Of the many, many things God has been teaching me through my experience here in England, one of the most important has been the lesson about ministry. I left the United States in September with a pretty good idea of what ministry “should” look like; after all, I had been involved in ministry with the Christian fellowship at Muhlenberg, and I had just spent the last year ministering as a youth leader in my church. I had read the stories of Jesus doing ministry. I was confident I knew what I was doing.
And then I got introduced to a totally different culture. I may speak the same language, but life here is not the same as in the United States. And it’s not like I came to a small town like New Cumberland. No, I’m doing urban ministry in a different country. Not to mention that most of the kids I’m ministering to have never been to church or heard about God except when someone is swearing at them– totally different from the “church” kids I’ve been ministering to over the last few years.
As a result, I have spent the last eight months learning on the job, adding new colors and dimensions to my picture of ministry. Through it all, I have been taking a closer look at Jesus and the way He did ministry. It was more than helpful to study through the Gospels last semester and even to look at the beginnings of church ministry in Acts this semester. The great love and humility of Jesus stands out to me as the most important aspect of ministry.
Because of His love, Jesus left the glory, beauty, riches, and pleasures of heaven and humbled Himself to live on earth with dirty, sinful human beings. Because of His love, Jesus allowed His power to be limited by the confines of flesh and blood. Because of His love, Jesus, in very nature God, became human so He could relate to us and share the message of God’s Kingdom in a way we could understand. Even though He is God, Jesus spent time with the poorest, sickest, craziest, most unloved people, teaching them, healing them, loving them. Even though He is God, Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. Even though He is God, He surrendered Himself to be arrested, tried, flogged, and crucified so we humans could be free from sin and death. What humility! What love!
This side of heaven, I will never have the humility or ability to love like Jesus did. But I have the power of God (the same power that raised Jesus from the dead) at work in me, and I know He is working to make me more humble and more loving. As He does that, I will do my best to minister as Jesus did: spending time with those who are hardest to love; sharing the good news of God’s Kingdom; doing whatever I can to meet the needs of the poor, the brokenhearted, the sick, the oppressed (see Luke 4:18-19). It will not be easy. And there will be times when I mess it up. But this is what God has called me to, and I can do nothing else.
