Being A Ligament In The Global Body

Guest post, used with permission)

If I had known that it would be this way, I never would have come. I’ll bet almost every global worker says that at some point. The particulars might be different, but we all come with expectations that are then slowly and painfully stripped away, rather like being flayed alive.

A real global worker engages the culture. A real global worker has meaningful interaction with local people. The really good global workers have children who speak the language and play with local children. You wear the clothes, eat the food, talk the talk, and share the good news. Nights in despair and defeat—maybe. Those who sow in tears will reap with laughter. But you do it.

I looked in scorn at the families who didn’t invite local friends over. What a waste. What’s the point in being here if we don’t engage? What’s the point?

So here I am. There is no point in being here. By “my” standards, I am a complete and utter failure. My family is a complete and utter failure. I grieve. I cry. I become numb. 

• My husband is allergic to the food and introverted. 
• My daughter is traumatized by the thought of speaking even one word to a local person her age. 
• My son could have learned the language if the teacher hadn’t terrorized him for being a wiggly boy. 
• Another daughter is dyslexic and we’re doing speech therapy—let’s get English down before we try to pick up a second language again. 

My youngest daughter and I are the only true extroverts in the house. The rest come crawling home, craving a quiet haven of rest from the outside world.

My husband is gifted in practical matters. He fixes broken things. He fixes machines of all types and sizes. He also does meetings with the local government, hoping that our project here will one day truly take off. He thinks outside the box and perseveres. Will it ever come to anything? There is no guarantee. 

But that’s not what bothers me. 

I am good at teaching music and drama and High School English to TCK’s. It is rewarding and life giving and fun. I pour myself into my children. I build up and am built up by other expat women. Moving overseas, I experienced for the first time what it is actually like to identify with and enjoy being around my own peer group. 
My whole life I’ve been out of place. It’s nice to have friends here.

I am not a mouth. That doesn’t mean I’m not part of the Body. I am not a hand. That doesn’t mean I’m not a part of the Body. Some time ago, the thought came to me that perhaps I am a ligament. 

Could I be happy if I were just a ligament—hidden away, supporting and connecting the body? It’s not glamorous, but I wasn’t seeking glory by coming out here. I think maybe the hardest part about being such an obscure organ is not being able to see the big picture. 

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of what the body is doing and how it’s growing, but muscle and skin are hard to see through and I get stretched out of shape sometimes to the point that I feel like I’m going to snap. And still I wish I could engage locals while I’m here.

I wanted to be a global worker since I was in the fifth grade, at least that’s when the thought first came to me. By eighth grade, the desire was there, too. After all, what could be more meaningful? What could be more worthwhile to do with your life than to serve God overseas like all those men and women who came through with their videos and their brochures and their masks and spears? I listened to their stories, propped global work up on its high, high pedestal like the church usually does, and waited for my turn to go. 

I finally made it on a short term trip to a former Soviet country with a Bible college choir. How wonderful!  That was the same year I married and we waited more than a decade before we finally got to go ourselves.

It wasn’t that I married the wrong guy. I made sure I married a man who wanted to go, too. We were sure of God’s leading in our relationship, and I have no regrets. It wasn’t that we were stalling. God had quite a roundabout path for us to take before we were ready. He opened the doors in His time, and I can see His hand. I am thankful for every step of the winding path that finally led us overseas. 

I just thought things would be different when we got here. 

Truth is, neither one of us has the gift of evangelism. I know there are other gifts, it just feels sometimes like if you don’t have that one particular gift, you’re useless.

Of course there was the time God miraculously preserved us from a terrorist attack and we were on the news. I believe He brought glory to himself through that. In addition, it seems logical that He must have some reason for keeping us alive. 

There is also the fact that I love living here. I love what it does for our family. I love the international community. There isn’t anything else I’d rather be doing or anywhere else I’d rather be living.
And there’s the impact back home. It seems to mean something to people—Christians and non-Christians—that we are willing to go. The fulfillment of my lifelong dream looks like a sacrifice in the eyes of some. 

But my dream looked more like life in a village, with open doors and windows and children playing all around. I speak the language. I’m even fluent depending on the subject matter and the particular dialect of the person I’m talking to.

Why am I like a soldier on standby?

Purple Vs. Orange Hoops and The 5C's

In the 21st Century world of reaching the unreached, two significant characteristics of organizations, teams, and individuals is becoming urgently necessary:

Agility and flexibility.(1)

What do these two terms mean?

Agility:       1. Ability to move quickly and easily. 1.1 Ability to think and understand quickly.

Flexibility:  1. The quality of bending easily without breaking. 1.1 The ability to be easily modified. 1.2 Willingness to change or compromise. (2)

Our experience in working with hundreds of organizations is that there are a few areas of conflict when we will not move forward in partnership with an organization, because we experience a lack of agility and flexibility with them.

What is the nature of what we are experiencing?

Is it relational, theological, or ecclesiastical?

If relational, it usually stems to a lack of trust, an inability to communicate well and be understood, and most importantly, a lack of chemistry. See the 5 C's below.

If theological, is there a significant lack of ability to look past the disagreement and move forward in partnership?

For example, we've seen this on the field where the theological value in terms of a missiological belief were held to so tightly the team was willing to break relationship over it, even though it was not related to soteriology but to modality in the local environment- how the mission should be done (although Winters (3) would have probably used the term sodality here, the fact was the main issue was how the local church should be implemented and funded).

Our perspective as conflict mediators was that the missiological belief originated from a cultural (North American) missiological value that was in direct conflict with what local believers wanted and what the cultural advisors were asking for.

In this sense then, the expatriate (North American missionary) was imposing theological and missiological cultural imperialism, using sophisticated spiritualized language. It did not end well, the team broke up leaving all parties hurt and relationships unreconciled for years after.

If ecclesiastical, how restrictive or liberal is the potential partner being?  We believe in the liberal affirmation of gifts, and by liberal, I mean absent of cumbersome restrictive processes.  Time, money and resources are wasted because an organization or denomination says "It (the ministry) has to be done THIS way." In order for this task to be done, it must have a certain Evangelical-truth-focused-our-way "stamp" on it.  This means you have to go through our training and do it our way, even if you already have had the training elsewhere and we've interviewed you. 

In other words, (read with sarcasm)

"Oh, you went through some hoops? Yours were purple, but ours are orange. You have to go through our orange hoops, too, even though in the end, you'll have the exact same skill...again." 

I know that one response to this could be that organizations need to protect "their hedgehog" in order to not have missional drift. (4) However, at some point, (re) training becomes ridiculously unnecessary and poor stewardship.

Henry Cloud wrote, "The best predictor of the future is the past."  What has already happened in this partnership to give us pause?   What objective hope do we really have that anything will change? If we don't have anything tangible, we need to be willing to end the partnership or even talks of a partnership.

What do we look for in partnerships?  There are many different web pages suggesting a variety of different "C's" but here are the ones we use to analyze if we should move forward:

The 5 C's of partnerships:

1. Chemistry - is there an easy, natural, relational chemistry with this individual or organization? It's a bit of an intangible thing to describe, but we ask:  "Do we like being around these people and do they appear to like being around us? Would we want to use some of our relax time to be around them?"

I've experienced chemistry with brothers and sisters from cultures all over the world. Chemistry crosses cultures, genders, even religion.  There are some Muslim brothers and sisters who I love dearly and enjoy partnering with in projects together.

2. Communication - do we seem to be able to easily communicate with each other and understand each other?  Is there an easy manner of clarification (assuming the best) and does it take a lot or a little to go into conflict over communication?  When conflict is addressed, are both sides able to enter into it gently and with humility? Does the process of working through conflict result in increased trust and loyalty on both sides?

3. Competence - are we competent for the task and are they? If not, can the skill be learned and improvement shown rather quickly?  Or is the energy needed on our part or theirs simply too much for us right now to "get to competence" for the task?

We used to think that competence can be gained, but after watching people over years and agonizing over them and our own responses, we realized that some truly cannot gain true competence (as we may define it), or we simply cannot get the competence needed (as they define it).

In some ways, it can be simply the wrong fit.  We've seen a person trying to do the best job they can and just not being competent. But move them to a totally different job, and wow! They are flourishing and great stuff for the Kingdom is happening!  So "competent" can "masque" "wrong fit" and leadership is wise to make changes.

However, since many mission organizations do not quickly "let people go" (fire them, make them redundant, etc.) over lack of competence, in the end, with all the trainings we do, we train people that we'd never send folks to, simply because our philosophy is that a bit more training could help the incompetent folks perhaps do a better job since they are already trying to do it and their organization isn't stopping them even though they probably should.

We trust God's sovereignty here as He works through individuals, and occasionally, we are happily surprised to see growth. I am also well aware that there are some who know me and think I'm not competent, so at some point, while we may not enter into close partnership with some folks, we also trust God working in and through each one of us with our limitations.

4. Character - do they have character that matches their words? If we have an uneasy feeling about this, we'll pull back and wait until we see reality and evident fruit of poor character or Holy Spirit character.

For example, I watched Neal once interacting with another gentleman as we explored partnership with another couple together over dinner. I observed my husband more insecure and being verbally trod over, "schooled" by the other man.  At the end of the evening in the privacy of our room, I reflected to him what I observed and that it was clear to me we were not to enter into partnership with the other couple.

The reality was that neither of us couples were being pulled to be our best-- we clearly couldn't do that for the other couple either.  So we work in different parts of His harvest field, and we cheer for them from a distance.

5. Calling - is there a clear calling to partner together?

Usually, if one of these is not going well, we won't enter into a partnership.  As a husband-and-wife team, if one of us has an issue with a ministry partnership the other is engaged in, we'll ask for a Necessary Ending (5) analysis to see if/when we should end the partnership.

Humility is called for here, and a careful listening to the Holy Spirit on what we should do when things aren't going well, either before we've formally entered into a ministry partnership or are already in one and are considering ending it.

Either way, it is often a carefully walked path with wise advisors to know what we are called to in partnership with others for the sake of His Kingdom.

It requires tolerance for ambiguity - we can't know everything, as well as acceptance of knowing we'll disappoint others.  Some have a much harder time with ambiguity and loose ends.

It also requires time. This blog post is short in describing all of this, but it takes a lot of time. Neal and I have spent probably 80 hours simply discussing one specific partnership to try to understand them and ourselves, and what our response was and why we were reacting the way we were. We agonized over those folks. We tried to understand what was bothering us, why did one little statement bother us, was it us or was it them?  In the end, when it was that hard to figure things out, we knew that there would never be a partnership.

While we always want to be willing to work through conflict and difficult partnerships, it seems that some things just cannot be resolved on this side of Heaven in our human finiteness. But knowing our own boundaries and what His Spirit is calling us to helps us know how to navigate complex situations and keep pressing on in the race He has called us to.

Sources:
1. Daniel Wagner, Dante Disparte, Global Risk Agility and Decision Making
2. Oxford Dictionary Online, accessed 3.12.19
3. Ralph Winters, Perspectives of the World Christian Movement
4. Jim Collins, Good to Great
5. Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings, chapters 5 -7.

My Grief Bag

My grief bag
Surprises me
It opens at the most inconvenient moments
My hand can't help but go in
And draw out more
Pain
Tears
Sadness seeps
Into my bones
Exhaustion sets in
The pain expands as I gently place it back
In my grief bag
Heavier and bigger
Today than yesterday                                             
Birth, death, and life-in-between marked             
By wounds.
I sit in my grief once again
And grieve.

A good name is better than fine perfume, and one’s day of death is better than his day of birth. It is better to enter a house of mourning than a house of feasting, since death is the end of every man, and the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad countenance is good for the heart.…Ecclesiastes 7:1-3

Related Posts
Embracing the Gift of Grief
4 Aspects to Not Being Overcome By Evil
I Went To The Woods

Spiritual Debriefing

Debriefing is like unpacking your suitcase 4 different ways. There are at least three primary types of debriefing workers may receive during a career, and this post introduces the fourth. 

1. The Administrative Debrief. 

This debrief is when the HR/Team Leader/Director of Operations sits down with a worker and discusses administrative details and what went well, what didn't, what the worker may need to do or hand over to another for the smooth functioning of the team and/or project. This is primarily task oriented and does not address the soul (inner life) of the worker.

Administrators should be extremely cautious of making any judgment of a worker at this point - usually administrative debriefs occur right after a worker comes off the field and is back at headquarters. Often it takes a worker up to 3 months to "feel normal", but even then is still in major transition and recovery. The administrative debrief should not include the term debrief.

2. The Term Debrief

This type of debriefing happens after a worker has completed a term, is much more related to "their story."  It focuses on the highs and lows of the term, joys and challenges, things learned, relationships built, griefs and losses. This is much more about understanding the whole term and what happened to this person - their expectations met and unmet, what unresolved conflicts there may be, etc.

The term debrief should also not include the Administrative debrief, and if a crisis debrief has not been done even though a crisis occurred, that is separate from a term debrief.

3. The Crisis Debrief.  

This we call the Critical Incident Stress Debrief (CISD)  Neal and I often give this training (how to give a CISD) to teams, organizations, and communities.  Lay people are able to give this debrief, but we no longer broadly advertise it - the right kind of individual at the right stage of life is necessary for this one to go well. Instead, if the leaders in a community or organization would like this training, please simply contact us to arrange it.

This type of debriefing occurs after a crisis event - could be a car accident, a bombing, even a birthing experience in a cross-cultural situation.  The severity of the event depends upon how it impacted the individual.  Often times, the people surrounding the person in crisis also need a debrief.

This type of debrief focuses on just the crisis event, and is a guided process that helps the individual work through the trauma. It has been proven that a trained peer debriefer providing the crisis debrief can help a worker avoid or dramatically decrease the effects of PTSD.

Contact me if you are interested to discuss how to schedule this training for your group/area.

But I want to discuss another type of debriefing.

4. A Spiritual History Debrief. 

This type of debriefing is not discussed or rarely discussed.  There is not a book or article about it that I am aware of.  If you have inner healing prayer training, or are well versed in spiritual warfare, it will help.

It also helps to know the actual physical/geographical history of the land that the worker has been in, including the types of holidays they celebrate.  What idioms do they have in their culture? What phrases are repeated a lot? How do the average people practice their religion?

Knowing this background is extremely helpful.  I advocate member care workers also learn and pay attention to both history and current events in the countries of the workers they shepherd and care for.

• A spiritual history debrief is a subset of a term debrief, and would also definitely factor in what happened from a crisis (hopefully the worker had a crisis debrief ). 
• A spiritual history debrief is not a subset of a crisis debrief.  A Crisis debrief stands alone, and should not have much if any element of inner healing prayer.  That should stay separate. 
• Like any debriefing, the person being debriefed should do the most talking.  
• The person providing the debrief should refrain from teaching.  
• This is also not spiritual direction, not coaching, and not counseling.  

This is asking questions that the worker has not had time to think through, and requires silence and waiting while they realize some of the spiritual elements of what they've experienced.  It also requires trust - this is pointing to the person's inner life, and often we do a great job judging/criticizing ourselves.

God desires truth in our inner being, so this is a way of drawing out those deeper truths about who they are, who God has been for them this past term, and recognizing why He put them in that place for their own transformation and for others.

Here are five areas we focus on when incorporating a spiritual debriefing element with a person: 

1. What have you learned and discovered about yourself during this term? How have you recognized and celebrated that you sense God's goodness and you are acting in his pleasure?  What would it look like to celebrate His goodness in your life and that He is pleased with you?

2. What have you discovered about yourself that God wants you to work on? What "room" in your soul do you need to invite God into and let Him touch and heal you there?

3. Externally - During this term, what did God invite you to participate in there? And to what degree did you participate in what He called you to?

4. What external challenges and/or threats did you face, in whatever form?  These could have been the forces of darkness battling you, your own choices, opposition from others - both other workers or locals?  What do you sense God had in mind for you to engage in and how has that impacted you?

5. Where did you brush up against evil darkness and what has been the impact on you?

Again, these are questions to ask gently and softly, and nuance as you feel led to.  But often times, workers do not have safe places to discuss these questions.  I would strongly urge any leaders or administrators to refrain from offering a spiritual debriefing to anyone they have responsibility for.  Ask other trusted folks to help your workers.

Embracing the Gift of Grief

Embracing the Gift of Grief (1) 

What is it to wrap my arms and heart around grief?
What is it to accept ongoing pain?
What is it to not get cold-hearted?

Unhealed.
Unexpectedly ripped open,
Unrelieved.

Suffering old losses, fresh and new.
Anguish...that hole in my heart
Incessant presence.

Risk and Grief
Risk and Lament
Intertwined

Complaint
Loss
Appeal

Directed to a God who
Seems silent
Distant.

Desolation
Out-of-control
Where is He?

Those who know little of lament and grief (2)
Of death breathing down my neck daily
Don't find comfort Good Friday

Your Presence felt more
Good Friday than
Easter Sunday.

Who named it Good (Friday)?
It was the day of your suffering and death
How long that day has lasted for your people

The taste of hope fading
bitter
dry
acidic
gasping for air yet
finally peace in acceptance

No longer meaningless words
Hope arising from deep grief
An instructed hope. 

Lament and grief as a form of resistance
The status-quo is never acceptable.
Grief - a way of standing in the midst of suffering

Let me stand with my brothers and sisters who have stood in the tragic gap. (3)
Let me stand along side those suffering by being with not doing for or to. (ibid 1)
Let me enter Your grief and thereby hope for a longed for future.

"The strange interconnection between lament and martyrdom [that highlights] the strange hope that the death of the innocent offers to Christians in their struggle for peace..." (4)

"There are things that can be seen only with eyes that have cried." (5)

I see, Lord. Help me to always see, even if it means filled with grief, eyes filled with seeing horror.

Sources: 
1. Paper presented by Cathy Ross at Women in Missiology June 6, 2018. "Lament and Hope."
2. Brueggemann, W., "The Costly Loss of Lament." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 11, no. 36.
3. Parker J. Palmer http://www.couragerenewal.org/the-tragic-gap
4. Katongole, E., Born from Lament, The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa, 2017.
5. Archbishop of Bukavu, Christopher Munzihirwa, martyred, 1996.

Response to #missionarywomentoo

Here is a response to my previous blog post #missionarywomentoo. 

From a mature, Christian woman who yes, submits to her husband but also enters into Co-Regency with him to steward all they have been given to steward:


In reference to your last post about women......a hot topic for me as a woman on the field for 15+ years....

**I'm not a feminist either, but I am a woman and I do have a voice and I do have giftings to share.  Imagine if someone invited me share a few words--so much I could share about the one-on-one time I have with our Persian ladies and the Syrians and other refugees when we lived in Turkey.  I have stories to tell, but does anyone want to listen??  [DH] and I complement one another as team leaders.  He has said countless times over the years that he could not do what he does if he didn't have me.  

**If I had a dime for every time we went back to the US & how much people make a big deal about my husband and "his ministry (we usually always refer to it as God's ministry that He called us to).  It is God's, really, and He chose us as instruments to do the work.  

**The year that another woman said to me, "well, we hear all about [your husband's] ministry, so what do YOU do?"  And then I start to explain all that I do only to have her say, "Oh, so you are [your husband's] secretary."  Ugh!!!

Sorry, the years our kids were growing up and I cleaned the house (in Central Asia manner...with a cloth wrapped around the end of a wooden stick to mop the floor), cooked, home schooled or help with homework, had locals into our home--cue:  get the cookies, candy, and tea ready!!  

Aside from this I was heavily involved in security and getting one org to adopt a policy and our current org--pushing for the importance of making it more wide spread and being a voice and advocate.  Our many years in Central Asia--organizing short term teams to come, host them, prepare them from a cultural standpoint to be in our culture, organizing travel.  I've helped with women's conferences, in the children's camp we started in 2005, English club I attempted, and I'm sure there are about a ton of other things, too.  I do a lot of administrative stuff.  Now in recent years I'm a team leader alongside of my husband and we are over many countries.

**The real zinger is in 2017 when we took our teens back to the US to start college (that was when we had been overseas 14 years), someone (a supporter, actually) walked up to me at their graduation open house and said these words that made me freeze in place, "As the wife of a missionary, what are YOU going to do now that you won't have any kids at home."

On the field I have tons of responsibilities but when I go back to the US, I feel about an inch tall, if that.  I feel stupid.  I feel like, [Dear Husband] gets to speak and I'm "just his wife."  Does anyone want to hear what I have to share?  I get to sit there and just "smile."

I'm not that great at languages, but I have studied Russian, Kazakh, Turkish, Georgian, and now starting to learn some Farsi so I can communicate with our Persian folks.

One of the worst churches is our own home fellowship.  Even though Dear Husband speaks all over the world, he doesn't feel welcome in our own home town, so to speak.  He isn't invited to speak on a Sunday morning when we see other Missionaries get to (I guess because we are more about business).

And then what I get from other women..."oh you are so brave" (as if women are supposed to not be?) or "I could never do what you do."  Hah!  What do they think I felt when God called my heart back in 2001?  Who me, God?  You sure you got the right girl?  And then I only knew that he wanted us to go to Kazakhstan and minister to the Kazakh people. Neither of us knew what that looked like or what exactly we would do.  And here we are 15+ years later, living in [Central Asia] working with Persian peoples having started [the work here].  We just keep obeying and it is God, not us, who make us able.  I'm not brave....God Himself has given me courage, it does not come from me.  And if they read their Bibles deeply enough, they would know that it is by His strength and not my own.  It is His plan and not our own.

Go to #missionarywomentoo

Related Posts
Women's Bodies as Battlefield - conservative Evangelicals highest domestic violence rate in USA.
Christianized Purdah
#silence is not spiritual
response to #missionarywomentoo
#missionarywomentoo
What if the Good Samaritan was an Orthodox Sunni Muslim Woman?
Sexual Harassment in Cross-Cultural Work
Women with a Wartime Mentality
A Tribute to the Single Woman Missionary
Androcentric Translation: A Poem

#silenceisnotspiritual

One of the biggest fears most godly Christian women have is to be labeled a liberal, a feminist. I've even heard the term "femi-nazi.." But as this article on the Weaponizing of American Evangelicalism against Women discusses, these types of labels are dehumanizing, demeaning, and shut down dialogue.

It is time for the Western Church to listen and to change...for women of our generation, for our sons and daughters, and for future generations.

One humanitarian said: “No matter how subtle, dehumanizing ideas of people lead to dehumanizing actions.” Throughout American evangelical history, theologians used Scripture to support slavery, racial segregation, and male supremacy. They aligned God with maleness and whiteness, and then weaponized these ideas against women and especially women of color. 

In short, American evangelicalism—viewing women as inferior—has been weaponized against them for the benefit of male power and domination. While Christians like John Piper and Brad Wilcox insist that gender roles protect women from abuse, the data and the stories of the #ChurchToo movement stand against them.

Power and sex are two sides of the same patriarchal coin, according to abuse survivor Christa Brown. She explains: 

"Because complementarian theology promotes a power differential between men and women, it fosters the sort of abuse of power that devolves into sexual abuse.” 

Evangelical women are beginning to speak out in larger numbers.  See this article here. I sincerely hope this movement does not fade, but continues to grow.  I see women and men in increasing numbers longing for a different way, a different dynamic in our Churches. I know I want something different for my sons and daughter.

Also see the statement signed by over 3000 Evangelical Women urging the Evangelical Church to address issues of abuse in the church.

#metoo
#churchtoo
#missionarywomentoo
#silenceisnotspiritual

Just a Few Articles on Sexual Abuse in Independent Baptist Churches

• More Sexual Abuse in Protestant Churches than in Catholic Churches
• A History of the Church Turning a Blind Eye
• Insurance Report on How Often the Church Covers Up Abuse
• Evangelical Reaction 
• Southern Baptist Abuse Investigation
• James MacDonald Fired
• Evangelical #MeToo
• Elmbrook Resignation
• Sexual Misconduct in Pastoral Ministry
• Star-Telegram Article that revealed hundreds of victims of abuse across American Baptist Churches. 
• Independent Fundamental Baptist Church Sexual Abuse
• Sex Abuse Among Southern Baptists
• Missionary Group Apologizes
• Database of Sexual Abuse perpetrators and victims
• Abuse of Missionary Children
• Pastor Resigns

Related Posts
Women's Bodies as Battlefield - conservative Evangelicals highest domestic violence rate in USA.
Christianized Purdah
#silence is not spiritual
response to #missionarywomentoo
#missionarywomentoo
What if the Good Samaritan was an Orthodox Sunni Muslim Woman?
Sexual Harassment in Cross-Cultural Work
Women with a Wartime Mentality
A Tribute to the Single Woman Missionary
Androcentric Translation: A Poem

#missionarywomentoo

There are the 3 Ghosts that Haunt the Evangelical Church, graciously shared by Jen Wilkin.

Then there's the recent letter of coming to reality by Beth Moore.  I was always embarrassed when told she regularly stated: "I'm not teaching you men here."  I'm so glad she's grown on this issue. Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile responded to her with a gracious  apology of his own. 

But the gender wars of the American Church are not that way in the Global Church or on the mission field.

My Kenyan sisters don't face the same issues I do on a Sunday morning. Women preach and teach...men and women.

And I was shocked and quite nervous last summer to be invited to teach the Bible (devotionally) in Europe to a well-known translation group (more men then women in that group).

On the mission field, it is not uncommon all over the world for women to take leadership, to plant churches, disciple men up into leadership, and more.

It's when we return back home (to USA) for descriptions of what women on the mission field do, that we enter back into a misogynist interpretation and description.

mi·sog·y·nist
/məˈsäjənəst/

noun

1.
a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women.
adjective

First, there are also ghosts in the reporting of women in missions and secondly, how they are treated by pastors, theologians, and churches back home.

In our day, we see this when a single women is given an evening service to "share" but a single man is given the morning sermon to "preach."

Since so many churches no longer have evening services, the single missionary woman is relegated to the Tuesday night Women's Bible Study, or 90 seconds on a Sunday morning with the pastor standing next to her.

The Current Debate: Distorted Facts and Theology:

1. David Barrett & Todd Johnson's stats show that the ratio for foreign missionaries is 54% men and 46% women but the projected figure shows the women will outstrip the men by 2025. See https://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/research/Resources-and-Downloads.cfm.

Not sure where buried on this page that a man found the quote above, but I couldn't find it.

I normally love and appreciate all the statistical research Barrett (did) and Johnson still does.  Theirs is a valuable service to the Global Church.

But this just sounds off, if it is truly what they have published. Is it possible Barrett and Johnson were not counting the wives of the men as "the missionary"?  That would be totally wrong. It would be helpful for Johnson to clarify where and how they arrived at this figure, as there is overwhelming anecdotal evidence that the contrary is true, that there are a higher majority of women then men in numerous missions, both in N America and from the Global South.

A married woman is as much a missionary as the single woman. To say anything less is to once again, impose white American male evangelical patriarchy on the married Christian woman  #churchtoo.

Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. Patriarchy is associated with a set of ideas, a patriarchal ideology that acts to explain and justify this dominance and attributes it to inherent natural differences between men and women.

The Bible no where sanctions Patriarchy. Jesus exploded all stereotypes and ways of interacting with women. Patriarchy is man's sinful treatment of women and an Evangelical rationalization of how women should be treated.

2. There are male mission leaders who say that if a woman is allowed leadership or the preaching role, then those encouraging her are heretics because they are not following the Bible. Hmmm, God must be a heretic, as He seems to have used women planting and leading churches for the last 2000 years to further His Kingdom. See this post. 

3. John Piper doesn't think a woman should be in the role of elder on the Mission field, saying it would be disobedient to the Bible. See this link here. He goes on to say that if a woman is leading on the mission field, when a man comes along, the woman will naturally want him to lead even if she is doing a fine job of it, just because he is the man.  I'm not the smartest person, but isn't this an inconsistent application of the Complementarian View in direct conflict with the sound teaching of Scripture???

Hmmmmmm.......

My experience: 

How many times have I suffered through a poorly exegeted sermon in an International Church, and had no opportunity to remedy it, simply because I am a woman?  Last I checked, just having a [male organ] does not make one fit to teach or lead or be an elder. I would tend to think that if it was THAT IMPORTANT the Bible would be VERY clear if it was sin for a woman to be an elder (and that's without a microscopic view of the translation Greek embedded in a 1st Century Hebrew Rabbinical worldview using Hillel's Rules of Interpretation).

How many times have I seen a totally gifted woman - married or single - ready for leadership, spiritually gifted in administration and empowering others, with extensive time on the field in the culture with fluent language skills, but she is passed over for mission field team leadership simple because it needs to go to the man on the team. Yes, that one, the one who can't speak the local language as well, doesn't know the culture and who has no clue about administrative details?  This is some of the worst misogyny on the mission field, usually dictated by the sending organization back in the USA.  

At the same time, not just any woman should be given a leadership, preaching, or teaching role.  That would be militant feminism.  We don't "choose a minority" just to have a minority and diversity. They should be women who fit the description of elders and mature women as described by Paul.  Women who know how to hold their tongue and how to speak with wisdom.  Women who know how to lift up men and women, and not usurp authority or have a "chip" on their shoulder against men. Those type of women are incredibly damaging, as much as a sexist man is.

We should choose elders and leaders who are anointed by the Spirit. As it was in Moses' time, the Prophets's time, and the 1st Century church, so it is in ours.

Let's take a brief look at some more recent history: (Excerpted from a paper by Marti Smith):

A. The Significant Presence of Women in Missions

In spite of the challenges women in many times and places have faced by following God’s call in missions, they have followed him in numbers. By 1910, more women than men were serving in missions.

(1) In the coming years the numbers of women would continue to climb until women in some areas outnumbered men by 2:1.

(2) Statistical studies on the topic are few, but one in the late 1980s, a survey of 19 mission agencies representing 20,333 missionaries, showed that 56 percent of them were women, with unmarried women outnumbering unmarried men six to one.

(3) A more recent report, from 2002, found that some 54 percent of Southern Baptists’ 5,241 missionaries were women, about a fourth of them single.

(4) In short-term missions as well as in situations that are considered too dangerous to send families, including many areas with a Muslim majority, the foreign mission force is composed largely of workers who are single, and a majority of these laborers are women.

Representatives of Frontiers, which works solely in the Muslim world, report that they are seeing women respond to the call in great numbers. In 2002 women comprised 75 percent of their short-term team applicants.

(5) Anecdotal evidence produces similar numbers. In a 2002 personal interview, a woman working with Operation Mobilization reported that of the 100 people working with her agency in one Asian country, 60 were women and 40 were men; and in ratios that seem fairly typical, these included 35 married couples, 25 single women, and five single men. Colleagues currently studying in Yemen say the expatriate community in their city includes 26 couples, two single men, and 21 single women. We must conclude that women have a significant presence in the mission force: not that of a minority, but a majority.

What is astonishing is that the American Church debates these issues as a matter of life and death (heresy and not heresy) when people by the tens of thousands are going to hell every single day.

What does it matter if it's a woman or man leading and teaching them to understand the Gospel Truth? 

SOME RESOURCES
See Kenneth Bailey's excellent exegesis of Paul's complex thought and Rabbinical cultural commentary in his book, Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes.    

I wept when I read his chapter on women's role in the church.  Ladies - his interpretation will sooth and heal your bruised souls, and men, this will empower you to discuss interpretation of Scripture with those who want to continue to marginalize women in the Church. 

Also, take a look at Dr. Skip Moen's thorough exegesis and discussion of the role of women from Genesis to Revelation. 

Finally, pick up a copy of "How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership: Compelling Stories from Prominent Evangelicals" edited by Alan Johnson.  Noteworthy is Stuart Briscoe's discussion of the values in tension of stewardship of the talents vs. a potentially misunderstood one single verse of Paul.  He chose the stewardship value and encouraged his wife and daughter to preach and teach.

I was also impressed when I saw that I. Howard Marshall, one of the most preeminent conservative New Testament Theologians of our time also contributed to Alan's book. His New Testament Theology is the gold standard used in seminary classes today.

Oh, and I was an elder of the CCCK - Christian Community Church of Kabul, under the blessing of my husband (who is way more progressive than me particularly on this issue) and the leadership of the (male) pastor and with permission of our male mission leadership. I was one of 3 women on the elder board, along with 3 additional men and the pastor.

I think these "gray" areas are why Jesus gave us a tool to navigate them quite well when He taught the Sermon on the Mount, particularly Matthew 7: 15-17:

15. Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16. By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit...

Perhaps we need to start a #missionarywomentoo movement. 

Related Posts

Women's Bodies as Battlefield - conservative Evangelicals highest domestic violence rate in USA.

Christianized Purdah
#silence is not spiritual
response to #missionarywomentoo
#missionarywomentoo
What if the Good Samaritan was an Orthodox Sunni Muslim Woman?
Sexual Harassment in Cross-Cultural Work
Women with a Wartime Mentality
A Tribute to the Single Woman Missionary
Androcentric Translation: A Poem


#missionarywomentoo
#churchtoo
#metoo
#silenceisnotspiritual

(1) Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (Grand Rapids: MI, 1983), p. 232.
(2) Tucker, p. 232.
(3) Howard Erickson, “Single Missionary Survey,” Fundamentalist Journal, January 1989, p. 27, cited in John Piper’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), p. 23. The foreword to this book, which addresses single men and women, includes some very helpful thinking on the topic of singleness and includes thoughts from a number of single missionaries throughout history.

I Went To The Woods

I try to pretend to settle in to middle class American life and American Evangelicalism.  But 20 years living in war zones and unstable environments continue to reap fruit on numerous levels that continues to surprise me.

I can still hear the sounds of bombs and gunfire in the distance. I vividly see my living room window go convex then concave within seconds of a suicide bomber detonating on Darulamon Road (Parliament Road).  

I  remember clearly the first time I drove slowly past a burkha-clad woman holding her baby. It was my very first day there in 2000, and she was sitting in the middle of the busy main road from Goat’s-Head corner to the bombed out Main Post Office.  She held her tiny baby with one hand, and the other she held up to cars passing in both directions, hoping for a few coins. Car exhaust belched noxious fumes around both of them.  

I remember watching discretely through a crack between the curtains as a mob progressed past my gate, chanting against the foreign infidels as they went. I reminded my children of where to run if bad people began to jump over our walls. We regularly practiced evacuation drills within our own home, in the hopes our children would run to safety if we began to be attacked.  

Visitors to Kabul were always surprised at the amount of guns around.  We had grown used to them. Kabul is a war zone, a fortified city, with the walls increasingly higher and thicker.  It’s the Nepali  and other dark-skinned guards who guard the outside gates. They are the first ones killed if a suicide bomber attacks.  Then on the inner gate is usually the white European or American guards, the specially trained ops guys working security contracts now, because it pays better.

It wasn't uncommon when traveling to the grocery shop to have a soldier’s gun pointed at our car if our driver got too close. I once looked up at my driver as I held my veil around my face.  I saw the red laser light on his forehead, and realized the American soldier riding in the tank in front of us was ready to shoot. I calmly asked my driver to slow down.  

The past 20 years have taken their toll.  While there’s been excitement and adventure, there’s also the worst that humanity, war, and militant Islam does to people.  But it has also allowed me to live life at its rawest terms, as Thoreau said, to experience the genuine meanness of it as well as the totality of the rawness of life and death. Several lifetimes wrapped into a couple of short decades. 

The distractions of American Middle Class life, the “teletubbie” existence as one pastor describes it, the focus on 1^st world problems that impact less than 3% of the world's population have emasculated the American Church. It won't matter shit who wins the debate if we are debasing the Gospel by sharing the stage with a Catholic leader at a national prayer breakfast when a gun is cocked and touching our temple and we are asked if we follow Christ or not. Most are not prepared for that scenario, and are so blinded by the idol of "Evangelical Truth" that they can't see the value of loving our neighbor by building relational bridges to them.  

Increasingly, I am sensitized to the danger of only telling one side of the story, including the American theological interpretation of the Gospel.   Jesus was not white. He was a dark skinned Middle Easterner, born into the lowest minority group dominated by the superpower of the world. This puts Him on par with the Native Indians and African Americans of our day, or the Gypsies of Romania or Turkey or the Hazaras of Afghanistan.

As Dr. Nott recently said, “Extreme events, whether a war or a natural disaster, stretch the boundaries of performance and what is possible.” Living on the edge of existence where food, water, and electricity can mean the difference between life and death; where people are truly hungry for a ray of hope..this is what Liminality is – the point of time when a risk is taken and the outcome is not known. 

It is the time when one is truly alive, and even the smallest good is precious-like-gold, like a barely-dry match finally flares into flame so a candle can be lit in the darkness. Anyone desperate for light knows the overwhelming relief of the simplicity of such things. 

When life and death became precious, when resources were scarce, and a simple daily task could end in kidnapping or death, where one feels so alive: over two decades this is the place where daily my values and theology were honed.  It is impossible to change back, and nor would I want to. My world, my mind, and my understanding of God and His Word has expanded much deeper and farther than I thought possible. Living in a challenging place is fulfilling, stretching, where everything I am and am not is used, refined, distilled.

Rejections and spoken curses seek to destroy my soul. My mind overlays these with the gunfire, the bombs, the dirt, the violence I experienced, the numerous times I experienced the dehumanization of being a woman in Islamic culture, the daily occurrences of being the victim of sexual objectifying, and I am thankful.

I am thankful for all the darkness and blackness of these past 20 years.

I am thankful to know what it feels like to live continually on the edge of life and death, of rejection and acceptance, of approval and disapproval, of warmth and coldness, of laughter and deep grief when it seemed my tears would never stop. 

I am thankful to have looked at evil in the face and lived another day. 

I am thankful to have been protected by the Shadow of His Wings and for my children to have their parents alive this long.  

I am thankful to know what unconditional love feels like to receive and to give. 

I am thankful for my red chair and glass of red wine where I can now sit in peace and quiet to ponder and reflect and understand and discern.  

 I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. 

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. 

For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever.  

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) American Author

Healing Life's Hurts Part 3 - The Denial Stage

We learned in Parts 1 & 2 that healing past hurts must go through the 5 stages of healing: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. There are also two feelings with God about God to work through as well. 

This post addresses the 1st stage, the Denial Stage. 

Denial brings in its wake the psychological defense mechanism and patterns of sin that try to make me feel important again.

Some of the most common defense mechanisms are:

• Rationalization - an attempt to prove by reason that what happened is fine.

• Repression of hurt feelings – sometimes with mind and body numbing pornography, alcohol and drugs, but also more acceptable forms such as eating, tv, ministry, work, sleep

• Approval seeking – seeking approval from others and God rather than willing to listen, receive correction, and be challenged.

We control what we hear by doing all the talking, even in prayer. Rather than face weakness and tender feelings, we pray eloquently, hoping God will be impressed.

Usually He is silent, so we begin to pray less because it isn’t rewarding, and God becomes less important to us. When God is unimportant and I am insecure, I try to hide my insecurity under the dark cloak of sin, continuing to cover up the insecurity with additional coping mechanisms.

Rationalization, intellectualization, repression, projection, fantasy, reaction formation, compensation...sin returns whenever we are hurt. The deeper the hurt, the more we utilize these defenses and they become unconscious habits.

We see denial in Scripture, such as Luke 15 – the two sons both had problems they were unwilling or unable to admit.

Just like we can have physical shock, we can also have emotional shock and be in denial. Denial can be good in this sense, preventing us from being overwhelmed by too much anxiety, disapproval, or insecurity until we are ready to face reality. We can use denial to our advantage, too.

For example, one particular ancient church practice was to focus on correcting only one rather than five faults during the day.  If we focus on eliminating gratitude by thanking God for whatever is happening, my other four faults will disappear because when grateful we can find God better, listen better, pray more, and come prepared to give thanks. It’s a healthy way of being in denial, choosing not to look at all the ways to improve but just focusing on one memory of hurt.

Whatever the hurt, we can be healed like the disciples at Emmaus by the same steps they were healed:

• Tell Christ how we feel (Luke 24:13-24);

• Listen through Scripture to how Christ feels (Luke 24:25-27; and

• With hearts burning live out Christ’s reaction (Luke 24:32-35).

When we allow Christ to absorb our reaction and then absorb Christ’s reaction we are somehow able to forgive. In essence, we are gazing lovingly on the humanity of Christ, we are filled with His divine love and forgiveness, and then we are healed of the painful memory.

Unseen

unseen

the one who is unseen is...

unknown 

unhugged     

unheard 

unhopeful

unapproved

unappreciated  

unaccepted   

unvalued  

unhappy

unconsulted

uninformed  

unincluded

those who don't see are...

uninterested  

unthoughtful

unexcited

unaware

the one who is unseen feels...

interrupted 

ignored

inferior

incompetent

insignificant

incapable

misunderstood

paralyzed

anxious

misinterpreted

stifled

suppressed

small

slandered

an actor

fearful

tolerated

tense

disappointed

______________

Jesus wept.

Jesus saw the blind man.

Jesus knew their thoughts.
Jesus asked.
Jesus went with them.
Jesus heard.
Jesus marveled.
Jesus had compassion.
Jesus looked.
Jesus touched.
Jesus walked with them.
Jesus blessed.
Jesus felt.
Jesus prayed.

"Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you....as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them." 
Luke 6:27 - 28, 31. 

What if the Good Samaritan was an Orthodox Sunni Muslim Woman?

The Good Samaritan was hated. 
He was hated for his religion. 
He was hated for his nationality. 
He was hated for his proximity to his Jews.
He was hated for everything he stood for. 

The Muslim in America is hated. 
The Muslim man and woman are hated for their religion. 
They are hated for their nationality. 
They are despised for how they dress. They are hated because they are "here."  
Americans are afraid of the Muslim man and woman.
Americans tell them to leave "our" country.

What if an American Republican Evangelical Christian man got in a car accident on a deserted road? He was trapped in his car, bleeding from his wounds, unable to reach his phone to call for help?  

A democrat White nationalist sees the wreck and assumes someone else has already called.  
An upper class Asian bicyclist speeds by - he is in the middle of a workout. 
An Evangelical Mega Church pastor goes by in his car, late for another business meeting. 

A veiled Sunni Muslim woman stops. She sees the damage and pulls him out of his car.  She applies pressure to his bleeding wound, and calls 911. She stays with him until they come and put him in the ambulance.  She follows the ambulance to the hospital and stays near, helping to call his wife and family until they come to the hospital. 

_____________________________________________________________

Luke 10:25-37

25 Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. “Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?”

26 He answered, “What’s written in God’s Law? How do you interpret it?”

27 He said, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence—and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”

28 “Good answer!” said Jesus. “Do it and you’ll live.”

29 Looking for a loophole, he asked, “And just how would you define ‘neighbor’?”

30-32 Jesus answered by telling a story. “There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead. Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side. Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man.

33-35 “A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man’s condition, his heart went out to him. He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable. In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill—I’ll pay you on my way back.’

36 “What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?”

37 “The one who treated him kindly,” the religion scholar responded.

Jesus said, “Go and do the same.”

Related Posts

Women's Bodies as Battlefield - conservative Evangelicals highest domestic violence rate in USA.

Christianized Purdah
#silence is not spiritual
response to #missionarywomentoo
#missionarywomentoo
What if the Good Samaritan was an Orthodox Sunni Muslim Woman?
Sexual Harassment in Cross-Cultural Work
Women with a Wartime Mentality
A Tribute to the Single Woman Missionary
Androcentric Translation: A Poem