How to Knock Over a 7-Eleven and Other Ministry Training by Michael Cheshire

Author:Michael Cheshire [Cheshire, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3
Publisher: Cheshire Publishing
Published: 2012-04-02T16:00:00+00:00

I See Dead People

“Even the strongest have their moments of fatigue.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

When did this become okay?” I asked that question to a middle-aged woman while sitting on the plywood floor of a shed in the parking lot of a home improvement store.

The store had several sheds set up for display. You could go in and check them out anytime. Little did the employees know that during the late night hours, a couple would make the long drive to meet there and use it to shelter their illicit relationship.

I was called there in the early morning hours because the man she was so willing to lose her family to had just informed her he wanted to stop; he loved his wife. This revelation came after he had used her just one more time. The conversation boiled into an argument, and when she threatened to go tell the wife everything, he put on his clothes, gathered hers as well, and left her in that shed alone, naked, and ashamed. Classy guy!

She crept to her car and got her phone. She tried calling some friends, but no one answered. Finally, after a few hours, she gathered her courage and called her pastor. “I need help. Please come alone and bring a blanket.” When I got there, I covered her up, and we talked for over an hour. We took that moment of extreme hurt to understand how she ended up there. We prayed, we even laughed, and then I followed her home and made sure she pulled into her garage and closed the door. It took a while—a lot of tears and counseling—but in the end, her heart healed; her own marriage was fixed as she began to live a different life.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is what all of us in church work signed up for. We take people’s nightmares and work to get them to the God of their dreams. Not all stories have happy endings, and not every person wants help, but we are, nonetheless, called to put ourselves into harm’s way and care.

When I was just training to be a pastor, I would get excited about the opportunity to do some real, hands-on ministry with broken people. I had no idea how many broken people there actually were. Many, who I saw every day and thought had no problems, would suddenly and without warning self-destruct. It was also a blow to my spirit when I came to realize that I couldn’t help everyone—that some people choose the wrong path even after the warning shots of God have flown over their heads.

The temptation in my early years was to pull back. I’d just pray for people and do my sermons, but I couldn’t really fix anything, so why try? This was not the best attitude, I admit. The Scripture that always set me back on track is in the first chapter of James. James talked about faith and works. James said, what good are you to people if they say,

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