A year in Africa

From December 2007 through Dec 2008 I will be living with my friends Dieter and Joan Morsbach in Okahandja, Namibia. I will be serving as a Distributed Pastor of Christ’s Church working with orphan ministries, humanitarian aid projects, and community development programs. I’ll also be exploring many of the cultural differences with the youth and how youth ministry is different than in the States. If you’re interested in a short term missions trip to Africa, I can help in making arrangements for that as well. :)

During this year I will be posting to my African Travel Blog. You can find it at… http://africantravelblog.blogspot.com. On that site I will include updates, prayer requests, photos, and hopefully even some video of my trip. I will still have occasional access to my email, myspace, facebook, IM, etc, so we can still keep in touch. Thanks for your prayers and support, and please continue following my journey at my African Travel Blog.

The Voice in the Wilderness

I often find I connect most with God when in the midst of creation. I know, it's not some grand revelation unique to me. Many of the great forefathers of the faith met with God in the wilderness, but it still feels like a grand secret between God and me. From the sand dunes of Lake Michigan, to the rolling hills of the Kentucky horse farms, to the extravagantly colored hills of the Smokey Mountains in peak foliage, God proclaims His glory through what we see all around us, though often times we're going by too fast to stop and notice it. I wish I had cool photos that could capture it all to share with you, but nothing would quite compare, so it'll remain my little secret, until you drive Rt 40 in early-November.

"Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature." ~Romans 1:20

"The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship." ~ Psalm 19:1

Friends and Photos

I love friends that you can jump back in and pick up 5 years later right where you left off. It's been refreshing connecting up with friends from college and extended fam that I haven't seen in years. Everybody grows up so fast. My cousins are so big! So many of my friends are having babies and starting families. I love hearing their dreams about pursuing ministry and what God's been teaching them. I love seeing them in their environments, meeting their friends, and reminiscing old times. It's great knowing such cool people. :)

The Photos of the Day start with Arianna Siegrist, Laura and Dave's miracle baby. She was born with heart troubles but at their 7 month check-up the doctors told them she looked great and didn't need to take daily meds anymore. Cayd Elijah Sespico is Sarah and Chris' newborn. God has turned their mourning into dancing after suffering a miscarriage not long ago. And the last is my aunt and cousins whom I haven't seen in years. It was fun going to youth group, playing foosball and Wii, and making movies with the kids, and catching up with my aunt and uncle. I would love to live closer to my cousins so I could see them more and watch them grow up. In fact, it's too bad all my cool friends and fam couldn't all live in NH so I could hang out with them all, but I guess I have to share them with the rest of the world. :)

So I think traveling has also helped me mentally prepare for being gone to Namibia for a year. I've gotten to share with many people about my vision for the year and help them get on board with what I'm doing. It's cool having so much support and so many people praying for me. I'm getting more and more excited and ready to be there. It seems unreal that it's less than a month away and I know that's gonna fly by with the rest of my trip, then Thanksgiving, then packing. I'm excited, but also a little nervous. A year is a really long time...from this side of it. I know when it's over it will seem to have flown by, that's how it always works. And then I'll be on the flip side of all this about coming back. But I don't have to think about that now, just take it a day at a time, which is all we really have anyway. (To learn more about my year in Namibia check out my African Travel Blog.)

Photo of the Day

Tara Leigh Cobble has inspired me by her "photo of the day" series on her blog, so I thought I'd add my own from Saturday's adventure to Vermont and upstate New York. Though I'm sure you won't find nearly as much amusement about this shot as I did. This family was attending a small-town wedding in Bicentennial Park. I slipped alongside their photographer and asked if I could take a shot as well. They were speechless as to why this stranger would want their photo so I snapped it quickly before they could say no. Although now I owe them a couple wallet-sized prints. (ps. I think my favorite is the little boy in the front holding his little stuffed animal.)

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On a more serious note, driving along the back roads, checking out the hillsides ablaze with color, left me plenty of time to consider country living. Having grown up visiting my many relatives in upstate NY I have a pretty good handle on what it's like to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and I have to say, it's nice to visit, but I don't think I could live there.

Maybe I just have too much ambition (or delusions of grandeur) to be content living my entire life in a small country town, talking the latest gossip about nothing important. Maybe I've seen too much of the world (and the city) to get so wrapped up in small town drama. Maybe I'm just too young and restless to appreciate what so many people call home. I don't know, but it's not for me.

But as with anything, there are upsides to be learned from. There is something to say for investing your entire life in a particular community, building life long relationships with neighbors and friends, and the authenticity to talk to anybody and everybody. Those things I do value, but I don't think I could do it in the middle of nowhere.

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While at the park, a young teenage girl came up to us asking who was getting married as if we were with the party. She hadn't seen it in the paper or heard of anyone getting married around town. She went on to tell us how everybody knew everything in their small town. She had no regard for the fact that we were complete strangers and could probably care less except for the fact that we're not that rude and had just been talking about small-town folk and were amused that everything she was saying was corroborating exactly what we'd been talking about.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him

Reading through Matthew 6 recently, I was pondering what I know about God and prayer. I know a lot of people try and interpret "The Lord's Prayer" line for line and this is what it really means. That's not what I'm trying to do at all. I wouldn't really presume my interpretation upon it. I just know what it says. All I'm doing is just making a few observations:

"Our Father in heaven" - God already knows who He is and He knows my thoughts before I even think them so this address cannot be for God's sake, but perhaps just a reminder to me that God is my Father and He is beyond anything this earth could contain.

"Hallowed be Your name" - God is already perfectly holy so if this is a request then there's nothing He can do to make Himself more holy, so maybe it's just reminding me that God really is holy even though I don't always live like He is.

"Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" - God has never needed my permission or insight into when He will accomplish His ends. He will do as He pleases, when He pleases, whether I ask Him to or not. So maybe this is just a reminder to me that God really is in control, good does win out over evil, and this earth is not all there is.

"Give us today our daily bread" - In a few verses Jesus will explain how silly it is to worry about whether or not we will eat because God provides food even to the birds who aren't nearly as valuable as His sons and daughters. So do I really need to ask God to provide food for me, or do I just need a reminder that everything I have comes from the God Who Provides?

"Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors" - My sins, past, present, and future, were forgiven when I confessed Christ. Am I really asking God to forgive me over again, or is more a reminder to me of the depths from which I've been forgiven, and that compared to those who've wronged me?

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" - James tells us that God is not tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone. So perhaps rather than a request, it's a reminder of God's goodness and His sovereignty over those who oppose Him.

If God is really unchangeable, then is prayer really for His sake or for mine? Does asking Him really help Him make up His mind, or does it change mine to recognize how utterly helpless I am and completely dependent upon Him for everything, from adoption to assurance, from provision to forgiveness, from sanctification to victory? All I know is I'm commanded to pray so I do, and it always tends to straighten out my perspective.

The physics of experiencing life

When shuttles return from the moon re-entry involves screaming through the flaming heat of the atmosphere. While coming home from Namibia isn't quite that bad, sometimes it seems like it. Anybody who's travelled cross-culturally knows what it's like to come home and experience the tension of not wanting to fall back into everyday life here but keep some of the tendencies and habits you learned in other places. For me it was walking.

Our last night in Arandis the pastor's daughter, Pearl, was hanging out at our house and so she wouldn't have to walk back home alone in the dark, a group of us walked her home. We walked the long way around, down the long, quiet road on the outskirts of town where there are houses on one side and nothing but desert as far as you can see on the other. The lights from the town aren't as bright on that road so the view of the stars is amazing. You can even see the Milky Way. I don't know whether it was short legs or just not wanting to go home, but she kept saying, "You're walking too fast." I'd hardly realized until she said it that half our group was way ahead and the rest of us were struggling to slow down enough to walk with her. It got me thinking how in America we're all about getting there. We're all about accomplishing the goal. The purpose of our outing was to walk her home and come back, we just set a pace to get it done without a second thought. But what Pearl understood, we totally missed. It didn't have anything to do with our velocity, but everything to do with our perspective. For her it was a last chance to spend time with these people she'd fallen in love with who would be leaving the next morning. She knew when we reached her house it'd be over. She was all about the walk, not the destination, so she kept reminding us, "Walk slower."

On our way home we made it all the way to Paris without a snag, then when we were about to board our last plane for the final leg home they delayed our flight another 10 hours. So we went about switching gates and going through security...again, and getting some food. We got online to update the blog and let people send messages home. But 10 hours is still a long time and we were all tired and emotionally exhausted, so people started getting frustrated and bored. Now I'm a pretty laid back guy and I'm in no hurry to get home, there's nobody waiting for me at the airport except the knowledge that I'll have to say goodbye to all the people I've grown so close to during the last two weeks, so I was getting a little frustrated that everyone was wasting away this last opportunity just being bored and complaining. I eventually dropped some comments to some different people in the least harsh way I could muster, and I think they got my drift. But it just reminded me of how often we go through life waiting instead of living.

So yesterday morning I went for a walk. I never go for morning walks in America, but in Africa it's not uncommon. I thought about how much I live from one scheduled activity to the next and about how much I miss in between. I imagined what it would be like to live in the 'in betweens' instead of in the schedule. I looked up from the ground and glanced around. I hadn't realized how much I was missing around me as I was watching where I would make my next step. I took a deep breath, and took my next step...just a little slower.

Take six

Other than my fam, I think my longest standing relationship is God. I don't really keep up with any of my grade school friends, and I first met God before I came to Christ's Church so He even beats them out. And I must say I'm more confident now than ever that He is completely trustworthy, totally sovereign, and loves me more than anything. It's wild being in relationship with someone who has absolutely no faults, because I have nothing to relate it to; it's foreign to me, but that's the reality of it. It's wild feeling like I'm wrapped up in the hugmongous arms of God. It feels safe. Fear looses all it's power. And that makes me smile.

Less than 48 hours and I'm off once again to one of my favorite places on earth, Namibia, Africa. We're gone June 25th through July 12th (no that doesn't mean you can come vandalize my house!!!) with 18 people, 36 bags, 3 guitars, and a partrige and a pear tree. But to tell the truth, I've been ready to go for most of the week. Not actually ready to go, but ready to be there. All the sights, and smells, and tastes come flooding back and I know it's time to go. So I invite you to join us, not on the airplane, but on the blogsite. Check out our team blogsite at...

www.namibia2007.blogspot.com
and follow all the action for yourself. We'll post pics and videos, tell stories of what's going on, and best of all, you can leave me little comments that I'll get to read while we're there. But most of all we'd love your prayers, for my teammates, for the people we'll minister to, and for me to be bold and open to learn what God has for me. Thanks for all your support. Signing off, for the next 3 weeks (not like I actually write that often anyway).

Lately I've been reading in Isaiah and have found it quite enjoyable. That's kind of odd I think, because Isaiah is condemning Israel and telling them about this nasty stuff that God's going to do to them. But the cool part is, interspersed in all that is a great deal of the character of God. Like when he's speaking of God's power he uses great metaphors of things that just ooze power, things we can't control that hold some mystery in them, like fierce storms and overwhelming tsunamis.

But then in the midst of all the destructive talk, Isaiah throws in a piece about God's wisdom and mercy. I'm not much of a farmer so some of the horticultural metaphors used in the Bible aren't quite as familiar, but I think I managed to pick up some of this one. He says the farmer doesn't just tear up the ground with His plow forever. No, he just does it to prepare for the seed. Likewise the baker doesn't crush the grain forever, but just enough to make some bread out of it. In the same way, God doesn't pulverize and smite us forever. Sure He allows pain and suffering, but it's temporary. It tenderizes us so He can sow into our lives. We must allow His wisdom and sovereignty to rule in our troubles. Afterall, where do you think the farmer and the baker learned it from?

"Give ear and hear my voice; Listen and hear my words.
Does the farmer plow continually to plant seed?
Does he continually turn and harrow the ground?
Does he not level its surface and sow dill and scatter cummin
And plant wheat in rows, barley in its place and rye within its area?
For his God instructs and teaches him properly.

Grain for bread is crushed; Indeed, he does not continue to thresh it forever. Because the wheel of his cart and his horses eventually damage it, He does not thresh it longer." ~Isaiah 28:24-26, 28

The wages of work is death

So lately I've been working tirelessly on a recording project to help raise money for our upcoming Namibia trip and it's gotten me thinking about the value of work. In the end people will listen to the CD for a while but eventually it'll end up in the yard sale pile. The songs will go out of style and new songs will take their place. Eventually the glory of that CD will pass away, but is that why I work?

Every year at this time we have a Graduation Banquet celebrating another year done, saying goodbye to all our seniors, and welcoming the incoming freshmen. For the presentation, I put hours into setting up a little slideshow of pictures reviewing the year and of the seniors through the years. I show the video once at the banquet, then it quickly finds itself buried in an archive file, forgotten about for years to come. I've made so many videos for so many occasions through the years that all have the same fate. Their glory days fade quickly, but is that why I work?

All our work fades away. I spent the last hour scrubbing the bathroom, only for it to get dirty again. I spend hours mowing the lawn, but it grows back. I cook a meal, wash dishes, take the trash out, knowing that I'll do it all again tomorrow. So why do we work if it doesn't last?

Well some of those last illustrations seem obvious for health reasons and such, but I think there are lasting things about the work we do, and I mean more than just a paycheck at the end of the week. For instance, sometimes I work to show love to people. Sometimes my work leaves a lasting impression, like the CD. Who knows what somebody might take away or how God might speak into someone's life by listening to those songs. Sometimes it's for the pleasure in a job well done, or using a clean shower.

Maybe the temporary nature of our work is meant to remind us that this is not all there is. In this world, things break and deteriorate but it won't always be this way. One day everything will be healed, never to hurt again. By working we mimic God by redeeming the broken, filthy, useless things of this world. His glory can shine through our work, so in the end all is not worthless. It may only be like a drop in a pond, but every drop leaves ripples.

Our Deepest Fear

Part of this poem was quoted in a movie I saw yesterday. Unfortunately, they left out the words that give it true meaning, the words about our identity as children of God. I thought I'd share the whole thing with you here.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." ~Marianne Williamson

30 Hour Famine

I'm not all that easily amazed, but this Sunday I was pretty blown away. But let me start at the beginning...

Last summer my frustration was building over taking people to Africa and having them come back and resume their normal, American lives. I was even more frustrated that I would go over to Africa summer after summer and return to my normal, American life. But then a few weeks later at Soulfest I was impressed with the attention and priority they gave to certain humanitarian relief organizations. It was there I was first introduced to Invisible Children and To Write Love On Her Arms and Zack with The Amazing Change. I met people at lots of different booths with lots of different organizations that were making a difference in the lives of the poor and oppressed around the world.

That fall we decided to give those organizations a little face time at youth group. Every couple weeks we'd introduce a different ministry making a difference in people's lives and challenge the kids to find a need they could get passionate about and do something about it. It was about this time that I picked up a little book called The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. In the book he shared his story of how he came to actually live like he believed what Jesus said. He speaks of working in leper colonies in India with Mother Theresa, and helping save a group of homeless families living in a condemned church, and traveling to Iraq to love on the innocent people effected by war. He challenged me to live like I believe what Jesus said, love society's outcasts, give what I have to the poor, trust that God will take care of my needs. And that's when I met Katy.

The Upper Room is a Christian ministry to the poor that gives everything away, food, clothes, household items, toys for kids, everything goes out absolutely free. Yet Katy told me, in all the years they've been open God has always provided for all their needs. She tells me amazing stories of all that's God's done to change people's lives and the community around them. Since working there I've learned so much about what it means to "be" charity and how, like Shane says in his book, people don't help the poor because people don't know the poor.

So in our efforts to introduce the youth group kids to what's really going on in the world, we decided to do World Vision's 30 Hour Famine with our group. (yes, I'm finally getting to that) So on Friday after lunch we started fasting. We gathered that evening at the church and spent the rest of the Famine together learning about hunger and poverty around the world and how we can help. Saturday morning we visited Katy at the Upper Room and helped pack up the extra winter coats to send to Africa. We went on a food scavenger hunt to collect food and other items to donate. We learned that 29,000 children die each day from malnutrition and preventable causes and wallpapered our sanctuary with fingerprints for each of those children. We prayed for the countries around the world where World Vision is helping. And then, 30 (and a half) hours later we broke fast together.

Famine Sunday

Sunday morning we were given the sermon time to share our experiences with the congregation. We shared a little bit about what we did, but mostly we shared our hearts about these pressing issues, issues that we can do something about. One of the students, Kirk, talked about why he had given up going to a concert at his school where he could get free pizza and kool-aid to come to church and fast for 30 hours. We shared about the 29,000 fingerprints around the room and how just $1 a day could feed a child for a day. A World Vision rep spoke about her recent trip to Africa and lined up child sponsorship packets across the front of the stage for people to take. And then I stood up and spoke bold words from the Scriptures, much bolder than I felt to be honest. I said it's more blessed to give than receive, and if you have 2 coats give one to somebody who needs it. I read from James 1:22, "Do not just listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." I read what's quickly becoming a new favorite, 1 John 3:17-18, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

That's when it started. As we closed with a video challenging people that they have one life, do something with it, people got out of their seats and came right up front to take a child sponsorship packet. And not just one or two, they kept coming. Afterward, people who've never really talked to me before kept coming up to me asking about the Upper Room and how they wanted to take their kids down to help out. Young kids were asking me how they could donate their clothes to the Upper Room. One lady even handed me her expensive Anne Klein coat saying, "I don't need this." I was so overwhelmed, and excited at the same time. I was so proud of the kids and youth leaders who went 30 hours without food so others could eat, and as a result inspired a congregation to love "not with words or tongue but with actions". Oftentimes my expectations end with what man can accomplish, but this weekend I was overwhelmed by God. Now I have my own story to tell Katy.

[Here are a few links to sponsor children with World Vision, Compassion International, or Hope's Promise, Namibia.]

I must say I'm quite pleased at how our philosophy of missions has grown over the last few years since taking short-term trips to Namibia. Tonight I was sitting in a training meeting for this summer's team and we talked mostly about conversation topics. We talked about the sexual purity material that our hosts use and what kinds of questions our team members might expect to hear in classrooms. We talked about what kinds of lies kids grow up hearing in that culture and how to talk about hope and a good future. Basically, we talked about how to have a conversation with people.

I love that we say our missions trips are all about relationships, but then we actually make them about relationships. Our training sessions prepare people on how to build relationships, how to talk to people, what to expect in conversations. We consistently go back to the same place, working with the same people, continually building into those relationships summer after summer. We don't bring our own agenda, but get involved in things that our hosts are already doing. We listen to people's stories. We encourage people's dreams. We speak hope to people who have long since lost it. We break down generations of racial barriers. We pick up trash and show communities that they're worth a little dignity. We laugh with the unloved. We cry with the abused. We hold the abandoned. And that has made all the difference.

Success looks different for us too. People always ask us if anybody got "saved" or if what we're doing there is really making a difference. People want visible, observable results...but God doesn't always work that way. God's work in people's hearts is a lifelong process. Our goal isn't to get somebody to say a little prayer or cross some threshold. We just want to move people closer than where they are, however closer looks. To me, it looks like a girl who went in 05 keeping up with a Namibian friend on Facebook. It looks like past team members going back again and again and inviting family and friends to go with them, some even giving up their personal vacation time to go visit our friends on their own. It looks like team members requesting to see certain people by name when we get there this summer. Success is ongoing relationships because that's what moves people closer, one conversation at a time.

So that excites me, to be a part of a church that not only talks about, but makes missions relational. We've come a long way in a few short years, but for us, I think it's all part of the conversation that's moving us closer.

The tragedy of social capital

I'm growing quite disturbed with a tendency I see in our culture, mostly because I see it in myself. To put it simply, I'm speaking of the tendency to surround ourselves with "beautiful" people to make ourselves look cool. We make friends or associate ourselves with people who are beautiful, or talented, or popular to improve our social capital (our value in society). The problem with that is it only feeds the concept that value is based on beauty or talent or popularity. It becomes something extrinsic, so if we're not born with it (physical appearance, athleticism, personality, etc) then we have to fake it (fashion, makeup, working out, watching our waistline, etc). One of the ways we fake it is by having other "cool" people think that we're "cool". It's all quite fickle and foolish, yet it keeps creeping up on me.

Instead, I want to value people because of their intrinsic beauty, because God made them special and that alone makes them beautiful. I don't want to feed society's ideal that value is external. Jesus loved people who were social outcasts. If it were today, he'd probably have disciples that were fat, geeky, unkempt, and poor. He saw past the external to their intrinsic beauty. He loved people because they were all valuable to God. That's how I want to love people, but too often it becomes mercenary, for my own gain. I end up building relationships to increase my social capital. And even relationships with "uncool" people are not for their sake, but so that I might appear compassionate. If someone could actually love people solely for what he could give and not for what he gets out of it, he would probably be the most different guy on the planet.

So I'm working on that, but it's not easy fighting against these selfish habits I've been raised to accept by my flesh and by this culture. But then, if love and grace were easy we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

This is harder than I'm willing to admit

uugh, convicted. I hate that; well kind of, because then I realize I'm screwed up, but kind of not because then, hopefully, I can fix it. In Brennan Manning's re-released book entitled The Importance of Being Foolish he quotes Thomas Merton saying

One dimension of this convenient spirituality is our total insistence on ideals and intentions, in complete divorce from reality, from actions, and from social commitment. Whatever we interiorly desire, whatever we dream, whatever we imagine: that is the beautiful, the godly and the true. Pretty thoughts are enough. They substitute for everything else including charity, including life itself.

How many times do I imagine my own spirituality to be far deeper, far more authentic and powerful than it really is? Then I contently polish and display those false snapshots of my spiritual life meanwhile destroying any hope of experiencing the real thing. "The great mark of a Christian is what no other characteristic can replace, namely the example of a life which can only be explained in terms of God" (Emmanuel Suhard). We seem so content with a salvation that secures our eternal destiny. Only an American evangelical would deal in such absolutes. We're saved from far more than eternal damnation, we're saved from this living hell, life without God. It's always been about life. "I've come that they might have life, and have it to the full!" But rather than "walking in newness of life" I'm content drinking to the pleasures of this world while proudly boasting in my fictitious photographs of spirituality. How I long for a life that can only be explained in terms of God, yet I'm the only one holding me back.

Amazing Grace

I went to see the new Amazing Grace movie yesterday, which opened on Feb 23, two hundred years to the day since William Wilberforce's bill to abolish the slave trade in Britain was passed in Parliament. I'm not a huge period film kinda guy but it was definitely worth the time and the $8.25 to go see. The film tells the story of Wilberforce's struggles to stand up for compassion and humanity in a time of desperate need. As a young politician, he decided to take on the injustice of the slave trade. Abolition had few supporters and the opposition was great. This is when his friend William Pitt reassures him, "We are too young to understand what is impossible, and too foolish not to do it." We find ourselves in a similar world that tolerates unspeakable injustices, while so many Christians are content to be ignorant and sit in their suburban churches leaving justice to the politicians. May I never sit idly by and watch the rich oppress the poor for their own gain. May my faith move me to act on their behalf, or why else am I still here. Wilberforce was a great man not because he was a great orator, or a great politician, but because he had great compassion. That's a challenge worth considering for us all.

Find out more about the film at www.amazinggracemovie.com. Find out more about the estimated 27 million slaves in the world today and how you can become a modern day abolitionist at www.theamazingchange.com.

History judges great men

Have you ever had that idea in the back of your mind that you're destined for greatness? Everyone else around here might be content with normal but God has something so much bigger planned for your life. You can't really put your finger on it exactly but with all your potential you just know you're bound for great things. Now I do recognize that Jesus says things like, "The last will be first and the first will be last." I used to think that meant my delusions of grandeur were not biblically founded. I was suppose to want to be the ultimate servant, to help everybody else out at my own expense. But the more I come to understand Jesus I don't think that's quite what He meant. If you recognize that that statement comes in the midst of a conversation about selling all you have and giving to the poor, and how the disciples gave everything they had to follow Jesus, then it almost seems like that's the very secret of greatness. He's not redefining greatness like I used to think. He's redefining how to get there. How many of us don't think the disciples were great, or Adoniram Judson, or Jim Elliot, or Mother Theresa. Their greatness comes from actually following Jesus instead of just reading about Him and studying Him. They lived out what He said and history doesn't know what to make of it. It doesn't make sense why they would give up their lives to love people, but that's exactly why they're remembered as great. Shane Claiborne quotes Mother Theresa as saying, "We can do no great things, just small things with great love. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into doing it." (Check out Shane's book The Irresistable Revolution) We all talk about pursuing excellence or greatness in what we do. How about we start pursuing excellently living out what Jesus said. When was the last time you heard somebody say 'I want to be really good at following Jesus.' Maybe when we stop trying to be great theologians, or great speakers, or great Christians, and just become great lovers of the poor, the fatherless, and the widowed, maybe then we'll be a little closer to what it means to follow Jesus.

Dare you to move

"The Lord will work out His plans for my life--for Your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don't abandon me, for You made me." Ps 138:8

I'm kind of sick of suburban culture for what it reveals in my life. (I started to write "for what it makes me into" but it doesn't 'make' me. If it wasn't in me in the first place then I wouldn't act the way I do. So I say the culture reveals things in me that I don't like to see.) I spent some time with my brother and nephew tonight. We went to a little arcade where he could play games for a quarter and we could get some pizza. My brother says it's good to take a break and laugh and play and put life behind you for a little while to get your mind off the stress. In suburbia we stress about stupid stuff like what to wear today or what restaraunt to eat at or what movie to watch tonight. Somewhere somebody's stressing about what their kids going to eat tomorrow, how they're going to pay for last months rent, when they're gonna get a break and be able to get ahead. And I'm not even talking Africa, because that's far worse, but I'm not in Africa. I'm sitting on my couch flipping channels while somebody just down the road is barely scraping by. Why do I let myself put so much value in things that don't matter? Why do I waste my life away on my own comforts when there's so many people right outside my door that need to be loved? My complacency is my own discontentment. I wonder if helping someone else get their mind off their problems isn't more theraputic for me in the end. I'm reminded of a few things I've learned over many trips to Namibia that I'll end with...1) God put each of us in our own unique circumstances for a reason, 2) There are 'invisible children' everywhere, and 3) You can't save them all, but you can make all the difference to the one right in front of you.

First 'blog post' of 2007

I'm struck deep by Augustine's illustration of carrying this burden of sin like a burden of sleep, something we know we need to wake from but find it so difficult to do. All this talk of sin recently has brought me face to face with grace. The kind of grace that surrounds any interaction with the Almighty, so much so that it's dripping with it. The kind of grace that covers us and smooths out all the bumps like liquid chocolate on a strawberry. The irony is I try so hard to avoid grace in my efforts to be perfect. I do everything I can to convince others and myself that I don't need grace. But the truth is, if it were not for my sin, my bumps, I would never know the grace of God. So the very thing I'm hiding from is the very thing that will lead me to Him. Afterall, it was the spiritual ones who thought they 'got it' that Jesus so heavily criticized. It was the messy people that surrounded Him. To a helplessly devoted perfectionist, this is a hard pill to swallow. And living in a culture that performs for it's approval, this doesn't make any sense. We do everything we can to look good, and surround ourselves with people that will only make us look better. This upside-down nature of grace doesn't fit the system of life that I've created for myself. That's why it's so much easier to roll over and go back to sleep, even though I know it's far better to be awake, I just don't know how to live there. So I'm left to battle my culture, and myself, not for first place, but for last, not to be greater, but to be less. It's a tough battle because it goes against everything I've ever known. But there's a joy that I know can never be found on this side of the battle, which leaves only the fight. And that's why I can never give up. It's worth it, and heaven knows I can be pretty stubborn sometimes. :)