A woman whose husband left her (and the ministry) recently began attending our church. Shattered, she is casting about for emotional moorings to help her regain equilibrium. With a ministry background, she knows how to minister to people; she just doesn’t know how to do so in the midst of her pain and confusion.
Every follower of Christ is in a continual process of restoration; everyone is messed up and in need of God’s healing. But at certain stages of our brokenness, we’re not able to serve others. How can I help this woman back into leadership? I see the process in four stages.
1. Love, without much advice.
Personal disasters usually bring a person to the point of asking, “Does anyone care about me?” So I begin by saying, “I care about you, and so does God.”
2. Invite people to “little involvements.”
These don’t call for much emotional fortitude and don’t put people on the line. If people can’t finish the job, it won’t be a disaster. The service may be as simple as cutting out paper figures for our children’s program, or joining a crew to cut up a tree that fell during a windstorm.
3. Help people understand their deep hurt about what has happened to them.
If they’re highly sensitive, I can’t say, “Hey, get over this. It was no big deal.” What registers as 2.0 on someone’s emotional Richter scale may be a 9.0 for sensitive souls. I try to help them accept there’s nothing wrong with feeling deeply-actually, it’s how God created them.
4. Welcome people back to significant service-with permission to carry their bruises.
Spiritually speaking, I like to see if I can get a person with a broken arm to work with someone with a broken leg.
Daniel Brown with Bob Moeller
1997 by Christianity Today/Leadership Journal.
