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Friendship at the Margins, Discovering Mutuality in Service and Submission
by Christopher L. Heuertz and Christine D. Pohl, published by InterVarsity Press, 2010.
If you like books about revolutions on the Christian front, Friendship at the Margins, Discovering Mutuality in Service and Submission is a journey to consider, a quiet revolution in the meaning of mission. This pair of authors has real-life, down and dirty experience in the world’s poorest places. Christopher Heuertz is International Director of Word Made Flesh®. Christine Pohl, Professor of Social
Ethics at Asbury Theological Seminary, has worked with homeless shelters and refugee programs. Together, they tell a story that goes against the status quo, yet makes complete sense.
Instead of treating the mission field as a business model, they treat it as life. Instead of “missionaries” and “missioned-to,” they live and work in the mission field. This isn’t their job. It’s their home. They become friends with the poorest and most downtrodden people in the world.
Yet, they resist using friendship as a tool. What they found might be surprising, and it’s also inspiring to everyday friendships.
The premise is that messages, even about Christ, mean the most coming from friends. A ministry that runs in, blurts out a message, then quickly runs out carries the risk of being hollow and ineffective. But friendships are anything but that simple. They are layered and complex, as full of pain as joy, as full of talking as listening. The authors openly tell us about the hurts in the mission field, about the
complexities of dealing with both war victims and young soldiers, about friends who suddenly leave without saying good-bye. They touch on difficult subjects, like the incredibly destructive sex trade, yet do it without being overly dramatic.
Something clicked when I read Friendship at the Margins. A belief shared outside of a relationship sends the message that there’s something in it for us. Have you ever had someone, out of the blue, shout a message about Jesus at you? I once had a young man yell at me from down the sidewalk, “You don’t need that! All you need is Jesus, right here in your heart! Get him in your heart before it’s too late!”
I blinked. I pulled my chin back. What was he talking about? I was just waiting for a friend. More, he had no way of knowing how much I prayed, what I believed, what my particular troubles were. As it turned out, I soon realized I was standing in front of a witchcraft shop. Not shopping, just standing, but the thought occurred to me that it wasn’t his place to judge and scold me, regardless of where I was standing. If I wasn’t a Christian, I’m unsure he would have moved me terribly. In fact, it left me wanting to defend myself, which puts up a wall against anything he was saying.
More, it made a lingering impression, because it was so out of context and accusatory. I couldn’t help but wonder why he felt compelled to yell something like that at a perfect stranger. I wanted to believe he had the best intentions, yet could only wonder, “What’s in it for him?”
A message friend-to-friend, even out of the blue, says we care about the friend. A message from a stranger loses that impact. More, as Heuertz and Pohl tell us, it can be as odd and meaningless as randomly walking up to people on the street and telling them what you had for breakfast.
But friendships carry risks, and that’s where Friendship at the Margins soars beyond its target audience of people in the mission field. We all have friendships, associates or co-workers. Friendship at the Margins is a book about being friends even when the people are complicated. It’s about letting people touch you, and you touching others, without having an ulterior motive. It’s about respecting people for who they are, where they are, and allowing that they might —or might not— give you the same respect. Friendships at the Margins is about real friendships. It’s about being friends instead of doing a job. It’s about the layers of hurt and laughter that make friendships complicated, and ultimately, it’s about the
mutual respect and learning that come out of true friendships.
We’ve already recommended this book to friends. We thank Heuertz and Pohl for writing it.
