A Big Human Need and How We Can Fill It

Our congregation, like hundreds of others across North America, is involved in the Forty Days of Purpose spiritual renewal campaign. It began on April 10 and will wind up on May 22. The campaign has several components:

• Adults and teens are reading Rick Warren's book, The Purpose Driven Life, each day.
• Our weekly worship is built around one of the five purposes for life Warren has identified based on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment found in the New Testament portion of the Bible.
• A Mission and Ministry Fair this coming Sunday will encourage members of our congregation to get involved with ministries to the church and mission to the community outside our fellowship.
• Finally, every week during the campaign, small groups gather to learn, pray, discuss, and grow in their relationships with God and each other.

Tonight, the group my family and I belong to met at our house. After watching a really excellent DVD-based presentation on Christian servanthood, based on Jesus' story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) by Warren, we went into a discussion segment, built around questions provided by the Purpose Driven Life organization.

We'd already had a good discussion on what fears and apprehensions we had about dropping our own agendas to serve people whose needs become known to us, about the challenge of moving out of our comfort zones to serve, and about the desire we have to serve others as Jesus has already served us, when we came to this question:

Take a minute and write down some of your gifts and talents. Briefly share them with the group and have the group respond with possible areas of ministry where your gifts would be effective.

After I'd asked our group to do this exercise, a silence came over the room and I could feel the apprehension. One of the hardest things in the world is for us to identify or acknowledge our gifts or abilities. Whatever the root cause--fear of appearing egotistical, self-esteem issues, genuine belief that there is nothing particularly noteworthy about us--my years as a pastor have shown me that it's usually a difficult assignment for people, Christians especially, to name their talents.

My wife then made a suggestion. "Mark," she said, "why don't you go around the room and talk about the gifts and abilities you've seen in each person and then we can add our observations?" Whether it was because it got them off the hook a bit or because they thought I was qualified to do this, the rest of the group urged me to proceed in this way.

I told everyone that actually, this appealed to me. I recalled an episode of the old sitcom, Taxi. Louie De Palma is telling Alex Reiger about the gifts possessed by the employees of the cab company, naming each one along with their special abilities. "And Reiger," he says, "do you know what my gift is? I know what everybody else's gift is."

The way I see it, this is the foundational gift for any leader. More than anything else a leader must know what she or he can't do and discern who among the people they lead has the gift to do those things. I believe that the best leaders lead from weakness. They honestly acknowledge their deficiencies and humbly ask those who are more qualified or more able to fill in their gaps.

I may tell myself this because I have so many weaknesses and deficiencies and it consoles me to know that I need so much help in order to be an effective leader. But having them and knowing that I have them has, through my years as a leader in the church and in the community, forced me to do two things:

First, to depend on God. It's to this sort of dependency that Paul was referring when he wrote the seemingly paradoxical statement, "So, I will boast all the more gladly if my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me" (Second Corinthians 12:9). When weakness compels us to ask God to help, we're calling in more power, talent, inspiration, wisdom, insight, and capacity for meaningful accomplishment than we possess on our own.

Second, to depend on others. "A threefold cord is not quickly broken," Ecclesiates 4:12 in the Old Testament says. The strength of our efforts and the prospects of success are enhanced when those who, by themselves, are weak, band together with others. The New Testament makes it clear that God gives us our abilities and talents not just for our own prosperity or enjoyment, but also to give life, help, support, encouragement, and hope to others, Christians and non-Christians.

I've come to see these dependencies and the weaknesses they represent in us as individuals as gifts from God that help us all be more than we can ever be on our own.

Over the years at our congregation, our members occasionally have given short presentations on "What Friendship Church Means to Me" during our worship celebrations. One of the ongoing themes of those talks, one that has become the source of lots of ribbing and jokes, is, "You don't tell Mark what hobbies, interests, or past experiences you have. He'll turn it into your ministry." There's more than a grain of truth to that.

So, confident that I am our congregation's Louie De Palma, I went around the room tonight, naming the gifts, skills, talents, and tendencies of heart of each person present. Others happily joined in.

As we all shared our heartfelt assessments of one another, we experienced lots of laughter and also a few tears. The bond among our group members was strengthened and a deeper appreciation for the Biblical truth that each human being is "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14) was fostered. Our gathering lasted about a half-hour longer than usual--we aim to meet for an hour-and-a-half. But nobody seemed to mind.

It reminded me of an exercise I've done with middle school-aged Catechism students and high schoolers through the years. I write the names of every participant in the group on the top of a piece of paper. Then, I lay the papers out on a long table and tell the kids to write at least one thing they appreciate about the person whose name is on the page.

The first time I ever did this, the kids insisted that a page be made for me as well. I thought that I would get either perfunctory compliments or a few digs. Instead, the kids seemed to take to the project with genuine interest and authentic love, not only toward their peers, but for me as well. I was amazed at some of their comments. One written on my sheet I will never forget: "If you ever do something nice for somone, watch out! Pastor Mark sends out about a million thank you notes." I still have that piece of paper.

Something struck me as we went around the room with the members of our small group tonight, expressing what we appreciated in one another: Pre-teens and teens aren't the only ones who need to be told about what makes them special.

Followers of Jesus are called to be the hands and feet and voice of God in our world. That's what the New Testament is talking about when it calls we Jesus-Followers the "body of Christ." I'm sure that as Christ's body in the world, one of our tasks is to encourage people--whether they're believers or not. Doing so becomes one more way of sharing the love and the Good News of the God we know through the crucified and risen Jesus.

So much about our lives can drag us down. We can provide a real God-honoring service to others when take the time to build them up.