The Passionate Youth Worker

Josh on January 16th, 2008

Thought Seth Godin had a brilliant post about workaholics vs. passionate workers. In my mind, the previous generation of pastors has been characterized to a degree as workaholics, people who sacrificed their families for their ministry. A new generation of pastors has to be careful of those same choices, though the motivation is different in that we serve out of an unbridled passion instead of an out of control work ethic. Here’s a clip:

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

JG

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Gerry Rojas at 11:05am January 16

What makes the motivations of the previous generation of pastors different from the current one?

You applied it to pastors but I don’t see the connection. Can you clarify?

Josh at 7:28pm January 16

Yeah, I see that is worded poorly. Oh well, I’ll leave it up there as is and hope people see the comments.

The point of the article is to show a shift in the old way of thinking to the new way – and my hope is that others would recognize this same shift happening in the church. I thought it was interesting, and worth tossing up on the blog.

To a degree, in my experience though – yes, I would characterize the last generation of pastors as workaholics but of course they are still passionate people and care about their flocks. In this interconnected technological world, people can’t turn it off, and in a sense don’t want to because they love it. I think Seth’s point is that a previous generation of workers can’t turn it off because they would feel guilty.

Check out these other articles about workaholic pastors:
http://www.pastors.com/rwmt/article.asp?ArtID=3924
http://www.drurywriting.com/keith/bigfal_r.htm
http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/200101/0101_150_balance.cfm

JG