Theology for Women

For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I rarely say anything about my current dating life. I have frequently written about my experiences and mistakes in the past, but I’ve tried to avoid discussing my present personal relationships for the sake of guarding people’s privacy and reputations.

Now as a result of this silence, many of you will probably be surprised by what I’m about to say, but hopefully you will be excited as well, because over the weekend

I GOT ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right, for the last 10 months I have been dating the godliest and most wonderful man I have ever met. Though I have not mentioned him by name, he has been the inspiration behind many of my blogs this past year. He is a man so immersed in the Word that our every day conversations give me plenty to think about and write about each week.

Because of him, I have learned the importance of having a spiritual leader with whom you are ALSO equally yoked.

Because of him I have learned first-hand that a Christ-centered relationship sets you free to do ministry better, rather than tying up your time and holding you back from it.

Because of him, I have captured a glimpse of the beauty God wrote into my created being. I wish I could change the aspects of myself that are different from the world’s standards of beauty, yet those are the attributes that he loves most, because they set me apart–and that’s exactly why God gave them to me.

Because of him, I have experienced first hand the truth that God desires you to marry another person ONLY if you can serve God better with them than without them. I have found that partner, that co-laborer who pushes me and affirms me and challenges me every day.

Now that we are engaged, I am going to keep writing but I will be a bit more open about the ways in which my relationship with him teaches me about God. This will not, however, turn into a blog for married people. It is my desire that no matter where life takes me, I will continue to write for women wherever they are in life. Theology is not just for single women or just for married women–it is for Christian women.

I am excited about this new chapter in my life, and I’m sure that God has wonderful things to teach me through it, so I’m anxious to see what I learn. I hope you will continue to walk along with me.

I don’t know about you, but for many years when I would attend Christian conferences, I avoided the women’s break-out sessions like the plague.

(And just to be clear, I am speaking to women right now. If you’re reading this and you’re a guy, then I really hope you avoided the women’s break-out sessions. That would be weird if you didn’t.)

The reason I was so deliberate in not attending was two-fold: One, I was fairly certain I already knew what they were gonna say. Something about submission or modesty. Two, I hated being defined by my womanhood. I wanted to attend sessions that taught me how to be a better Christian first, and a woman second.

In my mind, women’s ministry equated with a mushy, emotional, let’s-all-hug kind of theology. Some of it was helpful, but after awhile you’d heard it all and it was time to move on. I’d gotten all the mush that I needed for one lifetime.

Well since that season of my life, I’ve re-evaluated my stance, but not because I’ve come to embrace the emotion-driven theology that I once spurned. I have not. I still hate it, and I have to fight every fiber in my being that resists it—sometimes women really do need a good cry or an old fashioned hug fest. I need to accept this.

But the real reason I’ve come to value women’s ministry anew is that it is our best tool for equipping women within the Church. Yes, our pastors can do this and male leaders are able to teach us, but women will never know what it means to be a woman in leadership if some of us don’t step up and set an example with our lives.

For generations, the vision cast for women has been painfully small. Not all of us have realized our full potential in serving the Kingdom of God because we don’t even know what that really looks like. It’s not often that we’ve heard female preachers teach with power and authority, and there aren’t a lot evangelical women with doctorates in theology. We’ve seen men do these things many times, but not women.

It’s not that women are too stupid to study theology, or that we aren’t capable of teaching. It’s that we didn’t even know that we could. That is the climate that we younger women are coming out of. Only in very recent years have the number of women in seminaries come to equal that of men.

The issue here is not the rights of women. Don’t hear me as preaching some sort of she-woman empowerment message. That is not my agenda. The reason we should be educating ourselves and pushing ourselves in the study of God is because GOD DESERVES NO LESS! Mediocrity has no place in His Church. Women who are content with the status quo, you will not find your place here. We must consistently challenge ourselves to grow and learn and teach so that we can pursue God more fully and cast a vision for other to do so as well.

But this kind of vision cannot come from men. Why? Because men are not women. In the same way that I can’t exemplify to the men in my ministry what it means to be a godly, male leader, men cannot exemplify to women what it means to be a godly, female leader. Men can teach us many things about Christ and Christian discipleship, but how that plays out in a specifically female context is best taught by women. That’s why Scripture advises women to teach other women in Titus 2.

We need women to step up and do that job.

Yes, women’s ministry does matter. It matters a lot. We are waging a spiritual battle for the glory of God, and we must all be as equipped as possible if we are to fight this good fight. We must be pushing each other and challenging one another to grow and be stronger and dream big dreams. God requires this of women just as much as he requires it of men, not for the sake of women, but for the sake of His name. So until we are maximizing our gifts and abilities, it is not ourselves who are being robbed, but God.

That, ladies, is why women’s ministry matters. And that is where women’s ministry is going.

I don’t know about you, but if I were to make a list of all the things I’d like to do on the weekends or on vacation, you wouldn’t find “going to the library” near the top. It would instead appear towards the bottom, just above getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist or catching up on my vaccinations.

It’s not that I dislike reading, but if I’m on vacation visiting a new city, that is not the place I’m gonna go first. There are more than enough smelly used books in Durham for that.

But this weekend I went to the most awesome library EVER–the Billy Graham Library. It’s located in Charlotte and I was able to go during the conference this weekend. And while I know it sounds like the most boring, nerdy Christian field trip ever, trust me–it wasn’t.

(Ok, maybe it was a little nerdy Christian, but it was NOT boring!)

Let me give you a little taste…

The beginning of the tour is unabashedly cheesy. It begins with a talking, animatronic cow named Bessie who talks about how Billy Graham grew up on a farm and how much all the cows loved him. She also mentions that cows can praise God too. Good to know.

At this point in the tour, I was a little skeptical–I wondered if I’d wandered into a version of Disney World in which Mickey had been replaced by Billy. But I think that segment was meant to appeal to the kids because the rest of the tour was INCREDIBLE.

I won’t spoil it for you in case you visit, but let just say that I pretty much cried my entire way through the museum. There were videos and displays and testimonies about Billy Graham’s ministry, and it was extremely moving. By the time I came out of it, I sat in a corner and cried my eyes out until a sweet little old man brought me a tissue. It was awesome.

The reason the experience touched me so powerfully is that it confirmed a message that God has been laying on my heart as of late. But let me give you some background…

Recently I’ve felt like I’ve gotten really caught up in the machine of ministry–all I think about is how to market the ministry and how to make people like the ministry once they come and how to grow the ministry and on and on and on. I’m thinking about my ministry all the time, and I feel an invisible pressure to succeed weighing down on me.

But in the last week, I’ve come to realize something–all of those commitments and strategies have ended up eclipsing Christ. It’s not that he’s absent from my ministry, but he has very slowly lost his centrality. I’ve been so focused on doing doing doing that I’ve forgotten just how simple my job is–to point to Christ.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says that he’s resolved to know nothing except Christ and him crucified. He makes this statement in contrast with the idea that we must puff ourselves up intellectually and theologically. According to Paul, those things only distract, and they certainly don’t make a ministry succeed. The key is to have Christ at the center.

And while I know that this isn’t new information for most of us, my question for you is this: How often do you actually put this concept into practice. When a problem presents itself, what is your very first go-to? When you counsel a friend, do you try to give them wise sounding answers, or do you point them to Christ? If you’re a minister, do you get caught up in all the plans and strategies for making the ministry succeed, or do you simply focus on pointing people to Christ?

The difference, I believe, is whether or not we see Christ, or ourselves, as the answer to the world’s problems. When someone comes to us for help, or if we face an obstacle in our lives, our first instinct is to rely on our own strength, our own wisdom, education, training an knowledge, rather than Christ.

But this idea of always pointing people back to Christ, calling him out by name and immediately pointing people back to him in the midst of our needs–this idea is quite liberating. It takes an ENORMOUS load off of our shoulders because that is one task that I know I can accomplish. I may not preach with eloquence, and my ideas might be lame, but I can certainly tell people about Jesus.

And that’s what Billy Graham’s ministry was all about. Every sermon he gave focused on the person of Christ and making him known. That is one of the reasons his ministry has thrived–he always placed the Gospel front and center of the presentation.

So I’ve decided to carry on that legacy, a legacy that was begun for us by Paul, and has the power to change the world. My education and training is all fine and good, but I want my life’s work to be driven by a resolve to know nothing except Christ, and him crucified. Given that God became man and died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins, I think I’ll do well if I just stick out my finger and point back to that.

And for those of you who were wondering, the conference went GREAT! Thanks for your prayers!

God’s timing is killing me right now. Killing me!

Here’s the deal–for the last several months I’ve been planning a retreat to the beach for all my college students. I picked the location very intentionally, and the whole weekend was designed to be the ideal kickoff for the year. We were supposed to go this weekend.

Unfortunately, tropical storm Hanna had similar plans. Like me, she decided that the North Carolina coast was the perfect spot to spend her weekend. But there isn’t enough room for both of us so I got the boot. Now I’m scrambling for Plan B.

It’s because of stuff like this that I can really hate leading a ministry. There is a LOT of pressure. All the responsibility eventually rests on your shoulders, and if things get screwed up or fail, it’s all your fault. At times, the intensity of the burden feels nearly suffocating.

But the interesting thing is that in those times when I feel most anxious, most fearful, and most prone to quit, I feel closest to God, like I am in the center of His will. It is in those times that I am most compelled to rely on Him.

In those moments, my limitations become undeniably obvious, and I am forced to turn to the One who has no limitations at all. When I realize my inadequacies, I can surrender the situation into the Hands of Him who works mightily through all things.

So while my immediate response to adversity is to retreat, such experiences have taught me to do just the opposite. We should always do MORE than we are initially inclined to take on. By that I don’t mean that we should fill our schedules with an endless number of things that spread us so thin that we can’t do anything well.

When I challenge you to do “more,” I mean “more” in a qualitative, not quantitative, sense. Take on the impossible! Challenge yourself with tasks that are only attainable with the power of God at work. Otherwise, when you cower in the face of such opportunities, you sentence yourself to a mundane life of spiritual mediocrity.

But God has not called us to mediocrity. He’s called us to be dreamers of big dreams, to aim for more than we could have ever imagined, and to believe that God will always exceed our expectations. But in order to do this, we must leave our meager, human-sized goals behind, and instead strive for something more.

What are you working toward? Even if you’re in full-time ministry, it’s still easy to scale down your possibilities to fit within the boundaries of human limitation. But fight that temptation. No matter where you are, do more. Always do more. It can be unbelievably hard at times, but it’s also the most exhilarating and satisfying place to be. Nothing compares with knowing that the Holy Spirit is working through you, thanks to no ability of your own. That, I think, is a real encounter with God.

I will never forget the first time I saw a documentary on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In case you are unfamiliar with this great defender of the faith, he lived in Germany during Hitler’s rule, and he was one of the only Christians in the entire country to resist the Nazis. In fact, he and a small band of Christians devised an assassination plot against Hitler. They were almost successful in their attempt, but the plan failed and they were all discovered. Bonhoeffer was subsequently executed.

The reason I loved the documentary so much is that it got me excited about my own faith. Bonhoeffer seemed like the equivalent of a Christian super hero–he stood firm against all odds in the face of clear evil. He fought valiantly, in the name of Christ, and he died for a noble cause.

I want to be a part of such a fight, in which the stakes are high and much is to be lost, but I lay down my life because I am a Christian, and that is my calling. I want to be remembered for standing unflinchingly against the powers of evil. I wanna be like Wonderwoman! Except the Christian version (which would probably have sleeves and knee-length shorts).

And I know that I’m not alone in feeling this way. Many women read about the lives of Jim Eliot, Martin Luther King, or women like Perpetua (who I wrote about last month), Christians who all fought and died for the sake of the Gospel. We read about these individuals, and it stirs something deep within us.

It stirs our inner warrior, that part of us that knows we were created to fight mighty battles on behalf of Christ. We are reminded of what our soul has known all along–that our calling is high and the struggle is great, but we will not have lived if we did not wage this war. We want to rise up and be women of valor, to live and die for something bigger than ourselves.

This desire, this calling, is written on the very foundation of my heart. And I know it is written on yours as well.

But what has become of this call to arms? Are we content to experience the fleeting exhilaration of a good sermon or an inspiring story, and then go back to our mediocre lives, never truly tasting greatness?

I think we are. We have become content to settle, and I see this in the way women talk about church leadership. When we discuss our future roles in the church, we do not use that kind of inspiring language. We do not refer to the imagery of epic battles and spiritual warfare. We leave that to the boys.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say “I feel called to marry a pastor” or “I want to marry a church planter.” Heck, I’ve said it myself! But it’s not often that you hear women talk about their own calling to ministry, their own desire to start a church where no church has gone before, their own sweeping visions for the Kingdom of God.

But regardless of where you stand on the topic of women in ministry, there is a degree to which women are unequivocally called to plant churches and lead within the church. Why? Because no person can plant a church alone. No person can lead a congregation alone. It takes a team of visionaries, a group of hard workers with varying gifts to pull off such an undertaking.

So even if you feel that only men should be senior pastors, a minister is nothing without fellow church planters, both male and female. You never hear about a solitary pastor starting a church in his apartment by preaching to his living room furniture and his dog. Instead, you hear about a team of individuals, couples, families and singles who begin meeting and worshiping together, all with one shared goal for their community–the spread of the Gospel.

That said, women are definitely called to be church planters. While there are certainly instances in which a woman must work or stay at home so that her husband is freed up to focus solely on starting a church, that is not the only role that women can fill. If your husband is called to plant a church, then you are not merely “the wife of a church planter”–YOU are a church planter! The two of you are likely called to the same purpose, so you’re not simply tagging along for the ride. Your husband needs a co-laborer who will build him up, spur him on, fill in the ministry gaps that he is not gifted to fill. He needs a fellow soldier who will wield a sword alongside of him.

And if you are single and feel called to church planting, don’t just wait around for a husband who feels the same way. Perhaps God wants you to take action now, to jump on board with a team of people who are praying towards the same end. You can lend your time, experience, training, education, and leadership wherever you are. The church certainly needs it.

Regardless of your circumstances, take ownership of the desire that God has written onto your female heart. Men are not the only ones who God calls to be warriors–the moment you committed to follow Christ, you became a part of a cosmic battle in which you are expected to fight. We are all soldiers together, so take hold of the call to which God is compelling you, and take up your sword. The forces of evil will quake with fear and dread if you will only rise up and respond to God’s battle cry. It’s time to fight like a girl.

He was a senior in college and he had been living with his girlfriend for two years. He thought they would get married and live happily ever after. His whole life was ahead of him and everything seemed to be coming together.

But then one afternoon he came home and discovered his girlfriend in bed with his best friend. Blind with rage he left the apartment, got a gun, came back, and shot them both. Thirty years later, he is still in prison serving out his sentence for the two young lives that he cut short.

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The principal of the school never really liked him. He used to have a huge paddle with which he would whack the students upside the back or head whenever they got out of line, but the principal was particularly brutal to this young man. He used to come home with scrapes and bruises from the “punishments” he suffered at the hands of that principal.

Then one day the young man snapped. The principal took the abuse one step too far, and the next thing he knew he had whipped out a knife and was stabbing the principal, over and over and over. He would later learn that he had stabbed the principal over 20 times, so self-defense was not a plausible plea. After having been being found guilty of first degree murder, he had been in prison for decades.

*****************

These are just two of the stories I heard last week. These were also two of the men with whom I worshiped at the prison. Meeting them today, you would never guess that they had committed such heinous crimes. Now they are gentle, loving men, passionate about the Lord and committed to following Him.

These men also know a thing or two about redemption. They are now using their stories to impact the lives of young people around their state. They travel to schools and invite students into the prison, all for the purpose of sharing their tales so that others will not make the same mistakes. God is clearly working through them.

Now in spite of the fact that these men have turned their lives around, I was very much startled by the degree of sympathy I felt for them. As crazy as it may sound, if it were up to me I would probably let them go free! Yes, they had engaged in horrible acts, but now they are different men. They are not the same individuals that they were years ago, and because of that, my heart yearns to show them mercy. Even when I think about the pain and suffering their victim’s families had endured, my heart was still softened toward them.

Strange, right?

At first, I thought my feelings of compassion were misplaced. How could I feel pity for a man who took the life of another? If anything, I should feel pity for the friends and families who were impacted by the crime, but not the perpetrator of the crime.

Well as I have meditated on these feelings more and more, I have come to a wonderful realization. The sympathy and mercy that my heart yearns to show these men, even in the face of profound sin, is a reflection of the very heart of God. Even when confronted with our depraved souls and our selfish lifestyles, God still desires to show us mercy. He still yearns to redeem our lives and give us a second chance.

Mercy in the face of sin: that is the very heartbeat of God. But for me personally, the point at which this divine characteristic becomes the most difficult to embody is in showing that same mercy to myself. How easy it was for me to sympathize with murderers, but I have yet to forgive myself for sins in my past. They still haunt my memory and make me cringe at the thought. I wonder if I will ever let them go.

That said, my experience in that prison was also a lesson in the lavishness of God’s mercy, a mercy we must remember to extend to others, as well as ourselves. Yes, God is a God of justice, and He detests sin more than we can understand, but He also loves us enough to deliver us from it. I think the inmates grasped this concept, and that was the reason for their immense joy. If I could simply wrap my mind around my own forgiveness, then perhaps I might be able to worship with an ecstasy that is comparable to my brothers in chains.

Or at least their prisons are!

I just got back from my mission trip to West Virginia, and it was nothing short of INCREDIBLE. I learned more than I ever could have imagined! In addition to the many spiritual truths and insights that God revealed during the last several days, I also learned how to whip a large van around sharp mountain curves at dangerously high speeds, and I learned that I won’t actually die if I can’t use my cell phone for a week (we had to drive an hour from where we were staying just to get a signal).

But back to the spiritual stuff. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m going to spend the next several posts reflecting on the various stories and revelations I happened upon, but until then, let me give you the details on how I spent my time so that you have a little bit of background.

To begin, I ventured into the middle-of-nowhere West Virginia with 8 students from UNC-Greensboro. We worked with a church in the area, and we spent the majority of our days in a federal prison for women. However, this was no ordinary prison–this particular facility was for women who had been pregnant at the time of their sentencing, and had since given birth. All of the women in this prison had children between the ages of 3 weeks to 15 months, and were raising them in federal confinement.

As a mission team, our job was to go in there and simply care for the women and their children–we did crafts, I played my guitar, we went on walks, we held the babies, and listened to the moms. We had a blast, and I was heart-broken to leave them behind. I feel as though I made some true friends there, so it’s difficult to leave when you know that they can’t.

But in addition to working with the women’s prison, we also spent some time at the medium security men’s prison, which was considerably more intense. A number of the men there had been convicted of very serious crimes, including some fairly heinous murders. But the crazy thing is that you would have never guessed it! Granted, I only spent time with the prisoners who were Christian (on Tuesday and Thursday nights we led some of the inmates in a worship service) but they were a remarkable testimony to the transformational power of the Gospel! Let me leave you with one story…

On Tuesday night I had the privilege of leading worship, so I stood in front of about 40 prisoners with my guitar and one of my students, and we sang. It was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. While I stood up there I looked out at the group and saw tough men, covered in tattoos, grinning ear to ear, and bouncing their heads along to the music. Some of them had their eyes closed as they worshiped, and there was such joy on their faces!…in prison of all places! It reminded me of Paul’s words in Philippians–”Rejoice in the Lord always, I say it again, rejoice!” Paul wrote those very words when he was in prison. Clearly Paul, and those inmates, knew something I did not.

Afterwards, many of the men came up to shake my hand and thank me for coming. They spoke of their testimonies, when and how they got saved, and what a blessing it was to worship with me and my students. And as I looked into each man’s eyes, I did not see the face of a murderer–I saw the face of a prodigal son who was overcome with joy and humility at having been welcomed back by his father. I also saw the face of a brother…..and I mean that quite literally. I felt as if we were family. I guess we are.

One final thought. Jesus once told the disciples that a certain sinful woman “loved much because she’d been forgiven much.” Well these inmates loved much, and you could see it in their faces. Though they lived in a dark, dark place, the light of their faith was blindingly bright. It was a magnificent thing to behold.

So as I think back to the time I spent in a prison in West Virginia, I am humbled by the knowledge that I have brothers and sisters there. We may come from very different backgrounds, and our culture may label them as irredeemable, but I have more in common with them than some members of my own family. We are one in Christ. And while society may tell them that they’re without hope, God gave hope to the hopeless. I think those men and women understand the magnitude of that gift far more than I ever could.

For that, and many other reasons, it was a good week. More stories to follow…

Several years ago I attended a convention for religious broadcasters in the United States. I was representing the ministry I worked for at the time, which had a radio segment that aired all over the country. We were at the convention to network, meet other broadcasters, and get the ministry’s name out there.

To my surprise, the convention itself was actually very exciting. I got to meet well-known Christian authors, I saw a pre-screening of The Passion movie, and I had fascinating conversations with ministries from all over the U.S. Overall, it was a great experience.

However, there is one thing about the convention that stands out in my mind, one thing that I will never forget. It serves as a kind of accountability for me in my own ministry today…

Because the convention was for religious broadcasters, there were a number of Christian t.v. shows present, along with their hosts. And let me tell you, the women who hosted those shows were BEAUTIFUL! They walked around that convention hall with perfect hair, perfect make-up and perfect clothes. They were incredibly put together and flawless, these successful Christian women, and that is when the first seed of self-doubt planted itself in my heart.

I looked at those women, who were smart and driven and had already accomplished a lot in ministry, and then I looked at myself–my hair was flat, my clothes were boring, and Lysa, the president of the ministry, had to help me put on my make-up because I was so pathetic at it. I was far from perfect.

So as I observed those flawless women and then compared myself to them, I thought to myself, “If this is what it means to be a successful women’s minister, then I clearly don’t measure up.”

I still find myself thinking that today. I look at women like Beth Moore, who is not only a powerful writer and speaker, but is also drop-dead gorgeous, and I feel as though I fall miserably short. I believe the lie that the perfect Christian woman has got to be the whole package, which poses a problem for me since I bite my finger nails, I can never figure out how to get my hair to look right, and I’m barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel. The whole package? That, I am not.

On a head level, I think we all know how faulty that logic is. Scripture is full of verses about how God looks at the inside and not the outside. That message is clear. But the reason my experience at the convention was so definitive for me as a women’s minister is that it made me pause and wonder–Do I ever make other women feel insecure about themselves? Do I convey the message that looking put together and perfect is an important part of being a Christian woman? Do I spend so much time primping and looking cute that I compromise my witness? While I may tell young women that outward beauty doesn’t matter, do my actions undermine my words?

Well I recently discovered that Paul talks about this very thing in 1 Corinthians 2 when he explains to the Corinthian church the he did not come to them with “eloquence” or “persuasive words.” This point is significant because Paul was extremely educated and well-versed in the art of rhetoric. He was very capable of speaking articulately and persuasively. But he instead chose to keep it simple.

Why? Because he didn’t want the presentation to distract people from the message. He didn’t want his listeners to be so impressed by his rhetorical gifts that they missed out on what he was actually saying.

And Christian women do well to keep this teaching in mind. We must not let the presentation distract people from the message. This principle can play out in any number of ways, but one of the most salient examples is the way we present ourselves outwardly. If we are trying to encourage one another to focus on inward beauty, but we spend excessive amounts of time on our outward beauty, then we will undermine our message. Rather than spurring women toward the Gospel, we’ll be encouraging their insecurities, self-doubt, and vanity.

Now that is not to say that we should wear burlap sacks and stop washing our hair–it’s definitely ok to look nice! God created us to be beautiful and we should celebrate that fact. But I am writing this as a kind of heart check. We need to examine our motives in how much time we spend on our outward beauty. Are you spending time on your outward appearance for the glory of God, or in order to feel better about yourself? And more importantly, do you spend as much time working on your inward beauty as do you your outward beauty?

I, for one, hope that in my time as a women’s minister, I have never misled women into thinking that being the “perfect Christian woman” means looking flawless and put together. If I have, I apologize greatly and ask for forgiveness. But the truth of the matter is that there is no “perfect Christian woman.” By that I mean that there isn’t ONE standard to which we should all strive. God created us to be unique and diverse because each one of us reflects His infinite majesty in our own special way. If we aspire to fit in a cookie cutter mold, then we’ll erase the unique beauty in each one of us, and thereby steal a little bit of glory away from God. The only standard that we should all be seeking is holiness, so if there is any message that I want my life to convey, it is the importance of pursuing Him. Anything else is just a distraction.

A couple weeks ago my pastor shared a quote that I have since found to be thoroughly true and deeply convicting. It comes from the personal assistant of Albert Einstein, Charles Misner, and explains why Einstein was so disinterested in formal religion:

“The design of the universe is very magnificent and shouldn’t be taken for granted. In fact, I believe that is why Einstein had so little use for organized religions, although he strikes me as basically a very religious man. Einstein must have looked at what the preacher said about God and felt that they were blaspheming. He had seen much more majesty than he had ever imagined, and they were just not talking about the real thing. My guess is that he simply felt that the churches he had run across did not have proper respect for the Author of the Universe.”

Misner’s words could not be more true. Oftentimes our preaching lacks credibility, not because we are hypocrites, but because we are utterly unconvincing. Many people don’t believe us because they don’t see the awe that we would logically have if we truly knew what we were professing. Non-Christians can tell that we are trying just as hard to convince ourselves as we are trying to convince them.

But what is the solution to this inauthenticity? The answer is not to become better actors, but to genuinely fall more in love with Christ. To understand this distinction, I am reminded of my past romantic relationships. No matter how hard a guy tried, I could always tell if he wasn’t really into it. Even if he went through all the right motions and said all the right things, I could still tell whether or not the actions were genuine.

Real, head over heels love, on the other hand, is unmistakable. A guy will have stars in his eyes, he can’t stop smiling, and can’t stop talking about the girl that he loves. There is no faking this kind of emotion, and it is the same with God. We must be totally enamored with God if others are to believe us when we speak of His faithfulness. Otherwise, our words will ring hollow.

So how do we fall in love with God in an authentically passionate way? By spending time with Him. The more we read God’s Word and the more we go to Him in prayer, the more we will realize why the angels sing “Holy, holy, holy” and why David wrote volumes of Psalms about His glory. If you know God, truly know God, you will be unable to help yourself–you will fall hopelessly and madly in love with Him. And when we do, people will not only notice, but believe.

Today I read a deeply tragic news story that has given me a great deal of perspective on my approach to ministry. The story was about a teenage girl who hung herself after receiving a mean message from a boy on MySpace. Apparently the girl had engaged in relatively innocent conversations with the boy for some time, but another girl hacked into his account and began to send hostile messages to her, telling her she was mean and that the world would be better off without her. Ordinarily, this would seem like standard girl-on-girl cattiness that would fizzle out after some short-lived drama, but it instead ended in the premature loss of a life.

For me, this story serves as a crucial reminder. Why? Because this teenager was just a regular girl. There was nothing about her that made her life particularly tragic or unfair. She was not a minority, she had not lived on the street, and she had not been oppressed or marginalized. She was just a normal, every day, American girl. And oftentimes, this is a category of person that I am sometimes tempted to ignore when I imagine what true Christian ministry should look like.

When it comes to being salt and light in a dark world, we should be utterly undiscriminating. For some of us, that means going out of our comfort zones and ministering to those individuals who have fallen through the cracks of our society–the poor, the needy, the hungry, etc. However, there is also a great temptation for some Christians to focus only on helping the poor. Unlike those Christians who ignore the poor due to laziness or complacency, this latter tendency sometimes stems from a “poverty theology” in which working with the poor is ranked as a superior Christian endeavor. Working with the rich and the privileged therefore becomes an overlooked need. In fact, the rich and powerful are the people we frequently judge and condemn, not reach out to. And in doing so, we convey the message that God only really cares about the poor. God is somehow partial to them.

Not only does such a perspective tell a lie about God’s love for the world as a whole, but it views Jesus’ ministry, and the world, through a largely temporal lens. It is to judge someone’s poverty based on superficial circumstances alone. But the truth of the matter, as the above story reminds us, is that many individuals whom the world would deem to be privileged, are living in emotional and spiritual poverty. Like the young woman who took her own life, we have classmates, roommates, neighbors and co-workers who may appear to have it all from a worldly perspective, but are dying inside. We could offer them hope and joy but we rarely do, assuming they don’t need it because they are already wealthy, powerful, or at the very least, financially comfortable and seemingly happy.

For that reason, this story reminds us that if we are fully engaged in helping the poor and defending the oppressed, but completely ignoring the spiritual destitution in the lives of those around us, then we are no closer to the heart of God than devout Christians who ignore the homeless and needy individuals in their community. Yes, we must feed and clothe those who need it, but it is no less important to provide people with spiritual nourishment as well. In fact, it is more important.

So while social justice is indeed a priority, don’t forget about those closest to you who may not seem to have as a great a need, but may very well be falling apart inside. To engage in this type of outreach means we must learn to see the world with spiritual eyes, eyes that not only seek to heal physical poverty, but spiritual poverty as well. We live in a fallen world, which means that pain and suffering is inevitable no matter who you are, so the real question is whether we will reach out to our dying brothers and sisters, or ignore them because we feel there are more pressing needs at hand.