Hi Friends, Family and Blog Enthusiasts,
Hunter here and I just wanted to take a short moment to share something that the Holy Spirit had spoken into me a while back before the Race and on the Race in the current country that I’m in. Like a pile of freshly raked autumn leaves, let’s jump on in!
Back when I was teaching, I found it difficult to be able to represent my faith, especially in a public school setting. And what made it difficult was that any attempt to represent my faith, like writing a verse of the day on the board, was prohibited by my supervisors. And I remember talking to God being like, “God, what am I supposed to do? The way I normally represent my faith is not allowed.” And the Holy Spirit responded to me: “If the only way you can represent your faith is through the verse of the day written on a board, then I’m sorry, you’re a lame Christian.”
Ouch, am I right? That kind of hurt. Hearing the Holy Spirit call you a “lame Christian”. But what it taught me was to find new creative ways to live out and represent my faith that went beyond my “normal way” of representing my faith. Now I’m in a country where the situation is similar. I can be a Christian, but representing, sharing and evangelizing my faith are illegal. And I found myself asking some of my teammates during debrief, “We can’t even share our faith or openly have our bibles out with us as we walk through this country. What are we supposed to do?” And again, the Holy Spirit answered me, “If the only way you can represent your faith is through open evangelism and carrying your Bible in your hands, then you’re a lame Christian.”
I was brought back to the memory of my school when I had encountered that same instance with the Holy Spirit. And I asked the Spirit, “Okay, but isn’t that kind of harsh to say?” Then I felt this prompting on my heart to look up the definition of lame. Here’s what I found:
“Unable or only partially able to use a body part and especially a limb”
And then it hit me! The Spirit hadn’t been saying that I was lame in the sense of “being boring or not being cool”, rather he was telling me that I’m not being effective within the body of Christ when I limit myself to only one way of doing things. When you think about it, God can minister into someone’s life in so many different ways, but when we try to set a limit onto how God can work and reach people, we’re being a “lame” Christian. We’re not being as effective as we could be because we’re only “partially usable”.
And so from this, I’ve learned, along with my team, that ministry can look like many different things. It can be out of the box creative, fun, enjoyable, delightful. It doesn’t have to be this rigid, by the books thing you’ve always known it to be. It could be serving in a local cafe that you don’t actually work at, playing board games with community locals, or even adapting traditions to mix with the Gospel (a little look into the ministry that my team, Team Shema, has been doing). Ministry, just like God’s kingdom, can turn our expectations upside down, and work in a completely different way than we anticipated. The question is this: Are you going to be a “lame Christian” and limit that or are you going to allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in brand new ways to minister to others?
Love y’all,
Happy Sabbath Rest Day!
– Hunter L.
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