Snakes & Ladders
Mission & The Ladder of Acceptance
I first heard about the “Acceptance Ladder” in a sports chaplaincy seminar that mentioned the work of John Boyers, who for many years served as chaplain to Manchester United. He helped pioneer the concept of sports chaplaincy in the UK in the early 1990s. As chaplain, Boyers provided spiritual and pastoral support not only to players but also to staff across the club, offering confidential support, educational work with youth players, and being involved in emergency support on match days. Indeed Sir Alec Ferguson noted him to be one of his key staff during his many years with Manchester United.
The presenter of the seminar described it as a kind of relational journey, how a chaplain moves from being an outsider tolerated by a football club to being a trusted and valued presence within it. I remember sitting there and realising how perfectly this simple image translated to mission. I took a few screengrabs of the Powerpoint, and put a note in my to-do list to write about them at a later date. That later date seems to be almost 2 years later, but hey, I’m pretty distractable!
Wherever we seek to live out the Gospel, whether among our neighbours, in our workplace, or in our local community, the process of being accepted follows the same slow, deliberate pattern. You start at the bottom of the ladder. You earn the right to climb each rung not by power or persuasion, but by your presence and compassion in the community.
Mission, after all, is never instantaneous. It is an act of patient and faithfulness. We can’t skip steps on the way to influence. The life of Jesus shows us that. He spent thirty hidden years among ordinary people before three public years of ministry. He entered our world not demanding trust but inviting it. He was known, misunderstood, tolerated, and finally trusted, and even then, He was betrayed. The Acceptance Ladder captures something of that slow process of incarnation, the way that trust grows through ordinary faithfulness over time. I have been scribbling notes for a while on this, hoping to write a book proposal on it, but I think we’ll start with an article here and go from there! There are eleven ‘rungs’ on the ladder that were presented, but this fall into three sections of the development of relationship.
Inform: The Early Steps of Presence
The first movement of mission is what Boyers called Inform. This is being known, being explained, being tolerated, being understood. These early steps sound small, but they matter. You can’t build community until you are visible, and you can’t be visible unless you show up.
When we first enter a new community, whether to live, to work, or to go to school we learn that simply being known can take longer than you expect. You introduce yourself. You learn names. You attend local events without being invited to be involved. You stand on the sidelines and the school gates, not the stage. At first, people see you but don’t yet see what you bring. There’s no quick way around this. You can’t manufacture familiarity. Trust begins with presence, just showing up again and again until people realise you’re not going anywhere.
Then comes being explained. Someone asks, “So what exactly do you do?” or “Why are you here?” It’s a small but significant moment because it means curiosity has replaced confusion. Here, clarity matters. You learn to describe your role in words that make sense to others, not in confusing terms. I remember moving to Westport and telling people I was a pastor. Due to the accent and not being sure what I did, one guy thought I was a plasterer and was asking me about sorting out his walls at home. You can imagine the confusion! In this stage you talk about what you care about, not what you’re trying to achieve. In missional terms we should describe faith in relational, not institutional, language.
But often, what comes next is less flattering. You’re tolerated. People acknowledge you exist but don’t engage much beyond that. They’re polite but distant. They’re not against you, they just don’t know what to do with you. This can feel like failure, but it’s actually formation. Being tolerated tests your humility. It forces you to examine why you’re really there. If you can stay faithful when nobody notices, you’re probably starting to resemble Jesus more than you realise.
Eventually, understanding begins to dawn. It doesn’t come because you explained yourself better but because you’ve lived consistently. People start to “get” you. They see that you keep confidences, that you listen well, that you care. They realise you’re not trying to sell something. You’re just trying to love people. When that happens, you’ve moved up a rung on the ladder, not by strategy but by integrity.
Embed: The Roots of Relationship
The second movement is Embed. You’ve been around long enough for people to accept your presence, and now you’re starting to be invited in. It’s the slow transition from outsider to friend.
Being accepted means people begin to seek your input or invite your involvement. You might get a call to help with something small, perhaps a family crisis, a community project, or to be a listening ear. You’re no longer tolerated, you’re trusted enough to contribute. At this stage, you learn that acceptance is not about competence but character. People rarely open up to the most qualified person in the room, they open up to the one who makes them feel safe.
Then comes being welcomed. This is when invitations appear without you asking. Someone says, “You should come along to this event,” or “We’d love to have you join the organising team.” The tone shifts from formality to familiarity. You start to feel you belong. And yet, belonging brings new temptations. It’s easy to mistake inclusion for mission completed. When people finally welcome us, we can relax too soon. But Jesus never stopped being purposeful even when He was deeply embedded in community. He was fully present, yet always pointing beyond Himself.
Being trusted is perhaps the most exciting moment on the ladder. It’s when someone confides in you, calls you in crisis, or lets you walk with them through a painful time. Trust is the oxygen of mission, and it’s never cheap. It takes years to build and seconds to lose. I’ve learned that the best test of trust is not how often people talk to you, but what they choose to tell you. When they bring you their truth, their fears, failures, doubts, you’re standing on holy ground.
Accept: The Maturity of Mutuality
The third and final movement Boyers described is Accept. This is where presence becomes more of a partnership. The community doesn’t just know you, it values you as a part of it. You’ve earned a place at the table.
Being utilised is one sign of this. You’re now part of the community ecosystem, involved in discussions, meetings, or projects that shape the community. Your voice carries weight not because you demanded it, but because you’ve proven your reliability. There’s something beautiful about being included not out of obligation but out of respect.
Soon you find yourself being recommended. Others speak on your behalf. They mention your name when someone needs support or insight. It’s a subtle but powerful thing when others vouch for your character. Recommendation is the ripple effect of quiet faithfulness, it’s how credibility travels.
Being consulted follows naturally. You’re asked for advice, perspective, or discernment. People seek you out not just as a friend but as someone whose wisdom they trust. This is the stage where influence begins, but it’s also where pride lurks. It’s tempting to believe your voice matters more than others. The longer you’ve been around, the easier it becomes to confuse respect with indispensability. Every rung on the ladder carries new risks, but perhaps none more than this one.
Finally, there’s being affirmed. People express appreciation for who you are and what you contribute. Your presence is named as valuable. It’s a beautiful moment, but also another dangerous one, because affirmation is seductive. It can make you forget that the goal of mission is not to be celebrated but to serve. Not to be affirmed in who you are in yourself, but who you are in Christ. The healthiest leaders learn to receive affirmation as encouragement, not identity. You don’t need to cling to it, you simply give thanks and carry on quietly.
The Snakes: The Danger of Sliding Down
If the Acceptance Ladder describes how trust is built, the “snakes” describe how it’s lost. For my readers in the US, these are ‘shoots.’ Just as in the old board game, you can spend years climbing only to slide down in moments. I’ve seen it happen in ministry, in teams, in friendships. The higher you climb, the more careful you must become.
The first snake is a change of purpose. Not the good kind of growth that comes from learning and maturity, but the subtle drift that happens when we lose ourselves trying to please others. We start to mirror the expectations of the community rather than the calling of God. The danger of incarnational ministry is that in trying to be “with” people, we can forget to be distinct. Authenticity is not about stubbornly asserting our identity, but about staying rooted in it even as we adapt to our surroundings.
Then comes being impatient of pace. This is the restless temptation to push for results. We get impatient with the slow pace of relationship-building and start to force outcomes. We talk too much, plan too much, or measure too much. But mission doesn’t work on our timeline. Trust is cultivated, not controlled. When we demand quick progress, we undermine the very thing we’re trying to build.
The third snake is being pushy. It looks like zeal but feels like pressure. When people sense we have an agenda, they pull back. The Gospel spreads best through invitation, not intrusion. I remember being at a pastor’s conference about 10 years ago, and during a panel discussion, one of the panellists talked about people as ‘evangelistic targets.’ It sends shivers up my spine as much today as it did back then! Pushiness usually comes from insecurity, the fear that if we’re not driving things forward, nothing will happen. But the Spirit does His best work when we’re patient enough to wait.
Another snake is being seduced. Influence is intoxicating. Once we are trusted, invited, and affirmed, it’s easy to start believing our own reputation. We enjoy being needed. We start speaking for God rather than from God. It’s subtle, but it shifts everything. The only antidote is staying deeply dependent, being rooted in prayer, accountable to others, aware that everything we have is borrowed grace.
The final snake is cultivating allegiances. Every community has factions, cliques, loyalties, and unspoken tensions. In small communities you’ll realise that some of these are due to family feuds that have perhaps been around for generations. When you’re embedded long enough, you’ll feel pressure to choose sides. Aligning too closely with one group can alienate another. Mission requires an open posture, loving widely, refusing to gossip, keeping confidences across these divides. Our allegiance must remain to Christ and His kingdom, not to any internal hierarchy or clique. When people see you as a bridge, not a barrier, trust multiplies.
The Shape of Jesus’ Ministry
What I love about Boyers’ framework is that it mirrors the pattern of Jesus’ own ministry. He entered our world quietly, lived among people without title or power, earned trust through humility, and gave Himself in love. His influence grew not through publicity but through presence. The ladder He climbed was one of relational faithfulness. The snakes He resisted were the same ones that confront us; pride, impatience, compromise, self-importance. When I reflect on the Acceptance Ladder in light of the Gospel, it feels less like a model for ministry and more like a description of incarnation. Jesus didn’t rush to be understood. He let His life speak. He didn’t demand acceptance. He earned it through love. And even when that love was rejected, He stayed faithful.
Slow Ministry in a Fast World
Our ministry contexts (and if we’re honest, our natural inclinations) are often focused on speed and results. In that posture, the Acceptance Ladder is an uncomfortable image. It reminds us that mission moves at relational pace. You can’t automate trust or program belonging. You can only live faithfully enough, long enough, for love to be believed.
When I look back on my own attempts at missional living, the most fruitful moments were never the ones I engineered. They were the slow, hidden seasons when nothing seemed to happen, when I was still being tolerated or half-understood. Those were the years that formed character, that taught me how to listen, that showed me the importance of simply being presence. John Boyers once said that after years at Manchester United, his greatest privilege wasn’t access to famous players but being invited into their lives at moments of vulnerability, births, deaths, crises, conversations that never made the newspapers. That kind of trust can’t be hurried. It’s earned through consistency, discretion, and love.
Climbing and Falling
The truth is, we all climb and fall. There are seasons when we feel deeply embedded, trusted, and affirmed. And there are moments when a careless word or an unguarded attitude sends us sliding back down. The good news is that grace meets us there too. Falling doesn’t mean we’ve failed forever. It means we start again, this time a little wiser, a little humbler.
Mission isn’t about reaching the top of the ladder; it’s about learning how to climb well and fall softly. The point isn’t to arrive at affirmation but to live faithfully on every rung. Jesus climbed by humility, not ambition. And when He fell, when He was betrayed and crucified, it was not defeat but the very means of redemption. So we climb slowly. We listen deeply. We stay long enough to be known and patient enough to be trusted. We choose ladders over snakes, grace over shortcuts, presence over performance. Because in the end, mission is not about being impressive. It’s about being faithful.
And when, after years of quiet presence, someone finally asks, “So what exactly is it that you do?” you can smile and tell them the truth, and hope your accent doesn’t confused things! We can tell them that we’re here to love them, simply and steadily, until they see in us something of the One who first loved the world.