So maybe this won't prove to be relevant but I believe I have stumbled across something which has helped me immensely in my understanding of ministry and, I suppose, life in leadership. The problem with leadership to me is that there is all of this other junk that comes along with it that I'm not all that keen on. For example, announcing events, collecting money, pulling weeds, filling out forms, etc.
There's no reason in particular that I hate these things, but I do and I hate them passionately. I love hanging out, talking, teaching, researching for lessons and the like, but I hate these bodily, boring, tedious tasks. I was thinking about this recently when it hit me that such a hatred of these things is really a hatred of what it actually takes to be with one another. In other words, I have this great love for the idea of being with people and of transformation and all these sorts of good-sounding things but I hate even the thought of doing the things that it takes to actually be with people. I love the idea of presence in a neighborhood but do not want to deal with taxes and properties and problems. I just want to come into a place and have everyone trust me and we can all get on with our transformation. But it doesn't work like that. In fact, it works nothing like that. Instead, things are messy and don't work the way that we want them to. People sin and leave things out, do things they shouldn't do and neglect to do things that they should. It is important to organize so that people can function together in a way that is healthy and productive. Forms are important because insurance is important; money matters, taxes and all of that matters because these things are the substance of what it means to be in a community with people. To exist is to rub up against others and this friction causes the necessary structures of society.
I put all of these very bodily and not glamorous or exciting things off to the side because I don't want to see the forms or the taxes or the cost or any of that crap which is far from what we're really trying to get at with ministry, right?
Unfortunately (for me), to ignore these bodily and normal everyday events and neccesities is to be a gnostic. What? how can that be? What's a gnostic?
A gnostic was an ancient Greek who believed that humanity is a (good) soul trapped in the (bad) material world. When they interacted with Christianity in the first and second centuries, they had a lot of trouble with the incarnation and their wrong teachings explain much of what is behind the New Testament's writings. How could a good God take the form of a material body, which is obviously flawed and evil? The gnostic tendency is to remove the divine from the actual bodies and materials of existence. This is a constant struggle in the Christian church and in Western society in general. There is always an urge to disconnect, to idealize, to create a utopian society. This, I believe, is the same tendency that makes us desire not to be engaged with real lives and therefore to run away to the academy and read our lives away or to come into a place and expect everyone to just change on their own without relationship or struggle. It is what causes me to put off the administrative tasks of ministry and forget that all of these tedious tasks are the mark of God's redemption of the material reality of creation.
God took on human flesh and entered into the boredom, the tediom and despair of our existence that we might know God's redemption in the fullness of time. Is it mine to reject that redemption and turn to my own desires for fulfillment to define the work of ministry? May it not be so. Rather, faithfulness in the small things will lead to more responsibility and the hope of God's glory pervading all the mundane and frustrating details of the world. I am turning my heart and disposition that I might hope for the glory and redemption of all of creation--even the boring, lame and the inexcusably dull. God took on the form of a human and it is in the fullness of that form that the minister and Christian ought to live.
There's no reason in particular that I hate these things, but I do and I hate them passionately. I love hanging out, talking, teaching, researching for lessons and the like, but I hate these bodily, boring, tedious tasks. I was thinking about this recently when it hit me that such a hatred of these things is really a hatred of what it actually takes to be with one another. In other words, I have this great love for the idea of being with people and of transformation and all these sorts of good-sounding things but I hate even the thought of doing the things that it takes to actually be with people. I love the idea of presence in a neighborhood but do not want to deal with taxes and properties and problems. I just want to come into a place and have everyone trust me and we can all get on with our transformation. But it doesn't work like that. In fact, it works nothing like that. Instead, things are messy and don't work the way that we want them to. People sin and leave things out, do things they shouldn't do and neglect to do things that they should. It is important to organize so that people can function together in a way that is healthy and productive. Forms are important because insurance is important; money matters, taxes and all of that matters because these things are the substance of what it means to be in a community with people. To exist is to rub up against others and this friction causes the necessary structures of society.
I put all of these very bodily and not glamorous or exciting things off to the side because I don't want to see the forms or the taxes or the cost or any of that crap which is far from what we're really trying to get at with ministry, right?
Unfortunately (for me), to ignore these bodily and normal everyday events and neccesities is to be a gnostic. What? how can that be? What's a gnostic?
A gnostic was an ancient Greek who believed that humanity is a (good) soul trapped in the (bad) material world. When they interacted with Christianity in the first and second centuries, they had a lot of trouble with the incarnation and their wrong teachings explain much of what is behind the New Testament's writings. How could a good God take the form of a material body, which is obviously flawed and evil? The gnostic tendency is to remove the divine from the actual bodies and materials of existence. This is a constant struggle in the Christian church and in Western society in general. There is always an urge to disconnect, to idealize, to create a utopian society. This, I believe, is the same tendency that makes us desire not to be engaged with real lives and therefore to run away to the academy and read our lives away or to come into a place and expect everyone to just change on their own without relationship or struggle. It is what causes me to put off the administrative tasks of ministry and forget that all of these tedious tasks are the mark of God's redemption of the material reality of creation.
God took on human flesh and entered into the boredom, the tediom and despair of our existence that we might know God's redemption in the fullness of time. Is it mine to reject that redemption and turn to my own desires for fulfillment to define the work of ministry? May it not be so. Rather, faithfulness in the small things will lead to more responsibility and the hope of God's glory pervading all the mundane and frustrating details of the world. I am turning my heart and disposition that I might hope for the glory and redemption of all of creation--even the boring, lame and the inexcusably dull. God took on the form of a human and it is in the fullness of that form that the minister and Christian ought to live.
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