Cultivating an "Even If" Faith: An Interview with Mitchel Lee
By Joshua Huver
W
hen everything in life seems to go wrong – plans change, relationships end, or jobs are lost – how can we worship and trust in the goodness of God? In his debut book, Even If: Trusting God When Life Disappoints, Overwhelms, or Just Doesn’t Make Sense, Mitchel Lee draws on the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as well as his own experiences in order to offer a model of faith that can flourish even in the most difficult seasons of life.
Mitchel Lee is the senior pastor of Grace Community Church, a thriving multiethnic church in Maryland. He holds a bachelors degree in linguistics from the University of Maryland and is a graduate of Wheaton College Graduate School (M.A.) and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div.).
In a recent interview, Lee shares insights from his new book, stories of his experience as an Asian American writer and pastor, and encouragements for readers.
Can you share what Even If is about and what prompted you to write this book?
The Even If message flows out of Daniel 3. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are standing before the king, Nebuchadnezzar. His advisors call Nebuchadnezzar to make a statue of himself. And these three young men, who are basically told to bow or burn, their response is: “We don't even need to really respond to you in this.” How bold to say that to the most powerful man on the planet. And they say: “Our God can save us, but even if he doesn't, we're not worshiping any other god.”
I came upon that passage in a very dark part of my life, right after I graduated seminary. I'd been fired from my first church, my home church of twenty plus years. I was managing my mom's deli and I thought I was done with ministry. And it wasn't because of any moral failure or because of any scandalous reason; I thought my pride had disqualified me from ministry. Growing up in the church, I always been told that I had such great potential, “God is going to use you.” I graduated from seminary, and here I was thinking, “My classmates were all being sent off to different unreached people groups, taking pastoral positions . . . and I manage my mom's deli.” Life did not go the way I expected it to go and that's when I stumbled upon that message. Do I trust God in his goodness and will I worship him even if it doesn't go to the way I want? Even if God's goodness to me didn't look the way that I thought it should, I'm going to worship him because he's worthy of worship. That was more than 15 years ago and that message has been percolating in my heart.
In the beginning of the book, you tell the story of having been let go from two churches. After such devastating experiences, what fears did you have re-entering the pastorate and how did your even if faith guide you in that time?
A lot of it was the "what ifs": “What if this doesn't work out? What if I'm not ready? What if I'd been really disqualified?” I wasn't actively looking to get back into a ministry. I thought I was done. It was a mentor of mine in an internship at a previous church years ago who said, “Hey, we go to this church and we think you'd be great for it here.” It was a completely white church and all my experiences were in the Korean church. Suddenly, I had this minority complex, like a minor league pitcher being called up to the major leagues even though the churches that I had served at were larger than the church that I was being called up into.
I started asking "what if" questions. “What if my gifts aren't enough? What if I've been out of it too long?” All of these sorts of "counter ifs" were coming up again. I had to wrestle through the even if declaration again. This is how you make the even if declaration: You go back to who is God. Not just in general, vague generalities, but in the specifics of how you know him to be and also the specifics of the scriptures. Who is God? Has he called me? Yes, I believe that he called me. I remembered back to my ordination. There was a congregation that God had called me. And if God had called me, what did he call me to? What were the basics and the non-negotiables of pastoral ministry? And should those transfer? Absolutely, doesn't matter what culture, right?
Ministry of word, prayer, sacrament, whatever it might be. It was in the midst of that wrestling with who is God that I recognized, “Okay, God, I'm going to go for it. Even if my background or my gifts don't match the church context that I'm going into, I'm going to worship you. I'm going to love these people the way that you call me to.” That was a huge even if going back into pastoral ministry. I felt like a different man. They say never trust a leader without a limp. I had received my whipping in the wilderness of those two years out of seminary and then found myself going back.
From your parents to your barber, throughout the book you mention the immigrant experience. Even your book is dedicated to a “generation of immigrants whose even if faith made mine possible.” How has your Korean American background influenced your thinking on even if faith?
As I think about every twist and turn of faith in my life and in my family's life, there was this resolve that was under it. To quote Lin Manuel Miranda, “immigrants get the job done,” right? There's this resolve, but we don't really talk about it in the realm of faith. In fact, if we're talking about it as Asian Americans, sometimes we give the immigrant church kind of a bad rap. We have our scars. We have our wounds, under belly of the drama, the politics, and the self-serving things. But there's also this really beautiful strand, beautiful current in the immigrant church of resolving, trusting God. Even the fact that my parents immigrated here because they thought there would be a better life. They do that; my dad comes to faith; and then there's this deep trusting of God with every step. If I thought about trying to start my own business, not knowing the language or their culture and not even being wanted here, what kind of faith does that require?
Like all of these sorts of moves, risks, and steps of faith, at the end of the day, I think in the expression that's what an even if faith looks like. Even if faith isn't just, “I'm going to just trust God and not do anything.” But there's always this risk that's involved, and that's whether you have a high-risk tolerance or low-risk tolerance. Even if faith says, “I'm going to attempt to do this because my worshipping God actually isn't dependent upon the results. It's not dependent upon what happens out of it. I'm going to worship God, and I'm going to take the step of obedience or trust or following because he's worthy of it.” So that's where the immigrant journey really became a thread through the book.
The second half of your book is dedicated to the topic of “counter ifs”: only if, if only, and what if. What is an example of a “counter if” you faced in the past year, and how did you overcome it?
There were two big “counter ifs” that we had. When the church shut down, it was: “What if we never reopen? What if people don't come back?” At the time we were doing some very important work, trying to establish an ethos of multiethnicity in our church to actually nourish the multiethnic attendance. We are a very multiethnic church in terms of attendance, and I thought, “Okay, it's not a big step to get to the ethos of it.” And boy, when we started talking about race, I mean, it was just a common experience with most multiethnic churches in this past year and a half – just brutal.
And you're dealing with the question of: “What if I destroy this whole thing? What if I take this church that my predecessor had faithfully cultivated and I destroy it? Oh, man, do I need an exit plan? Do I need . . .?” And then, “What if this changes the way church operates forever? Now we're not going to be able to gather again.” We had definitely some missteps, even as we dealt with race – we went too fast, too soon. I thought people were further along. And you get these regrets: “If only we had done this different or that different.” I still think I'm carrying some scars from it, but this is usually how the even if declaration is formed – it's formed in the crucible of suffering in that valley life. I had to wrestle with God and get really clear on my convictions, and there's a freedom in it. There's a freedom in living an even if life.
Do you have any final thoughts or reflections on how this work will uniquely impact Asian American Christians?
Let me come at it from two angles. The first is as an Asian American author with WaterBrook & Multnomah, who's writing not a book about race. Which, by the way, I never thought I'd write a book in the general Christian life category, but here I am. I'm hoping it encourages or gets a sense that Asian American Christians have more to say in general Christian life than just race, diversity, and ethnicity. I'm reminded of a friend of mine, Soong-Chan Rah, who's in the multiethnic race world. I remember I was talking to him about the potential of coming to speak, and he just said it in passing, “You know, I can speak on more than race. I can talk about marriage too, you know.” And that’s so true.
But look at the hunger for voices of people of color. Look at the arenas where most of them are being asked to speak about the Asian American perspective. They're asking, “Talk about the Asian American perspective on the Christian life. How do you live in life?” I hope that there's a sense of encouragement that we have something to say in the Christian life arena, not just the race arena. That's from the book side it. On the life side of it, I'm hoping that Asian American congregations would be encouraged and challenged to live out this authentic Christian faith in the tension of God's goodness and him not doing what you want.
An excerpt of Even If is available here.
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