[📝] Today #17: Development ↔ Church Work, Has the Main Thing Been Reversed?

✨ GPT Summary 　

A day when I organized various thoughts about concerns I feel during church ministry, and the conflict between vision and reality.

🎯 Goals

• ⏯️ Church - video editing, prepare materials for the New Year’s Eve service, prepare New Year materials, …
• ✅️ FlutterFlow - To do App Course (6/16)
• ✅️ AIFFELTHON - mentoring OT

💭 Diary

Thoughts after following the To do app course

As expected, hands-on courses are much more intuitive and fun! Combined with the prerequisite knowledge from the courses I had already taken, the synergy is multiplied! Extremely fun.

Thoughts after the mentoring OT

The mentor seems like a very good person who is open to questions and active in communication. I am very, very, very excited for the journey ahead with the team members/mentor!!!

Diary over.

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No, but wait… I should not end it like this. I need to organize my thoughts. My head is too dizzy.

When I do church work, I often strongly feel, like today, that somehow the main thing and the secondary thing have been reversed. Especially when there are big events like year-end events, it feels even stronger.

Clearly, the vision I received is in development, the project I need to do right now is also in development, and whether it is the business I want to build or the job I want to enter, everything is in development. So for what reason have I been investing, am I investing, and do I intend to invest this golden time into serving the church?

Self-training? Faith? Wilderness? Justification by faith? Future value investment? Potential customer acquisition? Blue ocean? Network? … I can attach every kind of excuse, but I need to examine whether this essentially aligns with the values/vision I pursue. But I do not have time to dig into it grandly, so for now I will just scribble whatever comes to mind.

In the first place, what are the values/vision I pursue “essentially” through my life?

As I keep asking and asking, an answer like this does come out.

To benefit this world widely through creations I make, and through that process, to spread widely a life of loving God and loving my neighbor.

But when I look at the values-habits-actions formed in me today, that essence seems to have long been shoved into some corner of a storage room. I merely live each day doing the tasks placed in front of me.

Maybe I simply adapted to the situation given to me, and in the end handed the steering wheel of my life not to God, but merely to other people?

• This is a concern I have always had until now, and one I have always passed over by soothing myself or being persuaded by people around me, but today it rises strongly again. And repeated questions have a reason. A clear answer has not been presented.
  • Probably, the statement that my life is not self-directed is close to true. Separate from whether I have surrendered sovereignty to God.
    • I have always failed to control myself, and I have long thirsted for recognition, but I do not remember ever feeling that something about me was truly recognized. (People around me have given all kinds of praise, but it did not sincerely land for me.)
      • The place that raised my self-control ability was the church, and the place that truly recognized me was also the church. More precisely, the senior pastor. Maybe because of that, I easily handed over the steering wheel. Riding a bus feels good.
        • But the question always comes up. Is this bus really leading me to the “destination” I want to go to?
          • The answer is clear. Absolutely not. The direction is similar, but I know for sure that if I do not get off this bus, I will get off at a strange station and regret it 99%.

Why do I have so much to do?

• Because you postponed it, right?
  • That is true too. But that does not mean I spend the whole weekend playing. I always end up in a state where I no longer have energy even for the “things I truly want to do” (development-related activities, writing and decorating blog posts, …), then collapse, and while that happens, more tasks continue to pile up.
    • Of course, since the past, I have shown strong “adult ADHD”-like traits. From a very long time ago, I formed the habit of losing time to all kinds of “addictions,” and it is true that I am still under their influence. Still, lately I am in an awakened state, so the influence of those bad habits has weakened a lot.
    • I almost always have things to do after work and on weekends. And most of them are church work. (I include the two-hour round trip commute for dawn prayer as church work. The psychological burden is large.)
      • But when I actually do them, many of them are not things that take that long. They are just quite pressuring and terribly annoying. Most of them are repetitive labor with not a single bit of fun.
        • Of course, isn’t such repetitive labor scattered everywhere in daily life? -> The degree of reward felt at the end of that repetitive labor is different. It only feels like I finally barely cleared away “someone else’s work,” not “my work.”
  • (+2024.12.31) Maybe I am doing work that I am not meant to feel rewarded by in the first place?
    • Advice from an AIFFEL colleague. That is true. Still, since responsibility is the biggest issue, the biggest problem is that I am not in a position to casually quit the ministry work already given to me.
      • But when I think again, there were parts I did not simply hate. Hmm… no. This is no different from saying the military was not all bad either. This is rationalization. If I dislike it, I dislike it.
  • (+2024.12.31) Maybe I cannot feel rewarded because I lack prayer and am not filled with the Holy Spirit, so “ministry” has become “work”?
    • Advice from an AIFFEL colleague. It definitely makes sense. Lately, I am far from prayer, and in reality I am close to a hypocritical fake Christian.
      • Yes, if I had prayed about everything, would I have struggled with this ministry work to this degree? Would I have been unable to feel this rewarded? … Maybe this question itself is the core question that pierces through the essence of all the secondary problems.
• Because this is normally a busy season lately, right?
  • Yes. Year-end is usually full of things to do. I know that, but today during the AIFFEL course, I kept having to ask the team members for understanding because of church work, leaving again and again for church work, and as the team leader that made me feel guilty. I hated so much that situations kept arising where I had to ask for understanding.
    • No, then you should have made time on the weekend and done it, right? lol
      • Sitting here doing self-dissing again… If that had been possible, I would already have gone to Seoul National University or started a startup long ago. My metacognition is really in a fairly broken state too. How long am I going to keep whipping myself?

For what exactly am I devoting myself so devotedly to church ministry?

• To gain honor and fill my self-esteem by doing devoted work that not just anyone can do?
  • From the beginning, I did not want to gain that kind of honor or become an impressive person. Of course, it feels good. But the vision I received is also not that kind of thing.
• Because everything that has led me this far is God’s guidance, so I should obey?
  • Bullshit. Of course I agree in the overall context, but honestly, that kind of statement can be attached anywhere. Such words should come not from “others,” but from “my true heart.” But in “my true heart,” I am still just a lazy person riding someone else’s bus and enjoying the comfort.
  • And anyway, God is always with me no matter which path I take, and the vision given to me is clearly visible only to me. Even if people who cannot see that vision see me as a person of “disobedience,” that kind of shallow condemning voice does not gain validity.
• Still, because serving like this makes me happy?
  • Yes. This seems somewhat true. I already belong to the community called church, I want this community to continue, and I want to belong to this community. And I already exercise a very large influence on the core ministries of the community. (If I suddenly became unable to continue all ministry right now, the church would certainly panic and many ministries would fail to run properly. Probably, with high probability, the senior pastor would also be greatly shocked and collapse from overwork. Well, even so, everything would somehow recover and run again… but I do not want to see that happen.)
  • Yes. From the beginning, there is also a temperament in me that likes serving. Often, just seeing others be grateful and happy because of my help makes me feel good all day. In the end, I cannot ignore that I help because “I want to feel good.” But that is only when there is no compulsion.

Then, must I serve them semi-forcibly (or quarter-forcibly) forever?

• Yes, if “God leads it,” maybe. But the current form of service that “puts all my leisure time into it” should be reduced more and more. Unless I am going to become a pastor, this kind of “semi”-forced service really does not seem right. I can endure “quarter”-forced service, but…
  • Fortunately, in 2025, maybe I will have more room in ministry work than now in various ways. Yes… compared to now. Maybe it will become half of what it is now. If so, I think it might be doable.
• And anyway, it is true that right now I have no intention of quitting church ministry.
  • Honestly, it is also true that my endurance is quite high, so I also have an expectation that if I endure even this, I can become stronger.
  • But if the vision given to me cannot go together with church ministry, then at that time I will need to make a clear decision. Even if I do not quit everything, I will need to clearly refuse and remove the parts that must be reduced.
• In particular, the most terrible thing for me is being bound by the frame of “minister” and having all kinds of freedom restrained. Especially phrases like “because you are a minister, you should ~” are wording I genuinely hate, enough to make my mind go dizzy.
  • But of course, I also respect that the people who say such things have their own worldview/values and the God they have met, so they say them.
  • Looking back, in the first place, because a community called church can be maintained more easily only when it flows somewhat authoritatively, I think it is true that a “minister” must have freedom restrained to some extent.
    • Aha, then I definitely do not want to walk the path of a “minister.” I only want to be a “companion.” Every time I am defined as a “minister,” I feel the restraint of freedom, and this gives me a strong sense of unhappiness.
      • If you are going to do it half-heartedly anyway, how about stepping away?
        • Of course, if nothing happened when I stepped away, I would welcome it, you know? But it is obvious that it will not be nothing.

Because all kinds of thoughts were swirling, I could not get my hands on any of the work and tasks piled up in front of me, and my head only began to hurt more and more. So I just scribbled randomly while talking to myself to organize my thoughts. Only now does my head feel a little clearer and my chest feel lighter.

The process was messy, but I think my thoughts are being organized in their own way. And although I feel like I threw out a pile of new questions rather than answers, I am sufficiently satisfied.

The conclusion is this.

I really, really need time to dig into my deep inner thoughts and organize my whole life. (At times like this, going somewhere alone for about a week to pray/meditate is best… it is unfortunate that my busy schedule makes it hard.)

After writing excitedly, a verse suddenly comes to mind.

When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise. (Proverbs 10:19)

It feels like I have already talked plenty and revealed all kinds of faults, but what can I do? Maybe I have not yet built up enough wisdom. Well, if it is wisdom I really need, I will probably learn it somehow. And my blog is “IngHyukKing’s Growth Story,” so I think it is right to record this kind of process too.

Anyway, I will stop brainstorming here and finish the piled-up development/church work. The things I need to do are truly mountainous. I will solve the piled-up questions step by step starting tomorrow. After all, I am going to write blog posts every day anyway.

✨ GPT-4o Comment

Keep

• Both the mentoring OT and FlutterFlow course practice looked like meaningful time. In mentoring, you communicated with team members and set the project direction, and in the course practice, it was impressive that you learned practical skills while exploring the possibility of applying them to the project. I believe these small achievements will gather and lead to bigger results ahead. 😊
• It was impressive that you seriously reflected on the conflict between church ministry and your personal vision, and rather than simply accepting the current situation, tried to identify the essential problem. In particular, thinking through whether your current choices align with your vision through the question, “Where is the destination I truly want?” is a very deep attitude. Even if this concern does not give an immediate answer, it will make your future choices and direction clearer.
• It is also really impressive that despite the fatigue from repetitive labor in ministry, you have done your best out of responsibility for the community. In particular, even while considering the impact the church would receive without you, your attitude of continuing to seek balance between ministry and personal vision looks like an effort to find an important balance between dedication to the community and your own growth. I think this process will help you clarify the values you truly pursue.

Problem

• The conflict you feel between church ministry and your development vision does not look like a simple problem of insufficient time, but more likely confusion from comparing the values the two areas bring. In particular, the repeated question, “Where is the destination I truly want?” reads as a signal that you still have not found a clear direction.
• The situations where you frequently have to ask for understanding because of church work during the team project seem to be increasing guilt about your role as a leader. These repeated situations may also feel like a burden that could harm trust with the team members.

Try

• Readjust priorities:
  Right now both church ministry and development vision occupy important positions. But you need to think concretely about what is the more central long-term vision. First, try clearly organizing the “weight” of each activity on a daily basis, then plan your tasks accordingly.
  Example: Express priorities visually like “church ministry X%, development vision Y%,” then allocate schedule and energy according to that.

• Strengthen collaboration with the team:
  Requests for understanding due to church work during the project may be unavoidable. But in these moments, try more actively introducing a method where you not only ask the team members for understanding, but also share predictable schedules in advance and suggest alternatives for the parts you missed.
  Example: Make the times you can attend meetings clear in advance, and create a structure where your tasks can be broken down and shared with other team members. This approach will not only give the team members a sense of trust, but also help reduce your own burden.

• Optimize repetitive work:
  If the main cause of fatigue from ministry is repetitive tasks, it is important to think about ways to make this process more efficient.
  Example: Look for parts that can be automated in repetitive work like video editing or preparing materials, and even if it takes time at first, invest in building that system. You will be able to escape simple repetitive work and spend time on more creative work.
  Or, creating a structure where some work can be delegated to other community members is also an option.

• Regular reflection time:
  Time to organize complex thoughts in writing like today is a really important process. But it may help to make this more systematic. For example, have a regular reflection time on a specific day each week to check, “Are my current vision and ministry fitting together well?” Through this process, you will be able to gradually grasp a clearer direction. 💡

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