Moving Beyond Voluntourism

Rev. Matt Lacey, director of United Methodist Volunteers in Mission for the Southeast Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church  wrote a blog post this week digging into the term “voluntourism”.  Voluntourism mashes together the words “volunteer” and “tourism” and describes what some critics of short-term mission see as the main problem with the practice of volunteers going on mission trips.

I’ve been on great mission trips and horrible mission trips.  Sometimes people are prayerful and prepared and sometimes they want to do a little good while having a great vacation for cheap.  Sometimes people want to meet Christians in another country and worship together, and sometimes their motivations for going aren’t simple or straightforward.

Rev. Lacey describes how God took his mixed up motivations and opened him up to be more attentive to how God was already at work in the world and calling him to do more – to participate in God’s mission in, to and for the world.  This effect of mission trips is what Anthony Gittins calls “Adventure in Three Movements”.

Mission in Three Movements

In Ministry at the Margins, Anthony Gittins describes the “adventure of mission” in three movements.  First is the Homeland, where our “our identity was forged and where we sank our cultural roots.”  This is where we begin to develop empathy and the ability to understand other people and other perspectives.  The second movement in the adventure of mission is the Wonderland.  Gittins explains that in the Wonderland we experience a culture in which our rules for understanding the world don’t apply.  There may be some commonalities, but we must be intentional in trying to understand both similarities and differences.

Gittins’ third movement in mission is called the Newfoundland.  He states: “returning from the Wonderland, then, we encounter the Newfoundland.  And far from ending, our missionary journeys may be only just beginning.”  Because we have been challenged by our experience in the Wonderland, we return as renewed people – and we may be ready to see our own place in the world with fresh eyes, with an open heart for the work to be done in our Homeland.

Meeting Each Other as Equals

The adventure of mission in three movements is why I love to work with people who volunteer in mission.  No matter how old they are, people want to help others.  And they want to know more about God and how to live with fresh eyes for their own hometowns.  Rev. Lacey states that “the [mission] trip really isn’t about us but instead about how we see and interact with the rest of God’s children” and that we need to be prepared so that whatever learning we do on a mission trip isn’t the responsibility of the people we go to serve.  This is an important point – we go to meet our brothers and sisters in Christ as equals.

My goal is to continue to work with groups of people who are planning a mission project – whether they are fourth graders working in a community garden at their local food bank or a group of retirees building a house in Mexico – and help them to do the preparation of self-examination and the follow-up of spiritual reflection and renewal.  Like Rev. Lacey, it is my hope that we all go out to serve God by “listening more than we talk, learning more than we teach, and seeing God in every person we meet.”

Read Rev. Lacey’s blog here:  http://umvimsej.blogspot.com/2018/01/from-directors-desk-mission-voluntourism.html

Prof. Anthony J. Gittins’ book is available through Orbis Books: http://www.orbisbooks.com/ministry-at-the-margins.html   Quotes taken from pages 6-7

We Are Seeds

Browsing through seed catalogs on a snowy day is an act of hopefulness.

One of my favorite hobbies is gardening.  I love turning over the soil, transplanting seedlings, watching them grow and keeping an eye out for weeds and non-friendly bugs.  Sometimes there’s a big harvest – like the year I got a flyer from the Texas Ag Extension office for a “Japanese Tomato Ring” and ended up with three five gallon buckets of tomatoes.  More often though, I’m lucky if I get a single tomato.  The herbs seem to do much better, and I love to cook with thyme snipped off the plant just outside the kitchen door.

Much of the southern U.S. is taking today off, schools are closed and so are the roads.  Snow and ice have major cities shut down.  So it’s a good day to look through a seed catalog and imagine the possibilities.  That is an act of hope – to imagine, to consider new plant varieties, to plan out a garden layout and hope for a good harvest.

Gardens require hard work and sustained attention.  The weather may not be favorable.  A late freeze might kill some of the seedlings, or a heavy storm with hail might crush some of the plants.  Looking through the seed catalog, a gardener has to keep in balance the hopes for a good planting season and the realities that might affect the plants.

Short-term mission is a little like those seeds in my catalog.  We go, willing to be used by God, not knowing what may affect the outcome.  We plan, like a gardener, the work that we’ll do, keeping in mind the things that may go wrong.  We prepare, making ourselves as ready as possible before the trip begins.  We pray and we hope, trusting in the work of the Spirit.

There’s a lovely hymn in the United Methodist hymnal that describes how Christians are to live in the world.  “Sois la Semilla” was written by Monseñor Cesáreo Gabaráin, and translated into English by Raquel Gutiérrez-Achon and Skinner Chávez-Melo.  The first stanza is “You are the seed that will grow a new sprout; you’re a star that will shine in the night; you are the yeast and a small grain of salt, a beacon to glow in the dark.  Go, my friends, to to the world, proclaiming love to all, messengers of my forgiving peace, eternal love.”

This hymn contains a wealth of illustrations – seed, yeast, friends, waves, bread.  On a cold and blustery winter day, it may be hard to imagine the heat of summer, and the sweaty work on a mission project – but we can pray and plan.  We can sing the hymn and open ourselves to the Spirit working through us to make us yeast, salt, and witnesses.

My favorite lines are “You are the flame that will lighten the dark, sending sparkles of hope, faith and love” and “may your good deeds show a world in despair a path that will lead all to God.”  May the work we plan today be a witness to God’s love.  May the work of our hands be a witness of the love that God has for the world.

Read more about Sois La Semilla here: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/the-great-commission-inspires-spanish-hymn-you-are-the-seed

Hear the hymn tune here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94jnanUWCko

Ubuntu – We Need Each Other

“The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’ “  1 Corinthians 12:21

Last evening the news was full of the vulgar comment made by the U.S. President about certain countries and the entire continent of Africa.  The comment was made during a meeting with senators regarding U.S. immigration policy.

The BBC World Service interviewed a person who defended the comment saying that he voted for the president because he didn’t “sugarcoat” comments, and that he and his friends often spoke of African countries with similar derogatory language.  He stated that the African continent wasn’t “very stable” and due to that he didn’t approve of people immigrating to the United States from African countries.

This man did not discuss his faith, but the president has identified himself as a Christian.  Christians have an obligation to value all God’s children as part of the body of Christ.  We are not to treat them with less honor or dignity for any reason.  We are to remember that we are all part of the body of Christ, and if one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it.

The Complexity of Mission

I have spent many years going on short-term mission trips and studying mission.  The history of mission is complex, as is the growth and expansion of Christianity.  While on a mission trip outside the U.S., I am always acutely aware of how I am a guest of the people I go to serve, and how my humanity is bound up with theirs.  When I come back home, I’m left with the problem of how it is that the place where I live has more than enough – enough food, enough clothes, enough shoes, enough housing for everyone – and yet not everyone has access to those things.  And this complexity is in stark contrast to the situation of the people and place I’ve just left.  It is never easy.  There are no easy answers when examining the disparities of our world.

Part of our current global economic situation is due to colonialism and the ways in which international financial aid maintains inequality rather than eradicating it.  The missionary movement took advantage of colonialism and global trade routes.  This meant that missionaries were sometimes complicit in colonial mindsets and abuses, but quite often missionaries were active in standing with people against oppression and injustice.  The history of missionaries who lifted up indigenous leaders, who immersed themselves in new languages for the sake of being able to translate scripture, who worked to establish clinics and schools so that the people they served could be healed and educated – and then those people could teach and serve as doctors and nurses – the history of these missionaries is often forgotten because the work they did was for others, lifted up others.  The work they did lived out the passage from 1 Corinthians 12 – that the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you.

As Christians engaged in mission today, and as citizens of a nation of economic wealth and privilege, we have a responsibility and a calling to live into 1 Corinthians 12 and 13.  We must live out what it means to honor the whole body of Christ, and we must witness with both our words and our actions.  When we hear other Christians speak disparagingly or condescendingly about people, we must speak up to say – they are valued, honored and respected.  Grace is found when we honor each other.

Ubuntu and the Body of Christ

The work of short-term mission doesn’t always allow time for developing deep relationships with Christians in other countries.  However, we can plan our trips carefully, making time for worshiping together, honoring our hosts by giving them the authority to set the agenda for the work, and by learning their language before we go.  When churches welcome U.S. teams to come and work on a project, they are saying “we honor you as part of the body of Christ” to us.

The Kenyan theologian John Mbiti describes the concept of “ubuntu” in this way: Because we are, I am.  Ubuntu is a fundamental concept of community.  My humanity is bound up in your humanity.  We need each other.  I cannot say that I have no need of you.  The fact that we are part of the body of Christ together defines my humanity – I cannot flourish unless you do as well.  If you suffer, so do I.  Our Christianity requires that we never forget we need each other.

Regardless of your view on immigration policy, if you have participated in short-term mission and you hear other Christians speak disparagingly of countries where you’ve been, be courageous and speak out.  The work of mission does not end when we come home.  The work of mission calls us to live with ubuntu in mind, to remember always God’s call to honor and respect the diversity of the body of Christ.

Mission as Pilgrimage

Journey: something suggesting travel or passage from one place to another; an act or instance of traveling from one place to another  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/journey

During the first two weeks of any new year, you hear the word “journey” quite a lot.  At the gym – journey to fitness or weight-loss journey; at the office supply store – let us help on your journey to organization; during any sports commentary – the journey to the championship; on the church sign down the road – every journey needs a stable foundation (in front of the nativity scene, of course).

Journey is a word that we use at this time of year because we think are thinking about a destination or a goal we want to achieve – and that’s why it’s used so often when talking about sports playoffs or championship games.  But when we use the word “journey” in our Christian life, we shift the focus from the destination to the journey itself.

This shift is evident in A Mission Journey, which was written by United Methodists with experience in short-term mission for volunteers going on short-term missions.  Rather than focus on the destination – where we’d like to go on our trip – we focus on dialogue, respect and relationship building, and we always remember that “this is God’s mission and not our own.”

Pilgrimage in Mission

Our journey in mission is not really about our destination and it’s not about the work that we do – although both of those are important aspects of any mission trip.  Our journey in mission is about opening ourselves to see God at work in the world, to allow the Spirit to open our eyes and hearts to see where there may be needs in the world that we can help to ease.  Our hands may be busy, but we can’t let that be our sole focus – when we are planning a mission trip, on the way to our destination, and while our hands are busy at the work before us, we must remain prayerfully open.

At each point along the way on a mission journey, we have opportunities to get to know those who are on the journey with us.  These may be people who have signed up for the mission trip, friends from church that you may know but on the mission journey you have the opportunity to know each other more deeply, to share stories of your faith, your struggles, your joys.  There may be people at your destination, perhaps a homeowner who you are helping.  Although your visit may be brief, you can listen deeply and share the gift of being present with each other.  The porch repair, the replaced window, the new flooring – these are important tasks, but the journey is about listening to each other, giving and receiving in the name of Christ.  In this way, all people involved in short-term mission – those who plan, those who work, those who receive, those who host – all are on a pilgrimage.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church defines pilgrimage as “journeys to holy places undertaken from motives of devotion…”  I believe that short-term mission trips can be pilgrimage, if the travelers are attentive.  On your short-term mission journey, be prayerful.  Before you choose a destination, be praying.  While on the road, be praying.  When the hammer and saw are in your hand, be praying.  Look up and be praying.  You are going on a journey to a holy place, let your devotion to God be your motivation. Those people you meet along the journey will bless you even as you seek to be a blessing.

Balancing the Why and the How of Short-term missions

The Why and the How

Yesterday, United Methodist Communications posted an article titled “How to do short-term missions the right way”.  It’s a good article, with seven important points to consider when planning a short-term mission trip:

First, participants are encouraged to learn about issues with short-term mission trips in general.  We should be aware of issues regarding money, the needs of the community we plan to serve, and examine some of the common assumptions about short-term mission work.

Second, mission participants should consider their motives for going on the trip, and consider using the term “journey” instead of “trip”.  This shift in vocabulary helps us remember that any short-term mission trip is actually part of our spiritual journey with God and our neighbors.

Third, mission participants should do research before their trip.  Know the organization you partner with, learn all you can about your destination (international or domestic), and be aware of how the work you plan to do fits in with the community’s needs.

Fourth, groups should pick the right project for their team size, their skills, abilities and limitations.  I know I’ve gone on mission trips when my lack of skill with cement block and rebar was a limitation on the main project but I was able to plan in advance to use my talents in other ways with the host church.  Know before you go.

Fifth, the article suggests keeping open to the possibility that not going may be the right decision.  It may be that connecting virtually with a missionary and supporting their work through a gift to UM Advance Projects is the best use of resources.

Sixth, mission team leaders must train their teams.  The United Methodist mission agency, General Board of Global Ministries, recently published a terrific resource for short-term mission teams, and there’s a link for “A Mission Journey” in the article.  This blog will have a series on that book in the near future.  Rev. Dan Wunderlich, the article author, states that training “will help keep your team focused on the ‘why’ behind your journey”.  More about the “why” in just a moment.

Lastly, teams are encouraged to tell a responsible story about their trip.  By keeping the focus on the local community and remembering to listen with respect to our mission hosts, we can make the story about what God is doing instead of about ourselves.

You can read the entire article, which has many excellent links for further reading, here:   http://www.umcom.org/learn/how-to-do-short-term-missions-the-right-way

Balancing the How and the Why

Many of these tips are about the “how” of short-term mission trips.  Planning a short-term mission trip seems easy at first, but if you’ve ever had the responsibility of organizing a group for a trip, you know that there are a multitude of details to handle before, during and after a trip.  The UMCom article raises some key questions for mission teams to consider well before their trip – no matter if that trip is several hours away by plane or a couple hours away by car.

It is often assumed that if people want to go on a mission trip, they already understand the “why” of mission.  Another assumption is that if someone goes on a mission trip, then they will “get it”, thinking that if they just experience a mission trip, then they will come to understand God better.

In “Grace Upon Grace” we read about the “why” of mission.  “As the goal of mission is God’s reign of grace, we live toward that vision and from that vision.”  We participate in mission work because God’s grace is freely given to us, and that grace gives us a vision of God’s reign, in which those who are thirsty and hungry have food to eat and clean water to drink; in which justice and mercy roll down like mighty waters; in which the oppressed are freed and the brokenhearted are comforted; in which people of all nations worship God together; in which people know Christians because of their love for others.  This is the vision that motivates us to participate in mission – and it is the ultimate goal of our mission work, even if our work looks like laying tile or brick, or singing hymns in a language we don’t know very well.

The Why of Sister of Hope Ministries

This “why” of short-term mission is the focus of my work with Sister of Hope Ministries.  People who go on short-term mission trips have a unique experience that can be fruitful for thinking deeply about faith, life, and God’s work in the world.  That’s where I come in.  I work with local church groups to reflect on their mission trip experience and to discuss some of the questions they may have after their trip, to “unpack” the depth of the vision of God’s reign that both motivates us and is our goal.  Sister of Hope Ministries is about the “why” of short-term missions.  If you’d like to know more, send me your contact information and we’ll set up a phone conversation to discuss how Sister of Hope Ministries can help you in your mission journey.

For further reading:

“Grace Upon Grace” is the 1988 Mission Statement of The United Methodist Church.  The General Board of Global Ministries and United Methodist Professors of Mission recently had a blog series on this document, with links to the full text of “Grace Upon Grace”, read more here: http://www.umglobal.org/search/label/Grace%20Upon%20Grace

When Plans Don’t Go As Planned

Season of New Starts

The first days of January are a season of new starts.  People make resolutions, lots of us join gyms or renew our commitment to actually going to the gym, we set goals to achieve or aim toward being a kinder, better version of ourselves.  The first work day of the new year is a good day for opening up a new journal.  If you use a paper calendar, it’s a day for writing in important dates and plans on those blank pages full of opportunity and promise.

Today as I sat at my desk, I opened the first work day of the year with my usual routine.  Journal open, Bible at hand, music by St. Hildegard of Bingen playing – and when I reached for my Common Prayer: Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, the book next to it fell over and knocked a can of colored pens off the shelf, crashing to the floor and taking out a stack of paperwork as it went.  Not the peaceful beginning I’d imagined!

To be honest, sitting down to do my morning devotional wasn’t even the first thing I did today.  My husband had his work laptop at home this weekend – he works in international freight, which never takes a holiday.  He went off to his office this morning, but his laptop power cord stayed behind.  So my day actually began as I drove down to his office to drop off the cord.

Where the Spirit Breaks In

These two not-quite-as-planned beginnings made us laugh, as we had just shared a story in worship on Sunday about one of our mission trips that also had a not-quite-as-planned beginning.  We were working at a church in South Africa, between Christmas and New Year’s Day, which is peak summer holiday season.  The brickworks was scheduled to deliver a load of bricks which we would use to put up one of the main sanctuary walls.  However, the load didn’t make it before the brickworks closed for the holiday, so we had no bricks to put up.  What would we do?  Pete, the construction foreman for the church, managed to find some smaller projects at the church for us while he searched for some other ways to use our time.  He managed to have the floor tiles delivered early, and one of our team turned out to have a great deal of experience in laying tile.  The trip certainly didn’t begin as we’d imagined, but by being patient and following the lead of the local foreman, we were able to contribute to the building of their beautiful sanctuary.

If your church or group is planning a mission trip in 2018, I encourage you to pray and make lots of plans.  Use colored pens to fill up your pages, draw in the margins and outside the lines, make notes of all the people you can follow and write prayers for all those you’ll meet.  Most of all, be sure to leave room for when plans don’t go as planned – that room is where the Holy Spirit breaks into our hearts and reveals God’s amazing love for us all.

Just Be Willing

Mission historian Dr. Dana Robert describes worship as essential to mission.  In her 2010 United Methodist Women study Joy to the World! Mission in the Age of Global Christianity, she emphasizes the importance of worship for the practice of mission.  When we gather together and worship God, we open ourselves to the Holy Spirit, who fills us and empowers us to go out and be the church in the world.

The church where I now worship uses a benediction from Rev. Jim Foster, who served as a United Methodist pastor for many years.  He exemplified grace and mercy, and was a profound influence on all who met him.  He ended every service by asking: the service has ended. Now where will you go and what will you do?  The congregation replies: We will go into the world and be God’s people.

These two people – a professor of mission and a pastor – draw the connection between worship and mission.  We gather in to praise, to pray, to be filled, and we go out to serve God through acts of mercy and kindness to all we meet.  For many people I know, these acts of mercy and kindness are lived out especially in local mission outreach at this time of year, and in summer mission trips around the U.S.  We gather in to worship, to sing praises, to hear scripture and are willing to learn something new about God and ourselves.  Through this worship, we are prepared to be sent out in mission.

Yesterday in worship, we had hymns, readings and special music.  Our youth played their band instruments, our children shared the artwork they’ve been working on through Advent, and several people did prayers and readings.  One phrase caught my attention – you don’t have to be perfect, just willing to follow.

The reading was talking about the wise men following the star.  They didn’t have to be perfect before heading out, they just had to be willing to follow.  All the people I’ve met on short-term mission trips or on local mission projects immediately sprang to mind.  None of us have been perfect.  That one trip, where I messed up the rhythm of the line passing those big cement blocks…definitely not perfect!  People who go out in acts of mercy and kindness know that they aren’t perfect.  They are willing.  They go because they know the grace of God guides them.  They go because they trust in the Holy Spirit.  They go because they have been formed into the body of Christ through worship and are ready to be God’s people in the world.

This last week of Advent, how will you gather in worship?  I encourage you to open your heart as you worship with your church, and listen for the Spirit’s leading.  Just be willing.

The Dreaded Christmas Letter

The annual newsy Christmas letter has a bad reputation these days.  I must confess that I enjoy reading letters from friends and family, hearing about their celebrations and transitions, especially people who aren’t active on social media or frequent e-mailers.

Christmas letters are one way we share about ourselves with others.  If we don’t gloss over things, we can share joys and struggles with our loved ones.  Sharing what is going on in our lives through “the dreaded Christmas letter” is one way we build community, even if it’s just a brief newsy letter.  This year was jam-packed with transitions, downsizing, joys and difficulties for my family, and these will feature in my Christmas letter – joys of the season to be sure, but tempered with honesty.

At a recent Bible study on grace, my small group talked about how we understand God’s grace at work in our lives.  Like those Christmas letters revealing a glimpse into each other’s lives, we opened up about how God’s sanctifying grace – the ongoing work of the Spirit to make us holy – is working on us, and how we struggle with that.  We talked about John 1:16 – that we receive grace upon grace, and that we realize it often in the midst of struggle.  We were vulnerable with each other, listening deeply, and through hearing each other, learning about each other, we were building community.

Building community with others requires vulnerability and honesty.  Building community happens when we share our joys and successes, and when we share our struggles and sorrows.  Being vulnerable in community requires trust.  It takes time to build community.  Honesty, trust, vulnerability – these are gifts of God’s grace when we share together.

The work of mission requires us to be especially attentive to the Spirit and to God’s grace.  Building community through honest conversation, being vulnerable enough to be honest with people that we might only see for a week or ten days is difficult.  When we go to a place and work to help people rebuild after a tragedy or work with a community that is impoverished, we must be especially attentive to God’s grace and the need to work WITH others and not simply for others.  God’s grace builds us together into the Church, the body of Christ.  When we allow ourselves to deeply listen to those we go to serve, and we are vulnerable with them, we are living into the teaching of Christ’s commandment to love one another found in John 13:34-35 – “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

As you prepare for Christmas, whether through a Christmas letter, baking, or decorating, may the grace of Christ bless you, and may all your mission work be filled with grace, grace upon grace.

Thursdays In Black

Every Thursday, I wear black.

A few years ago I saw a few people on Twitter posting photos of women dressed in black with the hashtag #ThursdaysInBlack.  Church women in South Africa were making a public witness to bring awareness to the problem of rape and violence against women and children.  They worked with their local churches to discuss these problems and end the silence and stigma that surround survivors of sexual assault.

I decided to join them and started wearing black on Thursdays.  Somewhere – probably a United Methodist Women event – I picked up a #ThursdaysInBlack button.   Then my younger daughter contacted me about a rape that occurred on her United Methodist related college campus.  She was part of a protest movement on campus that wanted to raise awareness about the problem of rape and sexual assault on campus, and the difficulty victims were having navigating the Title IX process.  I was proud to participate in #ThursdaysInBlack in support of my daughter and her friends, and took the opportunity to educate myself about the Title IX process and the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States.   I invited other United Methodist clergywomen to join me in #ThursdaysInBlack and bought 500 pins from CABSA – Christian AIDS Bureau South Africa, to support the work of the women who inspired my first participation in this movement.  I shared buttons at the World Methodist Conference and posted photos of all the beautiful Methodist women wearing black and their #ThursdaysInBlack buttons at the conference.

Recently I moved to a new area, which means learning as much as possible about my new city and county.  In 2016 nearly 3,000 people were impacted by domestic violence, and five people died due to domestic violence.  There is a Family Justice Center which works to reduce the number of offices to visit, people to tell what happened, and number of forms to fill out for persons affected by domestic violence.  The center partners with local non-profits to work to end sexual assault, rape, and domestic violence.  I’ve visited our local YWCA and support their work, which equips families, educates children and works to end racism and sexism.

1 Corinthians 12:26 says that if one part of the body suffers, all suffer together with it.  Wearing black on Thursdays is a visible way to show solidarity with those who suffer.  Educating yourself about sexual assault in your community is a way of living missionally, learning about the context in which you live.  Supporting the work of organizations that work to eliminate rape, sexual assault, HIV/AIDS and racism are also part of the call to live as the body of Christ.

Learn more about CABSA here: http://cabsa.org.za/

Learn more about YWCA here: http://www.ywca.org

Environmental Volunteers

There’s a small city park across from the complex where I live, and I like to take my dog for a walk there each morning.  Last April I moved to western North Carolina and I’ve loved observing my new landscape.  Mountains and lush forests are new to me, and this area has many hiking trails to explore.  For short morning walks with my dog though, the little city park is perfect.  I was shocked one morning in October to find that along one side there had been some clearing.  Trees, shrubs, vines, all ripped out and left in a big pile on the sidewalk and blocking part of the street.  It seemed so random and ugly.

This morning the parking lot at this little park was full.  On a rare morning there will be one person sitting at the picnic tables, but this morning the pavilion was packed with people in yellow safety vests, sharing coffee and conversation.  As we got closer, I noticed two things: a sign announcing that environmental restoration work was in process and to please not disturb new plantings, and the word “volunteer” on the back of all those yellow safety vests.

A crisp sunny Monday morning, a day when most people would be at work, and yet here were forty or so people gathered in their work clothes to plant native trees and other plants in a city park.  Care for our environment – care for creation – is an important part of why people volunteer in their communities and beyond.

When I arrived here a few months ago, I looked for a church to join, and I found a small church that was in the midst of major changes.  The old church building was undergoing renovation and so the small congregation gathered in the old parsonage living room for worship – about 15 or so of us.  One summer morning we had a full living room and so my husband and I sat out on the front porch with another church member, sitting in wood rocking chairs, listening to the service through the open windows, looking out over the garden and the ridge of mountains beyond.  During the anthem, I walked out into the community garden and picked a few berries, warm from the sun and bursting with sweetness.  What I didn’t know then was that this transformation from dwindling congregation to community garden and renovated church space into co-working space/community gathering space/worship space was a long journey that required a lot of trust from the church.  Over time, I’ve discovered that this church has attended carefully to each step along the way, trying to imagine something different so that they don’t just become another statistic, another closed small church in small town America.

The vision of this small church involves a great deal of volunteering and care for creation.  In particular, care for native plants and pollinators.  Western North Carolina is experiencing a loss of farm land and increasing development.  The decision to take existing church-owned land and develop it for chickens, bees, a natural playground in the wooded area between the elementary school and the church, and a community garden is a missional decision.  The church decided its mission was to care for creation and their neighbors.  Last Tuesday as I sat at the kitchen table in that old parsonage, a group of second graders burst through the door, ready for the pastor to let them into the chicken coop to check for eggs (they found ten).  One little girl ran into the kitchen asking for our community gardener, because she’d found broccoli big enough to pick and take home for dinner.

Perhaps one day these children will grow up and become adults who take a day off work to be environmental restoration volunteers in the communities where they live.  The missional witness of my small church to care for creation is a blessing to the children who come in and see the work of the church.

Does your church’s mission work include care for creation?  Have you taken risks to expand how you think about what it means to be the church?

A Different View

This weekend it snowed in my hometown.  Some of my friends posted photos on Facebook.  If you live in an area where it snows in the winter, this may sound silly, but when we were kids growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, snow seemed like a far away dream.  It’s only snowed twice in my hometown in the last 50 years, and even then it’s just a dusting.

As I grew up in the 1970s I knew Christmas was coming when the Sears “Wish Book” arrived.  In the days before giant shopping malls and Amazon, we kids loved the Sears Wish Book.  It was a full color catalog of toys and gifts for all ages.  The cover photo was often of a snowy winter scene, or a big fire in the fireplace with a Christmas tree nearby.  The Rio Grande Valley is known as a major produce growing region, with several winter crops – onions, carrots, cabbage and lots of citrus fruit.  Several varieties of grapefruit have been developed in the Rio Grande Valley.  There were citrus orchards on three sides of our house when I was young, and I loved walking through the rich black dirt and picking up windfall oranges – not very pretty but very tasty.

I’d look at those citrus orchards and wish they could be covered in snow, like the pictures in the Sears catalog.  I’d listen to Christmas music and wonder what it would be like to actually have a white Christmas.  I wished very hard for snow.  One year we had a freeze warning, and I remember gathering up piles of frost as I waited for the bus, forming them into a little “snow” man.  I was delighted at the white covering everything.

My perspective was all about MY desire for snow.  Images of snow were everywhere – on winter themed bulletin boards at school, on greeting cards, in those calendars, on the radio and TV.  My fondest wish was for snow.  I never thought to ask what the people around me wanted – that didn’t matter to me in the least.

When I got older, I realized that multitudes of people around me relied on a very different view of freezing weather.  Mr. Fett and the other farmers who owned the orchards, the farmworkers, the packing house employees, the truckers – and by extension all their families – all these people needed temperatures to stay above freezing so that crops wouldn’t be lost.  It is a major blow to the economy when freezing temperatures kill off a citrus crop.  As I pretended that frost was snow and made a little frost man, the orchard owners were out examining their trees, and countless others were hoping the crop would make it so that they could keep working.

As I saw those pictures of snow in my hometown this weekend, I was reminded that when I go somewhere on a mission trip, I need to keep in mind the viewpoint of the people who live in that place.  Conversation and questions before the trip help me to keep my wishes and hopes in perspective, and allow the people who live in that place to articulate their wishes, needs and hopes.  It’s all about honoring different views.

Mission theologians Jacob and Glory Dharmaraj talk about the idea of asking others for their perspective in their book Mutuality in Mission.  “Mutuality in Christian mission is committed to a culture of equality.  The partners are bound together for a common cause in order to bring people back to God.  Mutuality enables the partners to communicate honestly and behave with integrity.  They see the world from the other partner’s perspective….”  As you plan your next mission trip, be sure to include time to talk with the people you will help, and share each other’s views and perspectives.  It will enrich your experience.

World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day, a day to remember all those whom we love and have lost to AIDS, and a day to pledge to continue working for an end to the stigma of this disease.

The work of mission pushes us out of our comfort zones, the lives we live in which we don’t have to think too much about our vulnerabilities.  Mission calls us out of our comfort and into the world where we meet our brothers and sisters, where we work toward a small measure of justice – even if that only looks like a new wheelchair ramp or a repaired roof.  Many times I’ve heard people say that when they work on a mission team, their hands might be pounding nails or measuring wood, but it’s not really about the house.  The work of mission is, at the heart of it, to be in solidarity with others in the world, to listen to their stories, to acknowledge that we need each other and all of us are precious in God’s sight.

On World AIDS Day, we also have an opportunity to be in solidarity with others in the world.  Even if – and perhaps especially if – you think your life isn’t touched by AIDS, or that your loved ones aren’t at risk for AIDS, go get tested.  Getting tested is a way of being in solidarity with those who are more at risk, with those who live with HIV.  In many communities, it is shameful to speak out loud that a person is HIV positive.  In many countries, medication to treat HIV is expensive and out of reach.

In the United Methodist Book of Worship the prayer for persons with AIDS includes these lines: “Assure them that they are not alone, and give them courage and faith for all that is to come.  Strengthen those who care for them and treat them, and guide those who do research.  Forgive those who have judged harshly, and enlighten those who live in prejudice or fear.”

The heart of the work of mission is compassion.  Stand in solidarity with those who have HIV or AIDS.  Get tested.  Look for your community’s HIV/AIDS outreach and support their work.  Lift a prayer for all those whom we have loved and lost.