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Humility's Question

How an unlikely word of encouragement necessitated a new motivation for ministry.
Brenda Salter McNeil | Outcomes, Feb/Mar 2008

Of all the organizational marketing lines bombarding us today, I can't ignore the allusion to our 170,000 servicemen and women found in the powerful promise of the United Service Organizations: "Until everyone comes home."

I could use the USO's tagline to embody my passion and totality for racial and ethnic reconciliation. Not until every racial divide in our nation and world is healed by demonstrating God's redeeming love will I be at peace. That's my pledge both as a follower of Jesus and as the leader of a ministry that's committed to inspiring, informing, and igniting individuals, churches, and organizations to grow a movement for racial and ethnic justice.

What does this look like and how do we get there?

Our ministry organization is anchored by five values—collaboration, excellence, spiritual sensitivity, teamwork, and authenticity. Like five points of a star, each is essential. If I single out excellence, I admit that I can be seduced by the temptation of wanting our work to be bigger and better. And these are merely temporal expressions. True excellence, I've come to learn, is not about how you look; it's realizing the good that comes about because God is at work inside you.

I was preaching at a conference and felt very good about what I had done. I checked off all the boxes: soundness of Scripture, delivery, and exegesis of the Word. The audience feedback was good. There was energy in the crowd when I left the pulpit.

Later, at a fellowship gathering, a missionary couple on furlough approached me. The wife had tears in her eyes. She looked me right in the eyes and commended me for my presentation. Interestingly, she didn't mention any of the things I had talked about. Instead she said, "The standard by which we determine if something is good is if Jesus came. Tonight he came."

Immediately, I felt deeply, deeply humbled. I had been corrected in the most caring, loving way. Delivering a message worthy of praise, even seeking to do it well, wasn't ultimately about me. From that moment on, I had a new spiritual benchmark for excellence: Was Jesus present? And it's not just wondering, Did he show up?, but was he present in my thoughts and words and motivations, in everything I'm about?

Humility is at the root of excellence. As a leader, I don't like the feeling of being out of control. As a leader I'm supposed to know the answers. Humanly speaking, if I'm not stellar, then I risk the potential for embarrassment.

Embarrassment, humility, and loss of control ignited my own journey toward racial reconciliation (see "The Day My Reconciliation Journey Began").