Paperwork

 November 29, 2022

“Jesus didn’t walk around carrying a briefcase.” So said my father-in-law many years ago as he was filling out the almost endless year-end reports for his church. I realize that in our increasingly bureaucratic world, paperwork is an unwelcome necessity, but it does often seem as if we spend more time reporting on what we have done than we actually spent doing it. ‘

Fifty years ago when I worked for the county department of social services and computerization was in its incipient stages, state bureaucrats would visit the department on a regular basis to make sure we were filling out the required reports. I can still hear my casework supervisor John Gianas raging as he shouted to the state man, “My workers could be sitting under a tree all day, and as long as they checked the right boxes, you’d never be the wiser!” Even back then, we were spending more time in the office writing up reports than we were out in the field working with the people.

Christianity began as a movement within Judaism, but it didn’t take long for it to become institutionalized. That’s not necessarily bad; Christianity might easily have died out had it remained only a movement, but there’s no doubt something gets lost in the transition. Looking back over the years, I have often wondered how much spiritual productivity got lost in the organization. Often, one’s standing in the church was measured by how many committees one was on, or even better, chaired. Spiritual depth wasn’t necessarily required; merely a willingness to sit through meetings.

I will never forget the night my father came home from another church meeting and announced that he had resigned from all church responsibilities except the trustees. “It was taking too much time from my family,” he explained. I didn’t know it at the time, but I believe that single decision was more influential in my own spiritual life than any other. He set an example that I tried to follow all the years of my ministry, so much so, that at my very first administrative board meeting at the church I served for 32 years, I told the board members that if there were a conflict between a church meeting and something my children were involved in, they were not to look for me at the meeting. 

I wish I had heard my father-in-law’s pithy statement years ago. He summed up my perspective to a “T”: Don’t let the paperwork detract from the real work of making disciples for Jesus Christ.