Struggling with Service

This Sunday, my church's senior pastor presented a great challenge about service and hospitality. He made some great comments, including (paraphrased)

1. Burnout is not a result of doing too much but of wrong motivation.
2. Availability/life station should be a factor in our service, but not an excuse for not serving.
3. We should not let our gifts pigeonhole us into a certain venue of service.
4. Our gifts need development through use.
5. The best way to discern our gifts is to start serving and see what people notice about us. (Could this be considered a genetic algorithm? But I digress provocatively...)

It occurs to me that, not only does the church struggle to put these truths into practice, but the university does, as well. Service is one of the "Big Three" when it comes to faculty expectations (along with teaching and scholarship), and faculty (Christian and non-Christian) also struggle with motivation-based burnout, a sense of unavailability, pigeonholing themselves, lack of development, and lack of self-awareness.

If Christian faculty proactively learned to adopt these principles in serving the church and the university, one can only imagine how it would revolutionize our example to other believers and our witness to the academy.

How have you struggled with service? How have you dealt with motivation, availability, self-awareness, and development?

What should an ECC elder believe about the creation of the universe?

This was the question posed to me as an essay assignment (only one page!) at a leadership development class at my church (ECC).

 

I found this question very interesting not just because of its relevance to my professional life, but because it was the only question on the assignment list phrased in terms of "What should an elder at ECC believe" and because, in my opinion, it offers the most room for disagreement and debate out of all the questions on the list.

 

I'm pasting in my answer below.

 

Beliefs

An elder at Eastside Community Church (ECC) should believe…

1. God made the universe good.
   
2. God made the universe out of nothing.
   
3. The universe is separate from and dependent on God.
   
4. The universe reveals God's glorious character (including, but not limited to, His wisdom and sovereignty).
   
5. The universe inspires worship of God.
   
6. The universe glorifies God, even apart from the worship it inspires.
   
7. The universe was placed under humankind's care.
   
8. Humans, specifically, are part of creation, are radically different from the rest of creation, are created in God's image (in particular as creators and cultivators), and are the pinnacle of creation.
   
9. The universe is fallen.
   
10. The universe will be restored.
    
11. God's truth and nature's appearance do not always seem to agree.
    

Many of these Beliefs are depicted pictorially in Figure 1.

 

Applications

Based on these Beliefs, an elder at ECC should…

1. Actively engage and support the efforts of congregation members to understand, care for, and cultivate creation.
   
2. Affirm the significance of human beings, especially in light of our present day's dehumanizing intellectual and moral culture (which is desperately seeking an answer to this problem).
   
3. Assess present-day challenges (from the external world and from within the church) to these Beliefs and respond accordingly.
   

Open Issues

On the following list of creation-related issues, an elder at ECC should allow disagreement and encourage healthy, informed discussion among the elders and within the congregation. In such discussion, an elder (and all Christians) should seek to understand how each opinion can be seen to glorify God. To be conversant in these issues, an elder should strive to understand relevant scientific research & biblical interpretation and adopt the appropriate terminology.

1. The interpretation of quantum mechanics.
   
2. The age and development of the universe.
   
3. Evolutionary theory.
   
4. The origin of humans.
   
5. The origin of carnivorism/omnivorism.
   
6. The development of language.
   
7. God's relationship to time.
   

Figure 1. Pictorial representation of the Beliefs summarized in this essay.

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Your turn: What should a leader at your church believe about your field of study?