Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. If you look at the life of Christ, He's someone who knows how to be present in the moment. And in our world of distraction, it's a very simple thing, but being present to one another, I think, is one of the greatest callings we have and the gifts we have to each other. ♪
Join us now for First Person. I'm Wayne Shepherd, and today you'll meet Bill Simmons, president of Hope Rises, formerly American Leprosy Missions. Bill shares some insightful thoughts on integrating spiritual practices into the workplace, and we'll explore that and more in our conversation. Stay with us.
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Let's meet our guest, Bill Simmons, the leader of the recently renamed ministry, Hope Rises. Over 100 years old as an organization, I began by asking Bill about the name change. Well, when you run an organization that's been around as long as ours since 1906, you know, you're stewarding a cherished vision that God gave to people way before your time. And the question is, how do you steward that into your
a new generation so that the heart and soul of the vision gets to move forward and meet a new generation. And so our organization has actually, this will be now the third time that the organization name has changed as the generations have happened. And it's been about every 50 years or so. And the first one maybe is not that big a leap, but it's important because it relates to our change now. And that was originally we were the American Mission to Lepers. And
as time went by, the word leper creates stigma. And so, in the 1950s, the organization said, you know, we're adding to stigmatizing people who have leprosy. So, they changed the name. Language changes, doesn't it? And it matters. Especially if people say, you know, I'm
can you not call me a leper because I'm just somebody who had leprosy, you know, that would be helpful to me. And so that was heard and the organization became American Leprosy Missions. And I think in our generation, we found that, you know, we want to build on, stand on the shoulders of what this organization has done, but we want to meet people with the message that is about what happens to and in the lives of people.
with whom we work, and that is that they move from despair and isolation to hope. And that it's more about what happens in someone's life than it is about the problem or the disease itself. And so, we're still about leprosy and diseases that impact people. And so, I tell people that it's like Luke 17 when Jesus went to the men outside the village and
And he did two things. He healed them as they went, and he sent them to the priest so that they could be reintegrated in their communities. And those men had a variety of conditions. They didn't all have what we know as Hansen's disease, which is what leprosy is today. They would have had several different types of conditions, but they were all excluded. So, that's what we do. And so, the leprosy is still a part of what we do, but it allows me to talk to people about what Jesus is doing today.
through church and Christian partners and restoring people's lives and that yes, it's in these diseases. But it means I'm not answering this question, which is leprosy still a thing today? And do we have it in America? Which is what American Leprosy Missions drives questions around. And so Hope Rises International, we hope allows a younger generation to catch the vision for this organization that started so long ago.
I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but leprosy is not on the radar of most Americans. Talk about this continuing disease that we know so little about. Sure. You know, it affects 250,000 to 300,000 people a year will be diagnosed with leprosy. And there are 9 to 10 million people live with some sort of lifelong disability that was caused by leprosy sometime in their life because it's a disease that ultimately impacts the nervous system.
And so, yeah, it impacts people in Brazil and in India and in the Congo. And there are some cases in the United States. But I think the real issue is that we deal with leprosy and a few other diseases that are very similar. They all lead to stigmatization and isolation and deformity.
And so we work in that group of diseases that affect people in rural areas and mean people are hidden, cast out of their families, sometimes live in the forest. And so we work to redeem that in partnering with the church and with Christian hospital partners and reach people. I always say our work is a little bit like Mother Teresa's work in the sense that we're not going to reach millions of people in our organization, but
But we're reaching, we're sort of leaving the 99 to find the one. We're looking for those few people that other people are not looking for, not concerned with. And we think that really matters to what God wants to do in the world. Makes a big difference in their life, no doubt. Well, as you mentioned, you have a long and storied history for the mission mission.
Perhaps listeners will know one name from your past, and that's Dr. Paul Brand, who was the co-author of Philippiancy, A Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. I know that he was fully committed to what you're doing, and you're carrying on that legacy and the legacy of many others, aren't you? That's right. Yeah, Paul Brand was a dear friend.
And I was just with Philip not long ago, as he still has a deep heart and concern for
for people affected by leprosy and what happens in their lives. And yeah, it's been a great legacy throughout our organizational history. So how did you become involved in this mission? Well, that's a long story, but the short version is, you know, I've been in ministry in some way, in Christian ministry for my whole career, starting in Christian retail when I was in college and then running Christian retail bookstores and
And that led to a time, you know, when 2008, 2009, when the financial crisis hit and a lot of things were changing that after a 20-year career in retail, the question became for my wife and I, what did we feel like God was calling us to? And if we got another 20 years, like we had in retail, what we want to look back on that 20 years and say might be true. And we really felt like some sort of
of ministry, mission international in some way is a direction that we felt called to. And so, it was really with open hands then that I entered into this big question and just started asking some people
If they knew of anything, and this role became available. And I think how that relates to your question is that I tell people all the time that this is my dream job. I just, I did not know I was, I didn't know to dream it. And I think that's part of what happens in our vocational lives is that...
But sometimes we can't quite see what that perfect fit is. I think a lot of times we want to sit around and wait until we find it and then go get it. But sometimes we find ourselves called or invited into a place, then we discover what a wonderful fit it is. And that has been my experience in coming to Hope Rises International. Yeah, I like the saying that goes, put your yes on the table and let God put it on the map. And that's what you did. Yeah.
act of obedience before you knew which way it would lead, which is often the story that's told here as we talk with people from week to week. So I appreciate you saying that. Talk more then about what you're practically able to do in the lives of people who are affected. What is it called? Hansen's disease now? Hansen's disease would be the technical term because R. M. R. Hansen in Norway discovered the bacteria that causes the disease. And so the
So, yeah, we work at two very specific things in general. And one is it is a bacterial infection, Hansen's disease is, and most of the diseases we work with are bacterial. And so getting someone to one of our Christian Health hospital partners for medicine, treatment, managing any morbidities that they have from wounds or from actual deformity,
um and so we have a partner that walks through that journey with them and then we have been working with with churches uh and networks of churches to train pastors and lay pastors on sort of the simple signs and symptoms um they're sort of the the to imagine if a pastor in the community was sort of the walking web md uh or you know and is able to help people say you know you should go get that checked out and and helps them get to the hospital but then what the church is able to do
is they then are the ones who are playing the role of eroding that stigma and those wrong ideas that are in the community about this disease being caused by some evil spirit or you've been cursed by something. And the church gets to unwind that and reintegrate the person and restore them back to a position of acceptance in the community, which then, of course, affects people's psychology and their mental health and their spiritual health. And the church is redeeming that.
And so that is how our projects look. They're projects where we partner with those Christian hospitals, and then we train pastors and lay pastors to be these instruments of Christ in the community. We all know from our Bible stories that leprosy or what we call now Hansen's disease can lead to isolation. Is that still true today? No, absolutely. And that's primarily why we work through the church, because...
Many times people are not found or they remain unseen. And so pastors and lay pastors, with their stand in the community, people will open up to them and say, yeah, I know somebody who has this. And they're over here or they're hiding over there or they haven't come out of their house in years and that sort of thing. And so it's – and it's still – that's still an issue of culture, right?
and it's different from Africa or to Asia, but it's the same outcome. It's just this fear in the community around diseases and ones that always look the same. And so a lot of the deformity with leprosy in particular is very similar. And so you can sort of see someone who's affected by this disease in a certain way, and you know
who that is. And so that means that you're stigmatized, especially if that is associated with a belief system that says, oh, well, if you have that disease, then that's caused by an evil spirit or that's caused by some curse if you're in a caste system. These ideas permeate the culture. We'll continue this conversation with Bill Simmons, president and CEO of Hope Rises, coming up here on First Person.
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My guest is Bill Simmons. Bill is president and CEO of Hope Rises International, formerly known as the American Leprosy Mission. We've talked about the mission here, and I'm so grateful for it. But Bill, I also wanted to invite you to first person to talk about your book. It's called The Way of Interruption, Spiritual Practice for Organizational Life. And you're talking about traditional spiritual practices today.
But you're doing it in such a helpful way that I wanted to focus on it for a few moments and how to apply it to our organizational team life. What led you to write this book in the first place? Well, it's a great question. I think it relates to this question of vocation.
which I know you talk about. And so, I think that what I've discovered after years of being in ministry, particularly in parachurch ministry, is that my vocation is one of, let's say, administration. Like, God has called me to manage, lead, and run an organization that supports the work of the church around the world and to do that well. And
What I don't have as a vocational calling is pastor or evangelist. I'm not called to be those things. And yet I think that I've found through the years I have felt sort of this expectation, sometimes implicit, that I need to do both, that I need to be a great organizational executive leader.
And that I also need to be able to, I don't know, bring a sermon each week or inspire people in a certain way. And when you are operating outside of your calling, it's exhausting. Yeah.
I think anytime we're not in the giftings, it can be really a challenge. And I think that's sort of a slow drain over time. And so this book was written out of sort of my experience of, let's say, almost a brush with burnout and being stressed out and having God work to rescue me from some of that in a wonderful way. And so the book came out of that.
the after effect of a sabbatical that I had, three-month sabbatical several years ago, and wanting then to lead my organization well, help it be Christ-centered, but not take on the responsibility of the spiritual formation of the individuals in my organization, which I think is the job of communities of faith and churches and
And so the practice has just emerged out of that. And it's one way to do it. There are three simple ways, but that's why I wrote the book was these were the things that we were doing. And I found such a release in allowing our organization to do something together and not have me be the one who had to reinvent the wheel over and over again and do something different every week or every month.
And that has helped me to lead better and do what God has actually called me to do and do it well. Yeah, that's very good. Of course, this is not a formula. We're not talking about a formula here. We're talking about something which is a traditional, almost liturgical formula.
spiritual discipline, isn't it? Talk about that, and then let's talk about the three elements of it. Sure. It is. It's a discipline, and that's a practice, and I think that's what I observe. If anyone ever goes to a monastery, what you observe is that the monks pray seven or eight times a day, depending on their practice, and it struck me at
how regularly and regularly they interrupt their work to go pray and it raises the question are they interrupting their work to pray or are they interrupting their prayers to go work and and the blurring of those lines and interrupting the interrupting our day over and over again in simple ways to to call us to call ourselves back to god and to remind ourselves that uh
You know, that we can keep our eyes set in a certain way. So that's the idea of interruption. And that's, you know, I think Paul's saying, you know, pray without ceasing. It's this idea, how many times are we calling ourselves back in simple ways so that we can reorient ourselves, which then allows God to shape, form our work and who we are in the world. Let's talk about the three elements that you write about in your book.
Sure. Well, you know, I think that the one that I start with is pause, which I think is often overlooked. And, you know, Jesus modeled over and over again,
this idea of not being in a hurry. And people wanted him to be in a hurry, but he never seemed to be. Why didn't he get to Lazarus sooner? Why didn't he get to Jairus' daughter before dealing with the woman who touched his garment? If you look at the life of Christ, he's someone who knows how to be present in the moment. And in our world of distraction,
It's a very simple thing, but being present to one another, I think, is one of the greatest callings we have. And the gift we have to each other is to be present and see God and the image of God in each other. So pausing...
uh it is the one that when i share with the organizations uh that there was really you take you know 30 60 90 seconds of silence and i said yeah i just i know that sound it's not but but people welcome it once the experience has taken a second and taken a breath they appreciate that so that's the first one yeah i really resonate with that i love to uh explore that with you further because just even the simple act of putting down our phones these days can be a
A real task and a huge disruption to our lives. I mean, how many times a day do we check our phones? Yeah, I know I heard recently, especially among students,
teenagers and young adults. When you and I were kids, people were saying we shouldn't watch so much television. It was damaging children. But the kids weren't the ones saying that. But today's world, teenagers and young adults are the ones who are saying, yeah, this is harming us, but we don't know what to do. And so I think we all relate to that. And this is why rhythms are important. If we don't interrupt rhythms,
that at least we may not gain complete victory over some of that distraction, but every time that we take a pause and reorient ourselves is an opportunity to have these things remove their hold on us. And that leads us into just simple scripture, inclusion of scripture into our lives. You know, God's word breathed out again into the world. It's the simplest, oldest thing, the church and the
that God has given to us as his word. And so, you know, just using the Psalms as a centering place and a place that all people of all Christian faith have and can gather around and unite around. And so, we just, we use Psalm and a rhythm just to start every, so we do every meeting. If I have two, three, five, eight meetings a day, every time I start a meeting, I have a
I take a pause and take some breaths, and then we read Psalm together and pray. And I do that every meeting, every day. And it's a rhythm. Yeah, I love that. It's a rhythm. So that's as simple and as complicated as it is. You know, there's no revolution in what I've written.
But it's born out of, you know, what are leaders facing and challenges in parachurch ministries and organizations? Even churches could apply this, of course. But I think it's just keeping it simple and really trying to strike a balance of where our lives, where we give God an opportunity to interrupt our day over and over and over again. So pause, breathe deeply.
uh, take every thought captive is, uh, is a part of that as well. I like that a great deal. Read the Psalms together. And then of course, pray. That's the third P here. That's it. That's right. And, and, and I think that's the great thing about Psalms is that, uh, most people recognize that most of them are prayers. Um, and, and I love that. That's a great way to, sometimes all you need is an amen after, uh, after reading a Psalm and,
And I found that most times, even today, I had a meeting just before our call, and I was just so amazed at how God uses those words and talks about His provision. Psalm 81 is what we're reading this morning, and that cycle, it's a blessing, and I think...
You know, I'm, again, you said I'm not saying anything new. You know, I think whether it was Martin Luther or John Calvin or Augustine, all throughout church history, people have found everything that God can say to us, both about the gospels, about the truth of his son.
about the Christian life, they're all found in the Psalms. So I love that. I love that. And I think I make the mention in the book, I think I've also never heard of a church split over Psalm 23. So you're safe in a lot of different environments to use Psalms. Yeah, I like that. Well, again, the book is called The Way of Interruption, Spiritual Practice for Organizational Life. And we'll put information and a link to the book in our program notes at firstpersoninterview.com.
One experience, and you kind of alluded to it a moment ago, you had is actually setting time aside to go to a monastery for meditation and prayer and pausing and reading Psalms. Talk about that experience. That's not exactly a normal evangelical experience, but you found it very helpful, huh? Yeah, I did. And I had thought, you're right, that was actually my first visit to a monastery. It has not been my last. I've loved it so much. I've been four different times now. And
You know, what I found, well, I found a lot of lessons from the monastics, but I think one of the things that really struck me on this trip was the difference between communication with God and communing with God. And I think I'm a person who loves to intellect in my mind. I love to read. I love words.
And so, the idea of letting go of that and being in a space and just trying to be with God, it was a difficult space to get to. You know, I don't find it necessarily difficult with my wife. We can sit together and not have to speak to one another. And so, we can just be with each other. You know, that's what Adam and Eve did in the garden. They were with God. They walked with Him. And that's what I want to do. And I think
going to a monastery and help me do that. We can assume that Bill's trip to the monastery was not to learn theology, but as a means to experience solitude and quiet spiritual reflection. And I understand that. Our guest has been Bill Simmons of Hope Rises, the author of The Way of Interruption, Spiritual Practice for Organizational Life. And we'll have a link to the book at firstpersoninterview.com.
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Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd, hoping you'll join us next week for First Person. First Person.