I have two male friends, both middle-aged, both of whose friendship and personality I treasure. They are both committed Christians, they both live a life of service, and they are both gay. One is a leader in a local church, one leads a non-profit charitable ministry. Both love Jesus very much, serve him and people around them effectively, and have lived with God a long time. After each struggling for many years with the fact of their gender orientation, one has chosen to live celibately (though with a male flat-mate), and does not refer to himself as gay, though everything about him declares it. The other one (less outwardly effeminate) has chosen to "come out" and lives in a monogamous sexual relationship with his male housemate.
Each has made his personal decision after much honest heart-searching, questioning, counseling, and attempts at reorientation. Each has now reached a place of peace in his identity in Christ and accepts the limitations each one's choices has brought about: on the one hand, a life without fulfilling personal partnership and on the other hand, ostracism from most of mainstream church.
Who am I to say categorically which has chosen "rightly" and the other "wrongly"?
Here are links to two brief 3-minute videos which discuss some modern viewpoints on homosexuality and Christians' response to it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYl6hbBYvqo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyweHjwLrYM&feature=endscreen
I find myself somewhere in the middle of the two positions so baldly stated in the first one. Even had I the best will in the world to do so, I cannot honestly affirm homosexuality as normal, natural and designed by God as part of original creation. I don't think one even has to believe in God or the Biblical account of creation to see the fallacies in this attitude.
Quite aside from the fact that mankind would have died out long ago had a critical mass of humanity been homosexually oriented, plain and simple biology teaches us that, for example, the orifice primarily used for male homosexual gratification was clearly designed for waste matter going out, not for foreign objects going in. (Have a chat with any doctor serving in a largely homosexual neighborhood and let him inform you of the rate of hemorrhoids and other common health issues specifically caused by this practice.)
The animal world confirms that mammals are, with a few strange evolutionary aberrations, clearly designed for male + female = the race continues to exist. Female/female sexual relationships also mean no babies, without extraordinary and "unnatural" measures. Arguments I have heard trying to prove that "animals are gay, too" have been largely specious and, to me, laughably far-fetched. I'm sorry, but that's been my (admittedly limited) experience.
On the other hand, I know too much to blindly believe that the Bible, in the form in which we now have it, is perfect, without fault and error-free. (This is not even what the doctrine of biblical inerrancy teaches, by the way, which refers to the original documents -- none of which are extant, so who can know? -- but it is how the term "inerrancy of the Scriptures" is commonly defined and held to by fundamentalists.) I do not worship Father, Son and Holy Book but Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who leads us into all truth. Sometimes said truth he leads us into is not containable in a collection of documents written at best 2,000 years ago, in other languages and cultures.
Every denomination and church grouping values some Scripture over others, and will even clearly violate (what appear to be) certain direct commandments, because we have differingly discerned some of these as culturally irrelevant.* Why these and not others? is the question that haunts any serious seeker of truth. And often, the answer is to be found not in lofty bursts of eternally-binding revelation, but in such banal roots as having inadequate understanding of the original culture or audience or situation, of taking too literally a story, hyperbole, parable or even joke; the fact that we are all, to some degree, inadvertently bound to our own forms of cultural blindness.
So when the Bible in the OT and some of the NT letters condemns homosexual practice as sin (though Jesus never mentions it one way or the other), I have to agree. I agree it is sinful in the sense that it is a symptom of brokenness, and all brokenness we experience in the world we live in is in some degree connected to the fact that we live in a fallen creation, in a broken world.
What I have come to believe is that homosexuality is, like so many other brokennesses we daily deal with, a result of the Fall and one of many broken forms of identity and/or sexuality. There are countless forms of broken identity/sexuality in the heterosexual arena as well, most of which are not named specifically in the Bible. Why is this one glitch somehow more sinful than another glitch? (The NT does not specifically prohibit twisted heterosexual men from beating or sexually abusing their wives, so should we assume that's okay? Rhetorical question.)
The argument of whether or not homosexual orientation is inborn or learned behavior has been hotly debated for many years by people much more informed than I. I don't intend to enter it here. But what I do know is that we are all imperfect. Some of us are born with genetic glitches which affect our lives negatively, such as a tendency toward certain diseases or physical or mental weakness. Some of us are raised in environments which negatively affect our lives; I myself was raised by two chain-smokers and as a result, many years later, I still have what is known as a "weak chest": a tendency for colds to settle in my lungs and turn to bronchitis (though I myself have never smoked). My ex was raised by religious emotional and sexual abusers, which of course negatively affected both his personality and his sexuality.
We are personally responsible for none of these things. I know there are people who choose to experiment with various forms of sexuality and lead a promiscuous lifestyle, which the Bible also condemns as sinful. But these two friends of mine, neither promiscuous, do not know themselves ever to have been different in their sexual orientation. As far as they are aware, they never chose this wiring-- in fact, as "good Christians" trying to live a holy life and believing themselves to be sinful, they both fought living it out. It remains, however, an essential part of who they are and how they are, whatever they decide to do about lifestyle.
The question may remain: who is right and who is wrong, of the choices each of my friends have made?
And my reply has to be: actually, that's none of my business. They have each made their decision before God as honestly as they know how, and they are responsible to him, not to me. Did Jesus' death on the Cross, his resurrection and his ascension really take care of the sin question once and for all, or did it not? Am I still required to measure up to a standard of law, however admirable, which is impossible to attain (see Romans), even when doing so violates my conscience --or my very being? Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't there such a thing as being dead right, and isn't that what Jesus consistently condemned in the Pharisees?
Even if a practicing homosexual Christian is considered to be "in sin", is he therefore my enemy? And even if he were my enemy, I thought I was commanded to love my enemy and do good to him. Am I not also in sin, every day of my life, often inadvertently but sometimes knowingly, and doesn't Jesus' blood cover me-- why not him? I don't believe I was invited onto the committee to decide who is "in" and who is "out" of the bounds of God's love and forgiveness.
Bottom line: My assignment is to love, not to judge. I love God, and I love both my friends-- and we all love Jesus. We each stumble forward trusting in the grace that we believe the Cross purchased for us. I know it's messy, but you know what?
That's the way life is.
__________
* If you think this too strong a statement, consider that in John 13:14 Jesus, after washing the disciples' feet, says: "So if I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you must wash each other's feet." This is a pretty strong direct command of our Lord and Savior, even though it's often translated more weakly as "you ought to wash each others' feet". Yet we in today's church have universally written this off-- legitimately, I think-- as applying to the humility expressed by the act and not the act itself; just as most churches have also -- with some very conservative exceptions-- come to the awareness that women covering their heads was an ancient cultural expression of a desired quality. We do not live in 1st-century Palestine, wearing sandals on dusty roads; nor is a woman with her head shockingly uncovered automatically considered a prostitute! It is the desired quality that matters, not a particular cultural expression of it.
In a similar vein, we still use literal bread and wine as a sacrament of communion (some are very particular to use only unleavened bread, yet tolerate grape juice. ??!!)-- when actually the intention of the gesture at the Last Supper was probably more that we remember Jesus' presence with us any time we eat together, making every meal, in a sense, a sacramental experience. Bread and wine, being present at every meal in that culture, were therefore ideal for this symbolic purpose.
I'm not against the fact that we do these things, just pointing a couple of them out. Every church tradition interprets various verses according to their overriding and often unexamined cultural values, and most of us simply accept as unbreakable truth valid for all time much in Scripture which is actually culturally irrelevant, negotiable or limited in scope.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Yes, You...
So... I've been thinking all day about this mis-identity crisis in which I currently find myself.
Being taken seriously by a professional strange to me personally should not really surprise me. In the context of my ministerial life it eventually happened as a matter of course, and I grew to expect it. After all, though I may not personally feel special I have been a foreign missionary, if not in the classic, supported-by-denominational-funds sense, for 30 years now. After losing all our US-based missionary support in 1991, I think I thought of myself more as a cross-cultural minister.
In this time period I have co-planted 2 churches in Austria and assisted others elsewhere in Europe. I had the primary responsibility of raising two children in a society foreign to the one in which I grew up, and practiced an "open home" hospitality policy for most of my first marriage, hosting up to 12 people at a time in our -- by American standards-- small home. I built up a worship sector in our 2nd Austrian church which has had a ripple-effect on many other European churches and their bands.
I've attended countless seminars, conferences and courses on almost every aspect of spiritual life, and have myself been a teacher at many of them. I've sat on several committees and leadership councils, some of which were ground-breaking in their time (the first inter-denominational Round Table in Austria, for example). We were in on the ground floor of developing the Vineyard movement of churches in the German-speaking world.
I've long preached, taught, and developed course materials in both German and English, plus translating reams more. I've pastored, counseled, prayed with, wept over, rejoiced with members of my congregation. I've "done the stuff": healing prayer, deliverance, prophecy, and taught it to others. I've led teams of novices into other foreign countries and helped them minister to, and learn from, the culture into which I took them. In my last 10 years of ministry I was in some demand as a public speaker, trainer, and minister. It sounds like a lot, but living it myself didn't seem particularly taxing; I loved much of it. None of the above is boasting, either; it simply describes my life as I have lived it.
Although I am aware of all these facts, somehow the penny had not dropped that through such life experience I am essentially qualified for --indeed, I have been exercising-- managerial-type position. Much of the above does describe management, or rather leadership. There is no question --in most peoples' minds-- of my competency. The issue has been in my own mind, failing to bridge the gap between my life of largely undefined "ministry", and a "regular job" in which I could imagine anyone willing to hand over cold hard cash for the life wisdom, skill set and experience which I have developed in another field.
Part of the unspoken agreement one enters when one decides for missions is that one will be seriously underpaid, and that has also been a fact of my last 30 years. With the exception of a privileged high-profile few, Christian ministry (apart from American mega-churches) is remunerated in rather more arcane coin --personal fulfillment, a genuine sense of being useful-- than actual funds. By itself, it generally does not pay enough money to live on, unless one is very fond of baked beans or ministers in a nation where the support/exchange rate is favorable. This is one reason why "tent-making" (having a paying job alongside ministry) is so popular in modern missions.
Another large factor is the repenting I need to do-- that is, the change of mind I need to develop-- about my competency levels where I have bought into what the most negative factors in my life to this point have told me about myself, rather than the positive or even neutral voices. At some core level I have believed lies from two main sources about myself and my abilities, indeed about my very identity.
I long received a message and impression of my own competencies from a husband who, for all his many other good qualities, also had an abusive mindset. I understand where it came from and I have great sympathy for the suffering that caused it in him, but the fact remains that P's not dealing with his own stuff damaged me for many years and in the end, made our marriage not worth fighting to keep. Part of this mindset is that he experienced it as his personal loss for me to thrive in areas he felt the need to control. Though he publicly supported "my ministry" and believed he actually did, emotionally I was punished when my increasing success in an arena outside his influence made him feel threatened or abandoned.
I only started to come out of the fog when what Dad was saying to me, not only in my personal dialogue with him but through Scripture, through teaching I received and through prophetic words from people outside my situation, consistently directly contradicted what P was telling me. In 1997 I vowed to start believing what Dad said about me more than I believed what anyone else did, including P or even myself. This process goes on to this day, and I believe I am moving into a deeper phase of it now.
The other main factor is that I listened to (and as a result, felt excluded from and disqualified for) a political and administrative system built on obfuscation. This is a downside of Austrian society and this negative factor is unfortunately not only the ruling factor in governmental hierarchichal administration, but was very present in the administration of VG-- an Austrian church. There were times, especially in the past few years, when I very much identified with St Paul's plea in Galatians 4:16: Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
The bottom line is: I have received at least part of my identity built on lies, with the result that I am now surprised when someone unbiased states what seems to them to be an obvious positive truth about me.
This must change!
Being taken seriously by a professional strange to me personally should not really surprise me. In the context of my ministerial life it eventually happened as a matter of course, and I grew to expect it. After all, though I may not personally feel special I have been a foreign missionary, if not in the classic, supported-by-denominational-funds sense, for 30 years now. After losing all our US-based missionary support in 1991, I think I thought of myself more as a cross-cultural minister.
In this time period I have co-planted 2 churches in Austria and assisted others elsewhere in Europe. I had the primary responsibility of raising two children in a society foreign to the one in which I grew up, and practiced an "open home" hospitality policy for most of my first marriage, hosting up to 12 people at a time in our -- by American standards-- small home. I built up a worship sector in our 2nd Austrian church which has had a ripple-effect on many other European churches and their bands.
I've attended countless seminars, conferences and courses on almost every aspect of spiritual life, and have myself been a teacher at many of them. I've sat on several committees and leadership councils, some of which were ground-breaking in their time (the first inter-denominational Round Table in Austria, for example). We were in on the ground floor of developing the Vineyard movement of churches in the German-speaking world.
I've long preached, taught, and developed course materials in both German and English, plus translating reams more. I've pastored, counseled, prayed with, wept over, rejoiced with members of my congregation. I've "done the stuff": healing prayer, deliverance, prophecy, and taught it to others. I've led teams of novices into other foreign countries and helped them minister to, and learn from, the culture into which I took them. In my last 10 years of ministry I was in some demand as a public speaker, trainer, and minister. It sounds like a lot, but living it myself didn't seem particularly taxing; I loved much of it. None of the above is boasting, either; it simply describes my life as I have lived it.
Although I am aware of all these facts, somehow the penny had not dropped that through such life experience I am essentially qualified for --indeed, I have been exercising-- managerial-type position. Much of the above does describe management, or rather leadership. There is no question --in most peoples' minds-- of my competency. The issue has been in my own mind, failing to bridge the gap between my life of largely undefined "ministry", and a "regular job" in which I could imagine anyone willing to hand over cold hard cash for the life wisdom, skill set and experience which I have developed in another field.
Part of the unspoken agreement one enters when one decides for missions is that one will be seriously underpaid, and that has also been a fact of my last 30 years. With the exception of a privileged high-profile few, Christian ministry (apart from American mega-churches) is remunerated in rather more arcane coin --personal fulfillment, a genuine sense of being useful-- than actual funds. By itself, it generally does not pay enough money to live on, unless one is very fond of baked beans or ministers in a nation where the support/exchange rate is favorable. This is one reason why "tent-making" (having a paying job alongside ministry) is so popular in modern missions.
Another large factor is the repenting I need to do-- that is, the change of mind I need to develop-- about my competency levels where I have bought into what the most negative factors in my life to this point have told me about myself, rather than the positive or even neutral voices. At some core level I have believed lies from two main sources about myself and my abilities, indeed about my very identity.
I long received a message and impression of my own competencies from a husband who, for all his many other good qualities, also had an abusive mindset. I understand where it came from and I have great sympathy for the suffering that caused it in him, but the fact remains that P's not dealing with his own stuff damaged me for many years and in the end, made our marriage not worth fighting to keep. Part of this mindset is that he experienced it as his personal loss for me to thrive in areas he felt the need to control. Though he publicly supported "my ministry" and believed he actually did, emotionally I was punished when my increasing success in an arena outside his influence made him feel threatened or abandoned.
I only started to come out of the fog when what Dad was saying to me, not only in my personal dialogue with him but through Scripture, through teaching I received and through prophetic words from people outside my situation, consistently directly contradicted what P was telling me. In 1997 I vowed to start believing what Dad said about me more than I believed what anyone else did, including P or even myself. This process goes on to this day, and I believe I am moving into a deeper phase of it now.
The other main factor is that I listened to (and as a result, felt excluded from and disqualified for) a political and administrative system built on obfuscation. This is a downside of Austrian society and this negative factor is unfortunately not only the ruling factor in governmental hierarchichal administration, but was very present in the administration of VG-- an Austrian church. There were times, especially in the past few years, when I very much identified with St Paul's plea in Galatians 4:16: Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
The bottom line is: I have received at least part of my identity built on lies, with the result that I am now surprised when someone unbiased states what seems to them to be an obvious positive truth about me.
This must change!
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Who, Me?!
Today I woke up feeling ...in German, I would say "unrund". Simply out of kilter, unmotivated, blah.
The past few days have been, considering what our usual social life involves (i.e. yawning emptiness!), very full indeed: an overnight guest on Wednesday night, Thursday my fitness time with the girls in the morning and a family birthday celebration here in the evening, Friday night dinner and, as it turns out, rather a lot of drinks at the house of friends. Three late nights in a row; maybe my blahs were due to social exhaustion. Maybe because I'd enjoyed myself and there is no more socializing coming up any time soon. But I am thinking more of it has to do with what happened Friday morning, as a result of which my brain has gone into overload.
I think most people I know here have not quite realized that my divorce plus the financial disaster at VG has meant that I no longer have a job, employment, a regular income, MONEY; and that I am not supported financially by my ex. Since September 1st I have, for the first time in my life, been drawing unemployment benefits. This will pay our rent for 6 months and will then be re-evaluated, always assuming I have not found a job by then, which I am not expecting to do. Part of the agreement to draw unemployment is cooperating with AMS, the organization which evaluates one's situation and is sort of a clearing house for placement.
The first interview I had with AMS back in July, knowing my work relationship with VG would be coming to an official close at the end of August, was not very encouraging. But the second one, with a different woman after I had filled out all the many forms required, was much more pleasant. I still didn't expect any cash but hoped they would see their way clear to at least paying my health insurance. Imagine my glad surprise when I found they will pay enough to cover the rent!
My employment record here is unfortunately not very reflective of reality. As a church-planting missionary mommy, for the first 15 years of my 30 years here I basically worked full-time without pay. That's just what parents do, whether of natural or of spiritual children. The second church P & I had planted (which became VG) began after their first couple of years supporting us to the degree they could afford, but that paycheck was in P's name, not mine. We lived from that (which was never enough for a family of 4) and from what my father gave us each year as a sort of down payment on my inheritance. But I did not appear in Austrian records as being employed. And I have no retirement fund.
Later VG decided it would be good to make me more official, so in order to save the church money they hired me as a freelance worker, which meant I was not actually employed by them but presented invoices for my services each month. Anyway, to make a long story short I was not actually employed until the last few years of my sojourn with them -- years when I did far less within VG than I ever had before and much more outside the church, as "Minister At Large".
Not surprisingly, it now turns out that being a 54-year-old woman with a spotty employment record I fall into the "hard-to-place" category. My second advisor at AMS recommended a program to me with which I am currently engaged. This is called, appallingly, "Stop&Go" and is specially designed for hard-to-place unemployed over-45s. (Sigh. I do wish Europeans without a masterly command of nuance within the English language would stop trying to be chic by randomly choosing English monikers which end up sounding inappropriate and/or ridiculous!)
Stop&Go tries in 6-8 weeks to help people, especially those who have been unemployed for a year or longer, to re-orient their careers and find out what else they might be suited for. I've had an initial orientation class and taken a battery of psychological tests. Much of it was fairly familiar ground to me, having taken such things many times over the years in various contexts. One part of the test, though, seemed to me to be geared toward middle-aged mildly alcoholic men who'd been unemployed a long time and had anger management issues. I'm a freshly unemployed (technically, though I haven't "worked" in the classic sense for some time) woman without the other issues so got a little impatient with that bit! I've also seen Frau M, the psychologist assigned to me, twice now. This second time was on Friday morning, after she got the results of the tests I took on Wednesday.
The first thing I noticed was that Frau M seemed more relaxed with me this time, more as if she were treating me almost like a peer (we are not too far apart in age, I think) than a "case". Our initial chat was warm, and she actually seemed interested. When we got down to the nitty-gritty of the test results, it turns out I tested out far more balanced than I thought I would. It seems clear that, though I have not yet fully recovered from the emotional blows of the past few years and that is reflected, on the whole I am fit, balanced and once I get back up to speed will be a desirable employee. We did a little brainstorming about what, if one left aside such trifling considerations such as who would ever pay me to do it, I would simply love to do. What have I enjoyed before? I waxed eloquent on a few attractive ideas which, as far as I know, are not remunerable.
And then Frau M dropped the bomb. She handed me a paper and said she would like, when my time with Stop&Go is over, to recommend a further program to me. This one goes for 12 weeks with the possibility of extending another 12 (which means my rent and health insurance would be paid the whole time I was attending it) and is in the field of ... management training.
I tried not to look too put off. I had never considered myself organizational management material, and can't imagine myself in such a role, particularly in Austrian business society. But frankly (and mercenarily) I could really use the unemployment money for the remaining months, however many they end up being, that we live in Austria. So I tried to look interested. Frau M acted very matter-of-fact about it and seemed to assume I'd naturally known that I was management material. I thought about this all the way home, and then some.
When I talked to A about what she had recommended, his first reaction was, "Well, DUH." Seeing my blank expression, he proceeded to explain to me that leadership skills and organizational skills were not the same thing, that I clearly have the gift of what he calls "Ruler" which has been inaccurately confused with the ability to organize, but is actually the unction to lead in a way that others want to, and generally do, follow.
And I began reflecting on what I have actually spent the last 30 years doing.
Hmmmm.
Damn... I think Frau M is probably right.
What do I do now?!
The past few days have been, considering what our usual social life involves (i.e. yawning emptiness!), very full indeed: an overnight guest on Wednesday night, Thursday my fitness time with the girls in the morning and a family birthday celebration here in the evening, Friday night dinner and, as it turns out, rather a lot of drinks at the house of friends. Three late nights in a row; maybe my blahs were due to social exhaustion. Maybe because I'd enjoyed myself and there is no more socializing coming up any time soon. But I am thinking more of it has to do with what happened Friday morning, as a result of which my brain has gone into overload.
I think most people I know here have not quite realized that my divorce plus the financial disaster at VG has meant that I no longer have a job, employment, a regular income, MONEY; and that I am not supported financially by my ex. Since September 1st I have, for the first time in my life, been drawing unemployment benefits. This will pay our rent for 6 months and will then be re-evaluated, always assuming I have not found a job by then, which I am not expecting to do. Part of the agreement to draw unemployment is cooperating with AMS, the organization which evaluates one's situation and is sort of a clearing house for placement.
The first interview I had with AMS back in July, knowing my work relationship with VG would be coming to an official close at the end of August, was not very encouraging. But the second one, with a different woman after I had filled out all the many forms required, was much more pleasant. I still didn't expect any cash but hoped they would see their way clear to at least paying my health insurance. Imagine my glad surprise when I found they will pay enough to cover the rent!
My employment record here is unfortunately not very reflective of reality. As a church-planting missionary mommy, for the first 15 years of my 30 years here I basically worked full-time without pay. That's just what parents do, whether of natural or of spiritual children. The second church P & I had planted (which became VG) began after their first couple of years supporting us to the degree they could afford, but that paycheck was in P's name, not mine. We lived from that (which was never enough for a family of 4) and from what my father gave us each year as a sort of down payment on my inheritance. But I did not appear in Austrian records as being employed. And I have no retirement fund.
Later VG decided it would be good to make me more official, so in order to save the church money they hired me as a freelance worker, which meant I was not actually employed by them but presented invoices for my services each month. Anyway, to make a long story short I was not actually employed until the last few years of my sojourn with them -- years when I did far less within VG than I ever had before and much more outside the church, as "Minister At Large".
Not surprisingly, it now turns out that being a 54-year-old woman with a spotty employment record I fall into the "hard-to-place" category. My second advisor at AMS recommended a program to me with which I am currently engaged. This is called, appallingly, "Stop&Go" and is specially designed for hard-to-place unemployed over-45s. (Sigh. I do wish Europeans without a masterly command of nuance within the English language would stop trying to be chic by randomly choosing English monikers which end up sounding inappropriate and/or ridiculous!)
Stop&Go tries in 6-8 weeks to help people, especially those who have been unemployed for a year or longer, to re-orient their careers and find out what else they might be suited for. I've had an initial orientation class and taken a battery of psychological tests. Much of it was fairly familiar ground to me, having taken such things many times over the years in various contexts. One part of the test, though, seemed to me to be geared toward middle-aged mildly alcoholic men who'd been unemployed a long time and had anger management issues. I'm a freshly unemployed (technically, though I haven't "worked" in the classic sense for some time) woman without the other issues so got a little impatient with that bit! I've also seen Frau M, the psychologist assigned to me, twice now. This second time was on Friday morning, after she got the results of the tests I took on Wednesday.
The first thing I noticed was that Frau M seemed more relaxed with me this time, more as if she were treating me almost like a peer (we are not too far apart in age, I think) than a "case". Our initial chat was warm, and she actually seemed interested. When we got down to the nitty-gritty of the test results, it turns out I tested out far more balanced than I thought I would. It seems clear that, though I have not yet fully recovered from the emotional blows of the past few years and that is reflected, on the whole I am fit, balanced and once I get back up to speed will be a desirable employee. We did a little brainstorming about what, if one left aside such trifling considerations such as who would ever pay me to do it, I would simply love to do. What have I enjoyed before? I waxed eloquent on a few attractive ideas which, as far as I know, are not remunerable.
And then Frau M dropped the bomb. She handed me a paper and said she would like, when my time with Stop&Go is over, to recommend a further program to me. This one goes for 12 weeks with the possibility of extending another 12 (which means my rent and health insurance would be paid the whole time I was attending it) and is in the field of ... management training.
I tried not to look too put off. I had never considered myself organizational management material, and can't imagine myself in such a role, particularly in Austrian business society. But frankly (and mercenarily) I could really use the unemployment money for the remaining months, however many they end up being, that we live in Austria. So I tried to look interested. Frau M acted very matter-of-fact about it and seemed to assume I'd naturally known that I was management material. I thought about this all the way home, and then some.
When I talked to A about what she had recommended, his first reaction was, "Well, DUH." Seeing my blank expression, he proceeded to explain to me that leadership skills and organizational skills were not the same thing, that I clearly have the gift of what he calls "Ruler" which has been inaccurately confused with the ability to organize, but is actually the unction to lead in a way that others want to, and generally do, follow.
And I began reflecting on what I have actually spent the last 30 years doing.
Hmmmm.
Damn... I think Frau M is probably right.
What do I do now?!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
What I Miss About Ministry
This is what I miss about hands-on ministry: knowing that, in this moment, for this person's life, I am consciously and actively working together with our loving Daddy to make a positive difference. That sense of fulfillment is not easily found anywhere else.
Not the "ministry buzz", not being onstage, not the seemingly inescapable respect shown anyone who is, but rather the quiet knowledge that Holy Spirit and I have a job to do and we love doing it together, right here, right now. The awareness that prayer is efficacious and that the one being ministered to is benefiting; even if I cannot see or feel that in the moment, I have learned that every prayer does something positive. Every prayer.
A and I have a friend who is battling cancer. She goes for chemotherapy every two weeks, and she comes to us for "alternative therapy" (prayer) in the same week. We spend as much time as we need to, just letting her relax and "soaking her" in blessing and healing prayer. Since losing my old life and all its ministerial trappings, I've rarely had the opportunity for this, and I am finding I'm loving every moment of it. Sensitivities that had been somewhat hammered into dormancy by the repeated heavy events of the past few years are stirring, coming to life again: sitting up, sniffing the air, looking about with bright and curious eyes. My spirit is coming back to life. That's what giving out does for me.
I did this sort of private ministry for many, many years in a hidden sense before I ever stood on a stage and taught others to do it. It doesn't matter to me now if I am ever visible again, or not; what matters is this awareness that I am useful for the Kingdom, that because I am partnering with Holy Spirit to get Dad's will done on earth as it is in Heaven, this earth can become, for the few lives I am able to touch in my short lifetime, a marginally improved place.
Isn't that what it's all about, really? Bringing God's Kingdom of peace, health, life, shalom-- all as it should be. Different types of people will do it in differing ways, according to how they are made, according to their particular passion: improving water facilities for poor villages, teaching illiterates to read and write, adopting children-- whatever. It is all Kingdom activity. It is all about bringing the nature and character of the realm where Dad lives and rules into our poor, dark substitutes and watching Light change our surroundings.
My way is not better than your way or vice versa. And when I stand --or rather, stood-- on stages encouraging others into this way of life, it's actually no different than when I casually pray for a neighbor with backache (and also, of course, help her carry her groceries). But I have to say that what feeds and satisfies my own spirit the most is laying my hands on another human being, for a short time having the honor of seeing them through Dad's loving eyes, and along with my friend and partner Holy Spirit speaking life into them spirit, soul and body.
And I don't need a church building or a special healing meeting or a conference to do that; I just need an outlet. Someone in need, who wants what I can offer; someone who can benefit from words of life, from loving touch, from caring.
Can't we all?
Not the "ministry buzz", not being onstage, not the seemingly inescapable respect shown anyone who is, but rather the quiet knowledge that Holy Spirit and I have a job to do and we love doing it together, right here, right now. The awareness that prayer is efficacious and that the one being ministered to is benefiting; even if I cannot see or feel that in the moment, I have learned that every prayer does something positive. Every prayer.
A and I have a friend who is battling cancer. She goes for chemotherapy every two weeks, and she comes to us for "alternative therapy" (prayer) in the same week. We spend as much time as we need to, just letting her relax and "soaking her" in blessing and healing prayer. Since losing my old life and all its ministerial trappings, I've rarely had the opportunity for this, and I am finding I'm loving every moment of it. Sensitivities that had been somewhat hammered into dormancy by the repeated heavy events of the past few years are stirring, coming to life again: sitting up, sniffing the air, looking about with bright and curious eyes. My spirit is coming back to life. That's what giving out does for me.
I did this sort of private ministry for many, many years in a hidden sense before I ever stood on a stage and taught others to do it. It doesn't matter to me now if I am ever visible again, or not; what matters is this awareness that I am useful for the Kingdom, that because I am partnering with Holy Spirit to get Dad's will done on earth as it is in Heaven, this earth can become, for the few lives I am able to touch in my short lifetime, a marginally improved place.
Isn't that what it's all about, really? Bringing God's Kingdom of peace, health, life, shalom-- all as it should be. Different types of people will do it in differing ways, according to how they are made, according to their particular passion: improving water facilities for poor villages, teaching illiterates to read and write, adopting children-- whatever. It is all Kingdom activity. It is all about bringing the nature and character of the realm where Dad lives and rules into our poor, dark substitutes and watching Light change our surroundings.
My way is not better than your way or vice versa. And when I stand --or rather, stood-- on stages encouraging others into this way of life, it's actually no different than when I casually pray for a neighbor with backache (and also, of course, help her carry her groceries). But I have to say that what feeds and satisfies my own spirit the most is laying my hands on another human being, for a short time having the honor of seeing them through Dad's loving eyes, and along with my friend and partner Holy Spirit speaking life into them spirit, soul and body.
And I don't need a church building or a special healing meeting or a conference to do that; I just need an outlet. Someone in need, who wants what I can offer; someone who can benefit from words of life, from loving touch, from caring.
Can't we all?
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