Pastors' Wives Visit a Strip Club

The Wired Word for the Week of May 22, 2016

This week a blog entry entitled "I Went to a Strip Club," by Anna McCarthy, a youth minister, wife and mother of four, caught our attention. In it, McCarthy describes an evening when she accompanied four pastors' wives to a lounge to deliver meals and gift baskets to the performers backstage, a practice they hoped to continue on a monthly basis.

McCarthy was struck by how "normal" the women were, showing the visitors pictures of their children, speaking about how hard it was to get their figures back after giving birth. She was forced to question her preconceived notions that "no good comes from places like that. ... That 'those people' were heathens and doing all kinds of sinful, shameful things."

Not that strip clubs are a place of virtue. But McCarthy began to see the women as complex individuals with stories, rather than as two-dimensional stereotypes. She also recognized that she herself might well have ended up in that profession, had circumstances been different. She was humbled and brought to tears of repentance when she realized how judgmental she had been about women in that profession before she met them.

One of the dancers told McCarthy's friend they were glad for their visits, because other churches send them hate mail all the time. That's one reason it has taken time for the strippers to begin to trust the church women enough to share honest prayer needs with them.

McCarthy related that another team of Christians who have a similar ministry began a Bible study in a strip club just for the dancers, but there was a problem: "The women they were ministering to needed to be led by a man -- not because these women were incapable, but because of the damaged, skewed image they had of men. They needed to see a man who was safe -- they needed a man who knew Jesus." So a gentle male pastor joined the team. It took months before the dancers felt they could trust him, but many of the women found healing, liberation and restoration through the example and leadership of the visiting women and pastor.

McCarthy acknowledges that not everyone is called to street ministry or strip clubs. For some believers who struggle with sexual temptation, involvement in such an endeavor could place them at great risk. For other believers, ministry to people in situations like this may take different forms, such as a CPA offering to do taxes at a discount for people who work at a local strip club. In the process of providing a service that the strippers need, an accountant befriends them in order to build a relationship with them and share the gospel.

Stephanie Henry, author of If Only I Could Sleep: A Survivor's Memoir, responded to McCarthy's blog: "I am an ex-dancer myself and I can relate …the brokenness, hopelessness, the judging eye of the church ... These women are people too and most of them that end up in that lifestyle are not doing it because they are sleazy, sex-bound addicts. Most strippers that I have ever known are single moms looking to make ends meet and provide for their children. Sadly many of them do develop an addiction to drugs or alcohol, primarily just so that they can 'function' on their jobs. We as women of the body of Christ must step up and show them the same love that Jesus has for them."

More on this story can be found at these links:

I Went to a Strip Club. Just a Jesus FollowerTony Campolo -- Party with Prostitutes. Andy Gill on YouTube (video, 7:31)
Embracing the Gray: ... Whatever Became of Agnes? Mark A. HollingsworthLosing Our Religion. Zac Gandara (podcast)

The Big Questions

1. When is the last time you felt God calling you to a ministry that felt uncomfortable to you? How did you respond?

2. Are there times when one should decline to participate in a particular ministry? What concerns might keep a person from participating? How might one determine if one's concerns are legitimate, or simply excuses for disobeying Jesus' command to serve?

3. Why do you participate in the specific ministries you do? What motivates you to be involved?

4. How far should we go in ministry for Jesus? What does that look like in your own context?

5. What would you do if you really believed that Jesus is a friend of all kinds of sinners? How can you become a friend to sinners too?

Confronting the News With Scripture and HopeHere are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Joshua 6:24-25They burned down the city, and everything in it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD. But Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, Joshua spared. Her family has lived in Israel ever since. For she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. (For context, read 6:17, 22-25; see also 2:8-14.)

As the Israelites prepared to do battle against Jericho, one person and her family were designated for protection: Rahab the prostitute, because she had helped the Israelite spies. She is mentioned in Hebrews 11:31 as a woman of faith worthy of honor and in James 2:25 as a person whose deeds matched her faith. Some Bible scholars believe the Rahab listed as one of Jesus' ancestors in Matthew 1:5 is this woman, although in that passage the label "prostitute" is absent.

Ordinarily, we might expect that Rahab's profession as a woman of the street would have disqualified her from membership in the family of faith, let alone as an ancestor of the Messiah himself, but that is not the case. She threw her lot in with the people of God, and was richly rewarded for that act of courage.

Questions: Who would you be most surprised to see in heaven? Why would the presence of that person or those persons surprise you? Do you think anyone might be surprised to see you there? On what do you base your confidence in your eternal salvation?

John 1:46Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." (For context, read 1:43-46.)

At the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, as he began to gather disciples, Philip told his friend Nathanael about Jesus. When Nathanael heard where Jesus came from, he was not impressed. Apparently, Nazareth had an unsavory reputation that tainted all who hailed from there. It's no coincidence that Tertullus, an attorney, described the followers of Jesus as "Nazarenes" in the context of bringing charges against Paul, whom he called "a pestilent fellow, an agitator ... who even tried to profane the temple" (Acts 24:5-6).

Zac Gandara spent 20 years as a parish pastor and then shifted his focus in ministry to the larger community. He and his wife now concentrate on building relationships with today's "Nazarenes," society's castoffs in the streets and taverns of Seattle, Washington.

"My worldview was stifled, not by my faith in Christ, but by the dogma and business model of the American institutional church," Gandara says. "I have ... begun to see Christ at work everywhere. My hope with this life choice was that I might bring Christ to the lives of others. What I have realized is that they have often brought Christ to me."

Author Tony Campolo wrote, "If we can just get Jesus out of the institution and into the real world situations, if we can just get rid of the trappings, it comes alive for all of us. That's what Jesus did in his day. ... He takes all of that stuff out of the religious institution and puts it on the street where people live."

Questions: What groups might be considered the equivalent of "Nazarenes" today? Where is "Nazareth" in your region or community? What "trappings" might be hindering you and your church from experiencing the living Christ on the street where people live? Where have you seen Christ at work in places that you didn't expect to see him? When have people brought Christ to you when you thought you were bringing Christ to them?

John 4:27-29, 39Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, "What do you want?" or, "Why are you speaking with her?" Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" ... Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I have ever done."(For context, read 4:5-42.)

A Samaritan woman came to draw water from Jacob's well in the heat of the day, which suggests that she may not have felt comfortable or welcome in the presence of other women from the community. She may well have caused pain to some of them, since she had had five husbands and was on her sixth partner, to whom she was not married.

Indications are that she was something of a social pariah, yet Jesus does not refuse to speak with her. John writes that it was this woman's testimony that prepared the way for his message when he entered the city. In some ways, she became a forerunner of the Messiah, a kind of "John the Baptist," with a powerful testimony in spite of (or because of) her checkered past.

Questions: Have you ever felt disqualified to serve God because of some past failure? How does the way Jesus treated this woman encourage you? What was the focus of the woman's testimony to the people?

Luke 7:39Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, "If this man [Jesus] were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him -- that she is a sinner." (For context, read 7:31-50.)
Luke 15:1-2Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." (For context, read 15:1-32.)

In both these passages, Jesus answers the criticism that he associates with the wrong kind of people: tax collectors and sinners.

In Luke 7, Simon the Pharisee invites Jesus to dinner at his house, where a woman, apparently uninvited and identified as "a sinner," came with an alabaster jar of ointment to anoint Jesus' feet. Her audacious demeanor (letting her hair down in public, washing Jesus' feet with her copious tears and drying them with her hair) was offensive to Simon, who apparently believed that "birds of a feather flock together." If Jesus allowed a sinner such as this brazen woman to touch him, he must be a sinner too, and not a prophet at all. Jesus tells him a parable meant to illustrate that Simon was also a sinner in need of forgiveness, just as much as the woman was.

Pat Taylor, a nurse who worked in an ob-gyn clinic in an inner-city hospital, commented on McCarthy's blog: "We Christians so need to remember that our heavenly Father loved us while we were still sinners, and he loves the women working in a strip club or on the streets, too. They are precious in His eyes."

In Luke 15, Jesus tells the parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son, embracing the criticism of the scribes and the Pharisees as a badge of honor! It is as if he is saying, "You are right! I do welcome sinners and eat with them. I am a friend of tax collectors and sinners. If I were not, none of you would have any hope of salvation."

Questions: Have you ever been criticized for associating with "the wrong people"? How did you react? Have you ever been criticized for being one of "the wrong people"? How did that affect you? If the criticism came from Christians, did it change how you felt about the church or about God? If so, in what way?
When do you suppose we are most grateful for the friendship of Jesus? How did Jesus demonstrate his friendship toward "tax collectors and sinners" in practical ways? How can believers emulate Jesus' example today?

Acts 10:34-35, 45Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. ... The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles ... (For context, read 10:1-47.)

This chapter records Peter's discovery that God has opened the door of the kingdom of God to Gentiles as well as to Jews. His worldview that the Jews were somehow superior to non-Jews is shattered by a vision God showed him, telling him not to call unclean what God had called clean. And when the Gentiles receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, Peter acknowledges that the Gentiles should be welcomed as full members in the family of God. If God accepted them, shouldn't the church do likewise?

Questions: Are there people you have difficulty accepting fully within the community of faith? What stands in the way of you accepting them as equals?

For Further Discussion

1. Reflect on the following paraphrase of sociologist Tony Campolo's experience, or watch his telling of it in a YouTube video (see links list near top of lesson).

Campolo tells about the time he stopped in a greasy-spoon diner in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning for coffee and a donut because he couldn't sleep. As he sat at the counter, a group of prostitutes entered and sat on either side of him. One, named Agnes, revealed that the next day was her birthday, but she guessed no one would notice. After all, no one had ever celebrated her birth before -- not once in all her 31 years.

After the group left the cafe, Tony asked Harry, the proprietor, if they were regulars at the diner. Yes, they came every night around the same time, he was told. So he asked whether he could throw a birthday party for Agnes the next day. Harry got excited. Agnes was one of the kind ones, always looking out for the others, he said. He volunteered to provide the cake.

So Tony decorated the diner the next evening. Word had spread to the street, and the place was packed with prostitutes. When Agnes walked in and heard everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to her, she was stunned. She asked if she could take the cake two doors down to show to her mother. While she was gone, Tony suggested they might pray. He prayed for Agnes to be transformed and receive salvation and God's blessing.

Afterward, Harry asked Tony what kind of church he belonged to. "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for [prostitutes] at 3:30 in the morning," Tony replied. Harry couldn't believe there was a church like that. That kind of church, he said, he would join! Tony likes to say now that "that's exactly the kind of church that Jesus came to create."

Not long after that, Agnes quit prostitution and started working at the diner. Now she and Harry and his wife Jan have turned the diner into a place where people in trouble know they can come for help and a listening ear.

Tony says from this encounter he learned that "you can't judge people superficially. Agnes is one of the good people ... kind, caring, and thoughtful. When all the other prostitutes show up it's because she's been so good and kind. And when I prayed, I asked that God would deliver her from what dirty, filthy men had done to her ... generally every prostitute ... got messed over at the age of ten, eleven, or twelve. ... Agnes was not an evil person, but she was a victim."

Tony points to 1 John 4:7-8, where we read that "God is love." It also says "whoever loves is born of God and knows God." Tony suggests that "all those prostitutes who showed up that night, and Harry and Jan who ran the diner ... all were expressing the love of God. Some will ask, 'Well do they theologically agree and believe this doctrine, or live by these creeds, or confess in such and such way?' My response is to point to those verses: 'God is love, and whoever loves is born of God.'" What do you think of Tony's perspective?

2. Respond to the following from Deborah Murphy Kerr, who commented on McCarthy's blog: "How incredibly smug and presumptuous of these women to think that these women who have chosen a job or lifestyle that they would eschew must, therefore, be damaged, needy, or piteous. Just how full of yourself do you have to be to consider yourself superior to the degree that people whose choices are different from yours are in need of your guidance to 'get right'? Shame on these women. I want to take their Bibles out of their self-righteous little fists and smack them over their condescending little heads with 'em."

3. How can we guard against having a self-righteous attitude when ministering to any group? How can we guard against an "us vs. them" attitude that might sabotage our effort to serve?

Responding to the News

1. Perhaps this would be a time to consider what kind of guidelines and lines of accountability would be advisable before embarking on a ministry such as the one described by McCarthy. Check with your denominational leaders and with other established ministries of this type, and network with people who already have experience to learn what safeguards they have found effective to vet and protect all participants.

For example, consider what limits or guidelines are appropriate to govern:

• How people of the opposite sex relate in the ministry
• Whether it is ever permissible to work alone, or whether all contact must be in the context of a group or with a ministry partner
• Accountability checks to periodically evaluate motives for involvement
• Proper ministry settings in the open rather than in private

2. Sing the gospel hymn "Make Me a Blessing" as a prayer.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, friend of sinners, hope of the world, fill us with awe that you have loved and accepted us while we were yet sinners, and teach us to love and accept other sinners with the grace and kindness you have shown to us. Amen.