Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Shifting Gears
Justin Taylor quotes CJ Mahaney on shifting gears when coming home from work. Mahaney's central thesis in the quote is that arriving home from work does not mean you get to turn into a schlub and quite trying, thus shorting your spouse and progeny of your best attention. That is a fine point and a problem everyone has.
But that said, are we really supposed to "shift gears" through our lives and relationships that much? I am not attempting to say that our familial relationships are qualitatively different than our business relationships, but should we not be pretty much the same people all the time? Our character should not change - Our values should not change - Our Lord should not change.
Too often people condone off their work environment as a place where they are less thoughtful, gruffer, less kind.... When I read the Mahaney quotation I was less worried about what gear he was trying to shift into when going home than what gear he was shifting out of. I found that idea especially troubling for someone in professional Christian ministry.
I have always thought that if someone in professional ministry was radically different in private than in public that they were somehow lying. The gospel is not about achieving some state, but struggling for it. The best thing a pastor can model is not some sort of ideal, but a reaching for the ideal. Christians need to see thier leaders, blemsihes and all.
I just cannot imagine that God calls us to be different kinds of people in different settings. I think Christians could transform a workplace simply by remembering the basic acts of human kindness. Simply treating your co-workers as humans instead of another gear in the machinery would not only be consistent with the gospel, it would likely make your work easier too.
If the genuine call to Christ is a call to transformation, then I have to think it is a call to wholeness in personality. We cannot have persona's that we put on and take off like a suit of clothing. Consistency witnesses truth in the gospel.
But that said, are we really supposed to "shift gears" through our lives and relationships that much? I am not attempting to say that our familial relationships are qualitatively different than our business relationships, but should we not be pretty much the same people all the time? Our character should not change - Our values should not change - Our Lord should not change.
Too often people condone off their work environment as a place where they are less thoughtful, gruffer, less kind.... When I read the Mahaney quotation I was less worried about what gear he was trying to shift into when going home than what gear he was shifting out of. I found that idea especially troubling for someone in professional Christian ministry.
I have always thought that if someone in professional ministry was radically different in private than in public that they were somehow lying. The gospel is not about achieving some state, but struggling for it. The best thing a pastor can model is not some sort of ideal, but a reaching for the ideal. Christians need to see thier leaders, blemsihes and all.
I just cannot imagine that God calls us to be different kinds of people in different settings. I think Christians could transform a workplace simply by remembering the basic acts of human kindness. Simply treating your co-workers as humans instead of another gear in the machinery would not only be consistent with the gospel, it would likely make your work easier too.
If the genuine call to Christ is a call to transformation, then I have to think it is a call to wholeness in personality. We cannot have persona's that we put on and take off like a suit of clothing. Consistency witnesses truth in the gospel.
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