It's Better to Receive Than to Give

While in South Africa a missionary friend shared a story of team that had come to help them in one of the townships in the Cape Flats. They had been briefed and oriented and one thing they were explicitly told not to do was give money or items to the townspeople. The team did great and the trip was a success. There was a couple on the team that had a slightly different agenda however. When the team returned home the couple immediately made plans to return to South Africa and they did just that, but this time bearing gifts - lots of them. Even though the missionary family that had been living there, working in this community told them that under no circumstances were they to hand out gifts, they felt compelled in Christian charity to indiscriminately distribute thousands of dollars worth of items to community members. They had planned another day of gift giving so after the first day of mayhem the couple went to the pastor's home to strategize for the following day. As they stood there outside the pastor's home a gang approached the couple, the pastor and his wife were held at gunpoint and the gang demanded that the couple give them all of their valuables and the keys to their car. Christmas was over. The couple felt bad about the altercation, gave the pastor and his wife a couple thousand dollars to send the pastor's daughter to school and made arrangements to return to the States. The following day, when the pastor went to pay for school the gang was waiting for him, took the money and his car and now he and his wife have become prime targets for ongoing assaults and theft. The pastor and his wife were forced to leave their beloved township where they had spent so many years caring for the people. Consequently the service and care provided for the people suffered greatly all as the result of good intentions going so wrong.

Do it today

Interesting thing happened to me this last week. I attended a conference on leadership at my church. I have attended this conference every year for the last 9 years (except for last year becasue I was in the Dominican republic but I did listen to the talks later). This conference brings together some of the bests minds and examples in leadership to teach church pastors and anyone else who is in a leadership role about leadership. The teaching is always amazing and I walk away learning so much about leadership and challenged to step up and engage in Kingdom work in greater ways. Last week as each speaker came on stage to talk, many with ideas on leadership that were not common in the not so distant past, and probably new to many listening to the conference, I realized that the ideas were consistent with what the organization I work for believes. The vision cast in the conference was in line with the vision I have heard for years. Then I asked myself another question. What have we done with our vision? Have we responded in ways that maximized the potential of the vision or were we slow to initiate ideas of change to those around us. Did we wait for the rest of the world to catch up to our vision or were we leaders in educating others and blazing the trail to a better tomorrow? What idea, or vision, have you had in recent years? Have you acted on the idea or engaged in activities to fully bring that vision to fulfillment? If not what is holding you back?