Personal not private
It is important to Protestant theology that we talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This phrase has been used to beat people over the head. The phrase "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" is a red flag or a deal breaker for some people who hear it are instantly turned off to further conversation.
The idea of a personal relationship with Jesus is, for me, just a way of saying that we think knowing Jesus is a wonderful thing and spending time with the message of Jesus and the way of Jesus leads to wholeness and healing.
It is worth noting that a personal relationship with Jesus is not the same as a private relationship with Jesus.
To be as simple as I can be on this, personal is collective while private is individual.
Many have personal time to take off from work (communal), but how that time is spent specifically private (individual).
We all have personal space (communal) but everyone has private understanding of how close to to close (individual).
A personal relationship with Jesus means that you are involved in a relationship which millions of people have engaged in. A personal relationship leads people to engage the world around us. A personal relationship with Jesus means that we go into the world (communal). Personal relationship with Jesus, by definition, is communal.
When something is personal we are pursuing a quest that address the goals of others. Personal goals are goals that others can connect with.
I have a personal goal for peace, however for peace to happen it requires other people.
Private goals however are just that, private. They are individual goals that require no other persons.
I have a personal goal to write in this blog regularly. I have a private goal to paint some of my Warhammer miniatures.
Personal is not private.
The idea of a personal relationship with Jesus is, for me, just a way of saying that we think knowing Jesus is a wonderful thing and spending time with the message of Jesus and the way of Jesus leads to wholeness and healing.
| This would be an example of a PRIVATE space invader |
To be as simple as I can be on this, personal is collective while private is individual.
Many have personal time to take off from work (communal), but how that time is spent specifically private (individual).
We all have personal space (communal) but everyone has private understanding of how close to to close (individual).
A personal relationship with Jesus means that you are involved in a relationship which millions of people have engaged in. A personal relationship leads people to engage the world around us. A personal relationship with Jesus means that we go into the world (communal). Personal relationship with Jesus, by definition, is communal.
When something is personal we are pursuing a quest that address the goals of others. Personal goals are goals that others can connect with.
I have a personal goal for peace, however for peace to happen it requires other people.
Private goals however are just that, private. They are individual goals that require no other persons.
I have a personal goal to write in this blog regularly. I have a private goal to paint some of my Warhammer miniatures.
Personal is not private.
Kids and CEO's fail the marshmallow test
You may have seen this little test before, I cannot recall if I posted it or not. If you have seen it then feel free to move along the post. If not, take the three minutes.
So I laugh at this as I watch the kids struggle with the "choice" in part because it is a silly choice, but mostly because I see this as a rather easy choice. Logically it makes sense and is almost a 'no brainer' to just wait for that second marshmallow. You double your marshmallowly-goodness.
Any grown person would know this to be the case. I laugh because I think that this test would not "work" on adults. Adults would wait. Adults are rational. Adults understand the significant increase of marshmallow by waiting just a bit.
And then this little gem comes into my world and I am flabbergasted. Essentially someone created a marshmallow test for adults. And not just any adults. The adults who are calling the shots at some of the largest companies in the world. And guess what? They were not interested in more marshmallowly-goodness.
At least they were not willing to wait for it.
As reported by GOOD in this post the researchers, "found that the majority of FTSE-100 and 250 executives (those running the largest companies in the world) would choose an investment with a low return option if they could get it sooner (£250,000, or about $390,000, tomorrow) rather than waiting for a high return later (£450,000, or about $706,320, in three years). That means that your investment advisor might give up £200,000 of profit if they had to wait three years to get it."
The researchers called this "short-termism".
So while I laugh at the kids who struggle with what seems to be a no-brainer of a question, I am humbled by the fact that even sophisticated, educated, developed, and highly evolved human adults (read: people like you and me) are all tempted at that one marshmallow even with the promise of two in a little while.
For more reading on self-control, delayed gratification and short-termism - this 2009 New Yorker article is great.
For a final treat, check out how well these dogs are trained at delaying their gratification.
So I laugh at this as I watch the kids struggle with the "choice" in part because it is a silly choice, but mostly because I see this as a rather easy choice. Logically it makes sense and is almost a 'no brainer' to just wait for that second marshmallow. You double your marshmallowly-goodness.
Any grown person would know this to be the case. I laugh because I think that this test would not "work" on adults. Adults would wait. Adults are rational. Adults understand the significant increase of marshmallow by waiting just a bit.
And then this little gem comes into my world and I am flabbergasted. Essentially someone created a marshmallow test for adults. And not just any adults. The adults who are calling the shots at some of the largest companies in the world. And guess what? They were not interested in more marshmallowly-goodness.
At least they were not willing to wait for it.
As reported by GOOD in this post the researchers, "found that the majority of FTSE-100 and 250 executives (those running the largest companies in the world) would choose an investment with a low return option if they could get it sooner (£250,000, or about $390,000, tomorrow) rather than waiting for a high return later (£450,000, or about $706,320, in three years). That means that your investment advisor might give up £200,000 of profit if they had to wait three years to get it."
The researchers called this "short-termism".
So while I laugh at the kids who struggle with what seems to be a no-brainer of a question, I am humbled by the fact that even sophisticated, educated, developed, and highly evolved human adults (read: people like you and me) are all tempted at that one marshmallow even with the promise of two in a little while.
For more reading on self-control, delayed gratification and short-termism - this 2009 New Yorker article is great.
For a final treat, check out how well these dogs are trained at delaying their gratification.
Is the UMC set up to suffer from social loafing?
The UMC is a connectional Church which means a number of things. So clergy are appointed by bishops and not hired by local congregations, each local church pays apportionments which fund global ministries, clergy benefits are grouped together in order to get a "group rate" and many other points of connection. In many ways you might say the UMC is one big group working on the same mission. Each church is a local 'franchise' of the larger Church so even if one local church closes the larger Church is not at huge risk of collapse. Unlike say the Crystal Cathedral which when it closed so did that entire Church.
I love the connection of the UMC, it is in part why I am a UMC minister. In light of a recent book, You are Not so Smart (of which I hope to blog about for a few posts in the coming days) has made me wonder if the thing that makes the UMC strong and global is in fact the very thing that is leading to the recent rise of the church freaking out about "metrics".
Some would say the rise of concern of counting the butts, baptisms and bucks is connected to the trend of a dying denomination. Perhaps. Some would say the rise of counting metrics is in response to a world that is driven by numbers and economics more than generations before. Perhaps. Some might argue that we might not even care about these metrics if the church was blowin' and goin' and able to meet budgets across the board. Perhaps.
I wonder if the metrics buzz is a result of the connectionalism.
In You are not so Smart, there is a chapter titled, "Social Loafing" in which argues that we have a misconception about group work. That is we believe that when we are joined by others in a task, we work harder and become more accomplished, however in reality, once we are a part of a group, we tend put in less effort because we know our work will be pooled with others'.
Could it be the fact that the UMC has pooled our efforts together for so long that we who sit in the pews believe we do not have to work as hard or give as much because it will be pooled together and either be diluted or 'covered by' other people who are giving and working.
This overall thought that our individual slacking or lackluster work has then become the catalyst for a church in demise. We all think someone else is going to cover the bill or pay the apportionments, but in reality no one is.
So our Church goes into decline.
We loose money and staff and members and then we have a negative feedback loop.
In a time when 1 in 4 Millennials do not associate with any religious tradition, if members of the UMC want the Church to survive then we ought to be aware that our social loafing is no longer going to cut it.
I love the connection of the UMC, it is in part why I am a UMC minister. In light of a recent book, You are Not so Smart (of which I hope to blog about for a few posts in the coming days) has made me wonder if the thing that makes the UMC strong and global is in fact the very thing that is leading to the recent rise of the church freaking out about "metrics".
Some would say the rise of concern of counting the butts, baptisms and bucks is connected to the trend of a dying denomination. Perhaps. Some would say the rise of counting metrics is in response to a world that is driven by numbers and economics more than generations before. Perhaps. Some might argue that we might not even care about these metrics if the church was blowin' and goin' and able to meet budgets across the board. Perhaps.
I wonder if the metrics buzz is a result of the connectionalism.
In You are not so Smart, there is a chapter titled, "Social Loafing" in which argues that we have a misconception about group work. That is we believe that when we are joined by others in a task, we work harder and become more accomplished, however in reality, once we are a part of a group, we tend put in less effort because we know our work will be pooled with others'.
Could it be the fact that the UMC has pooled our efforts together for so long that we who sit in the pews believe we do not have to work as hard or give as much because it will be pooled together and either be diluted or 'covered by' other people who are giving and working. This overall thought that our individual slacking or lackluster work has then become the catalyst for a church in demise. We all think someone else is going to cover the bill or pay the apportionments, but in reality no one is.
So our Church goes into decline.
We loose money and staff and members and then we have a negative feedback loop.
In a time when 1 in 4 Millennials do not associate with any religious tradition, if members of the UMC want the Church to survive then we ought to be aware that our social loafing is no longer going to cut it.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.