Messy ministry

Darla was the answer to prayer when I decided to go on a hunt for non-Christians.

In an innocent moment of prayer, I told God that I needed to expand my circle of friends. Before long, I was invited to join a bowling team. My teammates were a lusty, energetic, opinionated group, with loud laughs and salty talk. I washed the smoke out when I came home. But I listened, I asked questions, I stayed.

Darla was a young mother filled with the salty bitterness of new divorce. Every week, she cursed her ex-husband while I tried to encourage her to move on from the hatred. She was scraping along financially. Did she have a church to help her? No, her husband had been the church-goer and she detested him.

But she eventually began to chuckle at my innocence, because I didn’t join her in censuring her husband – or insulting mine, for that matter. And then, one weekend, her ex stopped by to visit their daughter, as he often did. But this time was different.

She bounced onto the lanes the next week announcing that they were reconciling. Her heart softened, she and I began to talk about Jesus and church blessings and growth. When they remarried, she asked me to be her matron of honor. They settled into a church a few hours away and we often wrote letters about what she was learning and how God had rescued her family.

This is not a story about the formula I used to bring her to Christ, because there is none. I did little but, oh, what God did!

Here’s what I did: I went to where people were and I listened to what they said. I didn’t check out at the first swear word or the first cigarette lit. I was determined to hang around long enough to see what God was going to do in that place.

Jesus went to tax collectors and prostitutes and Samaritans. He went to the unclean and the needy. He risked reputation and prestige for the unlovable. His ministry was not bright lights but apparent failure and defeat.

We need to identify the needy around us. They may be newly divorced, or newly bankrupt, or sorrowing. Their child may have run away or their boss just deemed them too old to stay. They may smoke or swear or drink. They probably have opinions that will frost your hair. When we find them, we need to love them. God’s love changes people. A good friend calls it the ministry of presence, being available and loving.

Ministry is messy. Jesus was bloodied, bruised, mocked, killed. Following him means….well…..following him.

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet.

John 13:14