When Faithfulness Feels Like Failure

Have you ever asked yourself, “What do I have to show for this?”

It’s a question Lauren,* who’s served in the Middle East for nearly 20 years, found herself asking late last year. She’d reached out to many local women for months or years only to have them decide they didn't want to study the Bible with her. Some of the people with whom she’d shared the gospel have been refugees who crossed her path and then moved on. “I don't know the end of all of that and the seeds I've planted,” she explains.

And so, though she’s served faithfully through numerous outreaches, including helping to start a community development center and working at a clinic, she hasn’t seen the fruit she’s hoped, prayed and worked for. She hasn’t seen lots of people accept Christ through her ministry. Over the course of nearly two decades, Lauren has had just one long-term discipleship relationship and lost touch with that woman after she moved away.

She recalls asking, “Does God's Word work? Does it actually change lives, or does it return void?” Since she’d seen God work through others’ ministries the way she wanted Him to work through her own, she concluded that she was the reason she wasn’t seeing results. “When it's been 19 years, [the reason must be that] God's failed or I've failed. God can't fail, so I've failed.”

As Lauren explains, those who serve cross-culturally “are in a type of work that values measurable results. … If the goal is first and foremost effectiveness, then if you feel like what you're doing isn't actually being effective … well, of course you are failing.”

In hindsight, she sees that though her conclusion had been prompted by valid questions about the effectiveness of her ministry, it was rooted in a belief about how God sees her. “Part of it was just genuine sadness for the desire to disciple women, the desire to, in a sense, have spiritual offspring. I'm upset people aren't coming to Christ. … But there was also mixed in it a stronger feeling of, ‘For some reason, God doesn't want to let me do this. He's upset with me for some reason; I haven’t done enough. … I haven't done a good enough job at my job.”

She’d been discouraged before, but this was deeper. During two meetings with Jackie, her team leader’s wife, her sense of defeat bubbled to the surface.

“I basically sobbed two meetings in a row,” Lauren recalls, adding, “I wasn't concerned about myself. …  I was just doing the things and getting along and felt like I wasn't in a bad place.”

But Jackie saw she needed others to come alongside her, as did Lauren’s member care advocate on the field and Christar U.S.’s member care coordinator. They all strongly recommended that she participate in a three-week Renewal and Growth Retreat offered by Alongside, a professional counseling ministry that serves cross-cultural workers, pastors and other ministry leaders. 

At first, Lauren resisted. It would mean leaving for her upcoming home assignment three weeks earlier and being gone significantly longer than she’d planned. But after several friends encouraged her to go as well, she registered for the retreat.

Lauren calls Alongside “restorative,” though it also involved a lot of deep work. “It did not deal with the surface issues,” she says. Over the course of three weeks, she worked through anger, ministry with her teammates and partners, and her personal ministry—and, under all that, her identity.

At first, she thought her struggle stemmed from not making the impact she wanted to have. But through Alongside, she realized, “Actually, my problem is that my worth isn't independent of my significance.” Seeing this clearly helped her begin to believe that though she deeply cares about being effective in ministry, “Whatever I do on the other side of the world, that's not who I am.”

Her new mindset was put to the test when she attended a conference with other workers who serve in the Middle East. “Twice in the conference, I suddenly felt like a failure again, and had to reframe my thoughts and think about things I'd learned.” She recalls hearing a presentation about all God had done in another least-reached community over the span of five years—compared to her 19. “These are things that were triggering to me [just a few months ago],” she shares. But this time, she was able to listen and see that God was working through this other team and through her, just in different ways. “It didn't have a bearing on who I was and the type of work that I do.”

Several months into her home assignment, Lauren also participated in RENEW, a multiday debriefing retreat offered by the Christar U.S. member care team. This intentional time of reflection and restoration gives workers the opportunity to slow down, process their experiences in community and be genuinely seen and heard by others who understand the challenges they face. They also learn tools that help them thrive long after the retreat ends. The goal is to help workers return to their ministries refreshed, supported and strengthened for continued service.

Though she had recently attended Alongside, Lauren found RENEW uniquely valuable. “One thing they said at Alongside is that a lot of our deepest hurts come in relationship, and a lot of our healing, therefore, comes in relationship.” RENEW provided the space for those healing relationships, both with fellow workers and with member care staff. “What I like about Renew is all of the debriefing time. … We all get it, and we understand, and it felt pretty real, pretty vulnerable,” she shares. “I really appreciated it, even having done a similar but more intense thing.”

During the retreat, workers share their stories, in full and in part, in several settings, including in small groups. Lauren was in a group of three other women who serve cross-culturally, along with two member care staff. “We were all really honest, and we all had a variety of big challenges the last four years. … It was just so great that the four people in my group all took the opportunity to be real and share real and difficult parts of their stories. We need that.”

This kind of connection and camaraderie can make all the difference, giving workers the perspective, encouragement and resources they need not only to endure on the field but to thrive. “As workers living in a culture that's not our first culture, we have unique stressors, and there is so much connection and wisdom to be found in talking to people who have been in ministry a decade or more longer than us, who have been overseas for part of that ministry,” Lauren explains. “It can give a lot of clarity that regular pastoral help, even licensed counselors, doesn’t necessarily give.”

Member care workers, like the Christar staff who host RENEW, have firsthand experience with the challenges of cross-cultural life and can offer perspective and wisdom rooted in that understanding. As Lauren shares, “We get special encouragement from those who have been through similar circumstances, and who are further along in the journey. … You’re in one of your safest places to share genuinely, and to find people who understand more of your unique circumstances.”

As she heads back to the Middle East, Lauren is returning not only with practical tools to help her thrive but also a renewed mindset: “I could hang up my missions shoes tomorrow, and God would still delight in who I am, and that I'm made in His image, and that he chose me as His daughter.” But, she adds, “I still don't want to and don't plan to stop doing what I'm doing anytime soon.”

Participate Through Prayer

• Lift up cross-cultural workers facing great challenges and discouragement. Ask God to meet them where they are through the encouragement and support of the Member Care team.
• Pray that through RENEW retreats at the CMCUS, workers on home assignment will be refreshed and equipped and that they will experience God’s love through Christar staff.
• Ask that the Member Care team would effectively provide support, resources and understanding to the workers in whom they invest, both while they’re on the field and during home assignments.

Participate Through Giving

All Christar U.S. workers are encouraged to participate in a RENEW retreat once every four years. Each RENEW retreat, including the program and lodging, costs approximately $600 per worker, and gifts of any size help us to continue offering this vital opportunity for care and restoration. Give now.