But it's one that is about politics.
President Obama made a comment in his speech to a joint session of Congress last week that caught my eye: "Stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy."
The President's comment and its sentiment is one that has been repeated countless times in many ways: why can't congress (or any other group of politicians) rise above the pettiness of party politics and worrying about their popularity with voters and just do their job?
Do you see the humor in this? In general, politicians (especially on the national level) get hired for their job by 1) aligning themselves with some people (i.e. a political party) who more or less share their outlook and philosophy of government, and 2) being the most popular (by vote) candidate within their constituency. You know, "politics." Yet when they succeed in being hired and start work, they get criticized (sometimes by the same people who voted for them) for engaging in the exact same behavior that got them hired. To put it another way, we ask them to conduct themselves in a particular manner, yet to even be in their position, we've required them to buy into an entirely different set of behaviors.
I see a parallel here to our churches.
We say that we would like a people in our churches to do one thing, but our culture, or philosophy of ministry, or programs encourage them to do the exact opposite. Case in point for me: We really want to push small groups for our high school students. Yet last year, we had a large group gathering on Sundays and another one on Wednesdays. Is there any wonder that not a lot of students were in small groups on the other days of the week? What on Earth was I expecting? Here are some other examples that are common in churches:
-We bemoan a glut of complainers, yet we have a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" style of leadership.
-We wonder why great volunteers burn out, yet we consistently applaud volunteers who put in countless hours of unpaid work at the expense of their relationship with God and their family.
-We grumble about "consumerism" that is apparent in our churches, yet we put far more effort and resources into keeping people around and entertained instead of equipping them to go into the world to serve people and tell them about Jesus.
Perhaps we need to wonder if our leadership, ministry strategy, or programs are encouraging the exact kinds of behaviors we don't want.
