you are, then you can go in that. And even if the conversation goes badly, even if it means that at the end of that conversation your relationship is broken or you do something valuable to you, whether it's a person or a position or whatever it is, if you come out of that with the integrity of knowing I was true again to who I am and 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 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 risks 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 loss, that you did the right thing, that 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 could lose my job by speaking up about this. Or even like something to seemingly small as, 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 Second Corinthians. I pulled it up here in Second Corinthians 9, 7, 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.

Right.

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 in 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, in 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 work 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 of 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, you know, meet with him and talk with him, and he invited, like, a bunch of other people to the same meeting. You want to have difficult conversations one on one. But we ended up having, like, 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, like, the mistakes I made, you know, 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, you know, because of that, I think God really smoothed over a lot of those, like, 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, we're all resolved. I'm, 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 spoke to each other, right? Not just the work and that which we're able to resolve, but also how do we interact better one on one with each other in the future. And so we then had this other level of conversation that could have been risky. He could have come out of there being like, no way. It was all your fault, what you said, 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 conflicts with. But 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 got an award for that aspect of his work based on things like me speaking up for, you know, 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, we're 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 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, turns something into, like, a more rewarding relationship through those, like, little steps that, you know, they took of having those conversations, speaking up for somebody, speaking up for myself, and then speaking up 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, actually. I see that happen 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 a Christian in a workplace is 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 where there's big conflicts, you know, people are expressing really different opinions, and I jump in to speak up for, like, one group of or the 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 Business Insider and not in a positive way. And a couple of weeks after that, like, we saw, like, our group membership drop, you know, by like 10%. But then within, like, a couple weeks after that, we saw it 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 executive 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 ended up that person found out about our group through that Business Insider article because of the difficult conversations that have 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 handled it. We did a lot. We prayed and fasted over it, and we had a lot of really, again, direct conversations with people where we encourage people to be, you know, to be really respectful, but also to have, like, be able to listen 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 were able to, like, preserve, like, the integrity of our group to, you know, we, because of that, also put in, like, more guidelines that helped foster healthier conversations moving forward. Because of the coverage we got from those 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 what could have been so bad turned out to be so good. Like, I think those are 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 called 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. Through what lessons, if you could be explicit, would you give to our audience in that regard of how to take a stand for God's way in a God honoring way?

One, I would say express what you believe and like your understanding in such a way that it's really like your testimony because nobody can refute your testimony. We all know, like, this is why I believe and this is why instead of saith the Lord, yes, don't try to tell people what they should believe too. That is where you actually get in trouble. We've experienced that. 3. When you express what you believe, also be open to listening and hearing what other people believe and 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. It should be both ways and then having the ability to agree to disagree. Right. Don't go into a 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. I want to understand why that person believes what they do and why was it the root of that? Why do 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 Amazon's credit, they've been really supportive of us having these open forum 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 that's happened. The company's been really supportive about has. Being able to have these really open conversations is 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, you know, we kind of behave with. 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, you know, convince other people of what you believe. And then the last thing I would say is that there's an element of this where you kind of have to have no fear. So when I was looking at the Sea of Galilee, I was thinking about Jesus crossing that water and telling the disciples, you know, fear not. You know, why are you afraid? Because I'm with you. Because I'm with you. And a lot of times, I think in the workplace, we feel like God isn't there, that Jesus isn't there. He's not going to 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, you know, eliminate that fear, if you can eliminate that fear of being judged or of, you know, being, you know, somehow that 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 of the boat, 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 we're just 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, please.

I'll just say it real explicitly. 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, you know, remove that divide between this, you know, 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 worship. And instead we separate it. We say, our work is not worship. 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, he. 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, like secular. What do we mean by this word secular? And I love definitions. Secular means without God. You want to make that secular workplace over there sacred. You, as a Christian, indwelt 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 and 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 where you go. 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, is doing something that 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 ministries.

Run by Christians and, oh, by the way, also these global ministries.

Exactly. All of them have something that 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? Where there are beliefs are going to align with mine? 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 aligned 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 on Amazon, I had a conversation with Os Guinness, who wrote the call, and yes, me too. And I was like, I was grabbing exactly the same thing. Should 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 life. That's life giving to me. And he looked at me and he's like, he very much said exactly the same thing. No, don't do that. What are you thinking? Where you're needed is where there is no God, right? Where you're needed is where God is not exists. Like, that is where your voice is needed. That is where you need to go. And it shifted how I thought about that, about, like, what my purpose would be. And so I came specifically, came into this job with this thought in my head that, like, my real purpose, you know, my real job is to, again, like, put God first and make him apparent, transparent, make him real. And everything I do so that people can. Discovery is like, the workplace to me is the greatest mission field 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. I knew a bunch of other tech companies, big tech companies at Christian organizations like Google and Facebook. I was interviewing those as well. And then I got the job offer here. And I thought, okay, why here? I haven't met a single Christian. There's no Christian organization, organization here. You know, 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 want you 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 those other people did. I'm alone here. No one I know here is Christian. Even though I tell people I go to church, like, no one's Responding. At the end of that year, a woman I saw every single day told me, oh, I'm going to full time missions. I'm like, what? How in the world in a year could we not have talked about this thing that we both, you know, is so central to our lives? Like how does that happen? And then why again like are you going somewhere else to, you know, as missions when for a whole year basically I experienced a place that felt like devoid of Jesus, that needed Jesus. And after that I then connected with like faith and work and met other Christians through an external organization not within Amazon, outside of Amazon. I met Christians that worked here and then I started to pray with some of those people and then the group grew and then I met more people and we, and the guy made it clear, like 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. And that's where Christians at Amazon grew out of. So we helped found that. And the model that we go for is one that where 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 like leader or you know, head of a Christian group. Because we really believe that if you do that then you're just gonna, you're gonna end up building what Peter Tsunami calls like a pyramid, you know, and we don't want that. Like God's kingdom is flat. He wants to have like direct one on one relationships with every single person. And so that's what we encourage. And at the end of the day, like my prayer for going to a place where I could be a voice but for God led to us, you know, creating this community, this group in a company that now is the second largest like company in the world behind Walmart. Like I would not have expected when I prayed for God to give me, put me in a company where I could have like, where I could like be his voice in the biggest way possible, that the company itself would grow so huge and that this could, you know, logistically, just logically thinking, this company probably like has one of the most, most number of Christians worldwide. Company, right? Oh yeah, for sure.

Which is why it's been one of the great honors for me over the last couple years to be able to speak with your group a couple times and do Q&As. I mean I want to encourage believers in the Amazons and the Walmarts of the world to stay exactly where they are for the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom. Right. 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 we've talked about this a lot, always recommend Difficult Conversations. It's a book by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen. It only came out, like, I don't know, maybe 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 can have, like, one on one relationship with God in the workplace or in any other, you know, in any organization really, is the Starfish and the Spider. That's a book by Ori 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 I really like it, Jordan. And then a book that I'm actually just starting that I think my suspicion is that this will be very impactful. And it's a book that was handed to me on this trip to Israel is Equip. And so this is a book again, by Peter Tsukahira. And it's basically a week by week study on how to become a disciple, People of Jesus, especially in the context of the workplace.

Oh, interesting. I definitely have to check this out.

Yeah. All right, great. So those are.

I'll check that out. Mimi, 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 of is horror, because it genuinely.

You don't have to explain here. We know. We get it.

Do you read a lot of horror? I know, I know. I would say that one book that has been really wonderful, like, powerful for me is Take Back youk Power by Deborah Liu.

Yeah, we. So we're just about to release Deb's episode.

Are you? Oh, you'll love it.

We're recording this. It's so good.

Oh, it just. It's so actionable. Like, everything in there is so simple and clear. Things that were mysterious to me for her, like, how do I get a mentor? She's like, oh, just do this. You know, Deb's amazing.

She's phenomenal. Yeah, you guys are gonna love that book.

Amazing.

Other than Deb Liu, who do you want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel influences their work?

We were talking before this about some of the, like, authors that I know, like a Bob Degoni or an author like Veronica Roth. People that you wouldn't necessarily think are Christian, you know, in their vocation, I think are really fascinating to hear. Like how they still then infuse Christ into everything that they do.

Yeah, they're not faith forward, but they're faith based. You and I have talked about John Grisham before. Yes, amazing.

He would be absolutely wonderful. Yeah, let me know if I can help you with that.

Jordan, you can help me with that. Send John a text. I know you got him on speed dial. No, that'd be terrific. By the way, did you read the James Patterson autobiography?

No, I did not. This sounds like something I need to add to my list.

It's fantastic. So I don't read fiction at all and. But yeah, I mean, listen, when you sell 300 million books and you're an 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 it 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 in the world working at places like Amazon for the glory God, the good of others.

I think it goes back to what we said earlier, Jordan, is stay where you can have the most impact, which is often in the workplace. Like, this is your mission field. As a matter of fact, during COVID there's statistics that, you know, upward. Like, half of people in ministry are looking to leave ministry for a very variety of reasons. And I think that's intentional. God is purposely sending people who are mission minded into the workplace. Amen. All the time I'm seeing people who are pastors, who've been seminary trained, who, you know, were executive directors of ministries. Like, they're coming at a 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 ground 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. Mimi, 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 Chan and I are friends there. 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 God 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 in your ministry.

Thank you, Mimi. I don't think I've ever said Amen more in an episode of Near Christian's 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@jordanraynor.com contact with that. Thank you guys for tuning in. I'll see you next week.

Ra.