From NYC to the Navy

Perhaps the biggest question I am often asked is “Why did you join the Navy?”  This is a very fair question, especially in light of the fact that since I was 7 years old, I’ve always said that I felt called to be a missionary.  So, how does one go from pursuing a life of overseas mission, to becoming a church planter in NYC, to now occupying the role of a US Navy chaplain?  Well, in all honesty, it’s quite simple.

When I was young, I was heavily involved in my local church, specifically, the Kids Church program.  Three times as week (4, if you include Sunday School), there were age-specific classes designed for kids to learn about their faith, church, and evangelism.  It was great fun even if I didn’t always want to attend or support the lesson (or teacher).  Hanging out with kids my own age, learning at my own level of understanding and seeing my church friends so many times a week was a very good thing.  And, apparently, even if I was only attending because I was either (a) drug to church by my parents or (b) simply there to play with my buddies and screw off, the lessons and message of the church were seeping into my life and understanding.  I know this because my very first year at summer church camp, and without provocation or my parents’ presence, I sought God on my own and experienced His voice and presence in an unprecedented way.  When the preacher asked people to ‘come down and seek God’ that night, I knew what he meant.  I figured out how to pray and when God responded, I knew it was Him.  And what He said to me that night was also in line with what I was being taught and experiencing every week in church.  God was asking me to be a missionary: to go and tell people in other parts of the world about Him, His church, and His return.  I didn’t have to ask anyone to explaining anything to me and simply understood the fulfillment of that call as me going forth and spending my life traveling abroad and telling people about Jesus.  At that point in my life, I understood Missionary = Travel.

In my teenage years, and following a time of adolescent rebellion, I remained active in my local church youth group and began participating in oversea mission trips.  It was great fun, but it was also deeply, deeply satisfying because I was doing for the first-time what I understood God had called me to as a child.  I was traveling abroad and telling people about God’s Truth.  This eventually led me to Bible College, where I continued to travel abroad and learn more about the Bible and ministry.  It was also at college where I was given a unique opportunity to travel for an extended period of time.  Seeking God’s direction for where I was to go, He instead put a people on my heart.  While serving in Israel, God gave me a deep and heavenly love for Jewish people and I knew that my calling as a missionary was more than a call to travel, it was a call to love people.  Therefore, when I left Bible College, I didn’t pursue ministry overseas, I pursued a people wherever they happened to be.  Turns out, lots of them were here in the U.S!  There were thousands of Jewish people on American college campuses, so my wife and I partnered with Chi Alpha as US Missionaries and aided Christian students in understanding and blessing their Jewish friends.  We were fulfilling the call in our understanding: Missionary = Travel, People Group, Evangelism.  But it was also during these years where some deep-seated questions began to arise.  Namely, where does the Church fit into all of this?

Up to this point, I had only understood the Church as the ‘sending’ part of missions.  Missionaries ‘go’ because they are ‘sent’ through prayer and finances from the larger church.  This was all good, but it seemed incomplete in light of the many people we were reaching as missionaries.  Our presence and ministry blessed people, but we were not sufficiently getting them grounded in the work and ministry of faith, God, or a local community.  I started to see myself as a traveling act.  We roll in, draw a crowd, have some great moments, and then roll out hoping it meant something to someone.  It kinda sucked.

It was at this point that God, once again, expanded my understanding of the call to be a missionary.  It was not just about itinerate ministry to a specific people group; it was about doing these things with the aim of establishing an indigenous and lasting community wherever we are sent.  This became especially evident while I studying the great missionary book of Acts.  The apostles didn’t just roll in, bless a community, and then roll out.  They traveled, lingered for years at a time, adopted the local culture and customs and worked extensively to build a unique community of faith.  In the Bible, missionaries were, more often than not, church planters.

So, in 2005, my family and I began the journey to NYC.  We left our home in PA (traveled) to bless the Jews and Gentiles of Queens (specific people group) with the message of God (evangelism) and the single intention of establishing a church (community).  It turned out that the more God honed our calling as missionaries, the more we understood the challenge and blessing of being missionaries.  Raising money and traveling is a little tricky.  Raising money, traveling and learning to love an entirely different group of people is tough.  Raising money, traveling, loving an entirely different people and then serving them with the knowledge and discipline of God while striving to establish these people into a community of God and each other...wow.  It is safe to say that I got my butt kicked in NYC.  Not by NYC itself, but by the incredible challenge that is inherent to church planting.  What we came to realize is that unless the missionary becomes ‘one’ with the people and culture he/she is trying to love and serve, the mission is a bust! Yes, we saw good and lasting ‘fruit’ during the early years of ministry, but, in hindsight, all of these were the results of either us (unintentionally, in most cases) building deep relationship with these individuals or someone else.  The missionaries of Scripture not only went out and established communities of faith, they first sought to identify with the people.  This is hard, and it involves so much more than learning a few Yiddish phrases, rooting for the Yankees, or complaining about the subway system.  Identifying means to bear one another’s burdens as your own, to see and feel the challenges through their eyes, and to see each other as equals, even if you do possess ‘the cure’ of Truth.  The last years of our ministry in NYC were amazing because we were growing closer and closer to both the ones inside the Church and those who were still yet to come in.  I cannot say that I became a NYer, but I certainly do hope that those who we served would say that I was ‘one’ with them (John 17:15-17).

Now, all of this may explain how a boy with dreams of moving to Europe eventually landed him in NYC, but where does the Navy fit in?  Good question.  In addition to teaching us how to be more effective missionaries, NYC also allowed my wife and I the opportunity to discern our core values, interests and burdens.  We like the hard stuff.  We know who we are, who we need each other to be, and that our ministry gifting is found in the deep crisis of life.  We have deep, deep convictions on matters of faith, family, and sacrifice, and the closest parallel to these is found within the military ideals (notice: ideals).  I love my country and am proud to serve in its defense, but that is not the primary reason I am serving (which is good because the law forbids me to pick up a gun, move ammo, or report military activity).  We are serving because I have been divinely burdened to love, identify with, and care for men and servicewomen and their families in their context…under oath.

In conclusion, let me end by saying this…as you can see, this was all a process.  There is no way we could have fulfilled this call, up to this point, in any other way.  It took time, experience, success and failure, deep conversations with God and His people, and lots and lots of humility.  I do not believe that ‘coming to faith’ is a journey, but I do believe that growing in, understanding and experiencing that faith is a life-long pursuit.  We still haven’t figured out the fullness of the calling He placed on me (or my wife) at a very young age.  But, our eyes, ears and hearts are open and being in the Navy is clearly a part of it.  Anchors aweigh…