Capturing light in dark places....

Picture: Sandy Puc' / Courtesy of NILMDTS

I met a young man this week who was grieving the loss of his first child. His wife had a miscarriage of a 12 week old baby. He shared with my, with tears in his broken eyes...that he had held the little baby in his hands. I couldn't imagine holding a child in my hands like that. It was so heartbreaking to hear him share his pain. My prayers go out to him and his wife. I ran across this article today and it made me think of them.

These artists are a perfect example of those who have touched the heart of God with their talents. "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep" is a organization that has blended the art of photography into a healing tool for grieving parents who have lost a child. You can read the Newsweek article here.

Another ministry that reaches out to parents who have lost little babies is "Heavenly Angels in Need". Mary who is a relative of mine, runs this ministry of love and grace. She has a huge heart and a strong passion to spread God's love to those who have experienced such a tragedy. She has round up an army of knitters and seamstresses and craftsmen who make clothes, burial items and little caskets for babies that have died. They also support various projects with their beautiful hand made items; our refugees are blessed to be wearing and using their scarves, hats and blankets. Good work, good people and worthy of your support.


Artists are the healers of the world...the earth is more beautiful because they have lived.

Orphans vs. American Dream

America has nearly 115,000 orphaned kids in foster care waiting to be adopted. Some wonder how this is possible in a country with Christian families. Surely, there are 115,000 missional families in America, right? Missional families, for example, embrace the redemptive mission of God and practice "true religion" in their local communities (James 1:27). Missional Christians in America could eliminate the foster care system tomorrow if we would stop "shootin' up" with the American Dream (heroine) in order to get high on a lame life lived for the sake of comfort and ease. -Dr. Anthony Bradley

Not sure what we will say to Jesus about this one...

Saving the world is sexy...

"I’m very concerned about the continual influence of consumerism Christianity and a Christianity that is very self-centered. Even in some of the social justice initiatives that I see, I wonder at times if it’s really about social change and kingdom advancement or if it’s about the sense of accomplishment and adventure one gets from the experience." -Efrem Smith

"Take care! Don't do your good deeds publicly, to be admired,
because then you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven.
-Matthew 6:1

There is a reality to the Christian life that is only found after you have drained through all the foamy filler at the top of the glass. Much of the first blush of life in God is an innocent, yet still self focused act of indulging self. Now granted it is a "religious self" but after all the tired churchy platitudes are scraped off your bumper and self righteous goody goodyness is finally exhausted...in the end you discover that "you" were still at the center. This is especially true with those of us who are drawn towards "ministry to the poor" in whatever form it takes. There is a genuine compassion that can fuel a madness to become Jesus incarnate, a danger of falling into the error trying to "Bring Jesus down" (Romans 10:6). It's a noble endeavor to want to help alleviate suffering of your neighbor as Jesus taught us to do in His parable of the Good Samaritan. But it becomes almost idolatry to move from simple charity to ending World Hunger, Sickness & Disease, Social Evils, War, Poverty, AIDS, Global Warming, Deforestation and whatever other sin is in the sights of the current Philanthropy Band Wagon.

The "Messiah-complex" is becoming so huge that at any moment I am sure we will come to realize that we don't need Jesus to ever return because we will soon discover that....we can save the planet!

How many teats can we grow until we realize there will always be one more greedy mouth sucking off the breast of charity?
And quite frankly most of us want it to be that way...because we "feel good" being that sow who's getting all the attention. In fact we secretly hope to be on the cover of "O", Rollingstone or Christianity Today as the newly christened and publicly worshipped, hot new multi-breasted goddess of the hour.

But the truth is, we soon discover that we are not called to change the world...as much as testify to a change in our world. Now granted that change is one that ushers love into the center of our lives but not in a self serving way. It's the whole point of doing works of service in secret...an act that unfortunately is not in vogue today. We have celebrity's of charity all over. You see their names in lights, on the covers of their books with their smiling faces and testimonies of how they are changing the world. They sit in plush couches on TV or in the Pulpits pontificating about their plans and strategies to turn the planet back into eden in less time than it takes to publish their next book.

The really lazy people are yearning to worship "Heros" and the more dysfunctional are trying to become the hero.
It's that motivation that is fueling so much of our works of mission today. I stop and wonder if the truth is just that we are really a bunch of empty people frantically trying to fill that inner void with our chronic do gooding.

It's seeming like more and more vanity and chasing after the wind.

Pastor...Living....Stone...I presume?

"We are divided between exploitation and nurture…a division not only between persons but also within persons…The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter’s goal is money, profit; the nurturer’s is health – his land’s health, his own, his family’s, his community’s, his country’s. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? The world we live in operates out of a spirit of exploitation of people, places and things. But you and I are called to live by a different spirit, one that seeks to blow a nurturing breath in us and through us. It's a narrow way filled with complex and difficult questions. It is not efficient." -Wendell Berry's The Unsettling of America

I think this quote pokes at something that is more and more clear the deeper into the pastoring rabbit hole I pass. It's the sometimes unseen building of a diminishing process that can move from life producing activity---to life draining activity. So much of the community life circles around us, be it, the labor/employment, relationships, families or church can mutate into "systems" that start exploiting the souls of those involved. They can start "diminishing" those that become enmeshed within something that has the potential to swallow you or consume you in ways that do not produce spiritual, mental or physical health. Jesus presented a kingdom reality that was mysteriously both all consuming and yet, didn't consume the one who it was consuming. Kind of like the burning bush that Moses was mesmerized by and heard the voice of God within. Jesus put it this way:

Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
-Matthew 11:28-30

That is the spirit of gentleness that I long to walk out as a man, a husband, a father and a pastor. The ability to embrace the burden or yoke that doesn't kill you but presses you towards greater life without losing your soul in the process. It's a tricky path.

Many pastors slowly become petrified through the pastoring process. The "ministry" can become a hardening agent that week by week calcifies a protective shell over the heart and soon becomes more than a refuge of safety but instead, a hiding place. We can become unaccessible, talk less and less, close up instead of open up, knee jerk instead of listen, get angry, which is just a mask of greater and greater sadness. It's a slow burning fire that soon moves from giving light and warming frozen souls to consuming one's sense of self and burning you up until you are a smoldering wick...but it doesn't have to be that way.

That isn't the way of Christ...though it might be the gate to the real kingdom, through which one must enter to be truly free from the very barnacles of religion and man pleasing life that suffocate the souls longing to breath kingdom air.

We can become, as the Apostles said: "Living Stones". A term that is quite mysterious if you take it apart.
I find hope within it. I see the promise that one can be both stone...and living at the same time.

How we get there...

"So when Jesus came, He found that he (Lazarus) had been in the tomb four days." -John 11:17

Jesus was slow.

In fact, one of the "ways" Jesus got things done in His ministry life was by "walking". Strange choice of transportation. You would think that the Messiah would have a 1 century Pope-Mobile or something. Wasn't there places to go, people to see, citiies to evangelize? What kind of admin assistants did He have for dead and dying people's sake?

Didn't he know that "night was coming" and "the time to work was almost gone?" Was walking really the best way to "maximize his ministry"? Are you telling me there wasn't a host of fine, Arabian horses around Palestine that He and his disciples could have used to gallop through Galilee, Judea and Samaria on a city reaching tour? Didn't He know that walking was really slow and not an efficient use of the really small amount of time He had on Earth. Was it really necessary to spread the kingdom via hitchhiking, boating and sightseeing?

Instead of strolling on lakes and riding donkeys and meandering along beaches, instead of hanging out in the country, mountain climbing and camping in the desert...couldn't He have travelled faster, farther and to more places along the famous Roman roads? The very roads that connected the then known world with unparalleled ease?

Walking isn't 'How" you should spread the good news of the Kingdom...not many people will hear it or be able to experience the ministry God gave Him to accomplish.

But to God walking is the means by which we get most things of value done. To God "how" we do something is more important than "what" we get done. It was the same then as today, the how isn't really important to most people...we just want to get something done. The means are justified, if the end is accomplished. We are less concerned about "who" we are, than "what" we do.

I think this is the message of Christ in walking, more than anything. I'm not saying we shouldn't do anything...I think we all long to accomplish much in this age and justice calls for it in the streets. But how we choose to engage that work in the streets is critical to the formation of our soul and the kind of community of faith we become. Jesus heard the call in the streets but according to his disciples He didn't even raise His voice in the streets. He chose to hide more than reveal, He spoke in parables instead of writing out His teaching in clear and concise pamphlets. He told people not to tell others about their miracles instead of sending them off on a "Go and Tell" evangelism campaign.

Yes, He walked...and sometimes people died because He took so long getting there.

His ways are so...not like ours.

I remember taking this picture on one of my canoe trips. I also remember the ski boats whizzing past me in a surge of water and ear splitting noise. I am sure it was fun...but I will never regret the steady, slow, meandering pace of my time in Upper Priest Lake. It was much slower for sure...but in that pace, I experienced life in a way that could only be felt. I came alive because I went slow.

I think less people would stay dead if more people walked like Jesus walked.

Slow is needed today...more than ever.

I wanted to change the world...

"When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town.
I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself,
and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on my family.
My family and I could have made an impact on our town.
Their impact could have changed the nation
and I could indeed have changed the world."
-By Unknown Monk, 1100 A.D.

One of the paths of thought I have been traveling upon lately is the dawning realization that I am facing 40 and many of the ideals that I have pushed towards for so much of my life are probably not going to be realized in the ways that I thought. This was brought home to me yesterday as I was watching my oldest son play drums and my daughter play electric guitar during both of our Sunday worship services. I remembered that for so many years as a youth pastor I had prayed for the Lord to send us great musicians to help us actually play the worship music we longed to hear live instead of on cd's as a youth church. As I was admiring Destiny filling in some sweet notes during the song...the thought occurred to me: We can pray for God to send us a great musician or He can grow a great musician from among us. Both would be a answer to that prayer...but one is far more rich, meaningful to me and rewarding to see...even if it takes longer than we would expect or always think we want. In the end, the Lord has answered that prayer but in a way that I didn't perceive He would.

Isn't that the whole message of the gospels...God coming and doing stuff in ways and with people who we wouldn't expect? I am realizing this "way" is more true than I can ever organize around, plan for or always facilitate...God is more like wind than I can comprehend (John 3).

In fact as a pastor, I am finding that in order to be a faithful and fruitful pastor, I have to be more of a "seer" or "prophet". They are people who spend more time listening and looking than anything else; but occasionally have something to say once those observations form into understanding. This isn't always the best or most accommodating to the current business world model that churches seem to morph towards. The end product is allusive. I find that I can't "change" much at all. I can't awaken desire, impart dreams, open eyes or instill love. I can't create community or eliminate poverty. I can't take back the land, or pull down powers...in fact, I am pretty weak, ignorant and clueless when it comes to figuring it all out.

The older I get the more content and free I am becoming to surrender my world conquering dreams to just simply be...a follower of Jesus.

“The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community even if their intentions are ever so earnest.
But the person who loves those around them will create community.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I see two paths as a pastor before me...kind of like Jesus was offered at a lonely time in the desert. One is full of miracles, productivity, needs being met, people being fed. It holds a lot of ascending...it's all about going up, getting higher, taking more ground, getting bigger, rising...all the way up to the pinnacle. It's a really visible place to climb towards. People know you, they call you, they invite you...they want you. But it ends in bowing to things, to people, to a way of life that causes you to lose your soul. You end up losing it all trying to gain it all. I tell you the truth...it is tempting, but it is a lie.

The bread is a lie...it won't fill you.
The pinnacle is a lie...it won't make you feel important.
The bowing is a lie...you won't get it all.

The truth is...hunger, insignificance and not having it all...is the way.

I pray I will continue to choose it.

I saw...what I saw.

song by Sara Groves
This song is so moving to me, the lyrics are so deep, especially the last few lines...man, this messed me up. I've been wrestling with the weight of eternity lately and the realization that our days are so few.
"We will have all of eternity to boast about the victories won on the earth, but we have only a few hours left in which to win them ." -author unknown

Prayers for the dead....answered.

One of the brothers in our church that is in recovery, ran into a woman I wrote about in the below post. He was at an NA meeting the other night and she shared how she is now clean and sober for over a year, has a baby and is doing much better. I remember that day and hearing that prayer and some strong words from some brothers in recovery, "saved her life" as she put it....made my day.
God is Good. I pray we see more and more women like her, saved, delivered and healed in this neighborhood.

Becoming prayer for the damned

Compel them to come in...

"And the master said to the slave "Go out into the highways and along the hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled." -Luke 14:23

As I was painting over some graffetti and replacing some burnt out lights around our church block the other day; a pretty rough dude came walking up to me. He was mumbling about not leaving my pliers on the ground because someone might steal them in this neighborhood. But then he kept saying something about things are changing in this neighborhood. I said..."Yes, we are doing what we can to help that happen." I am not sure if he was too happy about that change...he kind of marched off still talking to himself or whoever was sitting on his shoulder about the drugs and needles on the streets. As he left, the mailman was getting into his truck and said..."Yep, there used to be tons of needles right here, all over the ground." He was pointing to the area in front of our church. He then said, "Yes, you can still see them all around this area...just go over to Haven and you can see them." Haven is the street I live on...it's my street.

My heart breaks for my Father's house to be filled. But I know that in order for that to happen, we need to "Go out" as Jesus said. We have to have a broken heart that pleads with the lost, that will dare to compel them to come in. We must break out of the comfort zones that end up keeping us IN. Jesus knew the issue well, when he shared how there will always be those who give you a host of "real good reasons" why they wont be at the feast.

Jesus called them "excuses in vs. 18. Stuff like...Jobs and taking care of stuff we have bought and of course....marriage or my wife wont let me. The scriptures get real pointed when it says "The head of the household got angry." I fear that the Lord is getting ticked off these days. He sees His churches empty, compared to the masses that are lost for eternity. He sees His people more concerned about the passing pleasures of this world than the fact that His son spilt His blood so that His Father's House would be filled. Oh the high cost the Son of God paid....what are we willing to sacrifice so that His blood was not shed in vain?

I am compelled.
Needles...compel me.
Battered women....compel me.
A handicapped woman struggling to drive her wheelchair down a snow and ice filled sidewalk...compels me.
A mother screaming at her little children...compels me.
Empty seats during a service...compels me.
A recovering addict...saying he wants to lead a NA meeting in our building compels me.
Gang tags on a church wall....compels me.
Young girls crying out in the dark as they stumble down the street...compels me.
A mentally challenged woman who serves the homeless women of the city and does it smiling....compels me.
People taking time to teach refugees to learn english...compels me.
Young people being loved, cared for and being led towards Christ....compels me.

Jesus angry....compels me.

Heirs of the kingdom...

"Didn't God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom...? (James 2:5)

One of the discoveries I am finding the longer I minister in the places Jesus said we would find an open door for the gospel (Matt. 25:31-46); is that it is usually the average or often overlooked people in our culture that are faithfully doing the works of Jesus. Most people today are too busy, too over scheduled. They have been blessed with looks and money and jobs and stuff...and all that seems to require almost everything. But there are many who are not pretty, don't have a lot of cash, are not that smart, don't have a social calendar that has many dates on it, are not at the gym, or playing golf or out shopping. They are overlooked because they don't look good enough...but God sees them.

They pour soups in rickety homeless shelters, clean up after meals when everyone else is off to their own world, cut out flyers with cheap scissors, change diapers in overworked nurseries, they deliver meals to people that won't ever really get to come to church. They don't pastor churches with fancy pulpits but preach the word in jail cells on their own time. They don't get the praise of big crowds, offices or copper name tags on their door. They don't smell the best, dress in the latest fashions, or have the sweet rides. They might not know what Infralapsarianism is or be able to lead an inductive bible study but they can make a dying elderly person smile in a neglected nursing home. They show up. They want to be with people. They help out. When other's can't or won't...they do.

They truly have "bridled the tongue and let their lives speak of their faith.

I am humbled by their godliness.

Sex offenders, prayer meetings and messed up paradigms....

In a Christianity Today interview with Douglas Gresham the stepson of CS Lewis, Douglas said Lewis was the best Christian he had ever known. The reporter than asked Douglas why evangelical Christians love CS lewis so much; especially since he smoked, drank, was known to use "colorful stories" around the pub etc. Here is his response:

"The problem with evangelical Christianity in America today, a large majority of you have sacrificed the essential for the sake of the trivial. You concentrate on the trivialities—not smoking, not drinking, not using bad language, not dressing inappropriately in church, and so on. Jesus doesn't give two hoots for that sort of bulls---. If you go out and DO Christianity, you can smoke if you want, you can drink if you want—though not to excess, in either case."

As a pastor I have been wrestling with such scriptures as:

The base things of the world and the despised...God has chosen. -1 Cor 1:28

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. -1 Timothy 1:15

In the church...we tend to choose the people who look good, promising, respectable and have potential. Judging is a major part of gathering leaders. I find myself struggling with this way of thinking, especially when God messes it all up.

I was at our church prayer meeting at lunch time...alone, since hardly anyone attends that hour. That can be disappointing as a pastor...its like a window banker not having anyone drive up to his window. Whats the point? But anyway...I was sitting there and in came a man I know from some activities in the neighborhood. He sat down and said he felt the Lord sent him to encourage me. He then preceded to tell me his life story.

He was a recovering sex offender; who molested his daughter.

He shared, we prayed together...he left.

I sat bewildered yet again by Jesus and who he chooses to use. Of all the people we would think to send to encourage the "pastor". Of all the people who God could use...good ole, respectable, church born, together people...He sent our society's most despised to shed his love on this at times...generally prayer times...discouraged pastors heart.

I think Jesus went to a different leadership seminar than I did...

Come to us...or go to them?

Simply a great short presentation of why being on mission day to day with purpose versus aiming at attracting occasionally is more biblical in my opinion. I dont think this means there is never anything that is "attractional" in the ministry of the church body but it has to do with an underlying value and way of thinking outreach.

When people come to our church and ask us if we do evangelism or have an evangelism program...I point to the people first and say..."we are purposing to raise up evangelists not an evangelistic program...missionaries not a missions program" It really isn't just semantics. Of course there are challenging points to this way of thinking.

-You end up having to trust the people not the program. Programs are far more containable, controllable and consistent. We can micromanage programs but people are in constant flux.

-Trusting God to be God in His church, means you are not God anymore. That really strikes at the root of our desire to look good, together or like we have everything figured out. People want charts, maps, travel books about everything...if you give them a compass and say we are simply heading East...they scratch their head. They are not used to being told "any-road is good, just go in that direction". They want to be told what road, where to turn, what city, when do I turn left, etc. The church has created dependent believers that are always waiting for fear of doing something "out of God's will"...its religious bondage.

-It means having faith in God's word in a way that runs counter to the way the world or business runs. We are taught by world and by deed and example that the great, the best, the good looking, the talented, the strong, the smart and the rich make things of value happen. This is a dis-empowering model that basically cuts out most of us. So we end up with a lot of programs run by a few people that end up getting puffed up and then burned out. God's way is more about what do you have in your house vs. wait until the qualified or the abundance or the gifted come to your house.

-Then of course...people are always more sinful, slower, hardhearted and hardheaded, more picky, fussy, lazy, undisciplined, prayerless, quirky, bitchy, anal and tight fisted than a program. It's tough work walking with people, discipling people, watching them rise and fall, love and betray you. Running church life from behind a desk and a pulpit vs from behind people is a big differance. One says "come and see" and another says...."go and meet".

One is about me and the other is about them.

The Big American excuse...

I met my wife while I was serving Jesus with my life at 18. I was plugged into a church, serving under a great youth pastor. From 15 on, I had cut my teeth on ministry on the streets of Portland OR, preaching and teaching in my high-school, leading bible-studies and prayer meetings at home and before school, in the square with gutter punks, in the missions with the homeless, in the back alleys getting spit on and threatened. I remember sitting on the street at night in a line of drunks across from a dance club. There was a long line of teens outside amp'n up for a night of hump'n and pump'n and then one of those teens saw me. We knew each-other and he came up to me and asked what on earth I was doing. It was in moments like those that I knew my generation was on two different paths. I sought to abandoned the pleasure houses of christianity to serve Him in mission to the least, the poor, the fatherless and the broken. While kids were spinning their heads on bats and sitting on each-others laps at youth events...I was weeping over street kids that had no home. I was not perfect and had plenty of sin to fight through but the paths were clear to me.

I've heard all the baby bitch'n that goes on among purposeless young people that want God to mommy them into the kingdom but dont want to go where He said to go and do what He said to do. I have followed that call into the red lights of Amsterdam, under the bridges of our cities, into the prison cells of child molesters. I've loved the elderly, held their hands and shared the love of God with the dying. I've seen the addicts arms, the puke and urine of the lost. I've wretched by being too close. I've taken the abused and broken and fatherless into my home at great cost. I've wept with the girl whose arms are testimony to the hell she has experienced at the hands of men, drugs and life. I've sold what I love to gain what I can not lose. I've hammered out my call in the present, not waiting for permission for mission. I've led while others waited. I've fallen, forsaken and repented. All of this ranting feels vain but it's only to throw some reality water in the face of a generation that has used its divorced, drugged out, abused, broken, sinful past as an excuse for living in neutral. I don't buy it...God has used me, He will use you...if you are available. And who doesn't have more spare time than this generation?
We could evangelize our cities just on the tv time we consume.

"I dont know what to do with my life" is the big american excuse.

It's a phrase that is an affront to the poor and suffering of the world.
It's a statement born of prosperity and privilege from the mouths of a spoiled generation.
Most of the worlds young people if given the chances we have had or do have, would ascend in purpose.
I truly believe our generation will stand and condemn us in the judgment.
They will ask us what we did with our lives, our wealth, our time, our gifts, our opportunity.
What did we do with all that the Lord blessed us with in this prosperous church of America?

We are more concerned about getting laid than getting saved.
More passionate about Victoria's Secret than Christ's commission.
We will sell off half we own to purchase the latest game system but can't scrape together much of an offering for the nations of this world that dont know Christ. We got to have a sweet ride but care not for our neighbor whose been raped by her bastard father for the last 5 years. It's a sin to see how much waste we expend on a generation that should be selling everything and being spent on the cause of Christ.

Why have we sacrificed our generation and ourselves on the altar of Mammon?
Why do you, young minds and hearts, lay down your lives for the upward call of the American dream but won't move into the ghetto?

When did we exchange the cross for comfort and security?

Back from CCDA in St. Louis, Missourri

I just returned on Sunday from St. Louis, Missouri where I had the privilege to attend the 5 day Christian Community Development Association's 19th annual conference (www.ccda.org). I was blessed to go because of a local ministry in town called Cup of Cool Water (www.cupofcoolwater.org) sponsored me.
Mark Terrell, is the head of a ministry that works with street youth here in Spokane. We have been friends for a number of years and have talked about going to this conference together and this year he made it happen. I am really grateful he did.
The hotel we stayed in was called The Adam Mark and is just to the right of the Arch in the photo, it's also where the conference was held. The Gateway Arch was an amazing monument to see in person. It's over 600 feet high and towers over the Mississippi and frames the downtown St. Louis area majestically. I didn't have the guts to ride inside to the top...I am just to paranoid of really small spaces for that. But the stainless steel structure is a marvel to see.

Prophets of a Future Not Our Own

It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.
-Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero ~
(murdered on March 24, 1980)

10 Schrute Bucks for Steve...

We had Dr. Steve Crosby speak at our church today...what a wild ride!
I thank God for giving Spokane such a gift.
Our church is better because he is living out his calling in this town.

Boobs & Bibles...

mommy brigade
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Breastfed is BestFed...I saw this on a bumper-sticker yesterday and it reminds me of a particular predicament I face fairly regularly.

One of the strange things about having a laptop and pastoring with a mobile office is you often find yourself in odd situations. One of the places I spend a fair amount of time is at a local coffee spot called "The Shop". But during the day it is overrun with the "mommy brigade". They come in mass with their strollers, their children scurrying around, their cell phones and chatty friends all a buzz.

But I've noticed a couple of other things...these ladies are a free bunch of bra-less, breastfeeding earth mothers these days. Or maybe since I spent most of my 20's in a church office, safely locked away from any bohemian boobies, I never noticed?

Today, I was attempting to work at my little table and I was surrounded by nipples, dimples and stretched scruples. How does a pastor work in such a environment. Now I'm not against breasts...I am fond of them as the next guy and I hear they are the best source of food for the little gobblers...It's just odd trying to maintain a spiritual state of mind... in the midst of such activity.

It really has made me wonder about our idea of opening a coffee shop...

"When you become a Christian, Jesus will invade your life and make you into somebody he can use to change the world. Through you, he will challenge racism. Through you, Jesus will attack sexism, poverty, and militarism. That was never taught to me when I was growing up. I never heard that I could be an instrument that God could use to change the world. All I was told was that being a Christian meant I would go to heaven when I died. I was never told that the primary reason Jesus saved me was to make me into somebody whom he could use to change the world into the kind of world he willed for it to be when he created it." - Tony Campolo

My own churchopolis...

Metropolis
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

Planting and growing a church is tough work....way more work than I ever dreamed. It's the kind of work that transforms you...kind of like the physical change a desk worker would have if he started landscaping. The work breaks you down and builds you up. You learn a lot and you have to unlearn more than you know. You come to realize that you are going to have to become someone bigger and deeper than you currently are to survive. You will have to grow.

Like a mad scientist who dares to work towards creating new life...you find out that life never turns out the way you thought it would. And if you are not careful the very thing that you helped create can end up trying to kill you. Unleashing life is dangerous. Like raising kids...they start out cute and cuddly and end up confronting, demanding and naively independent....for a season, God willing. Where did that little one go that adored you so???

Such is the path of life....and church planting.

Your needed for life and than you somehow become a barrier to life.
It reminds me of this quote:

Jurgen Moltmann put it this way: "If Christianity is to become aware of what it is, we must abandon the pastoral church which takes care of people, which is the usual form of the Western church. Instead, we have to call to life a Christian community church. Either we set about this church reform by ourselves, or it will be forced on us by the loss of church members."

Such is the challenge of pastoring...of being used to mother life into being.
You really do have to be somewhat of a madman to engage in it.

Red and yellow...black and white...

unity
Originally uploaded by ericblauer.

"We have children in our church that will grow up thinking that it is perfectly normal to be part of a church where there are people from literally around the world—together."

I read that quote somewhere and I am thankful it is true for our church too...and I think it's a good thing.

Relocating and starting a church in a more racially diverse part of town has it's challenges. Merging refugees into a growing church has it's strains and pains. But seeing a body developing that is multicultural is sweet fruit indeed. Knowing your children's view of life will be more colored, more rich, expanded and diverse is satisfying. As I sat watching my son Micah playing "Go Fish" with four other kids that barely speak english, I found myself thankful for the stretch. As they were laughing and learning, I realized my son was learning too. Not everyone is crazy about having to stretch or even deal with anyone who is different than they are outwardly. But as you get to know the "stranger" you realize that we are all pretty much the same.

That is a gift worth receiving.