Called to the margins

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 22nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Ministry in the inner city.

Being a pastor’s kid is seldom easy, but growing up in a church surrounded by hardship and brokenness brings its own challenges.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown brings us the story of one pastor’s daughter whose inner-city upbringing shaped how she sees the world.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN: For twenty-three year-old Kyla Lange, Sundays are the best day of the week.

KYLA LANGE: If you go to my church and you hear the way my people worship, there is nothing like it. It feels like there is a desperation and a deep sense of like no one but Jesus, and like Jesus alone has the power to change my life and to set me free, and that’s why we’re all here

As a pastor’s kid, she grew up on the front lines of a ministry that serves the poor and marginalized. Here’s her mom, Jenn:

JENN LANGE: A majority of people in our church are in recovery. We started our church 23 years ago, and probably the first 10 years of our existence we did not do any funerals that were of natural causes. They were all overdose related funerals, and that was even within families.

Jenn was pregnant with Kyla when she and her husband Kurt started their church in Lynn, Massachusetts. They moved to the inner city to live alongside the people they would be serving. Kurt Lange says they made the choice gladly, but others struggled to understand it.

KURT LANGE: There are people in all the surrounding cities that do everything they can not come into Lynn because they think of it as unsafe.

Lynn has a reputation of low income and high crime. Today, it sits just above the national average for violent crimes, and that’s after two decades of improvement. The city is entrenched in bad stereotypes, and has been for generations. There’s even an old rhyme about Lynn that locals always quote.

AUDIO: [NBC Boston]

Despite growing up amid city noises and sirens, Kyla Lange loved her upbringing and her family’s ministry.

WORSHIP LEADER: We’re gonna take back all that the devil stole. I found my healing, oh yeah, I found my healing.

KYLA LANGE: I would see people, find family and find freedom just by being present with them and by being willing to say yes, like I'm dedicated to you, because no one else is but Jesus is

Recovery ministry requires grit. It takes patience to give second, third, fourth, or endless chances as people struggle. Many get clean, then relapse, then get clean again. Lange has seen friends experience God’s healing. Other situations don’t turn out as well. . . .

KYLA LANGE: I've also had the front row seat to see the hardest moments in our kind of work. There's a lot of loss in our work. A lot of people die. A lot of people go away or move away.

On top of those challenges, it’s sometimes difficult to even explain her family’s calling.

KYLA LANGE: It’s hard to tell people because they’re not going to understand, or they’re maybe going to say something unintentionally, a little stupid, or maybe a little ignorant about the work you do

These misunderstandings hit Lange hardest when she went to college. She had seen substance abuse first-hand, so some things that seemed normal to her peers felt more serious for her.

KYLA LANGE: The idea of, my friend just casually drinking alcohol is actually really, really hard for me to wrap my brain around, just because of, the kind of work we do, like it’s evil, like it’s killing people.

Lange carries heartbreak from growing up in this type of ministry. But she says her joy over witnessing freedom is even deeper.

KYLA LANGE: I think that's where the love comes from of the ministry, is that my whole life, I've had a front row seat to see our ministry in its most beautiful, most successful, most miraculous moments.

Lange loves calling the city of Lynn home and working alongside her parents. Three years ago, she and her mom founded a thrift boutique.

It provides low-cost clothing and employs disadvantaged women. Kyla’s mom, Jenn:

JENN LANGE: So I get to be for a lot of women their first job out of prison, and I just get to say, ‘Yes,’ I don't care if they have their ID. A lot of them lose everything, so sometimes they don't have an ID, they have to apply for that and whatnot. Or they have an ankle bracelet, and that might not be okay at every job and or their background check, and I just get to say yes.

Kyla recently graduated college and finished a Master’s degree in Global Ministry. She had to decide where she would use her passions and skills. Ultimately, she feels called right back to Lynn.

KYLA LANGE: It would feel wrong to leave the city, because I've dedicated myself from, like a really young age, to the peace and prosperity of the city, without even realizing that.

It might seem a simple choice to return home to the work she’s always known, but the decision wasn’t necessarily easy.

KYLA LANGE: That heart feeling of like, not a lot of people are gonna say yes when we're gonna say yes, it's a little isolating.

Still, she’s preparing to join her church on staff.

KYLA LANGE: But because I've been doing that my whole life, and because I do feel like I'm on a team with my family and on a team with our pastoral staff, I feel like the yes is a lot easier.

And for the foreseeable future, Kyla says she’s ‘all in for Lynn.’

For WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

WORSHIP LEADER: Your healing power’s flowing, addiction’s being broken, sickness and oppression have to go . . .

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