Impact vs. Impact

This week, I had the opportunity to participate in a planning committee for a project that has the potential to affect over 10,000 high school students in our area.  The project is huge, impacting multiple public school districts and their students.  The ultimate impact on the communities of these students is beyond our prophetic abilities, but the data indicates that the impact will be huge.  Being a part of this committee as we plan and plot and move forward is quite exciting, as one might imagine.

                            

Yet, something even more exciting happened this week.  As I sat in my office one morning, I was surprised to hear the shuffle of feet outside my door…and then a light knock.  When I looked up, Raul’s smiling face was peering around the door frame…and Thalia followed him in to my office.  Raul enwrapped me in his huge bear-hug…and Thalia embraced me as well.  The joy of seeing these two former students of mine is beyond words I can pen.  We sat and talked together for half-an-hour.  I listened as they recounted their summer adventures and travels, and I encouraged them as they told me of their dreams and hopes for the months and years to come.  We laughed together remembering times in class last semester.  And, when they left, it was with the promise to come visit again.

After these two experiences, I began to think about “impact” and what it means.  In both my teaching career and in my new administrative position, lives are impacted.  People are changed, bettered.  But, “impact” simply does not mean “impact.” 

Last semester as I taught a writing course on the Weslaco campus of STC, I had 16 students that I met twice a week, every week.  We dug into the excruciatingly painful (for them!) elements of grammar, examined and practiced various modes of writing, learned how to do research both on-line and in the library, and prepared for the exit exam that would come at the end of the semester.  Every week, we sent multiple e-mails as I sent assignments and the students responded with questions.  At the end of the semester, we knew each other—I knew about Raul’s immigration as a child from Nicaragua when his family fled the violence and unrest of the 80’s that were going on in his native country.  I learned about Thalia’s family…her work…and her dreams.  They knew when I got my motorcycle…new my children by name, and which one was studying where.  I had impacted their lives…and they had impacted mine.

                                            

The committee that is putting together this up-coming project may ‘impact’ far more than just 16 young adults—it would impact some 10,000+ students in six school districts!  Wow!  That is amazing…and it’s a good thing.  But….

…But, those 10,000 students will never know me…and I’ll never know them.  Lives are ‘impacted’…but in a distant and dispassionate way.

I now know what teachers go through who move up into administration.  We can affect so many more students, we can ‘impact’ so many more lives.  But…. 

Pastors and church leaders go through the same…more often in the growth of the church than by ‘promotion.’  The small, intimate, sharing group of believers grows…excitement builds…outreach happens…then the church builds…and numbers grow…and at the end , the now “successful” pastor finds that he or she is ‘impacting’ so many more lives…but there is a distance, dispassion and disconnect that these kinds of pastors may have a hard time putting their fingers on.

If these pastors and church leaders hope to keep their balance and joy in life and ministry, they are going to have to do something.  In a worst case scenario, the pastor will seek intimacy and impact in the wrong place, in the wrong kind of relationship.  But in a best case scenario, this pastor will seek a small group—a discipleship group (high school, college, young adults), a mission/church plant—where he or she can form again those intimate, life-changing bonds that will leave all involved forever and positively changed…impacted.

                                    

So, I’ve moved from being a teacher in our college to being a part of administration.  Thankfully, our college leadership makes administrator participation in the teaching arts a high priority.  Therefore, this Fall, I’ll be in the classroom again—an evening class, two nights a week.  I’m SOOOO excited to be heading back to the classroom, to connecting with students, to pushing them, challenging them…and to their pushing me, their challenging me. 

I’ll stay in administration, thank you—I’m having a blast in my new job.  But, I’m so thankful that I’ll be able to continue to impact the individual lives of young men and women, that I’ll be able to share my life with them, and they with me.  This is where the real ‘impact’ happens.