"Advocate mode"

I don’t know why but I know that somehow God created me to pursue social justice for the sake of the gospel. I am very passionate about the two coming together. The two go hand in hand in more ways than modern day American Christianity makes a reality, but it has to start and end with the gospel.

Somehow in his grand scheme of redemption, my part in His story involves using the areas where I’ve been deeply wounded and the life I’ve found in Him since that to speak to others in the midst of that darkness.

A friend came over to me yesterday in one my coffee shops/offices and tried saying hi, I didn’t respond right away, you look so intense she said.

"I’m talking with a client," I mouthed. Most of my friends who have been around when I get phone calls like this know by those five words what that means.

Little did she know the client was a friend.

Very few of my friends have seen me go into “advocate mode,” but it is like a switch is flipped on.

“How would you define rape?”

Were the first words out of her mouth, there was no hello, no nothing.

I didn’t skip a beat in asking the first question we’d ask if someone were to call the hotline, "are you safe right now, are you okay?"

My answers came as I tried to figure out the situation and what she was really asking. I defined the difference to her between rape and sexual assault and every question she asked was a common misconception we work to debunk.

But something is unleashed within that I cannot explain. It is a part of God’s plan.

I’m seeing how the worlds of social work and social justice are intricately connected to the church in ways I cannot express most days. But I knew when I made my decision to work in vocational ministry full-time with a church versus with a women’s shelter as my place of ministry, that I would still need to stay connected at the Shelter. It was always be a part of my role in the Kingdom of God and will probably change from season to season.

It is a part of who God’s made me to be.

Last night reminded me of that.

The first thing we learn at Shelter staff training is that an advocate literally means to “add voice.”

We give voice to those unable to speak and defend themselves.

It is the same with those laboring for the gospel.

We give voice and fight on their behalf and cooperate with God’s plan to bring them back to Him.

We serve as an advocate, for our ultimate advocate, Jesus, who still speaks and acts and works on our behalf before the Father.

Another thing that has floored me was how much God has intersected the two worlds in the last two years I had been bi-vocational.

Girls at church that I either know extremely well or that I have never had a conversation with approach me if this is an issue in their lives simply in either knowing my story or someone told them I work at a Shelter. God has impressed upon my heart that it is part of my place within the body, to shed light on these issues and bring hurting men and women to the reality and redemption of Christ whose lives have been severely injured by this devastating sin.

It is no different from those on our staff team or within our church who have dealt with other issues personally. They automatically become a safe place for others and God uses them mightily to reach others in bondage.

He came to set the captives free.

And he uses former captives to do it.

It scared me but put me to rest that I wasn’t surprised that my friend was dealing with this. When I give presentations with this lady who is like my hero at The Shelter, Kelley, she always starts it off (this is to high school girls) with, if you don’t think you need to pay attention to this because you think this doesn’t affect you or have anything to do with your life, I want you to look around the room.

(at this point we have numbered off every fourth person and have every fourth person stand up, in a room of 100 girls, 25 would have been sexually abused or assaulted in her lifetime).

Take a look, she will say as she lets it sink in, this could be your mom, your best friend, your sister, your daughter…

If you think this issue doesn’t pertain to you, you are mistaken.

Witnessing the inner workings of a non-profit that is not faith-based, I think I see how much everything they stand for is really the same things the church stands for, but it’s a different cause.

To pursue social justice for the sake of social justice is one thing.

But as Christians, how we can really be a part of revolutionizing the world around us is pursuing social justice for the sake of the gospel.

It has to start and end with the gospel.

I’ve described this to a lot of friends, but the work I do at the Shelter is just as spiritual. The principles and the concepts are Jesus. We just call it two different things and those working have two different motivations. One without a faith in Jesus is working to restore others back to themselves. One with a living faith in Jesus is working to restore others back to God.

I've also seen this play out the other way, where I end up doing way more domestic violence and sexual assault crisis work outside of the Shelter and on campus. Some of these girls go to our church, some just girls in the dorm who are friends of a friend who goes to The Rock.

I didn’t even realize that I was in that mode until my friend came up, but the way I was asking questions and the look on my view and the intensity in my demeanor, she said it was a whole other side of her she hasn’t seen. I explained to her later I guess I didn’t know I was in “advocate mode” as she described it.

I am beginning to come to terms with the fact that I don’t have to know how God intends it to be worked out, I just know God is putting burdens on people’s hearts and moving them to action, for me it is the form of restoring beauty that was once devastated by victimization, whatever form that looks, on a college campus, in the streets of where I live, in the inner city, in a foreign country. It doesn’t matter. People are people. And sin is devastating the land. But we are not without hope.

We have a Savior who has come back for His people.

One broken mess at a time.