[Blog] Why You Should Get Re-Certified

In 2015, I made a visit to the Taj Mahal in India. It was a wonderful experience. Our tour guide took us around, showed us the sights, and told us all about the historicity of the place. I began talking to him, and we struck up a conversation. At one point, I asked, “So, what was the process for you to become a tour guide?”

He showed me his license and said, “Every three years, I have to go in for a re-certification.” I thought, Re-certification? The Taj Mahal was built in the 1600s! Nothing has changed about it, right? I then asked the obvious follow-up: “What do you have to get re-certified for?”

His answer was simple: the re-certification wasn’t about the site changing; it was about ensuring the ongoing quality and skill of the tour guides representing it to people around the world. I then began thinking…many of us preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many others serve in corporate or executive settings. We have a specialty, a trade, a calling—and many elements of that calling never change. The gospel, certainly, never changes. So the question is this: what are we doing to get regularly “re-certified”?

Ask yourself a few pointed questions today: honestly evaluate your current performance and knowledge. Would you hire yourself again? Would you re-certify yourself at the level you serve at today? Think about what it would take to re-certify yourself this year. What can you grow in? How can you test yourself? Then, get to it!