THE FLIPPING OF PANCAKES

It was hot in front of the stove, and nervousness dripped from my forehead. “It's okay,” said my leader, “drunk kids are the best people to learn how to make pancakes for, because they really don't care if they're messed up.” I armed myself with an apron, a spatula, a box of pancake shakers and a teachable attitude. I was determined to learn how to make those sheets of cakey goodness! All I had to do was add water up to the line, add an optional tablespoon of sugar, shake, pour and then wait for the bubbles. Butter is the key to making a pancake slightly crisp on the outside. You've really got to lay it on thick.
With these kids, it was pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner because they sort of forgot to eat if we didn't feed them. The whole thing was one big party to them. All high school graduates in Australia come to Surfer's Paradise to celebrate. They were there to escape the oppression of parental instruction and embrace adulthood. I was shaking the batter when one of them asked my age. I was seventeen. They didn't believe me because Americans look older to them. The truth was, we were both embracing our adulthood rather prematurely.
I just wanted to be useful, but I was completely at a loss most of the time I was working with them. I wanted to share Jesus, but I didn't know how to communicate in their language: lost, worldly and drunk-speak. I was scared. So, I made pancakes. It was something that taught me the ministry of presence. It got me in the door, and as I would flip the hot pancakes, sometimes I would get up the courage to ask a question or tell a story. But most importantly, they would feel the love. The warm, tasty love.
There is something about a pancake that makes people want to open their doors. You can show up at someone's door with a pie and she's appreciative. You could offer to take a person out for a coffee, and that would make her happy. But if you really want to get to somebody, if you really want someone to feel the love, go with pancakes. They have that homemade touch that coffee doesn't have; they bring that feeling of someone caring enough to take the time to make them. The best part is you can make pancakes right there, in someone's kitchen so he or she can be a part of the action. A pancake is different from a pie too because it is slightly more nourishing, but more importantly it's sloppy. It's messy. A proper pancake is not perfectly round, not smooth and placid like McDonald's commercials would have you believe. It is crinkled on the edges and splotchy in color and shaped like a lake. Whether you're a drunk teenager or just a normal adult, it's easier to sit down to an imperfect meal and feel like you're allowed to be imperfect.
While living in Spokane, Washington, I bought a three-pound bag of just-add-water pancake mix and a quart of syrup so I could go door-to-door and meet my fellow college students. College students are slightly less hungry than drunk high schoolers, but somewhat poorer and therefore quite willing to sit down to a few pancakes. All I had to do was add a hand-squished banana (done to Jack Johnson's pancake-making classic, of course), and I had a recipe for ministry. I was still scared. All I had was the ability to make wonderful pancakes and myself, and I never knew if those were enough.
At the beginning of my first semester of college, I went into one apartment and made pancakes (this time laced with the perfect trace of cinnamon), chatted with the girls and left. I never became really good friends with any of those girls, but when I would see them, they would ask if I could come and make pancakes again.
I had this longing to be useful in some way, I wished I could be someone who people would want to come into their house and be with them. The fact is, I only came as an attachment to the pancakes, which were the true draw when I knocked on a door. Slowly I learned that in the kingdom of God, it never really matters why people let you into their lives, as long as they do. Because once you're in, you make food or just sit and listen and God uses it. I know that to be true. After all, He used me. And I am a pancake. I am crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and very much imperfect.