Confusing Efficient and Effective

The name of the game these days is "how can we make it more efficient?" From factories to schools to government to finding a taxi, efficiency is the gold standard. If a company can cut it's costs by a set percentage by replacing expensive human workers with "autobot" workers then the company will move see that as the most effective way to be a company. If a text is more efficient to have a conversation with someone than meeting for coffee then texting is seen as effective. If churches can move quickly to respond to a need then that church must be effective. 

We all know this but perhaps we all need to be reminded that @@efficient is not the same as effective.@@

I can yell at my children and put the fear of God into them and they will do as I say. My household will be efficient since we will not have any arguments - only decrees from one voice. While this is an efficient environment to make my children do as I want, it is not effective in making my children functioning adults. While it is efficient to get people to behave in a specific way if God is waiting to bring the hammer down on you if you step out of line, it is not effective to lead people to greater maturity. We can guilt people and make them feel bad about their lives in order to be more efficient when we ask for donations, but this approach is not effective to help people be generous. 

The temptation to focus on efficiency may be rooted in the fact that efficient is much easier to work on than effective. Effective takes time which makes it antithetical to efficient. To put it another way, there is not a way to "life hack" spiritual formation and maturation.

Where do you go in a dust storm?

If life were a field, image all the dust our culture must kick up with all the action and doings and business and noise. It may be said that we live our lives in a middle of the dust storm and this is why we are perplexed as to how to live. It is difficult to see and breathe when we are in the middle of the dust storm.

Many gurus out there talk about how to quell the storm, thinking that if we are able to act in a way that does not kick up dust then we can live in a better place. It is a wonderful idea, but it seems like it is a red herring. While we may be able to control our own actions and kick up little dust, the reality is life happens and dust is thrown in our face even without our permission. When the medication diagnosis is given or when your co-workers bring their tension into your life, dust is kicked in your face.

The @@Christian life is not about avoiding or calming storms, but learning to live with them.@@ 

One of the ways Christianity teaches about storms is knowing where to stand. The role of the church is to be a place that invites people to step away from the dust storm so that we are able to see and breathe deeply. This is why churches sometimes act slowly. Sometimes it is not fear that keeps the church from moving but it is the desire to have a place where one can see and breathe.

Trusted People Trust People

Recently the award winning preacher (and my lovely wife), preached about how it is that it is only when one feels loved that one can then love another person. Her example was the Beauty and the Beast story in which the Beast was only able to love the Beauty when the Beauty showed loved toward him. 

While you can listen to the entire sermon here, and I hope you do, the overarching point was that it is only when one feels loved that one can love another. An abused child will have a difficult time sharing love to others since that child had not experienced love themselves. This is what the power behind the message that "we love because God first loved us." We are able to love the enemy because we have felt loved. We can only trust when we have felt trusted.

When we were in seminary there was the pastoral care line that says,  "hurt people, hurt people". That has proven itself to be true to me. Those who are abused tend to become abusers. Those who are wounded tend to act in a way that wound others. To build on that, "trusted people, trust people" and "loved people, love people" and "forgiven people, forgive people". This is the Good News of God in Christ. You are trusted, you are loved you are forgiven which then gives you the ability to trust, love and forgive others.