Apparently the BGEA is “trimming” their workforce, not outright laying people off. That’s news to me. But if by “trimming” you mean reducing daily staff-prepared meals to a few vending machines and microwaves, then I guess that makes sense. It’s good to know you’re being “trimmed” and not layed off. Tell that to the BGEA’s cancelled daily radio show.
In other lunch-related news, Bad Az Chicken sandwiches are now available in the Billy Graham lunch room.
The languishing economy is starting to show in pink slips at non-profits. It’s interesting to hear the cuts some companies are announcing. It’s even more interesting to know the cuts certain companies aren’t announcing.
Searching for a job has to be the biggest awkward situation. In some cases it’s beyond stressful, especially if you’re doing your search between 9 and 5 because you’re unemployed. That’s never fun. But the prospect of looking for a position that will consume half your waking hours is a little daunting. How can you tell from the little paragraph in the want ads whether or not you’ll like the job, whether or not you’ll fit in at the office, whether or not this is a job that will drive you mad or make you happy? You can’t. Never mind that this elusive position will also determine your income, your benefits, your vacation, your daily commute. Whether or not you’ll get stuck in traffic every day depends on which job you get. There’s a point where something is beyond stressful, beyond irritating, where it reaches a plane of existence that I think is somewhere in the neighborhood of insanity.
For those of you who don’t know, yes, I’m looking for a job. My company is relocating and I’m not sure I want to relocate as well. So thankfully I’m not one of those people looking for a job between 9 and 5. Yet.
To top it off, I’m also now experiencing one of the benefits of being married to someone who works with children. I have ringworm. Despite how it sounds, it’s basically an itchy mosquito bite that’s contagious and won’t go away until you medicate it. Which I am, thank you very much. However, it sounds bad enough to be worth a sick day.
11:58. So I’m not impervious to caffeine. Or it’s just the stress of potential change. Change is often the root of insomnia.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,'” (Jeremiah 29:11). That’s all well and good, but it’s not as encouraging when you remember that God’s definition of prosper and yours aren’t always the same. We like to think of this as a great encouraging verse when our lives are in the midst of change. But it’s not that encouraging.
The Jews were in captivity in Babylon. God told them to settle in for the long haul. Build houses, plant gardens, get used to life in Babylon, ’cause you’re not going back to Israel anytime soon. He even told the Jews to ignore the so-called prophets who dreamed of returning. Then God says in seventy years he’ll bring the Jews back to the promised land. For he knows the plans he has for them (enter the verse in question).
Context helps, doesn’t it? Hope and a future meant waiting seventy years before returning home again. We don’t always get what we want. But God still takes care of us. I guess that’s the lesson. It’s not necessarily what you want or how you want it, but it works out. Sometimes that’s hard to figure when the math doesn’t add up.
God doesn’t have the same calculator I do. My calculations say I’ll be in debt until I’m 38, and that’s just my school loans. And you really don’t want to wait that long to start a family, so the calculations have to get pretty tight. Children are expensive, though I wouldn’t want to put a monetary value on them. But you can figure the cost of care, which is either the equivalent of one spouse’s salary or daycare, which are often equal or nearly equal numbers. Unless of course you strike the good fortune of free baby-sitting, but that often comes with the perils of resident in-laws. Factor in a mortgage, and my calculator’s laughing at me.
But somehow, I think God’s calculator makes it work. Sometimes I’m tempted to call his bluff and see if it really does. Throw up my hands, bring on the family, take out a mortgage and see what happens. Sometimes I wonder if truly relying on God is the same thing as stupidity. I’m willing to bet they are, God just covers your back.
The one thing I really hate is not being certain about my monetary provision. I remember the few times I’ve been jobless as some of the most stressful times of my life. After my freshman year of college I scoured southeast Michigan looking for a job. Okay, I didn’t look that hard, but I looked everywhere I knew at the time. I ended up crawling back to the grocery store I worked at in high school, and had a blast stocking the shelves again.
The summer after my sophomore year I landed an unpaid internship in Chicago, and applied for every part time job I could find. When Toys R Us offered minimum wage and informed me I’d have to work the register, I said no thanks and literally took to the street.
When I was a senior in college and about to get married and graduate, I applied for everything I could find in my field. I got one interview and actually landed that job.
So I’ve always come up with something, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t sick with worry until it happened. I just wish it could be easier. I think I have a trust problem. I know God will provide, that’s what I keep telling myself. But I have to slough through the hell of not knowing how it’s going to happen. I’m the kind of guy who likes to have my ducks in a row. I like to know where everything is coming from, how the bills are getting paid. I’m not good at blind trust. Forgive me, but I would have sunk like a rock if I stepped off the boat. Call Peter what you will, but that guy had guts.
It works out in the end, I just wish I had the script in advance.
I hate begging for money. Yet I work for a non-profit organization and it’s part of the job. It’s not my job, thankfully, but we always have to keep donations in the back of mind. I can’t tell you how many times we’re reminded that the organization is supported by thousands of little old ladies who send in one dollar every month. The freaky thing is it’s no exaggeration.
For the first time in their history the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has put out a gift catalog. It’s basically one more way of begging for money, with the added bonus that you can decide where your money goes. You support whatever you want to support, assuming it’s in the catalog. It’s similar to the humanitarian support where you donate $50 to buy a goat for a family in Africa. Only with the BGEA, you’re giving money to evangelism projects.
One of those projects is the passageway.org Backstage Pass CD-ROM. passageway.org is the teen Web site of the BGEA, and the main focus of my job. This year we made these CD-ROMs to give to teens at BGEA events. The CD has a video presentation of the Gospel from a number of different Christian artists. They explain salvation in simple language, and teens can pray at the end. The CD also has the entire NIV Bible, a Bible reading plan, an introduction to the Web site, and exclusive access to a special “backstage” section of the Web site that includes more videos and articles.
It’s a cool project and a powerful way to extend the Gospel at a Billy Graham Mission. All these teens are wearing these CDs around their necks as they listen to the music and the message. For the kids who don’t come forward at the invitation, they can go home and pop this CD in their computer and hear the message again on their own terms. And for the teens who do come forward at the event or who already are Christians, it introduces them to the perfect follow-up tool, a vast discipleship resource that’s updated weekly. It also gives those teens a cool and hip way to share the Gospel with their friends.
My point in all this is that the BGEA put the passageway.org Backstage Pass CD-ROM in their gift catalog. For the suggested donation of $1 per CD, you can help put these CD-ROMs in the hands of teens. Despite my dislike for fundraising, I think this is something worth supporting. So if you like what you’re hearing, please donate some cash for these CD-ROMs.
You can hear a report on the CD-ROMs (listen to the first segment, “Billy Graham Youth Web Site”) from Decision Today (the BGEA’s daily radio show), which includes some quotes from my coworkers and I.
Jars of Clay performing during the Student Night of the Metroplex Mission with Billy Graham in Texas Stadium in Dallas, Texas. 48,000 passageway.org Backstage Pass CD-ROMs were given out that evening, thus my reason for being there. 82,000 people showed up that night, a new record for Texas Stadium. Of course the record only lasted one day. Sunday night’s attendance was 83,500.
I also have a fun treat for everyone, the Bushtop. George H.W. Bush spoke at the Mission on Thursday night, and we got this great photo of Bush blinking. I thought it made a nice Max Headroom-esque desktop. So there you have it: the Bushtop.
I also need to do a little self-promotion. I was on the radio today. Take a listen: October 14, 2002 Decision Today (listen to the first segment, “Billy Graham Youth Web Site”).
So busy I can hardly keep it all straight. One thing did finally come to an end today. 7 months of focused effort at work have finally resulted in a redesigned web site. I put in plenty of overtime on this one, and as good as it feels to finally have the site up, it’s still not done. We’ll be fixing and adding and tweaking for months. Joyous.
I now have a cube to call my very own. I think I can now say I’ve “made it.”
Since it’s very likely that I’ll be moving across the country in a few years to follow my job, it’s really made me think about what I want to do in life. And I’m not just talking about the big picture, I want to write a book and have a few kids kind of thing. I’m talking about my job type stuff. Where I’m working, what I’m doing, how it’s going kind of thing.
Basically, is this really the job I want to have forever? We always have this image of constant advancement. It’s as if I’m always supposed to be moving up in the world. I can’t be an Assistant Editor forever. Some day I have to be just the Editor. Then the Managing Editor. Then the Supreme Editor of all. Or something like that.
But I’m beginning to question that. Do I really want to be the managing editor? At this point in my life, the answer is no. I like my job. I like that I don’t have to be the final answer. I like that someone else has to deal with the really sticky questions. I like that I can go home at the end of the day and let things go. Maybe in a few years I’m yearn for more responsibility, but right now, I don’t want to advance.
That seems so anti-establishment. Can you really want to just stay where you’re at? Financially it doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially being an editor. I guess maybe I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe in several years I’ll have changed and want something more. But for now I’m not really worried about the financial matters and moving forward to advance my career.
I’m reminded of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“Each of us lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals, and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. These include the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the economic sources we acquire—the material stuff we must have to exist. There is always a danger that we will permit the means by which we live to replace the ends for which we live, the internal to become lost in the external.” (Strength to Love, page 70)