Mission-Minded Folks Are Freaks

Mission-minded folks are freaks. You know it’s true. You are a freak — not in the wildly unsociable sense. You’re a freak like a multi-medal Olympic athlete is a freak. You’re enigmatic — not because you’re strange but because some part of you is incomprehensible.

I mean, why would you make a mission into a career? Honestly, can you even tell the difference anymore? You wake up thinking about how to solve other people’s problems, to help in ways no one has tried, or in ways where no one else cares or shows up or succeeds. But you’re a freak. You live for this stuff. And you’d probably do some version of it even if no one paid you. Honestly, you might not be getting paid now — or not getting paid enough.

Why does “tech for good” land with a hollow thud?

That’s why when I drop the “tech for good” byline in an elevator pitch, it lands with a hollow thud in some rooms. Not everyone understands the burden you carry. Not everyone understands what your “good” costs you.

There’s a nuance behind the word good that isn’t fully expressed in that line. When I say it, I’m pushing it out with a million breaths from a lifetime of living inside a specific worldview. When I say I want to do “good” — it means something more to me than I learned watching Sesame Street. Not different — just more. You know what I mean?

What makes something truly good?

The phrase “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” — that’s not how good works. At least, not in my estimation. There is something intrinsic about goodness that transcends our worldviews, values, opinions, and political leanings — it’s woven into how we were made.

For me, pulling back that layer with integrity goes back to creation.

I believe we were all created. Not at random. Not by chance. With purpose. With care and craftsmanship.

And in my worldview, that creator is God — the Christian God Yahweh (among other names). His essence is goodness. Anything found in him or emanating from him is good. Anything else — well, it’s not.

You might not share that worldview, and that’s ok. Because most societies throughout the course of human history have come to agree on a common opinion of what “good” means. There’s variance, to be sure, but if you’re waking up every day burdened by a mission, then we probably share more than we don’t.

Where does goodness come from?

When God created the world, he took a step back and said, “It’s good.” It was his workmanship. Within the vast universe, inside our solar system, situated on a blue ball of planet Earth, he created humans. We started out good, just like everything else emanating from Yahweh.

But we were autonomous agents with a generous sandbox to run wild in, and it wasn’t long before things went awry.

God didn’t get surprised when sin ran rampant in the world — when the humans he’d created failed. And he isn’t angry and counting our failures. But he isn’t simply overlooking them either. Our failure isn’t a backdrop to make his goodness shine by contrast, nor a stage for his mercy to perform on. Sin carries real weight.

No, like a good parent, God sees the evil done in his creation, and it hurts him deeply. He mourns it. But he loves us despite it — and that is the sort of good that is really good and really worth doing.

Good with strings attached is not good at all.

Just because our depravity gave rise to his goodness, that’s not a justifiable reason to continue wallowing in it. Human depravity left untamed is immensely hurtful and harmful. Greed. Envy. Pride. The result is often suffering, shame, and senseless violence. You can probably trace your mission back to the consequences of human depravity in some way.

Why did God trust us with the mission?

But God made a strange decision when he created humans.

Rather than taking the reins and running this place himself, he commissioned us to do it. Right from the start we went to work naming, taming, and tending. When things inevitably fell apart, he provided a solution, but he commissioned more human emissaries to carry it out.

That’s where we find ourselves today. The evil in the world is the antithesis to God and his goodness. Yet he’s not the one leading the charge to eradicate it. That’s our role. He loves us, and he trusts us. He’s empowering us. It’s his authority and his flag that we operate under, but we build alongside him toward a new kingdom of goodness.

We are autonomous agents.

That autonomy has the capacity for both good and evil. In the beginning, that autonomy led to depravity. But that same capacity has the potential to emanate all sorts of good in new and novel ways.

The same creative spark that led Yahweh to create humanity is present in us. It drives us to creatively pursue work that brings about the essence of goodness in all sorts of funny, warm, and alarming ways. Freaks.

How does this connect to what we build?

When someone gives you more grace than you deserve. When a neighbor shows up to help. When a stranger pays it forward. When forgiveness comes before the apology is complete. That’s “good.”

My mission happens to be tech. That’s the arena where I can do good. I started Heartwood, and we exist as a small signpost in a crowded universe. We want to do good, and help other organizations do good. We build web apps and mobile apps. We design back office systems and turn spreadsheets into workflows. Sometimes, we even build websites. But the clients we partner with have different and novel ways in which they emanate goodness.

The cool thing is that “tech for good” is just one corner of the world that we’re working to set right. But the spectrum of goodness and the myriad ways it’s manifested is wider than the visible spectrum of light emanating from the sun. Yet we can stand shoulder to shoulder and build together because we share the same goal — to do “good.”

The methods and minutiae don’t matter nearly as much as that flavor of universal goodness that has been emanating from eternity past. The same unceasing tidal wave of goodness that will roll on into eternity future.

So stand up, you mission-minded freak. Those of you who are naive enough to believe that you can do good. That you can set some small corner of your world right. Join the chorus of voices from the ages past and future. Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Let’s build toward a reality where “good” is just another Monday.