more wonderful than gloss

My first career was in what was called “member care” – providing support and resources to people who were living and working in a cross-cultural environment.

Ironically, I was a victim of this “care” when I first began. A good friend had been murdered just a year before and the grief had unleashed a chain of unpacking a lot of the faith and structures I had grown up with. When I was interviewed to be accepted by the organization, I was raw and they saw it. They requested I take an extra 6 months to take care of myself and find some stability. I was embarrassed, angry and frustrated. I had been honest with them and then got punished for it. Or at least that’s how it felt. Looking back, they may have been right.

Once I was on the job 18 months later, I began to see the wisdom of the structure. There were many, many organizations who had sent people with no support. These organizations were proud of their loose structure, their ability to listen to the Spirit’s leading to determine readiness for life overseas and the independence of their staff. But in reality, there were many serious casualties of their lack of structure. People who had not been evaluated psychologically may have looked good on paper and won popularity by their drive and charm, but once the limelight was gone and the pressure of cross-cultural living began, they imploded. At best, the cost was thousands of dollars spent to move an entire family across an ocean only to find out they couldn’t make it. At worst, it was husbands and fathers having sex with 16 year old local girls. And most often, it was the lives of the family who suffered from lack of support and understanding.

Honestly, I often see a lot of this same tendency in emerging Christian movements. While we have given a lot of thought to our theology and our praxis, we have not considered the health of an individual. And without a working sense of emotional health, it is easy to reward those who come across as most confident and charismatic to their own detriment, and also to leave behind voices that may be more cautious and understated but provide wisdom and a needed perspective.

I am not a big fan of institutions when they prohibit mission and flexibility but I have also learned that it is dangerous to leave the structures behind all together. The question for the emerging Christian movements is how do we use the gifts we have been given by modernity – theological exploration, understandings of human emotions and behavior, structures that support people who are not white, male, straight and charismatic – and use them in a way that is less authoritarian and gate-keeping? How can we help those called to ministry fulfill their dreams and have room to test out their visions while also supporting them financially, emotionally, theologically and spiritually? There are no easy answers to these questions but in the meantime, we need to give both institutions and emerging movements a little grace. For those of who find ourselves with a leg in each, we need to facilitate conversation and mutual learning in a way that gives each its due respect.