Engaging in an an intentionally missional lifestyle, after living a normal 9-5 life, throws you into a whole new set of issues to navigate. One in particular that I have been mulling over centers on the passage where Jesus says, “But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” (Matthew 6:3). I’ve always been like, yes, this is good stuff! But when you’re living on financial support from others so that you can do full time ministry work (and it’s normal to share what you are doing so that you can keep your support network informed), Matthew 6:3 seems difficult to adhere to completely. We’re all familiar with this passage. In our daily life, we come across opportunities to love and bless others and to sometimes give sacrificially of our time or money. Jesus challenges us however to keep humble about it and not to flaunt our kindness or giving. I think we can all agree with this practice, and I know for me it’s been something I try to keep in mind as I live out my life. It’s not easy though, especially as an over-sharer personality.
Even though I generally share everything with my husband, there are even times I feel God challenge me not to share even with him some of my kind interactions that day. God knows I don’t do nice things to earn anything.; I don’t do it for affirmation or recognition. Like many people, I do them because I love people and feel compelled to help or give in that moment. But I think many of us can be tempted to share about it later with friends or family. We can even disguise it as something interesting about our day to share about… because really, deep down we want to look good in someone else’s eyes.
But when we submit it to God and let Him test our motives in sharing about it, we often can find Him asking us to keep quiet. I’ve grown to appreciate this for many reasons, particularly because it is something special shared between the person, God and I. And that creates intimacy. It doesn’t need to be broadcasted on social media, in a blog or even told to one other person. In this age of technology we often over share and don’t leave much intimacy for God. It’s also stealing God’s glory when we take credit. I’m often reminded that only God is good. Even Jesus said this! “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone.” Luke 18:19
I love this! It’s not to shame us, it’s to remember that we are dust—beings created by a good God who admonishes us to live good and loving lives. We are only good and do good things because He is our example and He stirs our hearts to be good. It’s all His idea. When we take the credit, we are not giving credit where credit is do. While it’s true that you are choosing to be good, it wasn’t your idea. You didn’t create GOODNESS. You are just helping bring more good to the earth; a concept and entity that encompasses God alone. We must stay humble.
Lately I have been thinking about how this applies to those living a missional lifestyle that depends on the finances of others. When you’re living on support, it’s important that you keep your support network informed and feeling engaged in your work. As a mission-focused family, there is the important need to share interesting stories and updates on what’s happening here. I think most can agree with that. If people are going to help you pay the bills and put food on the table, they want to be able to trust that you’re not just wasting time. Sharing news keeps them updated and assured.
What I have been mulling over is how to do it well, without being flashy or braggy. With social media, we can turn ourselves into our own marketing team and spam everyone on every social media outlet about what we are up to. This is not good, and we hope to avoid this. I personally use each social media outlet with a different purpose, with an occasional overlap. Sometimes I do mention an "act of service" and honestly I feel guilty for it, even though my intentions are to keep people updated with what we are doing here and to tell them about cool stuff God is doing... I still wonder if I shouldn't share it. I would caution anyone in missions to carefully consider how they are coming across.
Over the last four years we’ve generally stuck to one main way of sharing about our work here—email newsletters or links to our website’s blog. There are many ways to share, and we’ve talked over many of the approaches. We can keep it simple and limited news for private email newsletters. Or we can just post blogs and let people come to us to catch up on our involvements when they want to. Or like some, we could never update and just rely on people trusting what we are doing. I think the right way depends on each family and their unique situation at any given time.
But for now at least, we tend to believe people like to feel engaged in what we are up to and we are happy to share our involvements. Sharing also has been beneficial to ministry itself because we are often connecting with important contacts through it—we have met several friends and ministry parters through social media and our website. Generally we keep ministry-related stories and involvements limited to our website/newsletters, but because I am a natural sharer/evangelist type personality I have a super hard time keeping exiting, God-things to myself! When someone is healed or when a cool God moment happens, I find myself sharing about it on Facebook, not to promote self, but to promote God and what He is doing. I also share because we deeply feel God has a big call on the city of Christchurch and I think it’s so important that Christians are sharing what God is doing across the city to keep each other informed, encouraged and inspired. I care so deeply for people meeting God or deepening their current walk with Him, that I share in hopes to inspire even one person to go a little bit deeper with trusting Him and stepping out in faith in their life. I hope this comes across this way!
As time goes on, we are both adjusting/tweaking the method in which we use social media as the purposes of sharing change. Currently we have an email list where we share updates. We also have a private prayer page on Facebook where we share more personal prayer needs; that has really been a blessing to us.
I don’t really know how to end this post. I just wanted to reflect on the importance of remembering Jesus’ words as we live and serve Him in our lives—especially if your work, ministry-related or paid-work involves helping others. The temptation to over share is made so easily available these days. It’s important we all keep ourselves in check and keep giving the glory to Him!
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