“What are you passionate about?”

It’s a common question, at least in church world. And it’s a good question. You should do what you’re passionate about. (There are bounds to this, but we’ll leave them alone for now.)

But it’s also not the only question to ask… or perhaps it’s too narrow a question.

Some needs exceed the passion to fill them. For instance, chairs that need to be set up present a regular need, but rarely ignite a passion. Same for dishes that need to be cleaned. In most places, I’ve seen that the number of children who need to be cared for exceeds the number of adults passionate about caring for them. (That one is a sad reality to me. I get it––it’s taxing, and for many, intimidating. But I still hope for a day that our passion for kids exceeds any need.)

For some necessary things, we may need to supplement passion with sacrifice––people who do something not because they wake up excited to do it, but because it’s important and needs doing.

This is where we might broaden our questions about passion. Someone may not be passionate about washing dishes, but she’s passionate about community meals. And she’s willing to wash the dishes to make it happen. Someone may not be passionate about leading children’s ministry, but he’s passionate about children being ministered to, so he volunteers.

Whatever church community you’re a part of, let me urge you to do two things:

1 – Ask yourself what you’re passionate about. And be sure the leaders in your community know. Ask if there are ways for you to give in one of those areas.

(Also be aware that there are some areas where passion exceeds need. These tend to be the more visible roles. Don’t be disappointed if there’s not as much opportunity to serve in those areas of passion as you’d like.)

2 – Dedicate yourself to one thing that’s a need, even though it’s not a passion.

Look around and see what areas of need you can identify. If you can’t find them, ask the leaders in your community, “Where are the places you could really use more help? If you could have someone show up regularly and faithfully to do something, what would you ask for?” They’ll be able to answer those questions with ease.

Find one of these things and do it on a regular, scheduled, disciplined basis. When you do this, it’s not because you love doing it (though maybe a love could grow for it), it’s because you’re passionate about the larger mission of the church. And that small act of service is essential to the bigger mission.

Occasionally #1 and #2 go together. That’s the person who truly has a passion for setting up chairs (have I met you??) and does it faithfully. If that’s you, I hope you know how special you are to the community. Same to that children’s Sunday School teacher who has been doing it for 20 years and loves it.

“I don’t have time to do both,” you say. “Do I serve in the area of need, or passion?”

Let’s start with a question: Is the thing you’re passionate about something where passion exceeds need in your community (i.e. if you gave up your spot, people would rush to fill it)? If so, I’d recommend you stop doing the passion thing for a time and only fill the need.

Otherwise, you’re leading in a coveted role without demonstrating the servant leadership of also leading in a needed role. Also, when you stay away from that area of passion until your time frees up, you’re likely to find a way to free some time.

Every great movement is a mix of passion and sacrifice. People do things they love, and they’re excited to be part of a great cause. People also make sacrifices to do less-interesting things, because they know those things are part of the larger mission.

The church can and should be the greatest movement on earth––the greatest mixture of passion and sacrifice that our world sees.

To the many, many, many of you who already exemplify that––thank you! Those small things may not seem like much, but that chair you set up, or that diaper you change, is what makes it possible for the rest of this great mission to happen.

To any of you who wouldn’t yet be described as a model of passion and sacrifice in your community, there’s still time to sign up.

A note to people who have been burned by the church

church kills — For those who’ve experienced the wrong meaning of this…

I went to a restaurant a few months ago and had a bad experience. The wait was long, the food was mediocre, the service was bad.

That surely isn’t the best they can offer.

Now I may or may not give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they were just having a bad night. Maybe I was just having a bad night. Even the best restaurant in America gets an occasional bad review. So maybe they deserve a second chance. Perhaps even a third. I may go back; I don’t know yet.

But even if I give up on that restaurant, I’m not giving up on restaurants. Because one restaurant failed to give me good food and good service doesn’t mean that I’ve decided none of them are worth it. Even if I have two or three or ten bad experiences (I’ve surely had at least a dozen), I’m not ready to give up on the whole restaurant thing. I think they have something of value for me—namely, a typically good meal that I didn’t have to cook or clean.

Burned by the Church

For you who have had a really bad experience in the church—or even two or three or ten—two things:

First, on behalf of all of us, I’m sorry that it happened. I hate it that some people have been burned by the church. But I also know it’s inevitable. Because everyone has off-nights.

More than that, it’s inevitable because the church gets into bigger things than a restaurant. We’re dealing with eternal matters, virtue and vice, deep relationships. We’re dealing with souls. And that means things are going to get personal at some point. And we may handle those things the wrong way. Or we may cause offense even handling things the right way at times.

The restaurant can take too long to deliver you a burnt steak and then be rude about it. But that’s about as far as they can offend you. Your offense at that can last a few days.

Because of the things we’re dealing with in the church, we can cause greater offense—the kind that still burns years and decades later. If you’re upset because of that kind of experience, hesitant to go back or adamant that you won’t, your feelings make sense.

But second, can I urge you not to give up on churches and on the Church, just because you had those bad experiences? The church is still the Body of Christ, flawed though we are. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. And to be part of that larger Body, we should be part of an actual church body—a real, visible local congregation.

Though it’s popular today, it’s a big problem to like Jesus but reject the church. As Cyprian, a North African church father, said: “You cannot have God for your Father unless you have the Church for your mother.”

If you’ve been burned, or perhaps just gotten bored, or maybe even lazy, can I urge you to make 2015 the year that you re-connect to a local church? Your experience may not be perfect. Mine hasn’t been. But it’s likely to be life-changing. Without the love, forgiveness, truth and grace that I’ve received from a real, visible local congregation—First UMC in Lexington—I have no idea where I would be.

Abundance, Scarcity, and Prodigal living

Stephen Covey coined the terms “Scarcity Mentality” and “Abundance Mentality” in his excellent book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. But the way he used them isn’t the way I usually hear them used.

For Covey, the Scarcity Mentality assumes there’s only one piece of pie out there, and if others get more, it means less for you. It reflects a sort of insecurity about all of life.

By contrast, the Abundance Mentality believes in an expandable pie. There’s enough out there for all of us.

That’s a great perspective. Sadly, I usually hear it (mis)applied to financial decisions. That version goes something like this…

Scarcity Mentality

Scarcity Mentality is all about fear and avoiding risk. It always sees the reason you can’t do something, the reason something will fail. And that reason is usually lack of resources.This might try to disguise itself as prudence.

It would be fair for us to ask Scarcity Mentality people where their faith is. Shouldn’t we be able to act in faith and trust that God can do more than what we imagine?

This is a pretty good application of the Scarcity Mentality. If you (personally or organizationally) have this mentality about things, I hope this challenges you to think differently.

Abundance Mentality #1

What then gets termed “Abundance Mentality” is the view that we can act in faith and God will take care of the rest. We can stretch beyond what’s comfortable, maybe even beyond what’s wise, because we trust that God will provide. It’s a step of faith.

Opposite the Scarcity Mentality, this mentality spurns caution and fear. “Just have faith,” it says.

I’ve used this kind of Abundance Mentality when talking to people about clear matters of faithfulness. You work at a job where you have no option but to lie, swindle, or oppress? I would advise you to leave that job immediately. Even if you don’t have other options. I might even say, “Let’s trust that God is going to reward your faithfulness and provide.”

But this Abundance Mentality gets used much more broadly. It can serve as justification for almost any life or organizational decision. I’ve seen people rack up massive student loan debts because they were sure God wanted them to go to seminary. And whenever a church wants to do more than their budget allows, or build more than what their capital campaign has raised, someone will bring up abundance: “Where’s the faith that God will take care of the rest?”

Unfortunately, that sort of Abundance hasn’t always come through.

After a record stint of church construction in 2002, church foreclosures have become more common. Don’t you imagine there was a lot of talk about abundance when those churches were building? “Even if the numbers don’t quite add up, let’s take a step in faith.” So why have hundreds of congregations been filing for bankruptcy or defaulting on loans? One expert says it bluntly: “Religious organizations may be subject to the laws of God but they are also subject to the laws of economics.”

Seminary graduates are dealing with stifling student loan debt and not finding the work they need to pay it back. One recent grad reflects: “I am not mad at the church. However, I wish someone had advised me against taking on so much debt in order to be trained for ministry.”

Even when these decisions didn’t result in foreclosure or bankruptcy, I’ve seen them result in a lot of compromises. I’ve seen people take jobs that compromised their values (or their stated ministry callings) because they needed to pay those bills. I’ve seen churches compromise their ministries because they had to find a way to keep paying that debt. It seems that too often, this “Abundance Mentality” on the front-end creates a lot of compromise on the back end.

The problem with Abundance Mentality #1 (Prodigal Mentality)

I’m not much a fan of this “Abundance Mentality.” It runs to the other end of the extremes that we see in the Scarcity Mentality. It doesn’t only spurn fear and risk-avoidance, it can serve as an excuse for careless and reckless decisions.

What if some of our “leaps of faith” may actually be excuses for avoiding important questions?

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?”[1. Luke 14:28]

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?”[1. Luke 14:31]

Just as the Scarcity Mentality can disguise fear and call it prudence, this mentality can disguise extravagance and lack of discipline and call them faith. When that happens, the better proper name for this is “Prodigal Mentality.”

prodigal |ˈprädigəl|
spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant

So what if we reserved this sort of approach for when it’s truly and unquestionably about faithfulness? When it can’t just be an excuse for prodigal living. Like when it’s about leaving a job that requires us to do evil. Or when we’ve heard a clear call from God, and it has been affirmed by wise and trusted Christian people around us (not to be confused with the people most likely to agree with us.)

[If you really think this applies to your situation for using debt as your primary seminary funding, please at least read “The Modern Pastor and Seminary Debt” and consider it.]

The Real Abundance Mentality

For everything outside those circumstances, I’m going to suggest a different version of Abundance Mentality.

What God has given now is enough for now.

The prayer isn’t, “Oh God, I’m going to do this and trust that you’ll give me enough for it.” But instead, “God give me enough to do what you want.”

And then we faithfully take what God has given and trust that it’s enough to do what God wants.

Don’t confuse this for a passive or small-minded approach, for the dreaded Scarcity Mentality. Dream big!

If you work for a grant-funded organization, be diligent and creative in your grant-writing. If you’re a church depending on people’s contributions, then paint a big vision and encourage them to give. If you’re considering school, apply for scholarships and look for work that will help you pay for it.

Aggressively seek what you need so that you can do what you believe you should do. Especially seek it in prayer.

But if it doesn’t come, might you take that as a sign that you’re misunderstanding the calling? Better to let that be the sign than serious setbacks later.

And don’t confuse this for lack of faith. This can be the hardest version of faith––we don’t get to do what we had our hearts set on because God hasn’t yet provided for it. And so we wait and trust that God’s plan is better than our own.

Faithful with what we have

Be faithful with the few things God has given you now, and God will put you in charge of many things.[1. Matt 25:21, 23]

We’re never called in Scripture to be faithful with more than what we have.[1. See 2 Cor 8:12 and 9:6-11 for good example.] I wonder if this era of easy debt has skewed our thinking about faithfulness––trying to be faithful with things we don’t have in the first place.

So let’s live with neither the fear of the Scarcity Mentality or the recklessness of the Prodigal Mentality. Let’s ask God for his biggest dreams––bigger than what we may ever expect on our own. And let’s ask God to provide for them in his timing. And then let’s trust in God’s abundance––that what he has given today is enough for today, and what he will give tomorrow will be enough for tomorrow.

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