Just whose job is it anyway?

It might be hard for some to believe, but this article has actually been one of the hardest for me to write. Not because I have a problem finding material to write about, but because I can, with just a bit of thinking, come up with more than enough “examples,” “parables,” “life experiences,” and the like, to write about and to illustrate and emphasis a scriptural lesson or point.

I can almost hear some thinking after they have read the preceding paragraph (and I may even end up getting some actual comments), “What is your problem? Let me get this straight; you are complaining about having trouble writing an article because you can think of so many things to write about? We should have it so hard. Get over it.” And, I can understand why someone may think or say something like that about what I’ve just said.

However, please hang in there. Have a bit of patience with me and I’ll try to explain why this bothers me so much and why this is a real problem for me.

I once made the mistake of saying to a lead man who asked me to do something, “It’s not in my job description.” That conversation was overheard by my boss. The language he used isn’t printable in an article such as this, but the gist of it was “your job description is what I say it is, and I better never, ever, hear you say anything like that again.” And I never did. After the chewing out I received, I always did what I was told — well, most of the time.

What bothers me, though, is it seems this attitude has found its way into the church. “It’s not in my job description; it’s someone else’s and I’m not going to do it.” Often we pull out scriptures like Corinthians 1, chapter 12 to prove our point. We know the body is many parts and we are all part of the same body and spirit; but not everyone has the same “job” and we try to use that to support our position in order that we might not have to do something asked of us.

This really bothers me as this attitude keeps the body fragmented and divided, even though we may all gather under one roof to worship. This attitude is in direct opposition to the Word that tells us in Ephesians 4:14-15 we are to “speak the truth in love and grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”

If it’s all one person’s job, or our attitude is someone else can do it, how are we compacted and joined together by that which is supplied by every part? If the parts won’t produce anything, is it any wonder the body is fragmented, stagnates or even worse, as I’m sure we can all think of at least one church standing empty, simply dies?

Have you the opportunity to write an article? Write it. To speak? Open your mouth; God promises to fill it. We aren’t given the liberty to decide what part of the body we are (thus deciding what we will and will not do) because God has charged us with reaching the lost which is supposed to be the true focus of the church, and I don’t think it will work for us to say before our God on the day we stand before Christ to give the answer for our lives, (see Corinthians 2, 5:10)

“Well, Pastor (deacon, elder, lay person) asked me to do ... but I didn’t see where it was in my job description, and besides, I’m not that part of the body so I didn’t do it.”

Do you?