Next month I get to co-facilitate the Women’s Ministry Roundtable sessions at the Harbor Network Leaders’ Summit in Louisville, Kentucky. Praying and preparing for this has had me thinking back through the 20 years I’ve been leading women in various ministry roles (Oh to go back and handle some things differently!), and also looking forward and seeking a renewed vision for the small group of precious women I help serve in our local church at Renew. Tonight, we’re gathering for one last summer hurrah around the fire-pit before the rains come and we’re all completely immersed in fall activities.
This summer has been a tremendously healing time for me, especially the last month. During late August, Jeff caught a bad cold, and so he took a Covid test and we all quarantined just to be safe. He tested negative, and he felt better within a few days, but because of the lag-time for testing and results, we ended up quarantining for six days.
It was glorious. No, that’s too weak of a word. It was life-changing. Even though we observe Sabbath every week, this girl needed a weeklong Sabbath and that’s exactly what I got. I actually extended it to 8 days just because I could. 😉
During those 8 days I still had four kids and a husband, I still had meals to cook and a house to clean. But there was time, stillness, hours and hours to sit by the creek, or lie on the couch and read Dune so I could converse with my Dune-obsessed son. Nerd that I am, I indulged in the incredibly satisfying activity of organizing all our books, cleaning closets, inventorying pantries. It was THE BEST.
But during those quiet days God was able to rewire some things in my heart and mind.
Right after that, I read The Visitation. Our son Dutch had been hounding Jeff and me for awhile, “You guys GOTTA read this book. Just read it!” He’d pick it up and put it on my lap if he saw me doing nothing. I had just finished Dune‘s 620 pages and I wasn’t quite ready to pick up the hefty Visitation comin’ in at 519 pages. Who has time for this?
One chapter in I knew exactly why he wanted us to read it. Without spoiling anything, the main character is a 45-year old pastor who quit the ministry because of all the heartache and pain he experienced. I would read and re-read paragraphs thinking, “That’s exactly how I feel.” The book explores some of the ways we inadvertently put expectations on God, how we mis-direct our hope, how we get so caught up in the “stuff” of church that we miss the goodness of God. It’s so, so good.
What does this have to do with vision for women’s ministry?
In The Visitation, part of the healing process for the pastor was when someone prompted him, “Give me some names.” He’s confused, asks for clarification, and the friend says, “Who are some of the people you’ve seen God work in and through.” He begins telling stories. Nothing spectacular. But they are evidences of grace. You can clearly see the goodness and power and mercy of God has he recounts simple stories of ordinary people.
Not events. Not spectacular experiences. Not “success.”
Through people. Like, ones with names.
Also this summer, I stumbled upon a tiny book (hooray for SHORT books) coming in at less than 100 pages. Eugene Peterson’s The Wisdom of Each Other. Wow. So, so good. And that is where the vision became clear, where all the loose ends of this year wove together to make a picture of what God invites us into as his children:
Friends.
My grand vision for women’s ministry in 2021: That we would be FRIENDS.
“No longer do I call you servants … but I have called you friends.”
-Jesus (John 15:15)
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
-Jesus (John 15:13)
Friends of God. Friends of each other.
That’s my vision. That’s my hope. In Peterson’s book, he highlights the importance of these spiritual friendships:
I was in a conversation recently with a group of friends and mentioned a chance encounter with an odd stranger in which I thought I had heard echoes of the Gospel. It had moved me deeply. One of my friends interrupted, “That sounds good, but I’d like a text for it. Where does the Bible actually say that?” I couldn’t come up with a text on the spot. Conversation stopped. A prayerful conversation was trashed because I was not conducting my part in it with the documentation proper to a Bible study leader.
This happens a lot. And so an entire world of “counsel” between friends is eliminated. Spiritual counsel, easy prayerful conversation between companions engaged in a common task, is less and less frequent. But when Jesus designated his disciples “friends” in that last extended conversation he had with them, he introduced a term that encouraged the continuing of the conversation. “Friend” sets us in a nonhierarchical, open, informal, spontaneous company of Jesus-friends, who verbally develop relationships of responsibility and intimacy by means of conversation. Characteristically, we do not make pronouncements to one another or look up texts by which to challenge one another; we simply talk out whatever feelings or thoughts are in our hearts as Jesus’ friends.
Often today we speak of wanting to see a Spiritual Director, or be Discipled in a formal setting. But as I’ve written about before, the most impactful kind of discipleship or spiritual-direction relationship I have ever experienced was with a women who insisted that we simply be “friends.”
Peterson’s book takes the form of a series of letters between friends. As he responds to his friend, he writes:
You seem disappointed that I am not more responsive to your interest in “spiritual direction.” Actually, I am more than a little ambivalent about the term, particularly in the ways it is being used so loosely without any sense or knowledge of the church’s traditions in these matters.
If by spiritual direction you mean the entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God’s Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. But then why haul in an awkward term like “spiritual direction”? Why not just “friend”?
Spiritual direction strikes me as pretentious in these circumstances, as if there were some expertise that can be acquired more or less on its own and then dispensed on demand.
The other reason for my lack of enthusiasm is my well-founded fear of professionalism in any and all matters of the Christian life….
Instead, why don’t you look over the congregation on Sundays and pick someone who appears to be mature and congenial. Ask her or him if you can meet together every month or so–you feel the need to talk about your life in the company of someone who believes that Jesus is present and active in everything you are doing. Reassure the person that he or she doesn’t have to say anything “wise.” You only want them to be there for you to listen and be prayerful in the listening. …
I’ve had a number of men and women who have served me this way over the years … when I moved to Canada a few years ago and had to leave a long-term relationship of this sort, I looked around for someone whom I could be with in this way. I picked a man whom I knew to be a person of integrity and prayer, with seasoned Christian wisdom in his bones. I anticipated he would disqualify himself so I pre-composed my rebuttal: “All I want you to do is two things: show up and shut up. Can you do that? Meet with me every six weeks or so, and just be there–an honest, prayerful presence with no responsibility to be anything other than what you have become in your obedient lifetime.” And it worked. If that is what you mean by “spiritual director,” okay. But I still prefer “friend.”
You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise.”
I honestly believe that what this world needs most is simple and twofold: Friendship with God, and friendship with each other. First and foremost, we need to be reconciled with our Creator-Savior and enter into a living, abiding friendship with Him. And then, we need friendship with each other. That’s my prayer for this year.