Is faith an abstract concept or a practical action? When faced with this age-old question, Christianity often provides a clear answer: “Faith without works is dead.” This means that even if I possess intellectually perfect doctrines and recite noble values with my lips, my faith remains only half-complete if it is not manifested in the world through my hands and feet.
However, a question arose in my mind. Today, Christianity has become a massive organization. As any organization grows in scale, “administrative” roles inevitably emerge to maintain the system. Unlike the practitioners on the front lines who hand out bread to the hungry and wash the feet of the lowly, can we find “faithful action” in those who sit at desks, planning budgets, allocating personnel, and handling administrative tasks? At first glance, their daily routines lack visible “good deeds.”
The Body’s Members: The Role of the Invisible Nervous System
To solve this puzzle, I recalled the biblical metaphor of the “Body.” A body has visible hands and feet, but it also possesses an invisible nervous system and a brain that coordinate those movements. The reason the feet can perform the “action” of walking a rugged path is that the brain performs the “management” of directing the path and distributing energy.
The role of an administrator within a vast Christian organization is much the same. Securing resources so that relief efforts on the ground do not cease, and creating a fair system so that someone’s devotion is not wasted—these tasks may not look like direct acts of kindness, but they are the “Spirituality of Infrastructure” that makes countless good deeds possible. Ultimately, the act of management can be a noble support system that allows the body of the community to function properly.
Responsibility Under the Name of “Stewardship”
In Christianity, there is a concept called “Stewardship.” It refers to an agent who manages resources entrusted to them by the Master. If those in administrative positions define their work not as a simple exercise of power, but as “the proper distribution of what has been entrusted,” then their paperwork becomes a practice of faith.
Reviewing numbers with honesty, coordinating schedules efficiently, and mediating conflicts within the organization—if an administrator prioritizes the benefit of the community and the growth of others over self-interest during this process, it may be the most intense form of “loving one’s neighbor.” While it may not be a visible, dramatic miracle, they are cultivating small miracles every day in the name of “order.”
The Cold Trap of Bureaucracy
Of course, there is a clear danger to guard against. The greatest temptation that comes when an organization becomes bloated is “bureaucracy.” The moment maintaining the system itself becomes the goal, management ceases to be a tool of faith and becomes a hindrance to it. When I forget the faces of the “people” beyond the documents, and only the shell of rules remains instead of the essence of love, faith evaporates from the administrator’s actions.
The warning that “without love, I am only a resounding gong” does not apply only to field workers. Rather, it should be a chilling warning that resonates even more deeply with those in positions of authority.
Ultimately, the Essence of Action Lies in “Direction”
I believe that faithful action does not necessarily mean only grand relief projects. It does not matter whether I am standing on the front lines or in front of a cold monitor. If my energy is flowing toward reducing the suffering of others and toward the common good of the community, that entire process becomes “evidence of faith.”
Even if administrative work feels like being a cog in a giant machine, it is a sufficiently valuable act of faith if “love” for someone is reached at the end of it. I ask myself again today: Toward whom are my management and administration directed? When I can answer that question without shame, my faith will finally begin to live and move through my daily life.
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