The 10 Percent

My freshman year of college, I remember one of the leaders in student formation talking to me about the 10%. After being frustrated when a beloved student leader was asked to step down from a leadership role simply because she was too involved-because she was trying to balance too many leadership hats- I marched into Student Formation and asked for an explanation. That's when Chuck explained to me about the 10%.

He explained to me that often in Christian ministry, it's the 10% that does 99% of the work Christ followers are called to- engaging in leadership roles, serving behind the scenes or front stage, raising knowledge and awareness of justice issues, caring for the poor and vulnerable, teaching and disciplining, spreading the name of Christ. And while it seems like the 10% are to be held in high esteem, in reality, this is a dangerous pattern.  While the go-getters seem to be getting it all, they're often leading themselves straight into burnout, or failing at ministries that aren't gifted in, or becoming bitter at others who they judge aren't pulling their wait, or preventing more timid folk from stepping up and shinning in the gifts God's given them. Further, try as they might, their efforts fall short; the 10% are limited.

Yesterday, my church launched it's Compassion is initiative, committing to serve 5,000 hours in our community this year. Commitment cards are in, and we've already surpassed our goal of committed hours.  That's right, thanks to just over 10% of our congregation, we've had already 5,000 committed.

While this is wonderful, I wonder about the other 90%.  How can we engage them as well? How do we encourage them to utilize their talents and skills? How do we build on their strengths? How do we set up systems to include them? How do we mobilize the entire body of Christ? What would it look like if we had 90% rather than 10% actively engaged in our world? What mountains could we move? What injustices could we overtake? What eternal impact could we make?