A Decade to Learn From

Last Sunday, I celebrated ten years in full-time ministry. OK. Celebrated might not be the correct terminology. Commemorated? I’m trying to think of more C words, but my mind’s vocabulary bank is failing me. What I did, though, was reflect on a lot of what I have lived through this last decade. All that ruminating inevitably brought me to think about the ministry and life lessons

On July 5, 2010, I started my first paid ministry position out of college. I was no longer a volunteer. I was no longer an intern. My first “ministry gig” was at a church called Community Dinners (previously Westminster Community Church). The ironic twist to the whole situation was how I got that opportunity right when I was struggling with burnout. Struggling doesn’t even begin to describe what I was going through at the time. I had already made up my mind that I was going to quit ministry and choose a different path. I sent a very difficult email to Pastor Dave, telling him I wasn’t going to come back to Jakarta to work at IES. I started a Master’s program in Business, focusing on Social Entrepreneurship, and I was looking for a job to support my growing shoe collection. 2010 wasn’t a very good year for anyone to look for jobs, so I was struggling there too. The only job that I was offered was this full-time out-of-the-box ministry position. I was so tired of the politics and drama of ministry that I thought I was done with ministry. Relationally with God, I was a mess.

Needless to say, I didn’t start out my full-time ministry journey at the top of my game. I guess that seems to be the thread that winds itself through the different ministries, cities, and platforms I have done ministry in. At the end of the day, it’s not about me. It’s about God and what he is doing through me. A lot of what I’ve gone through with these last ten years has happened in spite of my shortcomings, my obstinacy, my failings. Seriously. This humbles a person, to know that God still works through someone as stubborn and hard-headed as yours truly. And trust me, I wasn’t the most pliant of his people. I still don’t think I’m anywhere close.

I thought about writing on ten lessons I learned over the last ten years. There’s a nice symmetrical feel to that, isn’t it? I feel like that would be a super long post, and I believe whoever is reading this would like for me to keep it short and sweet. Well, I don’t know about sweet. Some of these lessons were difficult to swallow. There were no spoonfuls of sugar to help these medicines go down.

Lesson #1: Your "calling" isn't the job or even the people God is entrusting to you. Your calling is to follow Jesus.

It’s easy for Christians, especially vocational ministers, to get really focused on a specific demographic or a specific job title or a specific location as their calling. So many people I talked to would tell me that they felt that their calling is to go and live the rest of their lives in Africa. Some would say that their calling is to be a senior pastor, or to plant a church, or to be a youth pastor. For a long while, that was me. If someone asked me what I felt God was calling me to do, my answer would be “youth pastor”. Or I’d be a little more flowery in my explanation and tell them that I felt God’s calling me to minister to teenagers ages 12 to 18. That was my standard answer for a little while.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned was that those are not the call. Those are the place God is calling me right now. Those are the people God is calling me to lead right now. But that’s not my calling. People talk about “calling” like it’s this mystical divine appointment. Like finding out you’re Neo from the Matrix, the Chosen One. I have found from my experience over the last ten years that if we focus on our calling as a particular time and place and group of people, we tend to remove God from our equation. Or at least that’s what happened to me. I was so focused on doing what I needed to do and getting to where I felt God was “calling” me to go that I don’t include him. And when we do, we rely so much on ourselves that we forget that we’re supposed to be connected to God and to constantly be in communication with him. Also, oftentimes, when we get so tunnel vision, we miss out on what God’s doing. Or where God’s leading us next.

Our call, or what gives purpose to our existence, is simply to follow God. When I first discovered this, I have to say that it’s a bit of a letdown because it’s not as glamorous as I imagine a call to be. I wanted Abraham’s call and Isaiah’s call and Elisha’s and all the biblical references of one’s call. I didn’t stop to realize how all of these calls aren’t really about doing something specific. All of these instances of God calling people are really just God asking his people if they would be willing to follow. Obedience to God is the call that is placed on every single follower of Jesus. It’s about whether we say yes to things God is opening for us to do. It’s about whether we choose to obey, even when things are uncomfortable or even downright painful.

John 3:8 says this about the Spirit-led people: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (NASB). The Spirit of God partners with us every single day of our lives, and so when he tells us to go, we go. When he tells us to stay, we stay. These days, I’m no longer too worried about assigning myself a life-long “call” or get anxious trying to figure out what that is. I try to do what is in front of me faithfully and try to follow when led. Speaking about wind blowing, I feel like my attitude these days is more like Mary Poppins: “I’ll stay until the wind changes.”

Lesson #2: Things don't usually end up going the way you planned. That doesn't mean you shouldn't plan. It just means you should be OK if things don't end up meeting your expectations.

I’m a planner who has been rehabilitated to only planning with pencils rather than permanent sharpies. To quote another fictional character, “I love it when a plan comes together.” If I can control things so that everything goes according to my plan, I would be the happiest human being in this world. Time and time again, though, my plans have been thwarted. So much so that there was a time in my life where I was afraid to plan. A planner who’s afraid to plan? Yea, that’s not good for business.

Things happen and we just need to adapt and keep moving forward. Keep planning, but when our original plan falls through, vent and then breathe and then pick up that pencil and make a new plan.

I would say that nothing in my life has gone according to my “original” plan. Trust me, if things unfolded according to my original plan, my life would be a disaster, and I would have hurt a lot of people in the process. A little shout out to all the control freaks out there. It’s OK. Breathe. Take a step back, reassess, and understand that ultimately God is in control. And yes, that’s super hard for us to acknowledge, let alone apply. I understand. I totally understand. God does too. He created your control-freak tendency. It’s good to establish some kind of order in life, but we need to let God into our plans too. I mean, it makes absolute sense. He knows the master plan, and he is actually the one in control. Why not let him be part of the planning process? (OK I’m starting to ramble. I’ll stop and move on.)

Lesson #3: Some relationships don’t last.

One of my high school friends recently posted this on her Instagram feed, and I felt like it was so well put that I don’t really want to ruin it by putting the idea in my own words. Enter citation.

Some relationships aren’t meant to last for more than a season, and that’s okay. People grow up, drift apart, or simply move on with their lives. Often times, it has very little to do with you, so try not to take it too personally.”

I’m the kind of person who tries as humanly possible to retain every single precious relationship. In this aspect, I am averse to change. Changes in relationships scare the living daylights out of me. And saying goodbye or letting someone go? Close to impossible. This, though, has been one of the toughest lessons I had to learn throughout my time in ministry. A lot of people come to your life because of church and the ministry you do. Some end up being acquaintances. Others simply maintain that polite distance that one keeps with their pastors. Some become family and wormed their way into your life. And your heart.

Then something happened. Whether it was a big ugly falling out or if the relationship just dissipated like a balloon with a hole in it, we realize that they don’t last. At times, you don’t realize that the relationship was ending. Other times, it storms out right after it stabs you. That sucks, but it’s reality.

Don’t close yourself up. That’s what I did for a time. I felt so hurt when I lost a couple of people who were near and dear to my heart. It felt doubly hurt because I felt like I lost them because they couldn’t understand me in the context of my life as a minister. So out of the sheer need for self-preservation, I closed myself up and distanced myself from people long before it was encouraged to do social distancing. It didn’t do me any good. The resentment and bitterness ate away and robbed me of my joy. Only when I opened myself up to people, realizing who is there for me in this season, and considering the relationships I have right now as gifts from God did I start to live well.

Lesson #4: Boundaries are biblical.

Boundaries are important. Boundaries are biblical. You’re not God, so don’t act like you’re limitless. This, the idea of setting good boundaries and taking some time to rest and take a break was one of the huge lessons I learned this decade. Taking some time to take a break from ministry (yes, the work of the Lord) is biblical. The idea of taking a break was modeled to us by God in the creation account not because he was tired and needed to binge-watch Netflix. God brought up the idea of resting as an acknowledgment that we’re not God, he is. He’s in control and is the ultimate Sovereign of the universe. When we take a break, it is an act of trust to God.

I had to learn how to establish and communicate my boundaries. I always thought that letting my ministry bleed into my personal life and my personal relationships were good and were expected of me as a minister. I had to unlearn this way of thinking and learn a new one. That burnout shouldn’t be lauded and carried around like a badge of honor.

Lesson #5: You are important. Care for yourself.

These days, you look at Instagram and read about self-care everywhere. You can’t miss it! I’ll try to keep this one short. I learned that I am worth being taken care of. Somehow, in my head, I had the belief that in order for us to serve God, we have to forego any kind of personal pleasure and sacrifice everything. That was, for the longest time, how I interpreted the whole idea of self-sacrifice and picking up the cross. I equated being a follower of Jesus as being a doormat. That somehow saying “less of me, more of Christ” means that I need to be invisible and let my feelings and efforts be trampled.

My best friend would actually pray this for me: that I would learn how to be selfish sometimes. The first time I heard that I was so shocked. What? That’s what I should strive not to be - selfish. I need to keep giving of myself until there’s nothing left to give. And then I should then give some more! Isn’t that how we’re supposed to live?

No.

In case any of you were wondering. Taking the time to care for our own spiritual growth, our personal growth, our relational growth, etc. is crucial to our ability to love people well. When we love people from a place of fulfillment, contentment, and joy, we get to love them well. When we’re depleted and goes around thinking we are not worthy of care, we end up not caring for people well. Isn’t that funny?

OK. Let me close out my long post with a bonus lesson, taken from one of Leroy Jethro Gibbs’ rules from “NCIS”. Rule no.11: When the job is done, walk away. Or how George Washington expressed this idea in “Hamilton”: “If I say goodbye [they] learns to move on; [they’ll] outlive me when I’m gone.”

No, no, no. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just saying that our lives come in seasons. Sometimes seasons end. Sometimes God leads you to do something different. Don’t hold on to the past and expect God to show up when he’s already trying to move you into a new season. Don’t stay longer and disrupt the next person’s season there. “When the job is done, walk away.” I guess that’s the interesting thing about following the Spirit. There are plenty of times in life when we are guided to walk away before we ever get to see the results of our hard work come to pass. I guess this is a bonus lesson. It’s not your work, it’s God’s. So sometimes you don’t get to see or enjoy the fruit of your labor. You just move on and follow the Spirit.

OK, great. I don’t even know how to end this post.

I’m grateful for the opportunities, the laughter, the prayer-filled times I have experienced in the last decade. I have learned a lot! There are so much more life and ministry lessons I couldn’t share. (Mostly because it’s currently 4AM and my brain is giving up on me.) I honestly can say that I don’t know where God is leading me next. I don’t know when exactly next is going to come. One thing I know, though, when he does make it clear, I’ll follow.

July 12, 2020