PBL!  Are you thinking, what kind of sandwich can this be?  Peanut, Butter and Lettuce?  Yuck!  No, we are not today exploring sandwiches, we are looking at the motivators that are PBL: “Points”, “Badges” and “Leaderboards”.  These three areas sit at the heart of the motivators that are used by those who use “Gamification” with their consumers.  “Oh, I don’t play any of those games”, you say.  Well, when was the last time you cashed in your loyalty points? Or maybe you trade in those grocery store points for that gasoline discount?  And, you might like to look every now and then at those badges you earned from your Fitbit (or even the ones you earned back in Girl/Boy Scouts).  You see, we are already conditioned to PBL, we just don’t always recognize it, which means that our customers and consumers are ready for more PBL too.

Isn’t it refreshing that God doesn’t ask us to earn any PBLs for favor of His love and grace? But, you know, the fact that He doesn’t, makes it that much more important that we self-motivate and self-discipline to find our way closer and closer to Him.  No, we won’t get a badge for our Bible study time, but we will learn more than we could ever earn.  No, there isn’t any Leaderboard for who get the greater share of His love and that is good because it reinforces that His love is unlimited. And nope, there are no points that we can earn to find our way next to Him eternally. That is His gift for us to accept.  He just didn’t set us up to compete for Him, which we might want to be sure that we aren’t setting up something like “PBL” with others around us who need to see Christ reflected through us.

Reference:  Hebrews 11:6 (New Living Translation)