Vision Enhanced: My Life as a Bridge

I offer my life as a bridge between diverse people and places...

It was in college that I was first introduced to the concept of being a "bridge person."  We initially talked about it in the context of racial reconciliation, where there is a tremendous need for people who can see from multiple perspectives.  Without individuals who can serve as bridges, you would simply end up with segregated groups unable to have a conversation-- usually because white people got indignant and/ or confused when Blacks, Latinos, or Asian Americans expressed pain or hardship.  You needed people who could process the pain and interpret it for others.  You needed people who could translate confusion, anger, fear and a whole host of loaded emotions without getting caught up in them.  I came to realize that I am one of those people.

For there to be reconciliation, there has to be a place where people can meet, with their differences.  Yes, we can be idealistic and say that as brothers and sisters in Christ, we meet at the cross or in the presence of God -- but in reality we know that is rarely true.  People from different economic classes will most likely not go to the same sanctuary.  People with slightly different doctrines on eschatology don't even share prayer meetings.  Rather, we meet through relationship.  We meet by introduction and happenstance and by paths that cross unexpectedly.


I offer my life as a place where people meet.  I don't plan it or orchestrate it (most of the time), but I offer it, should God choose to use it in that way for His good.  I intentionally know lots of people-- lots of different people-- and I hope and pray that they know come to know each other in ways that look like God's kingdom coming.  Jesus ate with tax collectors, had his feet washed by sinners, touched unclean people, and talked with poor outsiders-- and he gave many of them a chance to know one another.  I could hammer the point from my previous "Vision" post-- Jesus created one new humanity.  No long in or out, holy or unclean, there was just in Jesus - a new creation.


I certainly tread carefully here.  I don't want to get confused and think that I am the one thing, the important thing, or the reconciling thing in the equation.  I am not Jesus.  But I do follow in the way of Jesus.  I offer my life for the things that will bring glory to God, and one of my greatest hopes of heaven is to have all God's people bridged - connected - reconciled and in proper relationship with their creator and one another.  Therefore I look for that here and now.  I offer to be that person who knows what is going on at the Lutheran soup kitchen and among teens in City Heights.  I am always game for a connection, because I never know how God will use it-- or how God might use me in it.

Asking the Right Questions

This article struck me as timely when it popped into my inbox this afternoon.  Last night, as I spoke with some friends doing ministry in our neighborhood, we were talking about Bob Lupton and others who so gently and wisely re-direct well-intentioned service by people who actually hurt communities they are trying to help.

Don't get me wrong-- I am less and less convinced that I know the "right way" to serve troubled communities.  A few years ago, I might have been fiery and self-righteous on the subject.  Now, I have some suggestions, but mostly a whole lot of stories and unresolved questions.

Which brings me back to why I liked this article.  In it, Lupton poses questions that prompt critical thinking about the how and why of church service projects.  I hope and pray that more churches are willing to put more thought into the means and ends of their service, so that mutual transformation could be a REAL thing-- bringing new life to churches and their communities.

Vision Enhanced: Change the Posture of the Church

I am compelled to change the posture of the Church 

to reflect God's power to overcome barriers and isolation

with the whole Gospel.

This could easily have made for 3 separate entries!  The problem was in separating the phrases, which, it turns out, must be linked together.  Here, we're getting to the heart of things.  I'll actually work through it in reverse.

Numerous scholars and writers have critiqued the Church's tendency to "slice and dice" the Gospel into pieces that are easier to digest-- or at least that work well for them.  Such picking and choosing causes myopia and distortion.  Some simple examples can be seen at both ends of the spectrum of faith vs. works, social justice vs. personal piety, being 'relevant' vs. living separated from culture.  Most often, the challenge of the Gospel is not to opt for one or the other, but to faithfully tackle both.  (For more on the "both/ and" of the holistic Gospel, see this piece I wrote about a year ago.)

Almost any church I work with (and almost any day in my personal life, for that matter) needs to compensate for its natural gravitation away from the whole shebang of the Good News.  Because without it, the Church cannot live into the promise of Ephesians 2:14-16.  "For Jesus himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility... His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility."

This is one of the chief reasons Urban Mosaic exists.  I look around the city and I see plenty of well-meaning Christians.  Yet, I see them working in isolation, in fear, in mistrust, surrounded by dividing walls.  I see churches isolated from other churches and from their neighbors.  Their own members are divided by language, age, and economic class.  This is not the whole Gospel!  Preaching on Sundays, or effective outreach, or great small groups, or powerful prayer ministry does not make up for falling short of the full expression of that new humanity that Jesus created.

Therefore the posture of the Church must change.  It must be humble.  Sacrificial.  Listening.  Aware.  Ready to be broken and shared among the hurting people of this city and this world.  Freed of its hostility.  Prepared as an earthen vessel, fragile yet fill-able.

Let's be practical for a moment: it happens in small steps.  Don't take me as a wild revolutionary-- I appreciate that this is no quick fix.  It is beyond difficult to live into God's desire for reconciliation.  What we as a team ask, encourage, coach and model is a life that kneels, knocks, seeks, and asks for the way forward.  Not charging ahead alone, but sitting at the table with others with whom we are called to journey.  Even when it's uncomfortable.  Even when they're being silly or petty or downright difficult.  That's what we believe Jesus did.  That's what he seemed to dream for his Church.

His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

Local Urban Realities

Normally, this time of year would take me into homes and community centers in Latin America's slums during the Global Urban Trek.  During this InterVarsity program that I participated in, led, and directed over the course of six summers, we challenged college students to consider God's call to live and minister among the world's rapidly growing urban poor population.  As part of their orientation, a variety of speakers and activities primed the students for six weeks in marginalized communities.  One of the talks we offered year after year was called "Global Urban Realities", and it was a barrage of statistics and studies on the state of the world's poorest cities.  Many students ate up this feast of facts-- it was something tangible and solid amid a coming flood of unknowns for their summer experience.

That 'Global Urban Realities' talk came to my mind this week as I read some sobering police reports on our neighborhood.  Within 5 blocks of our apartment, six men have been shot in less than six weeks, in three separate incidents.  Three of them were killed, and another is still in critical condition.  You see, I don't often get the hard data on the neighborhood.  Most of my experience is, well, just what I experience.  I experience wonderful refugee ladies at the farmer's market, selling swiss chard.  I see my neighbor "R" coming home late, juggling 3 jobs, a 7-month-old daughter, and a husband recovering from a hand injury.  I watch with amusement as Buddhist monks from a local monastery stop at the corner market.  Lately I resent the amount of TV and party noise on some nights, amplified by close alleys and open windows.  I smell the drugs smoked on either side of our house.  I shake the hand of a pastor at a storefront church.  I recognize the psychotic woman at our bus stop from a downtown ministry program.  I wonder what happened to our former neighbor, who was evicted after she simply disappeared and stopped paying rent.  I grin at seeing dogs in the park and flowers in yards.  I notice a woman lives with her baby in someone's 1-car garage a few doors down.

When I list it all like that, it's feels far more bleak, because taken one at a time, one fact, one observation, one relationship at a time, it's just life.  It's just the combined lives of people trying to make a living.  I don't write this to prove anything about our neighborhood or to promote stereotypes about it.  That is not my aim at all.  I generally think that City Heights is not nearly as rough as its reputation would indicate.  However, those police visits to our block did snap me back to the reality that all is not fine.  Things are not as they should be.  Do I want to do something about it?  Sure!  Did my mind immediately rush to community watch groups and town meetings?  You bet!  

Yet, I want to pause and sit for a time with this thought, penned by a current Trek student spending the summer in Manila:

How often do we go into a broken situation trying to “fix” things, bring “justice,” “save” people, when truly, we don’t have the human capacity to make things right? Without God’s love, our efforts mean nothing. It is God’s love that restores, heals, and saves lives. And “fixing” and “bringing justice” was never our primary calling. Our first call was to love God with all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.


(Feel free to read more and follow their experiences on the Trek blog.)

Bible Studying: 1-2 Kings

I've been reading through 1 and 2 Kings lately, and I took great joy in making notes on the dynasty and its cast of characters as God works through crazy kings, priests, prophets and officials.  As an amusing sight, here are the notes I worked so hard on, tracking from Solomon to Zedekiah:

When I wrapped up 2 Kings this morning, I found this nifty chart with kings, approximate dates, and nifty facts in my husband's study Bible:

I still like mine better.  =)


As a serious matter of reflection, I am shocked at how a simple but careful reading of these books has changed my perspective on Israel's history.  I always tended to skip over the historical books in favor of the Old Testament prophets, and as a result I had a pretty skewed and piecemeal history.  I knew that there were two kingdoms, blah blah blah, Israel was bad, they got sent into exile, but Isaiah and Jeremiah said amazing things about God in the midst of it.  I knew some kings were worse than others, and it was generally a failed experiment in Godly leadership development.  But there was so much I had been missing, and I think that beyond dorkiness, that knowledge actually does make a difference.


For example...


- I had failed to understand the dynamics of the divided kingdom.  Because church steeped me in the rhetoric of "God chose Israel", I didn't realize that actually, God chose the tribe of Judah to remain loyal to Him and worship in Jerusalem.  As a result, when I read prophets like Amos, I thought it was a super crazy thing for God to tell Israel they were in trouble for their behavior.  Now that I've read through the stories of 19(+) kings of Israel who ALL committed overt sin by worshiping idols and instructing their people to do the same, it makes a lot more sense.  Likewise, it deepens my understanding of Samaritans as represented in the New Testament, as Samaria was the capitol of Israel until the deportation to Assyria.  After the Israelites were gone, the area was re-settled by foreigners.  God sent lions in to eat them, because they weren't worshiping him.  So the Assyrian king sent some of Israel's priests back to teach the foreigners how to worship and "they worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods."  (2 Kings 17:33)  That's how we get to Jesus' day, when Samaritans know something of God, but aren't regarded as 'true worshipers.'

- I was fascinated by periodic comments about the mothers of the kings.  Not always, but sometimes, there would be a note about a guy's mother and where she was from.  I'm not an authority on this stuff, but it seemed clear that a point was being made on a few of them, like Athaliah the daughter of Ahab (and Jezebel), who married Jehoram king of Judah.  Not a nice woman.  She killed all kinds of people, including princes in her own family.  But the point remains that women bring both good and bad into a family.  (There were others who seemed to bring a good influence.)

- That leads to my next observation about families: reading a fleshed-out genealogy made it clear that in God's view of the world, families are important.  They carry trends, promises, and traditions good and bad.  Yet, there is also individual action.  Sometimes kings did great things, like their fathers, and sometimes they flipped a switch and decided that Baal needed some new altars.  And then out of the blue would come another good one, devoted and seeking the LORD.  Yet, the good ones did not make up for God's anger that was caused by the bad kings.

- Finally, it brought me to a greater appreciation of the meaning of this "temple period" in Israel's history.  Having been a people who wandered, a people who were enslaved, and a people who fought their way into the promised land, there is a sense that this could have been great.  "The temple is designated by God as the instrument of his forgiveness and the point at which the consequences of sin may be reversed." (from the ESV Study Bible)  But Israel/ Judah botches it.  They put up idols all over the countryside and even INSIDE the temple!  Faithfulness seems beyond them.  God sends them away, exiled to Assyria and Babylon, but with the promise of a future return.


Like most good reads, I have a feeling I could immediately start these books over and enjoy even more depth and detail.  I find myself torn between wanting to keep moving forward in the story of God's people and curiously thumbing backward to the events leading up to the kings.  Either way, these unlikely books have whet my Bible-appetite... but (to channel some Reading Rainbow) you don't have to take my word for it!

What Gospel?

"A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone's skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed-- what gospel is that?"

-Archbishop Oscar Romero   

Hope and Memory have one daughter and her name is Art,

and she has built her dwelling far from the desperate field where men hang out their 

garments upon forked boughs to be banners of battle.

O beloved daughter of Hope and Memory,

be with me for a little.

-William Butler Yeats

Vision Enhanced: I seek reconciliation

I seek reconciliation among people separated by fear and mistrust.

First, any pursuit of reconciliation comes out of all that dwelling I talked about earlier... out of my deepening relationship with Jesus and from my intentional presence in the city.  One of my favorite pieces of scripture, 2 Corinthians 5:17-19:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God,who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Nothing need separate us from God, and God desires that we not be separated from one other.  From a young age, division bothered me.  People not getting along irked me.  Seeing black people live on one particular street in a small town didn't seem right.  As I got older, I felt even more discontent and anger when Christians failed to treat one another civilly.  Gradually, I started seeing past my temper and frustration and personal sense of justice, glimpsing God's sorrow at injustice and longing for reconciliation.  I also gradually began to see fear at the root of broken relationships.

I've worked with women coming out of situations of domestic violence.  Children and mothers facing sexual abuse.  Youth who are discriminated against because of their race.  Immigrants taken advantage of in a foreign country.  Ethnic minorities without a voice in their church congregation or Christian group.  Social outcasts who don't fit in easily.  People in poverty looking for some shreds of 'normal' life.

Each situation (and many more) breeds mistrust in all directions.  Family, neighbors, friends, passers-by, teachers, preachers, and good-hearted volunteers-- all of us give in to temptations of fear and anger. It is complicated.  It's messy.  There are few clear answers.  But what I know is that

Jesus himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility...  (Ephesians 2:15)

 So we need to pursue life accordingly.

I know it's hard to figure out what to say to the guy who brings up strange topics in conversation at the end of church.  And I know that sometimes people fulfill the stereotypes and assumptions you have about them, whether it's about the kind of music they listen to or about their ability to hold a job.  I know that people do terrible things and make horrible decisions.  Sometimes they regret them.  Sometimes they don't.  Sometimes people change.  Sometimes they surprise you.  Sometimes they don't.

We live in a place and time filled with fear and filled with separation-- in families, churches, neighborhoods, cities, and nations.  The narrative of God's story through Jesus is to bring together what has been separated.  Both the "chosen" and the "others," brought together against the odds and definitely against popular opinion.  That's good news that I have to be part of, if I'm going to have any hope of seeing God change the world.  

Women in Crisis

Last weekend I attended our church's women's retreat, and its theme was "Women Shaped by Crisis."  The content, as well as the guidance for personal reflection, was powerful, and I was encouraged to see the solid faith and courage God had given these women as they faced heart-wrenching challenges.  I could go into detail about their stories, but the punch line was the power of trusting God to redeem and transform horrible things that happen.  Not in a smarmy, cheesy way that denies the gravity of what someone is going through, but really coming to know God's goodness that is deeper than our circumstance.

"La Bible - Tamar Belle-Fille de Judas" by Marc Chagall.

Though there were plenty of tears, we enjoyed laughter together as well, and I came home tired but grateful for the two days of worship, friendship, and reflection.  Coming home, as so often happens, immediately made the theme more real.  Suddenly, life was not as neat and tidy as it had seemed at a conference center in the mountains, where we showed up to 3 meals a day on the table, snacks offered at all hours, entertainment, schedules, and cleaning all provided for us.  I came home to a very sick husband (fever, probably some version of the flu).  After a couple of hours of getting him fed and taken care of, I reluctantly went to church.  There, a woman who has been worshiping with us for a few months came into the chapel saying she desperately needed prayer.

(stock photo, google images)

She decided to leave the overnight shelter where she had been staying.  Now, she sleeps on the sidewalk.  She is handicapped, using an electric wheelchair.  She is disconnected from any family, including her 5 children.  She feels desperate and each day just wants to survive, cover her basic needs, and get to the next day.  Her story is complicated and sad.  She did not ask us for solutions or for money, but she did ask for our prayers and friendship.

That's the hard part.  You can't fix crisis-- your own or anyone else's.  Hearing personal testimonies and lessons about God's faithfulness for two days did not temper the sadness I felt on hearing our friend's story.  She was - and continues to be - a woman in crisis.  She does not have many options.  My only hope is in the God who redeems our imperfect options.  Whether Tamar, Rahab, the widow of Zarephath or our friend in her wheelchair, God enters into unlikely lives.  God knows crisis.  And sometimes we know God best when we have no other choice - when we are caught in times of crisis.

When Dwelling Looks a Lot Like Walking Around

I've spent the past six months on a leadership team for a new worship gathering at our church (www.fpcsd.org), and we have wrestled with the question of how/ where/ when to encounter the people who spend time downtown.  We opened up the chapel for worship on Sunday nights.  A few people wandered in, usually because they were looking for another church that they couldn't find.  We tried to invite people in from the sidewalk, but most were on their way to somewhere else.

I should note that none of us leading this service actually lives downtown.  Ironic, right?  Most of us feel strongly that we are in our respective neighborhoods for a reason, and to be honest, we share some perplexity at why God has asked us to be involved in revitalization of a downtown congregation.  But there we are, trying to figure out how to connect with people, and it dawns on us: we need to walk.

In our situation, the reasons are several-fold.  We need to get outside the walls of church and stop assuming that people will come to us.  We need to see who the people around the neighborhood really are.  Sure, there's the assumption and perception that we're set up centrally as a resource for people who are homeless (the San Diego Rescue Mission is less than 3 blocks away).  We could hope that some law students might drift in (Cal-Western law school, 2 blocks down the hill).  But we don't really know until we get out there.  Who else is walking around?  Where are they going?  What kind of time do they have?

But as I've thought about walking over the past few weeks, mulling on why we should do it this way, I usually come back to a very simple insight: Jesus walked.  Jesus walked a lot.  If he wasn't on a boat, many of his significant moments of ministry came on foot.  He encountered people who needed him, people who interrupted his plans, people who caused him sorrow, and people who threw parties with him.  That is what I hope and pray will happen as we walk in the coming weeks.

What I am NOT implying is that this is what everyone everywhere should do always.  No.  We discerned walking as a way for us to be present and learn God's heart in a neighborhood where we don't live day by day.  (Though as much as some people are at the church, it could feel like living there!  And I do highly recommend walking in the place where you do live.  It is a crucial - and favorite - spiritual practice for me.)  Who knows, after a month, or after 8 months, our task may change.  Strategies should change as you become more familiar with a people and place.  In other words, dwelling is a process, whether the context is a college campus, an urban neighborhood, life in Christ, or a forest grove.  There are initial steps, often different from later ones.  Sometimes those steps are literal ones, so we lace up our shoes, and ask Jesus to teach us how to walk.

Vision Enhanced: Dwelling deeply...

Dwelling Deeply in Christ and in the City...

A person can easily live in a place without dwelling there.  To dwell somewhere implies a sense of rootedness... you are going to stay for a while.  In religious language, we can group dwelling and abiding in a category that contrasts with sojourning.  Either may be embraced for different times and callings in a life of faith, but they have different requirements and consequences.  (As a fun fact, there are more than 6 times as many references to dwell/ dweller/ dwelling as to sojourn/ sojourner/ sojourning in the Bible, spanning the Old and New Testaments.)

At this point in my life, I believe I am called to dwell.   Now, I don't necessarily know or think that San Diego is my final promised land in which to stay.  The jury of discernment is still out on that one.  However, I am convinced that my work is intimately linked to this act of dwelling.  I have always believed that context is critical, and now I choose the context of a dweller, rather than a pilgrim or a sojourner.  I am not someone who swoops in, consults, and helps churches with their outreach program for a week only to hop on a plane.  I do not want to serve as someone who is on the road (or an airplane) 20 weeks of the year.  My life has a home.

That home is first of all in Jesus.  John 15:4-- "Dwell in me and I will dwell in you... you cannot bear fruit unless you abide in me."  Even when that home isn't exactly what I imagined, it is where I stay.  For the height of clarity and joy as well as the discipline of faith amidst uncertainty, I seek to daily deepen my abiding in Christ.  Ministry flows first out of that-- before any crafted expertise or methodology.

Secondly, I minister out of the context of living in the city.  Our world is undergoing a dramatic shift as the majority of its population moves to urban centers.  Unfortunately, it is the church in the American city that has experienced the sharpest decline in the past 50 years.  Yes, it is possible to care about the city and its residents from the outside, but that would be a different ministry.  Living 5 miles from the center of downtown San Diego in a dense, urban neighborhood affects the ministry I do.  The geographic proximity means that my involvement does not require a long commute.  I can easily take the bus or bike.  My neighbors and I use (or avoid) the same public services, and our relationships give me greater compassion and understanding of challenges faced in the city.  As a result, I facilitate a church's urban engagement plans with a personal perspective.  Outreach is not for "those" people, but for US, the ones who live here.

I seek depth in all my relationships.  At my best, I am operating out of the depth of who I am and where I live.  So I don't want to be sort of hanging out with Christ-- I want life deeply lived in him.  I am not satisfied with life on the edge of God's work in the city, either.  Everything that ensues-- the reconciling, revolutionizing work of Jesus, loving and changing the Church-- flows out of deep living.  It does take work, but I see it as the non-negotiable prep-work for what I want to do.  Like cooking a fine dish, there may be hours of un-glamorous chopping and whisking, but that is where quality is decided.  I want quality, sustainability, and depth.

Catching Vision

Without boasting, it is fair to acknowledge that I am a visionary leader.  I care about where things (and people) are headed and I thrive on planning ahead.  When vision is lacking, I get uneasy.  However, I am undoubtedly a beginner when it comes to trusting God to provide that vision.

When I became Urban Mosaic's team leader, some part of me assumed that I would sit down for a day or two, look at the information before me (regarding the needs of city churches and the gifts of our personnel), and piece together God's intended purpose for our team.  You're chuckling, aren't you?  Thus began a lesson in listening, waiting, and letting God give fresh vision.

One tool that I used for the development of my personal sense of mission (which, it turns out, is essential if you want to be leading other people somewhere!) was a 6+ week process called Life Compass.  Joining a group of other local CRM staff, apprentices and neighbors, each week brought us questions and exercises to tease out a response to What should I be doing with my life?

The process looked something like this: gathering and learning together in a living room.

 We took tests about our personalities and spiritual gifts.  We looked at the overall story of our lives and how God had taught us and brought fruitfulness in different situations and seasons.  We each met with coaches and talked in small groups to get feedback.  And at the end, we each produced a vision statement.  Here is mine:

I will take the next few weeks to unpack this statement in segments, line by line.  It is quite dense, and I will admit that it is far more powerful than I expected.  Though it took hard work to get here, I am still convinced that vision is more "caught" than created.  In drafting this culminating statement, all I had to do was pull in the stray threads of my life and my passions -- what was already there -- and start weaving them into a single work.  Stay tuned for those parts that make up the whole!

Lessons in Generosity: A Handful of Rice

A Handful of Rice from International Steward on Vimeo.


I am not generally impressed by big numbers, big churches, or big growth.  Yet, this story stirred my heart and made my jaw drop.  I am inspired by the reminder of how POSSIBLE and how BEAUTIFUL it is for everyone to offer something to contribute in the family of God.

Sources of Inspiration:
1. "If you can eat, you can give."
2.  People naturally understood that they could give more if they were able (upping it to a cup of rice, some wood, some cash).
3.  Undeniable evangelism:  95% Christian population in their state and a church of 500,000.
4.  Intuitive support of mission: 1,800 mission workers supported.

Reasons I Still Wince:
1.  The poorest of people have contributed to the building of a fancy church.
2.  The church's generosity was not cited for changing quality of life in a very poor region.  Has access to drinking water improved?  Has hunger/ starvation waned?  Has healthcare been provided?
3.  Do these misgivings undermine the inspiration I  described above?

What helps me cope with discomfort and tension, and causes me to still share the video:
Generosity is meant to be this joyful and this fruitful.  It is meant to overflow and blow away the odds stacked against an underestimated population.   Generosity upends the myth of helplessness and testifies to the abundance of God's kingdom.  That is easier to forget when we're cutting checks and balancing spreadsheets, as opposed to putting aside a handful of rice with every meal that the Lord provides.

Prodigal Nostalgia

Loving this excerpt from a colleague's reflections on the story of the Prodigal Son:

The awareness of the brevity of my life invokes a longing for something more. Everything has a hint of pig-pod in it. My marriage isn’t quite right; I impart to my children things that aren’t quite right; I hide significant portions of myself from others. The good that I do is tainted by self-serving motives; I’m frustrated by my lack of spiritual growth; I am dissatisfied with my lack of depth.  There exists a heightened hunger and thirst for something that causes me to look back and, at the same time, pulls me forward.

All of us are prodigal sons and daughters. Our life-long nostalgia—our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have only seen from the outside—is no mere neurotic fancy; it is the truest index of our situation. This is what the Bible tells us is true about our situation in life. The beauty of nature that is just out of reach, the experience just behind the door, instills a yearning for something that this world cannot supply. Like the prodigal son, I have to come to my senses to return to the Father. He waits for me. 

(Read the full devotional meditation here.)

Stretch to Fit

reposting the Lent devotional entry I wrote for CRM:

The Calling of Levi the Tax Collector   Mark 2:14-22 

Fitting in. Finding a good fit. Doing what fits you best.  

I admit it.  I've looked hard for it: this magic of fit. I talk about it in regards to the places I work, the kind of church I attend, the people I spend time with. Yet it's clear that Jesus is addressing the things and people that don't fit. First, the Pharisees ask the disciples why Jesus is with the wrong people, with the oddballs and outcasts. Then, they want Jesus to tell them why his disciples aren't like other religious folks. It's all very confusing to them, and to us.

I've learned quickly that if you want more oddballs in your life, the best place to find them is somewhere that has something to do with Jesus. Start a Bible study, join a prayer group, or just walk through the doors of a church building, and strange people and stories will gush forth. I'm not talking about the oddness of believing what you don't see or any of the accompanying theology. Plain and simple, people who hang out with Jesus can be strange. Why?

“People who are well do not need a doctor, but only those who are sick. I have not come to call respectable people, but outcasts.” – Mark 2:17 (Good News Translation)

Though we may be unfamiliar with mending clothes and wine preparation, there is still a visceral familiarity in what Jesus teaches here. It's about attaching, filling, being where you belong—where the feast continues and the holes are completely patched. It's avoiding the tearing, bursting, and ripping of a bad fit, and it doesn't happen in the way one might suppose—with exact calculation and measurement. The only solution Jesus offers is to stretch.

My honest response to this is often along these lines: “I am a problem-solver, and I do not appreciate such an imprecise answer, Jesus. I prefer that you fix the funky people who come my way.” I would rather know a clean stitch for getting someone integrated into a community whether they are socially awkward, economically disadvantaged, or otherwise marginalized. I resist being stretched. I prefer to come up with other containers for that expanding wine.  

But when I get over all that dodgy ambiguity, I recognize good news. Wait, there's a wedding? You mean you're bringing in people who don't belong? Hold on a second... that means there's no way to crash the party? No limit? No fitting in or being sent out. No waiting in line. No division. No shame. No disrespect. No fear.  

It's the good news of a fresh wineskin, ready to stretch.  It stretches us and it stretches for us.  

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

1. What is the new wine—the unexpected, expanding good stuff—that Jesus wants to pour into you?

2. Where and how is God inviting you to stretch in these days leading up to Easter?

Wor(l)d Map: the Global Church

A few months ago I received what seemed like a junk email from another missions organization.  I'm kind of a sucker, so I read it. (I don't know why, but I read almost every email.  Even when I know it's probably useless.)  They asked me to describe the global church in 2050 in one word, and they offered to send me the map they created with the results.  I got the map the other day, and I have to say, as a person who likes maps, really digs words, and cares deeply about the growing church worldwide, it's pretty great.

Caveat: I can't find any data on how precisely they represented the words on this map.  Most word maps of this sort follow the pattern of making the most commonly used (submitted) words larger and bolder in color.  I am assuming that the arrangement of words in particular places is not linked to their country of origin, but to artistic license.  I also wish I knew how many countries were represented in the making of the word map.  If you find answers to any of these questions, share a comment!

Even so, enjoy.  It's a fascinating, conversation-prompting piece.  And it's hopeful.  The way many of us talk about our churches, these are not the first words that come to mind.


GMI [Global Mapping International] is a faith-based nonprofit organization dedicated to furthering God's mission in the world through research, mapping and information technology services.

Lenten Belovedness

During those 40 days of preparation, [Jesus,] your soul was nourished and your belovedness deeply affirmed. You were not alone in the wilderness. With such a clear sense of belonging, you were immovable, unshakable.

Just read this in CRM's Lent Devotional (Day 4), and it struck me in a new way: what the time of preparation in Lent can be about.  Not just deprivation.  Not just clearing things out of your life.  (Those things can be vital, as well.)  But also nourishment.  A different kind of nourishment, far removed from power bars and scrambled eggs.  The nourishment of Lent is God's love.  


You and I are called to great and marvelous things.  But we are called to God first.  We are called to God's love.  We are prepared for all kinds of wonderful possibilities-- yes, through training and difficult preparation, but more directly through deep belonging in Jesus as he leads us to his Father.


May this Lenten season nourish your soul and affirm that you are God's beloved.  From there, may you find immovable, unshakeable mission.

Personal / Professional

In some ways, this season of life has brought clearer boundaries for ministry and my personal life.  Clearly, my fiancé is not my work project, and as much as he supports what I do, he patiently asks that I put work aside when I'm "off the clock," so to speak.  Yes, I have protested: "There is no clock for ministry!"  Everything is a potential opening and everyone a possible colleague.  Yet, exhaustion and disillusionment had begun to creep into a life of working all the time.

Slowly, I stepped back.  I realized how much I needed to rest.  I realized how many things I did out of professional ministry obligation -- especially things that, from the outside, probably looked social and fun. How many gatherings I would go to because I'm a natural networker, because I need to know people in the city, because I thought there might be a lead to pursue for future ministry, because I am truly a dork and think it might be kind of fun to talk about urban development strategies.  Yet, with more and more to occupy my personal time, I had to crack down and be honest with myself.  Am I doing this because it's fun, or because it's strategic, or even because I think I need to work more?

In a recent newsletter, I mentioned stopping to take stock of what ministry GOD had prepared for me.  Though it sounds obvious, it has been significant for me to stop trying so hard to plot and earn and administrate my time doing ministry.  (Take a quick look at Ephesians 2:10.)  God didn't do what I expected.  God pointed me towards downtown and its marginalized populations.  God invited me not just to serve on a team in CRM, but to lead one.  God gave me a place to not only belong in worship on Sundays, but to invite others to find home and community as well (future blog post: Sunday night worship services, explained).

What that has to do with personal and professional boundaries... is that despite all the books, essays and advice on the subject, I am am learning to trust that God can lay out those lines.  It turns out that God shepherds me well, when I stop being headstrong and trying to plot things for myself.

So I try not to mentally calculate my hours too often.  Sometimes it's helpful to keep myself accountable and have an idea of what I'm putting into my job.  However, it gets dicey when I start wondering if the conversation with the gardener on the street corner "counts" for work.  I don't want to be caught in thinking that I'm either banking time or wasting it when I chat with my neighbor or I pray with a friend or I send an email to a pastor I know.  The bottom line is that God is fully capable and fully understanding of what I need.  God appreciates good, hard work, but He also appreciates a woman who knows she's not the Creator, that she needs to rest, and that even missionaries take days off.

Blah Blah Blogging

I can get off track easily.  No sooner have I typed the first line of a blog (for example) than suddenly I remember three other things I need to search for in my inbox.  Contact info, touching base, reminding someone of something to be done.  The scattered focus has become all too common.  And then, here I am, a month later, so many potential blog entries come and gone.  So much 'normal' life that I meant to share.

Here goes.  Setting the bar.  Aiming for more than one short entry each week.  There is definitely that much to talk (type) about--- and more.

Diversity's Symphony

Diversity's Symphony from Emanate Media, Samson Varughese on Vimeo.