{"id":17721,"date":"2018-05-23T17:29:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T00:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17721"},"modified":"2018-05-23T17:34:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-24T00:34:18","slug":"whats-behind-your-ministry-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/whats-behind-your-ministry-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Behind Your Ministry Wall?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Jackie Pullinger\u2019s Chasing the Dragon <\/em>is an inspiring mission focused reality-based book that shows the miraculous faith and obedience of one woman who the Holy Spirit called and led into the least reached and hard to reach places behind the Walled City of Hong Kong\u2019s drug infested underworld.\u00a0 I connected immediately with Pullinger\u2019s ministry of reaching lost and hurting addicts with help, healing, hope, and salvation while always preparing for more \u201cbattles to be fought.\u201d[1]<\/a> This post will relate with Pullinger\u2019s ministry to addicts while also searching for new ideas and themes for my research into the problem of spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n

I spent almost 30 years in public safety and over 20 years of that was working with people who bought, sold, used, and promoted illegal drugs. While my city did not have a \u201cKowloon Walled City\u201d as Pullinger described in Hong Kong, there were similar areas of lower income housing that promoted an ill-fated recipe of urban overcrowding, mixed cultures, poverty, and unemployment that promoted higher incidents of illegal drugs, prostitution, and other violent crimes. I worked as a repeat-offender detective and was able to learn, understand, and share in similar contexts as Pullinger experienced inside the wall in Hong Kong. Many of the people behind the wall I worked were the families, relatives, and friends of migrant farmers from Mexico. Over the years, what began as finding seasonal work evolved into drug routes, trafficking, and increased criminal activity.<\/p>\n

After gaining some experience in the Armor of God coin ministry with what one might call \u201cnormal people\u201d the Holy Spirit began changing my heart and mind to reach out to those I spent half my public safety career trying to stop their criminal drug related activities. It was shocking, for them and for me, the first time I walked into a Vineyard Church sponsored 12-Step recovery program. At my very fist meeting with 20 parolee members some of them got up as if to \u201crun-away\u201d after they heard my name and recognized me. Nevertheless, Christ reins! I watched and listened as the Holy Spirit spoke thru me to them and watched a miracle happen, they opened-up to me, and I opened-up to them through the armor of God coin ministry. Just like in Pullinger\u2019s experience with the lost and hurting people suffering from addictive behaviors, they quickly responded to the Holy Spirit conviction towards Christ.<\/p>\n

After this meeting, the Holy Spirit took me to many places where He used the armor of God challenge coin ministry to reach and connect people to Christ. Like Pullinger, I have my \u201cAh Kei\u201d stories of what appear to be failures in the \u201cgood work in someone\u201d that came to saving faith in Christ.[2]<\/a> Pullinger tells the story and offers a prayer to God asking why \u201cAh Kei,\u201d one of her notable conversions from organized crime, fell and reverted to his old life-style when he said, \u201cIt\u2019s no good. I can\u2019t be a Christian anymore.\u201d[3]<\/a> She reports feeling responsible for the death of some of the people she served in ministry. I know that feeling! Most of the Christian addicts I served with the armor of God coin ministry had stumbles, falls, relapses, and three of them died violent deaths. I understand the hurt, anguish, and question; \u201cDid I do all I could to help?\u201d<\/p>\n

There are not a lot of reviews of Pullinger\u2019s book. However, I was able to locate a couple of peer-reviewed articles that cite her work that I connected to my dissertation. First, I was impressed by the spiritual fruit that the Holy Spirit, through Pullinger, produced in Hong Kong.\u00a0 For example, Harter says that Pullinger became \u201cemblematic\u201d of all charitable efforts in Hong Kong due to her two-part ministry pattern of being both a \u201ccolonized sinner and colonial savior.\u201d[4]<\/a> The context of this statement is interesting because it represents both resentment and hope. The people in Hong Kong resent the British colonial influence in their culture, yet at the same time acknowledge hope in the savior theme that missionaries like Pullinger brought to their communities.<\/p>\n

Second, I found a good study by Ng from the University of Hong Kong that describes how Pullinger\u2019s mission-ministry influenced the \u201cchanges in self-identity in 86 participants of a religious drug rehabilitation program in Hong Kong. Conversion to Christianity is found to bring a shedding of a negative drug self-identify and a progressive identification with the Jesus ideal in the participants.\u201d[5]<\/a> The 12-Step Program that I ministered with has similar recovery themes as the 3-Stage program that Pullinger implemented in the St. Stephen\u2019s Society one-year heroin-addicted residential program for men.[6]<\/a> The study has research tools and scientific elements that may assist me in comparing the efficacy of the armor of God coin with self-organization and defense against spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n

Overall, Pullinger\u2019s Chasing the Dragon<\/em> is a good primer for LGP8 pre-Hong Kong Advance to gain perspective for the many leadership and ministry challenges we will engage during our lectures, field-trips, and guest speaker opportunities. Pullinger\u2019s Gospel-Rehab model is portable, scalable, and her program is achieving similar positive results in Thailand and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

Here is a link to Jackie\u2019s \u201cstory\u201d of how she came to Hong Kong.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ststephenssociety.com\/en\/story.php<\/a><\/p>\n

Stand firm,<\/p>\n

M. Webb<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Jackie Pullinger. Chasing the Dragon: One Woman\u2019s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kong\u2019s Drug Dens<\/em>. (Ada, MI: Chosen Books, 2007) 9.<\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> Ibid., 147.<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> Ibid., 146.<\/h6>\n
[4]<\/a> Seth Harter. “Hong Kong’s Dirty Little Secret: Clearing the Walled City of Kowloon.” Journal of Urban History 27, no. 1 (2000): 112.<\/h6>\n
[5]<\/a> Ho-Yee Ng. “Drug Use and Self-Organization: A Personal Construct Study of Religious Conversion in Drug Rehabilitation.” Journal of Constructivist Psychology 15, no. 4 (2002): 263.<\/h6>\n
[6]<\/a> Ibid., 265.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackie Pullinger\u2019s Chasing the Dragon is an inspiring mission focused reality-based book that shows the miraculous faith and obedience of one woman who the Holy Spirit called and led into the least reached and hard to reach places behind the Walled City of Hong Kong\u2019s drug infested underworld.\u00a0 I connected immediately with Pullinger\u2019s ministry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1245,1039],"class_list":["post-17721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-pullinger","tag-spiritual-warfare","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17721"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17727,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17721\/revisions\/17727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}