Last week I was fortunate enough to attend a fantastic leadership conference out in the suburbs. We got to see Carly Fiorina of HP fame, Colin Powell, Marcus Buckingham, Jimmy Carter, and others. Was a great time, and I learned a ton.
One topic of discussion has stayed with me in the past week. One of the speakers talked about the concept of a shadow mission. He said that we’ve been blessed with talents and skills, and those skills can take us down two paths. One is a mission where we feel called, where our work and our time and resources benefit our employees, our customers, our neighborhoods and our society in powerful ways. A mission that is soul-filling, world-changing, life-altering.
And then there are the missions that all to many of us end up chasing instead. He called it a shadow mission - a mission that serves nothing but our own egos, benefits ourselves more than anyone else.
I thought about that a ton in the last week. I’ve had tremendous opportunities come my way in the past few years, and in essentially every case I’ve chosen a mission that was self-serving. I’ve done things to improve my portfolio. Done things to make money. Done things to have my colleagues think I’m smart and valuable. Done things in order to satisfy just about every prideful, egotistical urge in my body.
We learned about a guy in San Francisco who used to be homeless. Someone took the time to help him dig out, saw him as more than a vagrant, helped him recover his life and his livelihood. Someone who cared. And since then, this guy has spent his time putting together a weekly ‘Homeless Karaoke’ downtown. Once a week, over a hundred homeless folks are able to come together and laugh and sing and dance and forget about how frustrating and defeating so much of their lives are outside those walls. Once a week, they’re treated like people.
There’s a guy who runs a shoe company. For every pair of shoes he sells, he makes enough money to give a child in South America their own pair. Has given away thousands of pairs of shoes in the past few years.
We learned about a pastor and former congressman in Jamaica New York who is almost single-handedly credited for rebuilding his neighborhood. He purchased a retirement community and built a school to improve the quality of life for both ends of the neighborhoods demography. He purchased dozens of homes and sold them dramatically below cost to neighborhood residents to help them become homeowners who built equity and finally escaped the tyranny of poverty. He built a model that other communities are following to transform their own neighborhoods.
And I build websites and give talks at conferences and write blog posts to make more money and to make myself look good. Aside from tithing, just about my entire life is dedicated to a shadow mission.
1 response
Thanks for your blog on shadow missions. I, too, attended the same conference and I was blown away by the information presented. I was particularly moved by the discussion on shadow missions and how it can outwardly take the form of something positive, but really be a self-serving, dark and unworthy goal that grieves the Spirit of God. I appreciate your honesty and I’ve also struggled with the notion that along with all of my altruistic and seemingly Spirit-led endeavors, my heart has harbored deception. It is my prayer that all of us who claim to be Christ-followers will search the deep recesses of our heart and allow the Lord to reveal any shadow missions that might reside there.