Acts
13:1-5
June 10, 2012
Now in the church at Antioch there were
prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene,
Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler, and Saul. While they were
worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me
Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting
and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they
went down to Seleucia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived
at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And
they had John also to assist them.
I want to
start by telling you about a Betsy Kain. You may know her, since she used to lived
in Squirrel Hill and worked as a therapist for many years there. Today she lives in Santa Barbara, California,
but spends much of her time in Rwanda. Her life changed after a trip to there
around Christmas of 2006.
The British
human rights activist, Rebecca Tinsley, had invited her to go to Rwanda as part
of a therapeutic mission trip to help survivors of the Rwandan genocide, in
which almost 1 million people were brutally murdered in an attempt at ethnic
cleansing in inter-tribal conflicts. She had gone to help female victims of
rape and other forms of violence. While there she had a transforming moment.
She was viewing a live nativity in which an obviously malnourished mother sat
under a banana leaf covered lean-to. She sat with her husband, who was dying
from AIDS, while nursing her young baby.
The scene
so shocked her that she went back to where she was staying to listen to
Christmas Carols, hoping they would put her in a better frame of mind.
Listening to the songs, she was stirred by the Spirit as she listened to the
refrain of “Good Christian Men, Rejoice,” which is “Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!” She heard in the
song that she was born for this, too—to help these struggling Rwandans.
Her efforts to help started when she
returned to Santa Barbara, and convinced the members of her church to buy a cow
for a village in Rwanda. That may not seem like much, but introducing Holstein
milk cows in Africa, which produce up to 2/3rd more milk than
African cows, makes a huge difference. The milk, breeding, meat, and manure
from a cow can make a major economic impact for them. Her church raised funds
to purchase three.
Her
continued visits to Rwanda also convinced her that while cows could make a
difference, goats could make an even bigger difference. For a family to have
just one goat can make the difference between starvation and thriving. The
goats eat anything. They produce milk that can be drunk or made into cheese to
be eaten or sold. Their manure fertilizes gardens. They can be bred to create
more goats, and they can be eaten.
Recognizing
the need, she started an organization called goatsforlife.org, where, for $45,
a person can purchase a goat for a family in Rwanda. Since she started the
organization, it has given over 3400 goats to individual families, and 36 milk
cows.
What’s
remarkable about Betsy Kain isn’t just her traveling to Rwanda and starting the
organization. It’s that she saw her whole life as mission. Her mission to Rwanda
was remarkable all in itself, as was her starting goatsforlife.org, but it’s
also clear that these weren’t exceptions. They were the rule of a life spent in
mission. She grew up the daughter of a Presbyterian pastor, and so learned the
value of living a life of mission. She has lived a life of mission, taking her
from working as a psychiatric social worker, to being stay-at-home mom, an individual
therapist, working in soup kitchens, making donations, and working as a missionary.
She
understood something that’s a calling for all Christians: we are called by the
Spirit to serve in mission. We are called at times to take a bold step—even if
it’s a small one—to make a difference for people we don’t know, who may be
different, and who may hold different values.
One of the
problems I’ve had over the years with the way Presbyterians look at mission is
that too often we’re too limited in our thinking about mission. Often
Presbyterians limit their understanding of mission to providing food, medicine,
buildings, and education, all of which certainly are part of mission, but
mission isn’t limited to them.
I
discovered how much we can limit mission in a pastoral interview I had with a
church in Maryland before I came to Calvin Presbyterian Church. When Presbyterian
churches are looking for new pastors, they are interviewed, much like would
happen in a business. During the interview, one of the members of the pastor
search committee, looking at my Personal Information Form (kind of like an
extensive resume we pastors fill out), commented, “I don’t see much mission in
your background.” I said, “It’s there,
and it’s pretty extensive, too.”
“Where?” she asked. I replied,
“My whole background is mission in one way or another. I’ve worked with
mentally retarded children, in a psychiatric hospital counseling children and
teens, as a hospital chaplain, as a drug and alcohol counselor, as an
individual and family therapist, helped with an inner-city vacation Bible
school in Wilkinsburg, and more.” She said, “That’s not mission.” I replied, “Maybe not the way you think of
mission, but it was mission to me. Some I got paid for, much I didn’t. But it
was always mission. I see mission as doing whatever we’re called to do.”
I found out
later that this sparked a big debate on their committee about the nature of
mission. I never had the opportunity to see if they were going to invite me to
become their pastor. I became pastor here before they finished their
deliberations. The discussion I had with them, though, revealed how limited we
can be in thinking about mission.
In our
passage, the mission Paul and Barnabas were called to by the Spirit had nothing
to do with food, medicine, education, and building. They were called to a
mission of spreading the Gospel. Unfortunately, this is a mission that we Presbyterians
aren’t particularly good at. We often feel as though sharing our faith is too
intrusive, or too embarrassing, or that we aren’t adept enough. But it’s
mission, too.
I know that
when I came to Calvin Presbyterian Church one of the struggles was to get us to
look at everything we do as mission. This was already a wonderfully
mission-focused church, but the mission tended to be outward looking and
limited in its scope, treating mission as only stuff we do somewhere else outside
of the church. I remember in my first year having a conversation with member who
insisted that any money spent upgrading the church was selfish, and that the
money should only be spent on things outside the church—unless we’re talking
about a collapsing ceiling. I replied that if we want to increase mission
outside the church, we have to enhance worship as a mission in the church. Not
only that, but we have to start seeing the everything we do in the church as
potential mission: drama, music, building, teaching, program, preaching,…
everything. I had said that if we see our worship as mission, upgrading the
sanctuary, the sound, the lighting, and everything else, it will grow the
church and allow us to do even more mission, locally and globally. That’s been
born out. I’d invite you to look at the mission page of our website and see how
much we are doing in mission. It’s quite amazing.
Still, it’s
not enough to see everything we do as mission. We need to constantly be asking
what we are called to do in mission, individually and as a church. Like Betsy
Kain, we have to be willing to follow where God calls us, so that we can live a
life of mission. This is what I’ve tried to do in my life. I’ve tried to follow
what God has called me to do in mission, and it’s allowed me to develop a
mission that is very unique to me.
Most of you
don’t know this, probably because I don’t make a big deal about it, but for the
past six years I’ve had two personal missions. One is that I serve as a
counselor and spiritual director for other pastors, helping them become
healthier in their own lives and leadership. At any time I’m seeing 5-7 pastors
from different denominations, at no charge, once every 4-5 weeks to help them
become healthier in their ministries. Also, because of the books I’ve written
and the work we’ve done here at Calvin Church, I travel around the country and
Canada, 15-20 times a year, to give talks on how to create a more spiritually
open, grounded, and healthy churches like ours. Over the past six years I’ve
been to California, Oregon, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska,
Iowa (4 times—they must really like me there), Michigan (5 times), Massachusetts,
North and South Carolina, Georgia, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, Indiana,
Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Ottawa, Ontario, New Hampshire, and more. I’ve
been in Mississippi in the heat of July, and in Minnesota in -27ยบ. Over the
next 8 months I’ll go to Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Edmonton, Alberta.
The way I
keep this as a mission is that even though I charge speaking fees that range
from $1700 to $3000, the fees don’t go to me. They go to Calvin Church. This
allows my mission to serve as a double mission. I am sent by this church, by
you, to help other churches become healthier, and then their fees come to
Calvin Church to support the ministry and mission of Calvin Church. Each year
these fees provide anywhere from $15,000 to $25,000 to Calvin Church’s budget.
You can find them in our financial statements under “Standish Ministries.”
My mission
to pastors and churches is one that I’m uniquely called to, and that fits my
skills and abilities. Others are called to other mission work. I’m not
necessarily called to Betsy Kain’s mission, nor she to mine. But we are both
called by the Spirit to mission that fits us uniquely. So are you.
Following
where God has called is what I’ve asked our church to do. The only thing I’ve
ever asked us to do it to seek God’s calling in prayer, and to do what we are
called to do. I’m convinced that when we do this, mission opportunities flow.
Along with this emphasis on seeking God’s will has been my constantly reminding
the Mission Committee and individuals that it is okay to say “no.” Listening to
God’s call is as much a question of saying yes to what God wants, and saying no
to what isn’t right for us.
Because we
are a church that seeks God’s call, many in our church are listening. The
response to God’s call by many of our members has really inspired me. For
example, I see the McConahy family raising funds for the Relay for Life, in
memory of their son, Sam. They began coordinating this local fundraiser after
their son died, and each year have managed to raise increasingly more funds.
Last year they raised over $8000 to fight cancer. I’ve seen Kim Sebring respond
to the pain of the death of her son, Tyler, by starting Project Hope, hoping to
ease the pain of others with children at Children’s Hospital. I’ve seen Zane
and Jen Sanders serve as college chaplains at Kenyon College. I’ve seen the six
members of Calvin Presbyterian Church go to seminary to become pastors, five of
whom now are ordained pastors. I’ve seen all the people who have followed God’s
call to serve on mission trips, food cupboard, Ladle and Hearth, collecting water
for families in Connoquenessing, the mission committee, Habitat for Humanity,
SERRV, the Green Team, the Wounded Warrior Project, and so much more.
Simply put,
part of being a Christian is discovering how God is calling us to mission—to
sacrifice our time and effort to reach out to people we don’t know, who may be
different, and who may have different values, and doing so because we care. How
is God calling you to serve in mission?
Amen.
