I come into prayer
with something pressing on my spirit- I need to reframe my expectations of
leadership and ministry. I need to meet with Him about the way I idolize perfection
and buy into the scarcity mindset of grace. It’s time to meet with Jesus and
confess I need His help- it’s time open some windows and come out of hiding.
I am writing this
on a Tuesday. I have called a meeting to order. The invitees are as follows: my
emotions, my thoughts, my behaviors, my King, His Spirit, and my God. We meet around a table in the sanctification gap of my soul, that place between who I was and who I am becoming.
Why
are we here today?
To discuss what is really bothering
me on a core level.
What
is on the table? Forgiveness? Offense? Wounds?
The frame around that story is worn
thin. No, today we are here to discuss freedom.
Freedom
from what?
Freedom to live honestly in the
sanctification gap. Freedom to receive blessing in my imperfection. To
learn how to do ministry in a frame of grace.
I want the freedom
to make mistakes in ministry and still be blessed by God in all He has called
me to do in service of Him. I want to receive His blessing on my ministry even
as I fail repeatedly in the process of learning how to manage His provision
well. Working with people means a lot of unknowns, a lot of variables, and a
lot of potential failure. Should I stop trying to learn how to serve others
because I will make mistakes and could hurt someone? No- I should keep pressing
forward. Should those who mishandled my
story be called to another vocation because of the mistakes they made with me? No-
they should keep pressing forward. Why, then, does a piece of my heart withhold
grace? By refusing to give it, I am unable to receive it, and therein lies my
problem today. I cannot move forward into church ministry without first looking
back and reframing my story.
Look with me now,
through this window. The underlying message of the past few weeks has been
windows- what a strange theme. On vacation I found myself snapping pictures of
windows without knowing why. This week in a training at the Freedom Academy I
was given a black and white four-paned window that was printed on a handout. We
were instructed to do some self-reflection that involved writing aspects of our
negative self-perceptions and painful experiences into the four empty boxes of
the window. I filled them in easily- generally I have quick access to some of
the deep beliefs and deep desires in my soul, so this type of exercise poses no
problem for me. One pane of that window asked:
“What
is something negative that someone said to you and it stuck with you?”
I quickly wrote my
answer, one which came easily and with vigor, hurtful words which had been
spoken to me in a church ministry setting where I walked away with soul-wounds
that would propel me straight into therapy. My answer to that question on the
fourth square of my window diagram was based on words said to me in a church
setting, by a church leader who was just trying to do ministry in the name of Jesus.
Did that person mean well? Certainly! Did those words hurt me? More than I want to admit. But at this point in my life, if I don’t
reframe this part of my story, I cannot give or receive grace for what is yet to come.
Here is why: I am taking small
steps to enter into church ministry for myself now. I am in seminary, I am
taking a life-coaching class through the Freedom Academy, I am the ambassador
for the pastoral care team at Saddleback Yorba Linda. All of this means I am
working out my sanctification each and every day, I am working with people and
I am practicing self-awareness and learning new tools for leadership and
ministry. I don’t think of myself as a leader, but it slowly dawns on me that
this is what I am trying to become, despite myself. Which brings this
revelation on a Tuesday morning: I now need to receive the grace that I still
need to give. I need to reframe my past and so that I can shed some light on my
place in the sanctification gap.
So in my journal
today I call this Tuesday meeting to my first order of business: we are gathered
here because a part of me is tempted to give up quietly and without a witness.
That part of myself which believes that I must be perfect has determined that
the task ahead of me is impossible. My core belief today is that I cannot ask
for grace to learn through making mistakes- I must get everything right
immediately, without being told twice and without hurting anyone. This is a
problem because when I try to counsel people in real life at church or inside
the classroom I have a massive fear of failure. I am ashamed of my learning
curve when I am working with people. This is a core part of my belief system
which needs transforming work in the Spirit, who is with me always. I have a
scarcity mindset of grace.
Secondly, I have a
critical voice inside that will not allow me to fail others in the ways that
those in my past have failed me. I am deathly afraid to become a hypocrite, to
see any commonality in myself with those who hurt me. I have declared to
myself and to God that I will be different than them- it’s
a desperate polarization seeded in the fear of becoming the very thing which I
hold out as other, different and wrong. “I won’t be like them” is a
judgement statement that keeps my deeper insecurities at bay. In the depths of
my heart I pray with pride the thanks that I
am not like them- I will do ministry so differently, so much better. So I
am deeply concerned about doing ministry perfectly in order to remain above the
shortcomings of others. I have drawn lines and boundaries about what is
acceptable and what is not, and so I am quickly becoming hyper-vigilant to
avoid repeating the wrongs that were done against me.
The frame of “I am different, I was right, they were wrong”
keeps this window darkly shut and lets no light in to shine upon the ways I need
the same grace as those I criticize. This standard of perfection is crushing
me- it makes me fearful to take another step in learning to serve the church
because I am afraid I might look down to see that really I am walking in the
shoes of those I ran from. How can we reframe the past to shine light on new
ways of thinking?
Those around the
table with me lean into my journal and each has something to say. As we go
around the room I hear the input from many sides- my emotions, my thoughts, and
my behaviors weigh in first. Then I turn to the Trinity for an alternative-
what are my other options here?
The Spirit holds up a frame of
grace-
“In Christ there is permission to be blessed in imperfection.”
In the light of
the window I look down at 1 Kings 15:14 and read-
14 Although the pagan
shrines were not removed, Asa’s heart
remained completely faithful to the Lord throughout
his life.
This leader didn’t
finish the job- he left pagan shrines among God’s chosen people. But the Word
says that his heart remained steadfast to the Lord. Wait a minute, so you can
have an imperfect ministry and yet your heart can be right before God? You can
have definite shortcomings in your execution of service and leadership and yet
be blessed by your faithfulness to Jesus? Yes, they do and yes, they are. Look around
you! Can I frame this fact of life with grace?
The Spirit holds the frame higher,
letting in more light- “I bless ministry and church leaders for the state
of their heart, not for what they produce.”
I read more support
for this in 1 Kings 15:4-
4 But for
David’s sake, the Lord his
God allowed his descendants to continue
ruling, shining like a lamp, and he gave Abijam a son to rule after him in
Jerusalem.
I sit back and
look out this new window pane as I consider what it could mean. My inner voices
have a lot to say. This verse comes after a long line of mistakes where leader
after leader fails to be faithful to the God of Israel. But for the sake of the
greater narrative, for Jesus sake, God continued to keep this leadership in
power because it still brought glory to His name, despite the obvious
shortcomings of those He permitted to rule. What frame does this put around my
story and the relationships in my past?
The Spirit weighs in on my
thoughts- God appoints ministry leaders for reasons bigger than themselves. In
this way I have also appointed you.
And in a profound
way, I reconcile my past to my future by walking in the shoes of those who
needed my grace then as much as I myself will now need it. Case in point- On
Sundays I have started to stand in the prayer area after service to offer words
of hope and encouragement to those in the community who need it. Anyone is
welcome to come to me for words of hope, help, or comfort. I take this
seriously. I want to honor the feelings and stories of those who come to share
a piece of their journey with me.
I have had very
little experience so far- several practice sessions at the Freedom Academy and
opportunities to articulate my limited listening and counseling skills in the
cohort portion of my seminary class. But on Sunday when I stand next to the
“prayer” sign after church with my lanyard and my team t-shirt on, this is the
real thing. The stories are real life, the tears are unrehearsed and I am the
one to whom these people are bringing their prayers. I find myself in the
messy work of partnering with people in their painful stories, and so I am perfectly
poised to make the same mistakes that were once made with me. How to handle the
fragile needs of a human community of Jesus people? Such a hard question, one
that needs a frame of grace.
I have noticed
myself walking away from these Sunday mornings with negative self-talk. There
is a fear inside that perhaps I might actually make the same mistakes as those
from whom “I am different”. What if I say something that could be misunderstood,
perhaps even hurtful? What if someday someone looks at me the same way I looked
at those in the past who mishandled my story? So I judge myself harshly for not
saying everything right. I condemn myself for my imperfect performance. I have
no grace for myself. When it comes to learning to do counseling, coaching and public prayer for the church community, I find I get discouraged easily. These are people
with real hurts, and who am I to speak words of leadership over them? I treat
myself exactly as I treat those who let me down in the past- no grace, a frame
of self-righteous judgement, critical and demonstrative. There is no room to learn, I must already know- know how to be different from those
who failed before me!
And here is the deep
lie I hold for myself (and others) as a result- your imperfection cannot be blessed or provided for, it must first be
corrected and made right. But this
is not Biblical. And here I confer with my companions around the table as
the sun shines in through the window on this early Tuesday morning: I
expected my church leaders to handle my story without making any mistakes. I
could not put a frame of grace around the way those leaders fumbled with my
needs. Yet here I am fumbling to do the very same role, uncertain and rather
unqualified.
Why am I unable to frame my
mistakes with grace? Because I have not extended that same grace to frame those
who came before me. To allow myself to learn the hard way about how to
serve people in ministry means reframing the past. Grace is an equal-opportunist,
and it is a frame that compliments every window, including those we would rather
keep shut because they reveal deep beliefs which need Divine alternatives.
What is this deep belief that I cannot be like the people who hurt me in ministry? This
determination to be different than them? Perhaps this is a form of pride and a
roadblock to the work the Spirit wants to do within me now. What if I frame their
mishandling of me with grace so that I can give myself grace, too? And so my
companions and I agree as we confer around the table- it is time to reframe
what happened in my story so that I can see my past through a window filled
with light. Only then can I put off the burden of perfection that I carry with
me into every act of service in my own attempt at church ministry. I cannot
move forward until I first acknowledge that this reframing needs to take place
when I look behind me at what came before this moment. Yes, framing the deeds
of others with a lens of grace will set me free to receive it for myself.
When you begin to
live life in the sanctification gap, that place between who we were and who we
are becoming, the windows to our past tend to get reframed without our
realizing. So the next time we look back, the story looks a bit different- not because
we are forgetting, but because we are seeing in a different light. No longer through a glass darkly, but clear
as the Son. What if I allowed God to bless me in my mistakes? What if I rejoiced
that He blesses those who have made mistakes with me? Church ministry is much
bigger than the people who feebly try to execute it. When the state of our
heart becomes more important than the limitations of our hands, then we have
reframed the “I am different” mindset in such a way that looking at the stories
of others becomes more like looking into a mirror at oneself. Our job now is to
raise a banner of love over that frame and allow the Light to shine upon us
all, for God blesses His children in the midst of their mistakes, not in spite
of them. Reframe the past with grace and He will reframe the present with love.
Why
are we meeting here on this Tuesday morning?
To discuss what is really bothering
me on a core level.
To
revisit the story of your past?
The frame around that story is worn
thin. No, today we are here to discuss freedom.
Freedom
from what?
Freedom to live honestly in the
sanctification gap. Freedom to receive blessing in my imperfection. To
learn how to do ministry within a frame of grace.
Welcome, child. You are safe here. You are welcomed. You are loved.
Amen and amen.
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Rebecca
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