I Asked for a Mic; God Gave me a Broom

I was five years old.

 I remember always noticing the grumpy man across the street. But my heart, even at that young age, never really saw his grumpiness; I remember seeing a need. A need he had for Jesus. Of course he is grumpy—he doesn’t know God. This was my reasoning and processing as a five-year-old, but looking back now, I think I was on to something.

I remember asking my mom if I could go tell him about Jesus, and as soon as she said yes, I began putting together my own little salvation tract from all the things I could find in the house.

Any Sunday school veterans remember those bracelets? Black to represent that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, red to represent the blood of Jesus that was shed, white to represent our hearts that were made white as snow after receiving Jesus, green to represent the growth we have in walking with Jesus, and gold for the streets of gold we will walk when we go to heaven.

Well, I didn’t have any beads to make a bracelet, but I was sure I could make a little booklet out of them all. I remember gathering supplies around the house like construction paper and, of course, toilet paper. What else would work for the white? Don’t ask me why I didn’t think to use plain paper.

So proud of my new little salvation tract, I walked across the street to the grumpy man. I remember he was putting leaves in trash bags in his front yard. I fully recall having his attention on me as I took him through that post-it note, toilet paper salvation tract, but my mom, curiously watching for his response, later told me it seemed he wasn’t paying attention to me at all. I’m glad my childlikeness kept me from thinking he didn’t want to hear what I had to say.

I remember the mail lady who came to my house every day. Does she know Jesus? She needs to know Jesus. I had a Precious Moments® Bible that I placed in the mailbox with a little note.

I saw and felt the need to share with everyone about the Jesus I knew and loved.

 From a very young age, God had put a desire in my heart to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I think many times people wonder what they want to be when they grow up. For me (other than the brief season of wanting to be an astronaut) I just always knew.

 I wanted people to know Jesus.

 The Lord spoke to my mom’s heart and told her I would be an evangelist. I’ve always known. I’ve always held on to that dream and that calling. My reality of what it meant to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ was shaped by my upbringing in the Copeland family, a Christian ministry family. I would see family members incessantly traveling to conferences and churches. Even though my mom was a stay-at-home mom, there were times she would be off preaching at various venues.

So it is obvious that my picture of what it meant to be in ministry was formed by my own experience— standing on stages, holding microphones. This was my calling. This was the Great Commission.

 I remember being 12 years old and sharing offering messages in children’s church, and as I grew up, that dream continued to grow.

 As I graduated high school, I knew in my heart I was called to the ministry. I went to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma studying theology and worship leadership. I would continue to attend multiple conferences throughout the year, many of them being my family’s meetings.

The second half of my junior year of university, I was home in Texas for Christmas. I just had this sense in me that the Lord was leading me to drop out of school. But the conundrum was I didn’t feel like I was supposed to stay in Texas either. I remember so clearly my conversations with God: “Well, I don’t feel at home in Oklahoma. And I don’t feel like my home is in Texas. So where am I supposed to be?”

In time, I knew I was supposed to move to Missouri and be part of Faith Life Church, led by Keith Moore.

The direction I felt from the Lord was to go and treat it like I was going to Bible school. I remember buying a student calendar and writing out my lessons: listen to Brother Keith’s messages during the week, be part of church services, and just study the Word of God. I called it Jenny Kutz Bible School. And guess what? I was the top of my class!

 During that time, Brother Keith would often talk about being led by the Spirit of God and servanthood. Little did I know, in that season God was preparing me for the next one and many to come. I was sure I would be in Missouri for years, never to return to Texas. I remember even telling people, “I’ll never go back to Texas.” Never.

Never is one of those famous words. God loves to prove that “The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; he guides it wherever he pleases” (Prov. 21:1 NLT). Raise your hand if you are now living in your never. And raise your hand if God surprised you in the knowledge that your never was what you needed and actually desired.

So of course, I was in Missouri for a year before I went back to, you guessed it, Texas. This is how that never happened. And certainly, it was one of the most life-changing nevers I have ever experienced.

As I was on my way to a meeting with my grandparents in Washington, D.C., I remember writing in my journal. As I was praying and writing, something hit my spirit like a ton of bricks. It was a knowing of what I was supposed to do.

 Do you know those moments in your life? Those moments when God speaks to you and your course is set? You no longer wonder where or what your next steps are. God has made it clear. That was that moment.

Go back to Texas.

 There were a few reasons the Lord had given me to move back, but the first priority was this: help my grandparents.

 Help them? I thought. How can I help them? Here I am, a college dropout—a worship leader dropout. Who can’t finish a worship degree? I have no skills. I can write songs. I could write them a song. But honestly, I have no skills. How am I going to help them?

At the time, I didn’t know the enormity of the word I had been given, and I truly didn’t know how to walk it out. But I knew I had heard it and that was enough for me.

 One of my favorite quotes is one by Lilian B. Yeomans: “God delights in His children stepping out over the aching void with nothing under their feet but the Word of God!” Oh, to live that way, having nothing under our feet but God’s word to do it. That is the most secure and stable footing we could ever find. The footing of faith. The footing of trust. I didn’t know how to accomplish what God had asked of me. But I was willing.

 That’s what God is asking of us—our willingness. He doesn’t need our expertise or ability. Actually, I’ve found quite often He leads us into those places where we have limited or no expertise. It causes us to rely wholeheartedly on Him. So I moved back to Texas.

 Almost every single day, I would call my grandparents and ask, “Do you need any help? Do you need any help?” Just like a broken record. And of course every day they would say, “No, but thank you.” I think one time my grandma was annoyed by my asking so she had me come and help her clean her closet.

But I didn’t know anything else to do but to follow God’s voice. How can I be satisfied in doing my own will if God has given me His?

I think many times people say following God is out of their comfort zone. But the reality of it is, not following God is out of our comfort zone, because of the peace that following God brings. I have tried to live out of His will, and the lack of peace was not worth it.

I’m not saying following God keeps you in places of comfort. He doesn’t call us to be comfortable; He calls us to be holy and devoted to Him. But even in uncomfortable situations, the peace and comfort in our heart stays the same because of the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

I remember sitting in the tent of a family of IDPs (Internally Displaced Person) who had fled from their city because of ISIS. We were two hours from where her home was in Mosul, Iraq, and the torment and pain that they had suffered was unimaginable. I was with a team of Christian workers who live in Iraq, and we had gone to their tent to pray with them.

We turned on worship music and began to do just that. Tears begin streaming down this precious woman’s face. We asked her why she was crying and she said, “I don’t know. It feels so…comfortable.” That statement hit me. She didn’t know Jesus at the time. She didn’t understand His presence or the working of His love. But she could feel it. She could feel the comfort of the Holy Spirit. That day marked something in me.

How does someone who doesn’t know Jesus but experiences His presence describe those moments? Comfortable. But that comfort is not an outside comfort but an inner stillness, even when all the world is crazy around us. So it’s that inner stillness that we follow. And when we do something that violates that inner stillness and peace, we stop and ask why.

 It’s there we want to live.

That’s why in those moments when I didn’t know how to help, all I could do was try to help. Because that’s the assignment I was given.

As months passed, I got a job at the church bookstore. Really, that’s a dangerous job, because all of my paycheck was going toward books. But I was living with my mom at the time, so I was able to do that. Those were the days without rent and payments!

 This job allowed me to travel with my grandparents to meetings and conferences just to help them with what they needed. My grandpa loved my tea-making skills, so he kept me around. Even though I live far from him now, I always make sure to make a cup of tea for him when I’m in town.

Then came the time when God started stirring my heart with the winds of change. I knew change was coming, I just didn’t know what it was. Many of us have been in that place, even if we couldn’t put words around it. We know change is coming, we just don’t know what it is. It’s like our vision is blurry, but when it comes we will know it wholeheartedly.

The word available kept coming up in my heart and in my mind, so I looked it up in the dictionary. My favorite definition of available was “to be suitable or ready for use.” That’s it, I thought, I need to be available. I need to be suitable and ready for use so when the Lord calls me out to preach the Gospel, I can go. I need to leave my job at the bookstore because I think God is about to call me out to start traveling in ministry.

I gave my two weeks’ notice not knowing what was next, just knowing I needed to be available. The last day of working at the bookstore came, and in my mind I created scenarios in which I would be speaking on stages, holding those microphones.

 I was imagining the dream of preaching the Gospel I’ve had since I was a child coming to pass right before my eyes. I was imagining plane tickets, passport stamps, green rooms, gift baskets, and of course sharing the Good News. I was available and ready for use.

But of course, as most things in our journey with God, His timing is not our timing.

His due season is way beyond how we would conduct our own seasons. But of course, it is His wonderful grace working throughout our life and situations, because He knows more than we know.

 On my last day, filled with all these lofty dreams of ministry in my mind, thinking God was asking me to be available to go if someone asked me to preach at their church or conference, I received a call from my grandparents.

 “Jenny, can you come to our house after work?”

“Yes! It’s my last day of work so I’m free!”

As I said my goodbyes and got in the car, my mind raced as to what they would say. Maybe they will tell me they are proud of me. Maybe they have a prophetic word for me. Maybe they have in their heart to give me some money. I sat down with them and this is how it went:

 “Jenny, our nutritionist has to renew his visa and can’t be in America as he does that.”

I was thinking, What does this have to do with me? “Oh, really? Yes, sir. That’s wild.”

“He has to leave and we were wondering if you would be available to help us and cook for us?”

There I was, thinking, Well, I heard that word available. Is that what God meant? But I thought He meant going out and preaching. Building my ministry. Becoming well known so I could make Jesus known. Also—cooking? Seriously? Do they know that the last time I cooked spaghetti, I made my family sick? Do they know that I make weird, random things like green eggs and ham for my brother on his birthday?

“Well, Papa, I don’t really cook. But—yes. I am available to cook for y’all. I heard from the Lord that I was supposed to help you, and even though I don’t know what I’m doing in the kitchen, I know this is the place I’m supposed to be.”

 Yes. A simple yes. It’s our yes to God that He desires. It’s our yes even in the midst of the unknown. It’s a yes in the face of personal inadequacy. It’s that yes that sets us on our destiny course.

I don’t even want to imagine where my life would be if I didn’t accept this assignment. He wants our surrender. We’ll talk more about surrender later in the book, but even now you can decide to say yes. You can decide to have a heart always available to God.

There was no question in my heart, when my grandpa asked me this, whether this was what God meant by available, even if it didn’t match the picture of ministry I had for my life. This is where the title of this chapter comes in: I asked for a mic and God gave me a broom. Only the Lord knows how many times I swept that kitchen.

 I began following their nutritionist. Now, he wasn’t just some foodie who loved cooking. He used to be an Olympic nutritionist with a doctorate in nutrition. Here I was, a college dropout with literally no domestic skills whatsoever, about to have the responsibility of cooking for two people—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Talk about some big shoes to fill. I felt completely inadequate, but I knew the Lord was with me.

After one month of training, the nutritionist left and I was on my own. I quickly realized I had to lean into God’s grace, especially because I was not trained or ready for it. There were so many situations in the kitchen that I found myself in over my head—like the time I was cooking for seven people in a hotel room without a kitchen, and the power went out in the room while I had seven pieces of raw chicken on the pan cooking. For some reason, however, the bathroom had power. So I put one pan in the bathroom and I put another pan in someone else’s room nearby. I wish I could find that video of me going back and forth in the hotel hallways with a pair of tongs, flipping raw chicken so it could cook properly.

Needless to say, that was a stressful day.

But thankfully, it was a successful day.

 Every single day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I would be in my grandparents’ kitchen or out on the road with them as they traveled. As much difficulty as it held, every day was completely worth it. I remember once being in the kitchen preparing lunch when my grandfather came in and sat down. I hadn’t finished preparing the meal, so I kept going and he began to talk. He poured out precious revelation he had been receiving from God. As I was cutting tomatoes, I began to weep. I’ll never forget that.

This happened on a few occasions. Sometimes I continued preparing the meal, and sometimes I sensed I needed to stop what I was doing and sit and listen. The meal could wait. God was using him to speak to me.

 I consider that kitchen the place where I began to work in full-time ministry. God began to transform my picture of what it meant to be a minister. I realized that ministry was not contained in holding microphones and standing on stages. Ministry can be defined in its simplest form—love and servanthood.

That love and servanthood can take you to stages and platforms in front of thousands, but it can also take you behind the scenes, sweeping floors and making lunch for two. I could write a whole book telling stories of my time helping my grandparents. It was more than just cooking. I was available in any way—cooking, running to stores, calling people. I was helping them with whatever was needed. And they felt they could trust me because I was family.

 I felt a call to intercede in prayer for them. So many times I would hear things that nobody else heard. I remember hearing something they said that made me sad. I asked the Lord, Why are You letting me hear this? And His response to my heart was, I allowed you to hear it so you can pray.

 Oh, how many times I was overwhelmed by God’s goodness and grace that He would place me there, to be close to my grandparents, to have an assignment to help them. It’s something that is one of my life’s honors and highlights. Even to this day, we have a special relationship and bond that brings my heart joy.

It was during my time helping them that God began to show me even deeper parts of His heart. It started when I would be sitting in multiple conferences, dressed up nice, and looking around. I grew up in this setting and I had stayed in this setting. Conference to conference, church service to church service, wearing your Sunday best, seeing a preacher on the stage. That was my reality.

As I would sit in these conferences, my heart would cry out this simple statement: There’s more. There’s more. I knew there was more. I knew there was more to being a Christian than attending church. I knew there was more, but I had never experienced it.

 I didn’t understand the cry of my heart, but I wanted to. It was such a surreal experience to me. God intricately began enlarging the capacity of my heart to receive more of His heartbeat.

 I spent the majority of my time growing up surrounded by people who looked like me, thought like me, talked like me. A Christian bubble, if you will. As God began changing me, I realized that my life looked a whole lot more like the life of a Pharisee than it did of Jesus.

But surrounding yourself with like-minded believers is holy, right? We stay away from the world. We are in it but not of it. How can I be with people who don’t believe in Jesus?

 Well, ask Jesus how He did it.

He was constantly found in the midst of those who didn’t look like Him or believe in Him. He touched the untouchable, welcomed the foreigner and outcast to His table. That’s a picture of the Kingdom. But that wasn’t the picture of my life at that point. God began changing me and stirring a fire within me to get my hands dirty in ministry. I didn’t know how I was going to do this, I just knew I had to.

How many of us have been satisfied with living a clean-cut, white-gloved, sanitized Christian life? One that is holed up in cathedrals of comfort, unwilling to touch the unclean? Unwilling to be in those uncomfortable places.

But as part of the church, Jesus is calling us to those places.

Jesus commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but the problem is we think we can choose our neighbors to fit our nice little whitepicket-fence reality. The truth is, even when you buy a house, you can’t choose your neighbors. The neighbors are the ones who just happen to be around you. Neighbors are not just the ones who look like you. Don’t you remember the parable of the Good Samaritan?

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:30-37).

You know, before when I read these stories, I automatically just assumed I was like a Samaritan because I was a Christian. But the more God began to reveal His heart to touch the untouchable, I began to see my actions were more like the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Here we have a priest and a Levite. The Levitical tribe had the duty of leading worship to God back in the day. So let’s imagine a modern-day Good Samaritan story. Where do you think you would fall? You have a man who has been stripped and beaten lying almost dead on the side of the road. A preacher drives by on the way to preach at a service. He sees a man in need and he thinks, Oh, bless his heart. God, I pray for that man. I would stop but it’s not really my ministry to be hands on, helping people. I’m a preacher. There are other people to do that. God didn’t really call me to be hands on with people. I support the people who do the dirty work. I am called just to preach the Gospel.

So, feeling empowered in his calling, the preacher keeps driving by the hurting man, convinced that someone else is more called to do such a thing. At least he prayed that someone would pass by and take care of him. That should be enough.

Then, a worship leader is walking on his way to rehearsal and sees the hurting man. He is slightly scared that maybe someone else is out to get other people too. He says a quick prayer to God about the man, but passes on the other side, just in case he would get hurt as well. He would also be late for rehearsal, and that would be dishonoring to God.

The man remains hurting and in pain.

Then, someone who had been shunned by the local church passes by the man. He is so moved with compassion. He’s well acquainted with what it feels like to be outcast and overlooked. He can’t just say to this man, “Bless you,” and walk away. His sympathy causes him to do something. Because that’s the heart of Jesus.

So the outcast, the one who has no church title, picks up the man, tends to his wounds, and puts him in his car. He doesn’t mind the smell of the man. He doesn’t mind that he’s late for a meeting. He came across a man in need. What other choice did he have?

 He drives him to the nearest clinic and says to the nurse, “Sir, this man was found on the street and he is in pain. I’ll give you $100 upfront, but if it’s more, just add it to my bill. I will cover whatever it costs to care for him.”

So I ask you, friends. Who is it that cared for this man like a neighbor? It was the one without a church title. You may have thought I exaggerated how a preacher would have answered. But I remember someone who was in ministry saying that to me once: “We don’t really feel called to people. We feel we are called to send people to help people.” I was shocked. If you are in ministry, you are called to people. Let’s look at Jesus’ greatest two commandments:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:36-40).

No matter what our position, no matter what our calling or our vocation, our greatest charge is this: love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest.

That means loving Jesus is more important than what you are “called to do.” We all have the same calling—to love Jesus with our lives. To love Him with all our hearts. But I have found, in loving Jesus with our whole being, it changes us. When we are in love with Jesus, our hearts are set on doing what He desires.

If you’ve been in love, you know.

When my husband Elias and I started dating, I remember him telling me he liked a certain dress. There were dresses I liked more than the one he said, but you better know that I wore the dress he liked more than any other.

Why? Because I knew it brought his heart joy.

When we fall in love with Jesus more than anything and more than anyone, an automatic result is we take joy in what brings His heart joy. You can’t even imagine sinning or doing something He is displeased with; how can you have time for that when you just want to achieve even His smallest delight? We make what is important to Him important to us.

 I pray this prayer often: “Lord, I want what is important to You to be important to me. I want what is of no value to You to be of no value to me.” And we see in the second greatest commandment what is important to the heart of God—people. Our neighbor.

Now, I understand that everybody has different callings in life. Everybody has different ways to care for and impact others. Not all of us are called to open orphanages or homes for abused women. But all of us have a responsibility when an opportunity arises to reach in the dirt when someone is in trouble to pick them up and so fulfill the law of Christ.

How do we fulfill the law of Christ? Bearing one another’s burdens (see Gal. 6:2). This is our call, friends. Who are we as disciples of Christ if we are willing to stand on stages, holding microphones telling about Him, yet we are not willing to stop for the one in need while we are going to our services?

It is love that compels us to action.

Don’t you remember the scripture in James 2 that disproves the myth that “ministers just minister,” meaning they are not called to be hands-on with people?

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds” (James 2:14-18).

No one who is a person of faith is exempt from showing love to those in need.

When I write all these things, I don’t want anyone to feel any form of condemnation or shame. I just want to encourage a life of overflowing love. A life of touching the heart of God.

Throughout my time of working with my grandparents and God stirring my heart to not live a clean, sanitized form of Christianity, I was visiting some friends in Shreveport, Louisiana. They were involved in a street ministry called The Hub. I remember walking down the street with one of them and they said to me, “Hold on, please.” They walked away toward a man who was disheveled and looked like he was homeless.

“Hey, Randy! How are you? How is your family? Did you go to the baseball game?”

My heart broke. I didn’t even notice that man. He was invisible to me. Why? Because he didn’t look anything like me. He was homeless. But my friend, not in any sort of pious or religious way, just went over there and began a conversation. Why? Because he was her friend.

Here I was, going on my way, not even able to open my eyes and see another human being because he looked different from me. Yet he was another child of God.

 I couldn’t get that out of my head the whole weekend I was there. I was introduced to an amazing organization that supports people on the streets, empowering them to be equipped to find jobs, homes, and help them in their daily needs. The way I saw the homeless changed forever that day. I’ll never just walk on by and not notice them as a human being, another child of God.

Anytime I had spoken to a homeless person before, I will be honest, I had a sense of superiority about me. Us and them. A sense of pride, saying, “Oh, look at me. I am loving this person in such need,” just like the religious leader who cried out to God publicly, saying, “God, I thank You I’m not like this man, the adulterer, the robber, the thief” (see Luke 18:11).

I think we can sometimes do that in our heart when we are reaching people who look different than us. Unintentionally, our selfish motives silently declare on the inside, “God, I thank You I’m not like this man or woman.”

That’s the pride of man. Coming across this ministry and people, I began to wonder what really makes me different from a man or woman who has no home. Does that make me better? Does that make me superior? There is not one man or woman who does not have needs, both earthly and spiritual.

Maybe one person’s need is different from your own. But that doesn’t make them less than you. Jesus loves them. Jesus calls them our neighbor. Therefore, so will I. And because of that, if I see a man hurting on the street, I won’t walk by thinking it’s not my calling.

 Jesus is our calling. When we make Jesus our calling, He always makes people our calling. First John 3:17 says, “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?” The love of God. It’s the thing that shows we are disciples (see John 13:35). It’s the thing that determines whether our lives count for something. That is a sobering fact.

 First Corinthians 13 says we can be the most spiritual, the most anointed. We can speak in the tongues of men and angels. We can have the faith to move mountains. But if we don’t have love, the same love of God, it profits nothing. You could even give your body to be burned, but if you have no love, it profits nothing. It even says you could give all your goods to the poor, but it could still profit nothing if you didn’t have love.

Just giving things away is not letting the love of God work in you. It is an issue of the heart. We are only as spiritual as we are loving. When we give of ourselves, give of our goods, we are not doing it just to check off a spiritual platitude. We are doing it to fulfill those commandments Jesus said in Matthew 22:37. I will remind you again:

 1. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

2. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is our life’s motive.

 This is our life’s call, no matter who we are or what we feel we are called to do. Loving Jesus and our neighbor is always our calling.

Because I was introduced to that work in Shreveport, Louisiana, God began to show me what He really meant when He stirred in my heart.

There’s more.