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So I finally started my mini spiritual retreat and I didn't even know what I wanted to do. So I just started by telling God that and sort of waiting in silence. I have so much sadness from everything from the past year and it just never ends.
So finally I managed to find a few words and then I pulled out the Concordance and somehow decided on the word "great". Well, that's, of course, is a pretty multipurpose word, but it helped me focus. I knew I wanted to focus somehow on God's greatness, but then that wasn't it either.
So then I decided to open to one of the passages in I Timothy and then before I knew it I was thinking more along the lines of how one publicly reveals sin in others. So I just wanted to quote the First and Second Timothy verses here that are examples of that kind of thing. These are from the New King James version.
I Tim. 1:18-20
18 This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, 19 having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, 20 of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.
II Tim. 1:15
This you know, that all those in Asia have turned away from me, among whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
II Tim. 2:17-18
17 And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, 18 who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some.
II Tim. 4:10
for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.
I'm just showing this because there is a biblical precedence for making public error, especially among those who minister since they can do more damage. I'm not saying that any of these particular actions have anything to do with the Vienna mission; rather, I'm just saying that making such things public (like what I'm doing in this blog) isn't completely without biblical precedence. The way I'm doing it, of course, is novel, and not just the use of electronic media, but the concentrated focus on it.II Tim. 4:10
for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.
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Continuing with the text, the author goes on to discuss system rewards, which doesn't apply well to the mission context, as it deals more with rewarding employees for quality and quantity of output, like in a corporation or factory, and I'm not aware that this was a problem in the mission. The textbook end of things in the mission did have deadlines, but they knew how to work with them and didn't require (as far as I ever knew) anything like these kinds of rewards.However, the next sub-section goes on to discuss the conditions conducive to effective system rewards and that discussion does end out, in perhaps a convoluted way, saying something worth commenting on.
How we can make this discussion relevant is if we consider the advantages of being an insider in the mission system. Not only does the trust factor get solidified and one becomes more of a central fixture in the social sphere of things, but there's also the issue of knowledge, so that now you might have access to more of the secret knowledge - at least as it applies to your position. So these are great boons. And now instead of wondering whether you'll be on the receiving end of the stick (as in carrot and stick), you might be one of the ones on the giving end of the stick helping to socialize someone else.
So the thing is that the reward is to move inward in the system or perhaps move up, although there weren't very many opportunities for that in the mission. Those moves could be seen as rewards and as such could be motivators. They could be very strong motivators under certain circumstances or for certain people.
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I'm skipping instrumental rewards (pay) as basically irrelevant), and the next sub-heading is "Intrinsic job satisfaction.""The motivational pathway to high productivity and to high-quality production can be reached through the development of intrinsic job satisfaction. The man who finds the type of work he delights in doing is the man who will not worry about the fact the role requires a given amount of production of a certain quality. His gratifications accrue from accomplishment, from the expression of his own abilities, from the exercise of his own decisions... This type of performer is not the clock watcher, nor the shoddy performer. On the other hand, such a person is not necessarily tied to a given organization... He may, moreover, contribute little to organizational goals beyond his specific role." (p. 141).
This is me and this is not me. That is it could have been me in the Vienna mission, given the right position, but not exactly either. The Vienna mission would never ever have let me have anything like the leeway I'd have liked because they were too paranoid of everything, in my opinion. I'm talking about if I had had a position using my skills, not as a secretary, which I wasn't - I wasn't a professional secretary.
So in the secretary position I acted like the description above in that I would have preferred to contribute little to the organizational goal beyond my specific role, unless it was something of substance they were going to offer me, otherwise, I wasn't to interested. I mean to be a secretary and on top of that more filler stuff to to in my off time? I did it, but my heart was more in the Austrian outreach efforts.
I'd done other East European work that fit this description, whether on short term ministry, volunteering in England at the center there, in the specialized library in the USA, etc. I needed next to no oversight and I was very self motivated and diligent and no one ever complained about my work or anything. So I was like this person with the intrinsic job satisfaction. But the Vienna mission did a number on me and they did it big time. How could I go full time finally to the work that I'd prepared so long for and not an ounce of intrinsic job satisfaction at it? Well, for one thing they never gave me hardly any work to do! So I was so often doing filler work to do! How demeaning is that! So much for intrinsic job satisfaction. Down the drain. Heck, why did they even bring me there if they didn't have any real work for me to do? Now that's a good question! I hope God asks them that on the judgement day when they face Him. (Well, of course, He knows already, but I don't - I'd like to know.)
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The next sub-section also has to be addressed: "Conditions conducive to arousal of intrinsic job satisfaction."
"If intrinsic job satisfaction or identification with the work is to be aroused and maximized, then the job itself must provide sufficient variety, sufficient complexity, sufficient challenge, and sufficient skill to engage the abilities of the worker. " (p. 141)
This makes sense, but I still stand by what I just said that my work too often seemed pointless (virtually unnecessary) and the job was a poor match for me and didn't utilize the skills I'd trained for. Beyond that, yes variety, complexity, challenge and skill would be important too.
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