Sometimes good intentions aren’t enough.
Take the New York Police Department, who in an attempt to foster better relations with the public decided on this great plan:
“Do you have a photo with a member of the NYPD? Tweet us & tag it #myNYPD. It may be featured on our Facebook,” the department posted on its NYPD News Twitter feed, hoping to fuel a feel-good, low-cost public relations campaign.
Or how about that time in 1986 when:
The whole crazy scheme – known as Balloonfest ’86 – was a fundraising effort organised by the United Way, an attempt to break the world record for simultaneous launch. Disneyland’s 30th Birthday, the year before in Anaheim, was the previous champion.
What could possibly go wrong, right?
Except maybe THIS…
New York police Tuesday were eating extra helpings of humble pie after asking people to post images of themselves and NYPD officers on Twitter – only to face a deluge of pictures of alleged police brutality.[You can read the rest of the article and see some of the unfortunate pictures over here in what has overnight become a PR nightmare of epic proportions].
Or perhaps THIS…
Then the “asteroid field” of airborne debris clouded the sky, shut down a runway at a local airport, interrupted the Coast Guard attempts to rescue a pair of fisherman, spooked some prize-winning horses, and generally made a mess of un-biodegradable [edit: apparently the balloons were biodegradable, for what it’s worth] garbage on land. [You can read and see more about this one over here, including video of a news report from the following day].
Great ideas, but possibly not well thought through. This is an area that non-profits and churches involved in short-term mission trips could well learn from.
Books like ‘When Helping Hurts’ [Steve Corbett, Brian Fikkert] and ‘Toxic Charity’ [Bob Lupton] have started to open up the conversation that some of the well-intentioned activities we take part in may not always benefit those we are attempting to help, and at times may even cause more harm than good.
“Give a man to fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life. But at some point we also need to ask why the fishing licences are so expensive, who owns the fences around the pond and who has been polluting the pond.”
Great words, if lived out. But too often we get caught up in simply giving people fish [why? because it is easier, brings instant gratification and doesn’t require much personal cost and also everyone likes us when we give them fish and so it feels like we’re doing something helpful]
Jesus had some helpful words to say about this one:
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
Something about counting the cost.
Something about sharing ideas with other people because ‘You might not be the one with the most knowledge when it comes to this particular situation’.
Something huge about relationships and the importance of knowing, listening to and having some measure of understanding the people you are going to be working with.
Something about working with those who you might be doing outreach to as opposed to working at.
Something about long term investment, even if you are doing short term trips, possibly choosing an area and group you connect with on a recurring basis so that you can start to know, listen to better and understand the people and the context you are working with.
Something about possibly building relationship first [and possibly for a long period of time] before rushing in with help, assistance, things.
Something about good intentions being a great start, but sometimes, not enough, and sometimes not by a lot…
Dude, this is such an awesome blog post. I think it’s so important for a lot of Christians especially to read. Because God does see the desires of of our hearts and our intentions, but he also cares about actions, and about sensitivity and humility… I wouldn’t want to point fingers because we are all learning about do this, but I have seen some well-intentioned folk get it SO wrong when it comes to ‘outreach’ – actually harmfully wrong. And that also affects how others see Christians in the world – are we just helping others to feel good about ourselves, or out of guilt – even if we wouldn’t call it that, or mean to approach it like that – or do we really care about manifesting God’s kingdom here on earth?
Exactly, often we seem to land at ‘But i meant well’ as if that is enough and it is completely a great place to start but we HAVE to stand back and look at the bigger picture… and to be honest a lot of the things that have been done in terms of missions/non-profit that have had a negative effect have too often been so because people are lazy or wanting comfortable and so ‘how does this work best for me/us?’ rather than the people or place we are meant to be serving…
Sadly hardly anyone has read this particular post so shares will be appreciated… what do people have against balloons?
I am going to answer that question as a conservation biologist and a wildllife rehabilitator. Releasing balloons, as beautiful as the spectacle is, is essentially littering. Birds and other animals can get caught in the strings and many ocean-going species (turtles birds etc) can mistake the floating remains of balloons as their natural food source – jellyfish. The latex then blocks their digestive systems and they slowly starve. The balloons often drift for great distances and then end up littering the landscape when they come down. Here is an organization that wants to help get the word out. http://balloonsblow.org/
Exactly, that was the point of the post, I believe, that we would do well to consider the implications of our actions before we attempt something that might seem exciting or cool or fun before we jump in… Thanks for the link!