I felt him sailing away
Last summer,
Going back
To places he knew, but we didn’t.
If you think demons don’t have power,
You are wrong.
We begged him not to go.
His rope broke free from our shore,
And he is over the horizon now. Our world is so much
Darker today. He took his lantern with him.
Friend. Ambassador. Encourager.
I will hear his laughter echo in my dreams
For a long time. I know he is in
A better place. But I am not.
I am still here.
“Nice sermon, Max. It really made me think.” I know that as he left worship that day he meant those words as encouragement. I didn’t see the need to tell him right then that whether or not a sermon made someone think doesn’t make a lick of difference to me. I simply don’t care whether anything I say makes someone “think”. I care whether they experienced the Holy Spirit in worship, and whether something in that experience led to a changed life. I took the encouragement and simply said, “Thank you. See Wednesday for breakfast?” That’s a better place for a conversation about the difference between “thinking” and “experiencing”, and “sparked interest” and “changed life”.
For our community, what happens on Sunday morning is not only not all of “church”, it isn’t even all of worship. We live life together here. And we live sent. Apart from Mondays, which are days of reflection, people are engaged in God’s mission every day. There are prophetic worship happenings, and healing worship on other days of the week than Sunday. We break bread together regularly. We meet for accountability sessions. And we pray together. We disciple one another around supper tables knowing that disciples aren’t really disciples if they aren’t making disciples. And we serve together in the mission. We get dirty together, fear together, cry together, and toil together. And we see miracles together, signs and wonders of the coming and present Kingdom. Corporate worship on Sundays is a celebration of all that the Lord has done in the mission during the week. And it’s a time to put the pieces together…to go after those parts of ourselves that Christ is trying to redeem and to claim as his. Part celebration and part reflection and part Spirit connection, corporate worship on Sunday is designed as an opportunity to experience the Holy Spirit in a unique way that leads us to change our behaviors, and thus to change our lives. A closer and closer walk. A deeper and deeper obedience. A thickening of our souls.
So, I don’t measure effectiveness by what folks say on the way out on Sunday. I am grateful for the encouragement because it has historically been few and far between. But I am looking for the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of folks, and in myself. Am I kinder? Am I better at discerning what’s really going on? Is my heart breaking for what’s breaking God’s heart? Am I more patient? Does my heart, and do my hands, reach out to people who I could never get anything from? Am I responding with my life and all that I have to the urgency of the situation in the world? Am I praying with all my heart for blessings upon those who have sought with all their hearts to do me harm? Am I inviting others into Kingdom participation with me…the most precious thing in my life? If I lost my checkbook and my calendar and you found them, would you be able to tell from them that I believe in a Kingdom not of this world…and that I am a Christ-follower? For me, those are better indicators of the effectiveness of our missions and ministries, and better indicators that the Holy Spirit has, indeed, come by here. Did that make you think? I love you, but I really don’t care if it made you think. It’s about the fruit. It’s about the change.
They drove up to Adams and found him lying in a pile of trash in his trailer. He was alive, but too weak to move much. They’d been friends for years. I get the sense that Harold didn’t have a lot of friends, and that the ones he did have, he cherished. Mike and Jean couldn’t leave him like that. The cancer in his lungs was going to take him, but this was no way to go. So, they packed him up, locked up the old trailer, and took him home to their house so that he could die with some dignity among friends.
Harold has nothing of earthly value. In fact, he owes. There’s no estate. There’s just a mess of bills and papers to sort through and figure out, and a ravenous dysfunctional couple of cousins circling Harold like vultures. And Harold is rough. He’s an ex-biker with a lot of really broken stuff in his rearview mirror. There was no upside in the decision to take him in. There was only knowing that doing what’s right is the only blessing in this life. They did it because that is who they are. They could not NOT do this. They aren’t “walk away” people. They don’t worry about what will happen if they take him in. That just doesn’t cross their minds. They worry deeply about what will happen if they DON’T take him in.
I’ve gotten to know Jean and Mike first as volunteers at the food pantry. They came with a group of bikers who chose to volunteer, and they have been coming back ever since. Since then I have gotten to know them as a part of our faith community, and now through motorcycles. Our words between each other have not been many, but those words have been encouragement for each other. In many circumstances I would say that I did not really know them because we haven’t spent long hours talking together. But I do know them. I know them by the love they have shown over and over and over again to people who can give them nothing in return. They shun credit. They deflect it to others. They have given themselves away to feeding the hungry, and to giving warm clothing and hot coffee to people who would otherwise freeze to death living on the street. And now they have taken in a man no one else even really knew existed so that he could die with dignity and grace, after giving him years of their friendship when no one else did.
A long time ago, a man that we now know as Matthew felt compelled to write about his experience of faith and that of his community. His writing can be found in a part of the Bible called the New Testament. He relates a vision of Jesus foretelling the last judgment that he presents as taking place when we all stand before the Lord one day. In that passage, we find Matthew portraying Jesus saying these words:
‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
When we dropped Harold off at hospice today, he knew and we knew that that would be his last car ride in this life. He didn’t say much on the way. He just looked at the green that was finally emerging after a long winter. And he was looking beyond it, too, at something that he was beginning to see that none of us still living can yet see. I thought to myself, “Take it all in, Harold. Drink it deep.” We got him in and settled into what will most likely be his death bed in a few days.
After a long period of silence…not uncomfortable silence, but appropriate and almost holy silence, Harold spoke. He said, “I’m working through the fear.” Nothing profound. Just his truth. It struck me that at our end, truth is enough. After another period of silence, Harold said, “It’s okay. You can go.” I said, “I’ll come back tomorrow. If you’ve already left, I’ll see you on the other side. Save me place. I’ll be along.” He smiled as though he understood.
As I walked down the long hall with bright sunlight pouring in windows from one side of the building and cutting colored slashes across the floor ahead of me, I thought, “Today, I know what church is.” See, none of these people that I’ve mentioned here have a fish on their car. None of them hold membership in an institutional church that counts members to report them to their denominational higher-ups. They’re bikers and sinners, just everyday people. They don’t know the Creeds, and they don’t have the Jesus T-shirts. But they are living both ends of what Matthew was talking about, neither one realizing which end of it they are on. Where a hungry person is given something to eat, Jesus is alive there. He is actually there. And where a stranger like Harold is taken in and given shelter by people like Jean and Mike, Jesus is alive there. Where two or three people are gathered together in the way that Jesus would have gathered together, he is among them. And where people are gathered and Jesus actually is, that is church. I was in church today…the real church. And I walked away strangely healed.
Here it is folks, we don’t do “Outreach”. One truth: “Outreach” done the traditional way will wreck your church. If your pews are funding your outreach, you don’t have enough money, and you will drain your budget. If your pews are staffing your efforts to do “good” in the world, you will burn your people out and have little or no fruit to show for it. Getting your congregation outside the walls is important…crucial, in fact…but it’s also not enough. Missional is not what we do. It is a way of life.
There are a lot of things that I don’t know anything about. In fact, you’d be shocked at what I don’t know. Just ask any of my teachers who have suffered through having me in their classes. I am definitely not the sharpest crayon in the box. But there are a few things that we have invested years in and now know a few things about. Our community was a dying traditional church with empty pews and no money 15 years ago. I don’t know when the last time a disciple was made at that time. We started living missionally with a few people and literally a few dollars. Over the years, some things worked, some things didn’t. Some mustard seeds grew into bushes, and others had to be pruned. But we now have Kingdom contact with over 18,000 people a year. We are regularly seeing third and fourth generation disciples being made. Those are measurables. We have planted four communities in other cities that are thriving and doing effective mission work. Those are measurables. We also see people get clean and sober. We see souls that can only be described as “lost” be found and filled with light. We see the homeless make their way off the street. We see miracles. Those are not measurable, but we see those things all the time. So, we have learned a few things about small church transformation and missional church impact over the years.
As I listen to the woes of small church pastors trying to get their churches turned around, my heart goes out to them. I know personally the slings and arrows that they take, and the terrible price that they and their families pay. And as I listen, I hear echoes of some of the mistakes we made early on that nearly killed us, and took us away from the gospel. I think we can get at those things by highlighting three little things that can make a giant difference in living missionally.
1. The most important transformation in the people we’re trying to reach is the movement from being the object to being the subject of God’s mission.
What does that mean? It means that we do not ever try to staff our missions solely with people from our pews. We invite the world to not only be served, but to serve alongside of us. And we invite the first few to invite their friends to serve, and them to invite their friends to serve. All of our missions are staffed by people who were either once served there, or are currently being served there. Being a part of the mission of God is transformative. Our role is to help those that serve to see what they are doing through a gospel lens. And our role is also to invite them into our lives. If you are not understanding this key principle, you are not understanding what it means to live missionally. If we are doing good in order to stay out of hell, then we have missed the point of grace altogether. Yes, go and do good as a community because doing good flows out of the joy that comes from the grace we’ve received. But the greatest goodness you can do is to relinquish control of the good you’re doing, and to invite others who have never been reached to participate in God’s mission with you as equals. If you are only staffing what you do with your own people, you will burnout your people and quit the mission. I have seen it happen more times than I can tell you.
2. Missions that are solely funded from your pews are not sustainable. Sustainability comes from diversified income streams.
The needs outside of our church walls are huge. And if you’re like our community was, we didn’t have the kind of money that it takes to have a real impact on those needs. For years, folks had just wrung their hands and said, “What difference can a little church like us make? Forget it.” I went to my denomination a few times early on, because that was what they taught me to do in seminary…that was the mental model they had for everything. The first thing I learned was that the denomination didn’t have any money to give either. The second thing I learned was that it was extremely hard to get the denomination to give the money they did have unless we were expert in knowing the political and bureaucratic ins and outs of the system. And lastly, I learned that the denomination has its own agenda and if we didn’t wear the right t-shirts and front the right agenda, funding would not be available. Again, the temptation was to throw up our hands and say, “I tried. I quit.”
Just like with inviting people to participate on the subject side of the mission with their hands, we have learned that the mission must also be funded from the mission field itself. There are people who have never been reached who have financial resources that they truly want to invest in doing something good. These folks often have financial resources, but do not have a lot of time. Giving to support a compelling vision of goodness might be just the thing that they have been looking for. Swap some PR for some funding. We get financial partnership from all kinds of secular sources. Biker groups, bars, local businesses, Boy and Girl Scouts, local sports programs, caring individuals, and civic organizations all help to fund what we do. And those who give end up being changed by their giving. Your pews don’t have enough money. But the harvest itself has more resources than I could ever have imagined. All you need to do is to have a compelling vision, and the boldness to go and ask.
3.) It’s not about “What” you do. It IS about what you are participating in.
I know this is a little hard to grasp. But our food pantries are not about food. Well, they are about food, but they are also about something much bigger than the food we are able to provide. Sometimes our perfectionist and task-oriented tendencies end up alienating and subjugating the very people that we set out to reach. If we aren’t careful, we end up condescending, and condescension does not heal the world. It robs it of its dignity. Our missions are not about food or clothing or efficient processes. They are about the present Kingdom of God. In God’s Kingdom, there is always enough if we share. In God’s Kingdom, the least are greatest. In God’s Kingdom, people are treasured. It’s never about the right food or the right way to give food out. It’s always about right relationship. So, WHAT we do builds a bridge to relationship with the people that we serve and serve with. But WHAT we do is a means to an ends. The ends is participation in God’s Kingdom and being intentional about doing that. Served and serving, we are all equals and of equal value in that Kingdom.
Food, water, clothing, housing, visitation, justice…all of these are characteristics of what Jesus meant when he prayed, “…on earth, as it is in heaven”. This mission is pointing out the places where God’s reign is breaking into the world, participating in that Kingdom, and inviting others to participate in it with us.
Sometimes we have to see one in order to do one. I don’t want to come off as arrogant. If I have, I heartily apologize. We are all learners here. But I know that in my own case, I needed to get a mental model for missional church in order to envision how to live missionally here. If you’re struggling to get a mental model for what this might look like, please consider coming and spending a week with us in mission. What ends up happening in your community most likely will not look exactly like what happens here. It will take some Spirit-guided adaptation and innovation. But the principles are transferable between urban, suburban, and rural mission fields. We learned in a rural setting, and now apply what we learned to both urban and suburban mission fields. We will learn from you as well as you learning from us. And we end up encouraging each other in the process. If you’re interested, you can contact us by replying to this post, or visiting us at http://www.growingintochrist.org.
I was
Wrong. I thought
It was about leaving
Breadcrumbs…like Hansel and Gretel…but
Following those breadcrumbs will only lead you
To the witch.
The grackles have eaten the damn things anyway.
The Way
Forward can only be
Found in imagining
With Jesus…
Asking…
Begging, pleading with Jesus
For a Way
Forward.
Imagining
With Jesus…
The real one, the Living One…
The Way
Forward.
There is
No other way
Forward.
Our food pantries use a term, “Ladders of Peace”. Some folks struggle with what it means. Like anything that is truly human and truly real, it resists simple definitions. It is who we are in our pantry communities. It is best understood in experiencing it. Like so many things that are bigger than we are, we are sometimes unable to talk about the ways that they have touched us and changed us, because we just don’t have the words to fully convey the experience. All I can say is that you understand it when you see it come to life…when you see it in the flesh.
After we close our pantries, we gather our volunteers for a time of reflection. You have to understand that for us, these aren’t merely food pantries that distribute food. These, to us, are churches of Christ. They are sacred places where the “least of these” can be found. And where the least of these can be found, so can the Lord. They are bushes where the birds of the air come to find shelter. In our reflection time, we ask people to tell us about their experience, how it changed them or made them think differently about something. Sometimes, the answers are simple: “I had a good time.” But sometimes the answers are profound.
He is from Myanmar, though I think he might say that he is from Burma. He is from a persecuted people group there, the Chin. He has spent a good part of his life as an IDP, and then as a refugee in a camp outside his country. He immigrated to the U.S. fairly recently. If I had to guess, I would guess that he is in his early twenties. His English is broken, but we can communicate. He brings a group of about twenty other Chin young adults and teenagers once a month to serve with us. He has a light in him that is infectious. He has a joy that is overflowing out of him. He has every right to be an angry and bitter young man, and he is not. I don’t know why. What I do know is that I count him among my friends, and I am grateful.
As he began to speak that day (it was his turn), I struggled at first to understand what he was saying. I think he was a little nervous. But after the first few sentences, I understood what he was saying. He said that since coming to the U.S., he has been treated badly because he looks different, and because his English isn’t good. He said that people look down on him, like he is less than them. He told us about the struggles that he’s had in finding a job because of prejudice. The “American Dream” has been elusive for him. He told us these things while all the while smiling. It struck me that his smile was transcendent, from a place not of this world. And then he said something that was both simple and profound. It pierced me. He said, “In my life, everywhere I go here I am looked down on. But not here. Here is different. Here, I am an equal.” He smiled. He sat down. Tears began to well up in my eyes. The room was silent…holy, if only for a moment. The Kingdom of God had drawn very near to us, and we had the incredible opportunity to participate with him in it.
Ashes to ashes. From the dust do we come and to the dust shall we all return. No matter how far along the road we get, Ash Wednesday reminds us that we all have a common starting point on this earth, and a common ending point. These bodies are made from the dust of the earth, and one day these bodies will be returned to their lender. It still freaks me out a little bit to be reminded that house dust is mostly dried skin, our flesh carried off by the wind only to find a new home in the television vents and strewn across the coffee tables and dresser tops. It is a healthy reminder of just how insignificant we are…and how fleeting and fragile this life is. The paradox of insignificance…the crazy incongruity of being nothing and yet being treasure. In and of ourselves, we are dust and ash. Yet, connected to something inexplicably bigger, we are also breath and all that goes with it.
It is likely that today you will see a dark smear of ash on the foreheads of some of our neighbors, a reminder of what we are without that something that gives us breath…that something that gives us hope in the reality of the dust from which we are made and to which we shall return. Why has the God of Love chosen to form us from the earth and to number our days? Why must what begins here also end here among broken hearts and broken things?
Today, I do not have an answer. But as I look at the black smear of ashes on the foreheads of so many people seeking answers to so many unanswerable questions and solace for so many still-open wounds, I am compelled to think on these things. What are we really if we are truly more than the sum total of our carbon matter and firing synapses? Do we really belong merely to the earth from whence we come, or is there more that we come from than dust and water? And what about the breath? What about the love? How do we explain the love and the hurt and the joy? Where do those come from, and what do we owe their author for visiting them upon us? I have never seen a tree weep at the loss of another tree. Outside of poetry, I have never heard a wheat field roar with laughter. And I have never seen a mountain lay down its life for another mountain. Of what are these? Surely these will not return to the earth because it is not from the earth that they have clawed their way into us. What ends must end. There is no changing that. But sometimes I think that end must be real in order for all that has led up to that end to have real meaning. Without claiming our beginning AND our end, can we really claim that anything that we choose or experience between those two banal commonalities really matters at all? Ashes to ashes. From the dust do we come…or do we? I will dwell on that…today.
In my study and prayer time this morning it came to me how little Jesus had to say about what happens to us after we die. He says a few things, but not a lot of things. And it also struck me how much Jesus had to say about how we live in this life. He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near to you this day.” His teachings were all about living a life of heaven in this life…heaven’s economy, heaven’s ethics, heaven’s priorities. He prayed, “…on earth as it is in heaven.” His message was about God’s Kingdom at work in the world that we can participate in, and invite others to participate in with us. So…as I eat my “fat Tuesday” pancakes tonight (actually, no carbs for me right now ), I’m going to think on those words, “…on earth as it is in heaven”. Lord, hear our prayer…
When the crisis became a reality for him, he took me up on the offer, but I think it was because he had absolutely no other offer. I don’t think he really wanted to live here. He liked the way I knew him. He liked that I knew him for the guy he wanted to be. The face he showed me was the face he strove for. He didn’t want me to know everything about him. Not everything about him was what he wanted to be. I think he needed somebody to know him as he wanted to be known. I think he really needed somebody to see him that way. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t fully real. I don’t know anyone who can bear having their whole selves revealed in the full light of day. We all have really ugly places that we have to deal with every day, and that we just don’t want others…people other than God…to know. He needed a place to stay, though. So, I let him stay here. It’s hard to hide when you live in close proximity. I helped him solve one set of problems, but I may have lost something precious in the process.
There is this guy that he wants to be. And the role I played in his life was to know that guy, and to reflect that guy back to him. He needed to shine somewhere because there are so many places where he doesn’t shine…and he knows that so excruciatingly well. I was the guy who knew him at his best, who saw him only at the times of his choosing. I was the guy who saw the person he wanted to be. That was a “holy” role…that was a holy space. It was a place of hope for him. I wish I had understood that. I hope now that the truth of unconditional love will have taken root in his heart. I hope that he comes to know that even though I now know the other sides of him, I still am the guy who sees him the way he hopes to be. I hope that the grace of God can overcome my failure to see the holy space that he had created for me in his life. And I hope that that same grace helps him to know that the space between the person he is and the person he hopes to be is becoming shorter with each passing day.
on, truth, warrants, wisdom, youth }
Here’s how it happens. You can’t get a job because you don’t have driver’s license. You don’t have a driver’s license because you can’t afford to get one. You finally save up enough money from doing odd jobs to learn how to drive after saving for two years to do it. Then, you can’t afford a vehicle. So you save for another two years to come up with $1,100 to buy a clunker, except you can’t afford the insurance. So you drive without insurance because it’s your way to get to the legitimate job you finally got that will allow you to get insurance. Then your tail light goes out because a mouse ate through your wiring. The repair will cost a couple hundred dollars that you don’t have because you owe $3,000 to the utility company who just turned your power off. You owe $3,000 because you didn’t have a job for four years while you were scrounging enough money to get a driver’s license and a car so you could get a job to pay your utilities before they get turned off. Your pay goes to paying that off so you can cook the food you can’t afford and have to get in inadequate supply from the food pantry. But…at least your working, so you have hope.
Then, you get a ticket for your tail light being out. And you get another ticket at the same time for driving without insurance. You couldn’t afford the light repair, so you sure can’t afford the tickets. So you start saving to fix the light, and you have no choice but to drive anyway because that’s your only way to get to your job, and your job is your only hope. Meanwhile, the time is ticking on paying your tickets. Then you get a letter from the DMV saying that your license has been suspended for failure to pay the tickets that you can’t afford to pay for the tail light that you still can’t afford to fix. You need the job, so you drive anyway…just to work and back. You walk miles to do everything else.
Then, on your way to your job which is your only hope, you get pulled over again for the tail light. They find out that you’re driving on a suspended license and they impound your car and give your another ticket that you can’t afford. The impound lot charges $50 a day. You don’t have $50 so it sits there adding up $50 a day to the point where you owe more than the car is worth. And you try taking two buses to get to work, and get there late. Twice. And they fire you. Now, you’ve lost your car, your driver’s license, AND your job…which was your hope. And you have tickets that aren’t getting paid because you’ve lost your job and don’t have any money to pay them.
The power gets turned off again because you don’t have a job any more to make payments to keep it on. Then your rent is late for the same reason and the landlord is calling and screaming at you and calling you a deadbeat and threatening to put you out on the street. The stress starts to build. And build. One day, you’re trying to get some groceries after walking to two miles to the nicer store with better prices, and the clerk treats you rudely…the stress catches up and you respond rudely even though you know you weren’t raised that way. The clerk escalates the confrontation with a more rude remark. You then respond in kind. The off-duty policeman in line behind you who has no idea of your life situation and didn’t hear the clerk’s first remarks sees only a customer who is causing a scene. He decides to intervene and calls in your information after pulling you aside for a “stop and frisk”. He’s only doing his job. He just thinks it’s simple…and there’s nothing simple about poverty or despair. The dispatcher informs him that there is a warrant out for your arrest for the unpaid tickets. So, he arrests you.
You don’t have the money to pay the ticket. So you sit in jail because you have more time than you have money. Your four kids are at home without supervision. Oh, did I forget to mention that in the midst of all of this, you’re trying to raise four kids? Where’s the dad? Oh he’s in prison. One of the kids acts up at school. Social Services find out they’re living at home without an adult…looked in on by a sympathetic neighbor. They take your kids. When you finally get out of jail after serving 30 days among murderers and gang members, you still don’t have a driver’s license because you don’t have a job to earn enough money to get it reinstated. You can’t get a job because no one will hire you without a driver’s license. You have no electricity at your apartment. Your landlord started eviction papers on you while you were in jail, and you will be on the street in about five days. You can only get five days worth of food once a month from the pantry because somebody figures that’s all you need and any more will enabling you. You could probably sell that, but it wouldn’t cover what you owe the landlord. Your car is now hopelessly owned by the impound lot owner. And your kids are spread between three different foster homes and are acting up in them and getting in trouble with the law. Their own spiral into poverty has begun in another generation, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
And then, you are approached by a gangster who says he feels your pain and has a solution. If you just sell a little pot for him, you will have enough money to get the license out of hock, get the power turned back on, pay your rent in cash, and get back on track to getting another legitimate job so you can get your kids back. You can make enough in five days to stop the eviction.
At first you just sell to people you know. Then one of them brings someone you don’t know. She turns out to be an undercover police officer. You get busted with possession with the intent to deliver…and that means prison and criminal record. Nobody hires people with criminal records anymore, and everyone now does a thorough background check before they hire. You are done. And you aren’t even forty yet.
Oh, this is an extreme case, you say? Oh, this is the exception and not the rule? No, it isn’t. And it all started with a tail light being out and not having the means to fix it. It takes more than boot straps.
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