Hesitant, But on Board

Service, Mission, and Loving Others in the Midst of Our Own Healing

We took a vote last night.

After several weeks of discerning, and praying, and listening for God in and throughout our lives, our church of 11 sought to find consensus around where we feel the Lord might be leading us as a community out into the world to bring healing, wholeness, restoration, and justice— where the Lord might be leading us as a community to actually be the church.

If you have been following along with this goofy, oddly structured, non-traditional church plant of ours (check out the We the Body series to get caught up), then you know that defining this space— a space for us to exist and minister outside of ourselves, a space to be grown and pushed and challenged to become doers of the ways of Jesus, not just hearers or ponderers or debaters or intellectualizers— it’s sort of a big deal. It’s kinda our whole deal.

We have spent the last 10 months developing a core group of 11 individuals to make this exact decision. We have spent 10 months getting to know one another, getting to know the voice of God, forming a culture of vulnerability, consistency, trust, and safety, all to be able to have the conversations we have been having for several weeks now. All to be able to come to some sort of consensus as we ask this one question in unison, where is the Lord sending us?

After taking in all of the thoughts and musings and whispers of God as told by 11 different individuals, weighing the cost and the reality of each, discerning overlaps and repeated trends and hints of unity, alignment, and shared experience— last night I presented an option, we deliberated it’s advantages and disadvantages, and finally, we asked how each of us felt in moving forward down that path. The majority feeling among us?

Hesitant, but on board

What a powerful statement of faith that simple sentence is.

The Fears of Moving Forward

As we presented and put forward the disadvantages we saw to moving forward in this given direction, most concerns raised weren’t surprising. We have long discussed and been cognizant of the looming fear and doubt that is incredibly common amongst folks who have journeyed through their own experiences of deconstruction, church trauma, or disillusionment (or are still in the midst of that journey):

Am I healed enough yet?

Are we healthy enough ourselves to begin caring for others well? Are we able to truly pour into another’s cup without emptying our own completely? Are we able to pour into another’s cup when ours still doesn’t feel quite filled?

These have long been questions front of mind for our community and are ones I don’t think will go away anytime soon. I think such questions will continually have complex and nuanced answers to them and I think it is good and right to continue to ask them repeatedly.

Because I do think there are seasons and times in our life where the greatest gift we can give to the collective wholeness of our communities is working to heal ourselves. I believe that caring for our own souls, minds, bodies, and traumas— such care in and of itself is a mission field. It is good and holy work.

And I have also come to believe, there is a level of healing, a level of self-care and wholeness that comes as we begin to look outward again. There are levels of hope and promise, of God’s presence and work, that becomes harder to miss when we entrench ourselves into the midst of the lives of others, especially those through whom God’s work has always shined brightest— the marginalized, the poor, the forgotten, and the abandoned.

And finally, I have come to believe that many of our ideas, goals, and preconceived expectations regarding topics like “service” and “mission” are what are truly holding us back from taking part in the holistic restoration of all things. I believe we have been given broken examples, unhealthy and even harmful visions of what taking part in such restoration looks like. And I believe that continues to feed our fears that we aren’t ever quite healthy or healed or ready enough to join in.

I believe there is a better way.

Service Was Never Meant to be a Project

In the world of once a month service projects and pulling teeth to get enough volunteers to show up to the yearly community event, it makes sense that we believe to shift our focus “outward” is a laborious, draining, and rarely truly fulfilling experience. We are asked to show up for causes we didn’t know were significant until about a week ago and devote hours, weekends, and spare time to people we will probably never see again.

Add to that the expectation within certain christian circles that the goal of such sacrifices of time and labor is to “save souls for the lord”, to get them to say a prayer and reserve a spot in heaven— of course we are showing up empty, tired, hesitant, and feeling incredibly ill-equipped and unprepared.

But what if caring for others was never meant to be a project we sought to complete?

What if serving needs was never meant to be a detached experience devoid of relationship, consistency, or investment beyond funds?

What if “saving souls” takes longer than the average length of the latest Gospel sharing tool? What if it takes a lifetime? What if it takes us being the ones to stop speaking, and giving answers, and council and advice and simply listen?

What if mission was as much about us getting to heal and feel loved and be cared for and known by those we are claiming to heal and love and care for and know?

I think that is an idea of service we would all have a lot more energy for.

In fact, I think a vision for loving others without feeling the need to “save them”, caring for others without feeling the need to provide them easy access answers or solutions, existing with others instead of simply doing things for them— that is a vision of mission the Church is in dire need of.

After all, that is why I believe our Lord and Savior calls us to the margins, to the outcast, the brokenhearted and shunned. Not simply because it’s “the right thing to do”, because charity is part of the Christian call, and certainly not because of pure pity.

But rather, because that is where we are healed.

A Story of Being Healed Through Seeking to Heal

I have a friend named Brooke.

Brooke and I connected through a series of odd and far-too-nuanced-for-the-internet circumstances that I won’t divulge too much of here. All you need to know is that she was in the throes of her own deconstruction journey and I had just experienced the traumatic event that would change my faith and views forever— little did I know, so would Brooke.

I was initially suggested to her as someone who would be a good listener, who could hear her questions and concerns about faith and church and hell and the Bible with empathy, love, and patience. And I do think, to some degree, I was suggested to her as someone who could maybe help provide answers and council and advice and healing, possibly reviving or even saving her faith.

Well, in God’s divine timing, by the time Brooke reached out to me, my own faith was in shambles too. I wasn’t about to heal or revive or save anyone. At least not how I once imagined.

My cup was in so many senses, “empty.” I wasn’t anywhere close to what I would have defined as “healed.” I had far more questions and doubts of my own than I did answers for hers. But here is what I learned very early on through the sacredness of this friendship: Brooke didn’t need me to save her.

She didn’t need me to educate her on the history of the Biblical canon (in fact she had already done more research into that than most church-goers I know). She didn’t need me to recite the passages used to defend an eternal torment view of hell. She didn’t need me to solve or fix her own torrid history with the institutional church and those in power of it.

Brooke just needed me.

She needed me to cry with her. To say, “ya, what the hell!?” with her. She needed me to listen and rage and lament and grieve with her. She needed me to share my own experiences of abuse, disillusionment, anger, and betrayal with her. And in doing all of the above, wouldn’t you know it, it turns out I needed her too.

I needed someone to cry with. To scream-sing Taylor Swift’s increasingly religiously themed lyrics with. I needed someone to grieve with, to change my mind with, to feel safe enough to not have answers with, to not be expected or required to come to certain conclusions with.

In the irony of all ironies, I was suggested to Brooke to try and save her faith and she is the one who ended up saving mine.

Brooke and I have reached vastly different views on plenty pertaining to God over the course of our journey together. According to most evangelical standards— I totally and completely failed in the “mission to save.” And yet, to write such words feels so deeply offensive to what I know to be true: we have experienced far more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control because of our friendship. We have experienced such sincere moments of healing and life and joy and confession and repentance in the midst of our friendship.

I have grown and been challenged and affirmed and motivated in the ways of Jesus because of her. I have a whole new vision and idea of what it means to care, to serve, to live missionally on behalf of others because of her.

Because of my friend Brooke, I know and have seen that to advocate, fight, and show up for the healing of others, it is to advocate, fight, and show up for the healing of ourselves. I have learned that loving Brooke has never, not once, felt like a burden, because I refused to ever take up the burden that was being her savior. The burden of simply loving her has been far lighter.

I sincerely believe that the burden of mission is lighter than we could ever imagine, if only we could be open to viewing mission through a different, far more holistic lense. Mission is fighting against massive injustices, standing against generations of harm, making costly decisions and standing up against oppressive systems, yes. But mission is also saying “ya, what the hell!?” together, scream-singing Taylor Swift’s increasingly religiously themed lyrics together, it’s crying together, lamenting together, and changing our minds together.

Mission is showing up. It’s being present. It’s not having all the answers and loving people anyway. It’s having the humility to be healed by those we assume are in need of the most healing.

And that is a mission, no matter how hurt, or wounded, or harmed we still are— I pray we can all still be hesitant, but on board with.