The Irony and Imperative of Cleaning the Cleaner
I’m not big on household chores, but at the top of my “hate to do” list is cleaning my instruments of cleaning. For example, we have an iRobot Roomba vacuum we call Rosie (after the Jetson’s robot maid, of course). Rosie is getting old now and acts like a drunk. There is no telling where we will find her passed out with a job left unfinished. Nevertheless, she has served us well for years. But she has not made all cleaning go away. We now must clean Rosie. She picks up all kinds of hair, string, and detritus that get wound around her rollers, brushes, and wheels. It’s not enough to empty her waste bin. Periodically I must take Rosie apart and clean our cleaning device. It’s a nasty job and yields what looks like a pile of rodent carcasses.
This shouldn’t have been news to me. I’ve had to clean the manual vacuums we have owned since we set up our home in ‘87. We must also clean all our other cleaning devices, starting with the toilet and ending with the clothes dryer exhaust tube. Is there anything nastier than cleaning a device designed to clean other things? The accumulation of encrusted debris is most unsightly and seems downright toxic.
Now, why would I mention this on a blog dealing with global ministry? Because spiritual leaders are instruments of sanctification used by God to bring purification and restoration to lives, families, communities, and worlds. You can’t do this work without getting into the ugliest aspects of people’s lives. Ministers in every culture deal with pain, trauma, brokenness, and evil, from the secret sins of individuals to the massive multinational structural evils that crush people en masse. People who work in this arena need help to clean all this mess out of their hearts and minds.
You can’t help people who have been traumatized without being partially traumatized yourself. Secondary trauma that builds up over time is heavy and can crush those who carry it. Sin damages all who encounter it, even secondarily. Evil tears at the soul of people directly and indirectly. People called to be agents of healing get exposed to many diseases, and they need periodic rest, medication, and therapy themselves.
This is clearly visible in the Old Testament, where priests had to go through purification processes before serving in the Temple as agents of the people’s sanctification. The cleaning tool needs to be cleansed before and after doing its job.
What does this mean in practice? It means that every minister needs a minister. Every spiritual director needs a spiritual director. Every counselor needs a counselor. Every caregiver needs a caregiver. No matter how strong they are, they can’t do their job alone forever.
Do your ministers at your church have the help they need to stay healthy so they can keep serving you well? Do your global kingdom workers have the help and support they need to keep facing what they see and maintain their health and sanity? If not, why not?
If your global workers need someone to talk to and you don’t know where to start, reach out to us at MRN. That’s why we have a care department and people with special training and experience to serve them well. This is not an optional matter. It is literally a matter of spiritual life and death and, in some cases, a matter of physical life and death.