Month: June 2018

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Make this chaos count

There’s that Theodore Roosevelt quote that floats around, especially in that area of the internet specifically created for Christian ladies, that says “Comparison is the thief of joy.”  For the most part I go along with it because in reality, it’s really true a lot of the time. We usually use it when we’re talking about how we shouldn’t compare our weaknesses to the strengths of others.  The phrase “Stop comparing your behind the scenes to their highlight reel” comes to mind.

And that is very true and something that is buried deep within us that we need to watch out for because it’s rooted in insecurity, not truth.  

But there’s another side to that equation, also buried deep within us, rooted in pride.  You could call it competition. You could call it vanity. Galatians 5:26 calls it vain glory or conceit.  It’s almost like we choose to compare our highlight reel with someone else’s behind the scenes that relationship has given us access to view.

Once, early on in my ministry career, I was in a conversation with a colleague.  I had just come out of an odd meeting with a denominational leader and I was looking to debrief.  I recounted my meeting to my colleague and told her of how this other leader had told me to pursue a position that I thought was way out of my expertise.  I thought the whole thing was ridiculous but wanted to process it with someone who really knew me.

As I told her the story I remember feeling simultaneously flabbergasted and hopeful of some potential in myself that maybe I wasn’t seeing.  I paused for her reaction.

“It’s sad to me that it seems like our denomination is skipping over my generation for leadership opportunities.  It’s like we’ve been forgotten.”  

It’s my earliest memory of professional competitiveness.  I was being perceived as a threat, even if the actual comment being made wasn’t necessarily about me at all.  The problem is that I internalized it. I believed the lie of scarcity being fed to me in that moment.

I took that lie of scarcity into my future interactions with other women in ministry.  I began to feel that competitiveness whenever someone got an opportunity that I wanted, that I thought I deserved, or that lifted them up.  I let it grow deep down inside of me until it took over.
I had to take a hard look inward to realize what I was doing and how it was breaking my relationships with my female colleagues.  Being a woman in ministry is hard enough without adding in a factor that pit us against one another. Here are a few ways that helped uproot this vain glory in my own heart and how I keep it at check.

Do some looking back at moments that defined my value. Looking back at my ministry career, there are moments where God revealed my calling and my gifts.  It came through lots of venues and through lots of people. I sat down and took an inventory of all those moments.  Fleshed out the spaces where God had called me to lead and how I felt in those moments. There have also been a lot of moments like the one I described above, where I questioned my value because of someone’s words or actions towards me.  I sat down and wrote them all out as well. Naming them removed their power, praying through them made me realize what were lies and what was truth.

We have a tendency to deny our hard moments because they shouldn’t define us.  And they don’t have to define us. But they do have power, and it’s only by naming them and taking their power away from them can we overcome those lies.  Once we’ve done that we can replace them with the truth. Because a bandaid of truth won’t heal a wound that hasn’t been cleaned out.

Stay connected to God through his Word.  Once we’ve done the cleaning out, now we bandage the wounds up with truth.  For me that has been through reading the scriptures that have given me life and purpose.  Philippians 1:6, Hebrews 12:12, Psalm 139. Scriptures that I’ve memorized to help me stay connected and reminded of who God has created me to be and how he has walked alongside of me.  

Gut check your feelings.  Plenty of times I hear news from friends and colleagues that is exciting for them and disappointing for me.  That feeling doesn’t necessarily go away. But it doesn’t have to take over my thought process. When I feel that way I do a simple gut check for myself.  Why does this person’s success make me feel a certain way? Is there an area of my life or ministry that is disappointing to me?

Often times, I’ve noticed, I feel that feeling because I have an unresolved issue in my own life/ministry.  It’s the whole “grass is greener on the other side” mentality. Most of the time whatever that other person is celebrating isn’t necessarily something that’s right for me, but I feel jealous because of my own frustrations.  This gut check has become an easy way to identify areas that need working on.

I also tell a trusted person about my feelings.  I have a couple people who will let me name my own selfishness and pride to them.  They won’t let me wallow in it but they know that for my process to be complete, I need to say it out loud before I can let it go.  So these few trusted people will let me say it, without judging me, and then gently tell me to move through it.

Genuinely cheer them on.  Even if I feel a certain way about the news, I force myself to cheer them on.  I make it a practice to name why I think this opportunity is great for them. To be able to say it in my head and heart makes it possible for me to cheer them on publicly and in person genuinely.  Even if it takes a journey to get myself there, I try my best to genuinely cheer them on and encourage them. I have never wanted to inflict the kind of pain I felt that day I described above. But I know that I have, so when needed, I apologize and use my words to encourage them.  
The lie of scarcity tells us that there’s not enough room for all the amazing women (and men) that do the work that we do.  Competitiveness is born out of this lie. Being competitive isn’t necessarily sinful, but allowing it to fester to the point where we put other people down or make them feel less than us is sinful.  We have to be able to name that sinful pattern in our life in order to break it.

How have you seen competition rear its ugly head in your relationships?
What work do you need to do?
Have you let competition break a relationship with a colleague?
Who do you need to seek forgiveness from?

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There’s power in (not) naming it

We were singing this song in church recently, a song I’ve sung a dozen times before.  There were these lyrics that made me stop in my tracks:

Earth has no sorrow
That Heaven can’t heal
So lay down your burdens
Lay down your shame
All who are broken
Lift up your face

In my core I believe these words.  I believe that there is no earthly thing that cannot be healed in Heaven.  I believe that there will be a day where there are no more tears, no more sorrow.  I believe in these things.

But I also know of a pain that burdens you and cannot be simply laid down.  By that I mean the pain of systemic injustice.  Well, it can be laid down, in one moment at the cross, until the next time you walk outside and feel it’s weight come crashing back down upon you – from a tweet, a micro aggression, a jarring news story or even just an outright violation of your rights as a human being.
Is the burden of the oppressed one that requires daily surrender?  Almost like the opposite of a daily affirmation.

Or rather – it’s counterpart.

Wake up in the morning and say your daily affirmation to remind yourself that you are valued, put on your armor as you get ready to face a day where the world will tell you that you actually have less value than your counterparts with different skin, different genders, different ages, different abilities, different attractions.  Go out and face your day like a champ.

Then you come home at night.  Kneel at the foot of the cross and lay them down again.  The burdens you’ve been handed throughout the day.  The list might be short – maybe you only saw evidence of oppression in the media.  Or the list may be long – maybe you were personally treated as though you had less value.

I know all burdens laid at the cross are not a magical cure of sin.  I know that the act of laying them at the cross is one of discipline, of a practice of surrender to our Lord and Savior.  I know we have the Spirit within us, that the Spirit has the ability to heal our hearts from the hardness of suffering and oppression.  I know all these things.  But some mornings, as I sing those words, I am angry.
I am angry that I am here, laying this burden of injustice down at the foot of the cross – again.  And my oppressors are not.

And I have to accept that.  I have to find the strength to accept that I will never understand.  I do not get to dictate how others act or interact.  I cannot make someone understand the way that they have made someone else feel with their words, their actions or their violence.  I can only find the strength to come, day after day and lay it down at the cross.  I can only choose to not let it become my bitterness.  I can only choose to use my voice to call it out when I see it, in the world or in myself.

It feels as though we can hardly scan through the news without seeing countless stories of implicit bias and those are just the ones that make national news.  For those among us who are within the minority, every time we read that headline we feel that pain.  And not just the painful lament of how our country/our schools/our police officers/our churches value some over others, but also the personal pain of experience.  Countless stories of being followed, pulled over, accused of something without grounds, not given the same chances or benefits – all those personal memories come flooding in, reopening the wounds.  The personal identification of systemic trauma – these stories have a profound effect on the minorities in our country.  Even when we roll our eyes and say we’re not surprised – it hurts.

There are times when it feels like as a culture we are hoping to push through the pain and move on.  As if it didn’t just re-traumatize an entire section of our population.  As if these things don’t matter because it happened to people that aren’t here with us.  They didn’t happen to our loved ones so we can wag a finger at those people over there who reacted poorly to the presence of a minority.

We aren’t asking questions of ourselves and those in our communities to dig deeper into this heart breaking reality.  We aren’t taking a hard look inside to see where the implicit bias has attached itself within us.  We aren’t fighting against the apathy or the privilege of being able to walk away.

But the cost is too high to keep things they way they are.  When we aren’t calling it out, when we aren’t naming the sin of Racism and White Supremacy we are causing more and more pain for our brothers and sisters of color.  We are continuing a tradition that says comfortability for all is more important than justice for all.  We are perpetuating unsafe spaces for people of color.

The thing those of us in leadership need to remember is that systemic injustice is a daily burden for our brothers and sisters of color.  It can seem like a weight that will never lift.  When we fail to see that burden and call it a burden, we are invalidating the pain that is ever present.

The first step to correcting the injustice is to first have our eyes open to seeing it in the first place.

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What it’s like to be single in the church: Part four

Well here we are, Part 4.  This series has brought about a ton of great conversation in my real life relationships.  I hope it has sparked some good things for you as well. I started writing about this topic because I knew I needed to start using my unique voice to speak into topics I’ve experienced to be difficult.  I’ll be writing more on Church community, on singleness and other things in the future. But for now we’ll cap this series here.

As a reminder, here’s where we’ve been with this conversation:
Part One was from the point of view of the Church and church leadership.  
Part Two was a bit of a Married Friends Gut Check
Part Three was a bit of a Single Friends Gut Check
Part Four is a few models of relationships that can help us with practical steps forward.

I was saying just today to my fellow staff members about how we need more honest conversations about how we do church community.  Because people are leaving the church. People are walking away from the church for a lot of reasons, not just the loneliness of being single.  But time and time again I hear my single friends talk about how they don’t feel fully a part of the community at their church. So we need to be talking about this.  

As we look for practical steps forward, I thought we could take some time to look at a couple of models of relationships across marital status that I have found really helpful and honoring.  I honestly believe that we can only step into these types of relationships when we are all in healthy spaces or trying to get to healthy spaces. If you want to know what that looks like, head on back to parts Two and Three and see what I mean by that.  

Here are a few models I’ve come to find helpful within the church and in general life:

Intergenerational Life Groups.  Or small groups.  Or D-Teams. Or Sunday School classes.  Whatever your church creates for community space.  So often, as a church, we think all community needs to be life-stage specific.  But often times, most of our lives are spent in life stage specific settings. What if in the church we mixed it up a little more.  Of course Moms of toddlers need time with other Moms of toddlers and college students want to hang out with other college students – that’s fair.  But in the church, could we mix it up a little more intentionally. When we intentionally mix it up, single people don’t have to feel so ostracized because conversation doesn’t naturally default to toddlers, parenting, empty nesting, etc.  

This can require some intentionality from the church leadership but it doesn’t have to entirely rest on their shoulders.  When thinking about starting up something, invite the single people you know. Make an effort to invite them to sit with you during service, or more radically – go sit with them.  Intentionally choose a table not with people who are just like you but people who are at a different life stage.

You may be asking reading this and thinking, “But Alicia, what will we talk about if it’s not _______ (fill in your blank with whatever you usually talk about with your peers who are exactly like you).”  Start with something easy, like the sermon or something that happened in worship. Ask about their plans for the week. Ask about their job, where they like to hang out, what are they reading/watching/listening to.  I promise you it’s not that hard – you just have to intentionally try!

The Tricycle Theory.  This is of course an Office reference.  Michael Scott once said, “My mom always said that the third wheel is what makes it a tricycle” in reference to him always hanging out with his mom and stepdad.  Two of my best friends are married (to each other) and when we all lived in Chicago I started calling us the Tricycle. When we all first met I was working with the husband in youth ministry and I decided to force the wife to be my friend (not really but I tried real hard).  One thing that works so well in our friendship is that I never feel like a third wheel. It’s a joke we make but in reality our friendship is so strong and balanced, it’s not like adding a third wheel to one of the wheels on the bike, it’s really like having an evenly balanced tricycle.  

I alluded to this in another post that we need to also treat married people as whole developed individuals and this is kind of where the tricycle theory comes from.  There are times in our friendship when the husband and I are talking about church things and ministry ups and downs that the wife is only kind of interested in (or not at all if we’ve been talking too long about it.)  And probably more so there are long periods of girl talk that the husband could care less about. And there are just as many times when we’re all talking about stuff that we have in common. I am not more friends with one of them over the other.  

Even now as we are juggling a long distance friendship, we share the ups and downs of our lives with one another.  Obviously the two of them have a deeper relationship than I have with either of them, but they never make me feel bad about being single.  In fact they are two of my biggest cheerleaders. I get the best dating advice from them because they usually balance each other out.

Spiritual Family in practice.  We talk about Spiritual Family a lot in the church.  But sometimes I wonder if we really are that good at it across lines of age, gender and family status.  Family is messy – we all know that. We all have family drama that can be tricky to navigate, so Spiritual Family is no different.  But we cannot allow that to keep us from trying, especially because this is exactly what a lot of singles are looking for.

Even if their own families are nearby, singles want to be a part of a broader church community.  They may have a desire to have a family of their own and they don’t yet, or they may just like being around the hustle and bustle of kids.  There are families in my life who have let me into their family spaces on a regular basis and I cannot express how good for my soul that is.

For someone who enjoys being arounds kids but has no kids of my own and is far away from my own nieces, it is amazing to have families who let me hang out in their family.  This doesn’t have to be a big planned out evening, it can just as easily be inviting someone who is single into the everyday messiness of being a family.

Here are some practical ways this has looked like for me and the families in my life:

  • Lunch after church
  • Letting me sit with their family at church
  • Inviting me to soccer practice / band concerts / special events
  • Running errands together
  • Going to the park
  • Family dinner (NOT a dinner party – normal family dinner where we talk about our days and our lives)
  • Hanging out on bad weather days – sledding, reading by the fire, card games
  • Riding to church events/retreats/outings together

A lot of these things are not difficult to invite people in – don’t assume your single friends don’t want the hustle of your family.  I recognize that this takes a level of trust and vulnerability to let people into your space, but I also recognize the strength of kids having multiple adults in their lives who care for them.  Being single can be very lonely, and we don’t need to constantly be in your space, but knowing there’s an invitation in helps the isolation feel less intrusive.

Lastly, I feel the need to add a disclaimer that I obviously cannot speak for every single person in your life.  These posts are trying to get us to think outside of our culture determined boxes – but please, if you are wondering how to better pour into your single friends you can just ask them.  Go ahead and blame me, here’s how that conversation can go…

“Hey, I’ve been reading these posts by some girl about what it’s like to be single in the church, what’s been challenging for you in our community?”  

FULL STOP.  

After you ask that question, just listen.  Humbly give them the space to answer you as honestly as they feel they can be with you.

And remember, these conversations always go better once you have an established relationship with someone.

So start first by building up a relationship with the single people in your life. See them as a whole person and treat them with the dignity and respect you would a married friend of yours.