I used to think one person could make a difference. I remember seeing the movie "The Power of One" several times in the theater when I was in college. The great thing about college (if you had a little bit of spending money) is that if you like a movie, you can always find someone - a roommate, the guy down the hall, the girl you've been wanting to ask out - who hasn't seen it. That's how I saw Groundhog Day eleven times in the theater, I swear on my auntie's undies.
Anyways, there is a scene in The Power Of One where the grown up "P.K." comes to an amazingly beautiful waterfall and reflects for awhile. Afterwards, we see him back at school, talking to the headmaster (played by the incredibly talented late Sir John Gielgud), asking him if they could start a Saturday school for the townships of South Africa. The headmaster says "There would only be 12 or so of them teaching. What kind of difference would that make?" P.K. then says "A waterfall begins with only one drop of water, sir. Look what comes from that."
I remember my early ministry years - bright-eyed, filled with aspirations and dreams of making a difference in the lives of teenagers. Those were fun years - all-nighters, sumer trips, broomball, watching kids make spiritual commitments, all that jazz.
I look at those same eyes in the mirror today. The sun has bleached the area around my gas permeable contact lenses (the lenses are smaller than most contacts) into a hazel-green hue; the area covered by the contacts are still the original brown. But in those eyes I see defeat. I see bitterness. I see dreams unfulfilled, expectations unmet. I see disapproval by angry parents, I see harsh words by cruel church-goers, I see someone who has been beaten down by many things church-related..
My first real recollection of a sense of awareness that something is wrong with the church is when I was a youth pastor in Dallas, TX. I had just moved my wife and I from my hometown, where I had been a youth minister at my home church for six and a half years. We had some disagreements with a new staff member who was given far more power than he should have received and thus was making it difficult on other staff members.
At the new church in Dallas, the youth pastor was scheduled to do the invocation at least once a month. The first Sunday I was scheduled, I prayed from my heart, out of my excitement at being somewhere new, somewhere fresh, somewhere different. That week, I got an e-mail from someone in the church who had counted the number of times I said "Lord" (I think 8 times) and the word "just" (I think 10 times) in my prayer and wondered if I would be a better "invocator" if I prepared what I was going to say in advance.
I had some dabbling with an uneasiness at church before: I remember singing strange songs at church camp, trying to match the exuberance and fervor on my fellow campers' faces and failing miserably. Every year at camp there was a talent show at the end, and one year each "family group" had to come up with some kind of skit or act for the show. Our family group decided to do a marionette skit, where we would memorize a long passage of Scripture, and each marionette, sitting on another person, would spout out their part of the passage. I screwed around all week long and didn't memorize my part, so at the talent show - when it came to my part at the end - my partner and I decided to do a short comedy sketch about me forgetting the last part of the Scripture. Everyone thought it was funny except for my family group leader, who took me aside afterwards and asked me if I thought Jesus was laughing at my rebellion.
I remember the anger on my stepfather's face at my home church one Sunday. My mom had been struggling with lymphoma for a few years. Her chemotherapy had made her hair fall out, so she would wear a wig to church every Sunday. One weekend she decided she had enough with the wigs and threw them out. At church that Sunday, I looked around me and saw the stares and glances - the same glances I see people make when they are uncomfortable around people in wheelchairs or who have prosthetic limbs, and my heart ached for my mom. My stepfather was so angry at the reaction of people around us that he and my mom proudly walked out at the end of service - and never attended another church service again.
This year marks my tenth anniversary of being a full-time paid minister. These last ten years have been marked by many lows and many highs. However, the last few years I've struggled with wondering if I would be more fruitful and more fulfilled if I worked at a regular place of employment and used my gifts as a volunteer in a local church. But the last year has also seen me drift away from the idea of the typical American church model driven by individualism and consumerism. I certainly haven't given up on God, I just don't think church the way it's done in today's times - keeping its feet firmly planted in modernity - is a cause worthy of my investment anymore.
Can one person make a difference? I think he can - outside of the trappings of the modern church. The problem with church people is not so much sin or evil - it's just that the devil makes us so busy with doing church activities that we don't really do anything for God and for His mission. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, so I will stop for now.
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