The workers are few - a HR perspective

These were his instructions to them: “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.- Luke 10:2 (NLT)
I was just thinking about this verse while I was in the toilet handling my normal business (ok, not exactly the place to describe here). Then this verse came to my mind. What really prompted me to meditate on this verse suddenly was the recent reports on AIDS patients and mental patients dying alone in hospitals or elsewhere. I read one mental patient spending 45 years in a mental institution before dying alone, with no one visiting him over that long stretch of time. And I started thinking where is the church? Then I realised that was the wrong question to ask. I should be asking where are the workers?

The workers are few, but why? As an analyst working on HR issues in the government, I think we can afford to peep at the verse through a HR lens to see what can we uncover on the possible causes. First, the wrong question: where is the church? From a demand perspective, the church may not be visible due to the lack of demand. Simple economic theory, with demand there'll be supply. But this can be safely refuted, cos Jesus said: the harvest is great, and in other translation, it is plentiful. So it cannot be the case that there is no demand for the church to be around.

In this case, I mean the church to be there for the needy and sick and the poor. This is one of the mandate of the church even as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission. We are not to forget the poor and the fringe. This is a fact. That's why, that's why we see that a lot of charitable organisations (at least from the West, which has its roots in Christianity) are founded with Christian ideology as its basis. Even in Singapore, no offence to other religions, but the more successful VWOs are generally run by Christian organisations, which by itself says a lot. Religion is not a bad thing in providing for the poor and the needy because it provides the impetus for doing so. To be fair, we often see Buddhist temples and people of other faith coming out to provide free food etc. They have the impetus to do so, and can claim transcendence in their motives for doing so.

Coming back to the point, it therefore cannot be the case that there is no demand. If I may add, I would think that it is an undersupply that causing the problem. This brings me to my second point: asking the right question, where are the workers. Two ways of looking at it, and I will start off with the easiest way to look at it: a direct lack of supply, not enough people in the entire universe to meet the demand. Demand = 100 but supply = 50. I shall want to put it in this way, that sometimes I think the church we think too much about the attitude of our members and proceed to challenge and challenge and challenge people to go and go and go. We never pause to examine our assumption, or never seem to pause and examine if it is true that people are not going or is it that all have gone and none is left but yet a lot remains to be done? This is of course a very humanistic way of looking at it, but the point is whether we pause and think about it?

Of course, the second way of looking at it is that people are simply not going and that the workers are few because the workers are lazing around. This, and I shall contradict my previous point here, seems to be the real reason why we will want to ask 'where is the church'. At this point, I depart from my HR perspective and look into what Jesus is really implying here. He told us to ask Him to send more workers out there... now how can He send more workers out there unless there is really more workers out there ready to be sent? In physical term, it means there are warm bodies to be sent out from the church and they are waiting to be sent out, for whatever reasons. Maybe people want to do something but they have no opportunity? Maybe people are not aware or are not affected by social injustice etc? In business term, for the church, it means there is a need to market and make known the demand. And so I think it is much safer to take this case. It therefore seems to imply that it is the responsibility of the church to ask and pray to God to send out the people, to turn them from lazer to worker. Seems the case.

And I know I may have diverged a little from the context of this passage but think about it, Jesus sent out the 72 for the sake of the Kingdom, and I am sure under the right guiding from the Holy Spirit, reaching out to the needy, the poor and the sick being there for this group of people helps to tell the world that Christianity is unlike the world has ever seen. That's why Mother Theresa's ministry in Calcutta is so powerful, because they cut right into the heart of the society and show that the church cares for the people. It is a powerful message which perhaps Gandhi has missed due to the time he was born in. But this is potentially the message that we, as the body of Christ, can send out to the world. The harvest is plentiful, and the workers are few. But we keep sending them out, the church can change the world.

Where is the church? The church is always there. I think we have to start asking ourselves where are the workers.

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