The Most Challenging Mission Field

 When I think of places that desperately need the word of Jesus I don’t think of the United States of America. And I never think of other prosperous countries. I think of those countries where people are living in poverty and have little to eat. I think of war zones with mass casualties. I think of countries with dictator leaders and violence everywhere. 

As Americans, we send bits of our wealth to help those living in poverty, thinking we will spread the gospel (of American prosperity) to those have-nots. Churches send out mission teams to foreign countries to help spread the gospel. What happens to those mission teams is that they come back changed. Not because of their great holiness or sacrificial spirit but because they see authentic faith in action unlike any they have ever witnessed at home. Many of those who go on their first mission trip crave another chance to return. And the reason is that they meet with church groups and experience something that isn’t readily found in our country. They see authentic faith in God. They see hope in the faces of those with nothing. 

Violence and poverty strips people of all their dependence on the idols of security and wealth. Mission teams come back with stories of the joy on the faces of those who don’t know when they will eat their next meal because their joy is found in their faith in God. This faith makes no promise to bring them wealth or security. Their faith is in looking to God for every. single. thing. 

This faith is alien and outlandish to us as Americans. All our lives we have seen faith as a thing you do on Easter and Christmas. It is something you print on a t-shirt. It is for those who are Jesus freaks. Many of us who attend church regularly, think faith is something we have to work to deserve and can be earned. We seldom feel it eeking out of our pores so abundantly that we find it difficult to suppress the joy. 

All this is not said to shame Americans for our prosperity because all good gifts do come from God. This is said to give us a global view of Christianity. God is not suppressed by poverty, boundaries or prison cells. In fact it seems the Holy Spirit is fired into flames in these conditions. It is most difficult to spread the gospel of hope where hope is found in possessing the next shiny thing or going on the next elaborate vacation. We Americans live in the most challenging mission field. 

Splagchnizomai: From the Gut Compassion

 Three years fly by in a heartbeat. If you have children, you know. Years that seemed so long and boring as a child, are gone in a flash in adult time. This is why it is so interesting to me to study the way Jesus used his three short years of ministry. He had a monumental job to accomplish in such a short time-frame! Yet many, if not most of the accounts in the Bible are of personal one-on-one interactions. Jesus never hurried and surprisingly, Jesus didn’t choose the most popular and powerful people to build his ministry.

Jesus spent his limited time with lost, lonely people who society rejected. He interacted with each of those people as if they were the most important person on earth. He had a massive job to spread the Gospel to an entire world for all eternity, had three years to do it, and yet he chose to spend his time one-on-one with lepers, widows, women with questionable pasts, liars, cheats and all around insignificant ordinary folks. Why did Jesus use this approach?

This leads me to the Greek title of this blog, Splagchnizomai. I know. This sounds like a word Mary Poppins invented. But according to my source, Lisa Harper, it means “from the gut compassion”. As I understand it, it was used in Mark 1:40-41 to explain why Jesus stopped to heal the leper. Jesus was driven with compassion for the leper who was a forgotten outcast of society. In Jesus’ personal encounters in the Bible, he gave his full attention to each individual as if they were the only person around. He didn’t stop to look at the clock counting down the moments he had left on earth then rush on to the next big preaching event. He took his time with people. And this is one of the many upside-down, counterintuitive ways that Jesus worked.

So what if we applied this same approach to our short life’s story? What if we valued our one-on-one time with people and spent less time trying to scratch and claw our way to a place with more influence? What if we quit worrying about how big, how powerful, or how orderly our life is and start each day with caring for each individual in which we come into contact, whether we deem them worthy or not? What if we made time for others and valued every encounter as holy and ordained by God?

My biggest block to this approach is that I don’t have it in me to love like Jesus with that kind of compassion. Nope, I just don’t have that. Anything I did would be contrived. So first, I must realize deep within my soul that Jesus loves me even though I’m not the prettiest, smartest or most popular person in the room. He doesn’t measure with the same stick that we humans use. He measures with splagchnizomai. He measures with his compassion and not my worthiness. It is so hard to imagine that Jesus would stop what he is doing to tend to me, yet he has never in my life of 64 years ever let me go. He has held me through my darkest night. It is his love and not mine that does the trick. Nothing depends on me.

So all I need to do is to keep my eyes on Him and let go of my earthly ideas of ministry. God did not create me to be another Billy Graham. I will not cure cancer. I will not solve the homeless crisis. He created me and placed me with those he chose for me to love. I must trust his plan. My role is to let Him love through my attention and presence, one person at a time.

Feeling the Agony of Defeat?

 

My husband and I have a passion for protecting Texas public schools. We did not plan this, it came about organically due to working in public education for 37 years in various positions from teacher to superintendent, all over the state of Texas. Together, we have a perspective into public education that very few Texans are privileged to see. We have seen the amazing work that public school employees do daily, against all odds and we know it is God’s work. We have repeatedly seen educators take on the role of not only educator, but protector and mentor for the children in this state and we are passionate about public education for that reason.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40, 45, NIV)

We have also seen first-hand, the well-planned relentless attacks and lies about public schools and their educators by those in state office who want to use public school funding for their own purposes. Many Texans are buying into their deception and we are heartbroken. In our own county, we have seen a qualified experienced public school supporter defeated at the polls by an unqualified candidate who supports the defunding of public education. We are discouraged to say the least. But the following story helps me take heart in the face of this defeat.

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In Acts 20, the situation was that the Apostle Paul had been spreading the good news about a risen Christ to people all over, establishing thriving churches full of followers of Christ. However, Paul is told repeatedly that he would go to jail and suffer for this work. And he knew this to be true.

 "And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem. I don't know what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead. But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus-the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God. (Acts 20:22-24 NLT)

We know that Paul continued in his work and was imprisoned and he did suffer. He must have had moments where he succumbed to thoughts of defeat. In his lifetime he only saw a tiny portion of the success of his mission. But we also know, looking back two thousand years later, that Paul’s efforts were not in vain. God used his work in spreading the gospel to the world and today we read his words in the millions of Bibles that are currently published.

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You see, the lesson is that yes, we may not see success of our mission in this lifetime. But God is in charge and he will make beauty come from the ashes. And our part we play is to listen to his voice and follow the God-given passion in our hearts. So know that if God has ordained it, you must continue even in the face of eminent defeat. We have seen that God takes small efforts and assignments and exponentially multiplies the outcome.

Higher Ground

It was early Saturday morning and the streets were dark and deserted, lined with trash from Friday night partying.  We emerged from our hotel in downtown Austin.  While waiting for the sleepy valet to bring our vehicle, I looked around.  There was a guy on a bench in front of my hotel, sleeping.  He was wearing dingy clothing, had kicked off one ill-fitting shoe and was hunched over.  As I looked at him it hit me that he was someone's son.  He could have been my son. That is when I felt it.  Tears welled up in my eyes.  This was someone who was alone, who felt unloved and unworthy and in reality could have been chemically dependent.

I have seen homeless people before and have been with my church when we were hosting a meal for them. I have no personal experience in their shoes.  I have no idea of their life.  But this one touched my heart.  I said a prayer for him as I got in the pickup.  Tears were still falling and I didn't know why.  You see, I am not usually a bleeding heart. On a scale of 'bleeding heart to cold heart', cold heart would come closer to describing me.  I believe in the saying, "Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish, he will eat for a lifetime".  I believe giving people money only makes them dependent when the goal is to make them independent.  So how do we fix this huge problem of homelessness?

When a problem is massive and shows no sign of slowing, it takes large groups of people to fix it.  Not one-on-one, but groups of people to pull up one person.  I can remember in Hurricane Harvey how people across our state and the entire United States came to help those who were flooded out.  The effort was massive.  It brought people together across the U.S.A. to solve this problem.  It even cut into political network news time!  But homelessness is so much more complex.  It is not as simple as putting people on higher ground.

So if we were to get groups of people together to overcome homelessness, how do we get them to higher ground?  Their higher ground would be a place out of the chains of dependence.  And when it comes to breaking chains, I know of no other way but through Jesus Christ.  Only the power of God can break chains.  So when homelessness is exponentially rising, how do we address it?  Do we ignore it?  Do we continue to give clothing, food and money to them to soothe our conscience?  Do we preach at them?  How do we even begin to make a dent in this issue?

Here are a few ideas that I have.

1. When organizations like World Vision and Compassion International address poverty in foreign countries, they address individuals.  We adopt them.  One. At. A. Time.  Maybe we need to address homelessness not in mass but one individual at a time.  

2. It takes a large organized group to pull just one person out of poverty.  I think it will take large efficient organizations to do this for our homeless.  These organizations will need prayer teams, money donations, professionals to teach them survival skills to climb to higher ground and field workers to bring them in.  It will take people to follow up and make sure the formerly homeless are maintaining a home independently.  They will need office personal to organize and overseers to keep it non-profit.  One amazing organization I know is Zoe Ministry.  They empower children in areas with abject poverty to move beyond charity by teaching them survival skills. Then they use those children to teach survival skills to others to perpetuate this ministry.  It is kind of an exponential chain reaction.  This same management plan could be applied to our homeless.

3.  Whenever I feel called to address an issue, it is best not to invent the wheel but to join someone who is already doing this and needs my help.

4. It will need to be faith based.  The only power to break the chains of homelessness is through the power of Christ.

This to me sounds like the work of a church, a large church, a mega-church, a bunch of mega-churches.  If only...