December 1983
"I Will Give Them Hearts That Respond"
(Jeremiah 24:7)
It was early December, and it was cold, especially since the retreat center where our staff was gathered was at an elevation of 4,000 feet. I shivered as I unlocked the door to our room, and hastily stepped inside. I had just a few minutes to prepare for our guests. We had only two chairs; where would they all sit?
That afternoon, late, Ralph had said to me, "Roberta, I want you to get in touch right away with the older couples on staff. Ask them to meet with us here just after the evening meeting, around 10 PM. I have some heavy things I want to discuss with them."
I knew what he was referring to. After several years of financial struggles and swings up and down of staff morale, all of a sudden it seemed that we were under a new kind of Satanic attack.
In the months just preceding, several of us had spent hours, individually, praying and counseling various ones on staff having serious personal problems. It is well known that Satan always attacks us when and where we are most weak;
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anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time knows this. However, rather than submit ourselves to the surgery of God in His determination to make us like Himself, we tend to hug our weaknesses to ourselves, in effect excusing them by telling ourselves that God's grace can't be sufficient to change that in our personalities.
In the case which precipitated our gathering that cold night in December, change needed to come in both parties involved. Ralph and I were frankly appalled, however at the many, well-meaning but simplistic, judgmental remedies which several of their peers (and even some recognized as Christian leaders) had suggested. Almost none of these counselors were people who had known the ones needing help even half as well as we did.
That evening in our room, Ralph mentioned the case to these older staff members, then commented: "As a general rule, our staff should not have to turn for help to people outside our community. After all, we are the ones who really know and love them. If we are ever going to be the kind of community we have envisioned, we must set up a structure to deal with personal problems, not just personnel problems related to job performance.
"I have been doing a lot of praying about this, and it seems to me that the elders in our community are those best able to give mature advice. All of you have had years of experience dealing with 'people problems' within mission structures. Would you be willing to function together as an Elder's Council to consult with and advise in these difficult situations? After all, congregations have ruling elders even though their members see each other only once a week. We work together all day every day.
"We may have to deal with all sorts of problems," Ralph continued. "We want those needing help to know they can come to us. If, for example, a particular staff member has an attitude problem, theoretically Art (McCleary, our General Manager) and I together could deal with it, but I can't help
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but think that the weight of a group of elders behind us would be better. Will you help in this?"
Someone asked, "How will the younger staff respond to this? Will they resent us?"
"We don't really know. But sometimes they have really severe problems that ordinarily they should share with their parents. But most of them are far away from home, and I believe that God expects us, in the absence of their parents, to function in that role, to a certain extent."
"What if they refuse our advice?"
"Well, I've thought quite a bit about that. And I've decided that if they refuse to follow what we say, we have no alternative but to ask them to leave staff."
The room was very quiet as all of us considered the implications. The years of working with a mainly younger staff had shown us that their basic orientation to life and ours were quite different. We had gone through the World War II years when yielding to proper authority was not only stressed, it was absolutely essential for the common good. By contrast, from their high school years on (or maybe even before), they had been urged to exercise independent thinking in choosing courses, choosing colleges, choosing friends, choosing lifestyles. To many of them authority all too often implied dictatorship, which they felt justified in refusing. Would they be willing to understand and trust us? Would they accept our decisions regarding things that pertained to them personally? All of us felt like we were taking a gamble with young people whom we highly respected and dearly loved. The feeling wasn't particularly comfortable!
We attacked the large problems first, and were shocked to find out how many there were that we had not known about. We took months, meeting weekly or even more often, to consider and pray over some of the problems. Even so, we did not always agree among ourselves at first as to the correct diagnosis of the situation nor the best way to resolve the problem. However, as time passed, the feedback from the
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younger staff on the whole was very heartening, "We are so glad you have set up the Elder's Council. We have needed something like this for a long time. Now we feel we have someone to go to."
Some of the counsel we gave reflected our own missionary experience. After just a couple weeks' acquaintance with a young mission leader from another country, one young staffer announced their engagement at morning staff prayers. As older couples who had all known similar situations on the field, we were concerned. We felt they didn't know each other well enough; they couldn't even speak a common language! But what to do now?
"Have you met each other's parents?"
"He's met mine, but I can't meet his. You know that they live . . ." and she named a country at quite a distance.
"We realize that. Nevertheless, we believe that before you officially announce your engagement, you must get acquainted with his family and his culture. We would like for you to visit his parents for at least a month. Then, if your families are happy with your plans, you can announce your engagement. You're very wise to wait almost a year before getting married. Cross-cultural marriages involve a lot of extra adjustments, and we think you need at least that long to be really sure."
The young couple was very solemn. Instead of the congratulations and hugs they might have expected, we required them to check further, at great personal expense. We realized that the girl could have rebelled — and left staff. Instead she chose to stay with us and to follow our guidelines. (Today they are happily married.)
As a group, the elders breathed a sigh of relief. We didn't want to seem like ogres to the wonderful younger staff. But many of us were thinking, "What if they were our own children, living at a distance? Wouldn't we appreciate it if some mature couple gave parental advice if it were needed?"
We could have said, "Do what you want. You're an adult now."
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Most Americans would respond thus. But we felt that when we accepted these young people on our staff, we also accepted a certain amount of responsibility for them, especially if they were far from home. As Ralph pointed out, "Nowhere in the Bible does it say that grown children can ignore their parents' wishes. Indeed, Jesus had some rather strong statements to make about religious leaders who encouraged children to forget their parents and give their money to the temple." Also, we realized that one of the typical indications that a group is a cult is that its leaders encourage those who join to ignore their family relationships.
We were surprised at some of the problems that came to the attention of the Elder's Council. Some involved hidden moral sins. Had we been a church, we would have done our best to lead those persons to repentance without breaking their relationship with our community. But we were a community involved in missionary outreach. As such, we felt we could not condone sin by allowing those persons to remain on our staff any more than a church can allow a pastor guilty of moral sin to continue his ministry uninterrupted. A necessary trust bond had been broken, and those concerned had to give up this particular ministry. Even so, various of the elders spent weeks counseling and praying with those involved.
The Elder's Council is only one aspect of the Center community. It is not an administrative group, but rather one which advises. From the very beginning the USCWM was deliberately structured like a mission agency. Staff are not "hired." If we feel God has called them here, and if they feel they can agree to the Biblical Covenant ("Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and body.... ") as we understand it, they are invited to become a part of the USCWM family. They understand that we are choosing them; they are being invited into a mission community. Membership is a privilege, not a right.
A missionary overseas is a missionary 24 hours a day,
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not just from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. That is also true of our staff. On several occasions we have called for after-hour work parties where all are expected to participate. Though it is never convenient to have our busy schedules interrupted, almost always these work parties have proved to be times of great fun, even though we might be only stuffing envelopes or unloading donated used furniture.
Because we are a mission community, wives as well as their husbands are given job responsibilities. Mothers with young children are given what we call "home assignment," meaning their primary job is to take care of their own small children at home. Nevertheless, because they are a part of the team, the wives in their own names receive half of their salary as a couple. Since her time is paid for, even though a mother with small children may be on home assignment, she is not free, without special permission, to take an outside job, or even, for example, to teach Daily Vacation Bible School in some local church as though only her husband were employed. That is, what time she has available already belongs to the Center.
As a regular mission society, we expect all staff members, if at all possible, to take part in certain gatherings: the weekly staff meeting, the morning prayer time, and the Thursday night Frontier Fellowship meeting, for example.
Outsiders do not always understand the function or the value of these family times. It may seem at first that we are as regimented as IBM or the army. But we feel that in missing a year of these required meetings, the staff member would lose an education in missions of incalculable value.
For some months we had noticed that fewer and fewer staff were coming to the Thursday night meeting. One morning, at prayers, Ralph asked us all to jot on a piece of paper why we were not there the evening before. Several days later we had our Board meeting. One who was sitting in as proxy for a Board member spoke up, "I would never join an organization which required me to go to a prayer meeting.
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You should at least warn people before they become staff."
Ralph looked up, rather amazed. "It so happens we do," he said. "And those who cannot agree are not invited to join us." He noticed the puzzled look and explained further, "What we require is not that strange. All mission agencies have certain requirements and lifestyle expectations. Their staff are not merely employees of a Christian organization."
He could have told how missionaries "covenant" to abide by the long established guidelines of their mission. And that it is such covenants which separate mission agencies from other Christian organizations. He could have pointed out that even the Internal Revenue Service recognizes this distinction and on that basis allows Protestant mission societies the same benefits it gives to Catholic orders.
When Ralph told me about that exchange, I thought back to the early days of the U.S. Center for World Mission. At that time we had only five staff members, and I thought Ralph was getting ahead of us a bit when he asked Prudence one day, "Do you think Campus Crusade would let us use their Staff Manual as a resource in writing our own?"
Before getting married, Prudence had been one of the top regional staff of Campus Crusade for six years. As a result, besides her other obvious gifts, she became for us a tremendous resource on anything having to do with institutional organization. "They usually won't let their manual out of the hands of staff members," she told Ralph. "But since you and Bill Bright are good friends, I'll ask."
Actually, we could have asked almost any mission agency for such a manual. All have them. Most of these, however, are written with overseas personnel in mind. While not altogether the typical mission agency, in its personnel policies Campus Crusade still operates like one, and we felt we could learn from them.
Quite commonly, after their initial adjustment to a missionary lifestyle, missionaries become so accustomed to it that they are basically unaware just how different it might seem
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to outsiders. A missionary lifestyle involves far more than living on less. Instead of merely working for an organization, a missionary actually joins a mission family. The other members become "aunts" and "uncles" to his children in a very real sense. And, as is true with a family, there are certain unwritten assumptions which everyone in the mission family understands, at least after the first few years.
The written guidelines are what constitute the "manual." Ours is simply a careful attempt to interpret Luke 10:27: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength . . . and thy neighbor as thyself." Practically speaking, however, just what does that mean for our community?
We have set up four basic staff committees to oversee the various aspects of love to the first half of Jesus' summary. To help us to love Him with all our heart is the task of the Spiritual Fitness Committee. At morning staff prayers, our small groups help us to be faithful in our private devotions and to keep fit spiritually.
To help us love Him with all our soul, we have the Psychological Fitness Committee, which encourages us in staff meetings both to "order our private worlds" (Gordon MacDonald's book title) and to discuss honestly any complaints we may have with management decisions.
The Intellectual Fitness Committee helps us love Him with all our mind. Each staff member is encouraged to upgrade his (or her) formal education by taking one class every quarter. Then, all are expected to participate in informal discussions about mission strategy at our Monday noon missiology meetings and our Thursday night Frontier Fellowship meetings, both open to the public. Each of these meetings has proven to be very stimulating, spiritually as well as intellectually.
In order to better love God with all our strength, the Physical Fitness Committee sets general standards for rest and exercise and also suggests foods that are natural and nutritious,
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even for the menu of our cafeteria.
We also take seriously the second part of that verse: "and thy neighbor as thyself" in four other committees which we have set up. These encourage us in our responsibilities to: 1) our families, including parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.; 2) our immediate, accountable community, including our fellow staffers and our church; 3) our existing relationships with still other people we have known, are near to, or grew up with, for whom there is, in effect, a "given" responsibility, and 4) those other relationships we may optionally establish with individuals and people groups throughout the world to the "ends of the earth."
Each committee has met for extended periods of time, trying to decide what disciplines we need to help each other build into our personal lives so that we can truly love the Lord in the way He has outlined.
In 1985, we added several hours per week of what we call "Staff Development." This is actually a type of discipleship training for our staff, where invited authorities speak to us on such subjects as the fatherhood of God, living together in community, intercessory prayer, spiritual warfare, obedience, forgiveness, etc. These lessons have all been extremely helpful to us.
Sometimes a committee becomes quite personal in checking up. For example, one day Prudence asked one who seemed discouraged, "How are your daily devotions? Are you having them faithfully?"
"I need help," she answered.
"Okay. What is the best time for you?"
"About 5 A.M., before the kids wake up."
"That's my favorite time too. All right, I'll call you at 5 A.M. to see if you're up yet. Is that okay?
Or, in the physical fitness realm, the head of the committee asked Ralph one day, "Will you back me if I start implementing our exercise standards?"
"Absolutely!" Ralph was waiting for that.
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At first there was a great howl when we were told we had to report how many aerobic points we had earned that week (as students, and even faculty, do at more and more colleges, we are told). But in a few weeks several, rather sheepishly, admitted that they felt better than they had for a long time.
As might be expected, it is in the psychological fitness realm, as we interpret it, where we have the most struggle. In America we are all too often taught to first watch out for Number One. All through school everything we do brings credit (or blame) to ourselves alone. Except in the realm of sports, we do not learn to work in teams. And only rarely are we required to redo something until it is perfect. All this may make for easy grading, but it is a very poor preparation for life.
Adding to this is the "old nature" of which Paul spoke, namely, the uncrucified self which refuses to be stepped on. Therefore, it is not surprising that merely learning to be responsible to those with whom we live and work is quite a spiritual (and psychological) struggle.
I remember that as a young missionary in Guatemala, I suffered under what I felt was an unjust, unfair situation. I complained to everybody who would listen that I had some rights, too! I felt very justified in my misery, and it took the Lord a long time to get me to understand that if I were His servant — His slave, really — no, I didn't have any rights, any rights at all! I had voluntarily given them all to Him. (Or had I?) I did a lot of crying and praying . . . and yielding . . . before finally I was able to say, "Yes, Lord, I have no rights!"1
The crux of the matter was that I really didn't want to believe that He was the One who had allowed the situation that was so unbearable for me. I knew I could not fight Him, but didn't I have a right to fight the situation? No! Not unless He told me to. I was under His orders. And that unbearable situation was part of His training for me!
I wish I could say that I never had to be taught that lesson again.
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That would not be true. I have had to learn it again and again, but each time the yielding is "clearer," if not easier and quicker.
The comforting thing is that God is trying to make us like Himself. He is a tremendously creative God. No two flowers are exactly alike, and no two disciples will be either. He hand tailors for us all the lessons we need to learn, but usually we learn them in community, not on a mountain top alone. Always He is gentle with the one who really wants to follow; but He can seem almost harsh to the rebellious soul.
In Guatemala the little Indian church we attended was right on a major street leading to the market where 20,000 Indians brought their produce on Sundays. Sunday after Sunday I would smile when our services would be interrupted by a squealing piglet. Outside, in the dusty road, a boy would be literally dragging the animal to market to be sold. Typically, the piglet had dug his hoofs in, determined not to go a single step. But he went anyhow, pulled by the neck.
We can be like that piglet. We can be dragged, kicking and screaming. Or we can go happily, if we will just yield to the Holy Spirit. We don't have to make things hard for ourselves. We can trust that He knows why things are happening the way they are and simply trust Him.
Community living, missionary community living, is one way to help us. It is not always pleasant, although much of the time it is full of joy. But it is one way that the Lord has ordained and used over many centuries. It is tried and true, and the disciplines are not heavy for those who want to obey Him.
Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Paradoxically, by yielding our rights, we come to love Him more and more.
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1. One book, which our staff has read together, is very helpful in understanding the victory Christ intends us to have through dying to self. This is Paul E. Billheimer's Destined for the Cross (or Spiritual Warfare, by which it was earlier known.) It is available from Tyndale House Publishers in Wheaton, IL.
