I had lunch today with a friend who is having a hard time engaging. The question, “what should I do?” as related to ministry/life’s work/goals/etc. Yeah, great question for me as I certainly have that all figured out! So I told him to just take a step. Literally. Walk outside his door and look at his neighborhood and ask God to show him where to go. “So, do I go north, south, east or west?” Well, since you’re south of your house right now, on your way home, take a look! It’s south. The answer is south.
I’ve had this pang in my heart to encourage others to engage. That’s one of my main “objectives” (I hate that word in this context, but, it kinda fits here) in working with the young adults at our church. Engage. Take a step and see how/where God can use you. I think many of them are actually engaged and have ministries that I am not even aware of. I recently found that out. However, I think we get too used to sitting down and finding ourselves enjoying the comfort of where we’re at. We don’t want to engage because it might make us feel uncomfortable. Is he/are we afraid of failure? Maybe. I know we’re programmed in this Western society to seek success all the time in everything, so much that perhaps we’re afraid of engagement because that could lead to failure.
But, I’m not so sure that’s the case. I think it’s that we fear being uncomfortable. We’d rather not make others and certainly not ourselves, feel uncomfortable.
We like status quo.
I don’t want to end with that but I’m not sure what else to say. How does that fit into church life? As a church leader, I can certainly see where that’s the case. In almost everything we do, we like, no, we demand status quo. We can’t be “like” those other churches, that’s just not “us”. Yeah, because change, any change makes us feel different. And we don’t want to feel different. Yeah, sure. We can go on vacation or a mission trip and that helps us feel something different, But, when we come back, we want to sleep in our own bed. We want to feel what’s comfortable.
What’s that say for my own life? Am I personally afraid to engage, to do something different, to take a step for fear of making others or myself uncomfortable?
We look for that proverbial “calling”. And think that unless we’re “called”, then we must not take a step. What if it’s the wrong step? But then we sit and do nothing. Or, just accept the ways it’s always been. I’m not suggesting we change for the sake of changing. But, perhaps we use this excuse to keep even taking a step.
