High Value
… is not the same as low price.
The price is obvious. It can be seen from a mile away. But value is more subtle. It often needs to be experienced to be understood.
The price is the same for every person who buys that item at retail. The value is different for everyone.
Low price is the last refuge for marketers who don’t have the patience or guts to demonstrate value for those that need it.
(Seth Godin, “High Value.” September 27, 2018)
What kind of value would you assign to your practice of faith or to your congregational experience?
One of the lessons that took a while for me to learn in congregational ministry was that neither I nor the youth sponsors could make youth group a mountain top experience for every person each week. And the same was worship or fall retreat or mission trip or any other event we might offer. We could be intentional about the details and structure of youth group (or those other things mentioned) that could make mountain top experiences possible (maybe God sightings is a better term), but we could not control what each youth or parent brought to youth group, and what each one invested in it. In the end, we each have to determine what we value about ourselves, our relationships, and about God.
Intentional Christian community is messy work. It is the tough work of following Jesus and balancing belief with everyday living. It is attention to the essentials that create unity among a diverse people. It is a willingness to name, and let go of, the nonessentials to unity, and bless each person’s search for liberty. It is an attitude of charity and humility, as if you are meeting Jesus or the image of God in persons, that makes intentional Christian community possible and counter-cultural.
This is the subtle value our program ministries for children, youth, and adults are seeking to create.
Sometimes that happens on the mountain tops.
More often, that value happens in the space in between.
