Another thing that confuses me...

It is very easy to idealize ministry in other places. Especially other places where the needs are so much greater (the inner city and Africa for example). We get frustrated with the people around us and want to go where the people really need us and somehow deserve our help unlike these ungreatful sinners all around us in our current location (anybody's current location and I'm not specifically talking about anybody in Mount Vernon).

Well, I read an article in last weeks Newsweek called "The Lessons Tulia Teaches." (December 19th, pg.44) Tulia is a town in Texas that had a big scandal because the local sherriff wrongly arrested 47 African Americans on drug charges and they all went to jail. Luckily people stood up for justice and the people were released from prison. One of the people who stood up for justice was a local pastor and it cost him his job. Listen to what he had to say "'I had always believed the truth shall set you free,' said Bean. 'In the end...it took a misrepresentation of the facts to get these people justice.' By that, he means that in order to fuel the crusade, he and his allies had to make the victims appear more innocent than they were an the town more eveil than it actually is."

I know the people I live with in the West End arefar from innocent. They have done plenty of stuff to get them in the messes they are in. That's why I want to go to Africa or the inner city where it's not there fault and the people deserve help. What I realize is that whever I go (and I don't want to leave Mount Vernon) I'm not going to find people who are innocent, who really deserve my help.

I heard a lot about that guy in California who just got executed. He was made out to be a saint. Even if he wasn't guilty of the specific murders he was charged with, the gang he started was responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of murders. He was far from innocent.

So what's my point in all of this? We are not called to help the innocent, cause there are none. We are called to get involved in people's lives who are messy and really don't deserve our help. We are called to stand up for the guy on death row, not because he is innocent, but because he was made in the image of God and though the image is distorted, we want to see it redeemed. We are called to love our neighbor who is grumpy and hates us, not because he deserves it, but because God loves him as much as he loves us. We are called to get involved in lives that are so completely messy by their own creation, not because they deserve it either, but because that is the way of the Word who became flesh.

When it comes down to it, I'm not innocent and I don't deserve God grace. Who am I to be the one who keeps God's grace from another. We need to stop looking for the innocent or the deserving to help. We just need to help those who need help.

Church

So today in our church service we had 19 people. The fewest amount of people we've had in a long time, but we knew it would be that small with the holidays and such. But everyone there was like family, all committed Christ followers. I didn't care we were so small, instead we adapted and did things that we can't do when we have a large crowd. I felt like we worshiped this morning. I felt like we were who we were suppossed to be as the people of God in the West End of Mount Vernon.

Yet on Sundays when we have lots of people (lots for us is 50-60) and non Christ followers present we do things different. We're not so bold to do things that the people of God do. For enstance today we gathered in a circle with held hands and people prayed as they felt led. If we had visitors there I would have felt reluctant to do some of that or other simular stuff at the risk of making them feel uncomfortable.

So my point in all of this is that I worry that I let visitors, especially the non Christian ones, dictate how we practice being the people of God. It causes me so much confusion because we all have such a strong desire to reach out into the lost world, but in doing that we have this tendency to lose sight of who we are to be as the people of God. Another example: a few weeks ago a neighbor came to church with us and during my "pastoral prayer" I was tempted to not be so radical or bold so I wouldn't make her think we were too radical in our faith. I shook off the temptation and prayed the way I needed to, but still the temptation was there. Reaching out to the world around us in part of what we need to be as the people of God, but it is not supposed to form who we are as the people of God. I'm confused.

Persecuted Church

I'm preaching on the Persecuted Church this Sunday. I got to spend about an hour working on it at the library this morning, but then I had to go home to watch Lucy. When Mandy got to school after I started watching her she called to say her Parent/Teacher conferences were starting an hour later than she thought so I could bring Lucy to her at school and I could spend more time at the library.

So when I made it back to the library I saw a student there who I knew spent the last two summers in an undiscosed country being a missionary. So I went and asked him about the persecuted church in the country he went to and he told me a ton, enough to make you cry on one hand and enough to make you beam with pride for our brothers and sisters in Christ
who are being faithful witnesses in very tough, to say the least, times.

As he was telling me his stories, I heard this guy talking behind me, and I thought that couldn't be Fletcher Tink. I turned around and sure enough it was. He's one of the top guys in the Nazarene church when it comes to Compassionate ministries. I introduced myself and told him what we are going to do Sunday and asked me if he could talk to me about the persecuted church and boy did he ever and I was left with the same impression I got from the student.

I say all of this not to point out how cool it was that God made things work in such a way that I got to hear two first hand accounts of the persecuted church. I say all of that because I think God wants us praying for the persecuted church. God didn't say I think I'll do something really cool for Kevin today, I think He said, "His brothers and sisters are being persecuted and he needs to hear about it so at the very least He can battle with them in prayer." Pray for the persecuted church today in these ways:
1. In the persecution they may hold firm.
2. Pray for the families left behind
3. When leaders are martyred, that Godly leaders will rise in their place.

Traditional church

With all of the talk of how bad the traditional church is (and a lot of it is justified) by a lot of my friends in the blog world I thought I needed to post something.
I went to my district office yesterday to drop some stuff off. When I pulled up the District Superintendents wife saw me and ran outside. She said you go in and take care of business while I sit in the car with Lucy. It was raining and cold and she didn't want me to have to take her out in that weather. She is so kind.
I go inside and my DS was there and he came out of his office to talk to me. He was so encouraging to me and our church. He kept telling me it is going to take all kinds of different churches doing all different kinds of things. He believes in me and our church.
Granted we aren't a radicaly different church than most, we probably look more traditional than I would like to admit at times, but he is encouraging us to be who we need to be, who God is calling us to be.
I like my DS a lot. Mandy and I call him P Dubya (that's short for Pastor Wilson). Sure he sees the church through different lenses than I do, but he allows me to keep using my lenses. On top of that Him and his wife love me and my family.

Some more thoughts

-I'm getting really good at praying out loud during church. I think today's was one of my best. I feel like Jesus words in the Sermon on the Mount about praying out loud were directed towards me. I don't know how to fix it. Maybe pray more in my closet at home would be a start.
-I just read "Blue Like Jazz." Great book!
-My wife and my mom both read "Wild at Heart" and told me to read it, so I read the first three chapters and they asked what I thought and I told them i wanted a beer. I have the same thoughts after reading Blue Like Jazz. I don't drink, never had a beer before, yet these so called Christian books are corupting me. Don't worry, I have no plans to put down a cold one.
-So we had a guest speaker in church today. He asked us to open our Bibles with him and I realized I left mine on stage. I felt like a bad pastor at that moment, but then I looked behind me and saw Joe Noonen didn't have his and I looked in front of me and saw Alex Varughese didn't have his. But this little girl who has only been to church like three times had hers. She gave me a bit of hope today and not just because she had a Bible.
-Our church is having a Halloween outreach that I'm pumped about. These girls moved into our neighborhood for their senior year to be more involved in the neighborhood (cool enough in itself) and they are turning their back yard into the coolest Halloween stop in the neighborhood: smores, dunking for apples, lots of candy, games and other stuff. They are going to be light on a dark night. Though Halloween is already one of my favorite holidays of the year. What other holiday gets the whole neighborhood out of their houses doing something together? I wish we had halloween every month.
-Our church got Mandy and I a gift certificate to the Buxton Inn in Grandville. I love our church. Our church is a little unorganized and weird at times (it takes after me), but I love it so much. I wouldn't trade that group of people for anything.
-Blue Like Jazz has this story about a confessional booth that is so wonderful, that one story is worth the price of the book in my opinion.
-I hope I'm not trying to be trendy.

weird emotions

Well i found out yesterday that the building we were looking at buying for our church sold to someone else. Then I read about a church building a coffee shop and how my friend wasn't very happy about it. Then I read about the earthquake in Pakistan.

It makes me glad we didn't buy the building. But are we doing anything about the people in Pakistan now that we have funds to spare? I'm a little sick to my stomach and at the same time I'm ready to go my warm bed and go to sleep and forget about everything. Guilt is stupid, it just makes you send in a check and then forget all about it. I want a different lifestyle where guilt isn't a factor cause I'm living different. I can't even describe it right now. Cause you know next week there will be a another disaster and another check to write to avoid the guilt, but I want to live differently, to love differently, to already be living with empty pockets. At least I think I do. Guide us Father.

Some sorta random thoughts...

-Screw you down syndrome. You will not steal our joy.
-I read a study yesterday that said 80% of parents who found out their child had downs during their pregnancy had an abortion during the 1990’s at a certain hospital in Boston. That makes me cry.
-I realized this past weekend I won’t be able to beat up everybody who causes Lucy problems in life. For starters I’m nearly a pacifist, but the real reason is that I live in another Kingdom and I have to show that Kingdom to Lucy.
-I’m not really worried that much about what people will do to Lucy, I’m more worried about what they won’t do (i.e. invite her to sleepovers, giver her a chance, be her friend).
-Who is Iron and Wine?
-Lucy’s eyes penetrate my soul.
-I cry the most when I read articles or books that tell the story of parents finding out their child has downs shortly after birth. It just brings back so many emotions.
-Lucy means “bearer of light,” we couldn’t have picked a more perfect name for her.
-Can you believe Mike Redcay got married? I’m so happy for him, I like him so much!
-We live in reality and we are well aware of reality. Yet we live in hope and are full of hope.
-God is good.
-Sometimes I forget that Lucy has downs.
-downs does not define Lucy, nor does it define our family. (yet that seems to be all that I talk about.)
-When I dreams about Lucy’s future I dream that she becomes a dancer.
-Screw you down syndrome. You will not steal our joy.

Emergent?

I’m not a big fan of labels anymore. I used to be a big fan of the word emergent, as in the emergent church. But this weekend I went to a conference and I asked this church planter who was leading a seminar what he thought about the emergent church and he responded by talking about Willow Creek and Saddleback. Then my professor in class tonight was talking about a church she visited that billed itself as emergent all over it’s website, but in all reality it was a contemporary church that just happened to use art in its services.

I used to want to take our church down the road of the emergent church, not any more. I think there is something much deeper and radical we are called to.

Almost boy

So I just opened my back door to let my dog out. As he goes out he sees a squirrel who wasn’t paying too much attention to anything sitting on our back patio. So Hank, my dog, proceeds to chasing the squirrel. The squirrel jumps on to our chain link fence and runs along the top of it as Hank chases along side of it trying to grab him as they both run. The squirrel fell to Hanks side of the fence though not falling off the fence and Hank nearly got him, but then the squirrel got to the top again and kept running. As the squirrel ran along the top again it fell to the other side of the fence, but instead of just jumping to the ground and safety it jumps to the top of the fence and then verily jumps over Hank, who was jumping as well, to a large tree. It then went high into the tree to safety. Better luck next time Hank, it was a valiant effort!

Good Stuff

Jen Leonard wrote this on her blog:
God’s love is a mystery. It is spoken of in scripture as unfathomable, too wide and deep for us to understand. In Sunday School and Sunday Sermons, I was taught all about the richness of the love of God. About a creator God who made a covenant with His people, about a man named Jesus, the Son of God, who died on the cross for the sins of the world, the sins of His people. I was taught that His love was all I ever would need. That His love would change my life. It all seemed very cut and dry to me. God loved me so much and unconditionally that He sent His only Son to die for me. And that was the ultimate definition of love. But it does not seem all that simple to me anymore. Not so cut and dry. God’s love has become this unfathomable mystery to me.
But as of late this mystery has been being revealed to me in the beauty of community. A covenant love expressed in togetherness. In the last year of life I have experienced the love God expressed . . .
In the beauty of community.In following Jesus together in this life.In the acceptance of who we are as individuals.In the encouragement to be who we are in the body.In the freedom to broken . . . to be vulnerable . . . to simply be.In the knowledge that we create a safe place for each other.In the faith found in the hopelessness.In the perseverance in the midst of doubt and confusion and hurt.In the prayers we offer on each others behalf.In the laying of hands and the faith behind it.In the breaking of bread and passing of the cup.In the shared meals and laughter.In simply being present with each other.In the building of a history together.In the conversations and discussions that move us forward.In the moments where truth is spoken.In the family that has been formed by the blood.
Community has become one of God’s greatest expressions of His love to me. God’s love is present to me in the midst of my life because His community is present to me. God’s love is present and real to us, because we are real and present to each other.
A covenant love expressed in togetherness.

...in bed.

Me and Johnny Bravo went out to lunch today. We went to Hunan Garden and it was a most wonderful time, I think John's the best. Well when the fortune cookies came we said we'd say "in bed" directly after the end of the fortune. Here were the fortune's and you can add "in bed" for yourself at the end of each one.
-There are 365 days in a year, may all 365 of your dreams come true...
-To love what you do and feel that it matters, how could anything be more fun...

Good day...

-Ran in a 5k and did it under my goal. I ran it in about 31:20 (set your goals low enough...)
-Rode an escalator with a 13 year old boy today who had never ridden an escalator before.
-Ate lunch with that same boy at the Hard Rock Cafe in Cleveland and had a wonderful experience. While we were sitting waiting for our food the manager brought out someone else's food, but I thought it was ours and told the boy that so we both turned to look. The manager saw us look and she acted like it was ours and basically said just kidding and walked on by. When she came back again the boy I was with, in a joking manner, said "where's our food?" I was suprised he said it cause he is shy, but I think the managers good attitude opened him up to it. She looked at him and said, "come on" and took him back to the kitchen where she told him to tell the chef "to hurry up with my food or your fired!" He ended up being able to see the whole kitchen and help finish our meals. He then got to help bring them out to the table. What an unexpected joy he got today and what a one did I get watching him get it. The blessings of life!!!

Two Good Movies...

Mandy went out and rented us some movies to watch this weekend and I wasn't impressed with the titles she brought home: Because of Winn Dixie and Finding Neverland. I thought couldn't she get an action flick or possibly a commedy, but no, she brings home those two. But they turned out to be wonderful movies with beautiful stories that just warm your heart and make you want to dream and then live out your dreams.

The Kingdom of God

Is it now? Is it not yet? Is it both? This Kingdom of God thing intrigues me and leaves me hungering for what it may be both in the future, but also now in my present and in the world all around me.

In what is now my favorite blog, Chris Marshall talks an awful lot about it in ways that make me hunger to see it now, to participate in it now, and to invite others to join me in it.

I think in my preaching I'll be focusing on the Kingdom for a while, who knows? Two passages that have been on my mind this last day our Luke 10:8-9 ("When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is set before you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God is near you.'") and Luke 17:20-21 (Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Her it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you.")

Any thoughts on the Kingdom of God in general or as found in those passages in specific?

The hurricane

Just a guess, but I think what we are seeing in New Orleans right now might change the way America sees and treats our inner cities for years to come. On one hand we might see what is going on and build the wall between suburbia and inner city even higher. On the other hand we might realize that we need to do something about the conditions of our inner cities that breed things like we see on CNN. I don't expect the later to take place, but we're Kingdom people who live with hope and pray "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, in our inner cities as it is in Heaven."

a long year ahead

I need to preface this by saying how lucky I am to be a stay at home dad, a church planter, husband of a beautiful wife, and a seminary student on a full ride scholarship. I am blessed beyond what I can imagine with all that in my life. Actually I was going to complain about how I don't know how I'll be able to do any of that well with while having to do all of it. But I'm not going to complain cause I have absolutely no room, I am truly blessed.

But if you think about it say a prayer for me sometime. Thanks!

This is me and Joe Noonen before the ordination service. After the GS ordains you, you get to select a mentor to pray a prayer of blessing for you. I chose Joe. 

Standing Ovation

Well Monday night went better than expected in some ways, worse in others, and wonderful overall. I practiced a ton for my song cause I was so nervous but when I got up there it was if I never practiced. I was off pitch, tune, tempo, and everything else I could be off on, but everyone was dying laughing. When I finished everyone gave me an instantaneous standing ovation for my pastor's report. Here's a written copy:

In the spirit of John and Charles Wesley, who wrote hymns to the tunes of the popular songs of their day, I rewrote a popular song of our day for my pastor’s report. And in the spirit of many a men who have no singing ability, I now sing for you my pastor’s report.

We got preachers; we got teachers;
Some singers and hand wavers
An’ we got leaders; we got servers
An’ we got, friendly hand shakers
And the college kids prayer walk our neighborhood
Mm, mm, mmm… I love our church

We got saints; we got seekers
Creative types and dreamers
An’ we got front row sitters, and plenty in the back
Encouragers and those who comfort
And we all talk about how God’s been good
Mm, mm, mmm… I love our church

I love our church
It’s my kind of place
Just walk in through the front door,
Puts a big smile on my face.
It ain’t too far, we come as we are
Mm mm mmm I love our church

Seriously now, it has been a good year for us. As you can tell from the song I really felt in this last year we have come into our own as a church and it has been great to see God continually work in our midst. God has been more than good to us and we praise His Holy name!

Now all I have to live with is everybody giving me complements, well most people tell me how awful it was in a way that I think is suppossed to be a compliment. It was really fun and I'm glad I did it. You only get to live once, so you might as well have fun living it. And I and I think most others there that night had a lot of fun.

Soon to be Ordained

I get ordained this Tuesday night. In all of the events of the past month I more or less forgot about this coming up and the significance of the event. But it is finally here and my favorite GS, Jerry Porter, will be ordaining me.

The ordination service is in the midst of this thing we Nazarenes like to call district assembly. It's not as bad as it sounds. One of the things that goes on during district assembly, besides the ordination service, is the pastor's reports. Each lead pastor of a church has to give a 2 min. or less report to the assembly on how your church did in the last year. My report was scheduled to be given Wednesday morning, read after I'm ordained, so I decided to be creative for my report and write a song for it.

Well we had to turn in a copy of our reports in a few weeks ago to the district superintendent who for some reason really liked all the new start pastors reports (five of us including me) and asked us all to give our reports during the opening service of assembly Monday night, read before I'm ordained. This is a big service mind you and I'm going to sing my report and I don't sing good at all. Gulp! I'm so nervous.

For those of you who want to know, I rewrote Toby Keith's "I love this bar" and renamed it "I love our church." It should be an interesting couple of nights this week to say the least.

anticlimatic

The genetic doctor visit today was very anticlimatic. I guess we were hopping for them to tell us how serious or how not serious her case was and things like what her IQ will be. But they didn't tell us much of anything, in fact they hardly looked at her. But it was still a good experience, they were all real nice and very helpful. The only hard part was when they showed us a picture of her chromosones and we saw three of them on the 21st set. I think it made it kind of real right then or something cause I wanted to cry when I saw them. Thanks for all your prayers today!