peterskim blog

I’ve talked to a good number of people the past few weeks about their careers. It’s actually been quite an interesting experience asking people to tell their stories of how they’ve gotten where they are in their career.

Many people I spoke to seem to be content with just getting by. Especially when one has many responsibilities besides work (spouse, children, etc), it can be difficult to give 100% to pursuing a career. Constantly pursuing advancement and growth takes effort; if we’re good at what we do and content with it (and how it pays), why should we want more? Is it just about being materialistic?

One can argue that those who are too comfortable and content with their current situation are most likely to find themselves out of a job eventually. The labor market is becoming increasingly competitive with people in formerly poor backwards societies competing for our jobs from thousands of miles away.

For example, many people feel bad for auto workers who have worked in the industry for decades whose jobs are being eliminated because of global competition. But perhaps the fact that they were in the same job for decades was precisely their problem. In order to avoid having your job eliminated by competitive forces, you have to continue obtaining new skills to stay on top of the game.

Anyways, besides that very practical reason of maintaining competitiveness, I think there is a much deeper and meaningful reason for pursuing career growth: discovering the limits of how you were created.

How different would history be if Michael Jordan decided to quit pursuing basketball as a career when he was cut by his high school basketball team?

Life is short. I’m already completed almost 28 years out of an approximately 70-90 year life span. That’s a good chunk. And one could argue, at least physically, that it’s all downhill from here.

However, I don’t accept that I’ve even come close to reaching my peak mentally and spiritually. I think God has much greater things in store for me and I’m going to go find what those things are. Is it being overly ambitious to discover what God made me capable of? I don’t think so. In fact, I believe that settling for what’s easy and comfortable is the least faithful thing I could do with my life. We must not confuse rest with laziness. It is good to find rest when we can, but only when in the context of mission.

I am not in pursuit of fame or fortune. I am in pursuit of influence. The means to influence companies to invest in poor neighborhoods and poor countries. The means to influence people to want more out of life.

In the end, maybe being a computer programmer is all that God has in store for me. That is nothing to be disappointed about. But maybe God has much more in store for me and there is nobody is going to discover that except for me.

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.”

A good friend and I were talking about church (in general) the other day and we agreed that the most important thing to us about finding the “right” church for us is their philosophy of ministry.

What does that mean? My ideal picture of ministry (as I’ve talked about previously on this blog) is that lay people fully take on the role and responsibility of being messengers and ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There ought not be this idea that church “leaders” are the ones that “do” ministry while the rest of us just receive.

My belief is that the ministry of the lay people is to reach out to a hurting world that needs the hope and love that can only be known through Jesus. The ministry of church leaders is primarily to support the laity in order that they can be effective ministers; this includes biblical teaching, encouragement, and spiritual guidance.

I take this to, what I believe is the next logical step, and suggest that churches should be much more “lightweight” and focused than most churches are now. I think most churches have way too much overhead and are structured in such a way to lend itself towards becoming institutional and stable rather than missional/entrepreneurial and radical. I believe churches should rid themselves of most of their programs that are not directly related to Biblical teaching or encouragement; yes, this includes programs to help the poor or some other subset of people with needs.

Why? Because I think such efforts can be so much more effective and life-changing when done outside the confines of a church. Instead of trying to run those programs within a church, people who are passionate about the homeless or the hungry or needy children should start non-profit organizations whose sole mission is to help those people. There are so many advantages to doing things this way… 1) you can get people involved who might not have otherwise. 2) It would be much easier to get outside donors who might otherwise be hesitant to donate to a church. 3) It will help focus the mission solely towards helping these people, rather than have the mission be clouded by other goals (e.g. using the programs to boost Sunday attendance or to make the church seem more socially conscious, etc.). 4) It will force people to step up, develop leadership skills and take ownership over the work they are doing (when serving at church, it’s easy to just submit to someone else’s [usually a pastor's] authority and just do what is told).

There’s countless more reasons… but anyways, my point is that most churches are too “fat” and unfocused in their mission. And when you think you can do everything, you end up doing nothing at all (or at least do nothing well).