Don't "do ministry"

On December 31st Judy and I leave Canada for Kenya where I will teach English at a little elementary school. Judy is preparing to work with women, teaching literacy or other skills, doing hospice work, tutoring students from a nearby orphanage, and she would like to put together a little library of English books at the school we will be at. We are not going with a mission organization. There has been no advance planning. We will have no other North Americans to talk to or rely on. We know only that this little school and a nearby orphanage are needy. I am excited, but also a little afraid. However I believe these people are worth our taking the risk.

This, I believe is the call to every Christian - to stake out a territory to give oneself to, at home or abroad. We are to be missional. Our heart is to beat for making God evident to other people. And so I get discouraged when I am asked about our plans, and I tell Christian people about our upcoming adventure. Invariably I find that they have absolutely no concept of what it means to desire a life that finds its meaning in being Jesus to other people. I have thought about simply not even mentioning what we are doing, even if asked. I don't need their money. I don't count on them for prayer. Yet when asked, I continue to tell them about our future plans. I long for them to become engaged in some way. I would be so excited if they too cared. We could do so much together. Like Jesus when He encountered the centurion, I keep hoping to find someone who "gets it".

I listened to a youth pastor a few weeks ago tell how he had taken a group of teenagers to Kenya for 2-3 weeks to “do ministry”. His words reveal the problem. While the word “ministry” is biblical, used in various places to speak of performing a service or carrying out a work given by God, I think today we have no concept of what God desires of us. We live in a world of cheap grace and cheap service that is mostly self-centred and rarely engages our heart. It's time to reconsider our use of this word.

First, let me just say that I have concerns about the value of short term missions, except where they are very purposeful. I'll maybe say more about this at some other time. While a short term trip may occasionally be the start of a real response to God’s call on a life, it is a perversion I think, to call many of them “ministry”. From my personal experience, compassionate ministry which is not built on a thoughtful spiritual foundation can be more often than not, simply an exercise in pride, i.e. aren't we good to be here doing this work.

Mostly however, I think a careless use of the word "ministry" demeans those who we visit and suggests that we are above them somehow. It suggests that we give and they receive, when in fact, if the visit is successful at all, we are the ones that receive. The people we know in Kenya are happier, have greater faith, know more about prayer, sacrifice and service than we will probably ever know or have. They truly deserve to be called saints. (You can read about Matthew in a March posting to this blog.) Our service is often pathetic in comparison. We have little to offer except our affluence and it’s a shame to call the little we do “ministry”.

I recently reminded of real Christian compassion when I read again of Father Damien in John Orton’s book, God is Closer Than You Think. Father Damien lived and served the lepers on Molokai. He lived with them, ate with them, “bandaged their wounds, embraced the bodies no one else would touch, preached to hearts that would otherwise have been left alone”. He helped organize the community, built homes and coffins. He kept no distance between himself and others. He shared his life. “One day he stood up and began his sermon with two words: ‘We lepers…’ Now he was truly one of them." I don't think he ever thought of himself as "doing ministry".

Thomas Merton wrote the following:
Love in fact is the spiritual life, and without it all the other exercises of the spirit, however lofty, are emptied of content. The more lofty they are, the more dangerous the illusion.
Love, of course, means something much more than mere sentiment, much more than token favours and perfunctory almsdeeds. Love means an interior and spiritual identification with one’s brother so that he is not regarded as an “object” to “which” one does “good”…Love takes one’s neighbour as oneself, and loves him…From such love all…domineering and condescension must necessarily be absent.

I am not a Father Damien. I wish to God I were. Soon Judy and I will be in Kenya, but we will not be "doing ministry”. We hope to love those we meet. Maybe we'll be loved in return. We hope that we are able to serve others and that God will use us in some way, "to bring up there, down here" -thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Jesus told the Pharisees that he desired compassion, not service.They never did get it. I wonder if the contemporary church and its people ever will.

Real Religion

I have another candidate to add to my image list – people we should celebrate because they inspire us to be what God wants us to be. I just finished listening to Brian McConaghy, October 07, 2007 at www.tenth.ca/resources/audio I hope you will listen to this as well. It will touch you and challenge you. Better yet, I hope you will listen, then pray. What are you saying to me Lord? Are you calling my name? What are you asking me to do? If you are moved to become involved in Cambodia find further information at http://www.ratanak.org/index.htm

Images

About two weeks ago I read The Gospel According to Starbucks, by Len Sweet. In the book the author looked at Starbucks in order to illustrate those things that this society of ours is seeking. He used the acronym “EPIC”, to organize the discussion; E for experience, P for participation, I for image and C for community. His point was that these things are those very areas where the church often fails to deliver these days.

Most of what he said was true, although I was troubled by the idea that the church is in a place that she need look to business success as a pattern for what she does. However the chapter on image started me thinking.

Today’s culture is all about image. Unfortunately most are of the wrong kind. But image has always been powerful, is particularly so today, and we need images in church; those things and people that remind us that we were meant to live as part of the amazing story we claim to be committed to. More than ever we are limited by our lack of imagination, and images can help us recapture the wonder.

Images found in movies, art and music are often moving and exciting and the church should not be afraid to use these. But God at work in the lives of real people are the images inspire me. I’m not talking about biblical characters. They are important but they are the images of the past. Nor am I talking about the silly stories used so often to introduce or illustrate some sermon point. I’m talking about more contemporary heroes, like C. S. Lewis, Chesterton, Jackie Pullinger, my missionary friends with YWAM, Rich Mullins, Mother Theresa, Henri Nouwen and a number of Grahams. (You will have your own list I’m sure.) We should be talking a lot about these people and their faith and work. Their lives challenge us to step out of our comfort zone and leave a legacy of our own. And we should be constantly celebrating what they have done and are doing.

As you might guess from the photo I used in this post, recently I was reminded of Kim Phuc. What a story of God’s work in a hopeless situation. She of course, was the child in the photo running down a muddy Vietnamese road, naked, her clothes and skin burned away by napalm, her arms open wide as she screamed out her fear and pain and the loss of life as she had known it. Our God still speaks into people lives as they travel life’s roads. He makes beauty from ashes. Kim now inspires thousands and her faith reaches out in compassion to war ravaged children all over the globe. Go to http://www.kimfoundation.com/ and be reminded of what God can do with a life. Be inspired.

Images like Kim Phuc give me hope. They cause me to turn to God and say “More, more. Take my mean little heart and make me like her, who is now so much like you.” Don’t you agree? Who would be on your list?