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Whistling in the Dark
In his new office at Grace, the walls and shelves are bare, the desk clear. Josiah Bancroft is speaking of the song “Whistling in the Dark” by one of his favorite groups -- They Might Be Giants -- and one gets the impression that, if you cut the lights, he might be tempted to sample the tune.
He says he feels like he doesn’t have a clue. “I think
I’ll go shopping for a lunchbox,” he says with a smile.
“Because I feel like a freshman at his first day at school.”
How do these phones work?
What’s up with the e-mail?
Where do they keep the pens?
Who do you talk to about?…
In his second day on the job, there has been some progress. Behind
him, slightly to his left, a new G5 iMac, white monitor framing
blue sky, displays photographs he took during his seven years of
missionary work in Ireland. He swivels in his chair to narrate.
“That’s a vacation we took by the shore. Those are some
of the people who attended the church at Greystones. That’s
a picture from downtown Dublin.”
As the images throw vague colors across an otherwise nearly brown
room, the impression is clear: Josiah is only beginning to emerge
from the shadows of loss.
Suddenly, he remembers lyrics.
I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well
It's a simple message and I'm leaving out the whistles and bells
So the room must listen to me
"No wait," he says, "That’s from 'Birdhouse
in Your Soul.'"
Later, when he speaks of ADD, the point is made.
A Strange Place
Slow. Funny. Difficult.
Those are the three words Josiah uses to describe the distance he and his wife, Barbara, have traveled during the last year. It is a span that cannot simply be measured in the number of miles separating Asheville from Dublin.
Slow as in slowest-slow-motion-almost-stop-frame-kind-of-crawling-on-your-belly slow. Funny as in odd. And difficult as in heart breaking.
“For the last several months,” Josiah says, “we’ve been in kind of a strange place.” He is not laughing. “After the announcement was made that I was being considered to co-pastor Grace, people would ask me, ‘Are you excited to be coming here?’ and I know my response must have felt a little odd, ‘Yes, we are’ but at the same time all of this grief is leaking out of us. I’m sure it was almost palpable.”
In the year since leaving Ireland on Home Missions Assignment last year, Josiah and Barbara left open the possibility -- for the first time since starting their work in Ireland in 1993 -- that God might have another ministry in mind for them. It was only a small opening – they fully intended on coming back to the States, raise money, and return.
But into that small opening, God poured his sovereign and often confounding grace.
Crossing Paths
Before leaving on home missions assignment in August 2004, Josiah had wanted to stay longer. The Irish Mission was in transition. Let’s make that clearer: missions work is always in transition, so let’s say upheaval. Two of the four teams were in the process of forming under new leadership: Doug Mann developing Kreative Bloc, an arts resource team, and Donovan Graham, who would not arrive on the field for another two months, was to lead the counseling and care team. The two existing teams at the time were led by Tim O’Neil (Missions Apprenticeship Program) and Eric Brauer (Church Resources Team).
It was simply not possible for the Bancroft's to stay longer without raising more support. It had already been 4 years since they had been back to the States on HMA, and the Euro was taking a beating, along with their bank account – to the tune of almost several thousand a month. Although they had hoped to help the new couples transition into their ministries, it was clear: they had to leave. On the plane trip over, Josiah believes they might have crossed jet stream paths with another couple on their way to Ireland – Joel and Cindy Hylton, who would join the Missions Apprenticeship Team.
As the Bancroft’s began preparations to leave, they prayed specifically God would give them a church in the states where they could attend and be fed. Because about 70 percent of Josiah’s missions work had been outside of Ireland – traveling to oversee other teams (Kiev, Budapest, and Romania) as well as teaching cross cultural renewal and leadership courses in conferences across the world—the Bancroft’s increasingly felt their souls to be in a nearly ceaseless state of jet lag. They desperately desired and needed community.
In response to one of Josiah’s e-mails, he received word from Dave Desforge that one of the members of Grace’s administrative board had a house available to rent. For Josiah, it was an unexpected blessing on two fronts: a home and a church for the next year. On HMA, the life of a missionary is that of a civil roustabout, living out of suitcases, hotels, and various homes while raising funds form various churches and other supporters. The thought of a home – a central point of rest and community – was a blessing beyond their imagination.
The Bancroft’s were also excited about the possibility of attending Grace Community. A few years earlier, Josiah had helped Dave lead a Sonship conference there, and had been intrigued by the church's unique ministry: the commitment to grace, mercy, the arts, and biblical integrity.
Upon their arrival from Ireland, Chip and Meredith Jones, who attend Grace, picked up the Bancroft’s at the airport. Together, they shared stories about their mutual friend. Josiah told a few stories about Dave and he teaching at the same conference in Japan. About how Dave walked after sleeping on a bare floor in Japan. About his one mouthful of raw fish. About the earthquake and the blizzard they experienced. Laughs aside, Josiah told them how much he had come to admire and respect Dave. He was especially attracted to Dave’s desire to take risks, but to calculate them at the same time – a fighter pilot’s soul from the frame of an accountant. The idea of getting to know him better was compelling.
“Grace was a place,” Josiah says, “we believed we could come and be a part of. What a joy it was to be part of the congregation.” During the next few months, as Dave and his family entered into cycle of suffering and loss, he asked Josiah if he would fill in with a message or two. Josiah was only happy to oblige. As their relationship deepened, Josiah became a person Dave trusted to share his struggles, doubts, and hurts on a friend-to-friend level – a rare opportunity for many pastors.
With the pressures and losses mounting on the Desforge's last January, the elders encouraged Dave to take a break. Josiah jumped at the chance of preach. “It was the perfect solution,” Josiah says. “Dave could be away with his family, and I had the excuse not to be on the road for a month. Barbara and I could finally be in one place.”
In the heart of a North Carolina winter, a short time after his return, Dave approached Josiah with a question: would he consider co-leading Grace Community Church?
“Of course I was surprised,” Josiah said, “but the thing that surprised me even more was that structurally [co-pastors] was something the leadership at Grace had talked about from the very beginning.” Although Josiah cannot remember specifically how he replied to Dave’s offer, he does recall telling him that two of his best experiences on the missions field involved partnering – on the field and as a director. He was intrigued by the possibilities.
That was enough for Dave. He took the idea to the elders. After assuring leadership it was not because of burnout or the drain of suffering, leadership revisited the concept of co-leadership. Last May, Josiah was asked if he would like to be considered for the job.
“The possibility of trying something new and seeing friendship at the heart of leadership – which to me is at the heart of what Jesus taught – and doing that practically really appeals to me,” Josiah says. “It is a much better model for me than one guy with a plan or personality. The idea of relationship being at the heart of ministry is compelling. Now, don’t get me wrong: Dave and I will have a lot of work to do relationally. It’s going to involve risk. But I like high-wire acts, and that’s what this will be.”
The Difference Between Stretching and Breaking
Josiah isn’t kidding about the ADD. He uses adjectives to describe it. Legendary. Stellar. Invasive. He functions best with his mind in the future, throwing out threads of thoughts for the rest of him – and often others – to follow. He is gifted and passionate about the reality of “us” and loves to help empower people to move forward together in life and ministry. He marks time in events, small successes, and watershed moments of building community. He needs to be pulled toward a future. He moves, more times than not, in the fast lane.
For Josiah, the process of leaving Ireland and coming to Grace was often excruciatingly slow. “In the past,” Josiah says, “Barbara and I have made decisions quickly, and this has been the slowest we have ever made them. We were uncharacteristically slow, like the slowest slow motion you could imagine.” There were several steps in the decision-making process.
Could they leave the Ireland missions field where they had been since 1993?
Would they be able to separate from World Harvest Missions?
Did they want to pastor a church in the United States?
If so, which church?
As the Bancroft’s wrestled with their decisions, it became apparent to both that God was calling them to Grace. The timing, the match of gifts, the desire to continue to innovate a creative church, the idea of relational leadership: these all combined to convince Josiah.
Although he had not sent out a single resume, Josiah received other job offers from churches in the States. “One of the struggles we had in choosing,” Josiah says. “was not wanting to settle into something simply to avoid risks. Asheville is really a nice area and many people come here because they are fed up with risk and want to retire. And many people might think that is why we are coming here, too. Actually it is just the reverse. It was the element of personal stretching that was necessary – if there wasn’t some of that which was palpable, then we wouldn’t be interested.”
The stretching would come sooner than later and feel more like breaking. “We gave our hearts for missions work, for World Harvest, and into the lives of so many people,” Josiah says. “We understood how much it would cost us and those we had come to love to leave. We believe God called us here (to Grace) and we have no doubt about that, but how can you walk away from what and who you love without there being some real pain?”
No Boundaries
Josiah is a man accustomed to, and dependent upon, boundaries – on the missions map, there are districts and countries and strategies. He keeps his own prone-to-wandering mind engaged and focused by marching toward the future. He has a fast mind that likes to move quickly. Boundaries and outlines help channel his energy, work, and thoughts in the right direction. In May, Josiah accepted the elders' nomination for co-leader. Pending congregational and denominational approval, he would become co-leader in September.
Last summer, the boundaries helping define Josiah’s world broke down.
“We were telling people how exciting and thrilling it was to be here, but at the same time grieving over the depth of the losses we were experiencing. And we have had to work through them on a practical level.”
Before Grace announced the desire to hire Josiah as co-leader, he asked for some lead time to talk to his teams in Ireland and World Harvest Missions. Although he and Barbara desperately wanted to meet face-to-face, the logistics of getting everyone together were impossible. Diligently, Josiah worked his way down a list of people who needed to be informed. While all expressed support and encouragement for the Bancroft’s, the practical reactions ranged from anger to disappointment to a lot of grief.
“You have to understand our decision created a lot of holes,” Josiah says. “Missions is a funny beast when it comes to hiring. You don’t simply replace someone on the field. It takes a person two and a half years with a running start to raise all the necessary money. Then when they arrive, they are expected to pay both sides of Social Security, fund all the ministry work they are required to do, and, at the same time, subsidize the home office 15 percent. It takes someone who really wants to be there.”
The Ireland missions was already consumed with major transition. One of the two new team leaders, in fact, who had arrived on the field two months after the Bancroft’s had left in August 2004, had specifically come for the chance to work with Josiah. A former professor of Covenant College, Donovan Graham had taught Josiah as a college student. “He had come to Ireland to work with us, and now I had to sit down with him and say, ‘Donovan, I’m not coming back.’”
A year after their departure on HMA, the Bancroft’s returned to Ireland last August. But, this time, it wasn’t to resume the missions work, but to say good-bye. In the two and a half weeks of their stay, the Bancroft’s also worked with leadership to sort through options for the missions future. “We looked at all sorts of things and possibilities. God will show them what the next steps are. Barbara and I would love to be engaged as much as we can in helping them through that, and there is an open invitation to do that.”
Recently, Eric Brauer, who has nearly 20 years of experience on the Irish field, was named field director in Ireland. Gifted staff in the WHM home office is working to take up the slack in other areas Josiah oversaw – Cross Cultural Renewal and leading teams outside of Ireland.
“The holes are far from fixed,” Josiah says, “but they are in the process of being fixed. I see nothing but good things on the horizon for them.”
What could not be fixed – and in some ways only got worse – was the holes in hearts. When Josiah and Barbara arrived in Ireland in 1993, there was only one other couple working the field, and they did not know them. In the years of working together, bonds of love formed around new teams of people and many Irish nationals. “What would it say,” Josiah asks, “if there wasn’t any grief upon our leaving?"
Saving Memories
In the tears and laughter surrounding their departure, many moments will be permanently etched in Josiah’s mind:
The Bancroft’s would visit Mick and Bernie Breen every two weeks in Wexford. Each time, Bernie, Mick's wife, would cry while they visited and for some time after their leaving. In fact, her daughter, when spotting Josiah walking toward the home, would run to her and say, “Mommy, the man who makes you cry is coming.” When Josiah told her he was taking a new job in the States, the woman confessed to him, “I would cry because you would start talking about the grace of Jesus and it was just so much that I needed to hear.” She then told him something she hoped he would not misunderstand: “Jesus really saved me, but you saved me a second time.”
In 1995, Josiah began work with Hillside Evangelical Church, advising elders and filling in the pulpit when needed. “Our way of working was different than a lot of church plants,” Josiah says. “We took a backseat and preferred working behind the scenes. The downside to that is that you never really know if you succeeded; there was not a lot of feedback.” When Josiah said good-bye to Cassells Morrell, one of the elders, he received encouragement, which felt like wind in the sails. He reminded Josiah that when they had started ministry there were very few people, and almost no stable leadership. Now, on a good Sunday, they have between 80 to 90 people attending and are self sustaining. “By God’s grace, we did that together,” Cassells said while hugging Josiah through tears. “You really led us to that and through that.”
A roast sucking pig, a luau, and lots of stories. Weird things. Funny things. Great and small things. Reminders of God’s strange and wonderful ways. Sharing moments of success, despair, and of God’s enduring presence and power.
The moments were powerful to the Bancroft’s because they were reminders of God’s faithfulness in the midst of a loving community. “We saw God do many things in Ireland because there were people all around us and behind us and with us who supported each other with presence, gifts, emotion, energy, and love. As a result, we had an effect that was so far beyond what anyone of us could have produced. God was involved and many lives were touched. Is that worth doing and is that worth being there for? Absolutely. We are so grateful to have been a part of that.”
Back to the Future
In his new office, Josiah’s mind is back to the future. He says Sunday’s installation service – the ceremony of marking time and space – helped him transition safely back into the perspective he is most comfortable with—looking ahead. “It was a wonderful way to put a marker between the end of a long and often painful departure and the beginning of the next place God has called us to.”
It also allowed the Bancroft’s to issue an invitation to each member of his new church home. “Why do people attend a birthday or a funeral – because it marks a significant transition. It was exciting to invite our new family to come together to begin to explore where God will be taking us. And ‘us’ is what is critical. It was the ‘us’ of our relationships in Ireland that we have been grieving over, and it is the 'us' of Grace that pulls us here. We see the prospect of God doing something innovative and different together in a new community. I can’t tell you how that excites me."
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