Oh my gosh. I read all of those books. This was like a trip back in time. You were not alone in your hyped ideas of what your life was supposed to look like. Thank you for sharing your work with us!
I’m not surprised to know we have a similar “before”. Thank you for being such an encouraging example of the “after”, the ordinary faithfulness I’ll be writing about later in this book.
Okay, I was sweating under the big top with you girl! And never made it over the “slough” on the rope. So I was especially stinky. Lol! And I also signed a pledge card that never quite worked out the way I thought it would—thank goodness! Also learned along the way that life—the nursing and toddler wrangling, and showing up to work, and having the neighbor kid over for dinner—is all ministry of the highest order. Can’t wait to keep reading your work!
We need a Boot Camp Survivor support group, Katie! 🤪 I’m so glad you’re here and so thankful that ordinary faithfulness found you right where you’re supposed to be.
Thank you for writing this, Tabitha. I read many of these books as a child and young person and, like you, was always left feeling inadequate. Returning to them as an adult, I’ve dug deeper and learned about the warts and foibles of our Christian heroes and it has put such a distaste in my mouth, because it’s hard to accept imperfection when originally presented with false perfection. Jim and Elisabeth Elliot are foremost in my mind - I just gave away most of the books I had by or about them yesterday. It’s hard for me to navigate the dissonance between the truth and the fiction and I wish I had learned their true stories the first time around. It’s good to see how God can use real people, not create fictions about how he uses perfect ones. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you for reading, Rebekah. I do wonder if we would be able to accept the complexity more easily if we had been presented with it to begin with. Like you say, it’s hard to reconcile when it comes as a let down from something much shiner we were led to believe was true.
This is so good. I think I read "These Are My People" about 4 times. I never actually went on a mission trip, but I certainly took in the high calling, doing more, being better...hero story to live up to.
I'm loving this. As Catholics we have our literal, canonized saints, and we tell so many of their stories poorly -- especially women saints. We tend to place them on a pedestal for the wrong reason (we have a lot in the "saints who stayed in abusive marriages" or "saints who would rather die than be sexually abused" category) and then what is the lesson being imparted? I think it cheats both us and them.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, Elizabeth. I have found it odd how we Protestants, who oppose formally conferring sainthood, so clearly do it in our own ways.
40+year youth pastor veteran here. These books you read are absent from the reading list today's teens are reading. And I have forgotten to recommend. So I'm creating a list from this list--and from suggestions from others here--to create a book list and library. This doesn't answer your question because today's teens haven't had the opportunity to be shaped like you were.
Not reading at all, other than assigned reading from school and that is short-circuited with AI/Google tricks. Of course, there are always some teen readers who are voracious. And honestly, you can see from my viewpoint the parents who read to their children when they were younger and those who didn't.
I read The Hiding Place - what I liked is that it covered her being lonely and that she needed God's help to forgive. I think she learned from her sister's perspective (like the story about the fleas).
I think more recently Elizabeth Elliot has been evaluated in a way to mention some of her flaws.
Yes, the recent biographies of Elisabeth Elliot are much more thorough. And the Hiding Place is an incredible book. It’s the force of the entire genre together that becomes unbalanced and presents a vision of superhero Christianity. But when taken by itself, the real beauty of the Ten Boom’s story is how ordinary their faithfulness was in extraordinary circumstances.
This was a valuable read. As a returned missionary who has been shaped in positive ways by these books, some parts of what you said rang true for me, while other parts didn’t. But I’m very interested in your perspective and look forward to the next chapter.
I just finished reading Godric by Frederick Buechner. I think you would greatly enjoy it. It’s a historical fiction all about this exact topic. (And superbly written.)
Thank you for reading so generously. I wonder if my impressionable age at the time of most of my readings played a role in what I took away. Godric has been on my list for a while. I might have to move it closer to the top!
As a graduate of Wheaton College, the canonization of Jim and Elizabeth Eliot never sat right with me. Are there things to admire about their stories? Absolutely. Are there things that should not be imitated or glorified? 100%. I'm also the product of short term mission trips in both high school and college and I would not be who I am today without those trips. But I struggle with the question of whether those trips helped me more or the people I was there to "serve." I wouldn't dare to say I have it all figured out, but I am definitely asking different questions than I did 20 years ago, and I think that's a good thing.
Really enjoying reading along as you ask questions, too!
I’m so glad you experienced that spirit of asking questions, since I certainly don’t have it all figured out either! I will be writing more in later chapters of the book about the role of the church in “changing the world”. It seems to be something really missing from a lot of these missionary stories. They seem a lot more like rugged American individualism than the embodied community of Acts.
Yes, the books written for children especially oversimplified things. I think we need to give kids more credit for being able to understand complexity.
As a missionary myself, I have been shaped by such narratives. But I have learned that what got me here can’t keep me here and that the way forward is quiet faithfulness in our local ministry. I never wish to be on a pedestal, and I grieve the way we are often perceived. God is the hero of every story and anything done in our fieldwork is all by his hand. I am thinking through how I can widen my children’s view of God’s work in the world without elevating missionaries to hero status.
Thank you for reading from your vantage point as someone who did go to the field. I’ll write in later chapters about some of my Bible college friends who are missionaries. It’s been my honor to support them through finances and prayer for nearly a decade, and their biggest testimony to me has been their quiet faithfulness.
Oh my gosh. I read all of those books. This was like a trip back in time. You were not alone in your hyped ideas of what your life was supposed to look like. Thank you for sharing your work with us!
I’m not surprised to know we have a similar “before”. Thank you for being such an encouraging example of the “after”, the ordinary faithfulness I’ll be writing about later in this book.
Yup. That’s me. Real life and lots of years more or less sorted me out.
I’m really hoping we can shorten the process for those coming behind us.
😮💨💯The lionizing and mythologizing of Christian heroes was so formative. The protestant church indeed has a whole collection of saints.
Hagiography at its finest.
Okay, I was sweating under the big top with you girl! And never made it over the “slough” on the rope. So I was especially stinky. Lol! And I also signed a pledge card that never quite worked out the way I thought it would—thank goodness! Also learned along the way that life—the nursing and toddler wrangling, and showing up to work, and having the neighbor kid over for dinner—is all ministry of the highest order. Can’t wait to keep reading your work!
We need a Boot Camp Survivor support group, Katie! 🤪 I’m so glad you’re here and so thankful that ordinary faithfulness found you right where you’re supposed to be.
Boy did this hit me where I really live most of the time!!
Thank you for writing this, Tabitha. I read many of these books as a child and young person and, like you, was always left feeling inadequate. Returning to them as an adult, I’ve dug deeper and learned about the warts and foibles of our Christian heroes and it has put such a distaste in my mouth, because it’s hard to accept imperfection when originally presented with false perfection. Jim and Elisabeth Elliot are foremost in my mind - I just gave away most of the books I had by or about them yesterday. It’s hard for me to navigate the dissonance between the truth and the fiction and I wish I had learned their true stories the first time around. It’s good to see how God can use real people, not create fictions about how he uses perfect ones. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you for reading, Rebekah. I do wonder if we would be able to accept the complexity more easily if we had been presented with it to begin with. Like you say, it’s hard to reconcile when it comes as a let down from something much shiner we were led to believe was true.
This is so good. I think I read "These Are My People" about 4 times. I never actually went on a mission trip, but I certainly took in the high calling, doing more, being better...hero story to live up to.
That’s such a good point. This thinking permeated so thoroughly, that even youth who didn’t directly experience it understood the flavor of things.
I'm loving this. As Catholics we have our literal, canonized saints, and we tell so many of their stories poorly -- especially women saints. We tend to place them on a pedestal for the wrong reason (we have a lot in the "saints who stayed in abusive marriages" or "saints who would rather die than be sexually abused" category) and then what is the lesson being imparted? I think it cheats both us and them.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, Elizabeth. I have found it odd how we Protestants, who oppose formally conferring sainthood, so clearly do it in our own ways.
I loved reading this. Can’t wait to read subsequent chapters also!
Thank you, Ruth.
40+year youth pastor veteran here. These books you read are absent from the reading list today's teens are reading. And I have forgotten to recommend. So I'm creating a list from this list--and from suggestions from others here--to create a book list and library. This doesn't answer your question because today's teens haven't had the opportunity to be shaped like you were.
I’m curious what they are reading. Or if they are reading much at all. I imagine social media is having a much more formative influence than books.
Not reading at all, other than assigned reading from school and that is short-circuited with AI/Google tricks. Of course, there are always some teen readers who are voracious. And honestly, you can see from my viewpoint the parents who read to their children when they were younger and those who didn't.
All of this! Thank you, Tabitha!
I read The Hiding Place - what I liked is that it covered her being lonely and that she needed God's help to forgive. I think she learned from her sister's perspective (like the story about the fleas).
I think more recently Elizabeth Elliot has been evaluated in a way to mention some of her flaws.
Yes, the recent biographies of Elisabeth Elliot are much more thorough. And the Hiding Place is an incredible book. It’s the force of the entire genre together that becomes unbalanced and presents a vision of superhero Christianity. But when taken by itself, the real beauty of the Ten Boom’s story is how ordinary their faithfulness was in extraordinary circumstances.
This was a valuable read. As a returned missionary who has been shaped in positive ways by these books, some parts of what you said rang true for me, while other parts didn’t. But I’m very interested in your perspective and look forward to the next chapter.
I just finished reading Godric by Frederick Buechner. I think you would greatly enjoy it. It’s a historical fiction all about this exact topic. (And superbly written.)
Thank you for reading so generously. I wonder if my impressionable age at the time of most of my readings played a role in what I took away. Godric has been on my list for a while. I might have to move it closer to the top!
As a graduate of Wheaton College, the canonization of Jim and Elizabeth Eliot never sat right with me. Are there things to admire about their stories? Absolutely. Are there things that should not be imitated or glorified? 100%. I'm also the product of short term mission trips in both high school and college and I would not be who I am today without those trips. But I struggle with the question of whether those trips helped me more or the people I was there to "serve." I wouldn't dare to say I have it all figured out, but I am definitely asking different questions than I did 20 years ago, and I think that's a good thing.
Really enjoying reading along as you ask questions, too!
I’m so glad you experienced that spirit of asking questions, since I certainly don’t have it all figured out either! I will be writing more in later chapters of the book about the role of the church in “changing the world”. It seems to be something really missing from a lot of these missionary stories. They seem a lot more like rugged American individualism than the embodied community of Acts.
John and Betty Stam, and Mildred Cable with Francesca and Eva French who worked in China.
Exactly the same feelings as you have mentioned!
The three women in China were more balanced - but that was because they were written for adults.
Yes, the books written for children especially oversimplified things. I think we need to give kids more credit for being able to understand complexity.
As a missionary myself, I have been shaped by such narratives. But I have learned that what got me here can’t keep me here and that the way forward is quiet faithfulness in our local ministry. I never wish to be on a pedestal, and I grieve the way we are often perceived. God is the hero of every story and anything done in our fieldwork is all by his hand. I am thinking through how I can widen my children’s view of God’s work in the world without elevating missionaries to hero status.
Thank you for reading from your vantage point as someone who did go to the field. I’ll write in later chapters about some of my Bible college friends who are missionaries. It’s been my honor to support them through finances and prayer for nearly a decade, and their biggest testimony to me has been their quiet faithfulness.