The Peanut Butter Conundrum
When I get a chance to fix myself something to eat, I prefer a good old peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I don't have a place to cook here (in my room) so it has to be simple and now that I have a wonderful Tupperware Bread keeper from Mrs. Carpenter and lots of Sugar free jelly from Barbara, Mrs. Peterson and my parents I see no reason not to indulge my old college life of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The peanut butter here is very different though. I suspect it is like peanut butter before the super processed items available in the US today. See a jar of peanut butter here comes with about a 1/2 inch layer of oil at the top. That oil is important because the rest of it is just crushed or ground peanuts. Without the oil it is a dry clump that you can't spread on the bread.
It is so important that I actually keep sunflower oil in my room now for when I get to the last 1/3 of the jar and the oil is gone and the left over peanut butter is impossible to use. I add a little more and mix it up and finish off the jar.
How often am I or you like the peanut butter here. We start a project with all the ingredients we need but after a while we are not as successful as we started. Instead of spreading over the bread like we did at first now we form clumps and tear the bread because we are too dry.
Ok not my best analogy. But it is something I have seen happen all too often to mission groups and individuals trying to lead a project. What starts off great tends to dry up towards the end.
This happens for a variety of reasons. Some of the more common problems I have seen are:
Never changing the original strategy. Yes there is a famous quote nobody has been able to pin down the author to that says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Sorry to break it to you but that is NOT the definition to insanity. It should be the definition to lazy. We should learn each time we do something and improve on it before we do it again. This is especially true of annual events.
Not leaving any room in the plan for God. So many people plan things and plan things and then forget the real reason why they are doing something is for the glory of God. Easiest way to "dry" up a mission project is to make it more about yourself than God. Organizations want to laud individuals for having done it all.
The opposite of the last on is expecting God to do it all. While it is true that God will make a mission successful it is also true that he gave us talents, skills and he expects us to use them. If he is going to do everything to glorify himself, why involve us? Too many times I have come across people struggling because a ministry idea they had started with a great head of steam but doesn't seem to be going anywhere. When I start to ask what they are doing to improve it, I hear things about how they are waiting on God or they expected God to do this or that. God will help, but first we must show some effort, something that shows we are in this project and willing to sacrifice.
Too much admin and not enough project or fundraising. All too often groups bog themselves down in being administrators and not missionaries. Yes we have to administer the organization or project, but it should never be our main focus nor should we select people to work on them because they are good administrators. Make sure they are good Christians and human beings first. Make sure the main administration you actually do is support of projects and fundraising for projects.
The peanut butter here is very different though. I suspect it is like peanut butter before the super processed items available in the US today. See a jar of peanut butter here comes with about a 1/2 inch layer of oil at the top. That oil is important because the rest of it is just crushed or ground peanuts. Without the oil it is a dry clump that you can't spread on the bread.
It is so important that I actually keep sunflower oil in my room now for when I get to the last 1/3 of the jar and the oil is gone and the left over peanut butter is impossible to use. I add a little more and mix it up and finish off the jar.
How often am I or you like the peanut butter here. We start a project with all the ingredients we need but after a while we are not as successful as we started. Instead of spreading over the bread like we did at first now we form clumps and tear the bread because we are too dry.
Ok not my best analogy. But it is something I have seen happen all too often to mission groups and individuals trying to lead a project. What starts off great tends to dry up towards the end.
This happens for a variety of reasons. Some of the more common problems I have seen are:
Never changing the original strategy. Yes there is a famous quote nobody has been able to pin down the author to that says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Sorry to break it to you but that is NOT the definition to insanity. It should be the definition to lazy. We should learn each time we do something and improve on it before we do it again. This is especially true of annual events.
Not leaving any room in the plan for God. So many people plan things and plan things and then forget the real reason why they are doing something is for the glory of God. Easiest way to "dry" up a mission project is to make it more about yourself than God. Organizations want to laud individuals for having done it all.
The opposite of the last on is expecting God to do it all. While it is true that God will make a mission successful it is also true that he gave us talents, skills and he expects us to use them. If he is going to do everything to glorify himself, why involve us? Too many times I have come across people struggling because a ministry idea they had started with a great head of steam but doesn't seem to be going anywhere. When I start to ask what they are doing to improve it, I hear things about how they are waiting on God or they expected God to do this or that. God will help, but first we must show some effort, something that shows we are in this project and willing to sacrifice.
Too much admin and not enough project or fundraising. All too often groups bog themselves down in being administrators and not missionaries. Yes we have to administer the organization or project, but it should never be our main focus nor should we select people to work on them because they are good administrators. Make sure they are good Christians and human beings first. Make sure the main administration you actually do is support of projects and fundraising for projects.
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