the church – Sheila Dougal

What this Christian white girl is learning as I listen

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Im listening. I’m learning.

I’m learning that the heroes of my American Christianity held out the gospel with one hand and the chains of their slaves with the other. I’m learning that the history I’ve been taught has left out a lot. As a result, I have believed a whitewashed narrative that made the wickedness my country’s greatness was built on look like noble American Christian bravery.

I’m learning at the least, the American church has turned a deaf ear to racism and at worst has preached and practiced it as Biblical. I’m learning that there are structures and practices in American government and in the church that have marginalized the lives and worth of black people.

I’m learning that my black friends are tired. Tired of trying to explain why. Tired of my passivity and ignorance. I’m learning that I don’t know what I don’t know.

I’m learning that I resist listening to people I can’t help, don’t understand, disagree with or feel uncomfortable around, and that in refusing to listen, a part of my heart has grown cold. My refusal to listen has increased my comfort and decreased my compassion. My refusal to listen has let the lies that have propped up my white sons’ insecurities go unchallenged. And because I haven’t listened I haven’t learned. And because I haven’t learned my neighbors have not experienced the hands and feet of Jesus that come with the hope of his gospel.

I began by listening to my Eritrean American friend, and fellow nurse. She told me in an aisle at the grocery store about her thankfulness for what she sees as God’s protection on her life and her family these 20 past years in America. I listened as she asked how my police officer husband was doing and told me she was praying for him. I listened as she told me she is afraid for her black sons.

And then I listened to my white teenage sons spout off support of President Trump. I asked questions and challenged them to explain what they supported about Trump. As a mother and a Trump detractor, my skin crawls thinking that in their teenage insecurity, my white sons might be drawn to and impressed by the machismo of the Trump presidency. I want to take Trump down in their minds with a lot of bad words, but instead I listened, trying to understand why they are where they are in their thought process. Then I told my sons we were going to listen to the Color of Compromise together. We sat, listened and began a dialogue.

I listened as the administrators of the Be the Bridge group I joined asked me to be quiet for three months on their social media group and do the work they provided me to learn. It’s an act of repentance of my ignorance to do the work of hearing from my black neighbor’s perspective.

I listened as a white, mentally-ill homeless woman told me how she got where she’s at and why she feels so stuck. I listened as she told a story of a lifetime of abuse, rejection and poverty.

Then I turned off the social media and listened to Moses and Job and Isaiah and David and Daniel and Jesus. I listened as the Spirit of God began stirring a fire in me. The cold places of my passive heart began to warm with compassion and conviction. The notes section of my iPhone are filled with quotes from scripture all telling me, “I am the God who saved you out of slavery to the sin of cowardliness. I am the God who lowered himself taking the form of a servant to lift you up and make you a child of God. Turn from your ignorance, your passivity, your cowardliness, your silence. Learn to listen. Learn to speak. Speak the truth in love. Love your neighbor and your enemy.”

I listened to God tell Cain, “Your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground” and Job’s friends tell him all the reasons he was wrong about why he was suffering. I listened to Job tell me to stop being a miserable comforter to my black friends.

I listened as God called Moses to go to the government structure enslaving his people and insist that they let them go. I listened to Isaiah and the prophets pleading with me to learn to do good, love mercy and work justice. I listened to David declare the heart of God for the widow, the oppressed and poor. I listened to Daniel confess and repent of his sins and the sins of his fathers.

I listened to Jesus declare that I must love others, including my enemies and those who see me as an enemy, just like he has loved me. I listened as he and his apostle’s declared that love born from his Spirit in me will not only declare the gospel but extend a healing hand and care for the physical needs of the people around me.

And I listened to my pastor call for me to examine myself to see, am I a Jesus person? Do I believe Jesus makes me righteous and do I love my neighbor by speaking the truth in love and, “disadvantaging myself to advantage someone else”?

I know, like any work of the Spirit of God in me, this must be an enduring work. Listening must become a practice. A rhythm. Speaking the truth in love must become a discipline. Working justice for the oppressed must become part of a gospel-driven, “long obedience in the same direction.” Saying and believing black lives matter and living a life that repents of the racist thoughts and beliefs that have become an ingrained part of the narrative that has kept me quiet and ignorant for so long, must become as daily as breathing. Something my black neighbors have been fighting to do for generations in this country and in the church.

Lord help me. Help me to be a listener. A learner. A repenter. A servant. A lover of my neighbor and my enemy. Help me to boldly declare the scandalous gospel that saved me and boldly decry the injustice that your gospel and your kingdom are driving out. Please call my sons to be men who chose the sufferings of Christ over the riches of this world and lay down their lives for others.

What should we do? Advice from a RN for decision making in a pandemic

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I’m not a COVID-19 expert. But I have some thoughts as a nurse and a Christian about what should be driving our decisions during this pandemic.

I work as a nurse case manager in a local hospital in Sun City. I also serve on staff with my church as a kids ministry director. I am also an enneagram type nine. If you know anything about my personality type, you know these current circumstances can drive a person like me to stay in PJ’s all day and take lots of naps, avoiding news and decisions. Thankfully I serve as an essential worker and am teamed up with a wise church staff that doesn’t allow me to hide my head in a pillow while the world suffers.

Scary realities have to be faced. Less than ideal circumstances have to be accepted. Hard decisions have to be made.

As the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in Arizona has become more alarming, I’ve had friends, team members and coworkers ask me for advice about various decisions they need to make. I don’t have any specific do’s or don’ts that aren’t already recommended by the experts. But I do have a couple principals I believe should guide our decisions during this time.

Check your motives

There are things that need to be done that will come with risk. And there are things that don’t need to be done that will lead to loss. Evaluating what must be done and what we must accept as loss requires us to examine our motives.

As a Christian, I am compelled to love my neighbor as myself. I believe that Christ is risen and will raise me from the dead. I don’t have to fear. But I also must not test God or be foolish. Loving my neighbor right now may mean staying home. It also may mean taking the risk to enter another’s home or letting them enter mine because of the necessity of the need.

As a nurse, I can’t stay home. I must do all that I can to prevent the spread of this virus and still go to work. Entering my hospital puts me at risk, but as one coworker said, this is our time. I go to work not because the risk is low but because the well-being of my community depends on me showing up.

When trials like this come in our lives, it proves who we really are. The decisions we make during this pandemic will expose the ethic that underlies our choices. If fear is motivating you, you may hoard supplies, or refuse to go to work when you’re an essential worker. But love may also be why you’ve purchased large quantities of toilet paper or water. Maybe love motivates you to supply the needs of your neighbors who aren’t able to go to the store.

In a letter written by Martin Luther to a friend during the bubonic plague, Luther sums up the motivation that should drive Christians in times like these:

In the same way we must and we owe it to our neighbor to accord him the same treatment in other troubles and perils, also. If his house is on fire, love compels me to run to help him extinguish the flames. If there are enough other people around to put the fire out, I may either go home or remain to help. If he falls into the water or into a pit I dare not turn away but must hurry to help him as best I can. If there are others to do it, I am released. If I see that he is hungry or thirsty, I cannot ignore him but must offer food and drink, not considering whether I would risk impoverishing myself by doing so. A man who will not help or support others unless he can do so without affecting his safety or his property will never help his neighbor. He will always reckon with the possibility that doing so will bring some disadvantage and damage, danger and loss. No neighbor can live alongside another without risk to his safety, property, wife, or child. He must run the risk that fire or some other accident will start in the neighbor’s house and destroy him bodily or deprive him of his goods, wife, children, and all he has. –Martin Luther 1527 , Whether One May Flee From Deadly Plague from the Davenant Institute

Listen to experts

Friends have asked me questions like, “Is it OK to send a package if I have chronic respiratory issues?” And, “Is it OK to send cards and letters to those alone in hospitals and nursing homes?” And, “Is a drive-by caravan safe?” My answers mostly take us to what the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other local health experts say.

The agencies and people responsible for disseminating information about a pandemic like this may not have all the answers, but what they have is the best we have.

This week I overheard a friend opining that this pandemic is a conspiracy. With so much information coming out of the media, we are all watching and listening to even more opinions and voices than usual. It’s hard to know what to believe and who to believe. But as my pastor has pointed out, it is folly to fill in gaps of information with skepticism.

With this pandemic our norms are changing daily. What was OK to do last week is not OK this week. When it comes to gaps of information about what to do and not to do, we must trust that what the experts are telling us is the best thing we can do. And when it changes or we don’t understand, let’s fill in the gaps with grace. This is a place where as a Christian I again feel compelled to trust my God is in control.

So, who are the experts? The World Health Organization, CDC, state and county health departments are the best source of information we have right now about Covid-19. We need to make decisions in accord with their advice, not our favorite news commentator or social media post.

Here are links to some credible authorities, and their answers to many of our questions:

Hope for a sick heart

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“I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope.” Hosea 2:15

This verse came via email to me today like shade in the hot Arizona sun. I used to tolerate the heat in Arizona pretty well, but as the years have gone by, I haven’t grown more accustom to the heat, I’ve grown more intolerant of it.

Hope seems a long way off these days. Coming around the calendar again my body remembers the fiery trials like the heat of summer and seems to wither in its sting rather than stand weathered and resistant.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fullfilled is the tree of life.” the wise man wrote. It’s hard to dream when hope seems to keep getting pushed away by the hot troubles of life. I noticed today that I don’t dream much. I don’t aspire to hopeful things, beautiful things. I would say I feel like the Psalmist, weaned, not thinking about things too high for me. But the reality is I feel like a sick child, tired, curled up fetal trying to sleep away the hard things.

There’s only one way to escape the heat of summer- get in the shade.

I find it hard to dream, but like Elijah, I can hunker down some place and give up. Yet, even there I find the Lord comes nourishing my weak flesh, letting me rest, and giving me what I need to keep going.

Sometimes all you can do is find a place to hide with God’s word and cry. Sometimes that’s all you need to do.

There is a dream of a hope of a place I have never been, of a man I have never met, of a love I have only felt echoed in my chest when I read things like, “I have come to give you life full of life.” If I lay down to die under some broom tree of shade, some silent place, some Starbucks, or glass of wine, or early morning outside, even there I cannot escape the presence of the shadow of his wings. Even there his hand holds me.

Hope that keeps being put aside does make the heart sick. But when you look to Jesus, the sick heart is shaded by a reviving hope in the heat of trouble. Is your heart sick? Does hope seem to evade you? Look to Jesus. His wings are big enough to shade you from the heat and feed you hope in the very place where trouble beats down.

Laughing at promises

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One of my favorite passages in the Bible is in Romans 4:16-17 where it says, “…to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations;- in the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told…”

I struggle with depression. I don’t always feel like laughing or even smiling. I hear the hopeless thoughts and know what the psalmist meant when he said he pleaded for God to let him hear his voice so he didn’t become like a dead man (Psalm 143:7). The circumstances of our lives can often send us the same message Abraham and Sarah got from their circumstances, “We’re as good as dead!” God gave them an outrageous promise. He said they would have a child when they were obviously too old to do so. God’s promise was impossible in their circumstances. And just as Abraham and Sarah were promised the impossible, we too are promised something that just can’t be in our physical, mental and spiritual condition.

Abraham and Sarah both laughed at the thought that God would give them a child in their old age. Surely they laughed at the scandal of the idea. When I face the impossibility of the promises God has made to me in Christ, my first inclination is not to laugh. It’s to do what Sarah did- doubt and try to do the best I can with what I have and end up with lots of Ishmaels in my life; lots of self-made ways to try and be what only God can make me in Christ. And then when I find myself in the mess I’ve made, like Sarah I’m angry and depressed. I forget what God promised. But when I remember, when I see Christ in the scriptures, in the church, in my life, there is something in me that just wants to laugh.

Proverbs 31:25 says of the woman who fears the Lord, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.”

I used to read that and think, “How can she laugh? There are so many bad things. So many hard things. So much death. So much isn’t right in the world or in my life, how can I be a woman who fears the Lord and laughs at the future?” I had this idea that her laughter was a mocking victorious laughter. A sort of, “Haha! Give me your best shot future! I’ve got this!” But as I read about Sarah and Abraham and the laughter that came out of them at Isaac’s birth, I think this laughing at the time to come is an unexplained joy we feel when we believe God, despite all the impossible circumstances in our lives that seem to say there’s no way God can make me like Jesus and make all things right and destroy evil, sin and death. God is doing what he promised in us!

There is no way we can make the things God promises come to pass. But just as God promised and gave Isaac to as-good-as-dead Abraham and Sarah, he will make us who feel the weight of sin and death in our bodies, who were once dead apart from Christ- he will and is making us free (John 8:36), alive (Ephesians 2:5) and whole (2 Timothy 3:17) because he’s given us Jesus. He will finish what he’s started in us (Philippians 1:6). He will make all things new (Galatians 21:5). And we will reign with him forever (2 Timothy 2:12)!

Thoughts on late term abortion from a labor and delivery nurse perspective

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It’s hard for me to remain calm while thinking about the insanity behind bills like the ones in Virginia and New York that seek to make normal and acceptable the act of ending the life of a late-term, pre-born human baby; and in the Virginia case, a newborn infant. But I’m going to try to remain calm and hopefully speak some reason into the insanity from my perspective as a nurse who has worked in labor and delivery.

When I became a nurse 18 years ago I worked in a labor and delivery unit in a large county and small town in Southwest Oregon. During my 4 years there I saw early and late gestation fetal demise (the death of an unborn child early and late in the pregnancy), full-term seemingly healthy infants die in resuscitation, deliveries of infants with serious health problems and still birth. I also witnessed many healthy, normal deliveries. In some of those situations when the mother’s health was at serious risk, we delivered them of their babies, often premature and then we took every measure possible to save their babies lives. Sometimes the babies lived. Sometimes they did not. In some cases the mother had to endure the pain of labor or the pain of surgery with the torture of grieving the unexpected death of their child. In other cases mothers experienced the pain of labor or surgery with the joy of a new life, which would soon be mixed with the pain of healing and long-sleepless nights followed by a life of self-sacrifice to raise the child.

I have read through some of the arguments of women I respect about why they think these late-term abortion laws are needed. The argument about women having the right to do with their body what they want without government interference I’m not going to address here except to say, I agree. It’s your body and you should have the right to care for it without interference from the government. But when you cross over from caring for your body to harming another body that’s a whole other argument. The human growing in a woman’s womb is not her body. She may not want that human growing in her body. But it’s not her body. But I digress. What I want to address here are the two arguments I keep hearing that pull at our heart strings and should be wisely considered.

It’s Not Fair to Make a Woman Suffer When Her Baby Will Die Anyway

What about the woman who’s infant is severely deformed and will die as soon as he/she is delivered? Why should the woman have to go through the suffering and dangers of pregnancy and delivery?

When you’re in the last trimester of pregnancy, there is no way around the pain and suffering your body is going to have to endure. For that matter, no matter the stage of pregnancy, even if you miscarry (spontaneously abort) at an early gestation, you’re body is going to go through some pain and healing. If you delivery your baby and he or she is dead or dies soon after birth or even days or weeks after birth, you’re going to suffer. Your body is going to hurt and have to heal. You’re going to go through the stages of grief and face the demons that want to destroy every postpartum woman. And if you elect to abort, you’re going to suffer. Your body is going to hurt and have to go through the healing process. You’re going to have to deal with the emotional trauma of the death of your baby and the decision you have made.

I believe delivering a pre-term infant that is putting the health of a mom at serious risk or the election to deliver a severly deformed infant pre-term who will not survive a normal labor and delivery at full term is physically and emotionally the healthiest way to walk through the pain and suffering of death and birth together. There’s no need for an abortion. When the oath, “do no harm” is taken, the life of the mother and the child are upheld. There will be pain and delivery and death. When harm is elected as the only option to uphold one life over another, there will still be pain and delivery and death, but with the added torture of being put in a position where people think you shouldn’t grieve because you chose to have an abortion.

My point is, when it comes to pregnancy and abortion, delivering the woman of a child, whether wanted or not will come with pain and suffering, and aborting a child will also inflict upon the woman pain and suffering. Choosing to abort your late-term baby does not delivery you of pain or suffering. I believe we honor the necessary grieving process and the image of God in both the woman and the baby human when we deliver a woman of her child, not abort her child.

The Pro-Life People Are Hypocrites

What about the hypocrisy of those who say they are fighting for the rights of the unborn but then neglect to provide for the needs of unwanted children and mothers and father’s struggling under the weight of raising children?

People who make this argument as a justification for abortion are rightly inditing pro-lifers, but they’re crossing wires. It’s hypocrisy and a shame that people will march and be filled with vitriol over abortion but do nothing to care for unwanted children.

I recently wrote a post about how even the unwillingness some of us have to lower ourselves to teach children the gospel exposes our hypocrisy in our pro-life stance. But the fact that so many among the religious right, or conservative Christians fail to do what they are commanded by God to do: care for orphans and welcome children…all children, does not mean women should be empowered to end the life of their unborn child.

The blood of many of these children may very well be on the hands of us who have done nothing to care for the children lost in the foster care system and the mothers and children living in poverty and without the gospel and love of the church. But that evil does not justify the evil of abortion.

My perspective as a labor and delivery nurse comes from a Christian ethic which says all people are created in the image of God. That means the unborn, the severely deformed, the grieving and guilty mother, the single-mom, the teenager who’s grown up in foster care, the disabled, the foreigner, the abortionists. This ethic means I must repent of and call out the evil we do that does not reflect the image of God. It means I must take up my cross and follow Jesus in laying down my life for women and children, whether they’ve had abortions, disabilities, been abandoned, or are just tired of the daily pains and sufferings of raising children. It means I must be willing to suffer along side those who are suffering. It means I don’t counter evil with evil, but overcome evil by doing good.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit,[g] serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:9-21

The church as a body, not a grocery store

Ghislaine Howard- The Washing of Feet (1953)

I heard it recently on a podcast: We have set up church to be so convenient and easy for folks to get their dose of church on Sunday that we have robbed people of the life-changing joy that comes from taking up your cross and following Jesus as part of the body of Christ.

That’s what the church is, the body of Christ.

A Body Not a Grocery Store

We are a body. We need each other. But church in America feels more like a grocery store, than a body. We go there, get what we need, I mean, want, and go home. A body is dependent on all it’s members doing their part. At a grocery store, the manager, clerks and stockers depend on each other to do their part and all the customers depend on the manager, clerks and stockers to do their part so they can go home. In America, the pastor, worship leader, kids ministry leader and staff are the people we church goers depend on to do their part, so we can get what we want and go home.

Maybe that’s why we have celebrity pastors and famous churches. Because the customers like them. They like the products they have. They like their sales and discounts and service. Good message. Great band. Great kids ministry. Great youth ministry…. We consume what the American grocery-store church has to offer and we don’t depend on each other.

Three or four years ago, my church closed its doors. My pastor retired from pastoring and the elders decided to close the church. It was hard. I tried different churches and just felt discouraged. The churches I visited seemed to put out a lot of effort to make their products pallatable and convenient, but there was no blood flowing between us. We weren’t tied together by the sinews and ligaments of the word of Christ, confession of sin, repentance and faith. The costly gospel of Christ laying down his life for me and bidding me to take up my cross and follow him into resurrection life wasn’t held high. Convenient church was. But God was faithful, as he always is, and he led me to Valley Life Surprise, where I saw Jesus, high and lifted up in the preaching. And so there he bid me to die. Not to take what was convient and tasty and go home. But to take up my cross and follow Jesus in the joy of how he redeems people!

It Was Me, Not The Church’s Problem

I feel like I should say here that had I not just taken the convenient grocery store message of the churches I visited and gone home, but had intentionally started laying down my life, investing it in others at those churches, I’m sure I would have found the Body there too. I’m super thankful for Valley Life Surprise, but it’s not that they had the best deal for me that has caused me to love my church. It’s that I started following Jesus again in laying down my life for others at Valley Life Surprise and found myself connected to the Body of Christ.

Why I Stopped Listening to Celebrity Pastors

In those years that I didn’t have a church I listened to John Piper a lot. And I’m thankful for his messages, but shortly after I found my church, I stopped listening to Piper. Not because I don’t appreciate his messages, but because I was consuming them, instead of connecting with the body.

In one sermon my pastor said something like, “Tim Keller or Matt Chandler aren’t going to help you when you’re in need because they’re not here. But your community group will, this local church will.” And it struck me. I had fallen into consuming messages and had become a limp part of the body.

When I stopped listening to celebrity pastors, and started listening to my pastor’s sermons during the week, and started meeting with members of the church for lunch; going to community groups with them, sharing burdens, praying, dreaming, writing curriculum, playing with their kids and talking to them about Jesus, muscle and faith started to grow. When I started spending Saturday nights making communion bread, and 4 hours of my Sundays pouring into moms, dads, kids, grandparents, women, children, teens and even more hours throughout the week opening Bibles and my life up to people I would never have connected with apart from the love of the gospel of Christ, I started to thrive.

There is a real church, a real body of believers who are captivated by Jesus, who have put all their hope in him and are obeying him in taking up their cross and following him. We die a little everyday, but we also become more and more alive everyday. We become more like Jesus because we’re his body. We need each other. We bleed for each other. We feed each other. We comfort each other. We confront each other. We are inconvenienced for each other. We encourage each other. We weep with each other. We laugh with each other. We lay down our lives for each other.

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. -Romans 12:1-13