It is a question I have often asked myself.
Something I’ve pondered.
Waged war with.
Chewed on until my jaws ache.
Have I (personally speaking) focused too much on the ‘busy’ work instead of the priorities of salvation? Am I spending so much time doing the mundane, the time consuming, soul-sucking tasks that offer no vital substance to life?
Don’t get me wrong, I am not viewing certain tasks as beneath me. I am, instead, uncovering something that I feel has been convicting to me…and perhaps it has been revealed to you as well by the Holy Spirit.
We, as an Army, have grown far beyond a movement birthed out of the ashes and smoke the industrial era. This movement has grown arms and legs in order to meet human needs in Jesus’ name. But with that growth, it becomes inevitable that we develop not so good traits as well. Over working ourselves. Demanding more and more income to support bloating projects. Straining for every ounce of local and federal funding sources. Funds are, of course vital to our cause, but there is a danger here: We might become tempted, in our busyness to trust less in the provision of God and trust more in our own efforts, our own donors, our own coffers.
Have we allowed busy work to shape our faith?
Have we entered into simply trusting in the next financial campaign instead of diligently seeking out what God would have us do? I pray this is never the case!
I am certainly not negating hard work, I am simply pondering whether in the midst of our hard work we have stopped looking to the Author of all things in exchange for the things He has created? Instead of commanding time, time is commanding us. In a very real sense have we lost our first love and replaced it with busy work?
I understand that we mustn’t grow tired of doing Good (Galatians 6:9)
But there should be moments of reflect that we do in order to be brought back to our first love and first priority – Loving God. THEN we are able to reach out and offer our soup, soap and salvation.
So how do we avoid making what we do just ‘Busy Work’?
3 Ways to Avoid The Trap of Busy Work:
1) Practicing the Presence of God Daily (Even moment by moment)
Brother Lawrence was right – we need to get into the practice of communing with the presence of God moment by moment. We need to fellowship with our Creator during the most trying of tasks to the most mundane of them. When we open up our lives and everything in them to God, we begin to share our experiences with Him. We are inviting Him to participate in them with us. Just because we have to do required mundane tasks doesn’t mean that it is busy work. ‘Busy work’ is done when we have no purpose, no mission or no aim. Busy work leads no one to Christ, consumes all our time and offers nothing in spiritual nourishment. When we enter into God’s presence throughout our day, we begin to eliminate the busy work. When we ask Him to commune with us, we begin to see what truly matters and life (and tasks) are given purpose once again. Why? We because we are not living for ourselves, our own hard work, our own ambitions, our own understanding…we are now dying to self, dying to corporate ladder climbing, dying to the search for approval and acceptance of others. Instead, we are living a new created life born out of holiness and the desire to be selfless.
2) Asking the question “Why”?
When we find ourselves caught in the busyness trap, we need to begin to asked questions. Like, “why am I doing what I am currently doing”. “Is this task or habit really what I should be doing?” “What is this contributing to the Kingdom building process?” Why do I catch myself falling into this ‘busyness’ trap again and again?
Habits are hard to break, and I believe busy work can be one of these bad habits that needs to be broken. We all are given time to do the necessary reports, chores, tasks…yet how often do we catch ourselves staring blankly at a computer screen? How often do we labor away at things that don’t really matter? I’m not saying we don’t do them, I am saying that perhaps we place too much emphasis on them. We give them too much importance and so our time gets eaten up in the non-Kingdom building habits.
There comes a point where we must look up.
Where we see where God desires us to go. Perhaps it is to talk to that person in the Social Services waiting room. Maybe it is to go and visit corps members, sit with a person that needs a friend, or spend a few solitary moments in the chapel praying. Are we looking up? Or do we go about our day with our heads down and buried in our computers, meanwhile making all of our tasks and duties “busy work”?
Why?
3) Connect with others.
I have mentioned this already in the second point…but it begs saying again: we MUST connect with other people (and not just on social media). Look people in the eyes. Really listen to their needs. Hear the hurt. See the longing for fellowship. Be a light to someone in need. Winning the world of Jesus begins with one or two people. If we aren’t reaching people for Christ what is the point of calling our selves an army of salvation?
When we realign ourselves with our first love and, in turn, pour that love out on others, we will have eliminated all ‘busy work’? How?
By turning each moment and each task into an opportunity to serve God. When we change our perspective and our priorities, we reorient our mission and purpose to the place it should have been all along.
Dear Salvation Army…is there ‘busy work’ taking place in your ministry right now?
Do you find yourself missing the mark and feeling unfulfilled in your calling?
Perhaps you must look up.
Perhaps a reprioritizing of life needs to take place.
Perhaps a rededication, a recommitment, a reigniting of the heart is in order.
Busy work happens to all of us…but we mustn’t remain there, we need to get up and move.
Something more for our Army to ponder today.
This is a great app that does cost a little bit, but is a tremendous tool if you have a portable device like an iPad or iPhone. The app is free, but the songs will you about $3 a piece, which is only a dollar more than what you would pay for songs you currently buy on Google Music store or the apple iTunes Store. When you buy these songs, you then have the ability to include all of the elements of the song (i.e lead vocals, guitar, drums etc.). So, for instance, if you wanted to lead the song you could turn the vocals down and sing with the music like it was Christian Karaoke hour. Or iSing worship could become your worship band in a box by simply hitting play. Be sure, however that you plan the songs you are going to sing ahead of time and have the words either printed or displayed on the screen for the congregation to sing along.
Conduct a prayer service with stations.
At the other end of the spectrum is the ignoring and tolerance of sin issues in your corps. Be mindful that we are not the judge of our world, but we do hold a high standard for our fellow brothers and sister in Christ who wear this uniform. This almost seems to be in complete conflict with the first point, but it is not. Galatians 6:1 clearly reminds us as it did in Paul’s day – “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”
Officer(s). Yes, they have had training, yes they are leaders, but they cannot lead properly without the core leaders to help them. A shared vision and delegated group will be better equipped to handle opportunities and threats that come to your corps and community. If you don’t currently have core leaders, begin by praying and asking God to reveal potential leaders to you. Prayer is never a last resort, but a constant conversation. Don’t limit your search to just the older members, the younger generations will eventually replace us at some point, so begin to invest in them. Begin to disciple them, and display for them what leadership is all about! Gather one or two influential people with common sense to help you in your corps. Remember, that we are an egalitarian movement – both men and women are equal, so do not limit your leadership search to just men or just women. Without a core group of leaders, the vision and movement will be limited.
and what we do as a corps, that we begin to have no need for the “outside world”. We stop looking out into our community and we become self-reliant and self-focused. In this danger, what happens when our congregation gets old and dies? Will there be youth to raise up and take our place? Will be just be a group of inbred soldiers? I don’t mean to sound crass, but the reality is, we need to stop being afraid of our communities. We need to stop treating the people outside our buildings as “those people” with a sense of superiority. We must squelch the desire to just remain in our buildings and selfishly focus on “us”. What about the great commission? What are we fighting for if we only fight for ourselves and our traditions and self-interests? If we are all-in and inwardly focused, we will slowly die away…and no one will care when we’re gone.
This is probably a rare thing, but perhaps not. Perhaps there are some corps that have so many services to the community that worship and all things “Spiritual” are an after thought, and then you come to Sunday and it just becomes a “thing we do”. We focus all of our energies on the outside, on meeting human needs but we seldom meet those needs “in HIS name” anymore. We might as well be just another social service agency or a humanitarian group, because we will have forgotten our first love and the “body” will be just bits and pieces pulled and stretched so thin that it doesn’t resemble Christ any longer.
vision and goal because “they have been set, and we don’t alter these goals”. Goals should never be so rigid that there is no looking back and re-evaluating what works and what does not work, whether it be in evangelism, discipleship, or corps fellowship growth strategies. Remember what worked 100 years ago, might not necessarily be the best method to use in an ever evolving culture. Not to say we adopt our culture, but we ought to consider what works and what does not work any longer and not be so rigid that we refuse to ever change how we plan and how we enact a strategy in our corps. Rigidity can kill your corps, and stifle any potential growth you might see.
If you corps does not understand Holiness, and or it is never preached on spoken of, perhaps this might be an indicator of a terminal issue. I am not saying that holiness is the end-all be-all of the corps, but what do you do with Salvation after receiving it? Where does one go after initial sanctification? Does the Holy Spirit still desire to transform us through and through? Does He not want us to be the very reflection of Christ? Yes. There needs to be continual conversation about our surrendered life and how that looks in the real world.
emulating elders we respect, this is becoming more than who we are now. Walking in the footsteps of saints and in so doing, we too become saints within this great army. If your corps does not have this vital element, closely connected to holiness, you could be facing extinction. Recognize this need, and do something!!
to be in the bygone days. We can rest comfortably on financial resources and riches we have been given from various places, and never take another risk again…and if we do this, we. will. die. I cannot stress it enough, in order for God to change our Army, we have to become uncomfortable again. We have to take risks and forget what the rules and regulations say. We have to close dead corps, move to places of need without bureaucratic red tape hamstringing us along the way. We have to get out of our pews and put feet to our professed faith. It’s either put up or shut-up. Seriously, we can talk a good game, but if we can’t back it up, then hung it up and quit already. We don’t need fans in the stands not doing the work. We don’t need complainers and criticizers telling it us it can’t be done – because the risk is too great. If we don’t do something, we might as well put our corps on life-support right now. There is a sad trend that is taking place in our corps around the USA, and our corps are not statistically growing anymore. We are not busting out of our corps buildings anymore. Yes, perhaps it’s across the board in all denominations, but could it be that we are so comfortable now that we have stopped ACTUALLY trying to reach our communities? Could this be an entire systemic issue of spiritual laziness? Forgive me if I offend you today, I can’t help but feel alarmed at how swiftly our corps are dying. And I can’t help but wonder what the next 50 years will hold for this movement? If we do nothing, we will not be here in 50 years…not like we have been, not like we should be…and then perhaps, Lord forbid, God raises up someone else to do what we should have been doing.
Pastor's Ponderings 