I attended a conference that changed my life. It wasn’t because the conference was so good and inspiring. That conference changed my life because it made me realize that I was in the wrong profession.
It was spring 2002, and I was working in the fundraising department of a local seminary, not really sure where my life was headed. My wife and I had been home for less than a year from an abbreviated stint as missionaries in Jamaica. We were still working through the difficulty of that situation. So I got a job at the seminary in fundraising, because we had to raise funds to go to Jamaica, and I wanted to get a masters degree. It seemed to fit.
It didn’t fit. Something happened at that conference that revealed the bad fit to me. What happened at the conference is very much related to what Paul has been talking about in 1st Thessalonians chapters 2 and 3. In the previous posts this week, we studied chapter 2, verses one through twelve, and verses seventeen through nineteen. We learned that Paul truly loved the Thessalonian Christians, describing it as “sharing his life with them.”
Paul has more to explain to the Thessalonian Christians about what was going through his mind. In chapter 3, verse 1, he continues,
“So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. We sent Timothy, who is our brother and co-worker in God’s service in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. For you know quite well that we are destined for them. In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain.”
Of course, everything Paul writes here in chapter 3, verses 1–5, the Thessalonians would have known already. They knew Paul had only spent about three weeks with them. They were there a few months later when Timothy visited them. Timothy was the one who first told them about Paul’s deep concern for them. But now in this letter, they get to hear Paul’s heart in Paul’s own words.
Paul is repeating a story they already knew, because he wants to emphasize his heart for the people.
For Paul, they were people he loved. They were not programs or projects, but people. He loved them. He shared his life with them. It was a relationship over time. Even when separated, he stayed in touch with them. Paul’s model of relational ministry is what had me so concerned about the conference I mentioned at the beginning of this post.
The seminary fundraising department sent me to a professional Christian fundraising conference in Indianapolis. I’ll never forget one session in which the presenter told us that building relationships with people was one of the most important methods for fundraising. As soon as he said that, something seemed off to me. Perhaps it was just me and my personality. I think professional fundraising is a good thing, needed, and I hope professional fundraisers have good relationships with the people they are interacting with.
But I couldn’t get away from the fact that as a professional fundraiser, the only reason I was in relationship with people who gave money to the seminary was that they gave money to the seminary. The realization hit me hard: take away the money, and as a professional fundraiser, I probably wasn’t going to care about them much longer. My job was tied to their money. It did not sit well with me that relationship in professional fundraising is tied to money.
From that point on, I knew my days employed in the seminary fundraising department were numbered. I got hired by Faith Church just a few months later, started October 1, 2002, and the rest is history. I did, however, go on to get a masters degree and doctorate from the seminary, and I had an amazing experience in both of those programs because, in large part, the professors were so relational. I was not just a student, I was a person they invested in.
My point is that people are people. Not projects. As we’ve seen this week in 1 Thessalonians 2:1–12 and 3:1–5, Paul views the Thessalonian Christians as people with whom he shares his love and his life. When we reach out to people in our world, we see them as people, not projects. How are you loving the people in your life? How are you sharing life with people?
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 