One
year when I was in college, I agreed to go on a missions trip to Northern
Ireland. The trip was an all-girls affair, the only one of its kind in the
school’s missions department. There were about a dozen of us who signed on to
go, all corralled in and drawn by the charismatic power of the trip’s leader, a
girl I’ll call Mary Ellen.
Mary
Ellen was like a bottle rocket. Shimmering with personality and quip, she drew
us all by the sheer force of her will. Each of us had been personally invited,
and the effect was irresistible. When she spoke to you about doing something
with her, you immediately experienced a sense of privilege. It felt as if you
were being invited in on a secret, and you simply wanted to do it, whatever it
was.
So
Mary Ellen had gathered a motley crew for this trip. We were varied, but it
seemed to me that most of us were very spirited, interesting girls, pretty
girls. Girls with varying degrees of spiritual maturity (or, I would find out
later, no spiritual maturity of all).
There
was a sarcastic, modern-looking girl with choppy blonde hair. There was a shy
beautiful girl who never spoke much. There was a thin, zany redhead with an
absolutely delightful personality. There were a few preppy brunettes and a few
Bible school girls…. And there was me.
We
were going to go stay in a manor house near Belfast. The mission house was run
by a middle-aged Welshman with a round pot belly, who was married to an
Englishwoman. Also living in the large house was a young and handsome Scott,
who was dating the one temporary female missionary also on the team—an
American.
The
mission house served a small village community. One of their main projects was
hosting mission teams like ours; the teams would go out with the staff to do
workshops for youth, street evangelism, and Bible camp types of activities.
Before
we all left, we were given the task of fundraising. We accomplished this with
heartfelt letters, which talked about “the work we intend to do for God’s
kingdom, organizing and teaching a workshop for troubled teenage girls in a
rural area of Northern Ireland.”
We
also had the requisite girly late night heart-to-heart talks as a group, during
which we all told our carefully curated deepest darkest secrets, prepared for
just such an occasion.
Then
we flew over the ocean.
We
organized our material, we prepared a workshop for those troubled teen girls,
and we waited for them to come. They came, and we taught them about
self-acceptance, making them look in mirrors and identify beautiful things they
saw there. We taught them about how skewed the culture of beauty is (I brought
along one of my CD covers and pointed out to them in detail how they’d been
Photoshopped); we led them through ice-breakers and discussions and exercises.
We
were very very earnest, but none of us noticed that the material we gave them
could just as easily have come from Oprah, from any old humanistic self-help
seminar. The only real problems we had while delivering this material was
keeping our 11-14 year old attendees from sneaking vodka into the end-of-week sleepover,
and trying to limit their smoking to fifteen-minute breaks. There was no gospel
for the girls to react to, or resist.
But
we were spiritually on our way, we thought. Missionaries.
And
then something happened, on the second to last night there, that shook my
perception of our undertaking. Late that night, in the large room full of
bunkbeds that all of us slept in, I was awakened.
Female voices were raised.
I
sat up just in time to catch a glimpse of Mary Ellen, shouting into the face of
our spunky blonde team member. She was just finishing a retort, which was
returned with a screamed profanity from the blonde. She returned in kind. The
two of them shot two final arrows at one another before Mary Ellen took off
into the darkness, slamming the door behind her. She ended up outside the house
(against the rules), wandering around in the surrounding highlands. A few hours
later she returned, sullen.
I
never did learn what had happened between them, or how things had escalated to
such a point. Nevertheless, I was called on the following morning. A meeting
was held between the two warring girls, the one faculty member who had come
with us on the trip, and a staff member from the house.
They
asked me to attend this meeting as a sort of mediator. I don’t know why—I
hadn’t heard the argument escalate, and was not in any position of leadership.
I can only guess that it was because of my face. I think I have one of those deceitfully
wise faces; something about my face makes people think that I am mature and
responsible, empathetic and understanding.
The
two girls obviously didn’t want me sitting there, offering soothing words when
I could think of them and trying to look patient. But this meeting proved to be
an important moment for me.
As
I sat there, listening to the girls sharply defend their positions, something
struck me between the eyes:
This
trip is a fraud. We are not missionaries. I’m not sure if we are Christians—I’m
not sure if I am a Christian.
We
are on a glorified chick vacation.
And
that was a devastating thought. Because it made the mission seem petty,
suddenly, spiritually bankrupt. It punched all sorts of holes in my missional vanity.
They
ended up inviting me to stay on at the house there, as a short-term staff
missionary, but in the end I refused. I slunk off home with the rest of the
group, because I knew the truth about us—about me. I had no business doing
ministry.
I
was a Ministry Fraud.
-----
This
experience—almost a decade ago—came back to bite me last year, when I was in
the process of starting a ministry to the local jail in my town.
I
was about three years into my Christian walk. I’d been married less than a
year.
Regularly,
my job took me into this jail to get stories. One day while I was there, I
encountered a woman who had been on the front page of the newspaper for her
involvement with a drug ring. Loudly, she observed to her friend (glaring at
me) that the newspaper loves to print the bad things about people, but we don’t
go after the stories of people being exonerated and declared innocent.
Actually, she said, we don’t care about people at all—we just care about
selling papers.
This
incident, while jolting me awake and evoking a protest, also confirmed a
growing desire that I’d already been ruminating over.
I
wanted to get inside the jail and start a ministry there.
It
had nothing to do with the paper and how it was run. I was simply tired of
printing the names of these women, week after week, and never connecting with
them as human beings. I’d begun to feel parts of my heart that were closed off
towards them, that regarded the people in the mugshots as belonging to some
other world than the world I occupy. How could I stop this crawling hard-heartedness
without finding a way to meet and serve them?
But
this problem does nothing to describe the urge to get inside that jail—how can
I describe a conviction? It was the sense that I would never get comfortable
until the thing had been started; a restless knowledge that in order to mature
as a Christian, this thing had been laid on the path in front of me.
The
thought was to do something that was more interpersonal than the services that
were sometimes held in the jail already, something with an element of Biblical
counseling. I wanted to talk about Jesus Christ with them, and the power and
authority of scripture in their lives. I wanted them to know that I was dirty,
too. I wanted to see what the power gospel looks like in Macon County, TN, when
it is offered to people who have already burned bridges and lost children to
the System and done damage to their own bodies.
After
this conviction came to rest with certainty in my heart and mind, another three
or four months expired. What was I waiting for during this time?
I
was afraid.
I
was afraid of the Ministry Fraud. I was afraid of watching myself quit another
thing, walk off the set of another good intention. Flakiness. Immaturity
prevailing. My own sin and unbelief complicating the work of the ministry. My
moods, shooting holes in the gospel even as I tried to relay it.
It
wasn’t messiness of the women that I was afraid of—I romanticized those things.
The dramatic things that might occur when you get mixed up with drug addicts
and petty thieves and women with three dangerous ex-husbands. Those things were
almost part of the draw (and this shamed me to know)—because for some reason,
people raised in Christian culture are fascinated by ‘gritty’ things.
I
was afraid of the ordinary stuff. Of 3:30 on a Monday, hours before I drive
over to the jail, realizing that there’s just barely enough time to cook dinner
for my husband and finish printing off outlines for the lesson. Of logistics
and tiredness getting in the way. Of the excitement from new connections with
the women giving way to relational laziness and comfort.
Even,
on some level, of screaming fights in the middle of the night—or my version of
that, which would be polite passive-aggressive arguments about curriculum with
my fellow ministry volunteers.
Even
worse, I was afraid I had seen enough of my own reliability to wonder whether
the idea would last. Would we start this thing just long enough to get tired
and quit, leaving the ladies in the jail with another miniature abandonment?
Would I get into it for bragging rights—because it’s a nice Christianese tool,
to be able to say ‘my ministry to the blah-blah-blah?’ Did I feel a true
conviction to go and do it, or did I simply feel yet another moment of
obsession with a romanticized idea of living on the cultural edge and making
friends with criminals?
Did
I, in fact, care about connecting people with the gospel? Did I, in fact, care
enough to go do so, week after week after week? Was I, in fact, setting
myself up for another chick trip to Northern Ireland?
It
took months of this discomfort and indecision for me to see that the idea was a
conviction, rather than a fancy.
Three
ideas helped with this:
1.
If you doubt that you’ll finish something you start, you should START by doubting whether you’ll finish the
biggest thing you’ve ever started. The Christian walk, after all, is the
longest-running, scariest commitment you’ll ever make. You're already in. If God has put himself in charge
of your sanctification (a miracle), then surely he can be trusted to take charge of keeping
you faithful to a little local ministry.
Remember: God gives the increase (1 Cor. 3:6). He ensures the growing process, the flowering process, the harvest. He is also in charge of the planting.
2.
The question of time was another doubt for me, but these were also sifted away. Yes,
I realized, I work full time and have a husband, but I’m also childless. There
will always be a reason to say no to things. Many of them will be better than
the ones I have right now.
3.
I understood, finally, that I was actually in need of a
means of strengthening my faith. The
desire for this was the final push.
I needed to practice the feel of the gospel in my mouth. I
needed to see ‘proof’ of the work of the Holy Spirit in my life and in the lives of
others. I needed to keep growing in my belief. Isn’t that part of
the reason we are commanded to speak the gospel to others? As you talk about
something to new people, your love for that thing grows. They are not the only
beneficiaries.
It
was spiritual blessing that I was looking for—and relief from that nagging
pressure of conviction that I, this year, for as long as I am able, need to be
with the women of the Macon County Jail. In the end, it made me bolder to see
that the only stakes riding on this small town endeavor were exactly the same
stakes that ride on every Christian’s endeavor to live the Christian life,
every day that they wake up.
You
get up, you make coffee. You try to do it to God’s glory. You kiss your family,
you go to work. You try to do it to God’s glory. You sin, you repent and
confess, you realize that something was learned. You try to go on to God’s
glory. Over weeks, months, and years, you
look behind you and see that something has been done. You realize that something supernatural has sustained the whole thing. God has
accomplished something in you.
And your faith is grown again.
So
you get up, you make coffee. You go to work. You make dinner for your husband,
you print off your lesson, and you drive to the Macon County Jail...
“Likewise
the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we
ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for
words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because
the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know
that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who
are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be
the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also
called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified
he also glorified.”
-Romans
8:26-30
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