I spent much of last weekend sorting my summer and winter clothing. Having moved from a 7-room house to a 2-room flat does make one realize how much STUFF one possesses. So every fall and every spring, roughly half my clothing takes up seasonal residence in plastic boxes in the basement, while the other half enjoys hanging around in my closet. I am nothing if not fair.
I know I own far too much clothing (and, needless to say, too many shoes). One, I am a woman and that's just what we do. Two, I know that for many years after it finally became financially feasible, clothes shopping was for me a sort of consolation prize, a form of compensation for other lacks I was feeling. Three, much of my clothing, though it still fits and may even look good, is no longer called-for because it is (drumroll, please:) Ministry Clothing.
What do I mean by Ministry Clothing (MC for short)? MC is clothing I wore in my former life as a (at least part-time) public figure. It is, with some exceptions, mostly in muted colors or subtle patterns. My outfit of choice was a longer skirt or slacks, stretchable top and blazer-- dressed up or down with scarves, belts, higher or lower shoes. There are no low necklines, high-ish hemlines or figure-hugging lines in my MC. I even had a score of rather uncomfortably reinforced Ministry Bras, bought for the express purpose of hiding the fact that I am one of those girls created with all-too-evident nipples.
The purpose of this wardrobe was, while well-dressed enough not to give offense, to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman. I think part of that motivation was a good one; ie, especially when in ministry, I want people to be able to look past me and see Christ ministering to them. I consider myself a delivery person of God's blessings, and the packaging should not detract from that. I certainly didn't want to follow the example of a South African woman minister I experienced long ago, who was a beautiful and anointed woman, but seemed clueless to the fact that the way she dressed was a distraction to her goal. Her outfit was in no way indecent, but certainly did not de-emphasize any of her considerable feminine attributes. Each time she bent over a bit (causing her silky blouse to gape) or stretched her legs (causing her skirt to ride up) to pray for somebody, half the men in the room were, er, not exactly worshiping in the beauty of holiness. Add to that she was also a girl with nipples which made themselves known when she was (for any reason, mind you!) excited, clearly did NOT wear a ministry bra, and there you have my Unintentionally Poor Example.
However, I think I went a bit too far in the opposite direction. Don't get me wrong: I'm not a born slob, and like dressing up now and then. I still like the look of a blazer and feel comfortable wearing one (these days usually with jeans). But when I looked at my row of businesslike blazers, matronly trousers and shirts I wouldn't pair with my usual jeans or leggings, I became a bit thoughtful. Why was I being someone else? Whose expectations was I trying to meet, besides my own?
Anyway, I don't need most of this wardrobe any more. Not that I plan to never stand in front of people and speak again; I do think that is in my future as well as in my past. But I think I will do that as the woman I am now, not as the minister I was then. Shedding all titles, though it has also been painful, has been very freeing in a way. All the titles (minister, pastor, missionary, church planter, Christian leader; even some I was given with which I did not identify, such as "revivalist" or even "prophetic evangelist"--!) bring expectations along with them. Early on in my days of traveling ministry, I discovered that people will pretty much receive what they expect to get. If I had been invited to minister in the context of being known for training in healing prayer, people would expect healing to occur (and it did). If I was doing training in prophetic ministry, people would expect me to give public words of prophecy (and I usually did). If people received me primarily as a missionary, they were waiting to hear Heidi Baker-style stories of incredible miracles amidst horrendous poverty (which I couldn't deliver).
All these expectations are legitimate as far as they go. In fact I used to encourage prayer teams I trained for ministry trips to take full advantage of what I call "the Out-Of-Town Anointing": When people seeking ministry see your little Ministry Team badge, they assume you know what you're doing (even if you don't feel that way), so their level of expectation/faith/ability to receive from God is often higher than your confidence/faith/assurance you have something to give. Just give what you have, and watch God bless it and multiply it like loaves and fishes to feed a multitude. All this is still valid.
But what if you are expected to minister prophetically and God turns it into a healing meeting by giving you unexpected words of knowledge for healing while you're trying to preach (as happened to me with the group who, apparently frustrated at my calling myself "just a minister", advertised me as a prophetic evangelist. I don't even know what that is!)? Or it has been billed as a healing meeting and God seems much more interested in healing the inner than the outer man that particular day? These things do occur, and sometimes our titles, and the resulting expectations, get in the way of what Dad has in mind to do.
The title with which I least identify is that of "revivalist". There are differing interpretations of this term, but my experience has shown me that the expectations people have connected with it are things which do not fit with what I know of myself. I am a motivator, true; I can "preach the Word" and apply it to life; and I do know how to stand on a stage and sense where a crowd is at, what Dad has in mind, and take us from here to there. But I am not a revivalist. Though I value the times of refreshing Dad regularly grants his people, and my life has personally been formed by many of these, I do not live for revival (as if that were the answer to everything). I abhor hype and whipping up a crowd into a frenzy. Not to say that all revivalists do this, but there is certainly an expectation within revivalist circles that something of this nature will occur, and I just won't go there.
I do get genuinely excited at what Dad genuinely does. I will be the first to punch the air, grinning widely, and shout "Hallelujah!" when someone walks from their wheelchair for the first time, or has no more debilitating pain after prayer, or reconciles with estranged family members, or whatever.
I don't like it, though, when the person who has just experienced God's touch gets dragged up to a platform, interrogated, usually shoved over, and used as proof of God's favor and blessing on that ministry. I've seen this done many times over the years but particularly in Pentecostal-based circles (currently, a traveling ministry known as The Bay Revival exemplifies this style for me).
I do not agree with using these genuine signs of God's goodness (note: NOT of our correctness) as proof that we are on the edge of imminent "revival"-- however that is defined-- which will somehow solve everything and is our goal.
Hello?! Since when has the concept of revival replaced God's Kingdom coming to Earth as it is on Heaven, as the main goal of his Church? At best, times of renewal in the church leading to a measure of revival in the land are one factor in this much larger and much broader paradigm. Genuine restoration of mankind and the earth is the goal, not just the bursts of revivalist activity on the way.
I do believe in revival. It happens, thank God. I have personally been involved in at least 4 of these moves of God: the Catholic Charismatic renewal of the 70s, the Jesus People revival, a personal revival and healing on the order of Wimber's Vineyard (which in 1990 shoved me suddenly into being a renewed evangelical), and the Toronto revival starting in 1994. Oh yes, I have been in Catholic prayer groups where people were spontaneously healed just during worship. I have sat singing "Come To The Waters" over and over again with my fellow Jesus People around a campfire, modulating into beautiful harmonies of tongues, never wanting it to end. I've been in many situations where the air was so thick with the presence of God that one could hardly breathe. I've "fallen under the power" (from gently to knock-over-rows-of-chairs) countless times since the first time in 1972, when I floated serenely down at the lightest possible touch of a Catholic priest. I've seen and personally experienced miracles of every kind: physical, emotional, supply, impossible coincidence.
Yes, I absolutely believe in the manifest presence and power of God. I'm just not a revivalist. I have neither the conviction nor the energy to keep believing that revival, the revival which will change everything and solve all our problems, is right around the corner if we just pray enough, fast enough, believe enough, are passionate enough... (fill in the blank).
I can't help experiencing that emphasis as misguided effort. I can't help feeling a type of performance pressure that I know does not come from Holy Spirit, whose voice and ways I know and love. I can't help but feel that often, the God we love and serve has been quietly usurped by a thing, a thing we call REVIVAL, which at least a portion of the Church unknowingly worships and ceaselessly strives to serve, though it never-- quite-- fully manifests.
If it ever did, boy would we be in trouble, because are our churches set up to receive thousands of new believers every week? If not, what will we do with all these new followers of Jesus who are not, and probably should not ever become, "church-broken"? Are we prepared to leave our comfortable buildings and safe services (and yes, no matter how wild it may get inside, we go home to our comfortable lives and many times the twain don't meet during the week), to dive into the real lives of real people all around us?
If we are not, if we can't even integrate what we experience on Sundays and in meetings with what we live throughout the rest of the week, then maybe we should stop working so hard for a revival that, should it ever occur, would mess everything up.
Just a thought.
Anyway, if you need some nice blazers, come on by.
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