The Reluctant Pastor: On Presence

A few years ago when I was in Berlin, I met a woman who greatly changed my perspective on life.

If you have been following this blog from its very beginning, you would know that Ruth made a regular appearance on my blog through my Berlin chapter. See, Ruth was one of those people who would drop everything she's doing to simply be a friend. We would run into her at Herr Minsch's cake shop across the street and she would hop off her bicycle and visit with us.

While I was there, I had to get some dental work done. When Ruth found out, she made the appointment for me to go see her dentist and went with me to every appointment I had to both be my translator and help me figure out the best decisions to make with what the dentist was recommending.

After my 3-month internship in Berlin, I decided I wanted to be Ruth when if I grew up. Even though she didn't do the church thing and wasn't entirely convinced by the Jesus thing, she had been my "Jesus with skin-on".


I met Moe last Sunday at a young adult event at one of the churches. She said she had a dance recital on Friday. It had sort of become second-nature as part of my presence-based-ministry job to show up at these events simply to be a friendly face in the crowd, so naturally I was there.

Moe did such a lovely job that night, but I had another event to be at, so I left right after the show without congratulating her. Just before my bus arrived, I spotted her with a few of her mates at the bus-stop, so I headed over to say hello. She was almost in tears when she realised I had actually made it to the show.

Quite honestly, I wasn't expecting that dramatic of a reaction from her. In my head, I had simply checked off another box on my list of things to do as a part of my job. I guess in some ways, I had lost sight of the bigger picture of why we chose to take the presence-based approach with The Bridge. After a while of doing the same thing over and over again, it can be easy to forget that even the littlest things we are doing causes a ripple effect in the world. Or that simply showing up to be a friendly face would actually mean that much to someone.

And then I found myself wondering if Ruth knew how much her company at the dentist truly meant to me.


A few weeks ago, some friends and I were joking about how we would never wear a clergy collar, and the other aspects of ministry that we struggle with because of the pompousness associated with them. One of them however, pointed out that one of our friends intentionally chooses to wear the clergy collar because it opens up conversations with people, and because it reminds him of who and what he represents.

Even today, I struggle with the "pastor" title. I don't mind so much that it keeps random gentlemen trying to strike up conversations in cafes at bay. Or that immigration officers (particularly in New Zealand) give me an easier time. There's just so much negative baggage associated with the "pastor" title (I know, this isn't the first time I've written about this). But more recently, like my friend who wears the clergy collar, I've subconsciously become more intentional (I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it makes sense if you think about it) about telling people I'm a pastor. Because it definitely opens up interesting conversations that this young, Asian female would be a pastor.

But more importantly, through all the ups and downs that this year of ministry-planting has brought, I'm choosing to regularly use "pastor" as my job description now to remind myself that above all the other potential distractions of business plans and ministry strategies, the most important part of my job is that presence-based focus to build people and relationships, not simply programmes and buildings.


So if you need a friendly face to be your biggest cheerleader, I'm there. Because that's what this pastor thing means to me.

On Writing... (And Being a Real Pastor)

Josh said the other day I should write more. I would agree with him, except I haven't had any coherent thoughts lately that would give me a good start to a new post, so I guess I would start this one off with a shout-out to him. Cheers, Batman. Thanks for getting me to start writing again.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while would know I'm not one of those professional bloggers who have a blogging schedule filled with specific topics. Some months, I have a lot of angst to vent, so I write a lot. Some months, my head is so full that I don't even know where to begin. Then when I finally sit down and force myself to write again, the first post usually has some content about why I write, particularly because the readership of this blog changes with time so some re-introductions are necessary. Well, here is that "this is why I write" post.

I write because it was a way to release the angst I had as a teenager. When life gives you lemons, stew them into alphabet soup and splash them on cyber-space. I cringe when I think about some of the stuff I splashed on cyber-space ten years ago, but that's all a part of life too.

Cloudy Brain
Zen-Doodle 30-09-14

I write because it was is a way to force my over-stimulated brain to stop and focus. My thoughts become more coherent when I have to dig through the dusty cloud that is my brain to find the right combination of words to string together to communicate where life is at the moment.

I write because it was is a way to freedom. As fingers fly over the keyboard, it's as if the tap-tap-tapping on each letter helped bring an end to another chapter of processing the roller-coaster that is life, before finally releasing the story back into a community that holds each other.

I write because it was is a way to be real. And I guess this is what I'm really trying to get to in this post.

Most people know I struggle with the "pastor" title. Along with some negative associations of what pastors can be like (particularly as I work more and more with a post-Christian demographic), the title can also be loaded with expectations that I somehow lead a more struggle-free or holy life (which can be really handy to speed through immigration procedures at times!). Plus I'm hardly comfortable preaching or teaching so I often disclaim I'm not *THAT* kind of pastor.

But writing... That's a different story (see what I did there?).

I used to give myself heaps of pressure to write highly-intellectual blog posts after all my years of higher-education and pastoral ministry. Sure, my brain loves dissecting the macro and micro of the fate of humankind and once in a while, it leads to a super nerdy post that I get just a bit giddy about. But I can only handle deep academic theology in small doses, and what I really love most is writing about the life stuff. The messy stuff.

Then I used to wonder if writing about the messy life stuff made me a less-than-orthodox pastor (which is really ok, since I'm not *THAT* kind of pastor anyway). I mean, when I first started blogging as a teenager, it was only my peers who read about my angst so I could be as emotionally dramatic as I wanted. But then my audience started shifting, and few of the Christian/theologian bloggers I follow would write about the messy life stuff. At one point, my mum actually said that the bleak posts I was writing as a young adult didn't actually reflect the hope I had in Christ. Admittedly, it stung at first. I didn't want to be another Christian blogger that only talked about how unrealistically happy my life was simply because I had Jesus in my heart. But in more ways than one, that comment continues to influence how and why I write.

A few months ago, I wrote about living with clinical depression and spent the hours after that living in fear of being judged for not being a better steward of my mental/emotional health. I didn't know any other pastor who talked openly about depression and wondered if it was one of those topics that no self-respecting pastor would openly talk about. Oddly enough, that was one of the posts I had the most responses from--because more pastors live with depression than you hear about, and it seemed like everyone was waiting for someone else to give them permission to talk about it.

Perfection: the wall that crumbles
Zen-Doodle 01-10-14

More recently, Kathrin inspired me to begin zen-doodling. I'm not sure how to fully explain the process except that for me, I've started carrying a notebook and a set of markers around for the few minutes here and there when I need a creative outlet. I'm by no means an artist, but somehow filling a blank page with colours, lines and dots of whatever comes to mind seems to release some amount of angst and defrag some disk space in my head. This was my zen-doodle for the day that inspired this post.

I guess part of the reason that writing comes more easily for me is because I get to hide away a little bit. I get to take all the time I want to choose what side and how much of the real, messy life stuff I want to share, then craft it into a neat, perfect string of words and backspace fifty-million times before I finally hit "publish".

But that's the thing. I choose to write not because I can hide behind that wall of perfection, because that wall of perfection will crumble.

No, I write because I hope that the stories I collect continually connects me back to the community that holds me and that our stories will keep that wall from building up.
I write because writing invokes my mother's reminder even on my darkest, most cynical days, that I have an unexplainable and completely experiential seed of faith, hope and love that has sunk deep roots in my spiritual being.
And I write because it waters this seed so that even in the darkest corners with a big bucket of lemons and a bad day with Black Dog, I still see the candle in the distance.

Saying No doesn't have to be complicated
Zen-Doodle 30-09-14

So I'm back at the tap-tap-tapping again. I have some things to say, but I make no promises that they will actually get said. But feel free to throw the occasional reminder for me to write if you so wish. Or if there's something you want to see written about, feel free to interact with this blog as well. Of course, I still get to decide whether or not I want to write about it--mostly just to keep my counselor happy that I'm actually learning to draw boundaries.

And to you, I ask this: What is your outlet?

On Young Adults #1: Some thoughts on engaging the Church...

Even though I've officially only been in the role of student ministries pastor for about eight months, the young adult age group is one that I've been quite passionate about for a long time. I haven't written as much as I would have liked, but here are some very initial thoughts.

There's a lot that the Church tries to do to seemingly cater to this group called the "young adults", and especially so since the "millenial" term was made popular. Which, I genuinely applaud their effort for trying, but not all of these attempts have been sucessful. I don't claim at all to be an expert in this field, but these are simply a few observations both from my own journey and from my conversations with some of the finest I've met.

1) Stop simply talking about us and actually talk to us.
Don't talk about us like we are a problem that needs to be solved. Don't generalise our behaviours. Talk to us, and find out that we, just like every generation that has come before us and every generation that will come after us, are all fearfully and wonderfully made individuals who are as traditional and postmodern, conservative and liberal, creative and original, as it gets. And for every continuum there is, you can find one of us on every end of the spectrum and all the in-betweens. We are not one general "millenial" collective. We are individuals who are just trying to find our place in the world. So thank you for talking about us, and trying to create a programme that we can fit into, but no thank you. Ask how we want to be engaged.

2) Tell us we no longer need permission.
We no longer have school or teachers, youth groups or youth pastors to tell us what to do. We want to make it on our own, but for our whole lives until now, we've lived under some form of safety net which was incredible for our early developmental years. But if we are to make it on our own, we need to know that we no longer need permission to lead our generation or to be creative, and we need to hear that from you. That doesn't mean you leave us alone completely, because we still need to know we can come to you for wisdom and to know that you will always be our biggest cheerleaders even as we make mistakes, struggle and fail.

3) Remind us we are a part of a bigger community.
As we enter adulthood, we are also beginning to realise more and more that the world really does not revolve around us. It is far easier for us to only mingle with our peer-group than for us to initiate conversations with those who seem to have accomplished much in life, even if we have utmost respect and admiration for them. As people ahead of us in the journey of life, you have stories and legacies to share, and we need to hear those stories to remember that we are a part of something bigger. Tell us what it was like growing up in the part of the world you grew up in, how you came to Aotearoa, or why you chose to be in the vocation you are in. And ask us about our hopes and dreams, not so you can tell us how we'll go wrong even if you know from experience we are simply young and idealistic. But walk with us each step of the way. Because these are the things that keep us in the whanau.

4) We are NOT a singles club.
I once mentioned to a pastor friend I was thinking of doing something with young adults and the response I got was, "Great! We definitely need a singles ministry!" *face-palm*
Not all of us spend our twenties dreaming of meeting the right person, or the perfect wedding, or thinking up names for our yet-unborn kids. Some of us simply want a group of friends who can dream together about what it means to make an impact in our communities and in the world. Don't try to pressure us into creating speed-dating events or turning our young adults gatherings into "singles clubs" where we can meet other young, single people. Working against poverty and advocating for sex workers are as noble causes as getting married and raising children.

There you go. What else would you add on this list? I'd love to hear from you.

10 Years Abroad

I remember that day like it was yesterday.

How I cried the entire flight from Singapore to LAX and scared off the guy in the seat beside me.
The eight hours at LAX, homesick and annoyed by the "Do not leave your luggage unattended" PSA.
Having this wishful thought that when I landed in Indianapolis, it would be the people I just left behind in Changi Airport who would greet me.
Walking all around campus trying to find Maplewood Cemetery and reorient myself so I could figure out where Mac and Jean Johnson lived.
My first meal at Steak and Shake.

I always thought I would return to Singapore.
In fact, I told the pastor who mentored me and my church that I would return after four years.

Funny how life turns out.

There was Springfield, Illinois with the Women's Chorus.
Breckenridge, Michigan with the Rhynards for Thanksgiving.
Fort Lauderdale, Florida with Amy D for Spring Break.
Numerous trips to Ohio and Michigan with AU Center for Ministry Education (AUCME).
Atlanta, Georgia with Church on the Street.
Saltillo, Mexico with the Tri-S work camp at La Buena Tierra.
Portland, Oregon with Steph (Hatch) McMorris.
Allen, South Dakota with the Tri-S work camp at Pine Ridge Reservation.
Southwestern states with the family for graduation.
Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands with the Tri-S VBS programme.
鹤山, China with the family to trace our ancestral roots.
New York City, New York with the Tri-S urban ministry team.
Berlin, Germany with the SOT for my urban ministry internship.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia with the family.
East Coast states with the family for graduation.
And then to Auckland, New Zealand...

By then, there was no turning back.
Airports became my friends.
Flight times became my oasis.

On the one hand, I feel like I'm not old enough to have lived abroad by myself (or done anything, really) for ten years.
On the other hand, I'm grateful that this has been a much richer life than I could have ever dreamed.

I learnt to treasure relationships rather than accumulate stuff.
I learnt to breathe in the depth of long hugs.
I learnt to cook with basic ingredients that translate across culture.
I learnt to wash dishes three different ways.
I learnt to live as part of both majority and minority cultures.
I learnt to value mental and emotional health.

The last ten years have probably been filled with more seasons of tears, losses and goodbyes than anything. But even the shortest seasons of celebration and all the incredible new friendships have made it all a sweet deal.

Here's to more years of craziness and incredible friendships, wherever life may lead.

Aotearoa Diaries: "Story Time"

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.

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 laughing at) 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.

Aotearoa Diaries: Emerging Leaders

My most recent TV addiction has been The Voice Australia. If you don't know anything about The Voice, it's essentially kind of like American Idol, except with a twist in that celebrity coaches listen to singers in blind auditions (they sit in chairs with their backs toward the singers) and decide if they hear a voice they want to work with. I enjoy it because 1) there's a lot of good singers, and 2) for a change, these are coaches who offer encouragement rather than tear people down.

In one episode, Kylie Minogue, who is the homecoming star in this season, talked about how when she was an artiste starting out on her career, she didn't have anyone to hold her hand on the journey to offer guidance and encouragement. Now that she's back in Australia for the TV show, she wanted to be that support for a new artiste waiting to be discovered, and to walk that journey with her.

I guess I found myself resonating with her words because in a lot of ways, a chunk of my new season of ministry is doing just that. Yes, I am starting a ministry for university students. But as I have been working on narrowing down the focus of what this ministry will look like, I began to realise that my biggest passion is in helping students connect with, and stay connected to intentional faith communities. The thing about student ministries is that while we may hope to be a part of their lives forever (and letting go will be a big struggle for me, let's be honest), the reality is that for most, we only get them so intimately for a very limited time. But if we are able to help them connect with communities that really get into the stuff where life meets faith, hopefully it will become such a natural part of their lives that no matter where they head off to after uni, finding spiritual communities to be plugged in to will remain a priority.

Which presents the other reality: I have to find out where these intentional faith communities are, or if they even exist. What I began to realise is that while there aren't many in existence, there are several within local churches with a passion for starting healthy young adult ministries that integrates with, rather than exist as a separate entity from the rest of the congregation (important issue that we'll address on a different day) And so, how can we, as The Bridge, help them get started?

Which leads me to an exciting part of this journey: helping to identify emerging leaders within the young adult circles amongst Auckland churches who have that passion and desire to create an age-appropriate ministry for their peers. At the recent Emerge retreat sponsored by the Wesleyan Methodist Church of New Zealand, several of these leaders had approached me to discuss this issue when they found out about what I was doing. Just the other week, I had coffee with a few leaders from a church just outside the city to discuss these same issues (and some anonymous kind soul in the cafe even shouted us scones!). And I've met with several key leaders in student-led Christian organisations in one of the city campuses to talk about these same things.

I will admit that in many ways, I was envious of these younger leaders because they had people who identified their leadership abilities and have taken an interest in developing them from a much younger age. For me personally, by the time I had my first conversation with leadership development sage, Arthur Kelly, I was already past the target age of the "emerging leaders" demographic. I remember his words clearly: "I don't know why you weren't a part of this group, but you should have been." By then, I was already jaded by unhealthy ministry practices, and unsure of who to turn to help me process all that I had seen and felt when my picture-perfect image of church and ministry life completely shattered.

Thank God for Arthur Kelly, MaryAnn Hawkins and Paul Dreger who stepped in before I had the time to consider leaving the church or ministry life.

So while I am envious, I am also thankful for the opportunity to play a small role in walking the journey with some of these younger leaders. As my mother (who shudders at the thought of being in any kind of ministry leadership role) would say, "The church can only survive if there are young people in the church."

So yes, I may still be relatively young, but I am not going to be around forever, so it's always time to think of the future.

And no, I'm not kidding when I say I truly love what I do and the fantastic people I get to hang out with, and even more so that I get to call it my job.

Rethinking "Missionaries": An Introduction

This blog series is one that has been stewing for a while, but a few recent developments sparked off a memory of an incident from last year... Which I'm hoping will help set the framework for why this is a necessary conversation for the time we live in.

In the final unit I did with the children's ministry I was previously on staff at, we did a series on what it means to be a missionary. On of the first discussions we had was what is a missionary, and so I asked the kids if they knew anyone who were missionaries. It took them a little while, but they finally figured out that both our senior pastor and I were missionaries, as were all the other previous pastoral staff at the church.

The conversation took off in a different tangent when one of the kids suddenly remembered that their parents had served a year in the US on short-term missions, which, under the definition we were using ("people who go to a different culture to tell them about Jesus"), meant that their parents were missionaries too.

And then it took another interesting twist when they suddenly named all the other expats in our church community. They came from a different culture, and they love Jesus. And once in a while, some of them take a rotation with kids' church. Are they missionaries too?

How do we draw that distinction for kids?

And then my mind went back a little further to a conversation I had with one of the parents at that same church earlier in the year. We had somehow started talking about missionaries, and I said something about, "I don't really see myself as a missionary" (because there are negative connotations to the term "missionary" -- Bible bashers, colonialists etc). To which this parent responded with, "Well, I don't really see you as a missionary either because you just live here with us".

But by the definition used with the kids that missionaries were people who go to a different culture to tell people about Jesus, I would be considered a missionary. Except not in that parent's perspective.


Well, this is the initial opening of this conversation. In the next few posts, I'm hoping to sort out the various pieces in my brain about what the term "missionary" means in this age of increasing globalisation.

Watch this space and feel free to jump in the conversation.

Aotearoa Diaries: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

If you've followed this blog for a while, you'd probably know that once in a while, I gush and reminisce about that wonderful season of my life called "seminary".

Oh, don't get me wrong. Life was anything but a bed of roses during that season. But I learnt a lot from that season mostly because I had an incredible group of people to journey with.


See, when I was first starting seminary, I had made a deal with my parents that we would do whatever we could to get me through school without having to take out a loan. Which meant I needed to work. A lot.

Thankfully, through some strange connections (mostly just being at the right place at the right time), I managed to get a ministry job that understood I would be going back to school after my first year of working there full-time, and they allowed me the flexibility of working part-time during the school year. The full-time hours during the summer was supposed to pay for school, but there would be nights that I would be crunching numbers and it still wouldn't add up to being enough. And then the next day at work, I would be quietly fretting about the financial situation, and Ryan Chapman, this gentleman who works down the hallway from me would randomly come up to my desk quietly with a $20 note in hand. "Seminary textbooks are expensive, and I know this isn't a lot. But I hope it helps pay for at least part of a textbook."

And I would sit there with tears streaming down my face. Maybe it wasn't a lot, but the symbolic gesture (that happened on about two or three different occasions, and always the day after I'm fretting about money again -- maybe it wasn't so random after all) was the reminder I needed that God had promised to provide. True to form, I finished seminary without any debt.


Why am I bringing this up now?

Well, I just got another $20 note in the mail from a dear friend in the States. It was accompanied with a beautiful note:

Maybe it doesn't seem like a big deal, but lately the money thing has been a big issue all over again. Money hasn't been coming in for my salary because I am too far away from my main financial supporters to really fundraise. I had been writing letters and trying to come up with creative ways to raise the money all while trying to juggle figuring out this new season of ministry at the same time. Truth be told, I was starting to wonder if the reality that no money was coming in meant I was crazy (let's be honest, I'm gaining a reputation for doing the crazy) for even thinking this ministry made any sense. Because if it did, why did it seem like nobody else was buying into it except me?

And then a few weeks ago, I had reached the point where my savings was depleted and thanks to a bit of car trouble, was left with about $20 to my name. While I don't usually talk about my money situation, it somehow came up in my conversation with Emily. When she found out, she contacted one of her major supporting churches that she knew had emergency funds set aside for situations like these.


I should have known that Emily was cut from the same mold of theological and spiritual formation that so changed my worldview.

You see, back in our seminary days, we journeyed with a group of friends who truly taught us how to live in community. There was little that wasn't shared between us. We had pitch-in dinners about once a week or so to make sure everyone was fed. Because I was one of the few who had a steady income that was more than minimum wage, I pitched my share to pay for the more costly ingredients for the meal. Amity often fed us from her garden and sometimes when they had a surplus, the canned tomatoes or soups would get shared all around. And Tim changed my oil for free so I didn't have to pay for labour to get it done at a shop.

Perhaps because we all knew that most of us weren't going in to ministry for the fame or fortune, we felt a sense of responsibility to take care of each other in whatever way we could. After all, we all understood the reality that everything we have belongs to the kingdom anyway.


Well, going back to that $20 note...

About two weeks ago, I had scheduled a lunch meeting with a student. I knew that there was money coming from Emily's supporting church, but because of the international transfers and stuff, I hadn't received it yet. So I drove into the city to meet the student with the $20 I had left and the bit of spare change I set aside for parking (city parking costs $3/hour for the first two hours, then $6/hour for every hour after -- Auckland is expensive). I had a bit of trouble finding the cafe where I was supposed to meet the student and was running a few minutes late. I knew he only had a short lunch break, so I was getting a bit flustered when I finally found him. Before I fully comprehended what I was doing, I had offered to shout him lunch.

Right as the words came out of my mouth, I found myself thinking, "Are you out of your mind?? This is your last $20 for a little while. Sure, your fridge is stocked and your gas tank is full at the moment, but who knows how long it will take before the money finally gets through."

But then I remembered the words one of my former youth leaders from my church in Singapore used to say when he took us out for lunch after worship team practise and would shout our drinks.

"Consider this an investment into the next generation."

Ok. Alright. Besides, it was too late to take the words back now.

Thankfully, that last $20 was just enough to pay for both our lunches. As we wrapped up the meeting, the student thanked me for lunch and said, "Honestly, I was only planning to get a drink when we met because I didn't really have the money for a meal." But this is your lunch break, right? "Yeah, but I don't always eat lunch."

Well, everything we have belongs in the Kingdom anyway. I was glad my last $20 paid for both our lunches.


Which was why when I opened the card from Emily and found another $20 note in it, I had to fight back the tears. You see, Emily is fundraising herself. She lives in the basement of the pastors' home on Pine Ridge reservation (together with all the workcampers that come in for workcamp season) while raising funds for her home and the community building to be built on the reservation. And yet, not only did she take the time to send the beautiful card, but she also gave that $20 note that was to be my reminder that God had promised to provide. And Emily has reminded me time and again that as long as we are being faithful to our call to being missionaries, it is ok to rely on the financial gifts from others. In fact, she wrote this beautiful piece on fundraising.


And so tonight, I just would like to say a big thank you to the beautiful people who have given the gifts that allow me to keep on giving.
To the good people at Germantown First Church of God, thank you.
To the good people who have offered me a place to stay while we wait for funds to trickle in, thank you.
To the good people at the national Church of God in New Zealand who purchased the vehicle for the ministry, thank you.
To the good people with gifts big and small over the last three years, thank you.
To the good people with your $20 notes, thank you.

You are beautiful, beautiful people.
Thank you. With all my heart.

Arohanui

Aotearoa Diaries: "Ministry Planting"

These days, when people ask me what it is I do, I don't really know what to say.

I'm a pastor... Sort of. Not in the traditional clergy-collar with a parish sense, but I do the vocational ministry and pastoral care thing.

I'm a church-planter... But not really. I'm not exactly planting a church, but I am starting a ministry, just not a traditional church. Brett says it belongs in the "Fresh Expressions" category. Ok...


Let me backtrack a little bit.

About a year ago, several things came into play that drastically shook my belief that I was called to ministry. Never mind that years of good ol' AUSOT teaching and my own slightly feminist mother had convinced me otherwise. All it took was the outcome of a church-planting personality test that said I didn't have the right personality to be a key person to lead or plant a ministry, and everything crumbled.

The trouble was, I kept pushing forward pretending that personality test didn't sting.
The trouble was, I kept pushing forward trying to prove them wrong.
The trouble was this ugly fuzz ball that in grief counselling terms, we call "compounding grief" (not dealing with one aspect of grief and allowing it to snowball into something much bigger).

The trouble was all the signs still said it wasn't time for me to quit ministry, even though I came so close to throwing in the towel so many times (after all, if even the personality tests said I didn't have what it takes, why do I even bother?) and my mental health was at stake.
The trouble was, in pretending it didn't sting, I ended up screwing up more.

And so I forced myself to think like my friends with the right personalities for church planting would.
I forced myself to come up with business plans, programmes and solutions -- not so much to generate numbers or results, but to at least be able to pull off the pretence that there are things happening.

And you know what happened?
Nothing.

Nothing great, but also nothing terrible.
Just... Nothing.

And then it suddenly occurred to me I was hurting because of that personality test.
And then it suddenly occurred to me I needed to make peace with that personality test.
And then it suddenly occurred to me I needed to stop trying to prove the personality test wrong.

Because while I may not have the right personality traits to pass that church-planting personality test, the truth is, I never believed in having all the right answers anyway (that's a story for another time).
Because while I may not have the right answers to pass that personality test, I have this strange, twisted, whimsical life story that is real and relevant to the ones I'm called to pastor in this season.
Because while I may have proved the personality test right in not gaining any results, I quickly learnt that there is no tried-and-true template for what this ministry plant is going to look like anyway.

Because ultimately, my core value in ministry (and thank you to Kara, Janice, and several others who have been constantly reminding me of this) has always been about relationships.

And that's what makes me good at what I do.
And that's what makes me called to ministry--believing in relationships and the power of agape love to carry us all through life.

So honestly, I don't really have a clue what this student ministry is going to look like because nothing has gone as I thought it would.
But I have some pretty incredible students teaching me a lot about life. And even if we never achieve any of the lofty goals I had envisioned, I really would be at peace knowing I get to walk with some incredible people on their journey with life meets faith.


So personality tests and your results, and that fuzz ball of compounding grief, you can pack your sorry little bags and say goodbye. We're done here.

Because whatever title you choose to call this thing I'm doing, so be it.

Because I am called to ministry.
And I am choosing to remain in ministry.

Game on.