Filtering the “Self-Promoters”

Any small business owner will tell you: “people think they know more than they actually do.”  This is true of computer programmers; it is true of Christian ministers.  The more we stretch ourselves and our limits, the more we realize how much we don’t know.

Back in November I met with a team from Norwalk Christian Church.  Norwalk was about to re-launch their website with a new design, built on WordPress.  When I was guiding them on some of the backend features, I tried to explain how WordPress treats “<br/>” and paragraph tags in the TinyMCE visual editor.

At one point, I said, “well, just type in <br />, and <a href=””> for the links and now you can call yourselves programmers.”  I was joking of course, but Brandon Burnett (a bona fide programmer) piped in from the back: “well, I do more than that!”  And he’s right.  Programmers have to understand loops, sequential logic, objects, etc.  So how do we draw the line?  When does someone become a programmer?

There are obviously people who know how to write 1995-compliant HTML tags who call themselves web designers.  There are ministers who call themselves transformers (although, to be fair, very few will take credit for transformation … no matter how inflated their egos).  Probably every profession has the aspiring amateur who self-promotes to the level they want to be.  But that doesn’t make it reality …

The Presenting Problem: The Self-Promoters

Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with amateurs who aspire — and then self-promote — in order to land projects that challenge them and help them grow.  It’d be easy to argue that they’re taking away paying customers from more seasoned professionals.  But that argument is garbage.  If a seasoned professional wants to charge money — and can’t win the client based on their skills and added value as well as reliability, then that professional doesn’t deserve the client.  (And that’s not meant to be a slam on the professional!  Think about it …)

So the presenting problem is “the self-promoters.”  Shouldn’t there be rules to limit them?  Shouldn’t there be an external agency that validates them or authorizes them to do the work they claim to do?  Shouldn’t they be discouraged from developing unless they go through the proper training and apprenticeships of experts?  Short answer: NO!!!!

Presenting problems are definitely related to the real issue of contention — but in this case, it’s tangential.

The Real Problem: Learning to Filter

The problem isn’t the aspiring person wanting to compete (often in their spare time) against high-charging professionals.  The problems are the potential clients and the griping professionals.

Amateur vs. Professional doesn’t exist.  It’s not a boolean value. It’s a spectrum (or really, a combination of spectrums). Amateurs can get paid.  Professionals can volunteer.  Amateurs can loathe what they’re trying.  Professionals can love their craft more than anything else in their worlds.

A person can self-promote as much or as little as he or she wants.

In few cases, idolatry not withstanding, the self-promoters are not what’s being promoted.  Isn’t it their skills, their craft, their output, their message?

Potential Filters

Are you hiring a programmer?  Here’re some questions to ask:

• What is your ‘pet project’ you’re currently working on?  (Every programmer has at least one — shows their true interests)
• How often to you complete projects on time?  (If they answer 100%, call BS immediately)

Are you hiring someone who needs the computer skills of a power user?  Ask:

• When was the last time you found programming error?
• What did you do about it?
• (If they’ve never found one, they’re not a power user.  Or they might be, but they’re not adventuresome or constantly learning new tools …)

Are you interviewing a minister as a congregation looking for ‘something fresh’?  Potential questions to ask the minister:

• What’s your guilty pleasure reading that affects your work?  (Barth’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans? (LOL), Blogs like Seth Godin’s or Ben Myers’ Faith and Theology, or …?)
• Who is a great leader at your current place who doesn’t know it?  (And why don’t they know it?)
• If you were to ‘throw out’ something in worship, what would you get rid of?  And what would you do instead?
• What question do you most want to ask us?

Postlude

This strand of thoughts began in conversation with members of the Disciples Youth Ministry Network (DYMN) planning team at our last retreat.  Many in our group are very gifted, very committed leaders, but not the self-promoting types who are magnets for accolades.  And we all struggle with the virtues and vices of self-promotion.  Is self-promotion a generational issue/shift?  Who has the responsibility to discern the real gifts of those who make such claims?

One of my colleagues recently sent us this commentary on 1 Corinthians 3:

Paul was adept at employing the skills of his day and there is no reason why we should not use the skills of ours. But Paul identifies flaws in the system where the medium becomes so much the message that the promoters end up promoting themselves and substance no longer matters. The rewards of gaining a following, of being a persuader and experiencing the power of persuasion are enormous. Such dynamism can drive ministry and energise congregations. The buzz of self-promotion and the satisfaction at increased recruitment, even in the name of Jesus, can so easily go awry. Jesus becomes the best promoter, whose sole aim was self-promotion of his self-promoting God. The promoters almost cannot help but join the game and become, themselves, self-promoters. It all coheres because the movement has its own self-promotion as the agenda. Marketing strategies become key tools of ministry. It is easy to turn it all into a form of self-indulgence from the top down, a whole hierarchy of beings wanted adulation.

Paul had already sought to torpedo this construction in 1:18-25. His words there are echoed in 3:19 where he subverts the model and suggests that not the take of adulation but the giving of compassion lies at the heart of God, and the power that really matters is the love and vulnerability which may even end on a cross. That is a very different model of fulfilment and of God and of church than the grabbing self-indulgence which turns the cross into a promotional logo.

Paul might have driven his hearers to humiliation, but, characteristically, he does not want that kind of win. Instead, he declares the opposite. He does not say: you have nothing. He says in 3:21: you have everything!

From William Loader’s lectionary commentary: http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/AEpEpiphany7.htm

Maybe the trick is the “filtering.”  In my photo management software, filtering doesn’t do anything to the original photos.  It lets me rate them (1-5 star scale) or tag them (with colors, with flags) or it lets me ultimately reject them.  But the photo software filters in order to fine-tune my view.  It limits choice.  It surveys the wide array of attributes available and says “what are you looking for?”

Filtering self-promoters may end up looking like: “Hey, I hear you saying you’re good at this.  I don’t really need that, but I need this.  Are we able to find a place where your gifts and my needs meet?”

Ultimately, self-promoters (and those filtering or discerning them) — involve questions of vocation, calling, and craft.  And all of those questions are also about responsibility .. for everyone involved.