at the IASYM conference. frustratingly the conference centre does have wireless but none of us seem to be able to access the internet so these notes may only get posted after i get back…
this morning bob mayo presented a paper called ‘redemptionitis’. his goal for 2005 is to be more selectively idle. the heart of what he was saying was that youth workers have picked up the bad habit of over busyness:
My suggestion is that youth workers are adopting some of the worst work habits of church leaders – chief among which is a tendency to overwork. The idea that working long hours is the unavoidable and only way of expressing a Christian commitment leaves youth workers and church leaders feeling tired, stressful and sometimes even resentful. Youth workers are in the dreams business, helping young people to become the person they have inside them to be. This will not happen if what youth workers end up doing and what young people end up hearing is nothing more than a thinly disguised form of duty and obligation. It is bad practice but it also emerges out of muddled doctrine – doctrine shapes behaviour in the same way that ideas affect actions. This spiritualization of busyness comes out of what I am choosing to call, ‘redemptionitis’.
what bob calls ‘redemptionitis’ he suggests is what happens when the incarnation of Jesus is focused on to the exclusion of the doctrines of creation and eschatology. activism is somehow attractive to us. but it gets worse, and ultimately becomes destructive (bad practice and bad theology).
Christians are subdivided and then reclassified according to their levels of commitment – there are cultural Christians, believing Christians, born again Christians and then finally committed, believing, born again Christians. The closer I get to the centre the busier I become. The more I am drawn in, the greater the compulsion to live up to a theological ideal. It is a crazy disparity in that the longer I am a Christian youth worker the harder I seem to have to work.
the activist message ends up making the gospel not sound like good news.
this was a great paper – busyness is a virus in the church. i am guilty of it myself. not enough time to be creative, too many things to do. maybe i’ll join bob in a quest to be more idle as well!
I had to pull together a short presentation today and found myself drawing again from Nouwen’s “In The Name of Jesus,” most especially the first chapter which calls us from relevance to prayer. I think Nowen’s prescriptions in the book function in a complimentary way to Bob’s descriptor of “redemptionitis.” Nouwen calls this “the temptation to be relevant,” but it really the same thing.
Wow – this describes exactly how I have been feeling about role here at the church. I’m bring this to our local youth workers meeting next week. This meeting is supposed to be a time for us to get together, talk about what we’re doing, get ideas, get support. What we end up doing is planning more things for us to do. Ugh!
Thanks Jonny for all that you do. I’m in a small college town (12,000 or so)in Northern Minnesota. A few of us have gotten together and have started an alternative gathering and I use your worship tricks all the time. Thanks!
jonny, if nathan frambach is there at the conference from usa (wartburg, seminary, iowa). go buy him a beer for me! remember that place we went to with mark pierson?
he might like that!
nate is my lutheran partner in crime with emergent things stateside. i think he is there.
what Bob talked about today can never be said enough within youth ministry, adult ministry, western society. in my view it is the one big hole in our culture that as christians we fall into time and time again and don’t challenge it.
I’m going to stop there before i go into a big rant
Johnny, what you’ve written is great. Is there anywhere that I could get the full transcript of Bob Mayo’s talk?
what do you do though when you’re self-employed and the amount of money you bring in at the end of the month is directly dependent on the hours of work you do? I would love to be more idle but I know that if I work any less it will produce more financial stress. People who have a salary have a lot more freedom to be idle within the constraints of their work! I’ve been asked to do several pieces of work by Christian organisations recently for nothing. The assumption of the people asking is that someone else is paying me through a salary for the time I’ll spend on their projects. It makes me look tight for saying no, and means I miss out on some interesting work. Other Christian organisations pay peanuts for the work they expect. So, what’s the answer? should I trust God more? spend less? go and live somewhere where houses are much cheaper like Wales?!
The issue of busyness can be stressful when you sometimes feel under-employed, as I am sometimes (I work freelance). I can pay the bills fine, but downtime is not often time for relaxing and being still – I end up feeling that I should be doing more to `pull my weight’. So maybe I need to do more volunteer stuff to fill the gaps and clear my conscience a little…
So I am left with this `mental busyness’ which means it can be really hard to properly shut down at all, even if I have a day with little planned in the way of official work.
The prospect of a full-time job can be seductive but I am a lone traveller who enjoys the interesting projects that do come along, and I like being in a position to take them up.
Yes, isn’t it funny how “attendence” and “business” seems to be the measure of fruitfulness these days. Funny enough, I think the measure of the apostle Paul was growing faith, hope and love
Graham, I live and work in Wales and i still have to be really careful about the hours that i do!! Housing is still cheaper here (especially in the Vally’s) but its still rising so make the move fast!!