“If we don’t like change, we’re going to like irrelevance even less.” --Erik Shinseki
Ideally the commitment to work in an external ministry is balanced by other commitments to care for, and participate in, the life of the community. An integrity gap emerges when these dual commitments are imbalanced or unmet. We need to break through pockets of denial and ground ourselves in reality in order to overcome tendencies to complacency, workaholism and consumerism that lead to an integrity gap in the life of the community.
A chronic burr in the side of leadership is that too many able-bodied members are complacent and feel entitled to be served by others. A certain number of members in every community have emotionally “checked out” from their attachment to and felt responsibility toward community, creating a reciprocal dynamic between under-functioning and over-functioning members.
The telltale sign of workaholism among the over-functioning is not the hours worked but the nagging belief that what we are doing is not enough. Consumerism which sits uncomfortably juxtaposed with the vow of poverty and the value of simplicity is a challenge for communities that have opted into a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. While every community has their policies and procedures, frequently these to do not reflect the lived reality of how money and belongings are handled.
When life has lost its prophetic edge and merges with
dominant culture it ceases to be authentic to its true nature and no longer has
any relevant to say to the prevailing culture.
We are meant to be prophets in our own land. Does our way of life reflect the message we preach?
Dunn, Ted, Graced Crossroads: Pathways to Deep Change & Transformation, CSS Publications, 2020, pp. 112-123
