The Last of Virgil's Goatherds

Brandon, Melissa’s brother, told me a few days ago that he and Joe had gone into town. Joe said that he knew why Brandon married “E.E.” (their name for their aunt, Erin).

“Why’s that?” Brandon asked.

Joe said, “because she’s pretty. Brandon agreed and then asked Joe, “Why did she marry me?”

Joe thought for a minute and said, “I don’t know.”

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The boys were out of school, so that meant one thing: avoiding going to Chuck E. Cheese for as long as possible.

We started the morning by going to get Osman, one of the guys from our church. Osman had spent some time working for a woman who raises dairy goats and makes cheese. Osman and I have talked about goats and making cheese on a few occasions. So we had thought for a while about going out there.

After a drive through the country, we found the farm. It looks like the goat stuff is more of a hobby, but one they have put a lot into. The lady was busy filling an order, and let us have the run of the place. She has 26 goats that she has bred, plus I am not sure how many kids running around. She said we were free to let the kids out if we wanted. So we got in the stall with them and let them out.

They were, like most goats, pretty friendly, nibbling on everything. They did not mind being held, except for one who was really shy. She said that one had not been bottle-fed. She bottle feeds almost all of them, that way they are easy to call for milking.

We were bummed to find out that she could not sell us any milk—we have been looking for a place to get some fresh goat’s milk for cheese. At this point, my mom says, “oy vey,” sure that I will poison myself. My dad, because he will eat anything (look, I have been with him in Spain and Greece; he will eat ANYTHING), will be memorialized on my label when I have my cheese empire.

Well, as our time wound down (after the incident where the lady thought Osman was my son—maybe I do need just for men…) John and Joe worked together to herd the kids back to their pen. They did a really good job, circling around, pushing ahead. Jessica says that she thinks that she could disguise the goats as dogs, and so fool the county. “And the boys love them so much.” I want goats, too, but I don’t know that Jessie really needs to be known as the Goat Lady of Northside.

Eating Local

About 8 years ago (I think), Martina (our church administrator) and I started dreaming and praying of having a place with a huge garden. I mean like almost a farm, a place where we could really grow a lot to feed a lot.

Yesterday, the city engineers came to talk about our drainage problems. To help with drainage on the Northside, the city has bought three or four houses and is going to demolish them and use them for a drainage basin. They told us that we could have the land for a community garden.

I don’t know if they are going to make a basin out of it—I hope that they can leave the flat spaces where they are. If I dream big, I think of putting in a pond and maybe raising catfish. But that will have to wait.

For now, it looks like we have a space for our garden, space we’ll lose when the school rebuilds. If it is a permanent place, like the city’s property, I think we can justify putting in some fruit trees and some other permanent crops.

It’s funny; Martina and I have been involved in thinking, dreaming and praying about stuff like this for a long time. It comes to fruition here, where we have really gotten down to mission. It’ll be a sight to see—half a block of flowers, trees and vegetables.

And last night at our meal and service, we had a salad that had garden tomatoes, radishes, and spinach leaves. And 90 people. A real prayer concern: that we will not let ourselves be victims of our own success. It is going to be too easy to be wiped out by the numbers of people coming, by the pressure of getting a meal served, food baskets out, cleaning up. We want to spend and be spent, but we could use some help, too!

Family Reunion

It was a crazy weekend; after the Bluegrass concert, we cleaned up the church, took a shower, and headed out to Jessie’s family reunion in Illinois. We picked up the boys on the way. We made good time, getting there in under 5 hours.

Family reunion was good. Sunday morning, we were eating breakfast. There’s a graveyard at the end of the road Jessie’s grandmother lives on. John said matter-of-factly that it made him sad because it made him think of his Mommy. We were all at a loss for words.

Later that night, at Jessie’s parents’ house, we had a bonfire, under the stars, surrounded by corn. John and Joe were busy roasting marshmallows, playing, getting loved on. At the end of the day, I have to believe love is enough, and will see us through.

Bluegrass Garden

Saturday (yesterday) was a huge day. It was the day of our 2^nd bluegrass night at the church. We put up a sign (which is all we did last year.) In addition, we also sent out a card to every house in the neighborhood. We were able to define the neighborhood pretty closely—Russell Cave Rd. to Meadow Lane, and then New Circle down to a few blocks south of Loudon Ave. All told, that is 2943 houses.

It’s hard to get a count. I am guessing between 250 and 300 folks throughout the evening. Last year 115 registered, but a lot more were milling about. This year, 190 registered, but it looked like people kept coming and coming. We had a big inflatable for the kids, corn hole, and then hamburgers and hot dogs. The Blue Dawg played and it was awesome. On a night like that, you don’t really get to listen to the music—you’re there to meet people, invite them to church. When the band took a break, I preached a short message. Andres and I feel confirmed in our plan for a revival next year, using this model. We hope to have 5 days of music and food, with preaching every night.

A lot of people were there because they got the card we sent out, so it was good to see that it worked. Maybe the best thing was the number of people who said to me something like this: “It’s awesome that you have so many different times of people—white, black, Hispanic.”

The band didn’t really do any gospel songs, but Paul Bailey would not be denied. He got Amanda Burton and Jessie to go up and sing while the band played. It was awesome, a great way to end the night. The band had a ball being there, and it showed.

There’s all kinds of stories that come from a night like this. Like the woman who gave me a hundred dollars because she likes what we’re trying to do in bringing all the kinds of people from the neighborhood together. Or the guy who I invited last year. He asked, “will there be beer?” When I said no, he made it quite clear that he would not be there. But he came this year. Danced a bit. When I got up to preach, he listened more than anyone. I was talking about not being conformed to the pattern of this world, using Southern terrapins and their pitfalls when they hear the call to mate. They sometimes get caught on railroad tracks, and the only way out they have is if someone comes along and rescues them, taking them off the tracks and putting them back on the outside. The guy’s comment while I was preaching was that “sometimes they just get right back on the tracks.” He said it sadly and confidently, from experience.

We would not have been able to pull it off without help. We had lots of youth volunteers, and the staff was really on it. We broke down, tables cleaned and chairs put up in about 30 minutes. Some of the folks who came started helping, too. Especially the guy who said he wouldn’t come unless there’s beer. He carried six chairs at a time—you can get a lot done with help like that. I wish I could give props to everyone—but I do not want to leave anyone out.

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It was a day of evangelism of the work of the gospel. These bluegrass nights are attempts to get to know large numbers of people, to introduce them to the church and to others in the neighborhood.

But the day started in the garden. We worked there all morning—hoeing weeds in the carrots and beets. Thinning out the turnips. Harvesting radishes. We’ll have radishes and spinach for the salad at the Monday evening service and meal.

A number of things are happening in this work. First, we are doing good work to feed the hungry. Second, we are doing the prep work for evangelism. When to crop comes in, it will feed the hungry and be a witness to our work for Jesus. Third, it is community development.

I need another word besides community, because it is used so much that it no longer has a meaning. And then there is all the terminology that people are adding around “hospitality.” There are conferences and seminars on recovering Christian hospitality. When you start with conferences and seminars, it’s over. It becomes an idea, a set of propositions. And pretty soon, you’re reading so much and talking so much about it that you don’t do it. Or you confuse the talking and reading with doing.

There’s nothing to it but to do it. So there we are, pastor Andres, me and Jessie, Matthew and Robert Highfill, and David and Noella Mapigano, with Malipo, Benjamin, and Melissa. We worked together, took a break together, and talked about spiritual things, and helped Matthew and Robert to think a little more about working towards their future. David shared with us a dream that it is so much in line with a vision God has given me that he, Noella, Jessie and I spent a lot of time rejoicing as we weeded carrots. David wants to go to seminary and become a pastor. He wants to go back to Congo. The Lord laid on me two years ago, when the African refugees started coming, that He was bringing people from all over the world here, like Jerusalem at Pentecost. We should reach out and support them and then send them home (if they can go back) and support their mission work. That works if they’re from Honduras, Congo, or Ukraine. But I digress.

Do you want a house of hospitality? Open it up. For meals, for play, for getting to know each other. Now, by this point, the neighbors come to our house if they need to talk, or are looking for some help. And they know to come for a meal with others. The Thursday night dinners are finding more and more new people, more and more people at the edges of Christian fellowship, but who are getting closer.

Do you want find “community?” Find some common work (like a garden, whose purpose is to feed the hungry and allow you to share Christ). Do the work together.

Do you want to follow Christ to the least and the lost? Then do it. You’ll have to have a house of hospitality. And some common work (the garden is never better than when people from the neighborhood, or people who receive the food come to help. The chances to talk, to be together, to share words and thoughts…)

Quit talking, start doing.

Marauder's Map, and a Question

About 2 years ago, Chip and I did some evangelism. I now remember where we went, one of the streets I went down, today. There's a house with 2 apple trees. It's a good year for apples, apparently, honey bee decline notwithstanding. Anyhoo, Chip and I passed that house 2 years ago, and I took an apple. He was shocked or amused and I said something like pastors get a 5-finger discount.

Some houses down, we were on a porch and there was some beer. Chip asked if we got a 5-finger discount there, too.

Ok, so the apple tree is big time heavy with fruit.

And those few doors down, there is still beer on the porch. I guess we DO live in a good neighborhood-- you can leave beer out on the porch.

Then I meet a Mormon family. After they said they were Mormon, I said, "We believe very different things about salvation. One of us is wrong. You should look into which one of us is right, and not just accept things blindly."

Question: was that too much to say? If so, when is it appropriate to say something like that? and back to a question from almost last year, Is Jesus, as believed by orthodox Christianity, the only way to salvation?

Just Say No to the Triple Dog

Here's how it works: you do some close work with a person or a family. Then they're gone. Best case: they go because they have a new place to live, a better place.

The range of worst cases:
They just take off because they don't know anything else.
They find an easier touch.
You sat down with them and had to say, "You drink too much, and God can't honor that," or "clean this dump up," and they could not hear it.

The long and the short of it, sooner or later, the ones you work closest with leave. Sometimes they leave a knife in your back, other times it's just they're gone.

Whatever the reason, you start to worry about transience. Evangelism is hard work, time-consuming. And if justice is a part of that work, you're pouring into it. Next thing you know, it feels like it went down the drain.

There's an I-told-you-so crowd, but you tune them out.

There's the institutional voice of the denomination that looks for stability and the funds stability brings.

There's your own voice that wants to see the fruit. Heck, you want to taste the dang fruit.

You can see why it is so easy to look elsewhere, to ditch the poor and opt for the stable, even, and ESPECIALLY, if it means waving bye-bye to the street your church sits on.

But do you dare?

Nacho-o-o-o, again

So, we're in the bathroom at Jalapeno's. Joe is in the stall, and John is at the sink.

Joseph, nasty boy that he is, grunts and says, "Come on, baby." This is a line from Nacho Libre. I look over and John doesn't miss a beat. He dabs at his head, just like Esqueleto (you have to go see the movie if you have not. See it again if you have), and asks, in some plaintive, Mexican accent, "Did you give them permission to hurt me like that?"

Joe then says, "Those guys were a couple of wussies, eh?"

In between fits of laughter I kept wondering, what happens if someone hears all this?

Monday Night

Another cool thing about the Monday night service is that we have gotten to use tomatoes from the garden. We have a pretty good fall garden in, and so I hope that beets, turnips, radishes, carrots and cabbage can be on the menu as well.

Tonight we had 68 come to the Monday night service. That pushes our attendance to 300. When you consider that most of the folks who came tonight were not there last week, in two weeks, we have served 109 people. It might be that we have a worshipping population of close to 200 for this service.

May it be that we get to know each other in the prayer and sitting down together at the table.

Tonight, Don Ellis brought some apples from the tree in his backyard. Lots of ‘em. Jessie makes a pretty good apple pie, so we’re going to work on making quite a few pies and Cliff and I can take them on some evangelism visits to some folks we are getting close to.

You can’t plan this stuff.

New Service

This past Monday, we inaugurated a new service. For four years or so, we have had a Mission Night on Mondays—we gave out food and clothing. For the two years I have been here, I have puzzled about how to connect mission to evangelism. It’s easy enough to connect evangelism to mission—we can tell all kinds of people what we do on Monday nights. The problem came when we tried to tell people on Monday night what we’re up to Sunday morning. We just weren’t seeing people come to worship.

So for about a year or so I and a few others have been thinking about bringing Sunday morning to Monday night. So, while we still give out food and clothing, we also have a service—praying, singing, preaching. And we also have a meal together.

So for about a month this summer, we shut down the food and clothing ministry while we talked about how to do something new.

Then we opened back up, pretty much like we had been doing it before. We put up a sign and found something amazing. There were close to 70 people at our doors. We had not had that many for a mission night in a long time. We discovered that most people in the neighborhood had no idea we did such a thing!

We shut down for another two weeks to stock up the pantry and get ready. Monday was the first night. 55 people came. 55 people from the neighborhood, people who do not come to church on Sundays. No doubt some have a church, but most do not. And so the one thing we wanted to do, fill the belly and the spirit, we did. Two birds with one stone.

Making the change was hard. It felt, no doubt, like we were closing some chapter. It is hard to imagine new things, or doing something good in a new way. What if it fails? How do we get past feeling sad for losing the old ways? In the end, not much changed—people still come and get items from the food pantry. We just added a meal—and the point is not just to feed, but to sit down, to let people know they matter, to get to know them and let them get to know us. And, I pray, one day turn over the ministry to them.

The crazy thing is—and there are all kinds of things that hit you— we have been talking and trying to reach out to the community. And in one simple thing, a meal and a service, we di what we have wanted to.

And it’s funny how things have happened. We have also been talking about doing economic development in the community, looking to help go-getters start their own businesses. Well, there is a fellow, Kenny, who has wanted to start a restaurant or catering business. He cooks for a well-known restaurant in town. I mentioned to him that we have a nice kitchen. He said, “I noticed that at your wedding.” I went on to ask him if he had thought about maybe doing something out of there. He said that was an answer to prayer, because his wife had said that instead of him asking me, he should wait for me to ask him. So the rent is going to be him cooking for Monday nights and our fellowship dinners.

So, we have a professional chef who cooks the meals for the Monday night service. It is so awesome to work with such a creative staff and volunteers.

Bill MacDonald, one of our faithful volunteers, said he looks forward to the day when there are more people in the service on Monday nights than there are on Sunday mornings.

Evangelism

Clifton and I finally got out to do some evangelism. It was the best single day of evangelism visits I have been party to. It was not simply that Clifton was willing to go. It wasn’t only that he just jumped in. Second house we stop at, he says, “My name is Cliff, this is my pastor, Aaron. We’re from the Rock Methodist Church.” And then he would invite them to worship with us. I sat back and only said anything if they had a particular question, or if they indicated they did not attend worship anywhere.

The reason it was such a good day was because I went out into the neighborhood with a respected and known man from the neighborhood. Clifton has lived here most of his life. His family is well-known. His wife’s family is well-known. He saw a guy on the street and said, “he’s going through a rough time in life right now…” We went over, Cliff invited him to church and the young man said, “I know I need to come…” I asked why he didn’t. It led to discussions about recent deaths in his family and some other issues. I gave him one of my tracts and walked him through salvation in Jesus. He listened. He gave me his phone number, saying he would like for me to call him.

Did I mention that as we walked along, Robert Highfill joined us? Or that in one house where Cliff’s daughter was playing, she decided she wanted to go with us? And both those kids were able to talk to parents of their friends? It was like having tips on not just who to visit but what was happening. They know more incidentally than I do after two years of hitting the streets. But this is what all that hitting the streets is aimed towards: building relationships at the right time in the right place with the right people. I am betting that I will find another evangelist soon.

At another house, we saw two apple trees in the front yard, producing well. Fall apples. Could we come by and pick some? Why sure…

All along the way as we walked, we talked about what the Bible says about evangelism, about scattering seed, and the narrow road. We’ll have to keep seeking the houses of peace, the prophets from among the neighborhood.