This fall (2014), I co-led a weekly inductive bible study on the gospel of Mark, colloquially known as Mark Study. My co-leader and I were excited about making a regular space where folks could encounter the Jesus of the Bible, the one who frequently confounds us unless we expend time and energy entering into the first-century world he lived in. We eagerly anticipated Jesus showing up in the lives of the Mark Studiers. We just didn't know who those Mark Studiers would be.
Fifteen weeks later, and my co-leader and I are marveling at how much God moved in unseen ways (that is, unseen by us until pretty recently).
1. We consistently had 6 students attending.
2. The study that I felt the most insecure about leading was one that folks mentioned the most in their conversations with us at the end of the semester.
3. We had two opportunities to look for Jesus in our present day social climate: one in Oakland, talking about police brutality and racial injustice, and the other in Berkeley, a prayer vigil organized after the non-indictment of Darren Wilson. After these events, my co-leader and I were unsure whether or not folks were able to make connections between Jesus in the gospel of Mark and Black Americans advocating for justice in their communities. But our last study of the semester tied in the way Jesus sends out his followers to see and be with communities previously unknown to us!
4. Students are excited to be part of Mark 2 (the second half of Mark) next semester; and they are excited to lead the study!
5. Students have individually thanked us for the space that we helped create each week because they have seen things they had never seen before in Jesus and in the Word.
It maybe oughtn't be much of a surprise to me that God shows up when people seek him--and yet, I am so much like the disciples, who say, "Jesus, don't you care --- ?!" and get afraid whenever he does anything. So that's the last twist: how Jesus has stretched my belief/faith by putting me in the position of leading others when I'm barely a step ahead!
Monday, December 22, 2014
The [Squirrel] Monster Within
I was meeting with a student on a clear Friday afternoon at Free Speech Movement Cafe on campus. We were talking about insecurity and pride, and how both these human postures communicate a similar rejection of God as Creator and Sustainer. I shared some about my temptation to tell God that he designed me poorly when I found myself not measuring up to my own standards, and the student, Rachel, was listening with rapt attention.
It was then that we saw the squirrel perched on our table, mere inches away from our coffee and food.
This is not the squirrel, but it is about as close to you as the squirrel in my story was to us.
Too close.
With exclamations of surprise and fear, we leapt up from our table, snatching away our beverages and snacks. One crumb remained and the rotund squirrel gobbled it up greedily, showing even less of an inclination to back down. I watched it in disbelief--when did it get so bold that it would sit on a table, less than a foot away from humans, and not flinch at their words or gestures? How did this abomination come to be??
It was then that Rachel and I realized that this squirrel standoff was a perfect illustration of what we had been discussing: this moment was a story that, along with the associated feelings of terror and helplessness, would sear this conversation in both our minds for a long time to come.
This squirrel is so much like the pride within us--when we feed it a little here and a little there (musing on our accomplishments, dwelling on our failures, investing in our reputations at the cost of our souls), it soon grows bold beyond our control and begins to terrorize us. It starts looking at us with hunger, no longer satisfied with the little morsels we've been feeding it. My wake-up call came in the form of a deep depression*--I had been feeding the monster of vanity for a long time with both self-aggrandizing and self-condemning thoughts, and it eventually swallowed my identity whole. As a result, I experienced what felt like death, but was really God destroying the false beliefs I had about who I am and teaching me to compassionately interpret my emotions.
Rachel and I were a little in awe at how neatly our table-side encounter with the squirrel fit into what God was teaching us in that moment. I am grateful to serve such a creative and concrete God!
*I am continually learning to interpret my experience with depression, and I offer it as a story about my life (no one else's). Everyone's depression is different!
Love First, Ask Questions Second
God has recently been overturning a paradigm I've unconsciously held regarding my relationship with my student leaders.
Firstly, as a function of my own personality and culture of origin, I interpret leaders as those given rightful authority and responsibility to direct followers. When I was a student and staff invited me to respond in specific ways, I invariably did what they requested. And when I deviated or defaulted in any way, I was acutely aware that I had done so and anticipated "the reckoning"--the time when I'd have to account for my procrastination and inaction.
There are various unhealthy dynamics in this approach, but one positive one is that I understood the two-way commitment of my relationship with my staff workers. They were committed to oversee my ministry, help me understand what next steps to take, and hold me accountable to what God was calling me to do in obedience and trust. In order for that relationship to work, I had to hold up my end of the bargain, which was to follow their leadership by obeying, or at least by conscientiously objecting when I felt like obeying was not in my or others' best interest. But nowhere in my mind was there an option to not do something and not communicate with my staff worker about not doing it.
Then I became a staff worker, and this dynamic of one-way communication (me, initiating with my students) and unmet expectations became rather frequent.
As a relatively new staff worker, I have a tendency to overpersonalize ministry situations. This inclination usually starts me going in the wrong direction. The truth is, there are so many things competing for my students' time and attention, many of them worthy pursuits in their own right. Still more carry the brightness of urgency or the allure of prestige. And to interpret a student's non-responsiveness as a rejection of my leadership misses that reality. All of us live within social systems in which there are rewards and punishments--the very least I can do when experiencing students' flakiness is ask some good questions about what's driving them, inviting them to honestly own their priorities without shame. I don't do that very well when I'm trying to defend my own leadership.
While these realizations were stirring around in my mind, I asked God for a way out of the zero-sum mentality of "If they obey me, I'm a good leader, and if they don't, it means I suck." He invited me to think about how he leads me--with intention for my flourishing, with compassion for my struggles and with a whole lot of patience for my wrong choices. God invited me to choose into that style of leadership--self-giving rather than self-evaluative--by pursuing my students' hearts the way He pursues mine.
So then I thought long and hard about how I could show them God's love, and I decided I would buy each one of the leaders I oversee a gift that wasn't expensive but somehow drew on my knowledge of who they are and what resonates with them. For one student, I bought him three different (used) DVD's that had his name in the titles. For a female student, I bought her flowers and chocolate. Each time I spent energy, money, and time on thinking about these individuals and what makes them special, I found myself softening in my approach toward them.
I was loving these students without requiring anything of them but with the intention of showing them God's love. It was not about them liking me more or about me convincing them to undertake an action plan of some kind. It was not about me. It was about God using me to let them know how much he loves them, and in the process, he changed my heart. I was no longer so inclined to be resentful of times when I set clear expectations that students did not meet. I held them accountable to their word and asked them what happened, but it was a not punitive conversation and I didn't feel wronged by them.
God taught me to love first, so I can be in the right place to ask questions.
Firstly, as a function of my own personality and culture of origin, I interpret leaders as those given rightful authority and responsibility to direct followers. When I was a student and staff invited me to respond in specific ways, I invariably did what they requested. And when I deviated or defaulted in any way, I was acutely aware that I had done so and anticipated "the reckoning"--the time when I'd have to account for my procrastination and inaction.
There are various unhealthy dynamics in this approach, but one positive one is that I understood the two-way commitment of my relationship with my staff workers. They were committed to oversee my ministry, help me understand what next steps to take, and hold me accountable to what God was calling me to do in obedience and trust. In order for that relationship to work, I had to hold up my end of the bargain, which was to follow their leadership by obeying, or at least by conscientiously objecting when I felt like obeying was not in my or others' best interest. But nowhere in my mind was there an option to not do something and not communicate with my staff worker about not doing it.
Then I became a staff worker, and this dynamic of one-way communication (me, initiating with my students) and unmet expectations became rather frequent.
As a relatively new staff worker, I have a tendency to overpersonalize ministry situations. This inclination usually starts me going in the wrong direction. The truth is, there are so many things competing for my students' time and attention, many of them worthy pursuits in their own right. Still more carry the brightness of urgency or the allure of prestige. And to interpret a student's non-responsiveness as a rejection of my leadership misses that reality. All of us live within social systems in which there are rewards and punishments--the very least I can do when experiencing students' flakiness is ask some good questions about what's driving them, inviting them to honestly own their priorities without shame. I don't do that very well when I'm trying to defend my own leadership.
While these realizations were stirring around in my mind, I asked God for a way out of the zero-sum mentality of "If they obey me, I'm a good leader, and if they don't, it means I suck." He invited me to think about how he leads me--with intention for my flourishing, with compassion for my struggles and with a whole lot of patience for my wrong choices. God invited me to choose into that style of leadership--self-giving rather than self-evaluative--by pursuing my students' hearts the way He pursues mine.
So then I thought long and hard about how I could show them God's love, and I decided I would buy each one of the leaders I oversee a gift that wasn't expensive but somehow drew on my knowledge of who they are and what resonates with them. For one student, I bought him three different (used) DVD's that had his name in the titles. For a female student, I bought her flowers and chocolate. Each time I spent energy, money, and time on thinking about these individuals and what makes them special, I found myself softening in my approach toward them.
I was loving these students without requiring anything of them but with the intention of showing them God's love. It was not about them liking me more or about me convincing them to undertake an action plan of some kind. It was not about me. It was about God using me to let them know how much he loves them, and in the process, he changed my heart. I was no longer so inclined to be resentful of times when I set clear expectations that students did not meet. I held them accountable to their word and asked them what happened, but it was a not punitive conversation and I didn't feel wronged by them.
God taught me to love first, so I can be in the right place to ask questions.
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