Perspective


A few weeks ago I was having coffee with one of the kids coordinators at my church (this is happening a lot lately as I am super new!). She asked me how the move from Moncton NB to Toronto has been. I did the usual spiel… it’s a lot bigger, a lot busier, there’s so many apartments and very little sprawling green land. There’s a lot more people around, but I am liking the change to a faster pace.

She chuckled.

A few years ago she moved to Toronto as well… from Hong Kong. Her experience? She can’t believe how much smaller/less busy it is, how big the lots of land are and how much green space there is! She is loving the slower pace.

Funny, right? We both moved to the same region, yet our perspective on what it is like is exactly opposite.

It got me thinking how the same thing can so easily happen to us in work, in ministry. Do you have days (or seasons) where you can’t believe how horrible things are? Maybe you feel disrespected. Or maybe you feel like you are the only Pastor in all the world you can’t get enough volunteers, or can’t get the kids to set still, or can’t get people to like the latest worship song, or can’t get the Board to cooperate, or… fill in the blank. We can become so certain that things are exactly as bad as they seem, and that the grass has to be so much greener somewhere else. Anywhere but here.

If you feel like you are in that space, I challenge you to get away. Take a vacation. Visit another church/ministry to see how they do things. When I feel “blah” about my own ministry, I take some time to visit another ministry. 3 cool things happen when I do this: I make new ministry friends, I learn something cool I’ve never seen before, and I realize where I am isn’t that bad after all. (In fact, I came back from one visit blown away by how GOOD our kids were!).

Think to yourself: if I wasn’t in ministry, what would I be doing? Is there something I’d rather give my life to then this? If the answer is yes… then you should go do that instead. If the answer is no… then change your perspective!

Nothing is as bad as it seems. There is always hope. God is in charge and He has you in a certain time and place for a reason. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the tiniest rural church in Newfoundland, or the biggest urban church in Ontario. We all have our days. When they come, step back. Take a look around. Practice gratitude. And get outside of your own bubble for awhile.

I have learned that the grass is not greener on the other side — the grass is greener where it is watered. What could you do today to water your patch of grass?

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