Camping and Reading

Christina and I threw our gear and boys in the car Friday and met with old college friends at Fairfield State Park for a night of camping. Camping with a bunch of ministers stinks because we all have to be at church Sunday morning, meaning we only get a good day-and-a-half to be together. Oh well, it’s a day-and-a-half worth spending.

I love camping with our boys because at 6, 3, and 18 months they’re old enough to only have fun in the outdoors – they don’t realize the frustrations of setting up tents, forgetting all useful items, fighting mosquitoes, and other annoyances we adults tend to focus on. They had fun chasing the armadillo through our camp, roasting marshmallows, throwing rocks into the lake, and playing in the tent like it was their own personal castle. I don’t know when we make the change, but at some point life becomes more about the frustrations than the joys. We carry our worries around like a fragile heirloom – we focus intensely on them, talk about them, show them to everyone whether they care or not. At some point we lose our childlikeness by seeing the bad more clearly than the good.

Oh to be a child again…

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On a separate note I’ve got some book recommendations for you. Christina read “The Shack” aloud two weekends ago while we were in the car for 9 hours. If you’re like me and put off reading it simply because everyone else was, give in and read it. It’s a great, great book.

I’m currently reading “What the Dog Saw” by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s a fascinating book about men and women who made something of themselves by seeing the world a little differently than the rest of us. It’s full of wonderful, tragic, inspiring stories.

I should be receiving my next shipment from Amazon soon with two new books – “Finding Our Way Again – The Return of Ancient Practices” by Brian McLaren, and “Christianity Beyond Belief – Following Jesus for the Sake of Others” by Todd Hunter. I’ll let you know my take after I’ve read them.

A Good Story

I finished Don Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” today. What a great book. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. It’s easy to read yet deeply inspiring. Here’s my takeaway:

We are capable of crafting a story worth telling with our own lives.

I met a guy today named David Beagle. As of December 15 this year he will have been sober for 19 years, yet he still goes to AA meetings and leads multiple recovery groups and Bible studies during the week. His “job” is director of the distribution center at the Impact Church of Christ here in Houston. I say “job” because to David, it is clearly more than that. Jordan and I got to watch him in action for only a half-hour or so today, but in that brief time we heard his heart for the poor, his compassion for the addict, and his sensitivity toward those of us who are oblivious to what he sees everyday. David shows up each morning at 6:00 a.m. to begin his work at the distribution center. Some days he’s at the Food Bank making his purchases, some days he’s filling bags or preparing MRE’s, and other days he’s in meetings or teaching an alcoholic about Jesus. His partially-replaced knee is the only thing strong enough to slow this man down.

I tell you about David because I think he’s living a good story on purpose. I tend to wait for the good part of the story to come to me rather than make a good story happen. I’ve been content with a life of mostly insignificant events with a few extraordinary moments scattered between. And in some ways, aren’t we all? We live vicariously through our friends who are conquering the world, but we assume those stories are only for a select few. What if those stories are for everyone – you, me, your family and mine? What if we could make a life full of stories worth telling? What would that life look like?

That’s essentially what Donald Miller’s book is about. It has me ready to start writing a story, and when that one’s done, I’ll write another.

I’d love to hear about people you know who are living good stories on purpose.

Bono and Jesus

Jones’ and Soper’s outside Reliant Stadium

From our seats – front row on the third deck directly across from the stage

The Band

Stage lights going crazy

That Bono sure draws a crowd.

 Wednesday night Christina and I joined Matt and Angela for the U2 concert at Reliant Stadium. Every seat was full and the standing-room-only floor was exactly how you think it would be. The concert was amazing – AMAZING! The band played 23 songs and stayed on stage for almost three hours, and at one point I may have cried a little.

 That Bono sure draws a crowd.

 I think it’s safe to say U2 has a massive following. I saw people from all walks of life Wednesday night – preppy, hippy, rich, poor, black, white, and everything in between. I saw a man dressed what appeared to be eastern religious clothing; I saw singles, married couples and a few gay couples. A woman sitting behind us had a British accent. It was the closest thing to the world’s population gathering in one place – all to hear one man.

 That Bono sure draws a crowd.

 Jesus drew a crowd. Mark tells us Jesus once fed 5,000 men (plus women and children) with a few loaves and fish. This was done with no billboards or Ticketmaster. Sure there were also no lights, screens, speakers, or stage, but there was a show. Healings, driving out demons, teaching like no one had ever heard, and the food! The people loved hearing Jesus teach about the Kingdom of God and how the poor are really rich, the hungry are fed, the weak are strong, etc. I can imagine them cheering when Jesus slammed the Pharisees, much like a U2 crowd cheering at Bono demanding the release of a political prisoner.

 That Jesus sure drew a crowd.

 Jesus and Bono have some similarities. Unfortunately, so do their followers. Following Bono is easy. You buy a t-shirt or two, some CD’s, and attend an event every once in a while with the rest of his followers. If you’re a hardcore fan, you sign up to be part of a campaign. Outside of that, following Bono has little effect on your day-to-day life.

 What would happen if I wrote the above paragraph substituting Jesus for Bono? Let’s try:

 Following Jesus is easy. You buy a t-shirt or two, some CD’s, and attend an event every once in a while with the rest of his followers. If you’re a hardcore fan, you sign up to be part of a campaign. Outside of that, following Jesus has little effect on your day-to-day life.

 Could this be true for you? I know it is for me much of the time. Western Christianity in many ways has been reduced to a t-shirt and church attendance. As Americans we celebrate our religious freedom, and rightly so, but has our freedom made us soft? Has our freedom removed a need for sacrifice? So far as I could tell, few people, if any, left the U2 concert before the lights came on. Everyone wanted as much as they could experience. In John 6:66, after delivering a hard teaching, John tells us that “many of (Jesus’) disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” When Jesus became more than a sideshow and free food, people bailed. Jesus made it clear that following Him meant something deeper, something harder than sitting in a pew. He said things like, “Take up your cross,” “Whoever loses his life will save it,” “sell everything you have and give to the poor.” Where is our cross? How much time do we spend preserving our life? How freely do we give to the poor?

 That Jesus sure can clear a room.

Questions

Geez Louise it’s been…okay I stopped counting…it’s been a really long time since my last post. I forget how much I enjoy blogging because it keeps me constantly thinking, critiquing, analyzing, and challenging myself. I think this is a good time to get back into it because, now hear me out, I’m really struggling with who I am, where I’m at in my walk with Jesus, and where the church is headed. It’s not a bad struggle; in fact I think it’s extremely healthy to feel uneasy sometimes about where we are as a people of God. Uneasiness gets us moving. Comfort keeps us in our seats. So I’m uneasy, and it’s got me moving.

So here’s the thing, for a very long time I’ve had a passion for the poor, the least of society. I’ve given my heart to those the world doesn’t want and the driving force behind that feeling is Jesus – these are the people Jesus gave His heart to. I feel at home, at peace, in parks full of homeless people. I get a rush when I’m at Impact in downtown Houston, I feel alive when I’m in Honduras with men and women who wear the same clothes everyday and sleep on dirt floors. I felt very close to God in Malawi sitting in a man’s home in a small village eating sima and boiled cabbage. These are the places I feel the Spirit of God. These are the places I feel myself aligned with the mission of Jesus on earth.

Here lately (specifically the last few days) I’ve been wrestling with who I am in the grand scheme of things – not just as an individual, but as a part of the Kingdom of God. I’ve been wrestling with the direction the Church is headed. I feel a deep sense that church as we know it will fail to reach our world in the next 15-20 years, maybe sooner. There are places in the U.S. where “church” has been undergoing a transformation for a while now, and the Kingdom is spreading even though there are no buildings, pews, benevolence policies, or ministry models. There are people reaching people, meeting in homes over dinner tables or in coffee shops or at restaurants, in bars and pubs, in tattoo parlors, and so on. The Kingdom is spreading in spite of the traditional Church.

This isn’t a slam on The Church. Jesus created it, God dwells among it, and the Holy Spirit works in it. The Church is holy, righteous, and good.

I think we in Bible belt, traditional churches in America must start reexamining how we approach reaching the lost. In many ways The Church is seen by people who do not claim Christianity as another institution not to be trusted. The Church is lumped in with the government, health insurance companies, investment firms, and other central societal organizations. Some believe they will never get a clear picture of what it means to be a follower of Jesus because The Church has too much to lose if we were to teach that. So instead, the belief goes, we sugar coat, we glamorize, we amaze with worldly things – large buildings, high-tech equipment, helicopters, private jets, best-selling books. The Church competes with society rather than transforming it.

One of the wonderful things about being a youth minister here at West Houston is that I get to introduce this side of Christianity to our students through things like 30-Hour Famine, mission trips to places like PUMP in Oregon, Memphis Urban Ministry in Memphis, TN, and Mission Lazarus in Honduras. We live in a pretty affluent area of Houston and it’s hard to remember sometimes that another world exists – a world of poverty, hunger, hurt, pain, life. We get glimpses of that world through these events and I can’t wait to get to them again.

It’s hard for me to know what it would be like to be saturated in a world of poverty. I’m currently at my desk in my office, listening to the quiet hum of the copier in the work room, using my wireless internet, cooled by the air conditioning, and about to go into the kitchen for a snack. It’s hard for me to understand what the world is like for those who live outside, who deal daily with stress of not knowing what the immediate future will hold. It’s hard for me to understand how Jesus feels about me sitting here at my desk, on my computer, in my cozy office. Right now I’m just full of questions about life, God, Jesus, myself, The Church, my boys, and other issues. I’ve listed them below in no particular order. Some of them came to me even as I was typing. Some of them are currently more relevant than others, but they are all contributing to an overall feeling of unease.

And so it begins:

- How can my world look more like Jesus’ world?

- How can I make the Kingdom of Heaven a little brighter for the people around me?

- Where is God at work in my world? How do I join Him in it?

- Is it okay to help everybody just because they ask? Should we take Matthew 25, the story of the rich man and Lazarus, and other teachings of Jesus seriously when it comes to giving, serving, helping?

- Is God pleased with The Church as it exists today?

- What should The Church be doing that we’re totally missing?

- How do we all join together – megachurches, traditional churches, parachurches, house churches – to channel the Kingdom of Heaven on earth?

- How much is The Church hindered by our pride and arrogance? How many decisions in The Church get made that are borne out of selfishness, a desire to be bigger, richer, more powerful? How does God feel about those exactly?

- Where is there selfishness in my own world and in the student ministry at WHCC? What must change if we’re going to start reaching students we’ve never reached?

- Should everyone be poor? Jesus was. Is that the best way to live? It seems like Jesus was God’s way of not only redeeming humanity, but also saying, “Here’s what life is supposed to look like. I created it and here’s how I would live it if I were human.”

- I don’t read the word “responsible” or “irresponsible” in the Bible. Maybe it’s there and I’m just missing it. It seems to me that we use the idea of responsibility as a reason not to take risks. Responsibility is dependent on human wisdom. A lot of what Jesus said and taught didn’t really make sense. Is responsibility a crutch, an excuse, a way to maintain our comfort?

- What do I want my children to know about the Kingdom of Heaven? Do I want them to know how to do church or how to be like Jesus? The obvious answer is to be like Jesus. But how do I do that without simply making them good at church? How do I teach them that the people taking Jesus into bars and pubs, coffee shops and restaurants, but never go to a church building, are just as much a part of the Kingdom of Heaven as we are (if not more so)?

- How far am I supposed to go with trusting the Lord? Should I go home now, throw out all my food, and wait for God to show up with a basket of bread, turkey, barbecue Lays, and lemon-lime Gatorade? Should we go buy a cow and get our milk the way God intended? Should I have a garden in my backyard with all our fruits and vegetables growing in it? Am I sinning by buying food for more than one day at a time?

Goodbye, Hypocrites!

Yesterday Jordan and I went downtown to James Bute Park to participate in the daily worship service for the homeless men and women there. We were late (we’re youth minister’s, we’re not supposed to be on time), so we just sat down in the plastic chairs among the dozen or so men gathered. We listened to a man talk about a faith without deeds. He called the men to repentance for their sins and challenged them to start their lives over again for the glory of God.

We chatted with Dave Alvarez from Glimpse of Reign, a praise band that often plays at the park. As we were leaving a man sat on the wire fence near my car and as we walked past he smiled and waved. I waved back and he said, “Goodbye hypocrites.” He had a fairly thick Spanish accent, so it came out, “Goodbye Heepocreets.” I couldn’t understand what he was saying so I walked over to him. I smiled and said, “What did you say?” He said it again – “Goodbye hypocrites.” I extended my arm to shake hands with him when it registered what he was saying. As my hand went out, he quickly drew his arm away and shook his head, refusing to shake my hand.

As Jordan and I left I wondered aloud why he thought we were hypocrites. Was it because we were obviously not homeless? Did our wealth indict us? Was it because we participated in the worship time and this man has a disdain for Christians? Was it because we didn’t give any money when an offering was collected (I always forget to bring cash or change with me)? None of the above? All of the above? I have no idea.

What occured to me was that we cannot possibly know what is in people’s hearts. Jordan and I were there to participate in worship, but also to scope out our plans for this Saturday when we take our high school students to the park to feed the homeless men and women there. I was initially offended, thinking to myself, “That guy doesn’t know me! Who is he to judge me?” But I’m just as guilty.

As a homeowning, car owning, clean clothes-wearing, shower-taking, grocery-buying “ordinary” American, I tend to make assumptions about the poor and the homeless. They’re probably lazy. They’re probably hooked on drugs. They’re probably alcoholics. They’re probably uneducated. They’re probably mentally and/or emotionally disabled. Who am I to make such judgments? How do I know that every man and woman living in that park aren’t the Godliest, most humble, servant-hearted people on the face of the planet? How do I know that the men and women in that park aren’t serving God even MORE faithfully than I am on a day-to-day basis? How am I to know that?

Are you guilty of these feelings from time to time? Do you wrestle with what you SHOULD feel toward the poor versus what you ACTUALLY feel about them? What are your thoughts?

Bailouts: What do you think?

I’m curious what your take is on our current issue with bailing out large corporations. Many Wall Street firms that were bailed out are being scrutinized now for handing out bonuses this year. The idea is that they need to reward those who have continued to work hard and, perhaps more importantly to those getting the bailout money, giving away bonuses is what keeps the financial firms competitive. In the articled linked above, one Wall Street exec is quoted as saying, “nobody wants to be the one not paying bonuses when others do.” So while Americans are losing their jobs and their homes, Wall Street firms are using government money to boost six-figure salaries. Something doesn’t sit well with me about that.

General Motors is also on the brink of collapse, looking for a handout from the government. I feel a bit differently about this one, though. In the article above it is estimated that 1 in 10 American jobs is linked to one of the Big Three auto makers. A collapse of those businesses could be devastating to the factory workers building our cars. While I understand that our investments are tied up in companies like AIG and Morgan Stanley, my feeling is that people connected with the auto industry have more to lose than those connected with investment banks. Maybe I’m completely wrong, but, for what it’s worth, those are my thoughts.

How do you feel about this issue? Are you for the buyouts? Against? Indifferent?

Rays or Phillies?

As a Yankees fan I can honestly say that I’m sad my Yanks are at home this October, but I’m happy to see the Rays and Phils in The Series. I want to see the Rays win it so bad, but I also want guys like Ryan Howard and Chase Utley to have a championship under their belt so when the Hall of Fame comes knocking there will be no denying that they belong there. I know it’s election time, but is anyone paying attention to the baseball playoffs? What do you think? Can the Rays win it all?

In & Out Burger = AWESOME!

Greetings from Sacramento. Christina, Seth, Jordan, Joey and I are at the Youth Specialties conference here in the capital city. It’s been an awesome conference so far. A few highlights:

- Mercy Me was the performer at the first general session. Awesome concert/worship time

- Andrew Marin from The Andrew Marin Foundation has been here all weekend talking about building bridges between churches and the gay/lesbian community. Talk about some heavy stuff!!

- Phyllis Tickle taught an entire church history course in about 45 minutes. It might have been the most important message of the conference – it was basically how cultural shifts impact our ministries.

- Doug and Cathy Fields led a Q&A session on youth ministry and marriage last night. Christina and I went and really enjoyed it. The Fields’ are proof that you can be a GREAT family man and have a GREAT student ministry. Very inspiring.

- Mark Yaconelli spoke at a general session. Absolutely amazing message, but nothing compared to his grand finale – stripping off his outerwear to reveal disco attire. The lights went out, the disco ball lit up, the jams started pumping, and he boogied on the stage. The place was going nuts!!!

We leave tomorrow and I’m anxoius to see Levi and Titus. It’s been a great weekend and I’m ready to hit the ground running when we get back.

Mission Lazarus

Christina and I took a wonderful trip over the weekend to visit Jarrod Brown and his family at Mission Lazarus. Jarrod, Ally, and their team are doing an amazing work there, ministering to the orphans and the surrounding communities of Chuloteca and San Marcos. The purpose of our trip was to see what our teens will be doing there this summer on our 11th and 12th grade mission trip; while we got all the info we needed, it turned out to be much more than a survey trip. We were blessed and inspired by Jarrod and Ally and all that we saw. They have eagerly put themselves in the current of God’s Spirit, allowing Him to move them wherever He needs them to go. I figured everyone would want to see pictures, so here they are.

Margarito's house on the island

Christina and I eating clam soup made by a woman on the island

One of the children's homes on the ranch. These things are amazing!!

Jarrod and I eating turtle eggs. Peel it open, throw it back, and pray none of it touches your tongue!!!

Visiting an island

At the carpenter's house

The carpenter's children

We were supposed to visit a clinic, but the road had pretty much fallen off the mountain. This is as far as the truck made it.

Christina on a hammock at the posada

Another Victim of Houston Traffic

I hopped in the car today to head downtown for worship in the park. Dave Alvarez and Glimpse of Reign were going to be leading the homeless men and women in praise, so I was exicted to finally get to hear them. Sadly, Houston has more people than can fit in one city, so I sat in traffic on 290 for over an hour before turning around and coming back. You won this time, Traffic…

While in the car, though, I had one of those “Was-That-The-Holy-Spirit?” moments. I won’t go into details, but I was overwhelmed with the goodness of the cross. Jesus personified love, giving, and sacrifice through the cross. The cross is what makes the poor rich, the weak strong, and gives the blind sight. What a wonderful Messiah!

Finally, Brother V. (that’s what we call him because no one can pronounce his last name), a missionary supported by West Houston in India was here today and had lunch with the staff. How’s this for a ministry resume:
– he preaches for two churches in his town
– he began and continues to run an orphanage which currently cares for 75 orphans
– he began and runs what amounts to an orphanage for widows, giving them a place to live, food to eat, etc.
– he began and runs a ministry to lepers, India’s “untouchables.”
– he mentors and trains young men to be preachers throughout India
Brother V. is about the most humble-looking figure you’ll ever see. Unimposing in stature, soft-spoken, polite, humble, thankful, but the power of God inside of him has stirred a fire in his heart. Everyday he ministers to these various people of India – the lowest of the low, the untouchables, the least of these. Brother V. is my hero!