Toyota

So I heard the news this morning that Toyota was thrilled to save $100 million by not fully addressing the safety issues of their accelerators. Just as they said the problems were completely due to the floormats when (as I understand it) they have far more to do with the electronics.


Then I was listening to the news on the way to work this morning and they had a quote from Toyota that went like this: "Our first priority is the safety of our customers and to conclude otherwise on the basis of one internal presentation is wrong," the company said. "Our values have always been to put the customer first and ensure the highest levels of safety and quality."

From everything I've heard and read, the first priority hasn't safety at all. It's been maximizing profit and hoping that the safety issues they knew about wouldn't be made public/come back to bite them. Reminds me of the movie Fight Club, where Ed Norton worked to calculate whether it was more cost efficient to fix the problem or settle the lawsuits.

Toyota has been saying one thing, but everything about the company lately points in the other direction. I don't care what they say anymore, I only follow the actual news and make new promises to never buy a Toyota every time I see their hypocrisy played out in the headlines.

I'd love to say that such things never happen in the church, but they do. All the time, we are saying one thing, but those watching us bear witness to actions that are not always consistent with our words. We fail to have integrity between our Sunday morning proclamation and our weekday living. And all the while those who are watching us live question why they should attend church...


As a Presbyterian church we put great value in our words. We use them to build up, to guide and to learn. We put even greater value in the Word, our Holy Scripture. But only because of the God it points to. Only because the Good News of the Gospel corresponds to a real person who lived with integrity and talked about serving and loving while actually doing it.

May we, as a church, have the courage to do what we say, to follow where the Word leads, to admit our shortcomings and strive to serve faithfully the God who is always trustworthy and true. May we live our faith, witnessing to the joy we have in Christ and the commitment we have made, thereby encouraging others to consider the same commitment to Jesus Christ our Lord.


And on a mildly unrelated subject... the inflatable church looks amazing