Letter to the Church

A few Sundays ago,  as I sang out loud with my brothers and sisters in Christ, I thought about our voices together and how powerful they can be.

As I drove home, I felt this heavy weight, a sinking feeling. I thought about the kids from our neighborhood who weren't there. I felt pressure and anxiety from all that needed to be done for Refugee Beads and the After school Program. There are so many kids, so many problems, so many needs. There seems to be endless amounts of work to be done.  

The teenagers we work with have loud voices in their lives trying to pull them the wrong direction.

Poverty tells them that they aren't worth anything. Their place in society tells them that they have no options. The educational system tells them that they aren't worth investing in. Guys tell the girls, if they can just look pretty and play the part there is hope for happiness. The cholos tell the guys if they sell drugs, and steal, then they can finally earn some respect and money, because they aren't going to get it any other way.

These kinds of voices only lead to dead ends and dark places. 

I do believe my God is powerful! He can use one small voice to impact the life of a teenager. BUT! I believe the Church, the body of Christ at work, each person singing their part, should be a chorus in the lives of these kids, showing them, telling them, that they are loved, that hey are worth dying for, that they are welcomed in God's family and that they have purpose. 

I have discovered after a long hard season of this work that I have been shouting and screaming out of desperation for these kids I love so dearly, trying to be the voice of a crowd instead of just my own. I want them to know how much God loves them. I want them to know there is a different way! But if you have ever tried shouting anything at a teenager before, you know that doesn't work, and your energy doesn't last very long!

To be honest, I have made myself sick trying. I look around and listen and I don't hear many positive voices other then my own and sometimes none at all. So I feel responsible, and carry a burden that should not be only mine to carry. 

 I am learning that God does not expect my voice to make up for the lack of other voices. I am just asked to sing my part, and Ian his, and you yours. 

God desires for our work to be filled with joy not with worry or guilt. So I have to trust Him, trust that he sees all the needs, and all the problems, and that he cares. I must have faith that God is working through his Church to make broken people and places new again.

We just came back from an amazing trip to New Orleans with four student leaders from our neighborhood. They got to hear the voices of God's people sharing about the work they do in neighborhoods like ours around the country. We were all inspired and encouraged by the gospel and how it is taking root and changing lives because of their willingness to share their hope, time and resources with those in need. 

While I have been sick these past couple weeks, Miguel and Guzman (two of the teenagers we brought to New Orleans, 18 and 19 years old) have been running the After School Program. They have encouraged me to trust God more. I see their care for this neighborhood and the kids grow. Mrs. Pam, who has been faithfully teaching Bible stories to the kids for 4 years now, is coming today to tell and show God's love to 30 children who will enter our 2 bedroom apartment. My heart is warmed when I open the door and see her face and my my burden feels lighter. 

This morning I read some verses from Colossians 1 and was reminded of some very important and solid truths by the apostle Paul in his letter to the church.

Our message of hope in Christ is as true today as it has always been. And as that hope grows in us it will also grow stronger and bear fruit around us! 

So today, like Paul, I pray for you, for me and for the Church that God would give us wise minds and a spirit attuned to God's will, so that we can understand how God works, can live well, make God proud, and work hard for him. 

I pray that we have the strength to stick it out! Not the kind of strength that comes from our own ability to grind our teeth and get it done but by a strength only God can give, the kind of strength that endures and spills over into joy and thankfulness. 

God has rescued us from dead ends and dark places. He can do the same for the kids and families in our neighborhood. Through his son Jesus, he has brought us up out of the pit that we were in because of our sin, that we were doomed to keep repeating. And he can do the same for those we love so much. 

We can look at Jesus and see God's original purpose in everything created. Absolutely everything  was started in him and finds purpose in him. We can now see God's purpose for Guzman, Miguel and many others beginning to shine. 

It might be a mystery to us, but God holds it all together. 

We can find rest in him.  

It's in Jesus we find peace even in the mist of chaos. 

A Temple to Foreign Gods (dispatches from the trek, pt 3)

Do not trust the gods of the air of Kathmandu.

The thought flashes through my head as our taxi speeds toward Pashupati temple. Jeremy sits beside me, and we watch the city slide by in lurid color, its shacks bearing the stamps of Coca-Cola and Pepsi on bold, hand-painted plywood signs.

Street kids run through alleys bearing paper bags, which they place over their mouths and breathe deeply when their play slows. Western wear and saris dance and weave across sidewalks, shoes and sandals stir the dust of the streets, and we climb the last hill before the temple.

As we hop out of the cab, I see skeletal cows, rooting through piles of garbage like stray dogs.

Don't trust the hamburgers either, I think.

My friend Jeremy, clad in jeans and a soccer jersey, leads the way to the temple complex. He has lived in Kathmandu for a short time, and arranged this trip for me. Since we have one day in the city before beginning our trek to Mount Everest, he wants me to see this temple and get an idea of what kind of power rules this city.

"The kingdom is in us," I say as we approach the guard shack, where westerners are required to purchase tickets before entering. The statement is meant to identify conviction, but it's really a question, the central question of my journey from the outskirts of Atlanta to the base of the world's tallest mountain. I want to know if this kingdom that defines my life to is a real power. I need to know that it moves through cultures and across oceans, and into the temples of foreign gods.

Two weeks before leaving Atlanta, I visited a Hindu temple to open a conversation. After describing the various statues and telling me their stories, emphasizing the commonalities between his faith and mine, the priest took my hand, held it, and pointed to a string of Christmas lights that lined the ceiling tiles. "Many lights, one electric," he told me. I looked at the lights. "Many lights, one power," he said. I held his hand for a moment, watched a wealthy Indian couple approach the gods, then quietly left the room.

Now we walk past boxes filled with powdered dyes, oranges and yellows and reds, for some ceremonial purpose I don't understand. We mill past stalls, past shadus, the holy men with long beards, robes, round bellies, and painted faces. Jeremy tells me not to take photos of them lest they pursue us for money.

Ahead, I see a group of tourists standing on the concrete riverbank, cameras in hand, snapping photos. I turn to see their subject, and on the other side of the river are small gazebos with rectangular fires crackling and scorching. Near to the fires rest human forms, under fabric shrouds. In clusters standing by walls beyond the pyres stand Nepalis, milling around, chatting, watching the flames. Their dead are burning before us, and their possessions, now poisoned by mortality, are hurled into the grimy river below.

I gape at the shrouded bodies, feeling a tension over the ceremony before us. I come from a land where death is hidden from society's eyes, tucked away in nursing homes, and sanitized in funerals. Here it is, final, grotesque, and public.

A body goes onto the lumber. Men in tank tops uncover a face, light the head on fire, and the next funeral begins.

We mill on through the complex, where we see dozens of shrines, each with a phallic sculpture at its center. Explicit carvings outside the shrines depict horrific gods presiding over complex orgies. Nepalis mill around us, some seeking profit from the tourists, some seeking favor from the spirits, some to give themselves to worship of the gods.

Several buildings say, "Hindus only" on the outside, barring westerners from seeing inside. I ask Jeremy what goes on behind these walls. He shrugs and tells me we're in a fertility temple, so one can imagine, but he hasn't been inside.

We find a long set of stairs climbing up to a hill overlooking the city, and begin to walk. Here, moving away from the vivid altars to mortality and sexuality, I try to process what I am seeing. I am an alien here, so I am bound to feel confused by the native forms of worship, but there is a seething force in the air which troubles me.

This is my first day in Nepal, so I pass the sights quietly, waiting to understand, hoping that in the mess and mystery of this journey, as it runs through this complex, the city of Kathmandu, and the great mountains beyond, the kingdom of Christ will take on skin and offer hope. For the moment, it remains hidden in my heart, a small alien light in a noisy temple to local gods.

Rethinking Radicalism: A review of my previous post

For those who haven't yet read my friend Tim Isaacson's thoughtful response to my last post, here's what he said:

Have you had any conflicting thoughts about the experience? It doesn't sound like you do - which is totally fine. I'm trying to figure my inner-turmoil out and having a difficult time doing so. I mean, the up-side was huge. I'm trying to figure out what was off-putting for me. Or, rather, what was off-about-me that had me excited about some parts and wary of others. Any thoughts?

Actually, Tim, yes.

In fact, in the days following the post, I did a lot of re-thinking. I'm going to walk through my current thinking on this and see if it gets me anywhere. It's going to sound more like an argument against a current bill, but it's moving toward a response to your question.

The Georgia House's vote in support of HB 87, while invisible to most Georgians, was felt very clearly among the kids in our neighborhood. Many of them are aware of it, and it's quite possible that whoever wrote "Fuck you, white crackers" on our door today did so partly in response to that law.

When I think about the law, I realize something: It will probably never make it to the enforcement level. The federal government will probably sue Georgia, the state will get locked up in costly litigation, and even if they win, working down to enforcement will be a massive, expensive task.

Then there's the fact that the economic forecast for a state that passes and enforces such a law is pretty bleak. Labor costs go up, raising the prices on pretty much everything, businesses shut down, tourism wanes, and a huge chunk of the populace who don't pay income tax but still pay sales tax, rent, and grocery bills, will disappear quickly. The jobs that open up are difficult jobs that pay little money.

So, practically speaking, there will probably be no economic upside to this bill, although it will cost GA millions on almost every front.

If that is so (and it pretty clearly is), then why would the politicos vote for it?

The republicans voted for this to look courageous to their constituents. And this is where this law got me to re-think my interest in engaging immigration on a political level. Politics are a big, crooked machine, far detached from the individual lives they affect.

Being one who believes in the power of the kingdom, I have become wary of throwing my shoulder into the work of a system that is corrupt to begin with, that see-saws in its decisions, and that rarely, if ever, has any space for love in its workings. Government is the exact opposite of the kingdom I claim.

Then I thought about what we do. Introducing these immigrants to the host culture. Building good will. Showing love. Defying stereotypes. Feeding the hungry. Nurturing. Treating aliens with the dignity that the kingdom demands. These are all things that have a powerful impact in the lives they touch.

So it may be that one who loves in small ways will be inclined to care about the national stuff, but working with the government and its laws is murky and can be dreadfully distracting for ground-level guys like us.

Perhaps it is good to speak when issues arise, but I for one am prone to let the grand arena of politics and ideas distract me from the work I am specifically called and equipped to do: loving my neighbor.

So I still hope to be a radical, but my focus must remain squarely on the neighborhood work. On living and loving alongside immigrants. If I do speak to the political issues of the day (an aggravating, exhausting process), I must do so out of conscience and I must quickly turn back to my neighbor, lest I lose focus on love.

I have no idea if this is what bothered Tim, but it bothers me. My thinking is like a pendulum on this issue of faith, hope, love and politics.

Any of my readers want to question or add to this conversation? I could use your help here.

Running the Trinity

My brother Eric and I have been running regularly since late Spring, and we do what brothers do- spur one another on through competition and dares. One of our little challenges is a 5 mile run which climaxes in a knot of steep hill climbs that we call "Trinity." It's pretty tough for both of us.

I dubbed the run Trinity because it boasts three distinct steep climbs but only one steep hill. While I came up with the name as a joke (other potential names were "The Three Ugly Stepsisters," and "Hell"), I did some thinking as I approached the first climb today which continued through the rest of the jog.

The trinity is the weak point of the Christian faith, logically speaking. Pretty much anyone who wants to argue against Christianity goes for absurdity of the Trinity. It's an easy place to start, and it is one of the central concepts of our theology.

To me, the Trinity is a reminder of several important truths, all of which affect the way i minister and relate to the international community. Here, in bullet point form, are the few I meditated on as I ran:

• The fact that the Trinity is beyond the reach of our reason, and central to our faith, is beautiful. It's a reminder of how the heart and nature of God is so far beyond the reach of our minds. This got me thinking about working with the kids, and how we really can't explain everything they need to know about God. They can only grow in understanding by relating to Him.
• For the fact that our faith is built upon a mysterious, divine relationship, we Christians sure put a great deal of effort into quantifying everything. I want to steer clear of reporting numbers as if they show success, and I want to remain sensitive to the fact that God's work in human lives is profoundly diverse and totally unpredictable.
• The only two legit responses to mystery are rejection and worship. We must choose one. About three years ago, I found the Christian faith beyond the reach of my reason. I could either turn away because I didn't understand, or I could open my heart and engage the mystery. The latter was worship, and by the grace of God, I chose it. Thankfully, he has sustained this sense of worship through so many dramatic shifts in thinking.

Well, I finished the run, and upon arrival back at our apartment complex, saw Iver, Adelaine, and Anderson playing baseball. The outworking of my thinking on the Trinity was to choose, despite my exhausted feeling, to join the game. It was God's gift to me to experience the joy of relationship with these kids after working through such a complex web of thoughts.

I guess the point of all this is just that I am thankful. Despite the fact that I can't figure the mechanics of God's love, He still reaches me with his Truth in the middle of day-to-day challenges and relationships. "Ministry" is merely the context where I intentionally seek experiences of His magnificent, totally incomprehensible love at work in and through me.

I hope everyone is as baffled and awed about this experience as I am.

Christian Cloning

Today I was thinking about this idea that we, as missionaries, should be working to reproduce ourselves in the people we disciple.

The classic picture is that "professional" ministers shoulder all the burdens of their people until a suitable replacement graduates from seminary. The idea that seems to have replaced that is that ministers reproduce themselves, and you have a trickle-down replication process. This is a step in the right direction, but I think we could do better.

Reproducing myself in others would rob them of the power of their own journey, and it would make for a pretty boring church (although, I admit, such a group of followers would have great taste in movies and music).

So when I work with immigrants and refugees, I'm not thinking about how to help them understand how to do what I do.

I want to help them do what they do best, which will minister back to me in turn.

Think of it this way: Aziz has the power to reach people with his visual art. So I'm not gonna try to turn him into a writer. Bayo is a well-dressed, high society kind of guy. I'm not out to convert him into some flip-flop wearing borderline beatnik like me. Junior is a stubborn and wild kid. I have no interest in turning him into a contemplative, easygoing person. That's my thing, not his.

Each of us has a role to play in the kingdom. Our own stories put us in a unique position to live unique lives. Now that others look to me as a mentor, I consider it my job to help them find their own places in the grand story of God's relationship with His world.

Lord knows this world couldn't handle many more guys like me anyway.