Why didn't Saul eat?

In the story of Saul's conversion to Paul, ​there is a little detail that is mentioned. After he was blinded and lead by the hand to Damascus, Saul neither ate nor drank.  

This may not be a big deal. Perhaps he did not eat or drink because he did not have anything to eat or drink, being a guest in the town. Perhaps he was fasting as a way of repentance. I don't know why he did not eat or drink, but perhaps it was the result of a broken heart. ​

There was a time in my life when my heart was broken and I really could not eat or drink much at all for three months. I lost 20 lbs over the course of the fall of my junior year in college. I was a mess. You too may have experienced heart break and perhaps, this something that Saul was feeling. Heart break. ​

For years this man sought out to do Gods will only to discover on that fateful journey to Damascus that he in fact was persecuting the God he sought to serve. He was convinced that he was doing what the Lord required of him, when in a vision he was told that he was doing everything but.

In a sense, Saul was heart broken. His world was turned upside down and all that he knew in the world was called into question. He was in total despair, hopeless, and heart broken. Frankly, eating and drinking were the last things on his mind.  ​

There are a few times in my life where my world was turned upside down and all that I knew was called into question. Most of them theological, but all had practical implications. Maybe Saul is fasting. Maybe Saul did not have any food. Or perhaps maybe Saul desired death because he was ashamed of what he had done and felt his heart was too broken to go on. 

Let me tell you how to do you job.

There is a great amount of information available these days and as such it can give me a false sense of a super power. You see, with all this information that I can access and have read about I am able to tell you how to do every job, any job, your job.

Yes, I know just enough about every job on the planet that I can tell you that you are not doing your job well and that I can do it better. Sure, I don't have the skills you developed over your time in school, but ​I have the seen a few YouTube videos. Okay, so I don't have experience in your field, but I have a good gut feelin' of how this should be done. You tell me I am not experienced? Really experience is underrated, I mean the new Pope has never been Pope before and he seems like he is doing fine. Frankly I think that understanding all the complexities of any job is not relevant, because what is really important is just the tunnel vision that I currently live in. 

Tell me all you want about the importance of being qualified by a panel of your peers and subject to constant supervision and evaluation of your supervisors to ensure you maintain the standards of ​your profession - not important. Tell me all about your sense of purpose you may be trying to achieve or live into a vision of something greater than yourself - that sounds like a bunch of talk and no action. Bless your heart, of course I know you try your best, but really I can tell you that given what I know about all the expectations of you in your job I could do it better. 

No, I am not interested in going through the training you tell me I need. And no, I do not have time to seriously consider the possibility that ​I am not equipped to actually do your job. You are not listening to what I am saying!​

All I know is that you are doing your job wrong,

I would do it better.

So let me tell you how to do your job.

Teaching to the test - Minister to the metrics

When standardized testing in our schools came into being, I imagine that it was generally seen as a fine idea. Most teachers already used tests to assess learning and it is easy to see how making a standard test, while not perfect, could be valuable to assess student learning. ​

I imagine that the first generation of teachers and administrators used these standardized tests as they were intended to be used. That is as an assessment of student comprehension and learning. Again, testing is not perfect, but it is a tool among many tools that are helpful. ​

Generations have passed since the beginnings of standardized tests and now we ​have teachers and administrators no longer able to focus on student comprehension and learning, but are now (in many ways) forced to "teach to the test". 

Call it unintended consequences, but teaching to the test is rather common not just on standardized tests in grade school but also in ​things like the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, and a slew of other standardized tests. Focusing on the test makes us able to do well on the test but not always do well in life.

The UMC recently has implemented a way to measure "fruitfulness" in the local church. These numbers, called "metrics", are just a handful of numbers that each local church is asked to plug into a dashboard each week. They include numbers such as, number of small groups, number of people in mission, offering collected, people in worship, etc. While we can debate the difficulty of capturing some of these numbers (such as how do you know how many people are in mission in a given week?) generally I do not think that keeping track of metrics is a bad thing.  ​Numbers are a helpful tool to assess and open conversation about the ministry of the local church.

But just as standardized tests may have some ​unintended consequences, so to do the metrics. I have concern that over time we will begin to minister to the metrics. 

For instance we can create specific programs or re-define existing ministries that will enhance the metric count. For instance, in some ways we could count choir practice as worship, and thus enhance the worship metric. Perhaps we count money that is collected for a fellowship meal as "money given to missions" because we also feed those who show up but are unable to pay. These are silly examples of course but the point is at some point you have to wonder if the church will begin to minister to the metrics?

I am not against these current metrics, but if we are going to count something and what we count will eventually shape the ministry we do, then could we count some additional things? For instant:

• Number of people brought out of poverty
• Number of homeless people you know by name
• Number of people who fasted this week
• Dollars given to mission as a result of a boycott
• Number of failures ​
• Number of new groups started
• Number of groups that ended/concluded
• Number of people your church is mentoring into ministry
• Amount of ​time members were in silence

As a Church, we will minister to the metrics, and that is to be expected, the question really is what metrics will we minister to?