Photo by aussiegall

By Melanie Mar Chow

In ministry, it can be challenging to hear what one has to hear. Nothing prepared me to hear the news I heard last week — good news, of first ultrasounds, engagements, job changes, a family walking away from a horrible accident, everyone safe; but then also bad news, of loved ones suffering severe strokes, people dying, and word of a friend collapsing and en route to a hospital.

Sitting before an empty blog page on Monday, I prayed. God, what are you saying? As ministry leaders, we are called to bring the good news of the gospel to others — but it is quite another thing to bring other not-so-good news and have no answers. However, time has taught me to be silent — silent in action, silent in waiting. Silent, as it is best to just be as well as to do. In silence I recall what I am responsible for (and not responsible for) and the pause enables me to trust in God to give me the right word.

The Bible shows how silence gave people a place to seek God’s words to them. Sometimes silence is enough, and then the words come. Jesus embodied silence for us as a key to ministry to do God’s will. When Jesus heard the news of John the Baptist’s brutal fate, silence was his pursuit, to hear only God and then to lead the people (Matthew 14:23).

Every January, I renew my appreciation for silence. Every year in this month, a majority of the student groups and campus ministers of the ministry I serve go on retreat. I oversee the students who prepare for retreat administrative needs. Each year, they tell me it is a lot of work. True, but it takes a lot of work to be ready for silence. As their phone calls stop and the traffic on my computer slows, the silence draws me to pray. Why? When media starts moving again, I know I will hear good words and answers to prayers of how God met them and how they were blessed. I’ve learned to love and live in the silence of these January retreats, to receive words of God’s work and God’s ways.

Rev. Melanie Mar Chow serves God through Asian American Christian Fellowship, the campus ministry division of the Japanese Evangelical Missionary Society (JEMS). She has been an ordained American Baptist minister since 2004. A Pacific Northwest native, she currently lives with her husband and daughter in Southern California.