Thoughts from the Weekend

I have a lot of thoughts running through my mind today. It has been an eventful weekend, with a funeral and a wedding shower yesterday and an amazing church experience today. In between, my 14-year-old daughter lost her mind and tried to flood the house. And the Super Bowl commercials are about to kick off in a couple of hours. Quite the weekend.

I would love to give you the lowdown on all of these events, but my goals are ONE blog per week, not FOUR. The flooding would be the easiest story to tell, but that doesn't mean it's the best one to tell. The shower story is complicated by a backstory that needs to be told at a later time, if at all. And I'm still processing the funeral of the late, great Roberta Carman. But something that happened at that funeral leads me into my story today.

We all thought Roberta was going to die over five years ago. So much so that we devoted an entire Sunday morning 8:15 classic service to remembering her. Her family was mostly in town, so we asked them what songs she might want sung and we paid tribute to Roberta -- prematurely, as it turned out. I was reminded of that at the funeral, when the worship team began with "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." We also sang that one at her first memorial, five years ago.

So today in our church, we reflected on that particular song. In case you are not familiar with this particular hymn, here are the words:

Mine eyes have seen the glory
Of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage
Where the grapes of wrath are stored
He has loosed the fateful lightning
Of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Our God is marching on

He has sounded form the trumpet
That shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul
To answer him be jubilant, my feet
Our God is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Our God is marching on

In the beauty of the lilies
Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom
That transfigures you and me
As he died to make men holy
Let us live to make men free
While God is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Our God is marching on

We talked about the pictures of Jesus that we find in the Scriptures. We're walking (slowly) through Luke, trying to understand his picture of Jesus. We talked about how we can see Jesus as a warrior king (like He is portrayed in this hymn) and still get him completely wrong. We read a story from the book of 2 Maccabees about a mother and her seven sons who were cruelly tortured and killed by Antiochus IV and what we might be able to learn from that. We cried at several points in the discussion. We said some profound things; we said some inane things. We laughed. We prayed. We asked a lot of questions and came up with a few answers (that's our modus operandi). We wrestled with who this Jesus is and what He is asking us to be.

We're an interesting group, this church I attend. We meet in a home. We say words that aren't really church-appropriate. We don't believe any one of us has all the answers -- especially not the "pastor." We walk out with more questions than we came in to church with. And yet it is sacred space. Holy ground. Kingdom.

I am always grateful for the community.

Today, I was grateful for the experience.

I wish you could have been there.

Lord, I'm Tired

I'm a pretty emotional dude. When I was preaching and leading worship in the institutional church, rarely would a Sunday go by when I wouldn't find myself choked up by the emotion of the moment. Certain stories or songs or situations would hit me in the gut and I would lose the ability to speak or sing, overcome by emotion. It kind of became what I was known for.

Over the years, the songs that choke me up have changed. I remember a season when my good friends Mark and Connie White were having lots of problems with their children's inability to have children. During that time, "Blessed Be Your Name" was an impossibility for me to sing, especially when they were in the sanctuary. "You give and take away" became a series of sobs and silences. When my life blew up in the summer of 2004, I couldn't get through "Everything" by Lifehouse. Literally cried my way through a special music at church. "Victory in Jesus" was one of mom's faves, and my dad and I both struggled through that chorus at mom's funeral. I inherited my vocal volume from my father, and it must have been quite and auditory spectacle (is that even possible?!) for the people on stage at mom's funeral. Here dad and I were, sitting in the front row belting out this great hymn; then, at the same time, we got choked up and unable to sing, and the decibel level had to drop by about half!

The flip-side of that type of emotion was also a characteristic of my worship leading. I could laugh and rejoice and celebrate with the best of them during worship. Give me a set with the right David Crowder songs, and I would be having the time of my life, with or without you. "Undignfied." "No One Like You." "Wholly Yours." We had so much fun with those tunes.

But there is one old school Crowder song that I have never been able to lead corporately because, every time I try to sing it, I get overwhelmed with the imagery of a God who never leaves or forsakes that I become a blubbering mess. And since it is such an obscure Crowder song, I'm usually the only one who knows it. Which makes it hard for people to sing. I'm listening to it now on Amazon Prime and the lyrics are, again, taking over my emotions. The song is the title track from their under-appreciated "All I Can Say" album. If you haven't heard it before, it's worth a listen. Here's a YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5L97ygGwok. And here are the lyrics of angst, abandonment, and hope:

Lord, I'm tired
So tired from walking
And Lord, I'm so alone
And Lord, the dark is creeping in, creeping up
To swallow me
I think I'll stop
And rest here a while

And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give
And this is all that I can say right now
And this is all that I can give
That's my everything

Oh, did you see me crying?
Oh, and didn't you hear me call your name?
Wasn't it you I gave my heart to?
I wish you'd remember where you set it down

And this is all
This is all that I can say right now
I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, that's my everything
This is all that I can say right now, right now
I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, that's my everything

I didn't notice you were standing here

I didn't know that that was you holding me

I didn't notice you were crying too

I didn't know that that was you washing my feet

And this is all

This is all that I can say right now
Oh, I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, That's my everything
This is all that I can say right now, right now
I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
Yeah, that's my everything

This is all that I can say right now
Oh, I know it's not much
But this is all that I can give
And that's my everything
Yeah, that's my everything
Yeah, that's my everything
Everything

Find the hope in the midst of the darkness. He. Is. There.
Blessings.

Some Goals for 2016

At the end of 2015, I had the privilege of sitting through the funeral of a friend. In my line of work, funerals are a part of the package, but this was for a friend who was not on our hospice. His wife was one of my co-workers for almost ten years, so I got to know Don through that. However, I came to realize that I really didn't know Don at all. About ten years before I met him, he had a stroke that forever altered who he was. The Don that I knew was only a shadow of the man that was remembered that day.

That remembrance got me thinking. (All funerals should be an opportunity for reflection, after all.) Don had his stroke at age 60. For me, that's only 19 years down the road. If something were to happen to me in 20 years (or less), what would I look back and remember of my life? Lots of time at the office? Lots of saying "no" to my kids in order to work for that elusive financial security? Lots of late nights worrying and long days working?

As I have grown older, New Year's Day has become my favorite holiday. As I continue to work out my faith, I become more and more convinced that my "dominant image" of Jesus is the Redeemer, the one who makes all things new. A new year is a natural time for new things to happen and for old things to pass away. And rather than make resolutions, I choose to make goals -- tangible, measurable, achievable goals. (One goal for 2016 is to blog weekly. So far, so good.) This year includes some REALLY seismic goals, so I've been told that the best way to achieve them is to proclaim them and then allow your community to hold you to them. Over the coming weeks in this blog, I will lay out some of those goals. This first one is a biggie, so I thought I would devote my first blog of 2016 to it.

I woke up a few weeks ago and realized that I have four more years with my oldest daughter under my roof. Six years left with the 12-year-old. And the family dynamics of four children in a blended family have proven challenging, especially since I have four active kids in four different schools. So a change is in the works.

Before I lay those out, please know that I love the company I work for, Accolade Hospice, I love the people I work with and for, I love hospice work. I hope to continue my partnership with Accolade long into the future. I have learned so much about life by being around people with terminal diagnoses and the people that care for them. When I left the "church system" four years ago (THAT will be a topic for another blog), I wasn't sure that I could provide for my family outside of that system. The last four years have proven that I absolutely can.

They've also shown me that, when it comes to vocation, I am a little ADD. I have done the hospice thing and the t-shirt thing. I've done some book buying and selling. I've done some worship leading and some preaching. And I have enjoyed aspects of everything that I have done. But the one piece that I'm not really wired for is a 9-to-5, M-F office job. I can make it work when I have to, but it is not my preference. (I'm also not a big fan of business casual, but that's not a surprise to anyone reading this.)

So, there are some changes coming down the pike. Accolade is a very generous company and I am glad to be a part of that team. But I am looking at hopefully transitioning to a different role, which will require that I replace some income somehow. One of the arms of this plan has to do with my t-shirt job with Yahwear (www.facebook.com/yahwear). My hope is that, by pouring more time into marketing and customer relations, I can bring in a good chunk more business for that company. If you need custom t-shirts, polo shirts, promo items, etc., shoot me an email (dave@yahwear.net) and I'll take care of you!

The second arm of the plan is a network marketing gig. I sat down with an old friend to talk about the pros and cons of network marketing, and she convinced me that I could be successful at it. And she signed me up to work with her. I am officially a distributor for It Works! Now, I am still learning the company and the products, but I am excited about the possibilities! More than anything, I am hoping that this frees Wendy and me up to spend more quality time with our (soon-to-be-grown) kids and to spend more quality time together.

Over the course of the next few months (and beyond) you'll see a lot of posts (FB, Instagram, Twitter) from me trying to grow that business. I'll be looking for two types of people -- people that want to try some new products and give me some testimonies to be able to tell (Wendy and I can't use ALL the products) and people who want to jump on board with me and achieve some dreams and goals that go along with a successful It Works! business. My aforementioned friend moved from owning a brick-and-mortar business to just doing It Works! within a year of starting, so it can be done. It's going to require a lot of effort, but I think we can get there. My goal is to transition at Accolade by May of this year, so I have to get after it.

I never would have imagined this path for myself -- network marketing, It Works!, hospice -- none of it. But I am excited about what the future holds. If you are at all interested in what I'm up to, drop me an email (dave@raintreepm.org or dave@yahwear.org). If you're curious about It Works! and interested in knowing more, check out our product line at my website: http://davedrake.myitworks.com/ If you're up for a cup of coffee to catch up, I'm down with that, too. You can call or text me at 806-773-8413.

2016 is shaping up to be a fun year. I'll tell you more about it next time!

New jobs and such

I began a new job this week.  As of yesterday, I am the Volunteer Coordinator for Accolade Hospice here in Lubbock.  This will be my first non-church career, so it's been quite an adjustment already.  Like any job in the medical field, most of this week will be training videos and reading, which makes for thrilling days.  But I love the organization that I am working for and get the sense that they believe that I'm the right person for the job, so I'm excited about where this may be going.  I really feel like I'm working with a great team of people.

In addition to watching the standard training videos this week, there is also a national volunteer conference for people in my position.  So, I have watched a couple of these conference webinars in an attempt to better understand what it is that I am supposed to be doing.  Yesterday I watched a seminar on how to approach faith communities about volunteering with a hospice organization.  While the webinar is going on, there is a chat window where people can interact and ask questions based on what the speaker was covering.

It was pretty astounding to watch what people's perceptions of churches are.  Comments like, "I approached one pastor who asked me why he would let me try to drum up volunteers for my organization when they won't even volunteer for children's ministry." Or "Pastors don't want anyone that can't help out their church."  Or "One pastor asked me how much money I wanted.  When I said I didn't want any, he told me that they couldn't help me."  Over and over again the comments painted a church that was only concerned about itself and what was needed to keep the machine of church running.

It really saddened me, because I think the vision that Jesus had (and has) for his church is so much larger.  You can argue with me if you would like (that's what the comment section below is for), but I believe that Jesus expects no less from his church than the redemption of the world.  Pretty major vision.  Or, as my Twitter friend Bob Goff says it, "God's plan for the world is as simple as it is inexplicable: It's us."  When all the world sees in us is that we only care for ourselves, our people, our programs, something has gone terribly wrong.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

softball ministry

This past weekend I got the opportunity to spend a bunch of time with my 9-year-old, Faith, at a softball All-Star tournament.  We got up early on Thursday morning and drove three hours south to San Angelo for a weekend of softball.  It seemed like all of West Texas and part of New Mexico descended on the town for a softball extravaganza.  Every hotel room in the town was booked and they were even housing people at Angelo State University.  It was crazy!

As far as softball goes, it was a good weekend.  We had a great team of 12 girls, ages 7-9, and an amazing group of parents!  We ended up going 3-3 on the weekend and got eliminated in a game where the ball just didn't bounce our way.  It was a great introduction to competitive softball for both Faith as a player and for me as a coach.

It was also a good opportunity for me to spend some quality time with my 9-year-old.  We ate junk food and watched Disney Channel and hung out all weekend.  Wendy (my wife) and I decided that this summer would be a good opportunity for me to spend some one-on-one time with each of the girls before their little brother comes next month, so this was my time with Faith.  And we had a blast!

But I think that my favorite time of the weekend was a 2-hour late lunch with the team's head coach and his wife.  After our elimination game, we hung around the complex and watched a great game between two of the other Lubbock teams.  Then we went to lunch at Schlotzsky's and really had our first chance to have an in-depth conversation.

I've been coaching with this guy for two years now and have a great respect for him -- the way he looks at softball and the way he looks at life.  He is in the process of raising three young ladies, all of whom play softball and all of whom are pretty amazing girls.  In these two years, we've never really had a chance to just sit and chat.  In this lunch convo, we talked about Jesus and church, softball and coaching, parenting and broken homes.  I got a chance to get to know who he is on a different level.  It really was a blessed conversation.

What struck me most about the conversation was the affirmation of what has been going on in my heart recently -- the notion that ministry is all around us if we only have the eyes to see the possibilities.  Every girl that I coach in softball or basketball, every parent that I interact with, every opposing team that I talk to and play against is a chance to show the love of Christ.  For some of these girls that played on this All-Star team, this will be my only interaction that I have with her and her parents.  Have I made a positive contribution to who they are as unique children of God or has my contribution been less than it should be?

I may never again bear the title of Pastor, but that doesn't get me off the hook of shepherding people.  As a matter of fact, it looks like I'll have MORE opportunities to pastor now that I've lost that title.

Book Review, The Road to Missional, by Michael Frost

One of the things that I am having the hardest time balancing in the midst of this transition is finding time to read.  With the pressure of providing for a family in the midst of trying to find a more consistent job (t-shirts are great, but intermittent), the thing that gets pushed aside is the reading.  But I am realizing that, as we embark on this missional journey, the only way that I am going to get answers for our little community is by reading about what people much smarter than me are thinking and doing.  And since I suck at retaining information from the things that I read, I thought it would make sense for me to do a “book review” of what I am reading for this blog.  That way I can let you in on what I’m learning while, at the same time, helping my own retention.

This past weekend I did a wedding in the Dallas Metroplex, which means I got a chance to go and buy books at bookstores that I usually can’t frequent.  While at one of these, I found another copy of The Road to Missional: Journey to the Center of the Church by Michael Frost (co-author of The Forgotten Ways with Alan Hirsch).  This book was recently placed on a list of the top 40 books for a thorough understanding of the missional church conversation by a missional organization called Sentralized (check them out at www.sentralizedgathering.com).  Anyway, I bought this book a few weeks before I moved out of my office, so I have no idea where my original copy is.  But, since I saw this one, I bought it and began reading it on the flight home.  Here’s a brief, somewhat haphazard review of the book:

This book is one of the Shapevine Missional Series (www.shapevine.com) designed to further the conversation on missional church.  Frost begins by defending the continued use of the M-word (missional) to describe the wholesale changes that he deems are necessary for the church to thrive in these changing times.  His premise is that, while missional has become a buzzword for churches around the globe, very few understand just what this entails.  Missional isn’t a trend to attract more people to church; it is the wholesale reorientation of the church around mission.  As he says on page 21: “Missional leaders don’t see changing the church as central to their cause; they want to change the whole world.”  He then brings up six examples of what this looks like in the six chapters that make up the book.  I’ll look at them chapter by chapter with some relevant quotes interspersed.

1. The Missio Dei - Seeing Mission as Bigger than Evangelism

This is rightly the best place to start.  In my conversations with people about what in the world I am doing, this becomes a sticking point almost immediately.  Those of us steeped in Christendom have a hard time understanding what the big difference is between mission and evangelism.  While I can’t do it justice in these few words, I’ll hit some high points about what this means.  Frost quotes NT Wright extensively in this book, and quotes David Bosch extensively in this chapter.  A few of their quotes may help me communicate the thoughts of this chapter.  First, Wright: “Despite what people think, within the Christian family and outside it, the point of Christianity isn’t ‘to go to heaven when you die’”(p. 23).  This has probably been the hardest thing that I have had to learn, that our efforts to “save souls” are in vain if we are not “transforming people.”  Bosch writes, “[Mission] is alerting people to the universal reign of God through Christ” (p.24).  This changes how we do things when we make the transfer from being primarily concerned about “there and then” and set our focus on “here and now.”  As Wright says elsewhere, it’s about life AFTER life after death – what things look like on a redeemed and restored new heavens and new earth.  The primary image that Frost plays off of in this chapter is the idea of a movie trailer.  Our lives as Christ-followers are to serve the role that a movie trailer plays.  We are to portray enough of what is to go on in the redeemed creation that people become drawn to it and “want to see the movie” themselves.  Frost also plays on an image that Wright uses in Simply Christian, where he talks about the Celtic concept of “thin places” – places where the veil between heaven and earth become so thin that the light of heaven shines clearly through into this world.  I love that image and will blog later in the week about a “thin place” that I saw this past weekend at a wedding.

2.  Slow Evangelism – Moving Beyond the Four Spiritual Laws

On the heels of his discussion that the purpose of the church is so much bigger than evangelism as it has been traditionally interpreted, Frost talks about what evangelism should look like in a missional community.  Unlike many of the postmodern church thinkers who deny the importance of the proclamation of Biblical truth, Frost acknowledges that the announcement of good news is an important aspect of mission.  As he points out, the St. Francis quote that many love to quote about preaching the gospel at all times DOES include the important point that, when necessary, USE WORDS!  He does contend with Hauerwas and Willimon that “The only way for the world to know it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people” (p. 56).  But there has to be a balance between announcement and demonstration.  His missional indicators for the church on pp. 62-63 are worth looking over to get a better handle on what this chapter means for the church.

3.  A Market-Shaped Church – How Membership Has Trumped Mission

This is one of the concepts that I absolutely believe with everything that is in me – that the church has become so infected with a consumer virus that we don’t even realize that we have it.  I would guess that over half of the institutional church leaders across the country would agree as well.  The problem becomes, how do we change it?  This is where so much of my mindspace goes these days.  How do we change a church culture when that culture is so intertwined with capitalism and “American values” that we can’t untangle them?  As Frost says on p. 76, “What we require today is a radical rethink about the degree to which our churches have unwittingly embraced what Bryan Stone calls the logic of production, and an uncoupling from that paradigm, setting churches free to embrace the alternative paradigm presented by Jesus, a paradigm of truthfulness, love, and incarnation.”  This might be the biggest challenge for the church moving forward.  While Frost identifies the problem well, I am not sure that he provides great and clear solutions about where we go from here.

4.  Triumphant Humiliation – The Cross as a Missional Paradigm for Holiness

In this chapter, Frost points out that the cross needs to be “not only the means by which our sins are forgiven, but also the template for all subsequent Christian living” (p. 87).  He advocates a cruciform model of discipleship, including a mentor who is willing to give his life for an apprentice.  I loved how he put it on page 85 – “Discerning what Jesus would do in any given situation, especially when we live our lives among the poor and the marginalized, is actually hard work.”  We have often reduced discipleship to a set of rules and regulations and in so doing have robbed the cross of its power.  Frost spends most of the chapter contrasting piety and discipleship.  Piety (rule-following) is easy and leads to an offensive self-righteousness; discipleship (Spirit-following) is difficult and leads to attractive humility.

5.  Breathing Shalom – Bringing Reconciliation, Justice, and Beauty to a Broken World

One of the hallmarks of the missional movement is the emphasis on Shalom, the Hebrew word that is usually translated “peace.”  Shalom is a much richer concept than our view of peace, which we usually use to communicate a personal calm or a lack of conflict.  Shalom might be better translated “wholeness,” that idea of things being “as they should be.”  Our task as Christ-followers is to recognize shalom when we see it and to do everything in our power to foster shalom in our world.  The three primary areas that Frost points to are restored relationship, reestablished justice, and recognition of beauty.  As Wright says, “We are called to be part of God’s new creation, called to be agents of that new creation here and now.  We are called to model and display that new creation in symphonies and family life, in restorative justice and poetry, in holiness and service to the poor, in politics and painting” (p. 115).  This chapter created many life-giving thoughts and dreams for what our new missional community should look like.

6.  Moving into the Neighborhood – Living Out Incarnational Mission

I love that even recognized authors such as Michael Frost have to put up with stupid/smart people.  He tells the story of his argument with a seminary student about his “misuse” of the Incarnation as the model for mission, since clearly the Incarnation of Christ was a once-in-a-history kind of event.  Yet, we are called to live the life of Christ among the people we are called to live near.  I loved Frost’s example of how many church people live in one neighborhood yet church in another.  (Yes, I just turned “church” into a verb.  Deal with it.)  The examples of this chapter stretched me and challenged me to rethink what it means to live in a neighborhood.  It caused me to rethink what my calling is in the midst of that neighborhood.  I especially loved the parting quote from Alan Roxburgh – “And until we build transformed communities, there is no hope for a broken world” (p. 140).

I know that I have not done an adequate job of conveying Michael Frost’s great work in this book.  As I re-read this “book review,” I have completely missed the overarching role that Jesus plays in this whole matter.  Frost does a much better job keeping us focused on Jesus.  What I greatly appreciated about this book was the variety of authors quoted.  He quotes Wright and Bosch and Newbigin extensively, but also spends some time quoting Piper and Keller and McLaren.  He even introduced me to some new people, like Kristin Jack and Marilynne Robinson.  I am going to pass my two copies of this book (once I find my other one) around to my little community to read.  I would recommend that you read it if you’re wanting a clearer picture of where the missional conversation came from and why it’s not done yet.

All quotes are from The Road to Missional by Michael Frost, ©2011 by Michael Frost, published by Baker Books (www.bakerbooks.com).

Bringing Resurrection, Easter 2012

Today in the place in which I live, good Christian people gathered all over the city in beautiful buildings to celebrate a risen Savior.  Songs of resurrection were sung and prayers of thanksgiving were prayed.  Sermons were preached extolling the significant, world-altering event that took place 1985 (or so) years ago and the importance that it still has today.  Thousands of dollars were spent on new dresses and ties and suits.  Twitter and Facebook feeds blew up with pictures and Scriptures and praises and celebrations.  My cousin participated in one of the 35 Easter services that his church put together.  (He doesn't live in Lubbock, by the way, in case you were racking your brain to think of a Lubbock church big enough to pull THAT off.)

Also today in the place in which I live, good people gathered at major intersections to sell Sunday papers to try to earn some meager money for their massive needs.  Others sat at hospital beds weeping over parents who were slipping away.  Good families hunkered down in rooms waiting to hear news about the health implications of complications from a child's surgery.  Brokenhearted people sat in desperate need of having their hearts bound up.  Poor people waited desperately for someone to come and preach them some good news.  Captives wondered who would come to them and proclaim freedom.  Prisoners sat again in darkness, wondering where all the light had gone.  Mourners looked around for someone to bring them comfort.

Maybe it is because today was the first Easter in my life that I didn't darken the door of a church building.  Maybe it's because the things that God has been stirring in me are moving me toward action of a different kind.  Maybe it's because I have surrounded myself with people who have challenged me to see the world as broken and in need of redemption.  Whatever the reason, the dichotomy of the first two paragraphs that I wrote above hit me hard this Sunday.  Today, churches across our country gathered for their high holy day -- Resurrection Sunday.  Churches beefed up their greeter force and rocked out their worship.  Churches spruced up their signage and weedeated (weed-ate???) their parking lots.  Churches spent dollars on egg hunts and advertising.  They gathered in their places of worship, counted their people and offerings.  Compared this Easter's attendance with the year-to-date (and with the ghost of Easters past).  Felt really good about what they did today.

And redemption happened.  I have read tweets and posts about all of the good things that happened this morning.  My friends at Ecclesia Houston had an overwhelmingly blessed Easter gathering in the heart of that city.  My friends in Lexington, KY, brought hope and redemption to the lives of hundreds.  My friends at Experience Life here in Lubbock lived up to their name and helped a packed house at their downtown campus experience that life.  And while I haven't heard much from my family at Raintree, I know that it was a weekend of blessing and being blessed.  There is no doubt that redemption took place in the midst of these gatherings that took place.

But just in the relatively modest city that we live in, there were so many missed opportunities to live out the Isaiah 61 reference alluded to above.  God-followers would have had their pick of places to bring redemption to Lubbock today.  Almost all the social organizations had opportunities to serve today -- Christians were busy gathering in their houses of worship and forgetting just what the Savior that they were celebrating spent most of his time doing.  I am not saying this to minimize the amount of redemption that took place in those gatherings.  I am saying that to try to get us to think about where God is already working and to get in line behind him.

One of my favorite authors, Leonard Sweet, made the contention SEVERAL years ago that God might just be more active in the world these days than he is in the church.  When I first read that, I almost went ahead and dismissed him as a heretic.  Seemed like an appropriate thing to do.  But the more that I reflected on it, the more truth it seemed to hold.  If God is a God of the oppressed and broken-hearted, then wouldn't it make more sense that He was doing His thing right in the midst of an oppressed and broken world?

I hesitate to tell you our story from today, because the last thing that I would want to convey is that I have it all figured out.  That this is the only way.  That I'm right and others are wrong.  I merely tell you our story to try to get you to see that there just might be another way -- a more redemptive way.  Today we loaded up our family at 6:40 am and headed to the Ronald McDonald House in Lubbock.  For those of you unfamiliar with RMH, it partners with local children's hospitals to provide a place to stay for out-of-town families who find their children sick and in the hospital.  A group of us went to cook breakfast burritos for the families that were staying there.  And to bring them Easter baskets with games and activities designed to restore some sense of normalcy in their lives.  And to generally let them know that, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Jesus loves them.  Dearly.  And their sick children.  Especially their sick children.

The lady in charge said that we would probably see parts of two or three of the ten families staying there.  Most would prefer to stay in their rooms, hunkered down for the fight that they were in.  I think we ended up meeting 7 or 8 of the families.  Their stories were absolutely heart-breaking.  A one-year-old experiencing complications from a second heart surgery.  A 17-year-old on life support.  A 17-week-premature baby fighting in NICU.  A 7-week-premature baby that mom and dad are hoping to take home this week.  And a kitchen-full of breakfast burritos gave us the opportunity to hear these stories.  To encourage these families.  To pray for these children.  To bring life and hope and resurrection and redemption into a culture of hurt and brokenness and pain.

I feel like it was the first time I have ever really celebrated Easter.

A Place at the Table, day 18

Life circumstances can be tough, especially when they play out in a way that was well outside of your control.  I just had a conversation about a friend who is going through it right now.  It's tough to watch someone's life crumble around them, of no fault of their own.

Yesterday we hung out with my brother and sister-in-law, who are expecting at the end of April.  We had quite a few conversations about our kids and the difficulties that go along with being from broken homes.  They get to see his daughters even less often than we have the girls, so it made me appreciate our dysfunction a little more.

I'm sitting here watching my girls make a stew/potion in the back yard of my folks house and aching that they won't get to experience these things on a daily basis.  My brothers and I grew up in this town of 450 (or 500, depending on which way you come into town) and had full reign of the town.  We'd ride our bikes all over the town, hang out with any number of people and just generally run wherever we wanted to.  Now I know that was a different time with different "rules," but there are so many things that my girls won't get to experience because of the circumstances of life that were and are way outside of their control.  And my heart aches for them.

But one of the lessons that I learned in the fateful summer of 2004 is that very little about life is really within our control.  Control is one of those illusions that we like to think we have so that we imagine that we are much more powerful than we actually are.  This fast has re-taught me that lesson.  So many of the "blessings" that our family has have nothing to do with anything except the place and time in which we were born.  We were all born in America, with plenty of money, food, and resources to be able to be provided for.  We were born into families that are able to not just provide for our daily needs but make it possible to get an education that goes well beyond basic education.  My girls have more money in their college funds than many children will see in their entire lives.

But I would bet you that we stress more about things like bills and responsibilities and the ability to provide for our loved ones than about any society in world history.  Because control is an illusion.  It reminds me of some words of a friend of mine.  "Consider the birds of the air.  They neither plant nor harvest nor store in barns, but your Father in the heavens feeds them.  Or look at the lilies in the field.  They don't work or sew.  And yet even Solomon in all his splendor looked like a pauper compared tho these.  If that's how God takes care of the flowers (and the birds) won't he take much better care of you? So don't worry about the things outside of your control.  Seek first the kingdom of God and his plan of restorative justice and all these other things will be taken care of as well."  If we were to learn no other lesson from this fast than this one thing, it would be hunger well spent.

A Place at the Table, day 11

I don't know why I think this, but I have a bad feeling that this week's going to be the toughest yet for those of us fasting.  Maybe it's because the week got off to such a rough start.  Feast day was not terribly kind to a portion of our group.  One of our guys had a not-so-fun reaction to the reintroduction of fat into his diet (translation -- feast day = sick day), while one of the gals had to go to the doctor, where she was chastised for trying to do this kind of thing while dealing with an autoimmune disease.  And that was just Sunday and Monday.

I have just had this sense that, unlike my first week-and-a-half where my body has responded well, my body's about to be not very happy with me.  But maybe that's a cop out.  Maybe what it really comes down to is that my self-control is beginning to wane.  The chocolate that is sitting in the bowl on the counter is much more tempting this week than it has been in the past.  (I know.  If I moved the bowl out of sight, it wouldn't be a temptation.  But where's the challenge in that?)  Dinner with the fam yesterday was spaghetti and garlic bread, and those things looked significantly more enjoyable than my potatoes and tortillas.  Every time that I open the fridge to make a lunch for the girls, I see that cheese that looks phenomenal.  (I WAS born in Wisconsin, after all.  Cheese is a birthright!)  Even though my friend Jeremy covered his chicken bowl from Chipotle in nasty veggies at lunch, it STILL looked better than my brown rice.

Or maybe I'm just afraid that this is the week that the fast gets really personal.  I've learned a lot about world hunger and thirst, the plight of the poor and needy, and how good the simple things can be on this fast.  And those are great lessons for me to learn.  But what happens when the lessons that I begin to be taught are lessons of purging the darkness from my own heart -- the greed and the lust, the unforgiveness and the judgment, the bigotry and the hypocrisy?  Am I really ready to deal with all of that crap?  I have a feeling that it's coming to the surface, whether I'm ready or not.

But I can't decide what my biggest fear is.  Am I afraid for this to come to the surface because you might see it, and if you happen to see it, you might like me less?  Am I afraid that when this comes to the surface, I'LL have to see it and deal with it and the delusion that I am somehow right and sane and figured out will come crashing down around me?  Or am I afraid that, since I do such a good job of hiding behind my "figured-out-ness," Jesus will actually see me as I really am and HE'LL be ashamed?  I know that makes absolutely ZERO since theologically, but there are times when I believe that if Jesus saw me as I really was, His holiness would not allow Him to love me.

Even as I re-read that last sentence, I am amazed that such a silly thought could exist inside my head.  I know better.  But the thought is there.  And I'm usually so busy living a surface life that I never get deep enough to word such delusional thoughts.  Fasting (in whatever form it shows up) has a tendency to move us beyond surface and into the deeper regions of our psyche that we don't want others or ourselves or even Jesus to see.  But I am becoming convinced that, until we open up THOSE areas of our lives to the redemption of Jesus, we'll continue to live in the patterns of our lives, being hurt by people and turning around and channelling that hurt towards others.

So I guess what I'm talking myself into is that the reality that this might be a tough week is probably a good thing, long term.  But, if I were you, I'd try to stay away from me until feast day.  You might not like what you see. . .

A Place at the Table, day 9

I have always been a picky eater.  I blame my mom, primarily because she let's me blame her.  Growing up, I survived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  If mom made something that I didn't like, she would let me go make myself a PBJ.  It wasn't always like that.  I remember one epic battle between mom and me over a bowl of corn chowder (it even SOUNDS awful, doesn't it?).  I don't remember how the story really went down, but in my retelling of it, mom and I argued over me eating it for hours.  This happened in our kitchen at the house on Market Street in Crawfordsville, IN, so it must have happened before I was in 2nd grade.  Anyway, after hours of fighting, I finally got her to let me down from the table after eating only a bite.  I felt like it was victory for picky people everywhere.  How I ever made it to adulthood is a mystery.

This 40 day fast has really caused me to focus on food.  All the time.  When I started out, I was leery of how I could survive, since two of the things I was allowed to eat -- corn and beans -- I don't like.  One of my good friends, Dusty, was all over me, telling me that if I didn't eat some beans, I would do some permanent damage from the lack of protein in my diet.  Now, Dusty is in the medical field (a pedorthist, no less), so I thought I would heed his advice.

If you are a picky eater, you know the feelings of dread that pop up when you set out to try something new.  Well, on Thursday of this week, I finally gave into Dusty's demands and ate some beans.  At Taco Villa.  And while they weren't the greatest thing I have ever eaten, they were tolerable.  So much so that I had them again yesterday for lunch.  With a friend and fellow conspirator.  At Taco Villa.  (He suggested we do Rosa's, but I decided to take this bean thing slow.)

We had some friends over last night, and they were bringing the potato dish, so I was hopeful that it would be a chance to have another kind of potatoes.  Friend and baked potatoes are fine, but I was down for some mashed potatoes or whatever.  When they got here and opened the potatoes, I thought the grocery store had given them the wrong stuff.  It had green things in it, red things in it, and looked like grits.  If I hadn't talked myself into the fact that I was gonna get to try something new, I would have passed on the potato mush.  But I tried it.  Five servings later (I know -- that defeats the whole "solidarity with the poor" thing) I was full for the first time in days.

In one of the readings, Chris Seay (A Place at the Table) tells of some kids in Brazil that get to have watered-down coffee mixed with some sort of flour.  While it has no nutritional value, it fills their stomachs up.  For a little while, at least.  And for some of the people of Codo, that's all they'll get some days.  I wrote earlier about a family in Haiti that sometimes doesn't have enough food for all of their kids, so sometimes kids go without.  I was reflecting on this at lunch with Nick yesterday, and he told me (his Compassion kid is from Haiti) that he had read that sometimes kids in Haiti eat mudpies.  They have no nutritional value (it's dirt and water, in case you missed the whole "mud" part of that), but they have a digestible calcium in their dirt, so it makes them feel full.

Watered-down coffee?  Mud for breakfast?  This is the world in which we live, friends.  Some of us spend more on eating out in one month than families make in a year.  It reminds me of the point of one of Jesus' stories where he tells the people that "to whom much is given, much is required."  I hope that application scares you as much as it scares me.  Here I am complaining about having to eat beans and having to drink black coffee and my almost endless supply of clean water, and THERE ARE PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD THAT WILL EAT MUD TODAY!  I suppose, in light of that, I can stop complaining about green things in my potatoes.

But I still wouldn't eat corn chowder.

A Place at the Table, day 8

I could never be a writer.  The thought of writing everyday in this blog sometimes terrifies me.  It doesn't seem like much, but the everyday-ness of it can become daunting.  One of my favorite writers, Donald Miller, makes it seem so easy.  I'm sure that the real story is much more messy, but he makes it seem like he's weeks and months ahead on his blog, just waiting for the right time to post those life-changing thoughts that he planned out weeks before.

As I am sitting around throughout the day, I have all of these "brilliant" thoughts about what I'm going to write about.  Then, when I sit down at the computer to write, something completely different comes out.  Sometimes it has a little bit to do with the thought I had before, but most of the time it becomes just whatever thought pops into my head at the time.  SQUIRREL!

I suppose that some of that has to do with the fact that I'm a little guarded in my thoughts.  I don't know if you know this or not, but the Internet is available to people all over the world.  And while I'm not arrogant enough to believe that the entire world is listening in on my thoughts, it HAS surprised me who is following these thoughts.  Just a few moments ago in the coffee shop I am working in today, I ran into a friend that I haven't really talked to in months, and he commented on the fact that he has been following this blog.

One of the interesting things about a fast is that it opens you up to what is really going on in your heart.  When you peel away the layers of facade that we put up in our daily lives, sometimes we don't like what we find underneath.  There's this insight that my Master had into the human psyche -- "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."  While it doesn't seem like too much of a profound statement, there is deep truth in this simple statement.  I have found in recent weeks (some even before this fast began) that I can have a relatively foul mouth.  Now, I've been around church and life enough to know when not to use those words in public, but I find myself saying things in my private moments that are just not "churchy."  As a matter of fact, I find myself inserting inappropriate words into the worship songs that I am singing in the shower.  And, no, I don't mean "sing your freaking lungs out." (Obscure "Words to Build a Life On" reference for my Raintree peeps.)  It would be easy for me to dismiss this as just Dave being Dave, but if Jesus is to be believed (and I kinda think He IS to be believed) these words give a window to what is going on in my heart.  So, if my mouth is speaking filth, what does that say about my heart?

I was just looking up the passage that I quoted above to make sure my memory was correct (it was), and what I found convicted me even more.  The context of this insight in Matthew is Jesus teaching about good trees and bad trees.  The indictment right before this quote in Matthew is "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?"  Not exactly the encouragement that I needed today.

Or maybe it IS the encouragement I need.  Because that's what the real life looks like.  When we open up the dark places of our souls and our hearts to the Liberating King, we might not like what we see there.  But until we're willing to open our wounds to let His blood cover those dark places, true healing cannot come.  One of the things I love about my Jesus is that He will not force Himself into the darkness of our lives.  But once we open up those places to His light, we find healing, freedom, and redemption that we never knew was possible.  Not that it's easy to get there, but I'm choosing to trust that the shalom that happens on the other side of this is worth the muck that we find ourselves in now.

A Place at the Table, day 5

I was worried about yesterday, seeing as how I had spent the day before feasting.  I was afraid that my body might have gone back into "regular diet" mode and that I would revisit the hunger pangs and anger of the previous week.  It turns out that none of those fears were founded.  Outside of an odd craving for a cold schooner of Shiner at about 7:00, my desires were pretty well under control.  At least for one day.

And it made me think about the nature of worry.  There's this illustration that Jesus uses in the Sermon on the Mount where he compares us to birds and flowers and grass and makes the point that, if God takes care of all of those things. why would we envision ourselves as less important?  When I was a freshman at Lincoln Christian College, I had to memorize that passage in its entirety (along with the rest of Matthew 5, 6 & 7).  So, I know that passage well.  But it is still such a challenge to live that out.

The statistics on worry are pretty enlightening.  I remember reading about a study that a smart person did about worry.  About 40% of the things that we worry about never come to fruition.  Another 30% of the things we worry about are things that have happened in the past.  Still another 12% of our worries have to do with other people's opinions of us -- at least our perception of their perception of us.  And still another 10% are needless health worries -- worries that actually cause our health to decrease due to the worry.  That leaves 8% of our worries devoted to legitimate concerns.  Hardly seems worth all of the mindspace that we devote to it, does it?

It continues to amaze me how, when you strip away things from your life, you begin to examine the pieces that remain.  And in a lot of ways, you don't like what you see.  I worry far to often about far too much.  Will the bills be paid?  Am I doing what I was called and created to do?  Will my kids grow up to love God and people?  What does so-and-so really think of me?

In the daily reading for day 5 (A Place at the Table, by Chris Seay), Chris points out that the remedy for worry is gratitude.  His challenge was to just have a piece of paper handy and to spend the day writing down the things that you are grateful for.  I honestly didn't read that devotion until today, so I didn't even attempt that.  I was too worried about other things.  So, maybe today I'll have the piece of paper next to me to write those things down.  Will you try it as well?

I WILL tell you this: the first thing I'll write on that paper (through gritted teeth) is black coffee.  Lots and lots of black coffee.

Crossan

At the beginning of 2011, I made a resolution to read a book a week.  As with most resolutions, it hasn't happened.  But I am still striving to finish 52 books this year.  Admittedly, some of those books I have read have been short books to help me reach that goal (The Final Question of Jesus - Joseph Stowell), but I try to balance those with books that I know going in are going to take me longer than a week to read.

This past week, I finally made the dive into the writings of John Dominic Crossan.  His "God & Empire" is a Rob Bell-recommended book (a great resource that I would love to provide you with a link to, but I can't find it . . . ) and so I found it for $6 and decided now was the time to jump in.  For those of you unfamiliar with Crossan, his reputation is one of liberal scholarship at its finest.  Christians recognize him as one of the lead voices of the Jesus Seminar, while the media recognizes him as one of the foremost scholars on the historical Jesus.

I don't know what I expected from a book on Christianity written by someone whose theology undermines (in my mind) the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, but I was absolutely blown away by Crossan's writing.  His synthesis of Scripture is phenomenal and his brilliance was evident.  Even in the places where he lampoons conservative scholarship (and usually, rightly so), he came across as engaging and generous.  I was reminded again why I believe so strongly in a God-follower's need to read books from across the theological spectrum.  I don't agree with all (or even most) of what Crossan says, but I walked away with a deep appreciation of the diversity of the kingdom and the greatness of our God.  Even the greatness of our Christ.

I'm still ruminating on much of what I read, as I imagine I will be for some time.  But I'm pretty sure that this will not be the last JD Crossan book that I read.  I hope it's not.