Going Second

I heard at a conference last year a few things about my generation that made me uneasy. They talked about how we were walking away from institutional churches at an unprecedented level, yet how we were more concerned with Justice than most generations before us. But the one that really got my attention was this:

When employers were asked to describe people my age (20-30) the most commonly used word started with an E. The people taking the survey told the younger employees this fact. That they were more often described with one word that started with “E” and asked what they thought it might be. They responded with words like “Enthusiastic” or “Energetic” but they were wrong.

The word was Entitled.

I guess we should have seen this coming. You grow up long enough hearing about your inalienable rights, or having a parent who allowed you to be the nucleus of the family and it starts to sink in. We have grown up experiencing the power that consumerism has to make the world revolve around us, and so I guess it’s natural that we might start to think that applied to the rest of life.

But it’s not a good way to live.

I read a story last year in Philip Yancey’s new book “What Good Is God?” that was really convicting for me. It was about a mission trip that happened in Afghanistan a few decades ago. There was a group of Christian teenagers who went on a simple concert tour there, under some pretty rigid guidelines. They were told that under no circumstances were they to share their faith verbally. They could sing about it, but nothing more. However, teenagers historically don’t listen to rules very well, and these were no different.

At one point during the conference, one of the guys stood up and told a simple story about how Jesus had changed his life.

And what happened next was Gospel magic.

An Afghanistan official stood up and praised them as a model for the Afghanistan youth to follow after…so he asked them to visit every college in the country, and to go on national radio delivering the same message. Everywhere they went people asked to pray with these teenagers. They told the Jesus story both in sermons and conversations all over the country. Nothing like this had ever happened here before. And that’s when they met Dr. Wilson, A missionary kid, born in Afghanistan, who had served this country faithfully his entire life.

And I’ll let Yancey tell it from here:

“Wilson drove the teenagers to an unusual tourist site, the only cemetery in Afghanistan where “infidels” could be buried. He walekd to the first, ancient gravestone, pitted with age. “This man worked here 30 years, and translated the Bible into the Afghan language.,” he said, “Not a single convert. And in this grave next to him lies the man who replaced him, along with his children who died here. He toiled for 25 years, and baptized the first Afghan Christian.” As the strolled along the gravestone, he recounted the stories of early missionaries and their fates. At the end of the row he stopped, turned, and looked the teenagers straight in the eye. “For 30 years, one man moved rocks. That’s all he did, move rocks. Then came his replacement, who did nothing but dig furrows. There came another who planted seeds and another who watered. And now you kids-you dis are bringing in the harvest.”

They said it was one of the greatest moments in their lives. They suddenly realized that this profound Spiritual awakening was “the last step in a long line of faithful service stretching back over many decades.”

I’m in a season of life where I appreciate this story a lot. At Highland (The Church I work at) there are a lot of things that are going on. It feels like life is going at a thousand miles an hour. We are developing some big dreams for the future, and having conversations about how to get there. But what has struck me lately is the kind of conversations I’m not having to have. I haven’t had any Highland members come up to me with concerns that have to do with having a negative view of God. No one is worried that if we change the order of service their salvation might be in jeaopordy.

I have a lot of preacher friends who have already left ministry altogether, not because they weren’t talented or passionate but because they worked at churches that chewed them up and spit them out. Some of my friends worked at places that had a toxic view of God and it affected the way the leaders saw everything else. But I haven’t had that. And it’s not because I am such a good preacher.

It’s because I went second.

At Richland Hills Church of Christ, I had the opportunity to reap some of the benefits of 25 years of faithful ministry by Rick Atchley. And at Highland I’ve had the opportunity to follow 20 years of Mike Cope faithfully challenging and stretching people to see the Kingdom of God. (As a side note, if you are a new/young preacher in the Church of Christ tribe, you should be thankful for these guys too. They taught thousands of our people about Grace). I don’t think I would have had the emotional capitol to take those hits and keep on going, or the energy to have those conversations. And because of them, I didn’t have to.

I have a real temptation to forget that I stand on the shoulders who went before me. People who faithfully went to work every day, and preached every Sunday, They formed the congregations they  lived in, and their voices shaped the larger fellowship too. And this is good for me to remember. Because this story is larger than me, and to work at a church is to recognize this. Preachers have gone before me, and they will come after me. And the best thing I can do is remember whose shoulders I stand on, and try to leave a little something for those who come behind me too.

Because I got to go second. And that is a gift.