What if success for your church or ministry was measured by the impact that you were having on the furthest corners of your city? What if instead of impact within your ministry, success was measured by how the world around you had changed?
One of our good friends has been on a roller-coaster journey with Jesus over the last year and her story is a powerful testimony of a vision for impact beyond a building.
Amy Becker leads a student ministry at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and about a year ago she felt God beginning to invite her to have a bigger vision. Jeremiah 29 was a passage that held a lot of guidance for her.
While exiled in Babylon, God invited the people of Israel to build houses, increase in number, and seek the prosperity of the city. That became the basis of their vision:
Build at Drake, increase to other campuses, and prosper the city.
Naturally, Amy decided to start with the first part.
“Let’s build up the ministry we’ve already got, and as that grows we’ll be able to focus on other campuses and being a blessing to our city!”
Naturally, right?
But as Amy and her team called students into investing in their own campus and building up the ministry at Drake there was a problem: nothing happened. In fact, with a specific and intentional focus on growing the ministry at Drake, they actually saw a decline over one semester!
Like a good leader, Amy brought her frustration and confusion to God and he spoke clearly into her situation.
She had a vision of herself shooting an arrow at a target and hitting it right in the bull’s eye. But after a successful shot to the center of the target, God removed the arrow from the bull’s eye and stuck it back in on the furthest ring of the target.
Start With the Fringe…Sex Trafficking
Amy seemed to hear God saying,
“If you want to prosper your city and have a dramatic impact on the world around you, don’t start with the center and hope it goes out from there; start with the fringe! Don’t start by building up your own thing and hoping that it makes an impact on your city. Start by impacting your city!”
How they responded to that invitation was a little crazy. Actually, a lot crazy.
Have you ever said to yourself, “I know, let’s take college students on a sex-traffic treasure hunt.” No. You haven’t. Because no one has ever said that. Except for Amy and her friend Autumn.
Autumn became a Christian as a student at Drake through Amy’s ministry and spent one of her summers in Ethiopia working with former prostitutes who were rebuilding their lives.
When she returned to Des Moines, Autumn’s heart was broken for victims of human trafficking and she began to talk with Amy about what they could do to confront the evil systems that trap women in sex work in their own city of Des Moines.
But they had a roadblock. They had no idea what the sex trafficking system looked like in Des Moines or how to fight it. They knew that it existed because they would see forced prostitution rings busted on the news and they knew that the I-80 and I-35 intersection made Des Moines a center for all kinds of trade, even human sex slaves. They tried to find out more information about it but everywhere they turned doors were closed.
So they decided to just ask God and see if the Holy Spirit would show them where to go, how to pray, and what to do. It was a spiritual treasure hunt led by the Holy Spirit. And instantly, God showed up in power.
They started gathering groups of students on Thursday nights to worship God, sit in his presence, and then listen for words, pictures, or images that God would bring to mind for direction. In their first meeting multiple students had a street name come to mind. Another had the name of a stadium that was located on that street. Another heard the word “Relax” and saw a motel.
Everyone freaked out when they realized that there was a motel called Relax Motel that was located next to the stadium on the particular street that had come to multiple students’ minds. So they drove to Relax Motel and just prayed that God would bring justice to that place, that pimps and johns would be arrested and brought to justice, and that women would be set free.
Within a few weeks, on one of the nights when they were praying, Relax Motel was part of a huge bust in Des Moines and 53 pimps and johns were arrested at that location and 4 other locations in Des Moines!
How do you explain that?!
And what kind of college ministry has college students caring about their city in that way?!
It got crazier. The group felt led by God to pray for a particular strip club in Des Moines and decided to drop off boxes of gifts for the dancers at this strip club and four others in their city. They included Christmas notes of love and affirmation as well as an email address and a link to their website.
A Person of Peace
Within a week Autumn got an email from a dancer at the strip club they had been praying for. She shared how touched she had felt when she received their gift and affirmed that the sex work industry in Des Moines is indeed dark and enslaving. She went on to tell Autumn that they would never be able to really confront that world without someone on the inside to help them. She asked if she could be a part of their ministry and help fight sex trafficking in Des Moines!
God provided a person of peace from within one of the strip clubs they had been praying for!
Back to Amy’s vision of the arrow at the fringe of the target… Does it get any more fringe than underground sex trafficking rings and strippers who are longing for a different life?
As Amy and her team have focused their attention on being a blessing to the furthest fringe of their city they have seen God take the ministry on campus deeper. Students are learning to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit. Their hearts are being broken by the things that break God’s heart. And they are forming a community that is all about the transformation of their city!
How do you measure impact in your church/ministry?
Who is on the fringe in your city?
What’s keeping you from seeking transformation among those people?
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Wow. That is amazing. I think sometimes we think too small. We are too sheltered, too conventional, to even consider something like this. But Wow, God can do amazing things. You’ve really given me something to think about.
Thanks for the comment, Tim! I agree that we often think way too small and way too conventionally. These students are even beginning to apply this sort of Holy Spirit dependent faith to other areas of their lives. A group of pharmacy students from Drake have started praying like this and asking God to show them where he wants to use them during their rotations! How different would our lives be if we expected God to lead us and to show up in every area of our lives?
Love the testimony! We will repeat it to see this happen again and again activating people everywhere to partner with God and do the impossible. God wants our cities to prosper and we are the vehicle to bring that positive change! Thank you. Andy (idreamculture.com)