Archive for Adventures

Unexpected moments

February 12, 2009 at 7:26 pm · Filed under Adventures, Current Events ·Tagged , ,

I don’t know if I will ever get use to the way the Lord works.  The more and more I do ministry in the places the Lord calls me to the bigger things seem to be.  By bigger I mean more intense, more unexpected, more difficult, more joyous, more surprising.  Yesterday was another example. 

I walked one of the kids home to pick some stuff yesterday afternoon.  We walked past a group of men by a dumpster who were obviously drunk and animated.  It’s skinny white guy and tiny latino 3rd grader walking by.  After we pass the kid says, “I hate drunks.”  Not knowing what was up I start asking questions about it and how it feels.  It doesn’t take much to get him going about the noise at night, the fear, the regularity of it.  He talks about being robbed and how it was the scariest moment of his life.  As we were walking it seemed like literally every guy we passed was drinking or carting around something to drink.  In all the years we’ve been around I’d never seen so much alcohol being hauled about.

This is a great kid.  He is full of life and energy.  He has a single mom and older siblings.  He constantly makes contact with me.  Leaning up against me.  Jumping on my back – typical young kids stuff.  It’s fun to horse around with him. 

And as he is talking about his life I start getting angry/depressed.  I realize, once again, how far apart our worlds are even now when I’m less than half a mile away.  I just want to get them out and help them find peace.  I don’t want him to wake up in the middle night and be afraid.  So I’m about to ask him if he prays when he’s scared when we meet up with some of the other boys and they run off. 

So I go back into the ministry center for round 2:  middle school girls’ homework help. 

We sit around and yak and they eat and we talk about school and junk (by junk I mean boys).  Then – I really don’t know how or when it happened – they start talking about feeling ghosts and demons around them at different times.  They are immediately dialed in when we start talking about what the Bible teaches about all of this. 

Then one of them talks about being good and God waiting for us to ask forgiveness so that we don’t loose our place in heaven.  So we open up the Bible and talk about the fact that God loved us when we were at our worst (Rom 5:10, Eph 2), and do we think he is MORE upset when we want to do good but make a mistake?  We talked about what real belief is and what happens when we open our hearts to God in the truth of the gospel and turn to him.  And how amazing that is and how the Lord promises to get us all the way home. 

It was fun.  It was intense.  I had these piercing brown eyes locked on me the whole time.  I heard stories and stories.  Again I was about to ask them if we wanted to pray when the room filled with kids escaping the rain and making Valentine cookies and everything else. 

So I walked home – in the rain – tired and happy and sad and encouraged and confused.  An hour or so later some friends came over to talk about life and living. 

After Heather went to bed I stayed up.  I just couldn’t find sleep.  Nor could I think or process or find peace or answers.  All I could figure out was that “you just have to be there.”  It’s not about plans or answers or solutions (although I’ll never stop seeking, planning, hoping), it’s about presence.  Presence in people’s lives.  Unexpected moments of grace and vulnerability and honesty. 

As sharp as the pain is sometimes, I wouldn’t trade it for the numbness that I use to live in for anything.  The only thing worse than thinking of the fear that comes for these little ones is having never known them or being able to care for them – even in oh too brief moments.

The Apostle Paul teaches in Rom 5.3 that suffering is essential to worship.  Not in a masochistic sense, but in the encouragement it gives us that we are actually in the fight.  That we are part of the kingdom of love moving into the darkness of the world to love.  And the darkness fights back.  But it only fights if we are “there”, where we are suppose to be, loving people as he calls us to.  This brings maturity, endurance, character, and hope. 

I know this in my head.  I don’t feel any joy from this. I just know its time to worship.  To lift these young ones up to him.  To trust in his plan and ability and not mine.  Because I don’t have one.  I’m just there and I don’t want to be anywhere else.

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Being there but not being there – dislocated relocation

January 8, 2009 at 3:18 pm · Filed under Adventures, Musings ·Tagged ,

We moved into the new house in the new neighborhood in the heart of the place the Lord has sent us.  The journey for me started 4-5 years ago.  And now I’m here…but I’m not.  It’s weird. 

 

In 2004 the dream of a better way of living the Jesus-life came crashing in on me.  Tired of the numbness and the glass house I’d constructed from the tools of my particular brand of Christianity and middle-class expectations, I started to look for a better way, the real way I read about but didn’t live.  I found lots of help from friends and writers and fellow dreamers. 

 

But I still had to do something. 

 

I was stuck “in between.”  Discontent with what is, but not there.  It was maddening at times.  It was depressing, confusing, disgusting.  Four years later…FOUR YEARS…and we’re here.  It’s not buyers regret or anything; it is just one of those strange places where the Lord answers your prayer and now what? 

 

We’re in the new house, but it’s not our home yet.  We’re in the neighborhood, but don’t know the neighbors.  We have made the biggest step to date, but it’s only the first step.  To paraphrase my friend Josh Feit, “Relocation isn’t about changing the location of your stuff, but the location of your soul.” 

 

Ironically, my wife is way ahead of me here.  Four years ago, when I told her about my desires to relocate, she said; “Let me get this straight.  You want us to move into a place where the boys and I will be stuck 24/7 having to live and cope and get along doing the ACTUAL work of ministry, while you and your friends leave every morning for coffee shops to talk about changing the world and patting yourselves on the back?  Do I have this right?”   Two weeks ago (and two years after she caught the vision in 2006) she said, “It doesn’t feel like I’m doing community development anymore.  It feels like I’m living a life I really enjoy.  The school, the people, driving around, shopping in the stores – this is where I want to be and these are the people I want to live with.  It’s just life with people without a big cause attached to it.”  She is just so much more involved in life here than I am.  She is so focused, as opposed to my driving in and out except to do after-school program.  Hopefully, this will change for me since the in-and-out is changing.  I guess we’re back to the “changing the location of your soul” thing. 

 

I don’t really have a punch-line to this blog.  I guess I’m just blurting and sharing from a place of strange dislocation in my relocation.  Being “there” but not being there.  Honestly excited, but oddly timid.  It’s like when I went sky-diving for the first and only time.  I sat through all the preparation and was psyched to go up.   But when I had to grab the strut of the plane and hang in space it was very different.  And that was nothing compared to actually letting go.  I still remember the instructor shouting in my ear right before I stepped out, “When you get out I will give a command.  When you do it, and only IF you do it will I give you permission to jump.  Do you understand? “ I shook my head “yes”.  When I was hanging out in the middle of nowhere, holding on at 70 m.p.h. (or whatever the speed of the plane of was) she said one word.  She yelled, “Smile!” I started laughing and she “jump!”  And then all of life went wild. 

 

So maybe this is one of those moments where the book learning is over and the plane is slowly circling up and I know the Lord is about to call “smile.”  I know he will and I know I will, but…  Wait a minute.  I’ve already jumped! 

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Reprint on why we are where we are

December 16, 2008 at 2:58 pm · Filed under Adventures, Discipleship ·Tagged ,

Below is some background on the our current location given in my weekly communication. I didn’t want the info to get lost so I’m re-posting here:

I want to take a moment to explain why we are in this particular building. The bottom line answer is that this is the closest we could get to Chamblee and Doraville without being in Chamblee or Doraville. It’s not because we are trying to stay out of either place, just that each of them have very prohibitive zoning laws for churches.

The place that I truly wanted to move into was a couple of blocks from all the apartment complexes off of Chamblee-Dunwoody Rd on Cumberland. The building overlooked all the apartments and backed up to the soccer fields. We wanted to open a community center that we would use on Sundays. However, we were a church and the requirements for being a church (four lane road, so many parking places, etc) were so numerous and expensive that we couldn’t get the place without performing some major engineering feats on the roads leading to the building (let alone what the building itself needed). There weren’t really any churches for sale in our focus area. There were always the schools, but the group of people who made up the church at the time were not interested in lugging things in and out every week. It’s not that they wouldn’t if they had to it’s just that if we could avoid it they would be more happy.

We were despairing of finding anything, when someone came to us about the current space. It was in unincorporated DeKalb County, so we avoided all the red-tape of the cities. It was helping someone out of a lease they couldn’t honor. It was actually the space that the church which bought our old building wanted as a first choice but couldn’t work out a deal to get. While the other warehouses were more our size neither was available (Colorgraphics was still in the smallest space, and our next door neighbors had just moved in as well). We knew we could honor the first three years and that we would have some strong data to see if it was sustainable long term or not.

Everything was progressing with one small hic-up about a year into the process. We had a six month delay in building out the space that stalled our moving in for almost a year. It didn’t just delay taking occupancy it meant more rent on another place and a delay in our five-year projections. In the time of our six month delay we prayed and asked for confirmation. We both grew and had some Divine interventions (dreams, financial gifts, conversations, etc.) that we received as urgings to stay the course.

This brings us to today and our need to have a rent reduction or find other accommodations. If this happened (and I hope it doesn’t) our few options involve going to schools or other churches (unless either municipality has changed its rules). We will talk with both Cary Reynolds and Sequoia if we need to. We will also talk with the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the Northwoods subdivision. But honestly, my hope is to be able to stay and take advantage of the investment already here and the opportunities to use the space for Kingdom purposes. We need to grow and give, and both doable if we can decrease rent and get in the habit of giving consistently. If anyone has any ideas for other income generators we could the space for I’d love to hear your ideas.

So that’s the story of why we are where we are. It wasn’t a matter of being in love with this warehouse as much as the fact that there were no other options. We looked and prayed long and hard. When this place came available some of the elders felt immediately that it was the right place.

Now let me share one other thing that is a discipleship issue. You can take it for what it’s worth, but as a general rule I advocate that people not look at current struggles as proof that bad decisions were made in the past. It’s not that they aren’t the result of a previous cause. This can only be determined when an issue has been explored with reason and prayer. It is to say that they are not essentially linked. It is part of the western mind-set to think linearly, cause-and-effect, good planning = good outcome and good outcome = good planning. This just isn’t always the case. This is not to say that we don’t reflect, examine, and question the past when things get difficult. We must do these. It is to say that sometimes we get trials from the Lord at important times, and/or that he is changing directions he wants us to go.

I use to work in disease prevention in public health. You learn very quickly that it is hard to measure things that don’t happen. In the same way, it is possible to assume that even if we must change locations (and we don’t know yet if we do) that it was still the Lord’s will for us to be here for the first three years in order to get us to this next step (whatever that is). We just don’t if not being here meant no growth with the blessings of who he has brought here, or if being here kept us from worse trials and troubles. We just don’t know. We know why we came here. We know why we would have to leave if we must. But we don’t know that our current situation was inevitable.

But enough of this for now. I’m sure we’ll talk more in the future as we need to. Thanks to everyone who has shared their thoughts and ideas with me. My particular leading style feeds on the input and ideas of others. I value them. I value you. Thank you for taking the risk of sharing even when you thought it might hurt my feelings or bruise my ego. That’s real commitment and love when you gently share things that you think might be hard.

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What’s with the building, and what do I do with all this?

December 10, 2008 at 3:12 pm · Filed under Adventures, Discipleship ·Tagged ,

As most of the folks know we have had quite the ride the past couple of weeks. We (like just about every church in the US) had a big drop in giving from the recession. When we shared about the need the church responded beautifully and generously. As part of the 2009 budget we wanted to be good stewards and looked for savings everywhere. The biggest thing was to renegotiate rent.

When I talked with the landlord’s attorney last week I found out that the owner isn’t in a place to reduce the rent. In fact he has a couple of offers for the property. However, the offers stipulate that the building be sold empty. They then asked us what kind of termination fee we would charge.

As I told everyone on Sunday, my first reaction after picked myself up off the floor, was elation. Not because of the building, but because of the goodness of the Lord. I had been praying and praying and praying about what would happen with rent and the building. I didn’t know what lay ahead of us. All of sudden I felt a little Moses who was told not only did they have to take their freedom and leave Egypt, but that they had to take the good-stuff with them as well. It was too much, and I honestly, effusively worshipped.

Does this mean we’re leaving? No. It means that the Lord has us in a very different place as we discern with Him His will. As we talked about this Sunday, we have two options (an no definite timeline for all of this). The first is that we give a termination fee, find a new place, and relocate. This is easier said than done, but our job is to follow not to take the path of least resistance. The other option is that it may be possible in this market for us to purchase the building. It all depends on details I don’t know right now.

So what do we do? We praise and pray, we form teams to tackle the problems, and we get to work. The first step is tonight’s prayer meeting at Communitas at 7:30 pm. Next week is when the elders, finance team, and staff meet to deal with termination fees, relocation option, purchase option, and other things that people foresee.

What do we do if we’re not part of this? One of the things we all do is to continue to seek the Lord. As a body, everyone is involved from the eldest elder to the youngest heart. As I shared on Sunday we need everyone listening and sharing. Actively pray about this and if you get a scripture, an image, or anything you feel is an insight please share it with me or one of the elders. Just remember, it is the privilege of the elders, not you, to determine the ultimate place your piece of the puzzle plays in this discernment (if anything at all). So be at peace. We all listen and share. The elders put it all together to be sure we are on track with the Lord’s will and purpose.

I want to end by reminding us all of one important fact: the primary reason we named the building separate from the congregation was so that we wouldn’t confuse the two. The congregation, Open Table Community and its vision and values, is the network of loving relationships we all share as we serve the Lord together. These are healthy and strong. Open Table is healthy and strong. The communitas building, the bricks and mortar, is a situation that the Lord will guide us through and resolve in his good and perfect timing. The important point is to hold onto him and each other when things get murky and cloudy.

Don’t be anxious. Don’t be afraid. If you are, don’t be alone. You won’t be judged or condemned if you are anxious and afraid. We want to walk with you through this so that faith and hope can win the day. The truth is that we will all have moments of panic in times as tumultuous as these. As long as we’re all not panicking at the same time, we should be OK!

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What will you do when I call?

August 7, 2008 at 2:34 pm · Filed under Adventures, Current Events, Discipleship ·Tagged , , ,

O.K., you’re sitting at home and you get a call from me.  “I’ve just met someone who needs a place to stay tonight.  Can you feed ‘em and give them a place for tonight?”  I tell you what I know about them.  What do you say?  What would you need to know?  What if they’re homeless?  What if they’ve just gotten out of prison or rehab or whatever?

I’m asking because this happened this week.  Someone from the fellowship helped a woman out at a gas station.  He gave her my phone number and she contacted me about getting some help to get out of the heat.  I took a sister along and met with her.  We listened to her story, and checked it out.  Everything checked out.  She got a good word from a former pastor north of Atlanta.  In fact this is the type of situation tailor-made for evangelicals.  The woman had a job and was trying to survive the next week until she started working again.  She wasn’t consistently homeless, just in a tough stretch.  She was organized, articulate, and kind.

While I didn’t have any money to get her a room in a hotel, I did know people who had homes with A/C, so I prayed (I prayed a lot from the moment of the phone call, throughout the initial discussion, and in looking for solutions).  One couple consistently came to my mind because they didn’t have kids at home, and because I had this sense that they could minister to her.  So I called.  This was my first ever call like this.  I essentially asked, “Would you be able to open your home tonight to a stranger?”  Lord bless ‘em, they talked and prayed and said “yes.”  I was so impressed.  They had so much going on.  I mean really BIG stuff going on.  But they felt like they should. 

I’m asking all this about hospitality because I am hoping that you’ll have the conversation now so that you’ll be ready when I do call to know what you want to know, to know your fears, your boundaries, etc.  I would never demand that anyone participate in such a thing.  If it’s not love and a gift of faith to the Lord it’s no good to anyone.  It may be that being hospitable this way is a longing and a desire in you, but at the particular moment it isn’t good for you or your family.  That’s cool.  It may be that there isn’t a snowballs chance in the Sahara that you’d ever do anything like this.  I’d love to talk with you about it.  Regardless of whether any of us actually do open our homes to a stranger, we still need to be sure we know the Lord’s word and will on the matter, that we think through the implications and wisdom for discerning a particular decision, etc.  That’s what this note is intended to inspire.  What would you do?  What would you want to know? 

As it turns out, when I asked the woman what she wanted to do she felt really uncomfortable going into a stranger’s house.  Not because of fear, but because she didn’t want to be under a microscope.  She didn’t want to be interrogated about her life and decisions.  She was tired in every sense of the word. I was amazed, but listened.  I talked about the family, and even told her that I would ask them to give her space.  She was sure and asked if I couldn’t get her a room.  I told her I did get her a room.  She looked so miserable. 

It was fascinating for me to watch because I grudgingly admired the spark of independence and defiance that I saw.  There was some steel inside of her that made me know she wasn’t a broken husk(even though I thought she wasn’t thinking clearly and was making a bad decision).  I changed tack and asked her how we could bless her if not with food, shelter, and safety.  She asked for a tent and a bike.  My eyes got a little big because we hadn’t talked about Communicycle or the re-cycled bike program.  Turns out that Josh and Margaret also had an old, leaky-when-it-rained 2-person tent (she said, “I can get a tarp for the rain”).  Communicycle worked late, late into the morning on Tuesday night/Weds morning to put together a bike for her.  When she saw theh bike for the first time today she cried.  It felt really good to see her ride out withe her new bike and tent.  It felt great to - ultimately – be able to bless her. 

Back to my point:  One of our core practices – the concrete expressions of what it means to love the Lord and other people – is hospitality, especially hospitality to strangers.  If this is to become more than rhetoric on a web site we need to be talking and praying and preparing – talking about our understanding and fears, praying to grow and for praying for opportunities, and preparing our homes should the Lord bring someone to us.  Heather and I talked about it.  In fact we would have let her come to our house the next night if she needed it. 

I’d love to know what you talk about, and how you process all of this.  If not me, please talk with others in the fellowship about all of this.  It’s important.  It’s central to who the Lord is asking us to become.  We are not being called to solve short-term problems only (like a room for a night), or to be professional, or set up systems of care.   All of those can be good they’re just not what the Lord is asking of us.  What he is asking of us is to open our hearts and lives to actually love actual people.  Not theories, problems, theological categories, or good intentions, but people.  Complex, inconvenient, different people. 

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Letting Others Lead

March 4, 2008 at 8:43 pm · Filed under Adventures, Discipleship ·Tagged , , , , , ,

One of our basic ideals is that the purpose of the church is to make disciples, and the purpose of disciples is to hear and obey.  In other words, it is not the job of the leaders to come up with innovative ideas and then try to convince everyone to get on board.  Rather, leaders focus the primary efforts of the church to train up people to listen and respond to the Lord in developing ministries, and then support people through encouragement, problem solving, picking-them-up-and-dusting-them-off when things go wrong (and if you are doing it right they will go wrong at times).

  

One of my favorite examples is Katie.  Katie had a dream about backpacks.  Being a humble follower she did what we had been trained in church to do.  She brought the confusing dream to the elders.  We listened.  We prayed.  We were clueless.  So we put it “on the shelf.”  A few months later hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and suddenly the dream made sense.  Katie became a one-woman whirlwind putting together backpacks of school supplies to give to local elementary and middle schools that needed them.  It was this point of obedience that opened the way for our service to Cary Reynolds and Pearl Lane.  We didn’t know this starting out.  It is not an exaggeration to say that Katie’s obedience is one of the primary reason we are a vital, active community blessing this part of Atlanta.

This last couple of weeks another ministry was birthed.  Josh loves his bike.  He and his lovely wife are, to put it mildly, passionately committed riders.  Several months ago they realized that their passion could be a blessing to others and they started to organize rides.  They started up a project to put longer rides together for others who love to peddle and want some company.  

A couple of weeks ago Josh and I were talking and he realized that his love for repairing bikes could turn into a blessing for others as well.  It was actually not this clean. 

What actually happened from my perspective was that I was cleaning out my shed in preparation for putting out house on the market so we could move into the Cary Reynolds/Pearl Lane area.  My old bike was hanging on the wall. While the frame was shot there were some good rims, so I took them off and put them in the trunk to give to Josh in case he ever needed them.  When I gave them too him on Sunday he was mildly freaked out.  Excited is probably a better term. 

You see he had just had this idea of recycling bikes.  He was starting with himself and was looking for the most inexpensive way to make a quality ride.  But he needed some rims.  He prays.  The Lord answers.  He is excited.  I’m kinda of amazed myself. 

Josh then starts talking about turning this idea of recycled bikes into a ministry to provide transportation to our friends in Pearl Lane who could use them.  When we talked I asked if he needed any of our warehouse space in the Communitas building.  He said no.  He would start small.  1 or 2 bikes at a time which he could handle storing at the house.  But if it got bigger in the future it might be necessary. 

Maybe a week later I get a call while at a conference in Tampa.  It’s Josh.  An excited Josh telling me that someone just gave him 25 used bikes, but he wasn’t sure how to pick them up and did I have any ideas?  I thought about one of our other ministry partners, the furniture ministry called Movers & Shakers, and knew that they had the means of getting something like that done.  The next day I get a voice mail saying, “I’m riding down the highway with 25 bikes in the back of a truck!”  He was sharing the moment and I was stunned. 

It was so stinking beautiful.  It was such an affirmation about what the Lord has laid on our hearts about how he wants the vision he has given to us fulfilled. 

So now we are looking at how to better configure the warehouse space.  We’re talking about philosophical ideas like the difference between “community betterment” and “community development.”  Bike safety, quality of roads and lights, and a long, long list of other ideas linked to bike riding. 

While there is a lot to do, the most important thing right now is worship.  God is good.  God is using us in the most absurd and creative ways to bring glory to himself, and we are blessed.  It is so humbling to see our core practices come to life.  In this case generosity and risk taking (although if I think hard enough I’ll find a way to get hospitality and forgiveness in there too).  

So, what will your gifts to the world look like?  It’s among the most important questions of your life.  Whether it is bike riding and backpacks we all have an expression of grace that the Lord wants to offer the world through us.  It doesn’t have to be big or flashy.  It just has to be faithful to our following him.  It doesn’t have to last a life-time, but it can.  It just has to be faithful for right now.  It might change the world, or it might just change a few lives just when they need to be blessed the most.  The results or the outcomes are not our concern.  We just need to be faithful to follow now. 

I can’t wait to hear about your dreams, passions, and possibilities.  Please share them.  Even if they don’t come to pass it will be a blast to listen and learn together. 

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The wonderful God of wonders

January 8, 2008 at 1:14 pm · Filed under Adventures, Current Events ·Tagged , , , ,

The first day I met Bernard was memorable.  It was a chaotic day in the after-school program at Pearl Lane.  He was the only African-American among a sea of latino kids.  He was full of energy and motion with a quick smile. 

A few minutes later I heard a loud exclamation from one of the volunteers.  I looked into the hallway to see her leaning over a small boy yelling incredulously at another.  Turns out that the smaller boy, Kevin, was in Bernard’s way.  So Bernard reached down, grabbed Kevin around the waist, picked him up, and threw him up and over his (Bernard’s) head onto the tile floor behind him (Bernard) right on Kevin’s head. 

If it is possible for chaos to get more chaotic it happened. 

 We gathered the kids and talked about violence and the ministry center being a safe place.  As everyone was leaving a couple of kids squared off with Bernard.  The “n” word came out, and I had to pull kids apart (Bernard doesn’t back down from anyone).  We had talks about racism, threats about being prohibited from the ministry center.  What a day! 

If you look back to to the May 30, 2007 post “Imprinting on Cheryl” you can the read the details of how Bernard was falsely accused by Cheryl of stealing, and how she went to him in humility to ask his forgiveness.  It is a tremendous story. 

The story gets even better. 

Cheryl began a relationship with Bernard’s mother Gloria.  They were both cancer survivors who went out of remission at the same time.  They talked alot.  Cheryl prayed with Gloria in response to the gospel a few months back.  On Sunday, January 6, so did Bernard!! 

God is so good! 

Bernard was removed from home because of Gloria’s terminal cancer, and has gone to live with one of his older brothers.  He starts a new school today, as a matter of fact.  Anyway, Cheryl felt like she might never see Bernard again.  So she went to see him earlier in the weekend, but he wasn’t home.  On Sunday, on the way home she called Gloria again and it turned out that Bernard was there.  They turned the truck around and headed to Pearl Lane. 

There are so many things to learn from this, but foremost is the tenacity of love.  A love that calls and visits and calls.  That turns around on the way home in the hope of seeing someone one more time.  A love which loves so much that it has to share love.  Cherly didn’t go on a whim.  She thought about Bernard and what would communicate to him.  She prayed and took her color beaded braclet to communicate the gospel in a way he could grasp.  So much to learn…  

I have to confess that when Cheryl shared last night at prayer that I was first shocked, then skeptical, then overwhelmed.  I’m not a big fan of “walking the aisle” or “saying a prayer” as indicative of anything.  I prefer to see a life lived afterward.  But then the tapes started playing of what little I know of Bernard’s life.  From figthts, to laughing, to carrying him around on my back when we went Caroling around the complex this last Christmas.  I thought of all the pain and loss in his young life.  Of the great investment of time and attention from Sandee, from Ralph and Julie taking him to the hocky game.

But now he knows the greatest love of all.  He knows the God of love.  Not disembodied or abstract, but real, personal, specific.  In the shadow of death life pulses and breaks through. 

God is so good! 

Keep Bernard in your prayers.  I am praying for an amazing, powerful conversion with immediate, obvious effects in his heart and mind.  I don’t know if I’ll ever see Bernard again.  But I rejoice that he is the Lord’s disciple, and I see three dozen more “Bernards” stepping into his place at Pearl Lane. 

Thank you, Lord, for letting us serve you and these kids and families at Pearl Lane.  It is life and joy even as it is sacrifice and perseverence.  I pray that 2008 will be a year of love and service and more introductions to Life. 

Amen

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Our Advent Conspiracy – Sending a Family Home

December 5, 2007 at 3:06 pm · Filed under Adventures ·Tagged , , , ,

My first visit to David’s house was a tiny apartment in the “immigrant” part of town that  would have been small for this family of four let alone the extended family of members of his tribe that were there.  It has been amazing to track the changes in his life by his moves to larger apartments to the house they are renting now.  He is a hard worker.   

Before coming to the US David had only ever known war and oppression.  He was at home when his father was murdered.  He heard the shots that killed his father even as he was escaping out the back.  His mother was murdered some time later.  He lost children in the refugee camps, and almost died himself of disease.  He served faithfully as a minster and was ordained as a Free Church pastor there.   He has story upon story that will increase your awe of God.  The stories of his life also make me wonder if I have ever really known faith, true faith, real belief.  Mine are the trials of a pampered faith pushing away the hands of the prostitute we call pop-culture.  His is brutality, life & death, literally laying down his life for others.   

Anyway… 

When we entered into the Advent Conspiracy (www.adventconspiracy.org), I asked David if there were ways to bless him or his family.  He said yes.  His brother Matthew and his four children had left Sudan at David’s request to go and be with their younger brother.  However, while the UN is repatriating the refugees back to southern Sudan they won’t take Matthew’s family because they went to the camps voluntarily to take care of his younger brother.  David shared that they’re stuck with no way to get home, and that armed bands are entering the emptying camps to scavenge and pillage.  It’s very dangerous, and David is very worried.   

So we shared with the church that we were going to “pass the hat” to get money to send this family back home.  We asked them to look at their Christmas budget and take the money from there rather than just spend more overall.  Here’s the kicker, all we needed was every one to bring $5.  So it wasn’t a lot we were asking.  It amazes me that for the price of a super-sized fast food value meal we could get this family home.   

I was little worried because we were smaller than normal this past Sunday.  With only 55 of us I didn’t know if we would raise enough and I asked the Elders to let me know the count in case we had to pass the hat a second time.  We didn’t need to.  People gave 1,663,000 Ugandan Schillings ($994.71 US).  My favorite part was first hearing, then looking up to see one of the senior members of the body shaking out her rather large change purse into the basket.  Never despise the widow’s mite!   

I was so blessed at people’s generosity.  I was so happy for David.  I sent the money yesterday.   

But there is so much more to do.  David’s second request after helping his family was praying for peace.  There are people who have fled the north who have settled in their village because they were driven out to the refugee camps.  With return there is tension.  The south is telling the north to take back those that have fled so they can have their homes back.   David’s request was prayer for peace to stop the 50 year cycle of violence, revenge, and never-ending blood-shed.   

We prayed Sunday.  We need to continue to pray.  Being peace-bringers is one of our blessings to this world.  I wonder if there is more to this gift the Lord has given to us besides prayer and giving.  Whether there is or not, we must continue in prayer for Sudan.   

Heavenly Father, Eternal Son, Majestic Holy Spirit; Blessed Trinity; we lift our prayer to you.   

Shalom is a defining characteristic of your Kingdom.  We are called to be peacemakers.  It is part of our identity as your people.  So we would pray for peace of Africa, the Sudan, and for the Acholi people in particular.   

It is a dark story, Lord, full of demons and blood.  But such is the purpose of the Kingdom in bringing your light and life, your freedom in grace and mercy.  We pray first for the Holy Spirit to bring light and life to those in the Book of Life.  We pray for the power of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of grace to be fully present to do the work of love.  We ask for workers, Lord; even among ourselves to go forth as peacemakers and servants to these hurting and needing people.  For it is amongst these that you are present to heal and bring life.   

Defeat the darkness, Great Lord.  Bring life and healing, faith, hope, and love.   

And thank you for your servant David and his family.  Bless them with fullness of life.  We don’t have any understanding for years of bloodshed and pain.  Be close to them Lord, and let us be humble before the amazing work only you can do in a human life.  

Amen

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Trombones for Jesus

November 30, 2007 at 2:15 am · Filed under Adventures ·Tagged , , , , ,

So Virginia is doing the amazing stuff Virginia does ministering at Pearl Lane, and she learns that one of the kids in the after-school program who longs to play music can’t because he can’t find a trombone.  Now a trombone may seem like just a oddly shaped piece of metal, but in reality it (and music) are one of our hopes for keeping this particular young man out of gangs at a crucial time in his life.  So Virginia asked for help, and we asked for help.  Low and behold we found six!  Who would have thought that there were so many trombones out there?

 What was neat was how people used their own networks to find them.  One that was particularly meaningful was a personal instrument of someone in the church.  It had been given to him as a gift because years before he had to sell his to pay some bills (if I’m remembering the story correctly). 

Anyway, I took ttwo of the trombones to Pearl Lane yesterday when I went to the after-school program.  Virginia told me that the young man was actually at home because his immunizations weren’t up to date and he wasn’t allowed back in school until they were.  She asked me if I wanted to take them.  So I did. 

I have to confess that I’d been to this kid’s house a couple of times, but I got turned around and knocked on some wrong doors before I got it right.  You get interesting looks when someone opens the door to a geeky looking gringo carrying two trombone cases around and sheepishly asking for someone who they know isn’t there because they got the wrong apartment but doesn’t know how to say “my bad” in Spanish and so asks for a name to cover up.  Anyway, I did a few back-and-forths but eventually got it right. 

There he was, a 12 year old watching his two little sisters.  He smiled when he saw me, and looked a little nervous at what I was carrying.  I told him I had heard that he needed a trombone, and that I had asked around and that the church had found a couple.  Would he like to choose one? 

He gave a cautious yes, and asked to see them.  He took them out.  Cleaned the mouth pieces and assembled the instrument.  He did a few notes.  When he opened the one that had been a gift his eyes got big.  It was shiny gold in a red velvet case.  He told me what kind it was by looking at it (I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a classic or classical trombone).  He knew which one he wanted.  When I said OK he broke out in the biggest grin.  He started talking fast about a book he has, and then he put his head back and his arms up in a gesture of pure joy.  He was so happy. 

We  talked about him giving a recital some time. 

He thanked me.  I told him it was our pleasure to bless him, and encouraged him to pray and give thanks to the Father, because the only reason we knew about it was because of God directing Ms. Virginia and Ms. Sandee to the ministry center, and that someone was willing to give it to him because of what Jesus had done in their heart. 

He clasped his hands in front of him, gently told his little sisters to shut their eyes, and then prayed a beauthful prayer of thanksgiving.  

As I walked back to the ministry center, past all the young men on their cell phones and cool cars,  I couldn’t help but chuckle at how absurd it all was.  Not the blessing.  That was totally cool.  But the fact that it was a trombone.  A trombone vs. gangs!  I’m still laughing about it.  But if the Lord could use one smooth stone and a teenager to kill a giant, I know he can use a twisted piece of metal to protect another.  Let’s keep praying that this one won’t go to the streets. 

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No Christian Karaoke

September 7, 2007 at 3:19 pm · Filed under Adventures, Discipleship

This past Sunday was a new, important direction for us.  Peter and David moved us toward some important points of maturity and authenticity.  They took a great risk (one of our core values) and I am truly grateful for their obedience.  It shows how much they are men of the Spirit and are moving in obedience to the Lord above all else. 

What happened this Sunday?  We had our first “worship lab.” 

We had our first experiential attempt to broaden and deepen our response to God.  Rather than run on autopilot every week (day?), the Lord directed us to stop what we are doing and think.  Think about what we are singing and why.  We checked our motivation and intention.  It was humbling, a little jarring, and not always satisfying (which is why it was so important).  I truly appreciated David’s rendition of a song that I love to sing.  It startled me with its honest confession.  As he was singing I felt God’s pleasure at the humility and honesty and inherent repentance of his song. 

Here is what he wrote:

When the praise band plays
All is stripped away and I simply come
It’s got a nice ring
Using someone else’s words
Does this bless your heart?I’ll use someone else’s song
For a song in itself
Is not what you have inspired
Don’t push me deeper than this
Than the songs that I hear
Pretending to know who you are

I want to have a heart of worship
But it’s more about music
And the melody, Jesus
This is the only time I sing, Lord
Making sounds with my voice, but not in my heart

Though I sing these words, no one could explain
Why I fail to serve
I’m rich and want more, all I have is me
Every single breath

[If you want to read more about David's thought's on this go to his blog "NextGener.Asian Church" and read "Coming Back to a Heart of Worship".  You can find the link on the listed sites on the right side of this page.]

I appreciated that they gave us the lyrics along with space and time to write our own confession/response to the Lord.  It was very cool that they took the concept of the kids’ notebooks, which they use during the message to draw and write, and gave the adults their own.

Here is the BIG IDEA:  We need a more complete emotional vocabulary with the Lord, one that is fully energized and one that can be fully silent, intellectually honest, doctrinally strong, and completely responsive to Him and where he directs us by the Spirit and the Word.  Fundamental to this idea is that he is the LORD and we are not.  We can’t just put things on autopilot and call it “following Him.”  We have to think, reflect, and be purposeful in our response to his Lordship. 

I appreciate so much the freshness of what the Lord is doing in us through Peter and David and all the “new” folks.  These people coming in from the “outside” (outside of our ghetto not outside of the Kingdom) and are challenging, enlightening, and, well, dangerous.  But it is on purpose for an important purpose. 

This isn’t the last “worship lab”.  This doesn’t mean we have a planned out list.  It does mean that we will continue to follow Him, and take risks, try new things, fail, succeed, and grow.  It isn’t about putting on a good show or being consistent in the sense of regular/predictable.  It does mean being consistent in our dependence upon the Spirit and our integrity before Him as a congregation.  We have to remember that performance is not praise, entertainment is not worship, and enjoy is not joy (to paraphrase John Hays).

One last encouragement:  Peter is taking us very purposefully into more interactive prayer on Sunday.  I want to encourage everyone to not be timid.  If you don’t have anything to say, be at peace.  You don’t have to “perform.”  However, if you have something on your heart related to the point of prayer, be free to speak up.  You are among friends who love you.  If you are not sure about what to say or if you are rightly discerning if it is the Spirit or your own voice, ask me or an elder.  They will listen and let you know if you should share or sit.  In this process you will grow in learning the often subtle difference between our own internal voice and the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit.  So you see you can’t loose if you act.  It will be fruitful no matter what. 

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