Your money or your life? September 30, 2007
Posted by yuling in Ambassadors For Christ.trackback
Tonight, AFC celebrated it’s 35th anniversary to much glitz and fanfare. We had a thanksgiving dinner with over 700 guests, all for the purpose of celebrating AFC’s historical ministry amongst Chinese Canadian students. Of course, the end of the night resulted in an appeal for help.
I’ve never been a big fan of the typical money drives and so it was awkward for me having to be a part of planning such a big gala where I have to schmooze potential donors for money. It feels like the truncated gospel that many typical preach: thanks for coming, confess your sins, believe, and get your ticket to heaven (by financially supporting this very worthwhile cause).
Let me give a brief rundown of what happened tonight. The evening started off with a ‘chinese-soap-style’ video portraying the life of a typical AFC staff worker. The dilemma is whether the person should accept a better paying job or continue with his worthy student ministry work at AFC. I have personally worked in the corporate marketplace, as well as felt the financial burden of working at AFC, so I can resonate with the video. BUT, I always wonder if the issue is so cut and dry: to choose ‘Jesus or money’. Can I still work for corporate Canada and live out an authentic/faithful life without succumbing to the pressures of money and consumerism? Can I work in a mission/non-profit agency and have a decent wage?
Another common thread throughout the night were the variety of stories shared through presentations and interviews. I was interviewed, being asked simple questions about my calling and passion. I just rammed through my interview and wasn’t able to share any stories due to our asian-time scheduling. In hindsight, we had a super-optimistic schedule without including any delays – need to remember for future event planning.
Before the financial appeal, Gabe shared AFC’s new vision for the next 3-5 years. Our focus is threefold: campus mission (which has been our staple ministry), training and research, and strategic partnerships. I’m excited by the last 2 options since too often para/church models have been self-sufficient – almost in a selfish/proud kind of way. Instead, it would make sense if the kingdom of God was known as beyond the four walls of the para/church and could be seen as an intricate network seen throughout the world.
The last part of the night is still giving me some stuff to wrestle through. Alfred share a chinese saying when people are held up with a gun: Your money or your life? He jokingly said that this moment has now come upon the people who’ve attended that evening. Yet, isn’t that true? Alfred shared that one person he spoke to before the evening had already attended several fundraising events in the month of september. Why come to another dinner where we’re just picking your pockets for more cash?
The reality is that even though AFC is in need of financial help, I would prefer people to give of themselves. We need more people invested in the lives of students – in churches, on campus, and in the real world. It’s no wonder to me that statistics show only 4% of university students go back to church after graduation. Too many parents, pastors, and the church in general tend to forget this blackhole in the lives of students. It may be one of the most exciting time, and therefore the most critical time for their character and spiritual formation.
I dream of the day when the church would more efficiently partner up with AFC and other student ministries. I hope for the day when the church may volunteer to help out as staff workers for various universities. I pray that one day (hopefully soon), the church will see the global student movement as strategic and cutting-edge for God’s kingdom.
or what about this one: “Can I work in a mission/non-profit agency without succumbing to the pressures of money and consumerism?” I find that the choice to intentionally live with less brings with it the added challenge of developing contentment and a ‘theology of enough.’ the mere reality of having less doesn’t automatically make the task of renouncing materialism any easier. the temptation increases to complain about one’s lack or to pity oneself as deprived. this can even breed a prideful martyr-complex: “look at all i’m giving up for Jesus.” the deadly fixation of the heart on material things remains unchanged. we have to continually ask Jesus to examine our attitudes and help us get to a point when we can consistently say “i am joyful whatever my circumstances.”
thanks for your writing. always thought-provoking.
Hi Grace,
you’re totally right. My assumption was that by developing a ‘theology of enough’ would ideally create a joyful person content with what God has given to each person. Of course we know in real life that assumption is not true.
Thx for commenting.
stop saying churches/pastors/parents aren’t supporting student ministries. instead these are the parties that pray for the students to come home. That wait for them to come back and that encourage them to come back. Stop saying that. it is the wrong image. And stop saying that you hope for the church to support student ministries, it is not all churches. it is not a general thing for pastors and churches and never would it be the parents!!!!
Get that “myth” of church not helping out student ministries out of the way please.
pastors wait and encourage and pray for the student to come back because all pastor knows they are the future leaders of the churches.
It is not the church’s fault that students don’t come back to join a church.
Hey ann,
I would have to disagree that it’s just a ‘myth’.
I applaud the church/pastor/parental effort of support through prayer, and I even mentioned that I wish for more involvement within the student ministries of churches.
My issue isn’t with the churches (small ‘c’, not big ‘c’ church) intentions. Rather, the manner of ministry – the assumptions that come along with seeing our small-c churches. Instead of just praying that the univ students would come back (granted this is a stereotypical passive model), why not instead actively invest by going where they are? Be a part of the campus culture, relocate to a house nearby campus and open it up for everyone. There are so many possibilities.
So yes, I’m generalizing – but the nature of generalizations are that it seems to be true for most, not all. And I have to confess, from my experiences with most asian churches in Canada – they need to hear the prophetic call of student min.
All said with grace and wanting more dialogue.
There isn’t enough dialogue between student ministries workers and churches. Campus minitries tend to segregate students instead of connecting them to churches. you are talking about small churches, as in church buildings… it is the same thing all over, there are not enough workers to be church for the poor, not enough workers to be church for children, so as there is not enough workers to be church for the students, as in not enough workers to go oversee. It is not anyone’s fault or anyone with the wrong intentions, it is because there are just plain not enough workers. That is the bottom line. We witness to people, they become Christians, then what? The pastors in all churches struggle to bring or encourage spiritual growth inside the churches. You and I both learned how to be a Christian, active Christian, from campus ministries. dont’ get me wrong, without CCF or life at CCF, I wouldn’t learn how to be a Christian, not from my old church. basically, the Christians nowadays, have no sense of responsibilities…. or committment. And it is the same all across from street youth ministries, to student ministries to basic church ministries. Ask your pastors how much they have to struggle just to find sunday school teachers? why is that, if there are 200 or more Christians at least in a congregations in churches.
so, if you think churches need to hear the call of stud. min, go to the churches to tell them. They won’t hear it, or probably have no responses, and prob. not for 10, 000 years. Just like TCBC didn’t hear about Urban promises for almost 10 years, and maybe not even now. … I just find that, the students that come up, they do not need to learn about this “generalizations” of churches, it IS A generalization! right. I heard it since I was in ccf, we fighted with a church in downtown toronto about this issue, to the point that a special meeting has to be called. In the end, we learned, we all have the same purpose. Asian churches need to hear the call, white people church also need to hear this call. Campus ministries have always been in its own catergory, just like street youth ministries.
The true churches, wheather big c or small c, are there, the ones that listen to Christ’s calling, they are where they are supposed to be. This we cannot judge through our eyes.
i know I don’t make sense. it’s too bad we always talk like this. but i do enjoy this kind of discussion and to me, a great spiritual conversation. may both of us continue to care for God’s ministries, no matter what they are.
I think we’re both trying to pursue a holistic church model. Ideally, if the church was doing it’s job well, then you wouldn’t need any kind of parachurch organization.
That said, clearly the small-c churches do not equal the kingdom of God pursuing his missional calling for us all.
So yes, there are many wonderful local churches that learning to listen, passionately pursuing Christ’s calling and are exactly where they’re supposed to be. BUT, I think we both see that many are not.
I hope I am not judging (the biblical notion of condeming others), but instead, I am critically evaluating the purpose of the church (missional) and I find it lacking.
So I want to follow God’s prophectic model, by calling His people back into the proper relationship with Him, and therefore creating a people who seek justice with street youth, peace in church families, and mission on campus, and everything else in between that would see His Kingdom made more apparent on this local area of earth.
did you see the little note i wrote on the AFC board for you?
When I do see you next time, remind me to share the story of what happened in ut ccf in around 1999. it changed my life, and with that, i developed many true Christian friendship, to this date, these people are those that I do not see often,but it’s like we haven’t stop conversations. we all remember our time in student ministries, but we also learned that God calls all of us to a church, one way or another. hope we can chat soon.
Perhaps I’m stepping outside of my boundaries, but I can’t help but notice the statistics (yes i believe in statistics). Unless I have been ill-informed, the largest percentage of people leaving the church are in the ages after high school, and after university. Yes, this has partly to do with the stages that they are going through. Unfortunately, I have been exposed to a great number of churches and I have concluded that they fail, or at least perform miserably at integrating their young people back into the church after University. Whether this is an intention or not is of no material, since it is the fruit that speaks for itself.
That being said, this is not the root of any identifiable problem by only the surface. Being an institution that is ordained by God, but composed of humans it is inevitable that there are flaws. It only seems that some flaws should sooner rather than later be addressed before we singlehandedly alienate entire generations of potential future leaders. Of course, I generalize. Of course there are those churches that are thriving and that heed the call. It is perhaps only more merely a wake-up call that the Church is here in Canada for such a time as this.
Please take above with a grain of salt. Thanks for your article.
Church failed. That means we all failed. We ARE the church. So we should all take some time to reflect on why WE FAILED. Does that means, the uni students have no part of this? It is because WE all didn’t know how to welcome them? That’s this generation of SELF, isn’t it… WE don’t meet their requirements, so WE FAILED. Do we continue to let this happen? or should we, as the army of Christ, try to connect the gap? Encouraging responsibilities and taking of ownership of OUR CHURCHES, eventhough it is a hard road and it is discouraging many times, but we should still try to encourage and fill in the gap, rather than keep saying THE CHURCH FAILED.
I remember that stage I was at, trying to tell my old church, serve the poor which are right across the street from us, but NO. … it is frustrating, it is discouraging. But we shouldn’t give up or blame or encourage blaming of the church.
It takes 10, 000 years, for a changes to come through, that’s fine, but we keep speaking and pushing forward!
The more we blame churches, the bigger the gap is.
I enjoy these little conversation, so thank you for this. this is what we should talk about as Christians, unfortunatley for me, it doesn’t happen very often.
and i have tons of uni and young career people in my church!!!
Hi S. Lee,
thx for joining the conversation. Part of the reason why I chose to be involved with student ministry is because of my belief that it is a very prophetic ministry. I feel that if we can’t figure out that age group, then we can’t minister for the entire church. They’re so good at sniffing out BS that is covered by the layers of church talk. I love it.
Ann, I also agree that the church is the PEOPLE. And therefore, for the most part, we have failed (esp in our Western model of church). I hope to speak prophetically, by calling people back to what it means to BE the church! I’ve already encounter difficulties within my own peer and/or leadership group. It really easy to just talk about it, but I’m trying to live it out WHILE I’m talking. Again, not blame – but performing one of the 3 dynamic pastoral duties (ie. church as priest, king, prophet). I just happen to have more prophetic tendencies as I discover more joy in seeking shalom and justice.
So how can we be prophetic without resorting to blaming the church? That’s a great question – what do you think?
I wonder why being prophetic = blaming?
lets just check the Bible and see what the leaders did.
i don’t think anyone listen to them. They became “the guy who is crazy and no body listen to”
why why is you saying you being prophetic means that it has to be blaming the church?
There is nothing new under the sun.
If it is to blame the church, then, the workers for the poor blame the church, the workers of missions blame the church, student workers blame the church, teens workers blame the church, children ministries, outreach, vbs… the list goes on. NO WONDER, the society hate the church.
Yes, I totally agree, we challenge each other, when things are not correct we speak up. But specific issues, specific situations. We need more workers to be with the students, we need more workers, we can say to the church, why are we not supporting students if we have students around us… we can keep fighting. But why do we have to say… blame the church? Why
I really think we are just saying the same thing and i am just trying to get you to understand where i come from and so are you. But in the end, we are not going to “sound” very nice. So, i am going to stop.
because I understand where you are coming from and where you are at. although you do use very stylish and difficult English that I tend not to understand completely. It is incredible that you are so “passion” about your work, passion, the real meaning of passion, so i really admire that, i do pray that there are more workers like you and i who would not give up on what we believe in. In the end, Christ is in us. And I am blessed to be able to read your blog and share conversations. I pray that more Christians can be heated and on fire for God’s work to the point where we dont’ give up.
Our lives are not short but not long, i pray for you to go through many different journeys in different ministries with God.
and when we all grow old together, we can just sit together and laugh at ourselves and how stubborn we were.
God bless you and S. Lee too!
I was talking about being prophetic and blaming as 2 different things and not interchangeable (which you totally get). What I was afraid of is that my blog entry was trying to be prophetic and I was worried that you might’ve started off as thinking I’m just blaming the church.
So since you don’t, and you know where I’m coming from – I can start writing some new stuff soon!
interesting discussion, but I will say it is challenging to see churches spend multiplied thousands of dollars on things like carpeting and sound equipment and then be rather cheap when it comes to funding missions or view college ministry as somehow a competitor
all the churches I have been to the largest budgets and funding are for Missions!!!! church maintances… mini budget. I guess that’s chinese people for you!!! awesome!
Sorry i said i won’t write anything again, but i just can’t help.
wow, I have been missing all these cool discusion! Will take time to re-read some of them
Interesting, I got this link from a former staff worker who works with FES (Hong Kong):
http://littlehohk.blogspot.com/2007/10/fes.html