As we caught up on our lives, sharing with one another what
God has been doing and how we have been responding, Dana asked me a question
that really made me think. He asked, “Now
that you have been doing this job for awhile, what have you noticed is different
from working this job and working in the church?” It did not take long for me to be able to
articulate to him what I see as different and similar.
The first thing that popped into my mind is how authentic
people have been in the places where I have spent the day working across the
country. Maybe it is because I am there
for a day and gone. Maybe it is because the
phone installation guy is akin to a bartender. No matter the case, people seem to be very
open, even sometimes blunt, about who they really are.
I have had people talk to me about their divorces, their
child custody issues, their problems with the IRS, and their desire for me to
take off the blocker on their computer so they can get porn. There have been people who have used most
every curse word imaginable, are not afraid of telling me what they really
think about the people they work with, and how much they enjoy going out with
the guys and getting drunk.
I have also had people
brag on their children, and tell me what a priority their family is to them. I have seen them express gratitude to one
another, and joke with one another in a lighthearted way. I have heard their hope and dreams, and have watched
them interact with their spouses after hours while they waited for me to finish
up the install.
In short, my experience has been what you see is what you
get. Whatever the person is like that is
what they present. There is no
pretense. No faced. They simply are who they are.
This is not always the experience in the church. Often people come to church and feel as if
they have to put on an image that does not really represent what is going on in
their heart. This false self is often
what they think others will love and accept, rather than who they really are. How in the world did the place where we are
to discover God’s unconditional love and acceptance, become a place where people
would feel the need to hide who they really are in order to be loved. Sadly, some people live their whole life in
Christian community hiding behind this wall.
This dooms them to never fully discover what it means to be truly loved.
Gratefully, something is changing in the church. The younger generations will not put up with
the inauthenticity. They want their
leaders to be real, and they bring the reality of their lives to the
table. Sure, there are still areas where
they hide behind a false self, but these walls look far different from the walls
that are traditionally erected in the Christian community. This is a good thing, because the people I am
meeting on the job are not ever going to come to a place where they are going
to have to be less real about who they are.
Now do not let this first observation lead you to believe
that it is all wonderful out there. The second
thought that came to my mind regarding the difference between ministry and this
job is that where I am working now I do not see in most people the fundamental
underlying call to love. Do not get me
wrong. They do love. They love their family, their friends, their
baseball team, but they do not have any internal motivation to love those who
they do not have a natural affinity for, let along those whom they dislike. If you are in their inner circle, great, If
you are not, screw you.
I can hear this attitude as they talk about their ex’s,
their bosses, their co-workers, and their customers. When someone has hurt them, done them wrong,
or is being unreasonable they do not seek to return to them love, they seek retaliation. This is probably the hardest thing for my
soul to take.
Working in the church, our call is to love our enemy, to
reach out in love to the disenfranchised, and to love one another as Christ has
loved us. If we have been hurt, or
wronged, or suffered unreasonable people we are to look past them to Jesus and
love them on his behalf. This is not
always easy, and I admit I do not always do it well, but behind the reality of
what is there is always an internal prodding to love my enemy, to bless those
who curse you, to love like Christ loved.
I do not get any
sense of this in the places I have been working. Rather than despairing over this reality I
think to myself how I can model something different. The other day I had a salesman who was kind
of a hard nut to work with. He was crotchety
about everything I had to do at his desk and on his computer. Rather than responding in kind, or simply
ignoring him, I sought to respond with loving-kindness. It was amazing to see over the course of a
day how much his response to me changed.
I do not know if it will change his whole world, but he at least got a glimpse
of love.
I think the fact that this difference exists gives great
hope for the reality of the love of God to be spread. As those who follow Jesus seek to love in
unworldly ways, the light of love will shine brightly in these otherwise dark
places.
The third observation I had, even given this lack of love in
the office, was that when sales are good, it does not matter. When I am working in an office where there
have been lots of call and wheels are flying off the shelf, it is amazing how cheerful
the environment becomes. People tease
one another, laugh with one another, offer to pick up lunch for one another,
and talk about getting a drink with one another.
When something has gone wrong in the day, however, it is a
totally different environment. When a
shipment did not go out, or a customer call irate because they got the wrong
product, or an order did not get put into the system, or sales are bad the
kindheartedness is sucked from the room.
People begin to backbite one another, they speak ill of one another,
they blame one another, and they seek to protect themselves, even if it means
throwing one another under the bus.
Unfortunately, in this area the two environments seem to me
to be quite similar. When the church is
growing, giving is good and you are pushing 1400 everybody is happy. People are enjoying one another, they are accepting
and loving towards one another, they are spending time with one another, and
they for one another.
However, if church attendance drops and giving declines, watch
out. Suddenly they begin to blame one
another, conspire against one another, they seek to protect themselves, and
even throw one another, if not under the bus at least off of it. It saddens me just how alike these two environments
are in this. This fact causes me to give
pause and ask if I ever want to go back to working in a church.
I have hope, however, that a church can be different than the
world. I desire to be part of a community
where, because we have been loved by Christ we can come together as a people and
love one another as fully and completely as is humanly possible this side of
heaven. Where this environment enables
us to be able to be open and honest with whom we really are, trusting that
those around us will not judge, but see in us who were are able to become
because of the indwelling of the Spirit of the living God. Those in this community will be committed to
one another to walk with one another, helping each other to grow into who we really
are. When good times come we will be for
one another, enjoying God’s blessings, and praising Him together for His gifts,
and when hard times come we will resist the temptation to turn on one another,
instead seeing the circumstance as an opportunity to demonstrate more fully our
trust and dependence on our Father, doubling our support for one another, our
belief in one another and willingness to love.
It is this kind of community that will enable the gospel to
break through to the places where I have been working lately. It is this kind
of community that will bring light into dark places. It is
this kind of community that calls to my heart and it is only the promise and
possibility of this kind of community that would move me into stepping back into
ministry. I pray it is with this kind of community in mind that you enter into your places of worships this Sunday. I pray it shapes the way you interact with people. I pray the vision of this kind of community fills you with grace for one another and gives you to desire to love one another especially when it is hard, because it is when we love one another in the hard places that we make known the love of God.
May God bless and strengthen you towards this end.
May God bless and strengthen you towards this end.
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