Give Jesus a break, and take one yourself while you’re at it

Minnesota Christian Chronicle ^ | December 2007 | Bryan Malley

[rhema]

While volunteering for a retreat at my favorite Bible camp over MEA weekend in October, I had the chance to play a board game called “What Would Jesus Do?” OK, so we didn’t so much “play” as we did sit around and joke about the cheesiness of the game’s questions.

The premise is simple enough. Similar to “Trivial Pursuit,” the person holding the question card reads what’s on the card and the game’s players are supposed to guess the answer from a multiple choice list on the back of the card.

The question on each card places you in a modern scene such as at work, school or church and then paints a scenario where you are supposed to imagine what Jesus would do if He were you.

A simplified example of a scenario from the game might be: “The popular crowd at school is making fun of your best friend’s outdated clothing. What would Jesus do?”

Some of the possible answers were things like a) join the popular crowd and tease your friend because his clothes are quite outdated, b) run away, c) resort to physical violence to resolve the scenario quickly, or d) reassure your friend that it’s not what’s on the outside that matters because God loves everyone just the same.

Reading the cards and then chuckling at the obviousness of the correct answer on each one was fun enough for a while, but then I started to notice a disturbing trend in the questions regarding church involvement. Every time a card posed a scenario where you were supposed to imagine what Jesus would do if asked to volunteer for some function or position at church, the correct answer is that He would say yes. Every time.

After five or six of these scenarios, I began to wonder when Jesus would have time to rest, or pray, or just be, if He was always saying yes to everyone who asked Him for help and attending every church event possible, while at the same time watching everyone’s kids in the nursery every Wednesday night and Sunday morning and directing traffic in the parking lot.

The makers of the game seemed to be suggesting that Jesus would be at church from sun up to sun down every Sunday. Jesus would also volunteer in the church library, lead small groups for the youth, visit the sick people of the congregation, play on the softball team, organize all the social events, sing in the choir, and serve on the church council.

Sadly, the answer is He would have no time for those other parts of life if He didn’t learn to say no and attempt to live a more balanced life. And Jesus would also burn out eventually, which is not an uncommon thing to happen to modern-day Christians either when faced with the pressures that church and ministry involvement can bring.

Because most church and ministry models are organized like a business, but actually operate on mostly volunteer involvement, there can be a tendency from leadership to ask too much of the faithful. And because many churches and ministries have a lot of need, and often don’t have the resources to match that need, there can be a tendency to keep asking and asking for more.

My hope is that during this holiday season, we’ll have many opportunities to gather as church families and serve each other, but that we’ll also all remember to say no sometimes, take a break, be with our own families, and feel no guilt or shame for having done so. If I had written that game, I would have given Jesus the occasional chance to do the same.