Gift-wrapped present

Fundraising Therapy

For years as a fund-raising missionary, I was taught that raising support was an integral part of my ministry, that fundraising not only made it financially possible to do the ministry I loved (a means to an end), but that it was a ministry in and of itself (its own end). It allowed me to:

  • connect with people
  • share my life and my ministry with them
  • give them an opportunity to participate materially with what God was doing, and
  • help them grow into generous stewards of their resources, regardless of whether they chose my specific ministry to support or another one that better aligned with their “Kingdom values.”

It was such a beautiful vision of support-raising, and I believed it in theory. But I had a few hang-ups that got in the way of fully embracing it.

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Anonymous stranger

My Year of Anonymity

After several years of Christian ministry, I’d slowly and unintentionally gotten myself wrapped up in a giant Christian bubble. I didn’t like it—I missed refreshingly-secular conversations with people who didn’t think like me, and I wasn’t making room for that when my calendar was booked with church services, small groups, outreach trainings, and prayer meetings. I didn’t want to wipe away all Christian influences—I think that being connected to fellow believers helps ground you in your faith—I just wanted to leave behind the bubble that isolated me from people who didn’t share my faith.

And like some other changes I’ve needed in my life, I decided to go drastic for a short period of time. Swing to the other side of the pendulum, so to speak. And later, after I’d experienced both extremes, find the appropriate middle ground for me.

So I took a year to be anonymous.

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Green leaves

The Half-Scorched Tree

I love trees. They speak to me metaphorically, providing significant analogies and life lessons about growth and beauty and provision and purpose. I can sit for an hour pondering my life (a form of meditation) in the vicinity of trees, and I’ll almost always walk away with new insights.

I’m also drawn to Bible verses that refer to trees and plants as a symbol for a person’s healthiness and vitality, or lack thereof. Psalm 1:3 is a prime example of this. Referring to those who meditate on God’s word, it says, “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever they do prospers” (New International Version, 2011).

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Blog writing on typewriter

Blogging Rules

When I began my blog a year ago, I decided to put in place some guiding principles to keep me in line with its vision and purpose (steps toward a thriving, flourishing life), as well as to keep me honest with myself and my readers. Internet etiquette is different for everyone since we all have different expectations of what’s appropriate and beneficial to “put out there,” and it’s so easy to get swayed by other people’s convictions of what your blog should be. Instead of taking on what someone else found appropriate, I put together my own set of rules for my writing. Here is what they were:

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Gavel

Illegitimate Guilt

Sometimes I have a hard time distinguishing between a legitimate feeling of guilt and an illegitimate one. What I mean is, when someone I respect or love disapproves of a choice I make, I feel so bad about disappointing them that I start to feel like I’ve actually done something wrong. Even if it’s not wrong, just something they don’t like.

It’s even worse when they bring God into the equation.

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Hiking in mountains

Mountains of Decisions, part 3

Prologue from part 1 and part 2:

I am not a hiker. And though I appreciate the beauty of green and flowering things from behind the glass of a window, I’m not even really that fond of being outdoors. So I was surprised to discover that the image that came to me year after year as an analogy to describe my life, was a mountain. Complete with hiking trails.


The last time the mountain imagery came to mind I was at a major crossroads in my life instead of my ministry. Well, it had something to do with my ministry in that I was considering leaving it.

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Hiking in mountains

Mountains of Decisions, part 2

Prologue from part 1:

I am not a hiker. And though I appreciate the beauty of green and flowering things from behind the glass of a window, I’m not even really that fond of being outdoors. So I was surprised to discover that the image that came to me year after year as an analogy to describe my life, was a mountain. Complete with hiking trails.


The second time this mountain imagery came up, I had already decided to sign on full time with the ministry I’d been part of for 6 years. I’d been offered the choice to move to another city in a nearby state, or to stay at the campus I knew and loved. They asked me to pray about it, and when I did, the same mountain image emerged from my subconscious. Only this time, there were two ways up the mountain.

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Hiking in mountains

Mountains of Decisions, part 1

Prologue:

I am not a hiker. And although I appreciate the beauty of green and flowering things from behind the glass of a window, I’m not even really that fond of being outdoors. So I was surprised to discover that the image that came to me year after year as an analogy to describe my life, was a mountain. Complete with hiking trails.


The first time this mountain/hiking imagery graced my life I was a college senior asking what I should do after graduation. More specifically, I was asking if I should intern with the campus ministry that I was part of in college. As I asked, this picture unfolded: it was me walking up a trail, starting at the base of the mountain where the incline was gradual, continuing to more steep sections, and occasionally stopping to enjoy the view and to survey how far I’d come. There was a sense of satisfaction that the hard work was well worth the vista point. And there was a deeper sense of God’s presence and his promise that he would always be with me, in the easy aspects of ministry and in the difficult ones, on the days that felt like accomplishments and the days that felt like failures, and that his hand would reach out to help me up the steeper parts of the climb.

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Rotary Phone

Suffering and Self-Sacrifice

There is a phenomenon among Christian activists that causes them to sacrifice so much for others that it hurts. Call it love, call it a sense of justice, or in some cases call it penance. These believers are motivated by their faith to right wrongs on behalf of others. Some feel they have been “called” by God to sacrifice in specific ways. Others feel no particular call but indiscriminately adopt the sacrifices they see other activists making because they believe that it will bring good to the world. I was in the latter group for many years, but after a while began questioning such haphazard self-sacrifice.

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