No answers or advice for youth workers in this post, just an invitation to do a little pondering and potentially enter into a conversation. Honestly, it is a conversation I would rather not have. I am obsessed with efficiency and productivity. Seriously, ask my wife. We “have discussions” about aesthetics often. In my world the photos, paint, and wall hangings she spends money on or time and energy creating add little value to our home because they have no practical value. We “have discussions” about her getting the radio right before we start driving because it would be way more efficient to do that at the first red light. I have a problem.
Also, as the point person for YouthHOPE’s internships, I fear it could reflect poorly on the program we have been trying to build. (Because it could make them appear to be all about the participant and their experience, which is always a secondary issue in our planning.)
Two quotes from 2011 summer interns. “Haiti saved me” and “God knew me well enough to know he needed to send me halfway around the world to rest.”
Is God far less concerned about efficiency than we are? These quotes are just the latest of a long line of things that have me nearly convinced we have self-imposed our western obsession with efficiency onto the one true God. There are way more effective ways to help a recent Bible College grad struggling with depression and purpose in life than all the resources and energy required to do a two month internship. Also, it is incredibly inefficient to send a student almost ready to begin her career in physical therapy to SE Asia for the summer to grieve and rest. She surely flew over thousands of Christian retreat centers and counselors. They both added to the ministry their teams did. Both of their host global youth workers (missionaries focused on adolescents) speak very highly of them and would welcome them back. One even had the opportunity to use some of her medical background as a random opportunity opened for her to teach English to young doctors from N. Korea. Both quotes though testify to a God that cares deeply for His children and will go to no end in His efforts to care for them.
God doesn’t appear to be efficient, and it makes me uncomfortable. I do not allow myself to be inefficient. How could I? It would be a waste of resources, a waste of God given opportunities. My personal strive for efficiency, is it part of my sanctification process or merely a result of the culture I grew up in?
About Adam
Very thought-provoking article — and on a personal note, I am very glad your are husband to ONE wife!!!
Well thanks Carole. I will go ahead and assume you are also glad I am “not striker and not given to filthy lucre”
Good one brother. In your quest for frugality, I might also add that if the amount of $$ Solomon spent to build the Temple, when translated in to today’s economy, would land us at a building that cost billions of dollars. That’s one stumbling block that I have often had when reading the OT – to think of bricks that were in-laid with gold mixed in to the mortar – unreal. The NT paradox is “silver and gold, I have not, but in the Name of Jesus – rise up and walk.”
hey Adam
this is great stuff
thanks for sharing.
Hello there! I’m certainly pleased I discovered this website and I’ll be book-marking and checking back again regularly! Thanks.
Thanks Gregg. How’d you find out about us?