Strawberries

So we had our first really good strawberries. we have been fighting the robins for them, finally won with a net. We picked the 10 or so ripest ones. They just melted in a blast of sweetness.
When we visited my grandmother's people in France, Bernardo the gardener would pick fresh strawberries and pour sweet red wine and sugar over them. Let's just say he and I had a few of those before dinner. I was 12, and hit the hay early that night.

These front-yard strawberries are so good you can't even call what you get in the store strawberries. My love for Santa Cruz notwithstanding, these are the best strawberries ever. I think next year we grow hundreds of plants in the garden and sell them.

Jessie's potato idea, of stacking tires around them is working. These taters are so tall some are ready for a second tire! The theory is covering up the leaves makes more tubers. Well, that's not a theory, it works. BUt what we're not sure about is how high you can force the plant to grow. One guy claims he got about 40 lbs from one plant growing them in a barrel. If that's true, and we get 20 lbs from each of ours that will be more than 500 lbs of taters in a little backyard spot.

I'll put some pics up when I figure out how to do this from my crackberry. Which by the way is awesome. Charlotte gives me all the info on new visitors. Used to be, I'd have that on a card or an email, and then I would look the number up and call. NO more. C-lotta sends me an email and then boom! I scroll down to the number, it's highlighted, I hit the trackball, call made.

Or how bout having my daily agenda sent to me first thing in the morning? My major disappointment has been my calendar. I have to write it on a paper calendar or call Charlotte to write it down. No more. I have my calendar in my hands, I can add to it wherever I am (and as some of you know, my confession is that no preacher's work gets done in the office), and Charlotte can add to it, and I get it.

Check this out

The Drudger Report has a link to a California paper about the CA Supreme Court's Ruling that the voter-enacted gay marriage ban will stand.

Time

What a day!

Brandon and Erin, the boys' aunt and uncle brought them back from a fun-filled weekend at Mammaw's. It was so good to see B and E and to have the boys back. We had a day of rest and remembrance: the boys occasionally watched The Longest Day with me. How do you explain all that to them? And I think of Steve McKinney's wry words: the worst time to have a boy is 18 years before a war.

We lounged around. Ate lunch at DQ.

Wrestled. I was on fire. I won what is now called the "Pile of Babies" Match, in honor of my finishing move, pinning John by pinning Joe on top of him. I think they have been talking and strategizing because they worked me over tag-team pretty good.

We went to Half Price books. Joe got an Iron Man activity book and John got a book n Frederick Douglas, his new hero.

Then we took a short nap.

We ate some serious roast, green beans and Ica's mashed taters.

Then a pillow fight with all of us.

We wrestled again. I did not fare so well. I must say tho, that I out both of them in a figure four leg lock and then pulled their underwear over their foot, effectively hog tying them.

Then dessert and bed time.

A sabbath.

Orthed Out

We just finished with the Monday Service. This evening’s was the best service I can recall being in. Blake and I have been doing a lot of thinking and praying about the service. I am actually pretty jealous of him—he is getting to work on this service and take it in some amazing directions.

For a few weeks, we have been wanting to have communion. We have been preaching on it and preparing the folks in the service. There are faithful, believing Christians, backsliders, non-believers, and the confused. So we had communion for the first time with them tonight. Blake and I practiced the ritual. When the time came, it was beautiful: the folks responded along with us. There were people locked in on us in ways I have not seen before in the service.

When we served communion, it was a high and holy moment. Two folks came up with tears, both of them saying, “It’s been so long…”

The chapel at The Rock is small. Fits maybe 70 comfortably. There is a beautiful stained glass window, of Jesus consoling Mary at the Resurrection. So we have this beautiful picture. We have words and songs to hear. We walk up and touch the bread with our hands. We taste it and the juice. All that we’d be missing is the sense of smell, but we busted out the incense and totally orthed it up. When we prayed, we put the incense on and Blake went out and censed the congregation. We reminded them that the smoke is a symbol of our prayers rising to God, a pleasing sacrifice of praise.

There was a different feeling tonight. People left in such a good mood. Not really a mood or feeling, a sense that something important had happened in the life of the church. At dinner afterwards, many people commented on how they loved the service. We gave them Jesus.

Salad Days

This evening we have picked our first salad greens from the kitchen garden. Spinach, 8 kinds of heirloom lettuce and fresh picked radishes. It's fresh, local (as in outside the kitchen), organic. If you got a salad like this at a restaurant, and it would have to be a luxury restaurant, it would cost you $8 for three leaves.

I hope that everybody loves it! It's one of those things that's really easy to do... we can give the most needy a most excellent salad, and bring people together in growing and picking and eating.

The Lord is so good to us. I get a laugh out of where this is all going. People are paying big bucks for organic food, paying more the more local it is, paying even more if the varieties are heirloom... and here we are giving it away! Maybe we should open a restaurant and get paid big bucks for all the wild stuff we're growing...

Glandion Carney

Well, what a week. We are all dead, I think. Johnny G and the youth put on a great talent show. They had worked for months and it showed. And then today was the garden. People at work all over the place. We sat back and looked at the calendar and saw that there is something going on at the church every day of the month. At first, I was a little worried, because we are trying hard not to be a “program church.” We’re tryingto make disciples, not keep people “active.” Sometimes there is so much you can do that you just end up doing, and not becoming anything. I think, however, that the activity is generally a sign of doing things that connect us to God and the neighborhood. What had me specifically worried is that we more or less had to kick Gordon and Fran out!!! They were at the church every day one week! Ah, but what they do… it gets after the mission.

And how is all this supposed to work? How does a church have a mission? I don’t mean a mission statement. It is difficult to be a church in the traditional sense of members, because that tends to mean that there is a focus on the people that are already “in.” But as our District Superintendent, Paige, says, “Meat eaters take care of themselves,” by which she means you have to get out and find the lost sheep. She also says, “The Gospel is precious and time is short,” so we move out of the church and into the neighborhood. This is an important piece of being a disciple-making church. Yes, we have Sunday worship. And it is a high and important time.

But so is Wednesday prayer and fasting. And Bible Study. And street evangelism. And scaring atheists in coffee shops. And Monday nights, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked.

In all this, how do we survive? That is, ministry to the least is hard. Living in the middle o fit harder still. And when we asked folks to commit to not just doing ministry to people, but doing it with them, from them (within their midst, but also allowing the poor to determine what the poor need most), this got hard. Frustration. Getting in over our heads. We needed spiritual sustenance to get us through, but everything about our society and even the church tells us that we do it on our own strength.

Enter Glandion Carney. He works with Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. I have known for more than 10 years that I would need to work with Glandion. He gets the inward spiritual development that is desperately needed. But he also gets—because he is a black man from Oakland and, as he says, “a 60s guy”—how that inward spiritual development flows to and sustains a hard-core outward focused life: evangelism and justice.

Glandion is an Anglican priest, ordained in Rwanda for the Anglican Mission in America. This past week was the second retreat he has led with us. We focused on the spiritual disciplines, of course, but with an eye towards writing a “rule,” an agreed-upon way we as a staff will live together. It’s not a vision or a mission statement. It is a path to sustain us, to allow us, as Glandion pushes us, “to do and suffer all things for the sake of the Kingdom of God.”

I think that we have hit our stride in this process. Since Glandion’s first visit in January, we have met regularly for spiritual accountability and encouragement along some very specific lines. And two weeks ago, I think we hit the spot of trust. This past week with Glandion, we blew it wide open: we found what we need to nourish us when we’re worn out, criticized, confused, frustrated, angry at the injustice of the world, the destructive behaviors in the neighborhood, put out with each other.

He comes back in September, and we will continue our work as a staff, but we will be turning our attention to how we bring spiritual development to the church especially to the volunteers who jump right into ministry. Glandion will be coming in the New Year to lead the church in spiritual formation. It’s so easy to get burned out, and if there is anything we have seen, the pace of the work and the intensity drains people, and next thing you know, another soldier is down. May God bless us with the sense of Him that keeps us going!!

And Now Deservedly This Easy Chair

Today, we planted the garden.

I did not sleep much last night, as this think is huge. I was guessing 17,000 square feet, but I think it might be more. It’s a lot, way bigger than anything I have ever considered. Of course, only part of it was planted today. First Methodist Church will plant some on Tuesday. We planted tomatoes and peppers today. In a few weeks, we’ll hit beans, cukes, melons, okra and some other things. But it is still big. I was worried about all the stuff we had to do.

But we got after it. Me, Jess and the boys, Bob McKinley, Larry Stewart, Benjamin (from Chiapas, I forget his last name), Melissa McDonald and Katelyn, Bobbie Fullwood, Regina and Keshandon Fuller (they just showed up at church wondering what was going on!!), and then the Posse: Matthew, Chris, Seamus, and Jose. Martina came towards the end and watered it all in.

This is how many tomatoes we have: we had to buy an engine-powered post hole digger. It’s close to 300 maters. About 100 peppers, and more to come. We plan on selling some stuff in addition to feeding the folks. We’re hoping the garden can begin to raise some money for the church’s ministry to the poor—we have fewer resources in these times, and more need.

At one point, Melissa took a picture—there was Larry, Bobbie, Regina, Benjamin and one of the youth working together. Melissa’s comment—“there’s a group that has no reason to know each other.” White, young, old, African American, Hispanic, African. But that’s the whole point of the Kingdom of God, our church. And so it shouldn’t be too surprising that we see it in our garden. I think we just like seeing it, being reminded of it. It’s crazy, not supposed to work, all that jazz.

Picaresque

Two Sundays ago:

We had a meeting after church. We left about 1:30. As we were pulling onto Limestone Street, a truck turning off Lime almost ran into us, driving like a fool. Jessie noticed that the truck turned into the church lot and went behind the building. Well, we have had trouble back there. Especially people messing with my greenhouse.

So I head back there. The truck has pulled between the dumpster and the greenhouse. Just as I am getting out to tell the guy to head on, Jessie says, “Uh, I think there’s a woman in there with him and they are up to something…”

Sho nuff, when I tap on the window the guy jumps and looks at me in utter bewilderment. And then I recognize the woman. She lives not too far from the church and I see her around quite a bit. I saw more of her than I wanted to as she got her clothes back on. They peeled out of there, and I was glad one of the boys had not got out of the car, because that dude pretty well had no control of his car.

I called the cops. And of course, I was able to tell the cops exactly where he was; he stopped at White Castle. I guess you work up an appetite.

___________________________________

Last Friday:

I went to pick up a guy who said he wanted to come to the Friday night dinner at my place. Well, he lives in pretty much the roughest part of Lexington, which isn’t saying a lot, except in a relative sort of way. He had told me how he suffers down there. He’s old and getting weaker. He struggles with alcohol (ok he doesn’t struggle—he stays lit) and is at least fighting his cravings for drugs. He had a birthday here a week or so ago, and that marked the tipping point: he had no longer spent half his life in prison. But I digress. He suffers down there because people just come into his house and stay there. He says they pretty well leave him alone, but they have robbed people who come to his house.

So I go to get him. Before I even get to the door, three thugs get off the neighbor’s porch somehow thinking they’re going to check me out or something. They start the whole We’re-going-to-talk-about-you-as-if-you-aren’t-here thing. But no big deal; my bs threshold is pretty low these days and I walk right thru them and head to my bud’s place. Then one of the thugs says, “don’t knock, just go on in; he’s home.”

Well, I go in and there’s some rough dudes in there and a girl they’re pimping. It hits me that there I am in my ragged out pants and a hoodie, long beard and all. They think I am there for drugs or the girl or maybe both. My bud comes out from the back and says, “Oh, hey, that’s my preacher.” Even this group of people snapped to. But my friend could not come; his toilet was backing up and he was cleaning up, and, he sadly noted, he had gotten drunk and was not going to come like that. I invited everyone to church. They didn’t come, so now I have an excuse to go back and tell them they hurt my feelings. They need a pastor.

Church Planting is a Crock

So, about two weeks ago I was hatin’ life. There was the usual piece in the local paper about a new church “plant” in Lexington. I could not pin it down, but something about what I was reading made me think that church “planting” (starting new churches) was a trend, a fad, the latest thing to ease the mind of the mainline denominations who know they are dying and dying fast, in a loud and grotesque train-wreck sort of way.

I was sick to my stomach. Seriously. I thought I was going to puke. I had a sinking feeling that maybe I had been sold a bill of goods on this whole church planting thing. Maybe it is a trend. A fad. I put a lot of money and way more personal capital into The Rock’s Church plant downtown, Embrace United Methodist Church. I thought I had a sober perspective. Who could doubt that church planting was the way? Has it not always been the way?

I was stressing out for a few days and then I got my wits about me. “It was just an article that hit you wrong, kid” is what I told myself.

Enter Rosario, the pastor and planter of Embrace, the man of whom I proudly say, “You can’t train Rambo and expect him not to kill.” We’re sitting at Frisch’s, and he says, “what if church planting is a crock?”

Now look, church planting is the hardest kind of evangelism there is. The most successful, but the hardest. Especially the way Rosario does it—going to the most secularized places. I mean, he could just move to the burbs, throw up a building from the General Steel Co and raid a few churches for members. Nope. Boozers, fornicators and atheists. That’s his target. And so it is really easy to get bummed as day in and day out you get pummeled.

So I said to Roz, “I am so glad to hear you say that.” We breathed a sigh of relief, having confessed to some deep dark secret sin. [You can tell the Bishop me and Roz had this conversation; we’re pretty transparent dudes. We wear our gospels on our sleeves.]

Here’s why we’re ok talking like this: it leads us deeper into mission. It’s gut-level talk about our love for bringing people to Christ. Not to church, to Christ. The reason we were bummed was because we were worried that maybe we’re just stupid and naïve. We know that we are the kinds of pastors you seal in glass, break only in case of rampant pagan revelry. We’re “big dumb animals” as Roz says. Did we get duped into doing something to save the denomination?

That’s the heart of our depression and worry. The talk in church planting sometimes drifts to: you have to plant so that the denomination keeps growing. For example, in an official United Methodist publication, you read: “Statistics are showing us that we need healthy and existing churches plus new churches in order for the denomination to progress and to grow” (Interpreter, March/April 2009, p. 15). This is from one of pour most successful church planters. I know what he means, because I too have said it. It IS true—the denomination WILL die without new churches. But we can’t plant churches solely to keep the denomination alive. It’s not just that that’s not much of a reason, it’s that it is doomed to fail.

Pretty soon you’re right back where the United Methodist Church is today—more interested in supporting an institution than being a witness for Jesus Christ. When being a witness for Jesus is unpopular, we back down. People might leave. There might be less money. We have a church institution that, in spite of well-meaning and faithful people, does what all institutions tend to: it serves itself. The survival of the institutionalized forms is more important than the mission.

Church planting has to be about the mission: bringing people to faith in Jesus Christ.

Roz and I were wondering if we’re at cross purposes with the church planting movement. Big dumb animals that we are, we went to work for Jesus. We sat back and took a deep breath and we’re back, more determined than ever that this about Jesus and His people. In that same Interpreter issue is what we’re trying to do: “look for those rare Annual Conferences [a regional administrative division of Methodism]… where the church is still growing. In every case all of their growth is accounted for by the growth in their newest churches…. This isn’t about church institutional survival. It’s about the Great Commission. It’s about sharing Christ with the next generation” (p. 13)