Perspective

This post may be a bit long because I have a story to tell.  Bear with me…

I enjoy my job.  It’s what I love to do, in the environment I love to do it in.  I work full-time at a church where my wife and I are Youth Pastors.  In the past, I have been full-time, part-time, and volunteer (with a full-time secular job) during various seasons in the ministry, so I’m pretty well-rounded in what it’s like to work in the American church.

But the goal in all of those instances–full-time, part-time, or volunteer–is to win people to Jesus, disciple those people, and send them out to disciple others.  That’s the whole purpose we do what we do.  We use whatever talents, gifts, and passions that God has given us to that end, whether that means teaching, singing, or scrubbing toilets.  And I’m not just talking about paid church staff.  It’s what Jesus specifically called all of His followers to do.

But here’s the thing: sometimes we lose perspective.  We get caught up in the work, or the secular aspects of our lives, and we forget what our purpose is.  We get so bogged down in making sure that our lessons are just right, our kids have their homework done, our blog is kept up-to-date, or whatever it is that we do, that we forget to, like Christ, have compassion for the lost.

Case in point: for the past 5 or so weeks, I have been taking 2 of our teenagers through a discipleship program called Discipleship Plus.  It’s actually a great discipleship course.  I’ve been very pleased with the curriculum overall.  I would say the only 2 real gripes I’ve had overall were the fact that there is no student editions of the book–only teacher’s editions–and that there are no digital resources to go along with it.  Since there are no student editions, I only bought the teacher’s edition and had been teaching out of that.  And when I say digital, what I mean is copies of the forms we use each week (such as the “Weekly Accountability Sheets” and the “Session Notes”), which all happen to be very generic forms simply with lines for writing and a title mostly.  So, since that was lacking, I made my own to print and reproduce (which the book plainly stated that I could do without breaking any copyright laws).

Next, I created a small website for the program.  My goals were: to provide a place where students could download their forms and print them out from home if they ran out, to re-iterate the assignments for the week, and to recap the main points of the lesson so that–and this was very important to me–parents could follow along and see what I was teaching their children, and hopefully encourage them at home using the same Scriptures and main thoughts that I had been teaching.  That way we would all be on the same page.

Well, a few days ago, out-of-the-blue, I get a call at the church office from a man who at first did not identify himself.  He had heard that I had been using the Discipleship Plus materials and wanted to know how I liked them, to which I responded with a favorable review.  Next he wanted to know how long I had been doing it and how many kids I had.  I told him around 5 weeks and 2 students.  By this point, I simply assumed it was another Youth Pastor who was interested and just wanted some feedback.  Finally he introduced himself as one of the authors.  Of course, I thanked him for writing the material and that I was pleased with it, and he thanked me for using it.

Then, suddenly, he asked me to take the website I created for the program down.  It was such an unusual request that I had to ask him to repeat it, and of course to explain why.  He told me that it was against the law, that it was copyrighted, and I wasn’t allowed to post the material in any way, shape, or form on the internet.  And I suppose he was right and I had no choice in the matter.  I simply made the assumption that, since I was only putting bits and pieces on the site and usable forms for my students that I was discipling–the whole purpose the course was even written–that it wouldn’t be a problem.  Apparently I was wrong.

Technically I was breaking the law, and I get that.  I told him that I had no choice if those were his wishes–especially since I had no desire to embroil my church in a legal battle.  But I had to ask him “why?”.  Not the secular reason, because that was obvious.  But, why would he want such a thing done when we were using it as a tool in discipling students, which was the whole point.  We weren’t making money off of it.  We weren’t taking credit for it.  It was simply a resource to enhance the material for my students and their parents.  And further, I explained to him that, like it or not,  everything is heading this way:  universal cloud access, meaning that everything would be directly accessible from the internet, with or without a fee.  And I told him that I was willing to pay any necessary fees or to purchase 2 more books for my students if that would satisfy any usage issues.  But these weren’t good enough for him.  He simply wanted it down.

To his credit, he didn’t say anything mean or rude, except for one thing.  I told him that I was very disappointed in his attitude towards my efforts in discipling students, and that he had lost perspective.  His response to me was “Well we are disappointed in you too.”  I can’t say I know what that means, whether he was speaking for himself and his co-author, the publishing copany, the government, or what.  But apparently he was disappointed that I was doing what Christ told us to do in Matthew 28: to make disciples.   And I was using his material to do it!!

So, that was a long story.  If you’ve read this far, then I owe it to you to tell you my point.  This Christian author has lost his perspective on things.  He has adopted a secular mind-set so much so that it is more important to him to make money than to make disciples.  Moreover, since we are a small church and barely a blip on the web, I have to assume that he was actively trolling the internet looking for copyright violations.  Apparently it is that important to him.

And I’m not making excuses; I had no choice than to bring down the site.  He was technically right.

So to use this as an example for the rest of us, we need to all take a step back every once in a while an examine our motives.  Have we lost perspective as well?  Have we forgotten that Jesus died not just for us, but for our next-door neighbors, our co-workers and classmates, and our enemies alike?  Are we so concerned with carnal issues that it gets in the way of the Great Commission?  Why is it that we are taking the time to work in the ministry?  If you honestly can’t say that it is for winning the lost, then you need to take a break and regain your perspective.  Don’t let the world steal your joy.  Don’t let them warp your mind into thinking in the same terms as they do.  I know I have been guilty of it before, and probably will again.

As for this particular author, I will not be using his material anymore.  I do not want to support such disregard for the Great Commission from someone who should know better.  In this case, the enemy has won.  It really is a shame.

UPDATE: In my original post, I had used the author’s name.  I decided to remove his name because I felt it might sound like an attack, and that isn’t my purpose.