Doing It Wrong

When I first went to Brazil it was as a mission intern.  It was 1997, I was 21 and I didn’t expect what would happen in me and to me that summer.  I caught a vision of ministry that was incarnational, sacrificial, community-based and thoroughly grassroots.  Somehow over the next few years I lost that outlook and ended up actually doing it wrong when I finally moved to Brazil.

My intention was to go on a mission trip for the experience and, perhaps, with a view towards becoming a missionary for a few years in some other part of the world.  Brazil was just supposed to be a one-time trip.  Instead, at the end of the first week in Brazil I sensed God’s call on my life to that country (believe it or not…I do) and over the course of those two months I lived a year’s worth of experiences.  What impressed me most were the vibrant faith of the Christians there and their commitment to work with those on the margins.  My mission team visited an orphanage where, right before we left, one of the girls gave us each one of her stuffed animals to take with us.  We visited a drug rehabilitation clinic the church supported (some members led Bible studies there).  We lived for a couple of weeks in a crime-ridden neighborhood just a step above a favela where the missionary knew the drug lords, assassins and kidnappers on a first-name basis.

After I returned home to the United States I was anxious to get back to Brazil on a full-time basis as soon as possible.  What I didn’t want to have happen was to forget what I had learned in Brazil (and thereby lose the passion for real ministry I’d obtained) and possibly end up not even going back to Brazil.  Something went wrong though, and in three areas specifically:

First, I became so focused on the goal of getting back to Brazil that I lost sight of real ministry in the here-and-now.  In the months right after getting back from Brazil I did pretty good.  I made contacts with people and tried really hard to form relationships and do good things for the reign of Christ.  Once I got to Harding this started to slip.

Second, as I just mentioned I enrolled in the Harding School of Biblical Studies, an intensive, two-year ministry program that led to a Bachelor of Ministry degree.  Academically this was a very good decision, and I am quite thankful for the dedicated professors and supportive classmates who made this such a formative experience for me.  Unfortunately, the time I spent in class and on homework (5 terms a year instead of two semesters…think about it) kept me from dedicating much time to ministry.

Third, did I mention ministry?  A month after moving to Searcy, Arkansas to start the ministry program I found myself taking a turn preaching every other Sunday for a local Christian Church.  The members were wonderful.  They believed in what I was doing and even contributed to make further trips to Brazil possible.  Still, my entire experience of ministry for two years was basically just preparing sermons and Bible studies in what little time I had when I wasn’t studying.  Not exactly a rich, deep missional lifestyle.

A year after graduation I “finally” made my move to Brazil.  I married a Brazilian woman, the love of my life, and settled into missionary activity.  Rather than meeting people, learning about neighborhood concerns and showing signs of the reign of Christ through community organizing and also providing training for more workers, I became an evangelist in the shallowest sense of the word.  My entire focus was on door-knocking (which actually still seems to work for the most part in many Brazilian cities) to set up one-on-one evangelistic Bible studies.  The goal was baptisms and all I could see was the need to combat errors in thinking.  Indeed, I was doing it wrong.

Over the past few years, back in the United States and out of full-time ministry, I’ve had some hard learning to do.  The painful part is reevaluating what I did and failed to do.  On the other hand, as I’ve discovered the scriptural roots of concern for the poor and marginalized and become familiar with both the missional perspective and community development, my hope for future work has been renewed.

What is “missional”?  The video below provides a fairly good summary explanation.  As for community development from a Christian perspective, click here.

Central Jersey Church of Christ, the congregation my family has been attending now for a few months and will likely join as soon as we move closer to the meeting place, has at the heart of its purpose as a congregation a vision for proclaiming good news to the poor.  This racially and ethnically diverse congregation has much to teach me and my family about urban and international ministry, and I hope we have something to give back in return.  Personally, I seek a renewal of purpose and re-focusing on what really matters in life: relationships and helping.  We’re certainly in the right kind of area to do this kind of work.  Hopefully I can become more skilled in creating community, organizing for the betterment of all and living out clearly the Good News that Jesus is Lord.  This is my prayer.

I just don’t want to keep doing it wrong.