Ministry, Messy, Media! Just Sayin'

Last Friday night Rick and Kay Warren lost their youngest child, their son Matthew. He killed himself because the pain of living became too overwhelming.

Just this morning I read a quote from Kay Warren when she spoke in Greensboro, NC at the Anglican Mission in the Americas Winter Conference February 15, 2011: 

"In the last two and a half years, our fourth grandchild nearly died at birth during an emergency C section. Seven weeks later, our daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to undergo 26 hours of brain surgery with a long recovery. Our daughter had severe auto immune disease, my mother slid mentally into dementia which made me the primary caretaker. On top of all this, our youngest child struggles with bipolar disease and has found it difficult to keep going. We have hung on by a thread of a finger nail," she told a stunned audience. Warren said there have been struggles in her marriage to Rick, and stress in her walk with God. Through it all she says her walk with God has become stronger, deeper, richer and more intimate. "I have great family and friends. I am embarrassed to be in need. There is no big girl pill nor can I simply chill out." She added, "When I realize because of God's extravagant lavish love for me, and that I am his beloved, I can survive the painful circumstances that come into our lives. "We need to tell people that they are the beloved of God. In doing so we remove the shame, it removes the guilt over sins I can't conquer. We are called to be messy with people and be with people in tremendous need. When you know you are His beloved and not God's bother you risk it all for Him. People may persecute you and hate you but you know also how much God loves you."
                                                                               --By David W. Virtue www.virtueonline.org

Her words: We are called to be messy with people and be with people in tremendous need. When you know you are His beloved and not God's bother you risk it all for Him. challenge me!

The emergence of social media is an interesting dynamic where it is possible to see people sharing all kinds of things both trivial and personal. I wonder if these (for want of a better term, social media groupies - which, in some ways, includes me as I also enjoy Twitter, FB and Pinterest) realize their posts will forevermore be somewhere for all the world to see and know or be buried in some archive only to slither forth to bite them another day. Maybe my social media friends are just braver than I. I prefer to think that I am just more wisely cautious than they but who can say?

For some time now, I have been contemplating how to fit this observation (about social media) and my musings into a paradigm. I have to honestly admit that a major "hold-me-back" is having been there and done that when things come back to bite me. I seriously don't want to bring that kind of pain on myself! I have been and am a pastor's wife - more than 40 years. I have seen joking and innocent words and actions twisted in unbelievable ways. I have seen bold, risky messy ministry turned into attack opportunities.

It is impossible to catch feathers in the wind which is what spiteful, lying words become. I have lived that awful, ugly pain of being stabbed in the back when I was guilty of little more than being willing to participate in God's call to costly "messy ministry."

I have a friend who is also a pastor's wife. She has struggled with serious depression issues. She has two special needs daughters. I read her blogs and I marvel at her transparency. I benefit from her honesty and am blessed. She has been a major challenge to my heart in my contemplations!

Now I read Kay Warren's comments and I wonder if Kay hasn't cut to the heart of where I need to "camp out" and plant my feet asking God to embolden my fears -

We need to tell people that they are the beloved of God. In doing so we remove the shame, it removes the guilt over sins I can't conquer. We are called to be messy with people and be with people in tremendous need. When you know you are His beloved and not God's bother you risk it all for Him. People may persecute you and hate you but you know also how much God loves you." 

Just sayin' ... and still thinkin'

Messy!

Ministry isn't ministry unless it's messy! Words from a great friend in ministry and the longer I am involved in ministry the more true his words ring!

Why is that? Well, I guess because I'm broken living in a broken world - albeit living with the certain hope of restoration when Jesus returns to set wrong to right!

My kitchen floor needs to be mopped sometime today. It's on my list! The reason it needs to be mopped is because I track in dirt, I spill stuff and so does the other person who lives with me.

My car needs to be detailed - something that hasn't happened in its entire second-hand life - because I use it and stuff happens inside and out!

And relationships - now there's an area to explore! There is conflict and hurt and pain, words spoken intentionally or with oblivion that hurt just the same and more!

There is time misspent so there is not time for anything but the tyranny of the urgent!

And there are all kinds of other examples from my world - and, my guess is, from your world as well! There is eating too much or too little, sleeping too much or too little, spending too much time or too little time with or for someone or something and the list goes on!

In a word - MESSY!

The good news is that the Bible is filled with stories of men and women just like me - people whose story reveals wrong choices and messy relationships. The Bible does not record the stories of people who always do right and make good choices. In fact, the reason men and women like Adam and Eve, King David, Ruth and Esther, Mary Magdeline, Peter and many more speak to my heart is that they look a little or a lot like me! They look so familiar because they are. They look a lot like me - the good, the bad and the ugly!

The BIG difference between MY story and the Bible is that the Bible isn't just a historical record tho' it is that - the Bible is actually God's story. The Bible is the story of how God the Creator and Savior of the World stepped into our time and space (moved into our neighborhood) and even put on our skin. God's story is about love and forgiveness and intentional mercy and grace! And God's story endures despite all my messiness because God's story doesn't depend on me in any way to survive and expand. God's story endures not because I am worthy or faithful but rather because He is! AND He always will be as long as time endures and forever! AND thankfully there is NOTHING I can do to mess that up! Wow!

Peter Got It Right Before He Got It Wrong!

It doesn't make me happy but it's certainly character-building to find pieces of myself in Jesus' man, Simon Peter. Jesus chatted with His main men one day and casually asked, What's the word on the street about Me? What are people saying?
Answer: O, some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say another of the great prophets...
Jesus: OK, but who do you say I am?
Peter: You are the Messiah, Son of the Living God!
Jesus: You got that right, Peter!
A short time later Jesus took three of His men - Peter, James and John - on a hike up a high, rocky mountain. Jesus went up there to pray. Peter, James and John took a nap. When they woke up, they got the surprise of their lives there on top of rocky top mountain!
Flashback: Remember how the Hebrew slaves were finally freed by Pharaoh and high-tailed it out of Egypt. Only ole' King Pharaoh changed his mind and tore out after them with his entire army. There the band of some several million slaves were with the sea blocking their forward progress and Pharaoh in hot pursuit. Then God showed up and blew a dry path thru the sea so they could walk to the other side. They kept walking in the desert - led by Moses - until they reached the Mountain of God. God told Moses to come up the mountain for a little chat. God came down in a huge cloud that covered the mountain top. God and Moses talked for 40 days. Moses got close enough to God's presence that when he came down he had to wear a bee-keepers hat or something so his shine didn't blind anyone.

Last night there was a perigee moon - the biggest, brightest in a year - tho' it was not so much in cloudy Pittsburgh! The moon might have looked mighty fine last night but the truth is that the moon has absolutely NO light in or of itself. It's lunar rock (or green cheese) have no shine at all! The moon simply reflects the light of the sun. The moon is like Moses when he came down from his talk with God. Moses shone with the reflected light of God's glory!


Now centuries later there's another mountain, a cloud, the voice of God speaking and Moses!
This is far more wonderful than Moses' shine long before! This isn't about reflected glory! This is Jesus and He produces the glory of God; it comes directly from Him! The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being. (Heb. 1:3)
One of my sons loves to sit on the front row at movies. It's a little too close for comfort for me but he relishes that front row seat! Peter, James and John have a front row seat on God's glory!
When Peter woke up and saw Moses and Elijah with Jesus and all of them shining and Jesus shining the most - Peter is scared! Being Peter he just blurts out the first thing that pops into his head. This is the part where he gets it wrong - he suggests building three churches on the mountain top: one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah.
Peter lost his focus - something he and I have in common, I'm sorry but honest to say.
Then Peter realized that Moses and Elijah are gone and only Jesus is there. Peter is starting to make a course adjustment. He is starting to get that Jesus IS the Messiah!
Many years later Peter wrote: We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory sayiing, "This is My Son, whom I love - Listen to Him!" (2 Peter 1:16-19)
When my dad was captain of a US Navy ship during WWII in the Pacific he left a young ensign manning the bridge and went to the mess to eat. One of the other officers looked out the port hole and asked, Capt'n, you preparing to beach? Daddy looked out and as he ran for the ship's ladder yelled to the helmsman, Left full rudder! When he got to the bridge, the ensign was sitting with his feet propped up. Daddy asked, Are you preparing to run this ship onto the beach? The ensign calmly looked at his watch, Capt'n, it's 20 minutes before we're due for a course correction. Daddy said, Do you think this thing has wheels? In 20 minutes we'll be 3 miles inland! Apparently the ship turned just as it reached where the breakers were forming to roll onto the beach. Any later for a change of course would have been too late!
Peter needed a course correction and so do we. Where is our focus? Where is our life focus? Are we sitting with our feet propped up counting the minutes? OR are we keeping Jesus in view, filling our view - so we follow Him?
Check it out! Jesus spend most of His time caring about and for people with big needs! There was no need too great for His care! If we follow Him, are we willing to get down and dirty in messy minitry? It's messy to get involved in caring for people needs, for families and individuals with all kinds of special needs! Where is our focus? Are we going to know what's right and then get it wrong? Do we need a course correction?