I went to Hobby Lobby last Sat to buy some craft supplies and was surprised to see this sign when I walked into the store. I have seen stores closed on Sunday before, but this is probably the first time I saw the reasons stated loud and clear: to allow employees time for family & worship. Wow!
I thought Hobby Lobby is a small mom and pop store, turns out that it is a good-sized company. The company was established in 1970 making picture frames in a tiny garage, and has grown to one "with more than seven hundred stores and nearly thirty thousand employees." The company has caught some public attention in its recent lawsuit regarding Obamacare. The following is a recent article from Forbes on this topic. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerrybowyer/2017/04/25/what-makes-hobby-lobby-a-christian-company-hint-its-not-a-greed-or-a-misogyny-thing/#3ad40cbb36d9.
The article mentioned David Green's second book, "Giving It All Away and Getting it All Back Again." I got curious in the story and picked up the book to start reading today. The book gave me tones of food for thoughts on the topic of legacy and succession (more on these in my future blogs). I was very touched as I read the following lines describing Green's struggles in the recent lawsuit. It is like reading the modern day the story of Daniel.
By way of background, Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby was our Supreme Court case about the federal government's mandate that private companies must provide for potentially life-terminating drugs against our religious convictions or pay severe fines. In our case, those fines would have amounted to $1.3 million per day. We knew we could lose the company. What do you do when you fear that you might lose your company?
In that case, we called a family meeting. In those days, we had only my wife, our three children, and their spouses. We called a family meeting again. But this time, the meeting involved a lot more people—my wife, our children and their spouses, and our grandchildren and their spouses. There were a lot more people involved, and a lot more people depending on us, including thirty two thousand employees.
It was a big weight. I felt that everyone in the family deserved a say in our course of direction because it affected all of us and the employees we served. The pressure from the outside world was real. Some folks created Facebook pages opposing us. We struggled sometimes with those who didn’t tell the entire story—the care we had for our employees, the drugs we were willing to provide under our health plan, and our long history of providing great wages. We got stacks and stacks of mail—some against us quite bitterly and some for us. It was those who told us that they were praying for us who were such a great comfort. But the outcome of the case was very much in doubt, and in the months and months of waiting, we put up a billboard outside our office for all to see with a passage from the book of Daniel: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us."
Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us. Walking in faith is a risky business. And what if that requires putting all we have and all we have built for the whole life in risk? Are we willing to take that step to defend what we believe?