Busy = Value?

“I wish you would have called me 6 months ago…”

That was the response that I got from a FORMER pastor, who was incorrectly still on a list of pastors currently pastoring in our area. If I remember correctly, I had just told him about what we do in Grats Transformational Ministry Coaching and he had just finished telling me about how difficult of a time he had had in ministry; and that he and his family had finally just had enough. They stepped out of ministry and he wasn’t going back. The toughest part of that quotation above was actually the second part of it:

“I wish you would have called me 6 months ago… maybe I would still be in ministry.”

I got off of the phone in shock. Our coaching ministry had only been around for 2 or 3 months at that point, but I still couldn’t help feeling for a few moments like I had failed him somehow. I am writing this blog in hopes of making it to you “in time”.

What popped into your mind when you read “how difficult of a time he had in ministry”?

• Lay leaders who openly challenge almost your every move?

• Staff members who undercut you regularly?

• Church splits?

I have helped pastors and churches through all of these. But none of those are the most prolific culprit. Ok, so what is?

In my experience, this lie is: Busy = valuable.

(For those of you who are reading this and are not pastors, I see this lie permeating people in the business world as well; and it often has similar consequences.)

First and foremost, Busy DOES NOT equal value; nor does it equal valuable. It never has and it never does. That equation is a lie. And yet, I constantly hear church leaders talk about how they equate busyness to perceived value. (And again, I constantly see this in the business world as well.)

“Ioannis, when do you hear us says this?”

When we are all together, like at a conference, and you brag about how busy you are, even when you feign it as being overwhelming. When you list all that you have to do coming up… especially as if you are the only one who is ever busy. Do you know who almost never mentions how busy they are? People whose success is solely based on measurable metrics. In fact, in this instance, mentioning how busy they are can often cause other people to think that they just don’t know how to manage their time. (FYI – In the case of church leaders, bragging about busy ALSO often causes other people (who are not stuck in the same lie that they are) to think that the leader may not know how to manage their time well.) Again, people whose performance is measurable, and is based on set metrics, often do not discuss being busy. Their focus is not on being busy, but on achieving the metrics that their performance is being measured on.

So, because of that, some have tried to bring that same clarity into the church world. And, in limited areas and ways, such measurements are appropriate… such as with regards to finance. But the church should not have attendance quotas or conversion quotas.  Why not? Because “these things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion…”. Or stated a different way, Jesus never gave us quotas. He EASILY could have. Go and make 2 disciples a week. Nope, just go and make disciples. In fact, where the gospel deals with numbers, it is always relative to a person’s gifting and abilities. That is why some 30, some 60, and some 100 fold. The servant who made the master 5 more talents was no less valuable than the servant who made the master 2 more talents. Good trees will bear good fruit. The focus is on bearing good fruit. Should we desire to bear more and more fruit for the kingdom? Absolutely! But that is VERY different than concepts like quotas and metrics.

And there in lies the problem… church leaders feel that the people around them have no means to measure success, and since we live in a world where success equals value, many church leaders have no way to measure their value in the eyes of the people around them. I need to cover that for a moment… the actual way to determine value.

Value is determined by the price that someone is willing to pay for something. (This is why it can NEVER have anything to do with being busy.)

Jesus left Heaven, and the form of God that He was and again now is, to come and teach us/reveal the Kingdom to us/walk with us again/abide in us again/have deep intimate relationship with us again/be one with us/etc./etc./etc. And as if that were not enough, Jesus paid for us with His life. Therefore, we are very valuable. These things, and these things alone determine our value.

Can you find a place where the Bible equates busy with value? No. And we would never teach it, even though so many of us live it.

Sit with that statement a bit. That can apply to SO MUCH in this book!

Have you ever heard a sermon about the value of Jesus’ ministry busyness? Me neither.

What about the years before His ministry? Was He a homeless wonderer? If He submitted to his parents at 12 (final year considered a boy most likely), I see no reason why He would have stopped at 20 or 25. In fact, once Joesph was gone, it would have been Jesus’ duty to care for the family, especially His Mom. And we see this at His crucifixion when He hands his Mom to John to take care of. Why would He do that right before His death, if He had already abdicated her 2 decades before. If He had abandoned His expected duties, would not the response that He received when coming home to Nazareth had been much differet. So, until the time of His public ministry, he was most likely working hard to help provide at home. But do we ever preach that?

“Yes, Jesus was most likely a tradesman such as a stone worker or carpenter in his 20’s before he started his public ministry at age 30. Oh, what a price he paid for us by steadily, and even busily, working with his hands. You can come to Him with your life and experience His salvation because of what he built with his hands while on earth. Let’s worship Him now for his building ministry. In fact, take up your saws and let us cut wood together.”

I have NEVER heard this sermon, and probably never will. In fact, we don’t ACTUALLY know what happened during those “silent” years of Jesus’ life in part because they aren’t of enough value compared to His years of ministry. And John says that we have only a small percentage of all that He did in those 3+ years. I think we have the highlight reel of those 3+ years. Look, we aren’t valuable because He most likely spent His 20’s working in the trades. Did his brothers (who ended up as members and leaders in the early church) not know what he did before starting His public ministry? Of course they did. Then why don’t we have written volume after written volume of His every movement prior to His public ministry? We have an epistle from His brother James. Why no childhood stories? Why no examples of the “ordinary” portion of Jesus’ life? Because, compared to His 3+ years of earthly ministry, and especially how He ended His 3+ years of earthly ministry, the other stuff doesn’t really matter. This is Jesus that I am talking about here, and the perceived busyness of his young adult and adult life before ministry, wasn’t of enough value to even get one sentence in the New Testament… even though it would have all been about Jesus!

Why not?

Because busyness DOES NOT equal value.

Pastor, the only person in your church who truly believes that busy is equivalent to value, is probably you. And, watching it usually isn’t a pretty thing. Imagine the Wizard of OZ pretending day in and day out that his farce of being powerful and mighty is still fully intact, all the while the entire rest of the crowd is standing there behind him snickering because the curtain that had previously hidden him had been gone for years... but he just won’t admit that small truth to himself.

“Is this really that big of a deal, Ioannis? So us leaders run around crazy busy… so what?”

This is the lie that allows pastors to justify consistently shafting their families for the “work of the ministry”. This is the lie that can cause a church leaders family to hate ministry, and even walk away from following Jesus. This is the lie that actually reduces a pastor’s productivity. (Yep, one of the consequences of this lie is actually becoming LESS productive.) This is the lie that drives burn out among the church leader ranks. The tired/burned out anyone is dangerous at best, though normally quite volatile and destructive. And therefore, this is the lie that can cause a a church leader to say, “I wish you would have called me 6 months ago - maybe we would still be in ministry” – because they are now a former church leader.

Are you ready to make changes? Do you know that you need us to help? Let us know by clicking here.