Doing my job...

All around there are people who work a job for a parish or for the diocese. There are the teachers at the Catholic schools, the secretaries at the parishes, the maintenance staff, the lunch ladies, the tech guys, and youth ministers. There people have a great opportunity to help the Catholic Church to grow and thrive. I've at times become jealous of their opportunity to work in such a God-centered environment. There have been times that I have considered applying for a position in the diocese or a Catholic school. I have looked at my job and worried because it wasn't serving God and the Church.

However, the other day I had a thought about my job that I wanted to share.

I do my best to do God's will. God has called me to be a husband and father. That means that I need to protect, serve, and provide for my family. Unfortunately, there aren't positions (at least in this part of the country) where I could work for the Church AND provide for my family. Instead, I have to work in a secular environment, with people who don't necessarily hold Christian beliefs. However, working here means that I can provide for my family. That means I am doing God's will by working here, and thus, I do work for the Church.

Additionally, the Church cannot afford to pay everyone. Even if everyone worked for the Church and tithed 50% of their income (well above the 10% God asks), there are not means to keep a sustainable income to outgo ratio. She needs people who work in outside industries who can give generously and allow Her to fiscally survive.

In most businesses a majority of the employees generate income for that business. Granted there are some who are not income generating, that is "support positions" (i.e. HR, IT, secretaries, and accounting), but a business cannot survive without income outweighing outgo. Don't get me wrong, support positions are ABSOLUTELY necessary for a large organization to run smoothly, but if a farm tried to run with an HR person, an IT person, a secretary, and an accountant but no farmer - it would not succeed.

Most people who work for the Church are in "support positions" and thus do not bring in a lot of income for the Church. This is not a shot at people who are called to work for the Church (or in support positions), I'm just saying - I don't know any parish secretaries who are creating significant income for their respective parish. I wouldn't want to see a parish without a secretary as I know they keep all of the parts running smoothly.

There are some people who bring in money for the Church, such as teachers (in tuition), but most of the schools could not afford to pay all the teachers and keep the school running on tuition alone. That being said, I want to again commend all people who do work for the Church - it is an honorable profession and I would love to work in such a God centered position. This post is aimed more at people who do work in outside positions - farmers, ranchers, doctors, programmers, carpenters, etc. My point is simply that for the Church to keep going, they need outside income. Our jobs ARE important. Our jobs DO serve the Church.

One area that I feel my job does allow me to serve the Church is tithing. Not only are we able to tithe each week, but we are able to support missionaries, Catholic charities, and Catholic works. We help contribute to that outside source of income by which the Church survives fiscally. We serve our Church not by doing a Church job, but by our support. In a way, we are the product that the Church produces that brings in the income that keeps her alive.

We are not simply good for our money though. An even bigger part of being able to work in an outside field is that we can make enough money at our primary jobs to support our family. Thus, we don't (typically) have to have a second job to make ends meet. This gives us time to spend with our families AND time to help others. This allows people who work in the outside world to volunteer, to help others, and to serve Christ through others.

Now it is time for me to go to work and do my job for God... so I'm back to my mission...

That Man Is You...

Late last summer, I had a minor revelation. I realized that though I have a wonderful wife and 3 sweet little girls, I was really lacking a certain kind of person in my life. I needed some good men to challenge me. It's not that I don't know good men (my Dad, my brothers, my brothers-in-law, etc. are all very good guys) or that I lack friends, but I was wanting for the kind of friend (or group of friends) who would challenge me and help me to grow. I needed the kind of friend I could talk to more than once every six weeks or six months. This was what I was lacking. I wished that there was some group who met in the mornings (so that I wouldn't have to sacrifice family time) who wanted to grow in their faith and encourage one another. It all added up to a very specific need. It was something I had in college (except instead of mornings it was late nights), but I had been lacking this since then.

I expressed my concerns to my wife one day and she thought this would be perfect for me, if only I could find it. It's not like I was asking for something incredibly specific - oh wait, that is exactly what it is like. I needed men with a strong faith who would get up early in the morning and wanted to grow in their faith and be better husbands, fathers, etc.

God must have been eavesdropping on that conversation, because the next weekend at Mass, a man got up at the end of Mass to make an announcement. At the beginning of September, there was a group starting up that would be going through a program called "That Man Is You". The mission of the program is "becoming a man after God's own heart". They would be meeting at 5:00 AM each Friday. While he was announcing this, my wife looked at me and indicated that this is exactly what I was looking for. I was so dumbstruck, that I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

After Mass I signed up for the program and waited the three weeks until the first meeting.

Each week we begin with breakfast while watching a video presentation. Then we break into small groups. In the first semester, the turnout was so huge, that they ended up breaking the groups up even more from 8 groups to 12 (each of which has at least 10 people - some up to 12). We had a great group with lots of guys who would inspire discussion of things that guys deal with on a week to week basis. I met a lot of good guys there, a few of which I now consider good friends. At semester, we reorganized the groups. I'm with all new guys, but they are very friendly and we have a lot of good discussions. It never ceases to amaze me how many guys are willing to get out of bed before 5 AM (most before 4:30) and go to these meetings. Each week we end just in time to hurry across the hall for the 6:30 Mass.

All this being said, I have a few things that we have talked about at our meetings that I wanted to blog about so I am going to try to do that during Lent. So with all that said, look for a few posts from me this Lent. I'll try to keep them insightful. But now, I'm back to my mission...