People say, "Well, I'm not smart enough, or spiritual enough, or skilled enough to make a difference in the world. So I'm just going to try to lead a good life, go to work every day, retire, and play golf. And I'm saved, so I'll go to heaven when I die." There's also a tendency for people also think, I can just leave it to professionals. My pastor will do it, not me.
We really need to help people in the pews understand that believing is only the beginning. Unless they build their entire life on this foundation of the Christian faith, they will always live a compartmentalized life, and will not be effective.
God doesn't want to use people who aren't committed. God invites us but we have to RSVP. We have to say to Jesus, "Here are all the things I have in my life: my money, my house, my career, my skills, and we have to lay them down and ask him to use us. Many Christians have not taken that step. They've not gone all in with their Christian faith.
A lot people say, "I want to do something like you're doing, I want to make a difference for God!" Often I have to answer, "Why would God use you for a significant assignment if you haven't even committed to the simplest things? You haven't committed to tithing, to obedience, you haven't committed to reading the Scripture. If you are faithful in the small things you'll keep getting bigger opportunities to Hands free access.
One of the traps leaders fall is valuing belief above behavior. Pastors often talk about doctrine and not as much about behavior and how doctrine informs behavior.
We also tend to place explanation above exhortation. So we explain Scripture quite eloquently and thoroughly. We have our scholarly approaches to the Greek and the Hebrew but we leave the exhortation piece out. We need to apply the Word to change lives. We should set high expectation for following Christ.
I hear few sermons that exhort me to leave the church and be a different person. Another trap church leaders fall into: building an institution instead of a leading a revolution. If we are all about institution-building, we are in the wrong business. God called us to lead a revolution. Institutions can serve to advance the revolution, but it's got to be clear that the goal is the gospel revolution and not just building a bigger and bigger church that's more comfortable for people that go there.
“There’s so many different circumstances you can be in to get Newstart. Not a lot of people recognise that,” said Hannah Joyner, a 25-year-old with a bachelor of arts degree and a graduate diploma. After graduating in 2010, she worked as an archivist on a fixed-term contract for a year and a half before her job ended unexpectedly.
Although she had some savings, she was without work and entirely reliant on Newstart?—?$497 fortnightly for a single person?—? for seven months. “It was so dismal, it was a bad situation,” said Joyner. “I am only just starting to get out of the situation now.”
Joyner says it was confronting to find herself unemployed. “There’s a lot of anxiety and depression and upset that comes [from losing your job], and it makes it much harder to find work again,” she told Crikey. “As part of getting Newstart, you have to go to a job service provider and they are basically telling you to apply for jobs that you’re overqualified for. They don’t understand why you’re not looking just looking for a job at Subway. I found a lot of it very demeaning and very patronising.”
In the last two months she’s found casual work at a government department. Before then she applied for 10 jobs every fortnight, as per the Newstart demands, and secured one job interview. “Every job is suddenly a casual job, a six-month contract. There’s nothing guaranteed, there’s nothing permanent,” said Joyner. ”Even to get off Newstart, there’s no guarantee you won’t be on it again in three months.”
Joyner has credit card debt and is aware that the hours at her casual job are likely to soon go down. She’s also entirely reliant on her own finances. “Worst case scenario I wouldn’t be homeless, but if I was, say, going to need emergency dental care, there is nobody who would be able to pay that. I’m at the point now where I just feel like the stress of all of it has given me so adrenaline, I’m ready for anything. I’m actually grateful for insight for how a lot of people live, I’m grateful for the experience. For the rest of my life, I will be safe with money.”
It’s now standard practice that many graduates go straight onto Newstart once they finish their degrees, and that’s where 24-year-old Kelly Williamson found herself after completing her bachelor of arts degree in screenwriting. She spent eight full months on Newstart, before finding casual work in hospital administration.
While on Newstart, Williamson applied for around 230 jobs in arts, administration and health. “If you really want to, you can put in any old application anywhere, but I used to try really hard, and that was basically my week: applying for jobs,” she told Crikey. “I had three interviews and a lot of rejections.”
Williamson was sent along to Serena Russo, a recruiter that Centrelink works with to help the long-term unemployed. At the beginning, Williamson was classified as stream 1, a highly employable person who was expected to have a job within 12 weeks. When she didn’t, she was reclassified as stream 3, which indicates candidates with longer-term issues (Serena Russo receives more funding for stream 3 candidates), and was quizzed about her presentation and mental health. That was a demoralising moment, said Williamson: “I have a degree. I don’t have presentation issues. They said I was highly employable … You don’t leave that place feeling good, you feel like you’re unemployable and there forever.”
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