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It’s true that I am in the middle of writing about the 4-ish days of Briefing, but I cannot help but take a time-out to tell you about the ministry that came out of Sunday night.
God has been breaking my heart for His daughters since I received my call to ministry in the spring of 2008. Major issues faced by women, particularly those who do not know the love of Christ, simply wreck me. I always cry over prostitution especially. Sandy’s blog and the Nightlight blog are sources of great pain for me, which is exactly why I read them. I pray regularly that God would break my heart for what breaks His, and He has done just that in giving me a heart for His lost & broken daughters.
I am starting a ministry currently called the Magdalene Project. I will be going out on Coast Highway on Saturday evenings and talking to the prostitutes. I will get to know their stories, pray for them, and show them the love of Jesus in any way I can. I will be combining my passion for music with this by recording a CD of songs that focus on our brokenness and God’s love, forgiveness, healing, and redemption. I will give copies of the album to the girls I befriend, with a personal note & my phone number in each, in hopes that the music touches their hearts in a way words alone cannot. Should a girl desire to get out of the commercial sex trade, I will do whatever I can to help her find a job, a place to stay, or whatever else she needs. I have connections in the Oceanside Police Department, so I’m going to talk to some officers to better understand the problem.
I asked God what my first step would be, and He told me to “go and see,” so this Saturday night I will be going to see the brokenness with my own eyes. I expect this entire ministry to be one of the most heartbreaking and difficult things I will ever do. I will be in need of TONS of prayer, because other than having felt the leading of the Spirit, I have no idea what I am doing, and no one with whom to do it.
Please be praying for discernment, wisdom, safety, love, compassion, and mercy.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
7 She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say,
‘I will go and return to my first husband,
for it was better for me then than now.’
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.Hosea 2:5b-7, 14-16
God is so smart. He made the perfect decision when He told me to make New Song my home church on November 18, 2007, and again when He told me to quit ballet & devote myself to ministry on October 24, 2008.
I just got out of a youth ministry meeting where we were mapping out how we’re going to get students to go from “Come & see” to “Come & die” (John 1:46 and Matthew 16:24-25, respectively). It was a very eye-opening meeting as we saw where we are currently successful and where we need work. As we were going over our plan to write down specific areas in which to take action, I realized something awesome.
About 8 months ago, I decided to begin giving up my life to do ministry. I began giving of my time and energy to further the kingdom of God through the Church. All I had to go on was that God wanted me working with music and young women, so I took that knowledge and ran with it.
Now, on the other side of a very quick yet lengthy-feeling 8 months, I am ridiculously equipped. I have learned more than I thought I would, surely. God has transformed me into someone who isn’t really me; all these good qualities, all this leadership flowing from me, is actually Him. I would say that I amaze myself, but it’s not me anyway- so really, He amazes me. I have 15 more minutes to write before I have to go lead a high school girls’ small group that I took the initiative of forming. Courtney 8 months ago would never have done that. But that’s God for ya.
Ultimately, I technically still don’t know “what I’ll be doing with my life.” I’m totally okay with that. I have a feeling God will never just settle me into one easily definable job description anyway. My ministry started November 8, 2008, at Catalina Island, when I realized that God was ready for me to start pouring into others instead of always being the one poured into. That means I’m already doing “what I’ll be doing with my life.”
So where am I in terms of my two ministry focuses? I’m so glad you asked :)
At this moment, I am well on my way to becoming a fully hireable worship leader. I can’t even say how much that statement excites me. Developments in the last couple of weeks have propelled me further in desire and progress toward my goal. In a couple months, I will probably have my own service to lead. (Picture a ridiculously huge smile on my face right about now.)
On the young women front, I am continuing in leading my 11th grade girls small group both on Tuesday nights and our additional time on Wednesday nights. When the fall starts, I’ll be stepping up one level to become the entire junior class coach, which basically means I’ll be the youth pastor for all the 11th graders/the boss of all their small group leaders. I’ll be getting an even closer look at how we do youth ministry, which is essentially what we talked about in the meeting today.
New Song is an excellent training ground for ministry. I am so glad we are devoted to raising up new leaders and future pastoral staff members. No matter where God calls me next, I know I will be well equipped to tackle the ministry issues I face.
Of course, it is the middle of the night. My heart is so awake now, and my thoughts are zooming along on a path I wish to document. At night, or in the “wee” hours of the morning, life feels so epic- almost like a movie. I get these inexplicable feelings of adventure and grandness, of true love and an awesome, yet-to-be-unlocked potential. It is in these times I feel I can see everything clearly; I understand the gravity of all the elements of my life, and of God’s story for humanity. I wish I could capture this feeling and re-experience it at will, but alas, that will never be. I will wake up tomorrow feeling as normal as ever.
At this particular moment in time, I feel as though I’ve been given a glimpse into the “possible” future. Anything and everything is possible with God (Luke 18:27). If we simply trust Him with all that is within us, yield ourselves to His will, and put in whatever effort He asks of us, there is no reason why we should not have an incredible, adventurous life. So many people, it seems, get stuck at the very first step. They act as though trusting God too much will cause Him to fail them, which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
There have been plenty of times I’ve had to tell God I wasn’t ready to trust Him for something. Usually, I’m too afraid to let it go, give up control, and depend on Him to bring about the outcome He chooses. What if it’s different from the outcome I want? What will I do then?
In most of these times, I fight Him for ten to fifteen minutes, realize resistance is futile, and let Him have His way. They’re rather comical moments for us.
~*~
There is someone on my mind at this midnight hour. This someone is quite an amazing person, in my humble opinion. I feel that they could be an incredibly powerful vessel for Christ, that they could make such a huge impact in His name if they reached their full potential. At the moment, I can see one hinderance in their way: lack of direction. There is so little one can do without direction from God, except to wait.
Brian Kiley, our soon-to-be-former college pastor, gave a message on hope last year for Advent that really stuck with me. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but he made the point that the words “hope” and “wait” were essentially the same in the original language of the passage we were studying. Suddenly, I clearly saw the nature of waiting on the Lord for what it is: an attitude of expectancy, that at any moment, God is going to show up.
In March 2008, I was lamenting the fact that God was asking me to “wait” for something. It’s been one year and three months, and I’m still waiting. Since then, however, I have learned how to wait in hope, with the expectation of a fulfilled promise. I’m anything but an expert at waiting patiently, but I have definitely learned to wait in a much different and more productive way than that of the selfish fretting in which I used to engage.
I’ve been praying for this person on my mind, that God would direct them and guide them, giving them a vision for the ministry of their life. I greatly desire to see them used by God; I feel they have a fantastic journey ahead of them.
~*~
There is nothing more I want than to sit at Jesus’ feet and just be, and then to let my life simply tumble out as He would have it as a result of that. I want to start each day with fire in my heart, overflowing with passion and love that will propel me through the monotony of everyday and into the kingdom of God. I want to give up everything, even if it hurts, just so I can watch God move in mighty ways. I want to receive a vision for the work that He has prepared for me, and then stop at nothing to do it to the best of my ability, including Him every step of the way. I want to pray for people who will never know I did so, and sing songs to Jesus that no one else will ever hear. I want Him to break me down so that I can see my heart for what it truly is, and then tell me that He loves me ridiculously in spite of that.
In short, I want God. I want the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, unbridled and out of the box. And the best part about that is that He wants it too. No matter how weak I am, no matter how short I come up, He will fill in the gaps with His grace and give me His heart if I give Him mine. What a beautiful marriage that is! I truly can think of nothing better.
