Wanting to Give Up

It’s true. Over the past few weeks, when I haven’t been posting about my latest escapades of entrepreneurial ministry, I have wanted to give up. I have wanted to throw in the towel. I have seriously contemplated why I ever thought this might be possible.

There was the first blow a couple weeks ago where the person who is supposed to be the connection to everything was less than supportive. I still haven’t fully recovered from that. I haven’t written back. I haven’t informed him of my grand plan because I don’t really have one. I wish that were not true. But, I’m afraid it is. I don’t have a grand plan. I’m not really sure what I’m doing.

The problem isn’t this one person — as easy as it might be to blame anyone but myself. But, the truth of the matter is: the problem is me. I have found myself in this new place and in this new life. I have a whole new identity that I don’t quite understand. I want to understand it but I don’t really know anything about being a military spouse. And I’m trying to create community for people like me. Except that they are not like me. They are actual military spouses. They’ve been through more than one deployment. They’ve moved with their spouse every two or three years. They know things about military life that I just don’t know yet. Maybe I thought I would. Or that somehow it would be as it was on Lifetime’s Army Wives. But, it’s not like that. My life is nothing like it is on TV.

Woe is me, right?

In the first retreat of this program I’m participating in (and have considered quitting), Stanford professor Dave Evans introduced us to design thinking. He suggested that there are such a things as wicked problems. This fascinated me so that I preached a sermon about it before I left my last call. In wicked problems, using the tools of design thinking, you’re supposed to ideate. You throw as many different solutions at that wicked problem as you can imagine. It’s not a reflective process but one that demands action. You don’t give up. You just try out a new idea. And so, it was suggested that it’s time for me to ideate. I have hit a wall. I’ve lost hope — but I can’t get stalled there. I can’t give up. I have to try something. Ideate! Ideate! That’s what they say. It’s how you’ll push through this feeling.

It was about that time — when I was told to ideate — that I read this article entitled Stop Doing Intergenerational Ministry. I panicked a bit because I love intergenerational ministry. I think it’s what we should be about in the church. So I clicked over to the article and was relieved to discover that the author hooked me. It’s really a reminder to the church not to do multigenerational ministry where the youth and the little kids and the parents and the seniors are all separate programs for each age group. Stop doing that, the author demands. Yes, I thought. We should stop doing that. We should stop doing ministry that separates and divides. We should be building communities without divisions — divisions like that divides civilians from the military. It’s a divide I’d like to bridge. Such a hope appeared on my blog only a few weeks ago. But, it requires doing a different kind of ministry where there isn’t a program called military ministry. But there is a military culture.

Most of the programs I’ve found have been in more conservative churches. There are few progressive churches that send care packages to the troops but none seem to be centered on military families. The soldiers are out there — like the people that are served on mission trips. They aren’t part of the community. They aren’t part of the culture. Even in the more conservative churches, there is a program that cares of the needs of the military family. But, it seems that most of them fail to welcome the family as part of the community. Or so I found out when I asked around on Twitter. So maybe that’s where my energy should head. Not to building community within and among military families — but to create meaningful connections to worshipping bodies. Or, honestly, helping those worshipping bodies figure out how to create such a culture of welcome.

At the same time, I read this beautiful post by a colleague and friend in the United Church of Christ. This began a conversation about — between the two of us — how mental health impacts soldiers and their families. This interests me but there are a ton of more qualified people already doing this good work. So I’m not so excited about this idea.

There’s still part of me that wants to give up. There’s still part of me that wonders if any of this is possible — but I gotta believe that there is some wild and crazy reason that I signed up for this thing. There is something that I’m supposed to learn. There is something I’m supposed to try. And maybe that will just keep me going.