At the start of 2017, I will no longer be a World Racer.
I will be an alumna.
An ex.
A has-been.
I’m not sure what January holds for me.
I’m applying for some more graduate courses and a new credential.
I’m applying for a job at a new school.
I’m applying to lead a new World Race team.
And everything about applying is uncertain.
But I am certain about one thing.
Surer than sure.
I can’t wait to return to my job at the bar.
I was told this year that being a “Christian bartender” is an oxymoron.
[Honestly, I was a little pissed.]
I tried to think of a quick, witty, intelligent comeback.
[But that’s a spiritual gift I’m still praying for.]
So I nodded my head, tried to justify something that didn’t need justifying, and began internally processing what happened.
Almost three months later, I finally have a response.
I enjoy my job.
I have fun at work.
I make people smile.
I love my amazing coworkers and customers.
AND JESUS LOVES THEM TOO.
So. Stinkin. Much.
If I’ve learned nothing else this year, it’s that we can’t be afraid of the dark.
Because we carry the Light.
I’ve picked kids up off street corners in the morning before school.
I’ve hugged women who had been rescued from sex slavery.
I’ve fed people who were starving.
I’ve played with orphans and foster kids.
I’ve slept at a homeless shelter.
Because Jesus would have.
Because Jesus told me my one job in this world is to love his children and bring glory to his name.
Even when it’s hard.
Even when it’s scary.
Even when it’s dark or dirty or smelly.
Even Especially when people tell you you’re wrong.
I’ve had the opportunity to be a Team Leader for the last three months of the Race.
The job description I was given:
Point your team to the Lord through your actions and encouragement.
But how BACKWARDS would I be if I went home and stopped doing that?
If I stopped living like Jesus?
If I forgot all the freedom and the new identity that the Lord has given me?
Or worse, if I refused to share that love and freedom and shameless audacity that I have found?
I’ve been confronted about my “sinful lifestyle” by people who don’t know me outside my work.
It doesn’t make me want to love Jesus.
It just makes me late for my shift.
You know what DOES make me love Jesus?
When my bartender friend says she and her daughter are praying for my upcoming year-long mission trip.
And when they invite me to pass out sandwiches to the homeless on Christmas.
And when my friend who’s on the entertainment staff financially supports my crazy idea to go on the World Race.
And when I get emails and Facebook messages and blog comments encouraging me to keep doing the hard things.
And when the entire staff stays late after closing to give me a cake and say goodbye.
And the fact that I had to narrow this list down to just five examples is testament enough.
I’m not perfect.
The truth is, I mess up a lot.
I have a history of making mistakes.
Of choosing the wrong thing.
But the Lord uses those things to connect us.
I can’t judge, because I’ve been there.
But Jesus is perfect enough for the both of us.
And I can use what I know to point people in the right direction.
So when I wasn’t sure whether it was “right” to go back to work in a nightclub after a year on the mission field, I read his Book.
And you know what I read?
A story about a lonely whore he met on the side of the road.
[I’m sorry for my language there, but “adulterous woman” didn’t seem to have the same effect.]
In Jesus’ day, a respectable man and a respectable woman who weren’t married wouldn’t have a friendly one-on-one conversation.
And a Jewish Rabbi and a Samaritan woman with 5 husbands DEFINITELY wouldn’t be having a one-on-one conversation.
YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE SCANDAL HERE.
He SAW her when all the other religious people refused to.
He LOVED her and offered her LIVING WATER when everyone had made her an abandoned outcast.
And he met her where she was, never expecting her to come to him.
Oh.
And the one about the hated tax collector who became one of his good friends.
And the uneducated fishermen who became his besties.
And the isolated woman who had been called “unclean,” who he healed and called DAUGHTER.
I could go on.
But I won’t.
The point is, these are the people the “Good Jews” rejected, but the “King of the Jews” loved.
If I truly believe in the freedom that I’ve found this year,
If I truly learned and loved and grew as much as I say I have,
If I truly believe that Jesus isn’t boring so I don’t have to be either,
Then why wouldn’t I share it?
Why wouldn’t I do the things I love with even more joy and more boldness?
Why wouldn’t I pray with my coworkers?
Why wouldn’t I hope that someone who doesn’t know my Jesus would meet him on my shift?
A woman named Martha once told Jesus that if he had been there, her brother wouldn’t have died.
The same is true for us.
We carry the Holy Spirit.
He makes light shine out of darkness.
And in all the bars and nightclubs that so many Christians are afraid to enter
that light still has the power to save.
So for those of us in the industry,
Let’s be bold about who our Jesus is.
And if “Christian Bartender” is an oxymoron…FINE.
Just call me a bartender.
Or a waitress.
Or a line dancer.
Whatever you call me, it won’t change the fact that Jesus is Lord over ALL.
It won’t change his love for you or me or the rest of his creation.
And it won’t change what he has commissioned us to do.
