{"id":17808,"date":"2018-05-25T14:41:32","date_gmt":"2018-05-25T21:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17808"},"modified":"2018-05-25T14:41:32","modified_gmt":"2018-05-25T21:41:32","slug":"doing-the-work-of-the-kingdomnot-for-recognition-not-for-material-gain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/doing-the-work-of-the-kingdomnot-for-recognition-not-for-material-gain\/","title":{"rendered":"Doing the work of the Kingdom\u2026not for recognition, not for material gain."},"content":{"rendered":"

Jackie Pullinger is a missionary to Hong Kong and you could relate her to a Mother Theresa figure. She works tirelessly and has a vision she and the community of St. Stephen\u2019s are persistent to enact: \u201cPreach the Good News, reach the poor and see people set free through faith in Jesus.\u201d[1]<\/a> Her book, Chasing the Dragon<\/em>, is filled with stories capturing the transformation of the poor by the Good News of Jesus. \u00a0They are flashy but not in a way most would expect. There are no lights, smoke or mirrors, rather the \u2018fanciness\u2019 of their ministry is based out of a pure reliance upon the Spirit and the Scripture to see people healed from a life of death and decay. Although they do not advertise or have large showy church services, they are famous. Their reputation comes from those who have left lives of crime, addiction and slavery as the witnesses of God\u2019s work in their lives. However much Jackie and her team are doing, they relay all the glory to God as it is not about them. They seek to do the will of the Father as they emulate Christ in the world.<\/p>\n

Pullinger\u2019s text is a memoir of sorts although her focus is never on her life. We learn much about her life and character by the ways she lives and interacts with others, fully focused on the gospel, that Christ\u2019s disciples be multiplied and sent out from the depths of Hong Kong. We do not hear about her husband or her own personal struggles. She tells the stories of the people who God brought into her life and how they responded to His message. She tells of the pain, the tragedy, the need for salvation. Jackie also communicates from the outset that her book\u2019s purpose is to inspire others to chase the dragon rather than to enjoy a good story of someone else\u2019s life. She concludes her introduction with, \u201cThere are many more battles to be fought. It would be such fun to be a part of them rather than just read of them. So go! Write your own books. Go!\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As I read Pullinger\u2019s text three thoughts kept running through my mind: \u201cI know people who are that focused on Jesus\u2019 mission in similar settings\u201d; \u201cwhat does this focus look like for me in my context in the U.S.\u201d; and \u201cwhy aren\u2019t more Christians like Jackie?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Missionaries:<\/p>\n

When I consider the people I know who have a laser focus on the gospel and on the poor, I immediately think of missionaries. There seems to be a freedom for missionaries that there isn\u2019t for local church pastors. Maybe it\u2019s because of their adaptability, or getting fully outside their comfort zone of home, or raising their support with a very real faith in God for their livelihood rather than their weekly church attenders. Whatever the reasons, their mission outweighs the burden of their own needs. The stories they tell are not of their life so much as they are of the building of the school, the healing of people with disease, or the radical change of lives to follow Jesus.<\/p>\n

US Pastors:<\/p>\n

When I consider my own life as a pastor in the US and the pastors I know, particularly from my faith tradition, I realize we have a calling just as our missionary brothers and sisters, to share the Good News of Jesus and to see the poor healed and come to faith in Him. Our approach however, is much different.\u00a0 Many of us have a responsibility to care for the members of our existing community while reaching out beyond the walls into the places of poverty and pain. There is a tension between discipling those in our care and mobilizing them to go out and make disciples. The temptation may be idleness in the comfort of a paycheck and a \u2018stable\u2019 job. For some it looks like the need to gather as many as possible, forgetting the necessity of equipping and sending them out. Pastors may grow comfortable with the day to day happenings in the church organization and need a reminder of the battles God has called us into for the sake of the kingdom. We may need some inspiration from a Jackie Pullinger and a fresh look at our own city to see that many more still need the good news, and sharing Jesus with them might change our philosophy of ministry and our current church structure.<\/p>\n

Christians:<\/p>\n

Why aren\u2019t more Christians more like Jackie Pullinger? Have they not received the Spirit? Has someone handed them and empty gospel? Have they not been exposed to the great needs in our world? Are they consumed by being a consumer? Surely a broad combination of these and other questions apply. Of course, as one who is focused on discipleship and the raising up of the next generation of leaders I look to my own peers, pastors. I wonder what it is that we might need to be able to disciple those in our care so that they might be filled with the Spirit to be compelled to go into the world and share the Good News. Perhaps a revival of the Spirit needs to break out. Perhaps it will take some troubling of the waters for the American and Western church to be enlivened to move in ways that are well known in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on Jackie\u2019s story, I am inspired to look again at my context and ask myself the hard questions about the simplicity of her vision and whether or not Jesus\u2019 gospel is the center of the gospel I preach and live. Will my peers and I risk our own lives and paychecks to make Jesus\u2019 fame known by the life transformation in the regions to which we are called?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Pullinger, Jackie. St. Stephen Society. http:\/\/www.ststephenssociety.com\/index.php (Accessed May 24, 2018).<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Pullinger, Jackie. Chasing the Dragon.<\/em> Chosen: Minneapolis, MN. 2001.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackie Pullinger is a missionary to Hong Kong and you could relate her to a Mother Theresa figure. She works tirelessly and has a vision she and the community of St. Stephen\u2019s are persistent to enact: \u201cPreach the Good News, reach the poor and see people set free through faith in Jesus.\u201d[1] Her book, Chasing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"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":[1261],"class_list":["post-17808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jackie-pullinger","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17808","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\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17809,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17808\/revisions\/17809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}