On Knowing Myself and the People God Has Called Me to Serve
Have you ever been to a children’s theater production? Or a class presentation at an elementary school?
I was thinking about this the other day because one of our children was preparing for an audition. You might know that we’re a musical theater family, with some of our kids having performed multiple times off-Broadway.
But for this child it was to be their first audition.
And I thought about a susceptibility that kids often have when they’re on stage for the first time.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this too.
The child on stage has spent weeks, sometimes months, memorizing their lines. They’ve rehearsed it on stage, practiced their movements, learned to project.
Then comes the day of their performance.
And they rush through their lines so quickly that no one in the audience can understand what they said.
(Except for the parents who’ve heard it a hundred times.)
In their excitement to do a good job, they forget—or more likely don’t realize—that what they’re trying to communicate didn’t come through.
The audience simply couldn’t understand them.
This scenario illustrates the point of my last post. That we need to see our ministry from the other side. That if we don’t understand how people think in the here and now, there is little chance we will be credible ambassadors for Jesus.
Our witness will be as unintelligible as the child on stage.
I’ve been grateful for the thoughtful interactions I’ve had with you about what I wrote. You brought up some great questions and solid points that have helped clarify my own thinking.
Two stand out in particular.
One questioned whether the story I told reflects our culture’s shift to a post-Christian, post-intellectual orientation around feelings. The woman’s reaction to my offer for help was over the top, not something for which I should be blamed.
I especially appreciated the concern expressed for me in this exchange. And there can be little doubt that western society grants more place for emotion than previous generations.
Still I think we have to be aware of the way people are moving through life and consider how we minister to them, in our words and in our actions, so that we may act with both conviction and compassion.
People are responsible for their response, and we are responsible for our approach.
If I know my approach will provoke an unfavorable response, I ought to consider a different approach—for the sake of the person I’m trying to reach.
The second asked whether the concern for seeing our ministry from the perspective of the other would lend itself towards a fundamentalistic, people-pleasing mentality.
Where’s the balance, he wondered, between viewing ministry from our perspective and theirs?
That is a really good question.
As a chronic people pleaser and a recovering fundamentalist, I feel the weight of this concern deeply. I am not interested in centering my life and ministry on the expectations of others. At best it’s unhealthy, and at worst it’s unfaithful to our calling.
At the same time I don’t think the corrective is to find a balance between the two—between our philosophy of ministry and how others experience our ministry.
I think the answer is to go all-in on both.
On the one hand I want to have a clear understanding of who I am, what my calling is and is not, and how God has best equipped me to serve. I want to have, as it were, hard edges to my self-understanding, boundaries if you will that affirm both my dignity and my limitations as an image bearer.
The clearer I am about who I am and who God has called me to be, the healthier minister I will be.
At the same time I want to have a clear understanding of how I am being perceived by those I am leading, how my strengths and weaknesses affect others in real time, where my blind spots negatively affect my witness to the risen Christ.
The better feedback I get from those around me—coupled with a Spirit-generated humility to respond well to their feedback—the more credible my witness to Jesus will be.
Or to put it another way, I want to work on my lines and say them intelligibly.
Both and, not either or.
That means knowing myself and knowing the people God has called me to serve.
And in both, knowing the God who empowers the weak to accomplish his purposes on earth.
What do you think?
What other perspectives am I missing? I’d love to hear from you.
Just drop your thoughts in the comments.