Love People—Don’t Use Them

A couple of Sundays ago, my church launched a new campus. By all accounts, it was a rousing success. God showed up, inhabited something clearly imperfect and flawed in its planning, and breathed on us. In many respects, it was the end of a six-month sprint to the finish. In many respects, it is the beginning of a long, sweaty marathon where an entirely new body of believers comes together in the name of Christ.

Several people have asked me what I’ve learned in playing a small part in all of this.

I think I can sum it up in one very important verse, John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Let me explain. If you’re a church leader, you are always asking someone to help you do something. Teach a Bible study class. Set up chairs. Fold up chairs. Play in the worship band. Serve coffee in the café. Take pictures. Make signs. Run cable. Greet people. Seat people. Park people. Cut grass. Paint. Build. You get the general idea.

If you are not VERY careful, you begin to see the people you love in your church not as people you love, but as people you use to get things done. If you are not VERY careful, you begin to see the people you are trying to reach in the name of Jesus Christ as people you use to meet an artificial numbers goal.

You have been there as well as I have, perhaps on the other side. You are the volunteer prey. You begin to duck, to take a different exit, to go out of your way to avoid a pastor in the church building, because you’re sure they’re going to ask you to do one more thing that will push you over the edge. You consider blocking your pastor’s number on your cell. Add his e-mail address to your spam filter. You know the drill. You have been the recipient of a tract on a street corner, breathlessly and energetically given to you by a very nice person whom you would swear has been given a quota of people he must evangelize in the next 30 minutes.

So, as a leader, how can you avoid becoming this person, the leader everyone tries to avoid? There’s just one way. It’s all about John 13:35. If you truly have love for one another and know where all of these people are in their personal and spiritual lives, you will have their best interest at heart. You know when they are on the edge. You also know when they need a new challenge. You know if they’ve just broken up with their significant other. You know when their child is facing a long-term illness. You know when they are unemployed and struggling. You know because you love them. Love = knowledge. You know what they need most, and you put their need above your need to fill a position by next Sunday.

The same holds true for those people you pray would come to know Christ. Jesus had a heart for the multitudes, which means you should, too. But in the end it was about individual people He talked to and showed love towards: Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, Peter, the centurion, the woman at the well, and many others. His goal is to save the entire world from sin. But He started person to person, and I believe He is still working person to person to save the world through me and you today.

Do you truly have care and compassion for people? Show them authentically as you go about your work and ministry. It’s not about using them, it’s about loving them.