A Few Current Thoughts on Being a Christian Large Group Leader This Year and How It Hurts

With internships and a career in the near future, I began to start looking at my past 2 and a half years, wondering if I simply wasted my time or actually made a significant difference in the organizations and lives of the people around me. The importance of this reflection is that I still have a good ten months of school before I graduate, and I do not want to continue wasting my time for a lost cause, whether that be an organization, a part time job, a major, or certain people. I want to make every minute and every second count, but I'm beginning to second guess the road that I've already chosen. I know that this is cliche, but one of my biggest strengths is also one of my biggest weaknesses. I am incredibly goal-driven with everything that I do. If I want to lose weight, I will lose weight. If I want to write five papers in 48 hours, I will do that too. The hard part comes when my goal becomes more important than people or worse, the goal is a person. No one wants to be viewed as a goal or a project, but sadly, that is exactly what I do.

Many of my readers know that I am involved with this thing called Intervarsity Christian Fellowship in Emory, and I lead these weekly meetings with a large group of people that vary from anywhere from 40 to 80 people on any given week, where we have praise music, guest speakers, testimonies, and general fellowship stuff. Being the most visible part of one of the larger organizations on campus, it definitely felt empowering to be put in a position of such tremendous influence. When setting out my goals early on, it was clear what I had wanted. It was a little bit different, but I believed in them. My desire for these meetings was threefold:

1) Numbers were not everything. At many times, I had said, "I'd rather have 10 radical people who were committed to making the true story of Jesus, and not 'Christianity' or 'Passion music' or anything else famous. I'd rather have that than 500 people who merely come to a weekly meeting to be entertained."
2) I wanted it to be a sending place for college students, not a meeting place for college students. My goal was that these weekly meetings would be taken over because we are so busy doing service or loving on others or meeting on a regular basis with each other anyway.
3) If people were to come, I was hoping that people would continually bring new people to the meeting every week to just hear what we have to say in a safe space environment.

And even within the first few weeks, people came up to me and they would say things like, "Man Yih, I can't wait till this place reaches its full potential. We want to fill up this room of 150 people, that we can move into another venue, and soon it will be so jam packed with people. You will not believe it." And I would usually smile without saying many words, convinced that the numbers were not my goal. But within a few weeks, I began to see that with the things that we were integrating, the numbers were growing and people were loving these meetings. And believe it or not, we could really reach a number that surpassed anything that we have ever seen before. And it was awesome to see that and have such a direct microwaved reaping of benefits from my hard work. Soon, I forgot my original goals for this thing I was in charge of, and bought into the lie of numbers. Not because numbers were or are evil, but simply because it felt good. In a deep spiritual sense, I am probably trying to hijack God's glory for my own benefit, but in layman's terms, I just needed affirmation that I was doing a good job.

Whether you are Christian or not, we are all human and have been in various leadership positions, whether it be over an organization, a group project, a relationship, or a younger sibling. And no matter the circumstance, it's all the same. We are incredibly insecure beings who need someone or something to tell us, "hey, you're doing a great job." There is nothing better than a parent telling me that they are proud of me, or a teacher declaring to the class how hard I have worked. But often within the hustle and bustle of individual success of hard work and competition, people are not quick to compliment, so we must look towards other avenues. In my case, words of affirmation were unecessary and misplaced in good times, but were few and far between when I needed it the most. Therefore, the best way of affirmation for me was through numbers. Not people or faces, but simply numbers.

And now with half of the spring semester already over, I stand here with 7 more meetings to plan, and with each one it seems, we have dropped from the peaks of 80-90 people last year and have even dropped off from the steady 60s, but now we have a steady 30, and 15 of them have to be there. I'm going to say it right now. YEAH, IT HURTS. But I've only told a few people because of one reason. I didn't want to tell people and then really place this invisible, imaginary burden over someone to come to the meetings because that is the last thing I want. But after the hard work and the dreams and the promise, you're left with not much to show for it. At least initially.

I resorted my mind that was all convoluted with probably too many diet drinks and listening to Free Bird for over 3 hours straight. And what I remembered were those three goals that I set out for myself at the beginning of the semester. 1) Numbers were not everything. It's not about numbers. 2) As long as people are out there doing stuff to further this revolutionary love, it's worth it. 3) When you do have these meetings, have new people come who are in all walks of life just to figure out junk together. And I looked at where these meetings have gone, and numbers isn't everything to me or for them. People are skipping these meetings because they're getting involved with trips to New Orleans, East Asia, small group hangouts, and various bible studies that they are participating in or leading in. And I look at every week since I started this deal, and there has been someone new just checking things out, and liking what they see and hear.

So I now face a position that I have rarely found myself in. I have accomplished all my goals and yet, it hurts. And I owe that to the fact that I bought into the lie of numbers. And the great thing about numbers is that I know there is a quick visible that I can see. But now, I'm clinging to the hope and the promise that what I am doing is worthwhile, though the benefits may not be seen for many years down the road. And that's where I am at. I have no big conclusion with an application at the end and I do not have a big altar call or a request on my knees for people to pray for me. But there is the mess of the ministry. There is the unchartered roads that I trudge through. And here I am, another living example of a simple, normal, driven, failing, insecure, and confused dude that has been given opportunities like this to lead anyway.