Falling back in love...

Last year I attended an Alpha course with a friend of mine in Belfast. Alpha course is designed for people, just like my friend, who are not following Jesus but interested in learning more about what it might look like to do so. I had been a part of this same course in Atlanta a number of years ago. Since then I had moved to a new city, in a new country, with a new culture and a whole new set of friends. On top of all these changes, in the few years leading up to our move to Belfast, I had gone through some not-so-pleasant experiences within the church I was a part of in Atlanta. I left Atlanta feeling quite “over” the organized church as I knew it.

On the first night of this second Alpha course I attended with my friend in Belfast, they posed a question to everyone. Assuming that there is a God, if you were standing in front of him today and you could ask him one question, what would it be? We went around the circle and each person had a chance share their one question for God. There were plenty of answers all in the same sort of vein… why is there so much pain in the world... if God loves us, why does he allow us to hurt... why does God send people to hell? All of these are legitimate questions, sure. However, in my personal journey with God I have come to terms with the fact that most of these kinds of questions are damn near impossible to answer, so I think to myself why even bother trying? Of course, I’m sure we can all find some answers to some of these questions. After all, Christians are pretty good at backing up our own belief system with scripture. It’s quite interesting to me that for every tough question that someone might have, there are quite often opposing answers, each backed up straight from the bible. I suppose it’s all about personal interpretation.

So when it came to my turn to answer the big question, there was only one burning question for God floating around in my cynical head. Are we, as followers of Jesus, even close to what you intended for your church, or have we completely mucked things up and fallen off the map? The leader of our small Alpha group didn’t like my question. This is perhaps because he, like a lot of Christians, doesn’t like questions that are difficult to answer. I believe the answer to my question is two-sided.

On one hand we have so called followers of Jesus, who have absolutely mucked things up. You don’t have to go far to find people who burned out, hurt, or damaged, largely because of how the church treated them (or depending on the situation, didn’t treat them). Or perhaps you can go to youtube.com and check out some old Robert Tilton videos to see how ridiculous the church can be (the farting pastor is my personal favorite). Wherever you go, you’ll find people who have been broken by the church. It breaks my heart, because I have been in that boat before. I know how it feels to be let down by the church.

On the other hand, there is hope! My friend, Billy, helped us find a new community of people following Jesus. Of course, no one is perfect, but this church is doing an amazing job at loving people. My wife, Reona, and I moved recently to Denver, Colorado. We didn’t know a single person in Denver when we came here. I was “over” doing the church thing and not interested in church hopping. The first week in Denver we came to the Mile High Vineyard. They have embraced us with open arms and shown us true unconditional love. They have helped us transition to a new life in this new city. In the first week we arrived here, I was invited to have coffee with my new friend Peter. During that conversation he told me that he hoped that their church could help me fall back in love with the church, and as a result with Jesus. I nodded in agreement, but in my heart I was sceptical.

Despite myself, I am happy to tell you that this process of falling back in love with the church is happening for me. We have never experienced church like we have at the Mile High Vineyard in Denver. Through this community we are learning to live well, and to love everyone - unconditionally, regardless of who they are, where they come from, where they live, their sexual orientation, race, or religious creed. Our new friends are loving the people in our community day in and day out, in very tangible ways. They are showing us what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus to our neighbours who need him so desperately. I am learning new things about God, people, and community. These are lessons that I will take with me wherever I go.

My plea to you is, if you are in that boat as so many of us have been, and you are ready to give up on church, DON’T! I promise you, the church of Jesus is alive and well and moving. My prayer for you is that you will find a community of people following Jesus, wherever you live, and that they will help you fall back in love with Jesus and his church. Don’t look in the places we’ve always looked. Look in the margins, in the places no one else wants to look. I am certain that is where you will find what you are looking for!

Family

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We were invited to celebrate the new year with our friend's Carlos and Mareya Barrio. They are the family that fostered Jack before he came to live with us, and they have become very dear to us. Just so you know, Mexicans know how to celebrate! If you are ever invited to a real Mexican party, GO! It was a lovely way to ring in the new year, with amazing Mexican cuisine, some kind of Mexican polka/dance music, an endless supply of tequila (I'm pretty sure Jesus was there multiplying it!), and good company. Out of over 100 guests we were among the few who spoke English. Even though we couldn't communicate with most of the people and we didn't know what was going on for most of the night, we were welcomed into their circle of friends. Every time we are with them, they remind us that we are part of their family. I have learned so much about the importance of faith, family, friends, and community through the Barrio family and I am honored to be counted among their friends. They are amazing and generous people who continually open their hearts and home to children who would otherwise be without a family. At the moment, they are fostering 7 children, not to mention they have 2 of their own. Jesus is all over them! If I could live out even a fraction of the love they show to those around then I am certain I would be in constant communion with Jesus. The Barrio family is truly an inspiration.

Finding Friendship with Jesus in the New Year

I woke up Christmas morning in a funk and really tired. Sometimes I wish I could just sleep until I wake up. It’s Christmas day for flip’s sake; I should be happy and merry, and all the rest. I knew that part of what was bothering me had something to do with feeling frustration over the fact that our culture has turned a beautiful day we celebrate Jesus into a season of getting high and gorging, in an attempt to satisfy our insatiable hunger for more. But there was something else weighing on my heart and it was more personal.

After a breakfast of eggs, bacon and Reona and Zoe’s delicious homemade monkey bread, I retired to the bathroom for my daily 5-10 minute book reading (don’t think about it too much!). At the moment, I’m reading Donald Miller’s Searching For God Knows What for the third time and in this book, he so beautifully captures the gospel of Jesus. It seemed fitting that today of all days I finished the final chapter. He finishes the book by looking at Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Before reading this book I never thought about this love story as allegorical, and though it might seem a stretch, it was quite beautiful for me to look at the gospel of Jesus in a new and fresh way again today. It is a story about love and deep friendship. What dawned on me as I read was how big, amazing, and beautiful is the story of Jesus. I started to think about the fact that, if I allow it, my story can be a part of his story. And the friendship that Jesus offers me is astounding. Honestly, I sat there and felt an emotion almost to the point of tears, because something hit me and it’s hard for me to admit to myself.

My family and I have been on a huge journey these last couple of years. We’ve taken some huge steps along the way and we had to fully trust God, even when it didn’t come easy. A few months ago God asked us to leave Belfast on a whim and move to Denver to foster our new son, Jack, and welcome him into the family. My life’s journey has not been easy, but I have learned much about my creator. God is faithful and I know this to be a fact, without a doubt. He has provided our every need sometimes down to the wire. The Holy Spirit has led us with grace and love. We have not always seen clearly, but he has guided and directed us in times we had blinders on. He has never let us down. This is what hit me Christmas morning as I read my book: Jesus is loyal and he offers deep friendship. If I’m honest with myself I am a big fat Idiot! I am an Idiot because after almost 30 years of knowing Jesus I have yet to take him up on the offer of friendship. Sure, I know Jesus. I know of his death and life, and what that means for me. However, I don’t think that I have ever fully accepted Jesus’ invitation to a deep and meaningful friendship, and today I am filled with a sense of loss. I have missed out on a meaningful friendship that could have been.

I probably only know a handful of people who I believe have fully grasped the concept of a deep and loving friendship with Jesus, and who are truly walking this out in their everyday life. On the surface they seem crazy, and I make fun of some of them regularly. Today, however, I am jealous of that kind of connection with the person of Jesus. They are so in love with Jesus that they could care less what the world thinks. But I think that if I were to live this way, in that kind of deep connection with the person and life of Jesus, so much so that I become his hands and feet to the people around me and that I am truly lost without him, it is very cool.

I realize I need to accept this friendship for everything it is meant to be. I need to begin to look for Jesus on a daily basis. I need to begin to take Jesus at his word. I’m not exactly sure what that looks like. I do know that Jesus himself told us he would be everywhere and in everything we do. The Bible is pretty clear about this idea. I want to see Jesus everywhere I go and in everything I do, literally. I want to be so connected in love and friendship with Jesus that I literally can’t do life without him. On one hand, I don’t want religion or a crutch to help me feel better about myself or my particular belief system. This doesn’t work for me. On the other hand, I don’t want to be just some crazy person who lives in la-la land or in a sort of ‘Jesus loves me’ hippie bubble. This doesn’t work for me either.

So, here’s my idea: I am issuing a challenge to myself to interact with Jesus every day this year for the purpose of friendship, and ultimately to change my life and the lives of those around me. Starting today in this new year, I will attempt to see Jesus in the details of my day to day and record those experiences here. I might not write every single day, but I will attempt to recap the days I miss. I don’t know what form this will take. I won’t coat everything in a glossy, colorful, life-is-perfect, faux finish. This will be an honest look at my life and an attempt to find Jesus in the margins. It might not always look pretty, but I think it will be good. It even has the potential to become something beautiful. I invite you to join me in this journey. Make comments and share your own stories. Here’s to knowing a true and deep friendship with Jesus and letting it change our lives forever!

Age to age

I grew up in a Christian church where my Dad was the pastor. Our church, much like all of the other churches scattered across the USA, had a very strong emphasis on ministry to the youth. And whether it was a ropes course, a Velcro wall, water balloon fights, shaving cream fights, pizza night, a friendly 2 on 2 basketball tournament, or a car wash fundraiser, we were always guaranteed to have fun. These types of activities took up about 50% of the time our youth group spent together. The other 50% was made up of some kind of effort to go deeper in our Christian faith.

One way we attempted this was on Sunday mornings at church, where each week we were taught the 5 steps being a perfect Christian. Of course, each week these lessons took on a slightly new twist. The 5 steps to… not having sex before marriage… having your quiet time every day… obeying your Mother and Father… “witnessing” to your friends at school… and so on. You name it; there was a 5 step lesson for it.

Another way we tried a go deeper was by doing outreaches. I don’t remember doing very much outreach locally. We were always travelling to foreign countries to “witness”, sing, and dance in the streets. And if you aren’t familiar with this form of outreach just ask my wife, Reona, to show you her hamster dance sometime… what were we thinking?! I often wondered why these outreaches almost always took place away from our home in Atlanta. Maybe it was because the reality of the silliness of what we were doing was too close to home for us. It occurs to me that we spent a lot of time on these outreaches inside and away from people. Don’t get me wrong, about 2 hours a day we spent in the streets singing, dancing, preaching, handing out tracts, and drawing pictures of how to become a Christian for the people who would just never understand without a diagram to help it all make sense. We would then spend the rest of our outreach days behind closed doors perfecting these outreach techniques by studying the bible, praying, worshipping God through music, and eating meals together with our outreach team.

Even in our attempt to “reach out” we somehow managed to stay focussed on self. Our outreaches, even when we weren’t cooped up inside with our face in a bible, were all about bringing more people into our Christian bubble, rather than actually reaching out to meet needs. It seems I was being taught that my faith was made stronger by having more people to back up my belief system. As a teenager, I was convinced that it was more important to persuade someone to believe what I believe, than it was to meet the needs of the poor, the homeless, the orphans, the widows, and the elderly. This is a tragedy, because it could not be further from the truth.

Over the last few years I have read some amazing books by authors who are shedding some light on some of these issues. Donald Miller, Erwin McManus, Rob Bell, and Rick McKinley are all men who have some fantastic insight into what the bible teaches about meeting the needs of the people around me. Yet sadly, and it’s hard to face the fact and admit, I haven’t fully grasped this concept of meeting the needs of those around me. If I did, then I would be doing something about it. I would be living it. But I’m not doing much of anything about it!

I mentioned before that the churches I grew up around in the USA had a strong emphasis on youth ministry. And now I have been living in the UK for over a year, and I can see that things aren’t much different here either. It’s all about young people. And although youth work is a noble cause and should continue, it occurs to me that there is a whole group of people who have, for the most part, been forgotten by the Christian church. The elderly. Many from this older generation are slowly losing their memories of a life once lived. Many of them are dying alone, and without purpose or meaning. They are simply fading away without even so much as a notice. And I am letting it happen. Shame on me.

I am realizing that must begin to make some changes. I cannot ignore the needs of the elderly any longer. I must begin to see this generation the way Christ sees them. They are lovable, and their story matters. I must love them and hear their story and let it impact me. I must help to breathe new life and bring hope, meaning, and purpose to their lives once again. And for those who are dying, I must help them to die well, with honour, dignity, and purpose. And the church needs to change. Helping young people get started on their journeys is important, but we cannot forget that it is just as important to help those who are at the end of their journeys to end well.

This Beautiful Mess

I’m 31 years old and I still contemplating the question, what am I supposed to do with my life? I still don’t have a clue what I want to be when I grow up. As a kid, my brothers and I were always making up games and pretending to be our favourite characters. Most of the time, we would pretend to be our favourite athlete or a character from our favourite TV program. MacGyver was my personal favourite, he was amazing! Who else could make a bomb out of Coke and Pop Rocks candy? At one point, I remember wanting to be a trash man when I grew up. I would fill a bucket with crumbled up paper and dump it on my bed over and over. I was a strange kid. If I wasn’t playing ‘trash man’ I was probably somewhere in the corner of the room playing by myself (no, not with myself, that was later!) and daydreaming about saving the world with my G.I. Joe and his trusty sidekick, Leo the lion. There is no doubt, that this was an awkward part of my life. As you can imagine, I didn’t always fit in.

Eventually, I grew out of that daydreaming phase and became a man… but not really. When I was 18 years old and fresh out of school, I got a really cushy job with a promising future at the Coca Cola Company at their headquarters in Atlanta. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hack sitting at a desk, in front of a computer, underneath the mind dulling glow of the florescent lighting. So, after a couple years I decided to quit this very secure employment to wait tables in a restaurant instead. Yes, I quit a job with this global giant so I could serve pizza to overly picky customers. I guess I figured this would give me more flexibility with my life, and more time to daydream about saving the world. One dream I had was to travel as a missionary to a remote village, somewhere in a foreign country that needed Jesus.

Then something happened that I didn’t expect. I was surprised to find that the people I worked with at the restaurant were broken people (like me) who needed Jesus (like me) just as much as the remote village in the foreign country. They didn’t need church membership, or a ‘Four Spiritual Laws’ tract, or the ‘six steps to becoming a Christian’ program. They just needed genuine friendship with someone who would show them Jesus rather than just tell them about Him. So I befriended this ragtag group of homosexuals and pagans (I was one of the few who worked at the restaurant who wasn’t gay and I didn’t follow their religion of paganism) without any strings attached. I decided that I just wanted to know them. We spent many hours in conversation over meals before and after our shifts discussing life, love, family, religion, politics, etc. I loved those guys. They were incredible people who showed me a lot about genuine love and friendship. In the end, they showed me a bit of Jesus.

I was never taught this type of Christianity in Sunday school, yet I continue to see Jesus in the ‘world’ around me, and it looks completely different than the Jesus I see within the walls of the church. Contrary to what I was taught, I am realising that the kingdom of God is not something I am supposed to build, or advance, or ‘take’ to the world around me. The kingdom of God is alive and well. It's happening whether or not I like it, and I need to jump in and be a part of it on a daily basis. It’s really quite simple.

It’s interesting that in my lifetime I have seen more of Jesus outside the walls of church than inside. It’s a strange paradox, and I suppose this is the root of why I struggle with religion; that I have seen more of Jesus in the dirty, broken, unwanted places of the world than I have in the clean, ‘polished’ church that seems to have it all together.

I was thinking the other day about my childhood and realised that not much has changed since those days of playing ‘rubbish collector’ and daydreaming about saving the world. I still want to be with the dirty, broken, and unwanted, and I still dream about saving the world. G.I. Joe and MacGyver were both pretty freakin’ awesome, but unfortunately I buried them along with the 80’s. The good news is that Jesus is alive and kicking, but He’s not where my Sunday school teacher told me He was. If we look for Jesus in the overlooked, that’s where we’ll find him. That’s also where we begin to make sense of this beautiful mess we call life.

“I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was homeless and you gave me a room, I was shivering and you gave me clothes, I was sick and you stopped to visit, I was in prison and you came to me… I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.” (Jesus, Matthew 25:35-40, The Message)

Cartoon

Couldn't resist this cartoon! Made me laugh out loud!

Alien Invasion

The other day we were arriving at the place where we worship on Sundays (boringwells.org, if you're interested in checking it out). Zoe was excited because she knew where we were. She loves seeing her friends and singing. In here excitement she exclaimed, "I see friends!" We answered, "Yes, Zoe. You are going to see your friends." Then she shouted, "Daddy, I singing! I singing Jesus!"

This caught me off guard, because to be honest I haven't been very intentional in teaching her about why we go to church, or why we sing songs while we're there. The truth is, she figured it out on her own. She is smarter than I give her credit for, and she proved this to me that afternoon. In my haste, I started to ask her if she knew why we sang songs to Jesus, but then I stopped myself. I looked at Reona and we both sort of smirked because we were both thinking the same thing. How in the world do we even begin to answer that question for an almost 3 year old?

We sing a bunch of different songs with Zoe. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Wheels on the Bus, anything from CBeebie's (the local children's TV network), and of course the all but famous spiritual song Jesus Loves Me. She loves to sing and often makes up her own little songs. Just last week we were walking out the front door to leave and she broke into a little ditty, something like "The sun is pretty. The sun falling down. The moon is falling down. Uh-oh, the sun and moon is sad..." I don't remember the rest but it was very cute, and just listening in is enough to make my heart melt.

There is something to music, isn't there? Whether or not we are using words like salvation and glory, or names like Jesus and Lord, there is something happening when we sing or even just listen to music. Over the years I have been to see many sexual (urr... I think he means secular)bands live. Coldplay, U2, Death Cab for Cutie, and Jump Little Children to name a few of my favorites. I have found myself in the midst of God's presence at almost all of these concerts. I believe that whether we know it or not, all sorts of music can invite us to worship our Creator. Lyrically, my favorite artists sing about all sorts of ideas, people, places, stories, love, life, and of course the list could go on. In a word, it's creation. And what better way to focus on the Creator? Of course, this is not across the board. Some of the content does not lead us in that direction, but that doesn't negate the content that does lead us to focus on God and worship Him.

A few weeks back I was having dinner with a friend. We were having what I like to think was a deep and philosophical conversation about church and worship. He said something quite random and funny. He wondered about life on other planets. What if there were aliens from another planet and they were intelligent enough to come to our planet and observe humans in worship to our God. Would they not think it quite strange to observe modern day Christians all sitting in the same room, pointing in one direction, hands raised, eyes closed or knees bowed, singing songs? In other words, what is the point? If I take a step outside of my bubble of church, religion, or whatever things I was taught in Sunday School, and asked myself 'what is the point?', would I actually have an answer?

I could do with an Alien Invasion in my life right now. I could use some extra terrestrial life form making it's way into my space, my little bubble, to watch and observe me singing songs in corporate worship to my God. This would be for me a mirror of sorts. I dare say it wouldn't be a pretty sight, because this form of worship has become just another religious act for me. If you know me at all, you know that I struggle with religion. I don't want it, I don't need it. I need encounters with a living God! I want to know the one I worship. I want to learn what it means to find God in the day to day and worship Him along the way. God is in the stroll through the park with my wife and daughter, as I bask in the glory of the creation around me. God is in the conversation I had with a man and his son who I met at the playground behind our house, Mohamed and Rashid. God is in the 24 hour grocery store at 12am when it's the last place I want to be. And even though I met a young man at the check out, and in a brief moment he showed me a need, I walked away and ignored that need because I was tired and wanted to go home to my bed. I missed the living God that night. I missed a chance to experience Him in true worship. As Don Miller would say, I missed the chance to... "treat that young man as though he was lovable, listen to him, hear his wound, and take Jesus to that wound."

I'm not throwing corporate worship out altogether. As I said before, there is something about connecting with God through music. However, I am struggling with this concept and what it means for me as a worship leader, and I'm asking tough questions. I'm not sure I like some of the answers. But God is bigger than me, He's bigger than my questions, and He is even bigger than the answers. He is going to cut through all of the b.s. and reveal Himself to me as long as I keep seeking Him out. God help me because I don't have a clue, and bring on the alien invasion!