Every once in a while, I can't help but wonder if I've completely lost the plot by choosing to ministry plant from scratch.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely adore the people I get to spend time with. No, really. I'm not just saying that because it's a part of my job. I would still hang out with these people even if I didn't also have the privilege of calling it "my job".
But every once in a while, when I get asked what it is that I'm actually doing, I find myself wondering if all I'm really doing is fluffing around, planning parties and hanging out with awesome people for no greater purpose. Because I'm starting this ministry plant from scratch, I have to find my own "bosses" to report to and create accountability structures that complement the style of ministry without hindering its organic DNA. And so a lot of times, this thing I claim to call "my job" just feels like fluff.
Then last week, I finally sat down and had coffee with Gypsey. We've tried several times to do what I like to call "story time," but for one reason or another, they keep getting interrupted. But in those few brief moments of "story time," I caught a glimpse of why this seemingly fluffy model of "just hanging out" wasn't actually quite so fluffy.
Gypsey reminded me that I had somehow managed to get people to hang out more regularly than she has ever remembered. I daren't claim any credit for that because all I did was tell a few people, (mostly Ben, who's the real connector of these awesome people) "hey, it would be crazy awesome if we did this...." and things just kind of happened. And even if the reasons that these pockets of people gathering semi-regularly seem somewhat "fluffy," they are seeing each other more, eating together more, annoying each other more, laughing together more, and doing dishes together more.
That. That's what makes me giddy excited.
Then tonight I met Gina at Valley Road Church's Mid-Winter Christmas dinner. "Story time" led to the discovery that we had a lot of similarities in our stories. Gina is Korean, but started high-school in Pennsylvania and moved to Texas with her host family and spent a total of ten years in the US. Four years ago, she took a job as a maths teacher and moved to Auckland. As I began explaining what I did, she simply nodded like it totally made sense. "Auckland needs people like you for pastors. People like us who have moved around before understand what it means to not really have a place of belonging in any culture anymore. And there's so many of us here in Auckland."
And then suddenly, it all made sense. Just the other day, I found myself telling David something along the lines of how my entire style of ministry comes out of my belief that my life-story was written in a way that gives me the credibility to do ministry in a certain way. And to not take that approach would be to do injustice to The One who wrote the story that way. Quite frankly, I wasn't quite convinced at the time of our conversation (given that it was early in the morning on a sicky brain didn't help much). But "story time" keeps sneaking up in the interactions with my awesome people that I'm left with no choice but to admit that I'm really not just fluffing around with no greater purpose.
And then I'm reminded that in my initial dreaming about The Bridge, I wrote something about collecting stories. I had assumed then it meant I would be writing a lot more this year, but who wants to write when you have awesome people to hang out with? (Don't freak out, I'm still going to write because it's what keeps me sane.) Yet I do truly believe in the power of stories, and not just for the ones hearing them. To give voice to and to allow stories to be heard is just as powerful and life-giving.
"Story time"
That. That's what makes me giddy excited.
31 July 2014
29 July 2014
Aotearoa Diaries: Life Support
It has been nearly ten years since I first met Melissa. I was a college freshman (first year of uni) at Anderson University who had been crying herself to sleep out of homesickness. Within the first few minutes of our interaction, I had made the decision to snap out of my painfully shy, socially awkward self to allow her in, whatever that meant.
Melissa was the residence director of the dorm I lived in. At first, she was like the house-mum that made sure I wasn't skipping meals (which happens whenever I'm stressed or homesick). She was only a few years older than I was, but she seemed so much wiser. As the years went by, she became a mentor and friend--someone I came to rely on as part of my life-support network.
A few years later as I was starting seminary, I had to take a class called Spiritual Formation that required us to be paired with a mentor who would journey with us for that first semester. An important part of preparing for the ministerial journey involved exploring our life stories, including some of the deepest, darkest, and possibly most painful chapters, and to begin dealing with some of them. I could think of no better person I wanted to take that journey with than Melissa. We shared the painful loss of Keren and she understood my quirks. But she was also just far ahead enough in life that she would call me out and kick me in the (you know where) as necessary.
The more time I'm spending with the uni students and young adults here in Aotearoa, the more thankful I am for the small town college experience I had in Anderson, Indiana. I recall the long conversations with Melissa about the transition into the young adult stage of life and this new found semi-independence, the cross-cultural move and how relationships with family and the previous "home culture" change in this new phase of life, and all the other "life stuff" I threw at her. And in spite of the season of struggle with Park Place, that church family taught me heaps about the importance of being in an intergenerational community, and I'm richer for having adopted grandparents, spiritual parents and kid-brothers and sisters to do life with. That small town college experience created a life-support network for me that can be hard to create in a city of about 1.5 million people. It can be easy to get lost in the crowd as a university student in the midst of about 40,000 other people.
A few weeks ago on the last week of uni break, a group of about thirteen of us went away for the week. Most of us in this group are involved in some form of leadership in church, and each time we get together, it's about agendas and programmes and coaching and training. But just for those five days, we simply hung out, played games, ate too much, took in the beach, and just for once... be together. On several occasions, Carmel and I found ourselves saying over and over how much we longed for this group to have a few more people just a little ahead of them in life to ask questions as necessary, to poke or prod or kick in the (you know where) as necessary, and simply to just walk alongside in life.
I may have said this too many times now, but I truly, truly love what I get to do in this season. And I truly, truly love each of these crazy young adults I've had the privilege of walking (and mostly laughingat) with. But there's just not enough of us to help support and mentor them through this season of discovering that it's ok to have more questions than answers, and that it's ok to not know what they are doing after graduation regardless of what pressures society might give them. Because if we can be to them who Melissa was to me, how many more generations can be impacted from this group of phenomenal young adults we currently have?
And that's when I realise again that since the very beginning stages as I was thinking about strategies for The Bridge, this life-support network structure was written into the very DNA of the ministry. The vision was never to form another big club or organisation for students or young adults to get lost in, but to create small, intimate settings for life to happen. And just to indulge my need for "success" for a second: If we can have small groups of people gathering regularly to do life together, I think we have a win for our first year.
Have I said yet that I love what I get to do? Because I really, really do.
Melissa was the residence director of the dorm I lived in. At first, she was like the house-mum that made sure I wasn't skipping meals (which happens whenever I'm stressed or homesick). She was only a few years older than I was, but she seemed so much wiser. As the years went by, she became a mentor and friend--someone I came to rely on as part of my life-support network.
A few years later as I was starting seminary, I had to take a class called Spiritual Formation that required us to be paired with a mentor who would journey with us for that first semester. An important part of preparing for the ministerial journey involved exploring our life stories, including some of the deepest, darkest, and possibly most painful chapters, and to begin dealing with some of them. I could think of no better person I wanted to take that journey with than Melissa. We shared the painful loss of Keren and she understood my quirks. But she was also just far ahead enough in life that she would call me out and kick me in the (you know where) as necessary.
The more time I'm spending with the uni students and young adults here in Aotearoa, the more thankful I am for the small town college experience I had in Anderson, Indiana. I recall the long conversations with Melissa about the transition into the young adult stage of life and this new found semi-independence, the cross-cultural move and how relationships with family and the previous "home culture" change in this new phase of life, and all the other "life stuff" I threw at her. And in spite of the season of struggle with Park Place, that church family taught me heaps about the importance of being in an intergenerational community, and I'm richer for having adopted grandparents, spiritual parents and kid-brothers and sisters to do life with. That small town college experience created a life-support network for me that can be hard to create in a city of about 1.5 million people. It can be easy to get lost in the crowd as a university student in the midst of about 40,000 other people.
A few weeks ago on the last week of uni break, a group of about thirteen of us went away for the week. Most of us in this group are involved in some form of leadership in church, and each time we get together, it's about agendas and programmes and coaching and training. But just for those five days, we simply hung out, played games, ate too much, took in the beach, and just for once... be together. On several occasions, Carmel and I found ourselves saying over and over how much we longed for this group to have a few more people just a little ahead of them in life to ask questions as necessary, to poke or prod or kick in the (you know where) as necessary, and simply to just walk alongside in life.
I may have said this too many times now, but I truly, truly love what I get to do in this season. And I truly, truly love each of these crazy young adults I've had the privilege of walking (and mostly laughing
And that's when I realise again that since the very beginning stages as I was thinking about strategies for The Bridge, this life-support network structure was written into the very DNA of the ministry. The vision was never to form another big club or organisation for students or young adults to get lost in, but to create small, intimate settings for life to happen. And just to indulge my need for "success" for a second: If we can have small groups of people gathering regularly to do life together, I think we have a win for our first year.
Have I said yet that I love what I get to do? Because I really, really do.
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