Since each Christian has a ministry, each of us have potential to have both victories, and defeat, successes and failure. I think we should observe both and recognize God's invitation in each, but it sure is much easier to look at the victories and successes than defeat and failure.
In a bit of a season of discouragement in ministry, there was fruit that was hard to see, but with the help of my wife and friends like you, I was able to wait and see the fruit. We harvested some tomato branches and hung them upside down on our patio to wait for the ripening process and have been able to enjoy some great local, organic, cherry tomatoes we helped grow at the local elementary school our church meets at.
Picking Tomatoes
Before even getting the tomatoes, Esther had been praying when she saw a picture of me and a plant where there was a lot of fruit beyond my recognition. When she shared that with me, I was still working through doubt and discouragement. The reasons were based in the difficulty in seeing the spoiled fruit. Here are some reasons for discouragement. We lost board members who couldn't agree to our statement of faith, we lost interns who decided to move on, but only after we saw division spring up among themselves. We have sensed a bit of opposition to our mission in the younger generation, whom we know we need in order to reach the community. We lost a friend in the Community, whom we had seen God move in their lives and even after we had went through the Who is Jesus? Study together for around a year and a half. We wondered if we were wasting our collective resources with little to show. These are the withering leaves and spoiled fruits.
But there was much that I wasn't currently seeing and there have been new things coming along. Who would of thought the use of gardening would be so powerful? I guess Jesus did.
The fruitfulness started to become apparent and is vibrant to me now. Here are some examples of this: Esther and I were walking the neighborhood on a Friday and ran into our friend Sonia, whom we've known for 5 years now, and still is a good friend who is basically a pre-Christian; we then saw, a friend named Gil who is our neighbor, that same day. And a couple other neighbors come to mind, all together helping us realize that there are real friendships God has blessed us to have with non-Christian LGBTQ folks; also, just last week, I ran into a homeless youth whom we prayed to receive Jesus into his heart and
he was still hungry for Jesus and trying to get more free; then, just on the day of this writing, I was able to lead a transgender homeless person back to Jesus in front of my local coffee shop. He was someone whose back was miraculously healed after praying for it, some 2 years or so ago; Our board at TRM is about to have 2 new board members join us; we have been getting both positive encouragements from LGBT persons regarding what we do as an organization and Christians have been starting to really get plugged in to what we are doing. Even more, I am realizing the blessing of my beautiful little family who is giving their lives along with me for the ministry and I am realizing the great tribe of supporters that we have in you. This is the fruit that is here today and indeed worthy of celebration.
In all this, I realize some things. There is a choice to observe all that is going on, to both see that which is dead and needing to be pruned and that which is ready at this moment. One who is to reap must recognize the difference and who it really is that is in control of the growth. Life moves on and things develop and grow. This is true for the fruitfulness of the ministry or the minister.
I pray you all might find new growth in the vine of your ministries, and our work in building bridges between the Church and the LGBTQ Community, so LGBTQ background Christians arise.
