Was it your Mom, a school teacher, a family friend that first told you that needs are more important than wants? For me, I’m sure it was my Mom. You don’t need that Star Wars action figure. You want it.

It didn’t matter that I felt as if I would die without it, she wasn’t going to buy it for me. And clearly I didn’t.

So, from an early age, we had it drilled through our thick skulls that needs are the essential things in life and wants are ephemeral desires that are simply there to tease us. We must strive to “meet” our needs while depriving our wants. Or at least push them down the mythical hierarchy. They are less important.

I think this undervalues desire. Here’s my example.

There is a man in your organization that needs to know what is going on in everything. He needs to be talked to. He needs to be in the know. He is convinced that he can’t help the organization make its decisions if he isn’t completely aware of everything. He needs to be included and he doesn’t feel included enough.

There is a woman who is no longer active in your organization because she has moved away. She values the regular contact she does receive and demonstrates her gratitude on a quarterly basis with phone calls and notes. She wants to be included and she feels included.

Here I stop because I know that many of you have no doubt rewritten in your minds my example. Where I have written that the former needs to be included and the latter wants to be included, I am certain you are ready to argue that the former is really the one who wants and the latter is really the one who needs. I disagree.

The former is compelled by brain chemistry and a personal sense of safety to address his relationship with the organization as a need and acts accordingly. He won’t feel safe and comfortable and will stay at the lowest levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs without direct action. Because of where he is at, and what he believes, need is the more accurate term.

The latter has options and is not so compelled, but she longs to be with us. She has her base needs met, and is acting like it. She really does want to be involved. Want speaks to her desire.

And in our world, we have far too much focus on dysfunctional needs and far too little focus on faithful wants. We have far too much disruptive dysfunction in our culture and far too little joyful celebration of community.

For churches, we are much more prone to attempt to meet people’s needs, rather than fulfill their wants. We not only bring that paradigm from our childhood about needs and wants, but we bring with it the judgment. That needs are essentials and wants are greedy. But that need not be the case.

My want for the church and for any organization is to have a long to-do list full of wants. Wants that are about joyful commitment and exciting mission. Wants for radical participation and enthusiastic accommodation. Wants for a people of hope, undaunted by fear.

Your Mom never wanted to squash your wants. You both need them.