Cathartic reflections - 1 year removed from Missions
About a year ago my wife and I announced our resignation from Gospel & Gaming, a ministry we were blessed to help pioneer when it began in 2013. I often struggle communicating my thoughts and emotions and far too often (one of my many weaknesses) I figure out how to say something far past the socially expected and appropriate moment. This weakness is what drove me to study interpersonal communication at Central Michigan University. I had hoped that spending devoted time academically studying the "social science" of humans sharing communication with one another would help me improve in my own communication.
My delays are not all by "nature", many of my delays are actually by design and now out of immense sanctifying work by the Holy Spirit in my heart, and in my tongue. At this point you may be wondering - "Pardon? Why would someone intentionally not respond or hinder their response?"
One of the sins of my flesh that has caused the greatest harm to my witness of Christ has been my tongue. My pastoral mentor, Rev. Jason Helopoulos once commented “Jacob, you’ve got an incredible mind, but that tongue of yours is going to be the doom of you”. Prior to my taking personal ownership of my faith in college I frequently lied to my parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, and employers. Rather than taking time to respond truthfully to a question, I found that my sin of lying was much quicker and more convenient for serving my immediate desires. To combat this, since college, God has developed in me several techniques and methods for responding to temptation to be untruthful. Often times I now make the mistake of being too forward, bold, or open when being truthful, preferring to be long winded and exhausting to listen to, then find myself hiding information or lying. I'm not perfect, I’m an ongoing project, I’m forgiven and depend daily on the grace of Christ. In his grace I strive daily to honestly respond to others, represent Christ, and fulfill my roles as husband, father, church-member, employee, and friend.
Over the course of the last year I've had a chance to reflect on some of the successes and failures in my own personal role at Gospel & Gaming. This is my first attempt to articulate a non-comprehensive list of truthful reflections that the Lord has allowed me time to pray through and meditate on.
Leading out of Strengths vs Leading out of Weaknesses:
In seminary one of my professors, Dr. Phillip Douglass, would often speak about the "60/40 rule". This rule simply expresses in percentages how much of a vocation is within a person's "strengths" vs "weaknesses". Dr. Douglass firmly believe that the closer an individual could get towards harmony between their own gifting and joys in work, the longer and greater chance of success there would be in the given position. The threshold for continuing in a position seems to be this ratio of 60/40. If you enjoy and are confident in 60% of your work and bear with patience the other 40% of your work then you have a good chance of continuing. As the percentage increases of your work done outside of your "comfort zone" or "gifting" the chances for success in your position lower greatly and both the quality of work, and longevity of a person in that position, suffer.
It became very apparent (and many of you praying for Gospel & Gaming and my family) to myself and others that as Gospel & Gaming grew, my own abilities to meet and exceed the responsibilities of my role diminished. Throughout 2013-2014 we were starting off and as such much of my role was developing the foundations of language, policies, and methods for ministry. I did a terrible job at this and it would continually haunt me throughout my time at Gospel & Gaming.
One of my great gifts given by God is an ability to spend quality time with unbelievers in collaborative and competitive settings. As long as there is a goal that we’re competing over, or working towards, I’m able to function at very high levels and can leverage tangible results into meaningful relationship experiences. Playing games with believers and unbelievers was a perfect fit for my own gifting. As more and more of my role transitioned from outreach, discipleship, and evangelism, to administration, fundraising, and networking within the church, my productivity nosedived.
When I was at my best at Gospel & Gaming, I was operating out of the strength the Holy Spirit that God had provided me. When I was at my worst, I was operating out of my own fumbling and bumbling breaking more relationships than I was building.
I am learning daily, as a husband, father, entrepreneur, and employee, how to serve out of my strengths, while leaning heavier and heavier on my wife, my children, my friends, and my brothers and sisters in the local church.
I hope this is the first of a few of these reflections I do. This has been rather cathartic in writing and more may follow. In the meanwhile, I’ve got 3 opportunities to preach in the coming months that should allow me some more notes to share on this platform. Your prayers for that preparation are appreciated.
My delays are not all by "nature", many of my delays are actually by design and now out of immense sanctifying work by the Holy Spirit in my heart, and in my tongue. At this point you may be wondering - "Pardon? Why would someone intentionally not respond or hinder their response?"
One of the sins of my flesh that has caused the greatest harm to my witness of Christ has been my tongue. My pastoral mentor, Rev. Jason Helopoulos once commented “Jacob, you’ve got an incredible mind, but that tongue of yours is going to be the doom of you”. Prior to my taking personal ownership of my faith in college I frequently lied to my parents, siblings, friends, co-workers, and employers. Rather than taking time to respond truthfully to a question, I found that my sin of lying was much quicker and more convenient for serving my immediate desires. To combat this, since college, God has developed in me several techniques and methods for responding to temptation to be untruthful. Often times I now make the mistake of being too forward, bold, or open when being truthful, preferring to be long winded and exhausting to listen to, then find myself hiding information or lying. I'm not perfect, I’m an ongoing project, I’m forgiven and depend daily on the grace of Christ. In his grace I strive daily to honestly respond to others, represent Christ, and fulfill my roles as husband, father, church-member, employee, and friend.
Over the course of the last year I've had a chance to reflect on some of the successes and failures in my own personal role at Gospel & Gaming. This is my first attempt to articulate a non-comprehensive list of truthful reflections that the Lord has allowed me time to pray through and meditate on.
Leading out of Strengths vs Leading out of Weaknesses:
In seminary one of my professors, Dr. Phillip Douglass, would often speak about the "60/40 rule". This rule simply expresses in percentages how much of a vocation is within a person's "strengths" vs "weaknesses". Dr. Douglass firmly believe that the closer an individual could get towards harmony between their own gifting and joys in work, the longer and greater chance of success there would be in the given position. The threshold for continuing in a position seems to be this ratio of 60/40. If you enjoy and are confident in 60% of your work and bear with patience the other 40% of your work then you have a good chance of continuing. As the percentage increases of your work done outside of your "comfort zone" or "gifting" the chances for success in your position lower greatly and both the quality of work, and longevity of a person in that position, suffer.
It became very apparent (and many of you praying for Gospel & Gaming and my family) to myself and others that as Gospel & Gaming grew, my own abilities to meet and exceed the responsibilities of my role diminished. Throughout 2013-2014 we were starting off and as such much of my role was developing the foundations of language, policies, and methods for ministry. I did a terrible job at this and it would continually haunt me throughout my time at Gospel & Gaming.
One of my great gifts given by God is an ability to spend quality time with unbelievers in collaborative and competitive settings. As long as there is a goal that we’re competing over, or working towards, I’m able to function at very high levels and can leverage tangible results into meaningful relationship experiences. Playing games with believers and unbelievers was a perfect fit for my own gifting. As more and more of my role transitioned from outreach, discipleship, and evangelism, to administration, fundraising, and networking within the church, my productivity nosedived.
When I was at my best at Gospel & Gaming, I was operating out of the strength the Holy Spirit that God had provided me. When I was at my worst, I was operating out of my own fumbling and bumbling breaking more relationships than I was building.
I am learning daily, as a husband, father, entrepreneur, and employee, how to serve out of my strengths, while leaning heavier and heavier on my wife, my children, my friends, and my brothers and sisters in the local church.
I hope this is the first of a few of these reflections I do. This has been rather cathartic in writing and more may follow. In the meanwhile, I’ve got 3 opportunities to preach in the coming months that should allow me some more notes to share on this platform. Your prayers for that preparation are appreciated.
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