Essay: The Wrong Question

The purpose of this essay will not be to tell stories from the internship because I feel we have fulfilled that through the blog. But rather this essay should serve to communicate my insights. However I would also like it to attempt to answer a question that has come up in conversations before arriving at Emmaus and during my stay here. This is a question that I have also asked my self. What can Emmaus do for these men?

Before arriving at Emmaus I hadn’t had any ministry experience in working with male prostitutes or people that were so dependent and thus addicted to drugs. I was understandably apprehensive. I didn’t know how I was going to react to the men and how they were going to react to me. I didn’t have any real knowledge of this world and thus was scared I would say or do something wrong. Even though I have had experience working with young people that were very street wise, I knew that wouldn’t have prepared me enough for a new country, culture and thus a very different street life.

My apprehension, however, left very quickly when I re-learnt a very important lesson from Nathaniel. Everything that we do must be covered in prayer and thus, handed over to God. Don Jean-Baptiste Chantard put it very well when he said that an apostle (Christian) would insult Jesus Christ if he relied on his own powers.[1]

Even though Nathaniel had explained that ministry with Emmuas sees very little fruit - the reality didn’t really hit until I had experienced it. Working with these men is not easy, it is not that a lot of the men don’t want help, but because of their lifestyle and addictions getting them to ‘follow through’ is hard, if not impossible. One of the men put it this way; ‘you can never give a drug addict a chance to re-think’. What he meant was, once they have decided to go into rehab, they’ve got to go that day otherwise the pull of drugs will be so strong they will never go. Humans are fallen we cannot expect them to follow through on their own or even with support, God has to be working as well, it is only through his power that these men will turn around. That’s why the AA program recognises God in recovery and is firmly based on His word.

But what can Emmaus do for these men? I have learnt over this internship that this is the wrong question to be asking, as it brings in the possibility that no work should or can be done to help these men. Rather the question we ask must be; what should Emmaus do for these men? The answer I think is two fold – nothing and everything, let me explain.

Emmaus in one sense can do nothing for these men in view of their spiritual walk with God. That is not to say that Emmaus is useless in its ministry. Emmaus like any ministry should recognise it cannot take anyone closer to God by its own good works, we cannot help them to change their lives to be more like that of Christ’. Don Jean-Baptiste Chantard put it like this;

‘Failure, on the part of the apostle, to realize…that he could produce the slightest trace of supernatural life without borrowing every bit of it from Jesus Christ, would lead us to believe that his ignorance of theology was equalled only by his stupid self-conceit’.[2]

It is, I believe, only God who can fulfil that role. He only draws people to himself through his son Jesus, he only through his Holy Spirit sanctifies people – makes them more like Jesus. I’m am not saying either that these men are hopeless and will never find God, a lot of these men would say they have received Christ’s forgiveness – they are in a relationship with God. But as much as it is God’s work to change these men at the same time it is up to the these men to want to grow in their relationship with God they have got to equally go along with God, want to become like him and thus ask him to help them in that.

Likewise in view of the men’s physical life to get off the drugs into a job ect – which co-insides with their sanctification, without God this would be a useless task. These men are so addicted to drugs so use to their life that they need God’s supernatural powers to change, any work we do as humans would be worthless.

However my answer to the question was two fold and the other side is that Emmaus should be doing everything we have mentioned above.

God has chosen to work through two things. Primarily, the Holy Spirit uses His own word (the bible) to change us. Secondly He works through his family – other Christians. Emmaus is part of God’s family and therefore should lovingly bring God’s word to the men so that He can speak to them and change them, as the apostle Paul said ‘how can they hear (and thus trust in God and change) without someone preaching to them’.[3] We should because the Holy Spirit speaks through Christians by gracefully showing the men how their lives need to change so they become more like Christ in a loving and humble way.[4] Emmaus should also be working to take these men off the streets and into rehab and jobs, as this is part of their sanctification and thus God will be working in it.

In conclusion I have re-learnt that we must cover everything we do in prayer, without God working in this ministry any work we do is hopeless. This has been brought to my attention so much more because of the type of ministry Emmaus is involved in.
I have also come to realise we should and must help these men; there must not be in our minds any kind of thought that we shouldn’t work with them. We mustn’t either just help them to get out of prostitution and off the streets but, we should also spend as much time and energy in helping them – being used by God, so that they get to know and grow in him.


[1] The Soul of The Apostolate, Don Jean-Baptiste, Page 9
[2] T.S.of.the.A, Page 9
[3] Romans 10:15
[4] As long as what we are saying is from the bible – The Holy Spirit would never contradict his own word and therefore from Him to speak through us we need to be using his words, the bible.