Written by MayBell Developments – April 25th, 2023
If you search online for ‘how to write a blog post’, the first thing that is emphasized is the importance of a title. A title that appeals to attention in a variety of ways. When trying to name the topic I am writing about today, a phrase often used with a sibling or an annoying classmate kept coming to mind:
Attempting to communicate your vision in the non-profit industry can quickly reveal that you are one of many. As touched on in an earlier blog post, poverty is certainly not a new problem, and it is one that is going to exist for all of time. This brings lots of ideas of how to help. In Saskatchewan in 2016, there were 6,540 active incorporated non-profit organizations, and it was estimated that this number was actually closer to 8000. That’s a lot of things to care about.
And with the means of communication we have at our disposal, there are many continuous ways we hear of things. My ingestion of social media has suggested to me that a lot of people have a lot to say, and a lot of us don’t really care. According to Social Media Today, the average attention span is 8 seconds (so if I have kept your attention all the way to this point…yay!!), and the average person scrolls through 300 feet of social feed content daily. That’s equivalent to one Statue of Liberty. Now stay with me here: this is not intended to undermine the value of things to be said. And by no means am I intending to imply the common lament that ‘nobody cares’. It’s just that with so many things to care about, and so many ways to hear about it, everybody can’t care about everything.
So perhaps it is imposter syndrome. Or just plain old insecurity. Or maybe it is the cold, hard truth. But when trying to become relevant in today’s saturated amount of things to consider, it can feel like you are sending messages out into the abyss, and you often wonder ‘Who really cares‘??
A social post we created last month intended to symbolize the concept of ‘momentum’.
In this post, we defined momentum as ‘strength or force gained by motion or by a series of events’. Another relevant definition is ‘the quality that keeps an event developing or making progress after it has started’. It is alongside this concept that I get to the point I am trying to make. Momentum is powerful. It can be enticing to witness or be a part of. The recent milestone of finalizing the construction of Lilium Village Childcare and the adjacent office space for Lilium Village is an inspiring achievement for us. We want to keep this excitement going. But when I thought about what we hope for momentum to achieve, I contemplated the ‘trendy’ nature of today’s media forms. It can be so difficult to become relevant and stay relevant: to stay ‘on trend’. Well, here’s the thing…we don’t want to be trendy! We don’t want to be a ‘here for the moment, then gone tomorrow’ sort of thing. Although there are impacts that can be made by one-time engagements, and these hold their own purpose, our vision of building ‘community by community’ through personal relationships is foundational for us. When we speak of having people join us, we want to engage those who are deeply encouraged to do so. We want the momentum to fuel and encourage those who really care about our passion for relational restoration.
It does not surprise me that so often in scripture, solid faith is compared with planting and harvesting. I think of the frequently cited scripture about the power of the tiny mustard seed.
I am also reminded of the many scriptures emphasizing the right soil being necessary for growth that produces an abundant harvest. We pray for those that feel the nudge that MayBell Developments is something they care about. We pray that this nudge fuels the collective intention of our organization and that we can keep growing. That this rush of encouragement we feel at this stage of development builds momentum that is genuine and long-standing. And, ultimately, as we grow, we want to maintain soil that produces vines rooted in the values on which we were founded:
So, knowing that this world is too big and too broken for all of us to care for everything, we do believe we were created to care for something(s). With this, we hold fast to the Lord’s commands that He will reward those who are faithful. We know this call is not for all, but for those He has designed to do so. We pray in alignment with Matthew 9:38:
“Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field”.
If you feel the nudge to know more about ways that you can become involved in keeping our momentum going, reach out to us at michelle.coghill@maybelldevelopments.com or 306-992-0565 ext. 2. If you wish to become involved through volunteering, donating, or praying for this work please click one of the links below.
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