Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.”
-Henry Ford
My wife, Nancy, and I took our youngest grandchildren to the Henry Ford museum in Dearborn Michigan recently. It was a great trip and we learned a lot about history and one of the men that made it happen. In the early 1900s “horseless carriages” were expensive toys available only to a wealthy few, but Ford envisioned an automobile for the masses. After his first effort with the Model A, in 1908 he introduced the fantastically popular Model T, eventually selling 16.5 million of them.
You could have it in any color, said Ford, “as long as it was black.” Initially, each car took nine hours to build, and the company couldn’t keep up with demand. So Ford studied and constantly improved his assembly line methods until a Model T rolled off the production line every nine minutes. The problem was, workers could be unreliable and when one man didn’t show up and do his part on the line, everything stopped.
So, Ford did the improbable: On January 5th, 1914 he announced he was doubling his worker’s wages to five dollars per day. Despite frigid Detroit temperatures, thousands of people stormed the factory to apply. In one risky move, he had secured a work force that would be at work every day and now, could actually afford one of the cars they were producing, increasing sales, which improved his own bottom line.
Ford knew what many forget. That every man is important, and that coming together is just the beginning. It is staying together and working together that gets the job done.
Here, in 2019 we have a different job to get done. UIC7 Prayer Partnership is a joint effort of UNITE INDY and Citizen 7 to bring together businessmen from every Indianapolis community and race to pray for our city. These men are committed not only to come together, but to stay together, and work together to build bridges of understanding and friendship across this metropolis.
Henry Ford forged a bright and lasting future for his company. Join us at the Unleavened Bread Cafe on Wednesdays at 7:30 am, and work with us to forge a bright and lasting future for our city.
There’s no pay involved, but the benefits are terrific.
Blessings,
Jim
“…With God, all things are possible” – Matthew 19:26
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