day to day

I may be dillusinal, but I have this expectation to find something in life that I was created to do.  Like eventually, if we listen to God and don't settle, we will have this moment where everything is greatness and yell out "this is what i was put on this earth to do!"  Sure there will days, even weeks where everything goes crazy and you wonder "what am i doing right now", but for the most part you love what you do and life is good.  I feel like we all can get this if we push hard enough.  For me, I have spent quite a bit of time recently wondering, "what am i doing, exactly" but I do believe this is where God has led me and so I am doing my best to find the " this is what i was made for" role, feeling, or whatever it may be.  I am currently getting glimpses of what that looks like, and that is enough to keep me going.  

Significance

I have been recently having some confusion/frustration with the community group my wife and I lead.  Quite literally, at times, I am sitting there on Monday nights wondering "what in the world is going on right here" "why is this significant enough for people to even show up?"  

but

this morning I gained some clarity.  I do this to see people come alive.  To see people engage their relationship with God at deeper levels.   I do it to see people who are hurting, reserved,  and insecure engage friendships, receive some healing and find security in our community.  I do it so that people know, they are taken seriously.  

I do it because I want to provide a place where people can engage life to the fullest.  Where they can be real, let people see their ugliness and but keep fighting for beauty.  A place where they find other real people who don't have all the answers but want to journey side by side, bearing each other's burdens and speaking truth to one another.  Where righteousness purity, love, friendship are held as high values, but not used for condemnation.

I do it for Restoration.  to see people's hearts restored,  made whole, and able to love as Christ loves us.  

I know what we do is not perfect and I wouldn't want it to be..... but these things I have talked about are worth fighting for.  People's hearts are worth fighting for... and this is what I want our group to be about.  Fighting for each other, when we cannot fight for ourselves.  

South Africa

I would imagine that most of you that would possibly read this blog would have already heard me share my experiences and thoughts earlier, but I am trying to put more things in writing, so that I don't forget the emotions and process that God puts me through.  

My trip to Africa was a mixed bag of frustration, realization, eye-opening and touching experiences.  

Frustration:  I was injured (ankle) and then I got sick, spending two days throwing up and ending up in the ER with an iv b/c of dehydration.   I was thinking going into this trip that my role was going to be more physical.  Playing soccer, physical labor, running around with the kids is what I envisioned.  Two days before we leave I turn my ankle pretty badly, the doctor recommended I reschedule my trip.  OK, I change my focus, thinking my role can be relational, connecting with our team and the people working for 10,000 Homes.  Nope, as soon as we get there I spend two days by myself and unable to really connect with the team. 

Realization:  With all the throwing up and time alone, I realized that the things I am doing here, at home, are the things that God wants me doing.  On every other trip I have felt fully alive and in tune with God's will, but now I am in the middle of God's will in my every day.  I realized that what I love about trips is the intense community that it creates and that I can't wait to go on a trip with the people I am in community with.  

Eye-opening:  I have been on trips where I have seen extreme poverty.  The area's in Africa that we visited did not live in the extreme poverty that I have seen, don't get me wrong they have very little.  However, the eye-opening thing is how disease is destroying this culture.  It is hard to establish systems, economically or socially, because you cannot build on people, they are sick and dying.  HIV, malaria and other diseases are ripping the heart out of Africa and it's heart breaking.

Touching:  Attending church in Africa was awesome.  They do not have a band, lighting, thermostats or some dynamic speaker, but they all fully engaged every second of being together.  In America, if the song isn't what we want, or it was too cold, or the speaker wasn't funny, or the people get on our nerves, we check out, we leave, we get in our car and drive to the next church hoping they can do things just how we want them.  The believers in Africa inspired me to appreciate community, to engage with all my heart, and to love and worship God under any circumstance.   

The people in Africa told me they were praying for me.  For my work and for my ministry.  Join me in lifting them up, that God will be near to them and keep them strong in the face of much adversity.

Life

The past few weeks have been.... wonderfully difficult.  I have found myself confused but yet at the same time finding some very good clarity.  Terrified but excited.  Beaten down but at the same time stronger than ever.  It is like life is hitting me to the fullest and I have no idea what to do.

First off, Mindie and I are pregnat!  Which I am stoked about.  I really like the idea of being a father.  I feel like God has been developing a father's heart in me since I was a little kid.  I have always liked being around and doing my part to take care of younger people.  And I know that my wife is going to be an awesome mother!  I can't wait to see her live that out.  This would be the terrified but excited.

Right now, our community is in the proces of making some changes.  We are becoming more independent, which means we need to start defining things and roles for everyone.  The community cannot be healthy without each individual doing their part to live out the values have been talking about.  But in this process of definition we there has been quite a bit of miscommunication and confusion.  In the midst of the confusion some great clarity has come about.  We know that our values cannot be things that people hope to be swept into, they are things that individuals create for themselves. (Confusion, but clarity) 

  People have been offended and hurt.  I have felt the brunt of these instances.  But at the same time I have seen some people be more real and come more to life than ever before, which has been so encouraging.  (Beaten/but yet stronger)

I definitely do not write this to complain, b/c I am so thankful that God has created a life that has such complex struggle and simple joy.  I love that this life was created for us to share with each other.  I love my friends and my family.  I love that we push through the hard times and enjoy the blessings together.  I am blessed and thankful.

Do you see People?

So, I have gotten back into listening to podcasts again.  Mainly just two, Matt Chandler from The Village and Rob Bell from Mars Hill Bible Church.  And strangely enough the kind of issues they are each bringing up are very similar.  What they both seem to be hitting on is our view of the world.  Do we see the world as a movie about us and other people are just subplot characters.  Matt asked the question,  "do you see people" , not just visually obviously, but spiritually emotionally... are you aware that other people exist not only in the way you interact with them.  They have lives, souls and emotions and many times we just see people in the limited way that we interact with them.  My question to the few of you who may read this blog is do you see people? 

so

I believe that i have grossly underestimated the task of blogging. It has been like 3 weeks since my last post and my blog muscles still feel completely worn. I actually have nothing to say at the moment, but you would think after 3 weeks that something would have come up that I could write about, but in reality I got nothin'. Pretty sad.
maybe deep down this was my secret issue about blogging. I knew that i couldn't do it. I don't have the whatever it is it takes to sit down and write something. I just don't. Well at least not yet anyways.

Evangelism

Recently, I have been having an ongoing conversation with many people about church.  Specifically, how our generation is going to engage church.  We are all about community, conversation, loving others, and hanging out.  We enjoy the informal, more relaxed environment.  We like "where everybody knows your name" from the Cheers show.  We are great at accepting people and being honest. We don't like boxes, judgement, closed mindedness, one way answers, or authority.  

This idea of church being more "organic" and relational really appeals to us.  But the big question that I was recently asked was.... what about outreach,"evangelism"?  What about reaching the lost and bringing people to Jesus, being the only Jesus people will see?? all the cute sayings.....  but really... how will we bring people into our communities? How will we feed the poor, take care of widows? Without the institution organizing events, trips and other opportunities for us?  And here is the real kicker for me... for the most part when those events are planned or opportunities presented we do nothing, we no show.  As much as we love talk about loving people, when it comes time to get off our butts and do something we don't.

Now believe me, I know how to argue with what I just said.... that we would rather love people in our every day lives not at some event, that we can love people and meet needs at school, work, everywhere.... and that's true.  but is that happening?

As we move forward with the "organic" movement, how do we reach people that are living without the things we know that they need, those things that make life so good... love, acceptance, honesty.