**disclaimer: I have to tell you the hard stuff that took me to the good stuff. The last blog was about the hard stuff. So is this one. but the good stuff is coming!!! :)***
Hebrews 13:17 says “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They
keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that
their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no
advantage to you.”
keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that
their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no
advantage to you.”
With five months of relational/friendship evangelism under our belts we arrived back in the First World ready to bring Kingdom, maybe to the homeless, or orphans, or something like that. We didn’t know for the first day or so what our ministry would be, so we came ready for what we thought might be anything.
Everything (housing, food, transportation and finances) fell into place amazingly easily and well–we could tell it had all been pre-arranged by God. We are forging a new World Race relationship with a ministry in London working with churches among ethnic minorities. The ministry is not run by the ethnic minorities; it is run by Westerners. Thus we have come back into an environment of scheduling and rules and a certain way of getting things done. (There are many reasons why I can’t elaborate online about this ministry but do know that we are absolutely blessed that God brought us here, and He is teaching us a lot through the experience!)
Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.
So, we have definitely experienced culture shock. Basically for the past five months we’ve been, in large part, in charge of our own schedules and ministry styles. For nearly three weeks in London this isn’t the case; the Lord has stripped away our own control and our way of doing things, and we’ve been given a completely new authority to submit to and try to adjust to their way of doing things. 
They
keep watch over you as men who must give an account.
keep watch over you as men who must give an account.
The first week was really, really difficult for me. The London I had known as a student wasn’t the London I was going to see for a while! Working in some of the outer neighborhoods (zone 3 and farther out–central London is in zone 1) with transportation and housing provided by our ministry partner (wonderfully!), we didn’t visit central London until our day off (nine days after we arrived).
Furthermore, I was constantly challenged by not having the freedom to choose where or how or when we were going to do ministry. I was challenged to do ministry in ways some churches do in America and which I hadn’t done since high school–ways I had never thought effective before. Yet, even in the first few days we began to get those little glimpses of light shining into the darkness. It is those glimpses that have kept me going and that have kept this ministry going for many years.
Obey them so that
their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no
advantage to you.
their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no
advantage to you.
So as we came back to a culture similar to our own (and yet, different, which probably makes it even more challenging to realize), we had culture shock from working with our ministry contact in a style we hadn’t been practicing at all on the Race thus far. I had to make a choice to be joyful in this “new” Race culture of ministry and in submission to our authorities. It was a CHOICE. And by the grace of Jesus I was able to choose well…
coming soon: London Lessons #3: my alabaster jar?
