Tag: work life

  • You’ve Got to Want It

    Ministry isn’t family friendly.

    I know people in youth ministry from the “biggest and best churches” in America. And I know people in youth ministry in the tiniest churches in America.

    And both people have the same complaints and struggles– ministry life sucks for family life.

    My response to that?

    So what? Cope and deal. Do the best you can.

    Ministry people aren’t alone in struggling to put family first. Any and every profession has the same struggle. Our desire to make full-time ministry this heroic effort and sacrifice to our family is humiliating to the people who make the same sacrifices to finance our vision. Not to mention– nearly half the people we are trying to reach are single parents who have to put work first in order to just keep their family afloat.

    The reality is that “family first” is a marketing line that has been repeated to the point where we think it is some sort of biblical by-law. It’s hardly a biblical mandate. I seem to remember Jesus’ call to his disciples being to leave family and put him first. Offering yourself as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) doesn’t have an out clause for parents of young children. On and on… there simply aren’t calls to a a life in ministry, biblically, that are “family first.”

    It is something we believe to be true which just isn’t in the Bible.

    Sorry.

    Even in an agrarian society, which you hear family-first people constantly refer to, it’s not like dad has a stay-at-home job. Have you ever visited a farm? Family-friendly workplace is not a description I’d use to describe a dairy farm. Or a family growing corn. Or even our local organic farm that supplies our CSA.

    Family-first people also reference pre-Industrial Colonial times as this idealistic time of parenting where mom and dad patiently did homework or taught a skill to their sons and daughters. What history books are these people smoking? I could point to any biography of an early American success story and their life was hardly “family-friendly.” It’s funny how revisionism is a two-way street, isn’t it?

    The Secret Ingredient of Success

    Success, by any definition, has not changed in its core ingredient, since the stone ages.

    You’ve got to want it.

    Or you’ve got to steal it.

    Let’s assume that you the type of person who prefers the former over the latter.

    You’ve got to want it more than the person next to you.

    You’ve got to outwork, out-hustle, out-whatever everyone you know.

    You’ve got to wake up wanting it.

    You’ve got to lay your head down in knowledge that you didn’t want it enough.

    You’ve got to throw balance out the window.

    You’ve got to Cats in the Cradle it.

    The bottom line is that if you are driven by some ideal of success, however you define it… it’ll own you more than you own it.

    And the reality is that once most people figure out that the dreams they had as children involved all of that– they redefine happiness around a new kind of success.

    That’s why “family first” is a different mantra of success.

    That’s why successful people get on Oprah or Barbara Walters and tell the camera that they chased success and they lost their family and now they have regrets. But they aren’t giving success back. They aren’t returning the awards or the money. They are spending their time on easy street trying to make up for lost time.

    Can I be in full-time ministry and put my family first?

    Call me a heretic. But I don’t think that’s what Jesus called me to. I think in the New Testament example Jesus called us to put family second.

    Fortunately for me, I’m married to a woman radical and crazy like me. Together, we get it.

    Jesus first, family second.

    Don’t buy the lie.

  • Performance Reviews

    I need to make a confession about performance reviews.

    I’ve never given or received a useful one.

    Another confession. Since going into full-time ministry in 2002, I’ve never gotten a performance review. Ever.

    It’s not that I’ve never had a job which didn’t require them or didn’t promise that I’d get one. It’s that it’s either never happened or I had to write my own and my boss approved it. A self-evaluation is not a performance review… it’s like reviewing your own book for a blog. Useless.

    From 1996-2002, I worked for BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois as a supervisor. Every six months I had to submit a review to my boss of my employees performance, and every six months I received a review of my performance. They were all meaningless. (Except for the annual one which told me how much my raise was.) But I never got or received any advice that changed work behavior. It was really all just numerical performance.

    “During the review period, Adam increased worker productivity by .6% by offering daily bribes of donuts and glad-handing. During the next review period, Mr. McLane shall increase worker productivity by 2.1% by manipulating the tools in which he measures performance so that he can satisfy his bosses incessant desire for increased productivity.“

    So my question is simple.

    If it’s so important that staff people get performance reviews… why is it that the people doing the reviewing hate it so much and why is it that the reviews we get are so lame?

    And when did this silly practice begin, anyway?

  • Reclaiming Weekends

    This weekend I am not checking my work e-mail.

    Ah, work.

    I love my job. Maybe I love it a bit too much?

    When I first started at YS I was pretty good about balance. I limited my availability. I worked from home at least one day per week. Weekends became sacred time again. And I did a lot more little things to set me on a healthy path.

    Then last February that all changed. Some positions were eliminated and we were put in a meat grinder position of turning the company around financially. Without being asked to do so I took ownership of that– “I’m going to do my part.” and all that healthy balance went out the window.

    The other day Tic and I were chatting about this being a reset point for our lives. Sure, there is infinite work to be done. But if we don’t pace ourselves the workload will destroy us. He said something along the lines of… “If I’m not at a convention or something I’m fully aware that I’m not that important. I don’t need to be reached all the time.” That really resonated to me. It kind of cut to the quick of the issue. Like Marko has talked about on his blog, I have an unhealthy tendency to attach my significance to the world by what I do instead of who I am to the most important people in my life.

    And so Tic and I are trying something. It feels like a big step. In reality, it’s a baby step. But we want to start off with one little victory before trying to add more. On Friday we both set out-of-office messages that just said, “I’m not available over the weekend.” And we’re both going to try really hard to ignore work stuff for the weekend. And we’re going to catch-up on Tuesday to see how it went. (Starting on a three day weekend is asking too much, so we just want to make it Friday at 5pm until Monday morning.)

    There is lots to do. In fact, there is tons to do. Far more than I can fit into a work week. But I’m just not that important. The world will continue to spin. Projects will wait. I don’t need to work night and day and weekends, too.

    The fact that I have 43 unopened e-mails on my work account is driving me crazy! And knowing that that number will be about 200 by Monday morning is tough to deal with. But the truth is simple. I’m not that important to the world. The fact that 43 unopened emails are driving me crazy reveals the true depth of the problem, too.

    I am really important to my family.

    I desire to be fully present. I need to work on that. I’m trying.

    Crap. 47 emails.

    I need to stop looking.