The Christ of Christmas

In my devotions during Advent, I am using The Christ of Christmas: Readings for Advent by Dr. Calvin Miller. I had Dr. Miller for five classes at Beeson Divinity School - three preaching classes, one on church leadership, and a memorable course called "The Writing Minister." At the beginning of today's devotion on Luke 1:28-30, Dr. Miller writes: "A God big enough to make you afraid is powerful enough to accomplish all He is about to ask of you."

Do not be afraid, the Lord insists. That's easier said than done, I respond. The prayer that accompanies today's devotion speaks to anyone who has wrestled with feelings of inadequacy in the wake of God's call: "Lord, may I quit trying to figure out the mathematics of grace. You have chosen me because it is Your nature to use the bewildered. And that is enough for me. What would you have me to do?"

10 years ago today

On June 6, 1999, during the invitation time of the Sunday morning worship service at First Baptist Nashville, I stepped out of my pew (third row, piano side) and walked forward to announce to the congregation that I believed God was calling me into ministry. The following January, I began my studies at Beeson Divinity School, unsure of exactly what God was calling me to do but confident that He had a plan. Over the next four and half years, I commuted approximately 100,000 miles in my quest to earn a Master of Divinity degree. In May 2004, with my cap perched precariously on my head, I crossed the stage at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex and received my diploma.

As I reflect on the decade that has elapsed since I made my call to ministry public, I can clearly see how the Lord has directed my path. I am grateful for the opportunities I have been afforded to use my gifts in ministry, yet I long to do more. I don't know what the next decade will hold, but I am confident that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6).

college decision

Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking in Dr. Wilton Bunch's ethics class at Samford University. This is the fifth straight semester that he has extended an invitation to me to talk about restorative justice - specifically about the creation of The Next Door - but the first time that I have spoken to an undergraduate class. I told the students that it was ironic that I had ended up attending Beeson Divinity School at Samford in 2000, because eighteen years earlier as a high school senior, I faced a choice between attending Samford and the University of Tennessee.

During the fall of my senior year, I made a trip to Birmingham with two objectives: to attend a Barry Manilow concert (yes, I was and am a Manilow fan) and to visit Samford. I had arranged to spend the night on campus with my friend, Jan, who was a freshman. Jan and I had attended Franklin High School together, and we were both active members of our church's youth group - playing in the youth handbell choir, singing in the youth choir and girls' ensemble, and participating in a discipleship group. After the concert - which featured Samford's A Cappella Choir on Manilow's rendition of "One Voice" - as Jan and I drove back to campus, she suddenly panicked. "I don't have a pass!" she moaned.

Until that moment, I had not realized that Samford actually locked its students up on campus at night. If you intended to be out after the gates were locked, you had to have a pass signed in advance by your dorm parent to present to the guard at the gate in order to be allowed back on campus. Jan pulled over, rifled through her glove compartment, and discovered an old pass. After forging a new date, we proceeded down Lakeshore Drive to campus. We held our breath as the guard used a flashlight to inspect the pass, then grabbed a phone and made a quick call. After he opened the gate and waved us on, I asked Jan who he had been calling. She explained that not only were the students locked on campus at night, but the girls were also locked in their dorms. The guard had called Jan's dorm mother, alerting her to our arrival so she could unlock the door for us. 

"Wait!" I exclaimed. "Are you telling me that guys are allowed to roam free on campus at night while the girls are locked in their dorms?" Jan nodded. I was appalled. I believe it was at that moment that the balance tipped and I was destined to be a Tennessee Volunteer. This blatant gender inequality, paired with an already restrictive environment, was not what I was looking for in my undergraduate experience. 

I'm glad that God had a plan for me to eventually be both a Vol and a Bulldog, and perhaps one day I will add a third university to my education resume.

asking the right question

In our Sunday School lesson this week, we reflected on the storm, shipwreck, and snakebite that the Apostle Paul endured in Acts 27 and 28. I observed that we often ask the wrong question when we find ourselves in the midst of trials. While we are inclined to ask, "Why is this happening?" a better question to consider is "Where is God working in this situation?" 

Today I had the privilege of reprising the Nashville to Birmingham commute that I made twice weekly for four years while I was a student at Beeson Divinity School. I drove to Birmingham this morning so that I could attend a gathering of Beeson alumnae in the home of one of my seminary sisters, and - just like the Early Church - we ate, worshipped, prayed, and fellowshipped together in an intimate setting. As we sang together, I thought about the lesson I had taught on Sunday and the trials that I had faced during my seminary career - the most significant of which was the sudden death of my sister at the age of 34. When you are grieving, it is particularly difficult to gather your wits and look for God's hand, but I sensed even in the earliest hours of that tragedy that God was indeed at work. Today with seven years of perspective, I can see even more clearly all the ways that God was working in the midst of that loss. In fact, God used that experience to propel me to mentor the very group of teenage girls who I taught in Sunday School this week. 

Where is God working in this situation? On the Friday in April when my mother was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, I asked that question. In the intervening months, I have seen God's hand in countless ways. Tomorrow my mother will have a scan to see if the chemotherapy is doing its job. No matter what we learn this week, I have no doubt that God is at work. One of my girls reminded us in Sunday School of Jesus' words from John 13:7 - "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." I have faith that one day I will understand.

women in the pulpit

When I registered for classes for my second semester at Beeson Divinity School in the fall of 2000, I took a course taught by Dr. Robert Smith, Jr., called "The History of Women in Preaching." Having spent a lifetime worshipping in Southern Baptist churches, I honestly did not realize that there was a history of women in preaching. The objective of the course was to help students "understand the background, rationale, and creative aspect of the preaching experience of women within the spectrum of the American tradition." (Yes, I still have that syllabus in my files.) There were eight women in the seminar, which met on Tuesday evenings from 4:30-7:00 p.m. - nine if you count Dr. Smith, whom we declared an honorary woman.

The first time we convened, we each drew the named of a woman preacher out of a fishbowl. (Dr. Smith was famous for using that object to make assignments.) We were then required to write a write a reflection paper and lead a homiletical teaching clinic on our assigned preacher. In this manner, we learned about Edwina Hunter, Ella P. Mitchell, Barbara Brown Taylor, Vashti McKenzie, Elizabeth Achtemier, Lucy Lind Hogan, Christine Smith, Cheryl Sanders, and Carol Noren. Of course, since this was a preaching class, we also each had to preach, and it was in this setting that I preached my first sermon on November 2, 2000. I chose to preach about Dorcas, whose story is recorded in Acts 9:36-42.

I cannot begin to explain how I felt each time I heard one of my seminary sisters proclaim the gospel or listened to one of the sermons preached by the luminary female homileticians we studied. I felt cheated that I had lacked female role models in the pulpit, but I also felt encouraged - and challenged - as I watched women using their God-given gifts to share His Word. Preaching had never seemed within the realm of possibility for me until I took that course.

I felt the same way this morning, when a woman preached in the pulpit of my church - only the second time in the 14 years that I have been a member there that I have heard a woman preach on a Sunday morning. As I listened to Ruth Graham's sermon, I prayed that the girls in the congregation would recognize that God might call them to preach one day. Maybe one day seminary students will study one of them in a history of women in preaching class. 

Breaking the cycle

This morning I heard a story by Steve Inskeep on NPR about the Ohio Reformatory for Women, which is one of only a handful of U.S. prisons that offers an in-house nursery. This option is available only for non-violent offenders serving short sentences who are pregnant when they arrive at the facility or who have infants. The twin goals of the program are to reduce recidivism and prevent the children of these inmates from becoming offenders themselves. I listened to this story with interest, because I have firsthand experience working with female ex-offenders and know all too well how the odds are stacked against their children.

In the spring of 2002 when I was a a student at Beeson Divinity School, I took a class on Social Justice Ethics taught by Dr. Wilton Bunch. One of the passages we focused on during the semester was Luke 4:18-19, in which Jesus declared, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." The phrase "proclaim freedom for the prisoners" jumped out at me as I contemplated the passage in the days to come, and within a few months I discovered that God had used this class to prepare me to be a part of a group of "wild, praying women" who would launch a transitional housing ministry serving female ex-offenders called The Next Door.

During the past few years, I have had the privilege of returning to Beeson each semester to speak to Dr. Bunch's ethics classes about restorative justice. During my presentation, I make the case that Christ-followers have a moral obligation to address this issue, and I share the story of the creation of The Next Door as an example of one congregation's effort to be a part of the solution. I share some statistics to help the students understand the scope of the problem:

- More than one in 100 American adults are in jail or prison - an all-time high.

- The national prison population has tripled since 1987.

- With more than 2.3 million people behind bars at the start of 2008, the U.S. leads the world in the both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates. China is second with 1.5 million people incarcerated and Russia is third with 890,000. 

- 650,000 people are released from prison each year.

- Half of all released inmates return to jail or prison within three years.

- Parole violators now constitute 34% of all admissions.

- 1.5 million American children have a parent in prison.

Nonviolent drug offenses are the primary reason for the high rates of female incarceration, and the majority of these women have children. This is certainly true among the residents at The Next Door. As I worked with the residents on a weekly basis for three years, I learned that the vast majority of them had experienced some form of abuse in the past - physical, mental, or sexual. Most of the residents had a dual diagnosis - a substance abuse issue and a mental health issue. Many of them had family members who were incarcerated - mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and children. Their stories were harrowing and heartbreaking. The good news is that many of these women found hope at The Next Door. The Tennessee Department of Corrections estimates that 60% of women released from prison in Tennessee will end up back behind bars within a year, but the rate of recidivism for women who complete The Next Door's 6-month program is less than 20%.

Back to the NPR story: Is it optimal for an infant to spend the first few months of life behind bars? Of course not. But by allowing the mother and child to bond during that critical period of childhood development and by equipping these young mothers with parenting skills, perhaps two lives will be transformed and two prison beds will be empty in the future.