It happened again this week.\u00a0While sitting in a Session meeting (our church board), one of the leaders started comparing our church with another larger congregation in the next town over.\u00a0 Why weren\u2019t we doing the kinds of ministries they were involved with?\u00a0Where was our public witness?\u00a0 Why weren\u2019t we having the kind of impact they seem to be having?<\/p>\n
Teddy Roosevelt is said to have said that, \u201ccomparison is the thief of joy\u201d, and among churches and ministries and leaders, this is often the case.\u00a0 This is the danger in reading a book like Chasing the Dragon<\/em>, a memoir by British missionary to Hong Kong, Jackie Pullinger. The subtitle of the book calls this \u201cOne Woman\u2019s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kong\u2019s Drug Dens\u201d, and the stories in the book are as dramatic as this would suggest.<\/p>\n It begins with Pullinger\u2019s own sense of calling as a young girl in England, and how she went about responding to God\u2019s pull on her life.\u00a0 Seeking to be a missionary overseas, she boards a ship from England for Hong Kong, without any financial backing, job prospects or a return ticket. From here, our hero seems to spring from one amazing, Holy Spirit led activity to another, as she goes about making a life as an overseas, cross-cultural missionary.\u00a0In many ways, this book follows the classic \u201chero quest\u201d archetype that has been chiseled into our minds about what a missionary ought to do and be.<\/p>\n She comes from humble origins, responds to the call to go and serve, overcomes all manner of danger and obstacle, including drug gangs, poverty, prostitution rings, and the ongoing threat of violence, all while learning cultural lessons and saving souls.\u00a0In a sense, it is hard to read this amazing account and not ask self-critical questions like: \u201cwhy am I not doing the kinds of ministries that Jackie Pullinger is involved with?\u00a0 Where is my public witness?\u00a0 Why am I not having the kind of impact that this woman seems to be having?\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview with the South China Morning Post, she once said, \u201cchurches tend to look after the nice people.\u00a0 I do my work with the nasty ones, like addicts and prostitutes who feel despised and excluded\u2026 they won\u2019t go near churches, so I make it my job to find them.\u201d<\/a>[1]<\/p>\n One reviewer puts it this way, \u201ca Christian catch phrase of fairly recent origin is \u2018wild heart.\u2019 It may be recent, but it describes Christians of all centuries.\u00a0 Chasing the Dragon<\/em>\u2026 tells of a Christian who has followed in the ancient tracks of those wild-hearted Christians who plunged into what seemed insanity, thereby letting God make great advances.\u201d<\/a>[2]<\/p>\n Jackie Pullinger has a larger than life story to tell.\u00a0 She is one of those \u201cwild hearted Christians\u201d, who has a calling that has shaped her life in incredible ways.\u00a0 Part of the story is simply Pullinger\u2019s radical, long-term commitment to the underside of Hong Kong society. But the book reads as a catalogue of one amazing story after another.<\/p>\n In one way, this is a genre of Christian missionary writing.\u00a0 Our hero, Jackie Pullinger, has profound faith in the love of God for people who suffer, and she is rewarded when she acts in faith.\u00a0 In this reading, the book is almost a hagiography, with all the attendant miracle stories and awe-inspiring accounts.\u00a0 In a way, this book continues the tradition of the Acts of the Apostles from the Bible, the \u201cmissionary history\u201d of the early church.\u00a0As with the Book of Acts, in Pullinger\u2019s story, the Holy Spirit is constatntly on the move, entering people\u2019s lives in dramatic ways.<\/p>\n However, embedded in this book there are also some hints of a more human and approachable Jackie Pullinger.\u00a0She shares how in her formative years of faith, she was being confirmed at her church, but wasn’t really sure what it was all about.\u00a0 She writes, \u201cI found my service sheet and covered up my face so that no one should see me smiling in the pew\u2026 I was giving my life to God; I had expected nothing back.\u201d<\/a>[3]Here she reflects that she was a giggling schoolgirl, irreverently trying to understand all pomp and ceremony of the church of her youth.<\/p>\n After her early adventures in Hong Kong, she confides, \u201clooking back at the experiences of those years in Lung Kong Road, I have mixed emotions.\u00a0 It was a time of learning and of growing up.\u00a0 Often, I was in awful confusion.\u201d<\/a>[4]\u00a0 This is one of the rare humanizing moments in the book, but it is important.<\/p>\n Contemporary personal memoirs tend to have much more self-doubt, personal failings and \u201cbloopers\u201d than this one offers. This will be a disconnect for some readers today, who often respect the \u201cauthenticity\u201d of a writer\u2019s failings more so than their successes.<\/p>\n Towards the end of her book, Pullinger tries to sum up her perspective on this missionary life.\u00a0 She writes, \u201cknowing not what the future might bring in a political sense or what would be permitted in terms of formal structure, I had always wished for such simplicity, no need for organization.\u00a0One poor man reaching one poor man. \u2018Love your neighbor as yourself\u2019 seemed to sum it up.\u201d<\/a>[5]<\/p>\n This is a way to view Jackie Pullinger.\u00a0 Less the \u201cclassic hero\u201d of mythic proportions\u2026 Less the \u201cbetter than you\u201d evangelist or minister\u2026 And perhaps, instead, the young girl in England, not sure of her future.\u00a0 The one who turns to God and trusts in small ways and in large ones.\u00a0 The one who doesn\u2019t know what her future will bring, but who centers on the common core: “love your neighbor as yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n In doing that in Jesus\u2019 name, Jackie Pullinger has surely impacted the world and changed countless lives.\u00a0 And the calling that we have, in whatever sort of ministry we pursue, is to do the same.\u00a0 To trust God with big things and small, and to serve the world in Christ\u2019s name.\u00a0 I suspect when we focus on doing those things, we will spend less time comparing ourselves with this amazing overseas missionary, or with the church down the block.<\/p>\n <\/a>[1]Bernice Chan, \u201cBriton\u2019s 50 Years of Helping Hong Kong Addicts Beat Drugs \u2013 and Find God,\u201d\u00a0South China Morning Post<\/em>, November 24, 2016,\u00a0http:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/article\/2048647\/britons-50-years-helping-hong-kong-addicts-beat-drugs-and-find-god<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a>[2]Donna Eggett, \u201cChasing the Dragon,\u201d Christian Book Preiews, accessed May 24, 2018,\u00a0http:\/\/www.christianbookpreviews.com\/christian-book-detail.php?isbn=0830743280<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a>[3]Jackie Pullinger,\u00a0Chasing the Dragon: One Woman’s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kong’s Drug Dens<\/em>\u00a0(Bloomington: Chosen Books, 1980), 29.<\/p>\n