Written: Jan 28, 2024
Last Updated:
Today, I want to share a little bit about the history of the TEoP Ministry. I find it fitting that I share this here because I want to profess that my heart is in the right place when it comes to the mission of the ministry.
When I went into medical school, I wanted to genuinely help people. I wanted to make a difference in this world, but what I found inside was somewhat disheartening. The medical community was not the altruistic and gratifying environment that I envisioned. Sure, a lot of people get help there and there are altruistic and gratifying moments there, but there is also politics that can turn off our sense of altruistic and gratifying souls. With me feeling like that I wanted to start a community-building company where the sole mission of the company was to enrich and strengthen community support and develop future leaders of this nation, this world.
My thought was that, as a physician, I would make enough money to save up for that company. Once it is up and running, I would only dedicate 5-10% of my time to medicine, whereas the rest will be spent on other aspects of the company. I thought about how I could even get a sizeable business loan as a physician and about how I would convince my Doctor friends to invest in the company. Well, long story short, things didn’t really pan out like what I imagined.
After many years of disappointments, I found myself putting away my dream into a folder inside a filing cabinet that was collecting dust at the far corner of my mind. It was like the end of the Indiana Jones movie – Raiders of the Lost Ark where the movie ends with a suggestion that the lost ark was stored in this massive Government warehouse that had a huge collection of crates and boxes all neatly stored in the storage racks that went on for miles in all cardinal directions. The imagery that was conveyed to the viewers was that they would never find an ark that was unlabeled and buried in one of the millions of crates!
In the meantime, my life was not going anywhere and I was as distant from the Lord as I could be, even though I loved my Daddio in the Sky (God replaced my biological father that didn’t want anything to do with me). I was so disconnected from him spiritually that the man who, at one point in my life, had wanted to be a missionary didn’t know how to behave inside of a church where others thought I was not a Christian. In a way, I was running away from God just like Jonah in the Bible. And just like him, I returned to God by giving myself to God again.
What followed was me praying to God to use me again. For a year and a half, my daily routine was to wake up at 5:30 in the morning to pray for God’s mission for my life. He responded with a 3-part vision where he showed me an update to my dream company that was collecting dust somewhere in the attic of my mind! The only difference was that whereas that company was secular in its entity, the update of that company was that of a Church!
I hope you have enjoyed this little journey down the memory lane.
Now back to caring for the needy…
As with any Christian ministry, TEoP Ministry plans on caring for the needy, as well. Of course, there will be many programs or methods in which we could care for the needy, but I hope that this ministry doesn’t create a point of dependency where the ministry is only indulging/encouraging people to be lazy and unmotivated to improve their circumstances. However, at the same time, I don’t want the ministry to cherry-pick who we will help, as God didn’t do that with us when he sent his copy (Jesus Christ) to be the salvation of the world, to those who come in his name.
This is a tangent, but why did I use “copy” to describe Jesus instead of “son?” Let me answer this question by asking another question. Can we compare or explain God’s life with that of the humans? Does God have the biological needs of a human? Does he have to eat food just like how we do? Does he poop and pee because we do? Did he have sex with a female God, and through that consummation, Jesus was born? I think these questions are sufficient enough to make us realize that we are not fully capable of determining/deciding what is normal when it comes to God. That said, if I choose to believe that Jesus is a copy of God, am I committing heresy? I think not.
So, when the topic of “Caring for the Needy” is mentioned, people would most likely think about the poor folks. Financial needs are very important, but I want to make it clear that there are many different types of needs that we as human beings need to live a full life. Of course, many of these needs may be tied to financial availability when we think about obtaining these needs, but I want to at least mention them here to give a glimpse of how the TEoP Ministry intends to provide for the community.
My vision for the ministry is like that of an old, adage that says, “Give a man a fish and he lives for another day, but if you teach a man how to fish, he lives forever.” I understand that people need help and they need a little break from time to time, but we live in a country where people are homeless for various reasons, and they are, frankly, comfortable being homeless, if that means they are not obligated in any way. They want free things, but they don’t want to work for it. I don’t want the ministry to be known as a place where the homeless can get a free meal and free shelter for the night. If they get help in such a manner, they will have to work it off. It is not about lack of compassion. However, it is about being responsible for those that we help.
What Compassion is NOT
Compassion is not about simply helping because someone is poor or because they don’t have anything to eat, though giving is important. Compassion is recognizing that someone poor is suffering because s/he is in need. There is a difference! As I said above, some people are poor or homeless because they want to be, and though it may be a bit uncomfortable for them, they are not in need. Did Jesus heal all the sick he saw? Did he run a healing clinic while he was on earth? There were records of him healing many on occasion, but he didn’t have a healing clinic, nor did he heal every sick he saw during his travels. Then was he not feeling compassionate toward the sick? That is not it. Read John 5:2-9.
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
John 5:2-9
Jesus didn’t heal all the blind, lame, and paralyzed in Bethesda even though there were a multitude of them. Rather than just going about healing everyone there, Jesus specifically pointed out a man and asked the man if he wanted to be healed. Why did he ask the man if he wanted to be healed? Because not everyone wanted to be healed, though they were there. Those who were just there, in other words, were just busy being the victims, whereas someone like this invalid man of 38 years really wanted to be healed. That’s the reason why Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed.
This article is titled, “Caring for the needy.” Not everyone in poor circumstances and not everyone who is sick is in need. Giving money to the poor and healing those who are sick is NOT a display of compassion. It’s not even a pity. It’s indulgence. Believe it or not, some sick folks who are used to not doing anything, but instead, are used to being taken care of by others do not necessarily want to be healed. Just the opposite. Why do they want to be healed when they have got it made? Though they are a bit uncomfortable physically, they are being treated like royalty by their family. If they get healed, they no longer get the pity treatment, and instead, they have to go out and find a job. Of course, they don’t want to be healed!
The Needs of Different Kinds – The Poor
There is a story about Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, who anointed Jesus with an oil. Though John 12 and Matthew 26 disagree on the body part of Jesus that was anointed, both accounts mention Jesus’s saying about the poor. Mark 14 also mentions this and the oil was poured on Jesus’s head, as well as Jesus’s saying about the poor.
“Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
Matthew 26:10-13
“For you always have the poor with you,…” As I have mentioned above, there are poor people in this world because they want to be. Los Angeles is packed full of homeless and poor because the weather there is nice all year around. The same is true with Hawaii. Of course, there are other areas where the poor thrive, but as cold as it gets in Chicago, there are also homeless folks here who choose to be homeless rather than work. Actually, I remember seeing a fancy homeless tent in the middle of downtown on West Kinzie Street where the occupant even put up a little note at the entrance of his tent about his reason for being homeless. I don’t remember what it said, but all I remember was that it was something political. The guy was protesting about something by being homeless.
Of course, this rich homeless person is an extreme example of intentional homelessness, but it still drives the point that there will always be poor people in the world, voluntary or involuntary. And regardless of the reason for being homeless, once there, many are comfortable enough being such. They live on very little, and if something happens that they need money, all they have to do is stand on the side of the road holding up a sign and people will give them money. Sum up all the donations in a day, and now, they are set for another week or two.
I am not minimizing the state of poverty, but at the same time, I am making it abundantly clear that some people do not mind poverty, just as long as they get what they want – freedom to do whatever they want and whenever they want. It is not comfortable for sure, and it surely is not the best life in the world, but compared to working and having people tell them what to do and worrying about paying the bills, homelessness is a better alternative.
Of course, there are many variations of poverty. Not everyone who is in poverty is homeless. Some people have homes, but after paying the bills, they have very little left to take care of themselves. They are uneducated and undisciplined for them to keep a job for a long time. They want good-paying jobs, but they don’t want to work for them. Even if they find good-paying jobs, they are not disciplined enough to follow the company regulations, nor do they work hard to keep a good standing in the company. Then they complain about how they are treated unfairly when they are released from their job.
The Needs of Different Kinds – The Undisciplined
There is a certain level of discipline that is needed for a person to be a productive member of a society and to reap the benefits of such a society. A person must be agreeable, hardworking, reliable, flexible, and patient, to name a few. These are some of the traits that prolong a person’s stay at a typical job. Of course, the more of these traits that one has, the more likely it is for that person to do well in the company and be “okay” in life. If a person wants to do better, s/he just has to get the qualifications that get him/her there, but getting such qualifications requires/demands even more from him/her. More times than not, such requirements/demands are a higher level of the same traits that normal-level employees display. It may seem simple, but it is far from simple.
We live in a society where people blame everybody and everything besides themselves for all the issues they are having. For example, they don’t want to realize that they won’t be so broke 1) if they don’t eat all those junk foods all the time, 2) if they don’t go out to drink all the time, 3) if they don’t smoke all those expensive cigarettes all the time, 4) if they don’t buy all those name brand shoes and/or bags when you don’t need them, 5) if they actually go out to work instead of doing nothing but sit in front of their TV and/or be glued to their phone talking to same deadbeat friends who also don’t have anything better to do. Lastly, sometimes, we don’t realize how a little here and a little there quickly drain our finances. Though we’re telling ourselves that we are only buying something very cheap, we neglect to tell ourselves how often we buy those “cheap” stuff!
It’s not that most people are ignorant of their unreasonable spending habits. Most people do know them, but they keep on doing it anyway, and they still choose to blame others for their problems. This applies not only to their monetary issues but also their mentality toward many issues in their lives. One of the classic examples surfaces in the lives of people when they go through divorce counseling. Both husband and wife point their finger at each other for their marital problems, and they even convince their friends that the fault is with their partner, but when they go through the counseling sessions, they realize how they both are at fault.
It’s not that they were unaware of their contribution to the failing marriage. It’s just that they chose to look at their partner’s faults and focus on them instead of looking at their own issues as well. They deny that they have a problem and/or they suppress any negative thoughts until a later time to deal with them, but they don’t always have time to revisit them, which then gets forgotten. But, truth be told, it is easier to point the finger at others instead of themselves. Therefore, they just stick to pointing the finger at others instead. Path of least resistance right? Technically, yes, but practically, not so healthy.
But the truth of the matter is that this is exactly what is happening in our society. People make decisions that are easy and immediate, but not necessarily good for them over the long run. They only see what is right in front of them, and they fail to see how their impulse decisions could lead to an outcome that they may not be happy later on. Instant gratification! This is what drives the majority of the people in our society. Isn’t this a reflection of a lack of self-discipline? It’s almost as if our decisions are primal rather than that of being educated.
The Needs of Different Kinds – The Uneducated: Disclaimer
What determines whether a person is educated? We send our kids to school so that they may be “educated,” but what does that mean? An education is a formalized acquisition of basic and all-around knowledge that was designed to benefit us through our journey of life. It is hoped that, through education, a child will have obtained foundational knowledge that s/he can build upon, later on in life, to better serve his/her quality of life.
And what is a quality of life? What do we determine as a quality of life? A primal understanding of a quality of life is that of a rich life. If someone makes a lot of money and lives in a good house in a good neighborhood, his/her quality of life is great, so says our primal self. But is it really true?
If a medical doctor, though he has a thriving practice and makes a lot of money, is constantly at odds with his spouse and his children when he goes home to his Beverly Hills mansion in Los Angeles County after work. Does he have a quality life? He drives a Corvette and his wife drives a Porche while his grown kids each have an expensive car, but his wife is out shopping all the time and his kids get drunk at night regularly, and they all have piles of parking tickets as well as speeding tickets. He can’t remember the last time he had a peaceful meal together with his family. Actually, he can’t even remember when they all ate together. Now, he is stressed out over a pending divorce. So, how is this medical doctor’s quality of life?
Compare this doctor’s life versus someone of a humbler financial background.
Consider a lowly factory worker Julio who makes 45k a year and lives in a small home in a small city. He drives a carpool to work on his old Rav 4 that is paid up. After a hard day at work, he enjoys a meal with his family, and he has a close relationship with both his wife and his kids. His kids, while growing up, didn’t have much when compared to their friends, but he sent them to college and they each are working toward their dream job. Though not often, Julio and his wife still go out on a date. The family is an active member of a church that they have been attending for several years. Julio, as an immigrant from Mexico, has worked in many different jobs over the years to support his family and his body’s a bit worn. He has some aches in his knees that he tends with knee wraps, and occasionally, he has some back spasms from his work. However, despite his bodily aches and history of many lowly jobs in his lifetime, he feels blessed that God gifted him with a good family. How is Julio’s quality of life?
Money does not define the quality of life. Quality of life is a psychological contentment achieved through an individual’s outlook on life, and more times than not, an individual’s outlook on life is the result of his/her education when they were young. But couldn’t we say that the medical doctor, probably, had a better education than Julio? Not necessarily. The medical doctor has had more education, but not necessarily better education. More education does not always mean better education. Again, an education is a formalized acquisition of basic and all-around knowledge that was designed to benefit us through our journey of life. The key phrase here is, “basic and all-around knowledge” that is supposed to benefit us in our life.
A typical medical doctor has much more education than an average individual, such as Julio. However, the kind of education that a doctor eventually ends up acquiring is more specific to his line of work. What s/he is acquiring does not equate to being “basic and all-around knowledge.” Also, just because a person has had more years of formal education, does not mean that person is an educated person. This brings up my initial question, “What determines whether a person is educated?”
The Needs of Different Kinds – The Uneducated: Education System
I will rephrase this question with another question to better convey my point in asking above. Can you make a horse drink water by taking it to the lake? The answer is no. Then, can you make a kid be educated just by sending him/her to school? The answer is also, no. So, what determines whether a person is educated? If a kid graduates from high school, does that mean the kid was educated? Again, no. Our education system has become so dummified that the majority of kids can pass the courses just by being in the class and turning in their homework.
A typical school (middle school or high school) gets a bad reputation if too many kids fail a grade and repeat the grade. That means the parents will seek to send their kids elsewhere. Then the schools are threatened to either close down or lose funds. So, who gets the blame for that? The teachers. If too many kids fail, all of a sudden the teacher is to blame.
Again, taking a horse to water does not ensure that the horse will drink water. A performance of a kid who was not nurtured well at home, has had practically zero lessons in discipline, and no educational preconditioning will not measure up with a kid who was nurtured well, has learned manners, and was already started on an educational program at home with his/her parents even before the kid started school. As the years pass, the educational gap between the two will only become wider, even though they go to the same school, in the same class, and listen to the same lectures. It is so because having a good foundation makes a difference in how much the kid will get out of the lecture.
For example, imagine a dance class where your kid is there to learn how to dance, but he has never learned how to walk. What good will a lecture on how to spin on his toe do for a kid who can’t even stand? What good will a lecture on how to pivot on his foot do for a kid who never stood? Can a kid learn how to run before he can walk? Of course not, but imagine teaching a kid how to do a run-and-hop when he doesn’t even know how to walk. What will that lecture do for the kid? Absolutely nothing! This is what’s happening in our schools.
Well, isn’t it the teacher’s job to teach the kids who are behind? No, it is not. To explain this, let’s go back to the example of the dance class.
It’s not that the kid who never walked can’t be taught how to do all of the above. But the issue lies in the appropriateness. The kids are there to learn how to dance and not how to walk. Even before the dance class began, it was assumed, no, expected that everybody knew how to walk. That said, can a dance instructor justify using the class hour to teach one or two people how to walk when the rest of the class already knows how? Of course not.
Teachers are on a tight schedule. They have many subject matters to cover in a year, and they can’t afford to spend class time on kids who do not have the appropriate knowledge base for the grade. Why must a 3rd-grade teacher, for example, spend his/her class time teaching 2nd-grade material because of a straggler? Is it fair for the other parents to learn that their children relearned 2nd-grade materials because of a straggler? Of course not! The best option is for the kids who are behind to be placed in a remedial class or have them repeat the previous grade. But, NO, the parents of such unprepared kids will not allow that! “My kids are smart! They don’t belong in those classes for rejects!” “Repeat a grade?!” “It’s the teacher’s fault. The teacher doesn’t know how to teach!” And on and on.
Schools don’t want to deal with that kind of abuse from the parents. So, what ultimately happened is that the school materials became easier and the the grades are given out in a way that it is easy to receive a passing grade. Basically, the teachers are pressured to make compromises where they would pass the unprepared kids with a barely passing grade so that they can advance to the next grade. Then the problem becomes that of a next grade teacher. In the meantime, the kids that got “passed on” to the next grade teacher are even more unprepared for the grade they advanced to. The cycle repeats, and when these kids get old enough to start feeling more independent, many end up becoming trouble makers and many also end up as dropouts.
The Needs of Different Kinds – The Uneducated and The Undisciplined
The scientists say that the most important time for brain development is during childhood. They say that a child’s brain is like a sponge, soaking in everything. Therefore, considerable efforts are put in to advertise and educate the parents to start teaching their kids at an earlier age. But what does that mean to the parents who are uneducated and undisciplined? Our society has been suffering for many years from teenage pregnancies and teenage single mothers who get no support from the fathers of their children, as fathers abandon the relationship as soon as a baby gets into the picture, especially in the black community.
In such situations where kids are giving birth to kids, what is the likelihood that a bunch of kid mothers, who are obviously in their situation because they were not the model students themselves, would know about properly raising their kids? Would they learn from their mothers who failed them because they didn’t know any better either? At this point, family members who can be of help in raising the baby, most likely the baby’s grandmothers, are not too different from just being babysitters rather than being productive and effective parents. Just in case I didn’t make the point clear, babysitters are sitters. They are not parents. Parents are the agents who actually do all the right things to provide care and instill teachings into the precious beings who, when raised right, will be the pillars of the future!
The reason why teenage-born baby’s grandmothers can’t be productive and effective parents is because, the chances are, their lack of parenting skills was the reason why their daughters ended up getting pregnant while still being kids because they were the troublemakers that didn’t make the grade, above. If they didn’t know how to properly prepare their daughters for school when they were babies, how would they know to raise their grandbabies properly the second time? Yes, grandparents are more mature than teenage mothers, but maturity does not equate to being more educated. Maturity equates to the accumulation of more wisdom, but not to being more educated. Just as they didn’t know how to stimulate their daughters in a way to benefit them in school, they still would not know how to stimulate their grandbabies in a way to benefit them in school.
Another reason why the teenage-born baby’s grandmothers can’t be productive and effective parents is because the baby’s primary caretaker is still their teenage daughter. Babies know that their grandmothers are not their mothers. As such, whatever influence the grandmothers may have over the babies while “sitting” with them is out the door as soon as the real mother gets home. It is their instinctual drive to listen and mind their mothers over any other “sitters” in the house, and what they end up picking up are all the bad habits and dispositions of their mothers, because their brain soaks up everything. They soak up their mother’s tendencies to 1) not finish things and give up early, 2) get frustrated easily, 3) get angry over little things, 4) laze around doing nothing, 5) not put things back where they belong, thus cluttering up everything, 6) not being patient, 7) not being kind, 8) not sharing, 9) etc. There are numerous quirks and oddities of the parents that end up in a child’s repertoire of traits that may become hindrances for the child or may become strengths for the child depending on what they pick up from their parents!
The Needs of Different Kinds – Breaking the Cycle
I know I am drawing a very bleak world where there seems to be no hope in sight. But, that is not what this is about. This is about owning up to our mistakes and our behaviors that may be detrimental to our kids because this is the first step in which we arrive at a solution – admitting that we have problems and that we need help. But sometimes, this first step is the hardest, for many reasons: 1) we don’t know that we have a problem <ignorance>, 2) we don’t know just what kind of impact we have on our kids <ignorance>, 3) we don’t want to admit that we have a problem <it’s that denial again!>, 4) we don’t want to admit that we have a problem <pride is the reason>, 5) we don’t want to admit that we don’t know any better <pride, again>, 6) we don’t want to get help from some white folks, or black folks, or Chinese folks, or Mexican folks or in my case, Korean guy <are you kidding me? Pride and racism>.
The truth is that the answer is much more complex than what I made it out to be (At this point, the readers are like, “What? Then what you said was easy to understand?). I wish I could transcribe what I know into these words in my articles, but nobody would want to read that. I am having a difficult time believing someone would even read this article right here! I don’t want to write something that nobody will understand because it is too complex, and at the same time, I don’t want to dummify a convoluted issue and it ends up not making any sense either! So, since either extreme amounts to the same thing – people not understanding – I chose these long drawn-out ways of explaining problems of society as a happy medium. My fingers are crossed!
The Needs of Different Kinds – Breaking the Cycle: Societal Entropy
My website’s theme is, “Fighting Societal Entropy Through Discipleship of All Ages.” People have a hard time understanding this phrase, as it makes absolutely no sense to them. Their first thought is, “What is societal entropy?” Then the next line of thought is, “What is entropy?”
A crude explanation of entropy is that it is a scientific term to describe the propensity of matter to convert to its disordered state. It is like a popular family game-blocks called Jenga. The game starts when the wooden blocks are well organized into a tower of neatly stacked blocks. As the game progresses, the wooden tower is slowly approaching a point where the whole tower could collapse. The loser is determined when, upon his/her turn, the wooden tower collapses. When it does fall, the wood blocks do not stay together in an organized manner, instead, they spread in a massive disorder and chaos. This propensity of the blocks to spread out in disorder is entropy, and in this case, this entropy is not looked upon favorably. It is an unwanted outcome.
The Societal Entropy, then, is a progression of society where, like the game of Jenga, it is approaching a point of breaking point (falling of the wooden tower). If you have ever played the game before, you would know that the game progresses as blocks from the lower part of the tower are pulled out and placed on top of the tower in an orderly manner. This manner of stacking the tower lengthens the height of the tower, and this lengthening of the tower can represent the passage of time where the era of civilization is increased. Then, obviously, the falling of the tower is representative of the fall of the civilization/society. In a sense, the game is a very good representation of our society.
Again, if you have played the game before, pulling out a block from below progressively makes the tower unstable, even though we are restacking it on top in an orderly manner. The same is true with our society. Over time, the stability and structure of society become weaker and weaker, even though we make efforts (passing laws in Congress, for example) to provide stability and structure, just like how we restack the wood blocks on top of the tower.
The Needs of Different Kinds – Breaking the Cycle: Societal Entropy (Disparity of Stability and Structure)
You can ask, “How is it that we are providing stability and structure through Congressional law, and yet, the stability and structure of the society are becoming weaker and weaker? It does not make sense.” Well, this is perfectly explainable referring back to the game of Jenga. When observing the wooden tower, we are making the lower part of the tower less stable and with less structure, while we are boosting them on the upper portion of the tower. So, in other words, one sector’s stability and structure increases whereas another decreases. This kind of disparity is evident when looking at our private sector versus the technology sector.
For example, our private sector is steadily losing out on stability and structure. This is a no-brainer considering there is a decline in the number of two-parent families with a rise in the number of single parents, spurred on by teenage and young adult mothers. And, with the advances in technology, we spend more time in front of our screens (TV, laptop, phones, etc) rather than with our loved ones. Our technology allows our young to feel more independent, as they can accomplish so much online, such as researching, chatting, and media conversations, but because of all these online activities, they are losing out on human relationships, thus affecting their social skills.
On the flip side, increasing stability and structure is happening in the technology sector. As technology increases, new laws and regulations are being passed to accommodate the advances in technology, thus increasing the stability and structure of advancing society. A good example of this is governmental regulation on crypto-currency. The emergence of cryptocurrency caused the government to pass new laws which pertain to new forms of currency. The government is also working with the private sector to increase public awareness of the cryptocurrency.
So, just like the game of Jenga, one part of our society is breaking apart while another part is constantly building up, but what does this disparity do to our society as a whole? Will our society finally fall like the wooden tower in Jenga? I don’t see how it will not happen when the foundation of our society (family structure) is breaking apart. Societal entropy is very real! Without intervention, there is only one end.
The Needs of Different Kinds – Breaking the Cycle: Societal Entropy (The Reversal)
Going back to the concept of entropy, whereas the progression to disorder is relatively energy-free, reversing the disorder requires much energy. For example, water is at its most stable and at its highest structure when it is ice. The water molecules are bonded and are crystalized into a hard substance. What happens when an ice block is left out in the elements? It melts and becomes water, which has become less stable and practically structureless. What happens if we wait a bit more? Water completely breaks apart into individual molecules and disappears into the atmosphere as vapor gas.
In the above process, no energy was needed, whatsoever, for ice to turn to water, then to vapor. But, what if we wanted to reverse this process? Energy is needed to combine all the individual water molecules in the atmosphere so that they condense back into water, and even more energy is needed to refreeze water back into ice. This is a scientific principle. But, what about the Societal Entropy? For the above process of converting vapor to water to ice, we can use electricity as the energy source, provided the machinery is available, but in a society, what is the energy source? The energy source is the leadership! Leaders are the energy source that reverses societal disorder back into order.
Leaders are people of intelligence, knowledge, and drive to lead people to specific goals. They motivate and encourage people to strive for something greater than themselves, but at the same time, they point out the negatives in people and redirect them into positive ones. Lastly, they look out for the best interests of the people they lead.
The Needs of Different Kinds – Breaking the Cycle: Societal Entropy (The Eye of Prism Ministry)
In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25
If I rewrite the above quote from the book of Judges of the Bible, it would read:
In those days there was no leader in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
This quote is a sarcasm. Even though it said, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” the statement’s meaning is that they did not do what was right in God’s eyes.
A big portion of human history is that of a king or an emperor reigning over kingdoms and empires with iron gloves. And, the people in those kingdoms and empires are described as the subjects belonging to the respective realm. In those days, the connotation of being “subjects” was just a bit better than that of slaves. People had very little autonomy and they were under the tight control of the rulers.
Through the progress of time and changes in civilizations, however, people gained autonomy. Gone are the days when people lived under the rule of a king and his subordinates the nobles, and our society has a set of laws that protects those autonomy. The problem is that, with the disappearance of governmental control, the influence of village leaders or neighborhood leaders disappeared as well, as they were no longer needed. What followed was the disappearance of the gathering of the communities, and pretty soon, “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” just like back in the days of early Israel.
In our society, there is no longer a local leader who instills morals and values for the community to follow. Is that a good thing or bad? It depends on how we look at things right? There is an old phrase that goes, “One bad apple spoils the whole bunch.” In our history books, there are numerous incidents where leaders failed his/her people by abusing them, taking advantage of them, or making their lives miserable. Then, in the modern media, there have been many examples of authority figures (company CEOs, ministers, government officials, military leaders, etc), to generalize, doing bad things that turn people away. The history books do not say that all leaders were corrupt and undependable right? The same can be said of the modern media. However, due to those bad apples, the public’s trust in people of authority has diminished quite a bit and is still on a decline.
However, this does not mean that leaders are not needed in this society. In fact, I think I have made it very clear that leaders are needed. Families are disintegrating, and no leaders are looking out for the dying families. There is ongoing cyclic decay that is happening in our communities! These cycles must be broken and start anew with public awareness of how to raise our young properly.
In this line of thought, the ministry will have a residential program for new single mothers where they will be given apartments for them to rent at a cheap rate with their agreement to participate in the ministry activities (varying from attendance to workshops to attending sermons to doing community work around the ministry areas). They will be taught how to raise their babies while giving them the right kind of stimulation for optimum growth. The ministry will provide daycare for the kids while they are out working. The single mothers will also be coached on having a positive mentality and about personal discipline and personal growth. The whole program is dependent on their full participation and upon unsatisfactory participation, they will be asked to leave the program.
As the kids age, the ministry will have age-appropriate activities as well as after-school workshops, such as tutoring, for the kids to positively occupy their time between school and when their parents get home from work. Eventually, for older kids, after-school workshops will become like a 4H Club where they will be taught various trades and will be challenged and guided into being leaders of their future community. The goal of this program is for the newborn babies of single mothers to be raised, guided, and loved until they graduate from high school. For them, the whole ministry congregation and staff will be their family!
Conclusion
- Can I guarantee that this will work? I can’t. It may be that I will have to change some things around as the program gets underway. There are just so many unforeseen things that may happen, and as far as I know, this program is the first of its kind, therefore, there are no examples or guidelines for me to follow. Does that mean I can’t do this, or shouldn’t do this? If everybody only did things that were guaranteed, we would still be living in the Stone Age. The needs of the community are genuine! We can’t ignore it anymore!
- Have I received any kind of training to embark on something of this magnitude? No. See above.
- Where will I get the money to do all this? Am I rich? No. I am not rich. I am depending on donations from many generous and obedient individuals who were led by God to donate their money or their services and/or expertise.
- When will I start this program? When will I start my ministry? I am waiting on God. God has not told me his will on when.
Folks, I thank you for staying with me enough to read this thanks! God Bless You!
Russel
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