Why do we work such long hours? I've been wondering this, lately. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat. Try to carve out time and energy for other things. Not so noticeable among my childless student/post-student friends, but still. It's good to be able to give each other hours. Not just an hour, or a few minutes.
But there's so much of the hamster-wheel sometimes that we sometimes want to scream, "STOP THE WORLD! I WANT TO GET OFF!"
Employers are supposed to be down with the new stuff, the flexible working, the family commitments, and so on and so on. Yeah. Yet we apparently work the longest hours in Europe. So sayeth the TUC survey:
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=416057&in_page_id=2
So why do most people still work the equivalent of a full-time job? Or more? Are our working practices aligned with our priorities in life?
BetterHalf and I have now finished the pre marriage course. The last session required you to write down, in order, your top five priorities.
Mine went something like: Relationship with God, Relationship with BetterHalf, Health, Vocation, Friends and Family.
Which led me to thinking: is my life in balance? Or is it totally out of whack?
And to the conclusion that I am as guilty as anybody else here. Sure, I work part-time at the moment, but in September I'll be five days a week, full time, being paid peanuts for the privilege, scraping to keep fed and clothed.
Because the church tells me to. Because I want to be a vicar, and with that privilege comes awesome responsibility and the expectation of complete insanity and overwork. (Perhaps I'm being unfair: most people GET that vicars can't be everywhere and do everything. Quite a lot of vicars don't. That's why the good ones have clear boundaries, and the rest are headed for a crunch.)
I may have to swap out one or more of my days to a job that pays money, just to keep body and soul together. Fine. I get why I'm going to be working full-time hours. I need the ministry experience. Cool. Bet they wouldn't expect it if I had children or other people to support, but that's another topic/rant.
I get why anybody on a minimum-wage job is working as many hours as can be got. Body and soul together, right? Especially if you have kids. I can work 25 hours a week on a little above minimum wage happily, and have money over, because I live in a room in a house, don't drive an awful lot, have a fiancé to share cooking with, am generally stingy with money, and so on and so on.
But there are all these people who are earning three, four, five times what I make an hour. Why do they work such long hours? Will the company not survive without them? Or is it...
Oh...I've got it now.
Say I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I would be much more effective if I worked, say, 32 hours a week instead of 40. That's 4 full days instead of 5. Fine. This saves my employer money, makes me happier (and thus probably more productive when I AM working) and reduces my stress (and childcare requirements if I had kids), while increasing my time with my family/friends and making me less utterly exhausted.
And the company saves 1/5th on my salary.
Therein lies the issue, I suppose. In this hypothetical scenario, in which I am somehow well paid, I can afford a 20% pay cut. Would my company expect me to get the same amount of work done in less time? Would they just up and fire me for suggesting a reduction in hours?
Would they decide not to promote me as I clearly don't work as hard as the other guys? Is that the issue here? Or are they so inflexible that they don't think anyone working less than 50 hours a week can be doing a good job? (In which case this turns into a rail-against-the-culture thing).
Would the loss of income lead directly to my inability to pay the bills and being thrown out on the streets? Not in this hypothetical instance, but if they decide, in the midst of a recession, that part-timers clearly aren't pulling their weight...
I have been pondering this because of the new issue of
Youthwork magazine. They're doing a Big Picture issue, and so talking about the future of youth work, the church, youth evangelism, etc etc.
Points raised in just one of the many articles
:
There’s no problem with people training to be counsellors, preachers, youth workers, worship leaders, children’s workers; but it will only be those churches with deep pockets that can employ team ministries. Will those churches inevitably go on to create monopolies? Will they drain vital people and vital ‘resources’ from other churches?
In answer to the questions: Monopolies? I guess so, possibly. But if they're smart, they'll...not so much 'plant' as
seed churches, or take over churches that are dying and have no money, and maybe they can turn them around. And they will take cues from the locality and culture as to what the needs are (aside from the biggies, like Jesus and discipling and mission, for example).
Will they take people and resources from other churches? Well...depends on the people. Maybe the main question here is: how do we help our world? How do we make it right? We live in a broken world, sweet peas. Only God can make it right. We are Her instruments, but it's Her battle plan we're following here. So in answer to the second question, I don't know. But if the same work is getting done, can that still be okay?
Another point the author makes is the increasing professionalisation of church. The idea being that church should not be a catered meal, it should be a bring and share lunch.
Yeah...but that's going to require a culture change, which are often and necessarily gradual. You need, therefore, a vicar who wants to see lots of lay involvement. A vicar who preaches mission. You need prayer, you need lots of prayer. And you need time and inspiration to reverse our apathy at doing anything. Not to mention that, depending on your theology, there are things only vicars should be doing. Then again, that shouldn't include "everything that is even tangentially religious", so I don't know if that's a huge problem, I'm just mentioning it. Maybe someone else can provide some input here?
[rant on]You want to know a reason WHY there's such a lack of volunteers? Well, there are lots of reasons. But the one that burns me up it this: if you agree to do one thing, people try and foist other things on you too. I know, I know, church is about giving as much as receiving. Yes. But we are so desperate for volunteers that if we get ONE we foist everything on them. NO. No dice.
This means challenging the consumerist culture that exists in our hearts and minds and churches. It means praying for breakthrough, for willingness to give, and serve, and what have you. AND it sometimes means Doing Less Church Stuff so we can Do More Mission Stuff.[rant off]
The author ends with,
That’s why the future is for amateurs and part timers. The drive to spiritual maturity that is so evident within New Testament is an effort to make all of us Olympian level disciple-makers, not just a few. Come on, you know it makes good mission sense. Making espressos in your local coffee house three days a week, leading a church that meets in the coffee shop for the rest of it…
We live in hope. But that just seems like a lovely thought, unless you're energetic and single and have no extraneous responsibilities. Still, I maintain the principle can be sound.
And maybe, if we are part-timers, we can bring each other hours. And days, and weeks, and months, and years, and lifetimes. We can bring the whole of ourselves to the table, and share.
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