Less Busy, More Faithful

Once again I’ve had it with Christian-motivational-writing-designed-to-inspire-you-to-do-more-for-God writing. For those who tend to err on the lazy side of life, those books/blogs might be helpful, but for folks like me who fall off the horse on the workaholic side, it just adds a big scoop of guilt on top of an already-guilty conscience. There are SO MANY problems and potential ministry opportunities that one can work a full-time job at a church or non-profit just organizing volunteers to meet needs.

Identifying, organizing, and meeting needs are good things. Inspiring others to get involved is a good thing. Spreading the word far and wide about ministry opportunities is a good thing. Implying that everyone should get involved with one particular ministry is subtly destructive.

AIDS crisis in Africa, teen suicide, world hunger, child abuse. ALL are VERY IMPORTANT and need IMMEDIATE attention from men and women who are gifted and called to help in these areas. However, when a person hears about an urgent need that demands that they get involved, they have a choice to make. If they choose not to get involved, they will most likely experience some form of guilt. This guilt will either grow until the person caves and gets involved, or the person will harden themselves against it, ignore it, and move on. I know I’m using dramatic language here, but what I’m describing happens within each of us almost every day. You see a commercial, a billboard, a picture on the side bar of your web browser, an email from the missions committee at your church, an email from a local non-profit, a missed phone call from the youth pastor…  98% of the time, you ignore it! You move on with your day because there is NO WAY you have time (or money) for all of these things. Also, you’re used to ignoring the millions of commercials you see everywhere and so its easy to ignore these ministry “commercials” too.

This system of “need advertisement” is subtly destructive because it doesn’t give a human many healthy options. It says DO EVERYTHING otherwise you’re a bad person. Organizations (including churches) adopt the same strategy of raising money and recruiting volunteers that businesses use to sell products. You never hear an organization recruit volunteers by saying, “Our mission is very important, and if you have free time and money, please help us; but if you don’t, then its OK.” The system is broken.

But changing the system might be a tall order for tonight, so I’m going to focus on cultivating a healthy response to a busted system. I really need to learn how to say “no” to lots of good things and focus on being faithful in the few things that I am called to. Otherwise my alternatives are burn-out or a hardened heart. (I tend to err on the burn-out side).

Less busy, more faithful.

Big NOs to lots of things and big YESs to a few things.