The following video was an interview with my Student Minister in the spring of 2011. It was never released on girlsminister.com but was seen exclusively at a Lifeway Girls Ministry Conference in order to help equip and contribute to the girls ministry conversation.  I believe that it is time to release this candid conversation to girlsminister.com.  And so without further ado…here is segment 4. If you would like to catch the earlier segments, you can find them here:

SEGMENT 1
SEGMENT 2
SEGMENT 3

GMOTR: working with guys in ministry part 4 from Amy Jo Girardier on Vimeo.

“My people have committed two sins: they have turned from Me the living water and dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Jeremiah 2:13

As I finally am able to wind down from a three week whirlwind of mission trips and beach camp, I have learned to take a moment to not only debrief what I saw, but to evaluate the condition of my soul.  Ironically, my actual sole is experiencing some serious pain.  As cheesy as it may seem, today I am trying to access the pain of my spiritual soul just like my doctor did for me yesterday.  He prescribed R-I-C-E but replaced ice with immobilization.  So the prescription is as follows: REST-IMMOBILIZATION-COMPRESSION-ELEVATION…along with some serious steroids to get my swelling under control.

So what happened to get this prescription? One of the main connectors of all things tendons was so tight from some hill running I had done, that it was on brink of snapping.  I was unaware of how close to damaging this tendon I had come, and I kept pushing it beyond it’s capacity to give.  I wanted so badly to keep running…keep walking…keep doing, that I didn’t realize the danger I was literally walking into.  I started numbing myself to the pain and pushing past it.  I was ignoring the very signs that God had given my body to know when to stop.  Now, I’m in a boot with a three week sabbatical from running.  I have to be still in order to heal.

Now how does this apply to our soul care?  Well just like in Jeremiah 2:13  we have the tendency to turn from the One thing that can fill us up and then try to make our own wells in our own power.  We start serving out of the overflow of Him, but sometimes if we’re not careful, we begin serving out of the overflow of us…and that’s never pretty.  And before too long, our well runs dry.

So here is the prescription for some soul care today:

REST...I know. You are soooo busy!  Shut-up.  Really.  I know I said the S word, but you need to hear this.  You have my permission to get away for at least a half day.  You have to do this.  Schedule time where you are away from people, physically and digitally.

IMMOBILIZE…This is important as well. Make time to BE STILL and know that He is God.  This is key to soul care because it reminds us that He is God and we are not.  We can easily slip into a Messiah complex if we fail to make time to Be Still apart from creating, producing, teaching, etc ALL IN HIS NAME.  Somehow we forget that we’re doing it for Him and we start doing it for us.  And then our soul shrivels up within us as we work for our glory and not His.

COMPRESSION...This is often overlooked in injury care.  You apply mild compression so it will help to prevent the swelling to move into other areas and keep it more localized. If swelling is allowed to dissipate and move, it will often have an a negative effect on the range of motion of the injured area.  So how does this apply to soul care?  This is the “Search my heart, Lord” prayer that you apply to your heart.  This prayer is often times painful as you invite God to press in on the areas of your heart that have been left untouched.  There may be bitterness, or hate, or jealousy, or lust that has been allowed to grow and swell within your heart.  There are actually two parts to this compression regimen.  Not only do you pray and invite God to search your heart, but you go to a safe person and ask what things they are seeing in the overflow of your life.   Use these questions to prompt conversation:

Are there obsessions that you have seen evidence of?

Are there people, places, or things, that I have given disproportionate priority to in light of the life I have given to Christ?

Is there bitterness, hatred, jealousy, lust, apathy…etc that you have seen crop up in my life recently that has not been addressed?

Do you see evidence of God at work in my life, through my life? If so, how?  If not, why?

ELEVATION is the last part of your soul care prescription.  Spend time with your soul offered to Him in worship. Whether that’s hiking/running/driving/ singing/praying…return to a soul position where you are focused upward and not centered on you.

Just some thoughts as I return from a time of soul depletion. Hope it helps.

Get some RICE!

One of the joys of girls ministry is getting to be involved with girls of all ages and stages. And believe me, some weeks, I spend just as much time with girls ministry among the adults as I do among the students. And if I’m being really transparent, I see some of the same issues crop up in my own heart from time to time that look a lot like some of the issues I deal with across the board. Leaders, hear me: We are not inoculated from issues in Girl World just because we’ve graduated from high school. Sin lurks in the corners of your small group plans, your confidential prayer requests, and the secret conversations you have with your leaders in ministry. Gossip is one of the yummiest deceptions running rampant among our girls ministries…even among leaders. In addition, there is a temptation to take on the role of MESSIAH in the lives of the girls God has placed you among. And when you try to be the ME in MESSIAH you create a MESS in the ministry.

So how do we know we’re a gossip girl or have a MESSIAH complex? Today I’ll address the MESSIAH complex and later I’ll address the GOSSIP GIRL symptoms.

Here are symptoms:
1. One of the symptoms of a MESSIAH COMPLEX is a need to be involved in drama.
Have you begun to chase down “drama” among the girls or leaders you serve among just because you want to be involved in the redemption of that story?
A good friend of mine has correctly identified this as a need to be a PERPETUAL TRAGEDY SEEKER.
Do you live off the adrenaline of knowing and being involved with the recent “drama”?

There are people I know that somehow are intricately involved with every single story that comes through my office. And if they aren’t involved, they come to find out how they can be involved. I believe that what once started out with a innate desire to LOVE well, has been twisted to a ME mess. Instead of being concerned about the person or persons who are directly affected by whatever, the MESSIAH COMPLEX person now becomes concerned with consuming all parts of the story and oftentimes at the risk of not loving the individual well.

2. Another symptom of the MESSIAH COMPLEX is an inability to utilize boundaries.
This person oftentimes overcommits in an effort to be ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE.
You are not omnipotent or omnipresent and so you can do this for only so long before you begin to drop the ball, disappoint a lot of people, and do a job half-hearted.

So how do these symptoms cause a MESS in ministry?
Innocent people get hurt when their story gets used a means to satisfy this need in volunteers and leaders.
Competition begins to take root among leaders and volunteers as it becomes a race to get to the center of the drama.
Instead of allowing Christ to be front and central to this story, this MESSIAH complex becomes unknowingly consumed with being the one who tries to redeem the story.

So what do we do about it?
1. Pray. Ask God to search your heart for any of those symptoms above. Without asking God to intervene, we run the risk trying to step in His shoes to take control of situations.

Proverbs 12:2 HCSB A person may think their own ways are right,
but the Lord weighs the heart.

2. Develop a confidential team of friends/mentors that tell you the truth when you ask questions similar to Galatians 1:10. My pastor always says, that the first person we lie to is our self. Make sure you have people in your life that will honestly let you know about these symptoms.

Galatians 1:10 HCSB For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ.

3. Take a period of sabbath from working in the student ministry. Ensure that you are taking short and possibly long periods of time away from the student ministry as allowed. Why? Well, when we step away from the drama, it is a reminder that ministry does not revolve around us. What?! That may come as a shock to some of us…but if you take moments throughout the week, year, and years to say—this is a time I will step away, you will be amazed at how refreshing it is for both you and the ministry. I am thankful that this year is a sabbatical year for me. That means that this year, at some point, I will be able to step away for about 5 weeks to spend time on soul care. I look forward to it, and at the same time I dread having to be away from the buzz of everything. I hate feeling left out. But when I do get away…it is so healthy and it is a reminder that the ministry is not my god. And when I return, I have found that my prayers and heart are focused where they need to be. Now, if you are not allowed the opportunity for that many weeks off, I would encourage you to begin with taking a sabbath day. Turn off your phone. Get away. Delegate. And spend time with your Savior. If you are a volunteer, talk with your girls minister or student staff and see if you can plan in advance for the new year, a time for a period of weeks for you to step away. It takes planning, but it always is a win/win when it is carried out.

I hope this is helpful as you seek to determine if there is any MESSSIAH complex symptoms residing with you.
Let me know if you have questions about this, or if you have noticed additional symptoms or ways to address this in your life and ministry.

I’ve found myself in conversations lately with some people who have found their dreams shatter all around them. They didn’t have the words for what they were experiencing, but they had nothing to grasp onto but God. As an outsider looking in, it was a reminder how so easily we replace God with other gods and make them them our treasures. So today, just as an introspective excercise: What would it look like if you made a treasure map of your heart? Is there anything that has been elevated to the place of God in your heart? Let’s bring our hearts before Him and allow Him to search it before us.

Sticks and stones may break my bones but Your WORDS resurrect me. Ezekiel 37:4-6 #dryboneshearthewordofTheLord

Philippians 4:2-3 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

This morning as I was coming in to get some coffee, I was talking with a woman whose granddaughter was sharing with her that she was enduring some “mean girling” at school. Her story continued about how the granddaughter ended her evening modeling for her family by praying for her frenemies before she went to bed. The Grandmother was elated that she had chosen to take these frenemies to Jesus in prayer despite all she had been through.

As I walked away, I couldn’t help but think of how many times I have talked with girls, and even girls my own age that have endured conflict, mean girling, or frenemy attacks.  Girls of all ages at some point in their lives experience girl specific conflict issues—Even in the church!!! And this is apparently something that went on even during the early church. Philippians 4:2-3 shares this interesting blip of a story that the Girls minister in me gets really frustrated with because I want to know the story. I want to know how the true companion truly entered into this situation and got Euodia and Syntyche to share the mind of Christ.

It got me thinking…as a girls minister, oftentimes I step into that role of true companion. It becomes my role to help two girls (whatever the age) navigate the minefield of a tense situation. Sometimes I am in need of a true companion to help me and another “girl” come to grips with a sticky situation. So wherever you find yourself…either as Euodia/Syntyche or a true companion, here are some guidelines to help bring Christ to the center of the conflict.

1. Prayer. Do no underestimate the power of and the priority of prayer in girl conflict. It’s often times the last thing we may want to do, but venting to God versus venting to the world is the first thing that needs to happen. In these moments my prayers often turn from, “God they are wrong..they hurt me…” to “God I need a heart change. Help me to love them. They are hurting…”

2.Identify the root issue.
Why are you truly in conflict? It generally can be boiled down to some key areas… TERRITORY BATTLES, PERSONALITY CLASH, MISCOMMUNICATION, JEALOUSY, PAINFUL CIRCUMSTANCES/EXPERIENCES THAT GET UNEXPECTEDLY EXPOSED, ETC. Why is this important to identify? Oftentimes, conflict can be diminished or be resolved when we take the “PERSONAL” out of the situation for a moment and see what is really at work in the battle. Satan loves to DISCOURAGE, DIVIDE, DESTROY, DISTRACT, and DECEIVE. I try to run the conflict through these filters to help me determine how Satan may be trying to attack the relationship/situation.

3. Go to the person directly. (As opposed to going to everyone BUT the person.)

In a time where we tend to use texting or even email to handle conflict, it’s so important to go to the person where there is no barrier to prevent communication from happening authentically, honestly, and in real-time. Face to face is the most valuable bandwidth we have as humans. In addition, often digital confrontation only adds layers of miscommunication that can be wiped away when a face-to-face happens.

4.  Proverbs 26:20 Without wood, fire goes out; without a gossip, conflict dies down.

One of the tendencies we have with conflict is to continue to “feed the fire”, whether in our own mind or to a crowd of onlookers. Resist the temptation, even in your own mind, to add wood to the fire of the situation.

5. Bring a “true companion” into the conversation

This True Companion mentioned in Philippians evidently is someone that Paul believes has the ability to bring Christ into the conversation and get these two women on the same page instead of having divided hearts towards each other. Sometimes if you are unable to bring Christ into the center of this thing, you need to bring in someone who can do that with you. So what does it mean to bring Christ into the situation? It’s not a Jesus Juke, or asking someone to Judge you. It’s asking someone whose heart is not being occupied with conflict to pray with the both of you and to help bring some resolution to the conflict.

6. PRAY SOME MORE.

I’m not naive. I know firsthand that conflict can sometimes clear up in a conversation, and other times it may linger for days/months/years. In those situations, continue to bring the person to Christ through prayer. I have seen what happens with a simple prayer like, “God..let Your Kingdom COME, and My Kingdom Go. Let your Will be done, and my will be undone.” The seeds of love begin to take root in unexpected places and the weeds of bitterness, hurt, pain, unfairness shrivel up and die from lack of watering. And sometimes…just sometimes…our Euodia’s or Syntyche’s become the sand paper that we needed in our lives that smooth off our rough edges.