What do you say when words are not enough?

I imagine all of us have been in situations where the answers we've been given to life's tough questions simply aren't sufficient. Sometimes the truths we know, the truths we cling to -- like the fact that God is completely good, and faithful, and loving, the fact that He provides for our every need -- seem ludicrous.

I spent some time yesterday sitting with a couple who are facing a really, really difficult scenario -- the type of scenario that could completely destroy their hopes and plans. When I received the woman's phone call and decided to drop what I was doing and go be with her and her husband, I realized that I would be walking into a situation for which I was ill-prepared -- at least, for which I didn't have answers. Being in ministry, I suspect that this won't be the last time that happens...

So what do you do when you don't have answers? You sit. You listen. You encourage people to talk, you encourage them to be honest with themselves and with God. If needed, you ask hard questions. If not, you just... sit and be present with them. And you pray -- silently and aloud, for them and with them. Sometimes, answers aren't what people need. Sometimes, people just need you to be with them and to have faith FOR them. That's a huge part of ministry, whether formal or informal: believing for one another when we can't manage to believe on our own. Upholding one another when we need it most. Faith is the act of a community, not just an individual.

Last night, the woman faced an overwhelming situation, one that seemed to have the potential to crush her utterly, with honesty about her own lack of faith -- the disparity between what she knows about God (God is good) and what the situation seems to say about God (God is cruel). But even in the midst of her despair, anger, and confusion, she responded in faith: she desperately sought to turn TO God rather than away from him. And that's why she called me -- because she knew she didn't have the strength to turn to God on her own.

We often think that faith has to be unshakeable in order to "count" as faith -- we think that faith means that we ALWAYS have to believe whole-heartedly that God is who He says He is, who we've been taught that He is. But sometimes, a response of faith is simply wanting and trying to turn to God rather than away from Him.

Her response was honest: "I cannot believe."
Her response was faith-filled: "I desperately long to believe!"

And I had the privilege of being the one called to believe for her.

In spite of all the years I’ve spent being a girl, I’m still not very good at it.

This is a great post from the Burnside Writers Collective.

I found this article very true of the way I view the world, and I think its true of my generation broadly. And responding to these women is what women's ministry in the church should look like today. But I agree with Sarah, how am I supposed to lead other women if my own compass hasn't yet found due north?

it breaks my heart

I am a chronic over-empathizer. For example, sometimes I feel sadness because of someone else's pain more intensely than for myself! In ministry, this can be exhausting! I'm not called to bear someone else's emotional burden -- that's not what it means to "carry each other's burdens."

Anyway, that being said, recent conversations with several young women about the pain they have experienced because they are women seeking to be in ministry have (a) made me incredibly sad, and (b) made me incredibly angry.

One woman sought to use her musical and teaching gifts in the church she had been attending. She was told, "Well, you can babysit the children on Sunday mornings." What a waste! Not that children don't need good teaching and good music too, but to assume that this woman is called to minister to children just because there is nowhere else she is "eligible" to serve runs contrary to God's purposes in equipping each of us with gifts for ministry.

Another woman had an extremely negative experience within the first couple of months of attending seminary. A professor spent an entire class period ranting about the issue of women in ministry, setting up straw-man arguments to show how Evil Feminism had attacked the "gospel truth" of complementarianism. (Note: I was not in this particular class, so this is second-hand information. However, I had this professor for a similar class and am familiar with the way he handles the issue). This professor may not have intended it, but he effectively undermined this young woman's confidence in her own calling before the Lord. Plus, he modeled a particular method of engaging with theological debates that is neither objective nor, in my opinion, Christ-like -- and he did this in a class filled with young men (and several women) who are preparing to be pastors!

The pain from these type of experiences runs deep, and talking with these young women absolutely breaks my heart. It astounds me that people such as the men in leadership at the first young woman's church and the professor in my second story just plain don't see that the implications of their attitudes undermine the ministry of the church.

I'm still working through how to articulate what I sense and what I see about how these type of attitudes can infect the church. It's a very subtle infection, because those in leadership view their attitudes as being Biblical Truth -- so anyone who disagrees is seen as attacking Scripture rather than challenging a particular interpretation. For now, all I can do is think, and lament, and encourage young women like the two I mentioned, and give thanks that God has placed me in a church that values my gifts and my calling to ministry, and do my best to serve God with confidence in Him, and pray for God to continue to establish His kingdom in His church.

it's time for another "good idea, bad idea"

In ministry, context can often make the difference between a good idea and a bad idea. For example:

Good idea: making sermons available as podcasts on the internet.
Bad idea: making sermons available as podcasts when no one in the congregation has internet access.

Good idea: opening up "Prayers of the People" so that people in the congregation can voice prayers aloud during the service.
Bad idea: opening up "Prayers of the People" during election season to a congregation that strongly disagrees about political issues (can you say "prayer wars"?).

Good idea: implementing healthy change in a congregation.
Bad idea: pushing for change in a congregation that really just needs some stability.

I'm sure all of us in ministry can come up with our own list of example along these lines. But here's what got me thinking about the affect of context on the validity of our ideas:

Good idea: giving female seminary students a forum in which to practice their preaching.

Let me pause here. I am all for encouraging women in their preaching, and as a recent seminary grad I know that it can be more difficult for female students to find opportunities to preach in the church. However, I do NOT believe that women can/should only preach to other women, as some of my colleagues believe.

So here's the question: does forming a women's preaching club (women preaching to women) on a seminary campus represent a good idea or a bad idea? Some contextual factors:

• The seminary campus in question had been moving forward in affirming women in ministry in recent years.
• The student body has recently shown signs of becoming more restrictive in its views on women in ministry.
• The seminary does not currently hold a formal position on women in ministry, which to me represents one of its strengths.
• Preaching labs at this institution are currently coed.
• Those at the seminary who are more egalitarian are very concerned about this proposed club.
• Those at the seminary who lean complementarian are very excited about the club.

In ministry, it's all about the context. In another context, most likely no one would be concerned about forming a "women's preaching club." But in the context I examined above, forming such a club makes a particular statement, regardless of whether or not the club's founders intended to make that statement.

So... women's preaching club in a place fighting to remain open to women in ministry: good idea or bad idea? The jury is out.

gender ministry in the church

It was an interesting weekend at my church. We had dual kickoff events, one for men's ministry, and one for women's ministry. I did not attend the men's event, but I did get to go to the women's dinner, my first ever women's church event. ever.

And it was fine. That's about all I can say about it. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was fine. It was dinner and a speaker, I mingled a bit as any good pastor would, and then we had chocolate. It seemed about what I had thought it would be. Apparently the men's event went well. I have to take that as hearsay.

But today was debrief day. Once every two weeks we get together as an "adult formation team" and plan for how we can foster environments for adult spiritual formation. Anyway, that's just side information. Today, we as a team began a debrief of these events. And basically everyone concluded that they were fine. And now we'll plan for the year.

And that's where my questions started to emerge. Mostly I've been wondering why we do this. Why do we have gender based ministries and what do we hope they contribute in terms of spiritual formation? And then I wonder, why the segregation. At my church we have a class for men called "Biblical Masculinity." My question actually isn't so much about the class as it is why that class is only for men. When did we come to the conclusion that gender based ministry is to teach people how to be men or women in isolation from our created other? No matter how you read Genesis 1-2 and what principles you pull from it, you can't get away from the fact that there were two distinct people created that were meant to be in relationship. So I'm wondering where that relationship went in our gender ministry in the church and how to bring it back. I want men and women to be more than just fine. I want them to be fully the people God created them to be, created us to be actually. And I want ministries in our churches to foster that. But how do we do it?

Any answers out there?

what not to wear, ministry edition

I've never been known as a fashion guru. I spent my first year in seminary stumbling into Greek exegesis at 7:25 a.m., usually wearing jeans or sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I didn't start wearing makeup on a regular basis until probably my third year in seminary (well, at least no one can argue that I went to seminary for my M-R-S degree!). As my friends will attest, as I've made efforts to "dress it up" a bit, I've often wished I could be on the show "What Not to Wear" - you know, the one where the slightly obnoxious but amusing co-hosts pick some poor, unsuspecting fashion disaster and transform him or her into fashion plate... with the help of thousands and thousands of dollars.

What in the world does a fashion-driven TV show have to do with ministry? I asked myself that very question this morning, when I read an article published by Gifted for Leadership dealing with what female ministers should and should not wear. The author writes that when she was in seminary, she was discussing a gifted female classmate with some of her male peers, and one of the men remarked,

"Sally is phenomenal, but when she preaches few men will be thinking about God. If you know what I mean."

The author responded, "So, you saying she’s too pretty to preach?"

WHOA! This is certainly not something we discussed in seminary. In fact, I don't know that I've ever thought about this extra hurdle women may have to overcome when they preach. The author of this article raises a good question: "in a consumer-driven, sexually-charged culture, how should a woman in leadership decide what to wear?"

I've never been someone who blames women for every impure thought that runs through a man's head; nevertheless, this is a question that those of us who are women in leadership should take seriously. I don't have all the answers, but a few preliminary thoughts:

• I don't think that dressing frumpishly is the answer. For some people, this will be as much of a barrier to hearing God's Word as it would be if we dressed like fashion plates!
• Modesty is key. That should be obvious. It's just not that hard to dress modestly and fashionably.
• We need more conversations between those of us who are in ministry and the men and women with whom we serve, as well as with members in the congregation, about this issue.
• Men need to be challenged to work on their own sexual purity, even as women need to be considerate with what we wear.
• Both women and men who are in leadership must take care that the clothes they wear not speak more loudly to the congregation than the Word of the Lord.

I suspect conversations like these will be ongoing as more women enter ministry and are engaged in public preaching. I encourage you to read "What Not to Wear" for yourselves and enter into the conversation with your own thoughts. May we never be dismissed as too pretty to preach or too frumpy to follow!

Image found here.

the shrewd manager

I'll be honest, Jesus parables are hard. I often find them confusing. And this morning was no different. I was actually asked by someone in my congregation about a particular parable and I was a little bit at a loss. That's a bad feeling as a pastor. But I couldn't blame him for asking about it. And while I sort of just wanted to not answer, I found that that wasn't really an option. The parable in question is one of the harder ones in my opinion. It is found in Luke 16:1-9 and is affectionately known as the parable of the shrewd manager.

And while I can't claim to be 100% certain about the full meaning of the parable (like most of Jesus parables) here is what I think Jesus was trying to make clear:

It seems to me that Jesus is contrasting this manager with the rich man found at the end of chapter 16. There the rich man walked by Lazarus every day and took no pity on him, hording his wealth. When they both die it is clear that while the man might have thought himself to be blessed by God because of his wealth, it was really Lazarus who experienced eternal blessing. Abraham tells the man he has received his reward on earth, for he wanted to be rich but had no room in his life for other people or the law of God as is made clear at the end where he is now nervous for his family. Abraham makes clear that those who do not recognize life as revealed through Moses and the prophets will not recognize it even if they see someone coming back from the dead. They have no concept of true life. Had this rich man been shrewd he would have recognized that his blessing on earth was not to be confused with eternal blessing and would have used it rightly to help the beggar he passed by every day and in doing so his heart might have opened to the kingdom life. Instead he got what he wanted, riches in this life, but he missed that that is of little import in eternity.

In a similar way, the shrewd manager opted for life after his job not by taking more from his manager but by giving much away. It is an example, like many of Jesus parables, of the upside down nature of the kingdom where we give in order to receive and lose so we might save. He is not commended for his dishonesty but for his wisdom into the nature of life. If life is found for him in giving and forgiving, how much more is eternal life found in this way. If only "people of the light" had such wisdom to understand the nature of blessing in life and in the kingdom of God.

The Pharisees "who loved money," (vs. 14) were not brought into the family of God by it. The parable teaches that money and other earthly possessions are to be used as needed for life here, but this life will come to an end. It's sort of like Jesus teaching on the rich having a harder time entering the kingdom. If your heart is set that earthly blessing is of great value and equates with eternal blessing you will find that you are mistaken.

Sometimes the pastoral life is a tricky one. I feel like I am still learning what Jesus' teachings mean in my own life, and then people ask me how to help them understand it. Yet we are all called to share what we have. I think this is money as well as time and knowledge. And we are to give it to others not to be found as a wealth of information, but in order that we might have space in our lives for the message of the kingdom to sink down deep. No matter what we give away, it is in giving that we receive. I was blessed to attend seminary and take a few steps down the road of understanding Jesus deep and sometimes confusing teachings. But this blessing was given to me that I might share it with others. That too is the pastoral life, passing on the wisdom that God has given, not just so that others can understand Jesus teachings, not just to dump knowledge from one person to another, but so that we might have open hearts that are ready to accept all that Jesus has for us. It is not primarily through study and reading that I receive from God but in giving what he has given to me to others.