A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith

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Within every ministry or business, there is wiggle room.  Before we examine “the how” for learning about and becoming comfortable within your ministry’s culture, there are several things where there can be no wiggle room.

Jesus’ disciples knew that he was not only their leader.  He was their example.  Before he sent them out in two’s, he traveled with them, showing them the way.  At his death, these men had experienced survival because the Lord had sent them out to experience the Holy Spirit’s working through them.

If any ministry is going to succeed, it is vital to learn how to work as a team.  Jeffery Lay in his book, Top Gun on Wall Street, says “We don’t send anyone, anywhere. We all go together.”  Lay was a top gun pilot who transferred the leadership skills learned from the military into the business world.

Leaders cannot lead from behind.  If you are in a leadership position, you must not only be willing to go before but you must be the first to venture into new avenues.

There is a fatal notion that leaders don’t actually do much work.  They learn to delegate.  The problem with that philosophy is that few people willingly or happily work for a leader if their leader does not fully understand the concerns of the workers.  Before delegation can successfully happen, there must be example.

Within a ministry, you must have the good will of all your volunteers and paid staff.  That doesn’t mean that you need to know the nuts and bolts of every single activity.  However, you must do more than walk though the ministry space, looking, pointing and asking stupid questions.  The person who is following you must know your commitment to the people you are serving.

They need to understand that at any time you are willing to pick up a broom and sweep the floor or make the refreshments.  Each week volunteers need to see you moving chairs, teaching or doing some physical ministry.  Volunteers and staff must know that you are willing learn the bookkeeping or the desk-top publishing or a new data base.  You want to be able to venture into the new activities demanded by your ministry.

When The Special Gathering was having some concerns with our bookkeeping, the head of our ministry, Richard Stimson, went back to college to learn the fundamentals of accounting.  While he didn’t need to learn how to be an expert in accounts receivable, he wanted to be able to have an overall vision regarding this area of ministry.  I was impressed with his willingness to venture beyond his comfort zone to learn how to lead in this vital area.

Years ago, I visited a large ministry in southern Florida.  A bit shocked, I listened as the director of the ministry spoke to her fellow volunteers.  She was more than stern as the men and women listened.  They nodded and smiled, agreeing with her admonitions.  After the meeting, I asked her how she could be so stern with her volunteers.  ”I’m also a volunteer,” she said, laughing.  ”My teachers know that I am doing as much or more than they are every day of the week.”

She and Stimson live what Lay advocates, “Don’t send anyone, anywhere.  We all go together.”  Without a team no ministry will not be successful.  However, without a leader, there will be no team.

We all understand that our federal government is divided into three co-equal branches.  There is the executive branch, the legislative and the judicial branches.  The purpose of these three branches of government is to insure that the people of the US receive justice.  You see, very few people (masses or individuals) are just.  We tend to see things through the biases with which we have been raised and in which we live.

During the history of the Jewish people, especially during the time of Ezekiel, the nation God had chosen was being punished because they were wicked.  In fact, Ezekiel tells us that they were so evil that they thought God was the one who was bad.  In reality, we all live with a hint of that suspesion dwelling in our minds and seeping into our hearts.

Before I became a parent, I thought my mother and father were mean and hateful.  Then I had children; and I understood that they were simply trying to mold us into mature adults.  In fact, I often think that they were kind of soft on us.  I know of other parents who decided that they would be harder on their children because their parents were too easy.  ”I thought my folks were tough but I’ve realized that they were wimps,” one neighbor confessed, while nursing a steaming cup of coffee.

The reality is that we cannot understand God.  Therefore, because his actions are so foreign to us, we think that God is mean.  The executive director and pastor of The Special Gathering often says that we can only see things through our own perspective.  That means that we understand what is happening from the way we see it.

Even though, it’s a hard lesson, we must learn to trust God and believe that His way is right no matter what happens.  Years ago, I was taking my children to the beach.  Usually, I would put the car keys in my pocket and lock my pocketbook in the trunk.  That day, scruffling to get everything out to the ocean, I forgot to lock my car and my purse up.

That night, I went to the car to get something out of my pocketbook and realized that my purse was gone.  I climbed back into the car, attempting to re-track my steps.  All the time I was driving, I was doing spiritual battle with myself.  That day, while sitting at the beach, watching my children play, I had promised the Lord that when bad things happened, I would no longer blame Him but I would realize that I was to blame and takeon the guilt for my mistakes.

My carnal logic had been that because I turn everything over to the Lord, He should keep me from doing stupid thing.  Of course, it’s not godly thinking but it was my thinking process.

As I scouring the community for my pocketbook that had our checkbook, credit cards and pretty much all of our financial lifeblood in it, I kept struggling with myself to acknowledge that God was not to blame for this problem.  Again and again, I would say outlough, “Lord, I know this isn’t your fault.  I know that I lost the pocketbook, not you.”  My mouth was saying one thing but my heart wanted to scream “God, why did you let this happen to ME?”  Finally, I said, “Lord, it doesn’t matter how I feel.  I know that you are not to blame.  I made the mistake.  I am to blame.  I will not blame you.”

As I walked into the door from my desperate searching, the phone was ringing.  ”This is the Rockledge police department.  We have your pocketbook.  Can you come and get it?”  That night I experienced a clear act of God’s mercy and grace.  I learned to not blame God for my mistakes.  God is not responsible for my goofing up.

As a merciful bonus, I only had $.47 in my wallet.  The thieves took the money.  Then they tossed everything into the bushes on a lonely, almost deserted road.  A car behind them happened to see them toss the pocketbook.  He stopped, retieved my purse and took it to the police department.  Nothing was missing.  None of the cards had been used.

The Lord used this driver, even a couple of thieves to teach me a valuable lesson about His justice.  Because we are people who do not really understand what is right, we need God to help us understand.  Many times he uses other people to teach us about his loving and just ways.

For more than 20 years, I was a stay-at-home mom.  During those years, I wrote five books.  Two of them were best sellers.  Together they sold over a million copies.  I was an award-winning, free-lance writer working with several different magazines.  Additionally, I was the room mother for my children’s school classes.I baked cookies and cakes for every event at our church.  I worked at the Fall Festival and did children’s theatre.  I held a weekly Bible study for the neighborhood children.  I taught Bible classes for every age and strip.  I did and taught crafts.  I sewed.  For years, I made all my own clothes and the clothes for my daughters.  On occasion, I even cleaned my house and did the laundry.

I enjoyed every part of these various tasks, except cleaning the house and doing the laundry.  Most of my friends who were also housewives were even more creative and productive than I was.  In short, we were the undocumented workers of the day.  We did what others were not able or did not want to do.  Only difference, we did our work for free–sensing a greater calling than mere housework.  We were molding the next generation of children.  Unfortunately, we usually garnered less respect than the undocumented workers do today.

Understand, my mother was a working mom.  With my father, she ran the family business, Gresham’s Ice Cream Parlor.  My sister, brother and I walked to the shop after school.  We did our homework propping our books and writing paper on tables where the teenagers gathered after school to listen to the jukebox and eat snacks.  After dark, we made pallets on the chest freezers where we slept until the shop closed.

Whether working mothers or stay-at-home moms, the greatest task of every mother must be embeding Christ-like value into our children. Abraham Lincoln said, ”All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”

Though poor, Ida Stover was determined to go to college. She scraped together enough money to attend Lane College in Lecompton, Kan., where she met fellow student David Eisenhower. She was known as a firm but gentle disciplinarian and was deeply religious. It is said she once won a prize for memorizing 1,365 Bible verses. As a pacifist, she was not in favor of her son attending West Point but decided to let him go.

She was the mother of Dwight David Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States.

Mary Litogot grew up on a farm, and met her future husband, William Ford, when he came to work on their farm. She was 12 and he was 26. They married nine years later. Mary was self-sufficient and a diligent worker. Henry (Ford) later attributed his clean factories to her belief in cleanliness. She encouraged his interest in machines early on. He later said, “I have tried to live my life as my mother would have wished. I believe I have done, as far as I could, just what she hoped for me.”

Mary Ford was Henry Ford’s mother.

Some of the women I have the most respect for are those courageous mothers whose children are born with intellectual disabilities.  At the birth of their children, the dreams and aspirations they have nurtured all their lives dies.  But their hope does not die.  Resilient and brave, they work and teach.  Step by minute step, they struggle and minister to the little ones God has placed in their homes and hearts. Yes, the moms who harbor future presidents and great inventors are wonderful.  However,  it is the mothers who daily work to bring their little ones with disabilities into their fullest potential that I honor and respect the most.

As a mother, what was your greatest accomplishment?  What about your mother?  How did she inspire you?

Quoted information from Mothers: 100 Mothers of the Famous and Infamous, edited by Richard, Ehrlich, Paddington Press, Ltd.