What to Do?

Click over on the link to Lewbert, my man Lew Ross to read something really sad about downtown communities and schools.

While I am thinking about it, I need to get something off my chest, to confess as it were.

There is a person I deal with, someone who oftentimes drives me up the wall. More than that, this person has the ability to make me feel ashamed that I am human, for surely we are not the same species.

And yet I have a special bond with this person, a love that flows from Christ and draws me in, making me both approach and now confess to this ambivalence. This person taxes not only my patience but my perspective. And yet at the same time, this person validates my approach to ministry, to throwing down boundaries and letting people in you would not let in unless God had compelled you to do so.

I sense this person’s desperation, a long history of events genetic and historic. I sense that the world steamrolls my friend on a regular basis, that it moves too fast, that our society demands too much, and this person will spend a lot of time circling the drain, living that inevitability masked in carelessness.

It is this foolishness, this carelessness, this ignorance that wears me down and makes me love. I am wondering what the Lord is up to with placing this desire, nearly a vision to call this person to my home, to my life, to say that my house is a home. Wherever my house is and whenever my house is, it is a home for my difficult friend.

It’s a bit like the frustration Lew is expressing; so many people need a father, a new family.

Some lines from a RUSH song (“The Larger Bowl”) float in my head in these times:

If we’re so much the same like I always hear

Why such different fortunes and fame?...

Some are blessed, some are cursed,

The golden child or scarred from birth

While others only see the worst

Such a lot of pain on the earth

Hard Core Evangelist

So last night me and the boys are going out with Roz and the Church Plant Team to pass out bread and do some basic first contact evangelism. As we’re getting ready to go, John accidentally closed the car door on Joe’s thumb. Right on the joint at the base of the thumb. It looked pretty grim. Lacy and Vanessa ran in and got him some ice. I drove off to take him to the hospital. He could not move his thumb, and it was twitching. The skin was broken in two places—not bad, just a little blood.

Joe was wailing til about halfway to the hospital. We got into the ER and he kept saying he felt fine. We took the ice off it, and sure enough—no swelling, no bruise, and he could move it all around, even put it in his fist, the stuff that would really hurt if it was in bad shape. He kept saying, “Let’s go, Daddy, I’m fine.” I thought he wanted to go home. No, he wanted “to go back and pass out bread with Rosario.”

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Garden

Saturday, we planted the community garden, 2008 edition. A few days ago, I was wondering where I was going to get the money to buy plants for the garden. Then we get a check from Ellsworth Kalas, president of the seminary. He sent us a check last year after hearing about our garden, and was similarly moved this year. Once I had the money in hand, I began to wish I could spend it not on plants, but on some “capital improvements” for the garden: hoses, tools, trellises, etc. Then a lady who has a small farm in southeast Fayette County said she’d like to donate a bunch of plants. She has the job I guess I would have if I weren’t preaching: running a small farm growing specialty greens and vegetables for restaurants around town. She has lots of heirloom varieties. She sent me her list of available stuff and I went into shock. I had tomato paralysis and simply could not choose. I told her to just send along whatever. So we got some great tomatoes, peppers, watermelons, and eggplants. Wow, I never knew eggplant could be so interesting.

Anyway, the day of planting was awesome. I got to the garden at 8:30 a.m., to get ready—do stuff like get some rows staked, cut up seed potatoes, set out plants in order. Anyway, Robert and Matthew Highfill, two neighbor boys who come to church were already there! I put Matthew to work cutting seed potatoes. Both boys are usually kind of high-strung, but they were so intent on the work. Once I showed Matthew what I wanted, he did it and we had a huge pile of seed potatoes. Robert went to work setting up rows for beans. It was really neat to be able to leave them there while I went and got the rest of the plant. And when I came back, the work was done. We gathered stakes and put all the plants and tools in a central location. We did a lot of work before anyone got there, and it was good to have that time with the boys.

Then people started showing up. I was a little worried because I forgot to announce it the week before. But about 20 people came, and we banged it out in about 2 ½ hours. Once again, it brought together people from all services and the neighborhood. Foti even came over. Ruth and Larry Stewart bought pizza for all of us. It was just a good morning all the way around.

I think we have more in the ground this year than we did last year. I packed it in a little more closely. I guess that’s the California in me—jam it all in and grow as much as you can. We didn’t lay things out in rows, more like in blocks—different shapes, rows running different directions. I am hoping (and here my lack of visualization skills comes in) that we will have a garden that looks and feels more like plots, more like discrete spaces than one big garden.

We have an awesome variety of stuff: tomatoes, beans, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, squash, watermelon, okra, onions, potatoes, and something called “lenga lenga.” It’s an African green, and I can’t wait for harvest!

We had huge storms this morning, and thankfully no damage to the garden. I hope that the garden will continue to do its work: feeding people and drawing people together. The legend emerging is that Jessica and I met in the garden. That is sort of true. It was a time before we knew anything about each other. We ended up weeding and picking beans, and had a long time to talk. When Rosario asked our friend John to come help, John said, “No thanks. I have a wife.”

Evangelism stories

I have another story about evangelism that shows how the work happens. I guess one of the things I like about my job, about the calling to reach the lost, is that I get to meet a lot of people, I get to have a sort of running tab in my mind about all the ways people resist or are blinded to the Gospel. It's worth more than any books you can buy about post-mortemism, sociology, people-groups, whatever.

Back in December of 06, I met a woman who was having a hard time because her daughter died. I was referred to her by a family in the church who had had some contact with her years before. I went and ministered to her. I have seen her a few times since. And then, about a month ago, she started coming to the Wednesday prayer service. She told me that her husband is just not doing well at all with their daughter’s death. So I told her I would come by.

Dro and I went over. We spent some good time with them. They were indeed having a hard time. We dug into some deep hurts in their lives, beyond the present pain. I tried to share with them how Christ is the answer. They have been subjected to a fundamentalist gospel, and so they are not too keen on church.

I did not recognize the husband from the time I saw him a little over a year ago. He has not cut his hair, because his daughter always cut his hair, and he is afraid if he goes to get it cut, he will just break down, “and look like a fool.”

As we left, I heard the husband say, “Those fellows were pretty nice.” “That’s what I have been telling you,” she said.

The lesson here is that evangelism takes time. Oh sure, you can get people to show up, maybe even baptize them, but then they will be gone. The work of discipleship means going out and finding the people who do not know Christ, then getting to know them, showing them that Christ is the way. This takes time. The days when people knew essentially what the gospel is about are over.

An interesting thing happened as we talked with them. We moved away from talk about their daughter. We even got beyond the kinds of questions you get about “How could such a thing happen?” We were in the territory of wondering whether or not God is really for people in their situation—not just grieving a daughter, but facing alcoholism, poverty, disability. There is a God, they know this much. But what they do not know is that the Cross is God’s solidarity with us. When we receive Christ by faith, redemption goes deep into our lives.

Church Plant Visits

Tonight was an evening of visiting. We went out to a bunch of houses with loaves of bread to introduce Rosario’s new church plant. Everything about the visiting was instructive. First, the bread was baked or provided by many people at The Rock. Then, some people who are key to the church plant (Dro White and Jason and Tawndee Dillard) were out visiting with us. Then there was Jessie, the boys, me, Jenna and Jody, part of the Rock. Antonio is a guy who has been coming for a few Sundays to the Rock, and heard a call to ministry in the community. Then there’s Robert. He doesn’t go to church at all; Roz met him in the gym, and when he heard what Roz was up to, decided he wanted to help.

What saddened me, though, was that so few people from the Rock came to help. I wonder what’s up there? I mean, here we have this precious Gospel, this precious salvation, and we keep it to ourselves.

Two visits stick out to me tonight. The first is a fellow who I can only describe as a puzzled intellectual. He did not want to take our bread. He told us that he is an atheist, that he had thought about it for a long time. You can think about something, no matter how long, and still be wrong. I was ready to just walk away, because knowing these kinds of guys (I was once one), I knew there was not a lot to be gained in such a short time, with no real relationship. But Jessie asked him a little bit about why he was attracted to Buddhism. He babbled on a bit about it not being a religion, being an open, peaceful thing, the Dalai Lama is not dogmatic, and is willing to change his mind if something in his faith is not reasonable, etc. I asked him if he thought that Christians don’t do that. He said Christians are arrogant about what they believe. I asked him how it was possible for him to criticize us for arrogance for being certain about what we believe when he was certain that he would never have faith (as he said earlier in the conversation). I mentioned that I, too, had spent years thinking about it and had come to the opposite conclusion. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. I’ll admit that up front.

One of our first conversations was with a woman I’ll call Agnes. She was so happy to get a loaf of bread free, to have someone talk to her about faith (Joe was the one to hand her the bread and say, “My friend Rosario is planting a church) that she not only had prayer with us, she actually gave us an offering for the work. Wow, someone who does not go to church cares enough, was touched enough to give to the new church that doesn’t really exist yet.

Bikes

We are now a biking family. My mom and dad buy the boys bikes when they grow into new ones. I think I get as excited as the boys do when we get their bikes! Bikes are such an elegant piece of technology, such a piece of Kid-dom. They each have Giants. Jessie brought her mountain bike over, a North Face. Today, I found a Diamondback mountain bike. I was thinking about a road bike, but was also thinking that a mountain bike could be more versatile.

Then I found a deal that could not be passed up. No way of getting a bike that good that cheap anywhere. So I bought it. Diamondback Outlook if you go to the website and want a look.

This weekend, it’s just Joe with us, John is at Mammaw’s. Joe and I walked around a little this morning. When I came back with the bike, Joe and I went for a ride, the same route we took for our walk. I guess it’s the longest ride Joe and I have taken.

It was really fun and sweet. And then there was just a second where I remembered that I used to walk behind John and Joe as they rode their first bikes through our neighborhood in Louisville. Those were tough, desperate times. Everything—every decision about what to do involved a wrenching choice. That is, there was no balance. Work, boys, Melissa. Each one kept me from the others. It was the terrible times when I had to do something with the boys meaning not with her, and time is short all around. In the end, what I appreciate most about my life with Melissa was that she was all about the boys. She never begrudged me the time.

I think it has been a good thing to have Joe here with us by himself. I think both boys can use that kind of time apart from each other and then with us.

Roz is living with us until his place is ready, and that has been a lot of fun. The boys torture him in the morning when they wake up. We spend a lot of time ruining each other. Sara Smith will be staying with us for the summer as she does work in the Hispanic ministry and with the kids. The boys are looking forward to having her around.

We had 23 people over for dinner Thursday. Had a great chance to get to meet some new folks. We’re surrounded here. Both by the Lord’s people and the people who don’t yet know they are the Lord’s…