Here’s how I learned about he best thing you can do for yourself. I’m remembering the time I bumped into Jeff Ingram in the hotel breakfast area. The previous evening, I had spoken at a local church while Jeff had led a conference for Sunday School directors in a neighboring community. Jeff said, “I had 14 directors in my conference. It was great.” I have never worked for Jeff’s employer–the Louisiana Baptist Convention with headquarters in Alexandria, Louisiana–but I knew what he is experiencing.
Without asking him, I can tell you the high point of his day. Jeff is sitting in his office and the phone rings. A pastor or church staffer or lay leader from somewhere across this state is on the line. “I need help,” he says. Jeff’s heart races. “Great,” he thinks to himself. “Someone needs me.”
What he says is, “Well, I’ll be happy to do anything I can for you.” If the caller has a problem of untrained leaders or an anemic organization that needs a shot in the arm or his Sunday School is in disarray and he is desperate for assistance, all the juices start flowing in Jeff Ingram’s veins.
This is great. This is what a denominational worker lives for. (He may even quote the Esther verse to himself : “I’ve come to the kingdom for such a time as this.”) This is why he’s there.
I guarantee it’s true, whether the worker is the employee of the association, the state convention, the national organization, one of our agencies.
The best part of their day is when someone calls needing what they have to offer. An even greater thing is when the caller asks for something they don’t know how to give and don’t know what to do about, but recognize as a genuinely needful situation and determine to find the answer. The worker/leader/servant loves a good challenge.
The worst part of his job, I guarantee, is sitting in his office with the phone never ringing. He begins to wonder if he is selling something no one needs, answering questions no one is asking, offering what no one wants.
The saddest part is looking at churches and their leaders who desperately need what they have to offer and either don’t know it or don’t care.
I’ve been on both sides of this situation.
–I’ve been the pastor (staff member, too, in two churches) who has sometimes felt the outside experts with their programs were irrelevant or out of touch or boring.
–I’ve been the denominational guy (the associational Director of Missions) who knew how to help that church down the way but could not force-feed the pastor or its leaders.
Here’s the Best Thing You’ll Ever Do for Yourself
What I did.
I once wrote a blistering letter to a group of pastors in a small parish some miles below New Orleans, my home base. “My colleague and I drove 80 miles each way last night to attend your meeting. Only two of you showed up.” The background is that each of them had our gathering on their calendars and should have been present.
Feeling my oats now and enjoying venting–something pastors and denominational guys rarely get to do–I said to those pastors, “This is your meeting. I don’t need it. We did it because you asked for it. I don’t get paid extra for doing this. I could have stayed home with my family last night. Instead, I got in at 11:30.”
