HCI History, Part 2: "The First Two Years"

Now that I was certain God was calling me to start a Healing Center, I pressed in to him seeking to understand. As I prayed, God began to show me what he had in mind. First, I knew that I should help Hayes Perdue (the young priest) teach Listening for Heaven’s Sake at our church, Church of the Apostles in Fairfax, Virginia. He had taken the class, along with other classes offered by Equipping Ministries International –Speaking the Truth in Love and Renewing the Mind—while he was in seminary in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, and I had taken the same ones in California. I bought the teaching curriculum for Listening. As a teacher, I was impressed with the teacher manual. All I had to do was add personal illustrations. Easy for a storyteller like me!

It was April of 2003. Hayes and I decided to refresh our listening skills by practicing with his wife, Melody, and my husband Sam. Since they had young children, we met in the evening in their townhome. We brought our 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, to babysit the youngest members of the Perdue family, two preschool-aged boys.

We were only a few minutes into the first lesson when Sarah complained that she did not want to babysit. She wanted to participate in the class. I struggled, then yielded, so she joined us. I will never forget the lesson that illustrated what it felt like to have someone listen poorly when one is trying to share. We did the exercise in pairs. The listeners are supposed to show, using body language and facial expressions, that they couldn’t care less about what the speaker is saying. Some look at their watches or check their phones. Melody was paired with Sarah. They were on the floor facing each other, cross-legged, when Melody decided to demonstrate her lack of interest in Sarah by swinging her legs up over the top of her head so that her toes touched the carpet behind her. My daughter leaned forward and swatted Melody’s bottom. There was a loud smack. We turned just in time to hear my daughter shout, “I’m talking to you! Listen!”

Yes, my 11-year-old had spanked the pastor’s wife . . .

We laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.

After we finished our practice class in June, Hayes and I taught Listening to a small group in July. I was disappointed that none of the church staff or clergy attended. But God was telling me to Walk through the open door and Despise not small beginnings. Two words that would return to me over and over again in the coming years.

At one point during that first class, it was Hayes’s turn to teach. He told me to go make coffee for the coming break. I did not want to tell Hayes that I (a tea-drinker) did not know how to make coffee. After all, how hard could it be? I had a vague picture in my mind of Sam making coffee each morning . . . I thought the filter and grounds looked right. I pushed the buttons, one for decaf and one for regular, and returned to class. But I was soon found out. While I was teaching, Hayes discovered a kitchen counter covered with hot water and coffee grounds. He declared me permanently excused from ever making coffee again. I have used his pronouncement many times since. No, I’m permanently excused by an ordained priest!

Despite my lack of coffee making skills, our first Listening class was a great success. People loved it. It gave them clear leading on how to respond to those in need in ways that were life-giving for the seeker while keeping the helper from becoming anxious or overly involved.

By September 2003 we were teaching Listening again. November 7-8, we sent eleven Listening graduates to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to take the next class in the series, Speaking the Truth in Love. The following weekend, I flew to EMI Headquarters in Cincinnati, where I took Guiding Life Changing Small Groups and facilitated Speaking. Hayes had recorded me teaching Listening and EMI certified me as a Listening instructor.

As the weeks rolled by, I was getting a clearer and clearer picture of what God had in mind. The church already had a number of healing ministries. Our rector, David, and his wife, Margie, had been leaders in the renewal movement in New Zealand. He had been installed as rector in 1986 while Sam and I were living in California. The Holy Spirit was active in the congregation. It was not unusual to see people speaking in tongues, giving prophetic words, or being slain in the Spirit.

Now that the picture was clearer, I wrote up A Three-Year Plan for Founding a Healing Center at Church of the Apostles, which outlined the idea of bringing all the healing ministries at Apostles under one umbrella to make a collaborative group of ministries focused on bringing people into wholeness. Hayes and I presented this plan to David. We also shared that when a significant number of parishioners take EMI classes, the pastoral care load drops dramatically because people are better equipped to help each other.

He listened to our presentation then remarked that Apostles had always been known for healing ministries. “Apostles,” he said, “has always been the ambulance at the base of the cliff,” the place where people in crisis found comfort and healing. He commented that what we were proposing was to move people towards wholeness before it became a crisis. David’s word turned out to be prophetic because over two decades, Healing Center International has become a place where people mature and develop the capacity to courageously face the hills and valleys of life—and so much more!

I still have copies of that document. Reading it now, it is obvious that I had no intention of sticking with the job. I assumed God was calling me to start a Healing Center, to get it going. I knew I was a visionary and good at starting things, but not so good at keeping them going, not good at anything that smacked of repetition. I did not know that I would devote my life to a community of people whom I would grow to love and that I would be dramatically changed as well. I was still holding the back door open. Still planning to go back to work for the government where I could make real money and earn a secure retirement.

Back in 1995, shortly after I left my job with the US Geological Survey, the USAID had called me. They were seeking a geologist to advise them during natural disasters such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The position sounded fascinating. I could see the value of the work, and I love to make a difference in time of need. But I couldn’t reconcile being a mother of three children with the need to suddenly fly to places in crisis. So, I told them I was not interested in the job, not yet. Maybe when my kids were older.

In addition to teaching classes and writing a proposal, I started meeting with the leaders of the various healing and prayer ministries at Apostles. I sensed God saying, Gather the leaders together. Initially, I was aghast. When I had first attended Apostles for 18 months back in 1984, I was a needy single mom, and most people avoided me. When I returned to Virginia in 1991, Sam met my plane and then, three days later, flew to England. I attended Apostles alone, pregnant with two kids in tow. No one recognized me, and those I had been close to in the 1980s had moved away. It was only when the ever-popular Sam returned from England that people’s eyes were opened. Oh, it’s Sam’s wife! Now, after a decade of attendance and even being elected to the church vestry, I still felt like a nobody.

Wouldn’t these important people wonder why I was inviting them to meet with other leaders?

Despite my sense of inadequacy, God was calling me. Years before God had called me to the Healing Center, there had been a moment when I was in my basement looking for craft supplies and God interrupted me. He said, I am bringing you to a place of prominence in the body of Christ.

Oh no, Lord! I reacted. I don’t want a place of prominence! Just a small circle of people to love who will love me back.

Nonetheless, I invited the heads of all Apostles’ healing ministries—Beth Cujé, David and Margie Harper, Ruth Kriz, Bob Ragan, Pat Williams, Hayes Purdue—to meet. And come they did. We took turns sharing about the particular modality we were using. From the outside looking in, I had sensed competition between some of the leaders. Or perhaps it was a longing to be seen and acknowledged for their contributions. As we met, I heard appreciation expressed for what each was doing. Leaders would say to the presenter, “Oh, so that’s what you do. I have someone who I think would benefit from your ministry.” We created bridges and came together in ways that pleased the heart of God as we built a culture of honor rather than competition. This group became the Healing Center Steering Committee.

For the rest of 2003 and 2004, Hayes and I continued to teach Listening and other EMI curricula, Speaking, Renewing, and Confronting Conflict.  Sam and I even drove to Kentucky to attend a weekend Free to Be Family course with EMI in April 2004. We were growing our relational skills, but we noticed an uncomfortable trend: when people got triggered, all the marvelous left-brained material they had learned flew out of their brains. It could happen on the drive home from the Listening class. A husband and wife would be filled with hope from the class, but it was of no use to them once one triggered the other a half mile from the church parking lot.

What to do?

We began looking. What was the best prayer ministry method that would target our triggers? As the Lord would have it, a man in the congregation had given Hayes a set of VHS tapes on Theophostic Prayer Ministry. I had heard of this new form of prayer ministry before from Dr. Beth Cujé. Hayes handed the set to me with the suggestion, “Why don’t you invite a few people to watch these with you?” By Spring 2004, we had five people meeting weekly to watch the videos in a classroom at the church.

Hayes was supposed to join us but was often waylaid by his church responsibilities. I would arrive and pick up the set from him. “Go ahead and start without me,” he would say. “I have a call to make. I’ll be there shortly.” In truth, I cannot remember him ever coming. Despite Hayes’s absence, the five of us watched the videos and learned that our painful feelings are rooted in memories, usually from childhood. When we focused on the negative feelings, a memory that felt the same way would surface. The feeling uncovered a belief. Then we could ask Jesus if the belief was true. Am I less than? Unloveable? Going to die? The power of God was evident as we helped the person hear directly from God. It only took a month to make it through the Basic Seminar series. At the end of the recording, Ed Smith, the founder suggested we look right and left and find people with whom we could practice.

We were horrified. Surely he did not expect a group of inexperienced people to work with each other on such deeply painful memories. I had been trained as a prayer minister at my church in California, and at Apostles by our rector David Harper and his gifted wife, Margie.

Even so . . .

Then one of the women mentioned that a therapist in our congregation was using TPM. We called to ask, “Can you supervise us as we practice?” She was willing, so starting the summer of 2004, we squeezed into her basement once a week and worked with each other.

By 2005 we had taught Listening five times, Speaking twice, Renewing the Mind once and Confronting Conflict once. One of the Listening classes was for the church staff. When one of the priests realized we were going to be learning reflective listening, he exclaimed, “Oh, no. We aren’t going to be learning reflective listening, are we? I hate reflective listening.”

“So, it feels sort of canned?” I asked.

“Yes, I hate it when people parrot back what I’ve said.”

“Sounds like you find it irritating to hear someone repeat your words.”

“Exactly!”

This continued for several minutes. The priest was warming up to the topic, while I continued to reflected back what I was hearing, using different words that the ones he chose. Then the youth pastor said, “Don’t you get it, Paul?[1] She’s doing it to you.”

The priest’s reaction was priceless. He paused, a puzzled look on his face. As we watched a moment of illumination flooded his face, and we all laughed.

In those years, we experienced great joy and great heartache. We were experiencing transformation through the remarkable combination of divine encounters with the Almighty and training in relational skills.

However, not all the church staff supported the nascent Healing Center. Some argued that it was not necessary. We already had The Father’s Blessing (a healing service) each Friday evening. We already had prayer at the rail. What more was needed? Certainly not more healing! Because Hayes was on staff, and I was a contract worker, I was spared some of the drama. But he reminded me recently, “Those first few years were tough.”

I had been elected to a 3-year term on vestry in 2002, one year before God called me to start the Healing Center. Although others on the vestry were assigned to oversee various areas, I asked my rector if I could focus on launching the center. This was not seen in a positive light by some of my fellow vestry members.

Just before one of the evening meetings, a member approached me and reamed me out. David Harper was standing nearby and heard the whole thing. I was accused of all sorts of things, most of them incomprehensible to me. I glanced at David in shock. Later he called to ask how I was. David had called the man after the meeting, and he explained that he was used to playing hard ball with his colleagues at work and speaking to them in that way. What a cutthroat environment!

In the summer of 2004, when I was still on vestry, a small group tried to force the rector to resign. Our church had been shrinking for years. In May 2003, a member of the congregation had prophesied that we would shrink down to a Gideon Force. No one wanted to believe it at the time, but then with sinking hearts we watched it happen. We now had less than 400 people attending weekend services. It was painful to watch our church decline. People began looking for someone to blame and saw the rector as the only common denominator and thus at fault.

There was only one problem: it wasn’t true. God had been speaking to me about the situation for some time. Back in March of 2002 he had given me a picture of our church as the children of Israel in the wilderness. We had been following the cloud and then it stopped. I’ve stopped, I heard God announce to my spirit. And I will move when I move. It is no one’s fault. Do not blame your brothers. We were on a vestry retreat at the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. I was new on the vestry and reluctant to share but later that weekend I did.

Another painful comment arose about a year later. It began when a couple vestry members started sending the group emails that were critical of the rector. They made me squirm. Rebuttals would fill my mind, but I did not write back. I wondered what David thought of them and wondered why he did not respond. But then I checked the list of recipients and was stunned to see that David’s name had been stricken from the group. I let him know what was happening.

Then the vestry called for a special meeting. In one letter the author threatened that the meeting would change the course of the church. We all knew what he meant. I sought the Lord about how I should respond. Part of me did not want to go to bat. I knew if I did the venom would fly in my direction. I want people to like and respect me. And I was so busy. Pioneering the center. Ghost writing books. Subbing at Trinity Christian School. Then I decided. I would lug my old lap top to the car dealership where my car was being serviced. My head was so packed with words that I had to get some of them out to relieve the pressure. I began typing and two hours later the car was ready, and I had composed two long emails refuting the arguments.

That Saturday the room was full of tension as we took our seats. We were looking at each other, waiting for someone to speak. Then to my surprise, I spoke. “I think we should lay our cards on the table. I support David and Margie. Not because I love them, though I do. But because I believe God has called David to be our rector and he has not released them from his call.

Before the meeting I had spent time in the prayer chapel praying. While praying, God directed me to a passage that talked about rejecting the Lord’s Anointed. I realized that we had rejected David, the one the Lord had anointed to be our rector. I repented of the times I had criticized him. I shared the passage of scripture and what I had heard with the group. Then one by one each person laid their cards on the table. “I oppose him” . . . and why. Or, “I am not sure. I came here convinced we needed new leadership but after what has been said I’ve changed my mind.” In the end only two vestry members wanted David to step down. Both resigned.

I had never been part of the leadership of a church of before. I was surprised at the lack of unity. It was only over time that I realized that people were not being straightforward with me. They would argue that the Healing Center should not encompass all of the healing ministries because it might confuse the congregation. In the end, what we established in November of 2003 was partially dismantled of what had been decided in July of 2004. Some of the ministries became “Healing Ministries” at Apostles, while others continued to comprise “The Healing Center.” I’ve never been good at politics. I argued against this decision. It made no sense to me, but I had to let it go. It was God’s healing center, not mine. He told me, Stand fast and I did. I did not give up.

While I found church politics disconcerting, I found the ministry world deeply satisfying. In the summer of 2004 I was asked to go to Kenya. I went with Cheryl Collins and my 12-year-old daughter Sarah. We lived on the grounds of an orphanage and had a blast with the orphans. The archbishop said we should train the Sunday School teachers, so 30 or so came and crowded into a classroom at the orphanage. We did sessions with volunteers on African time—late and long. We saw God heal hearts and minds. It was exhilarating and exhausting.

Then in 2005 Hayes announced he was leaving Apostles to become a Navy Chaplin. He had pictures of great ships on the wall in his office, and had spoken wistfully about the Navy, but I had dismissed him. We gave him a huge send-off with covered dishes of every imaginable sort. In the middle of the party, we called him on the mic, “Hayes, Hayes, we need you over here.” Sam was standing next to a stool holding the clippers we used to groom our poodle. He turned them on, and the buzz filled the room. He took the first swipe, and volunteers finished the job. Now Hayes looked like a Navy officer.

With Hayes gone, I now came under my rector, David Harper, who served as director while I served as the Associate Director of the Healing Center. Before he left, Hayes and I had discussed what we thought my role should look like, including a salary and hours. In the early years I had served as a volunteer; at some point I became a contract employee. In 2005 I was paid for 10 hours a week. Now that I was going to be on staff, the church administrator was willing to grant me 12 a week. But I was working much more. In addition, he thought I should be paid a much lower rate than other ministry leaders.

The conversation was painful. I felt that the work I was doing was not valued. I was not valued. Even though my education and experience were in another field, I was using my skills as a scientist and a writer in serving the Healing Center. I felt disrespected. After the meeting with the church administrator, I stormed out of the church in a huff. Didn’t they believe God was calling me? That the work was his will? Didn’t they see the impact of all my hard work? Didn’t they see how many hours I was working? As I left the building, I pushed on the bar to open the exit door saying to myself, “I will never set foot in this place again as long as I Iive.”

Could end here or include this last bit.

Oh, how I wrestled with God on that drive home. I felt the weight of huge responsibilities. People’s lives were being transformed. Could I really quit and leave them in the lurch? I knew I was pioneering something unique and felt wonderful support from some members of the staff, while others opposed me behind my back. It was humbling and maddening, yet I was filled with a deep and profound sense of purpose. My heart and soul were in a tremendous tug-of-war.

This series will continue in our August 2023 blog.

[1] Not his real name.