Yuletide Sweat-Socks

From the January Newsletter:

To everyone who helped us this Christmas, we say thank you. We were honestly overwhelmed by the outpouring of donations. When we set out to provide Christmas stockings for the kids at the local Boys and Girls Club, our goal was to raise five-hundred dollars. That amount would provide a respectable stocking for fifty or so kids. When all was said and done, we raised over one-thousand dollars for this project. For us, that meant three things. First, it meant that we could upgrade the stockings themselves. Instead of the classic, sad stocking with a moldy orange and a fractured candy-cane stuffed way down in the toe, we were able to stuff these Yule-tide sweat-socks with items that children might actually enjoy. In short, we stuffed them full of candy and other goodies, and then threw in a toothbrush to ease our guilt.

Second, it meant that we could assist some families who had recently fallen on hard times. These families were in crisis, and were it not for an abundance of generosity, we may not have been able to help. We consider these folks our friends, and we sincerely thank you for helping to make their Christmas a whole lot merrier.

And thirdly, the huge response means for us that people have our back. It lets us know that we are not the only ones who care, and that our ministry is not dependent on our own resourcefulness. It means that there are people with whom we share the load. Honestly, when we initially asked for five-hundred big ones at Christmas time, I was a bit pessimistic. Please accept my apology for underestimating you, and feel free to keep surprising me.

a couple of things...

Question: How do you get four-hundred people together on a Thursday night, many of whom represent diverse economic and social backgrounds? Answer: Smoke a turkey. On Thursday November 18th, that’s just what we did. Actually, we smoked five of them. This was our fourth year participating in the EastSide Community Thanksgiving Dinner. Thanks to the neighborhood churches, and a lot of help from Foster Street Wesleyan Church, we all had a memorable evening together. A special thank you goes out to Juan Stimpson who stayed up all night smoking turkeys and hams. Thanks to you Juan, I can never eat a baked turkey again.


On a somewhat/completely unrelated note, I need you to help me pray about something. Lately I’ve felt a little out of position. God has called me to pastor and preach, and those are two things I don’t always get to do a lot of. Don’t get me wrong, I feel deeply honored to be working with the people that God has called me to. I’m just not sure if I’m relating to them in the right capacity. As the leader of a community organization, I’m looked to mostly as a provider of resources. At times, I spend the bulk of my energy planning events and raising funds. Some of you who know me are probably frightened at the thought of me planning events. I share your trepidation. As a community organizer with a pastors heart, I feel like I’m offering every solution but the one I know will work. Ultimately, we pray for God’s will to be done, whatever that looks like. Will you help us pray?

The Cure of Souls

What the heck does a pastor do anyway? What does your pastor do? What's his/her job description? The truth is, most of don't know what a pastor does, or is supposed to do. The tougher truth is that there are a few of us who don't think they do much of anything, at least until Sunday rolls around. I grew up as a pastors kid, and can vividly remember the night I told my dad to get a job. Dang. Sorry dad. Of course, I have since learned the hard way that a true pastor carries a tremendous spiritual burden, and there is no clocking out. Even so, the job of pastor remains one of the most ambiguous career paths available. I think us pastors are just as confused about it as the lay folk. I personally have been through seven years of schooling, and have served as a full time minister for more than six years and I'm still not totally clear about what exactly I'm supposed to be doing.

For some clarity on the issue, I recently looked back at the original job description of the parish Priest. The ancient term used to describe the role of the Priest is "the cure of souls." It included five things.....Preaching the Word, giving the sacraments, giving Godly counsel, visiting the sick, and embracing the poor. That's it! Now, if you look at most job descriptions put out by present day pastoral search committees, you're bound to see something totally different. Outside of preaching the Word, nary a one of those five will have made the list. Instead you'll see things like "dynamic leadership",and " ability to take our church to the next level". Hence our conundrum, and thus our current identity crisis. For better or worse, we pastors have become significantly divorced from our original model. Strategizing and motivating are not the same as curing souls. And for the record, dynamic communication is not the really the same as preaching the Word. It's probably obvious, but the calling to cure souls resonates deeply with me. Fasting and praying for the flock is certainly not a glamorous usage of time, but the old saints understood that someone had to do it. Visiting the sick/poor, and offering communion is not bound to produce visible results, but that's what makes them sacred. To put it in Eugene Petersons words, pastors have been "lashed to the mast of Word and sacrament", whether we like it or not. Your thoughts? More on this next week.

Son sit still ( a tribute to Big E )

Our son Ellis turns one today. Here's a little homage to the youngin we affectionately refer to as Big E.

Here's to you Ellis, on your first birthday. Here's to twenty-five pounds of perpetual motion. Here's to being born a month early, but living as though you were born a month late and had time to make up for. Here's to turning every diaper change into a wrestling match with no clear winner. Here's to adopting the motto: why stop and smell the roses when it's much quicker to just eat them? Here's to looking like me but being more boy than I ever was.

We love you son. Your mommy and I are so glad you were born. I'm pretty sure your sister feels the same way, even though you have pulled more hair from her head than you have grown on your own. We love you even though you're one year old, and we have yet to rock you to sleep a single time. You like to move. You have places to go. We get it. Anyway, you're a precious little boy, and your smile is absolutely priceless. Happy birthday buddy!

How Do You Respond?

Poverty surrounds us. I mean all of us. None of us are so insulated that we are spared at least occasional contact with the broken. We know, of course, that poverty is not merely a physical issue. I would suggest that it’s not even primarily a physical issue. Poverty is all too often a complex network of brokenness that starts at the center and works its’ way out to the surface. Since we all see it, we may find it helpful to ask….how should we respond to it? Well, there are tons of wrong ways to respond. Denying, avoiding, and blaming would be a few. I’m learning though that there may be as many right responses as there are wrong ones.

When Bill Gates saw it, his response was to start a foundation. Through his charitable efforts, an inconceivable amount of money has been pumped into the poorest of poor communities. And he has raised as much awareness as he has money. A long, long time before Bill Gates was conscience- stricken by the presence of poverty, St. Francis had his heart stirred by the sight of beggars. His response? He stripped stark naked and ran into the woods. He gave away his possessions, spent the bulk of his time in prayer, and preached the Good News to the poor.

Here we see one issue provoke two profoundly diverse responses. Who was right? I think they both were. The contrast between them can be at least partially explained by their gifts. Bill Gates was given a keen intellect and a resilient drive. His response was measured. It was practical. St. Francis was given a sanctified imagination and a high tolerance for embarrassment. His reaction was absurd. Then again, so was the inequality he was faced with.

When you see poverty, how do you answer? Do you run to the bank or to the woods? Do you come up with a plan, or do you get down on your face? I guess the important thing is that we all do something. The world could sure use more conscientious entrepreneurs. LORD knows we could use a lot more naked saints.

not alone

When I was younger, I rarely had occasion to be home alone. If my folks were both out of pocket, they generally left Matt and I in the fairly capable hands of our older brother Kris. But I do vividly recall one exception. Mom and dad were going to pick up Matt from camp, and Kris was working. I was only ten or eleven, but I begged mom and dad to let me stay home so I could watch Jaws. That's correct. Eventually they relented. They pulled out of the driveway. I was by myself, and excited for it. I cut on the TV, adjusted the rabbit ears and watched with rapt attention as a mammoth man-eater stalked his prey. Here's the deal with Jaws....Jaws is scary if you're actually in the ocean. I was easily a hundred miles from the nearest respectable body of water. But I was scared out of my mind. I don't know if it was the ominous music or the phantom dorsal fin that kept poking through the fuzzy lines on my television screen. Anyway, the reality of my aloneness hit me hard. The house felt quiet and empty. My family would return in a matter of hours, but I seriously felt like I would be alone for the rest of eternity. In my panic I did what any self-respecting youngster would do. I intentionally locked myself out of my house and asked my neighbors if I could watch Star Trek with them until my people returned. They obliged and I didn't feel alone anymore.

That's one story about one time that I felt alone.It's not the only story. Honestly, feeling alone has been sort of a recurring theme in my life. I haven't always felt alone, but there have been times when I have felt utterly so. Many well-intentioned people have counseled me to remember that God is there in spite of my lonely feelings. That doesn't really help. What did help was the revelation that God isn't just there in spite of my loneliness. He is in my loneliness. Actually, without getting too mystical about it, I have learned that God is my loneliness. He has placed within his children a deep, deep longing for him. It's a longing that God made but refuses to fill, even with himself. It is this longing that draws us slowly but surely to the heart of our Creator. We were created in his image. I take that to mean that there is a little piece of God at the center of us all. So my hunger for intimacy, and my yearning for security is nothing more than the action of God searching for himself. The truth that I am not alone is displayed by my loneliness. If I were truly alone, I would never feel lonely.


"Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there."

The Nantahala

Last weekend, we went rafting. Actually, we went camping and rafting. We thought it would be fun to take some of our middle school boys into the woods for a couple of days. There were eleven of us total. We left Friday, and headed up to the Nantahala, where we camped Friday night. We had in mind a sort-of return to nature. Or in some cases an initial introduction. Thus we confiscated all personal gaming devices and mp3 players. Fortunately, the inevitable protests that ensued were not the highlight of the weekend.

We spent the evening by the fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and told really bad ghost stories. Saturday, the much awaited rafting commenced. As with every trip down the river, ours was a mixture of the good and the bad. First, the bad….The water was COLD. Dae Dae fell in. Tre got thrown in. We nearly knocked an old man out of his kayak. Our guide was a young lady who had lived in a tent all summer and was covered with a lethal combination of tattoos and dreadlocks.

Now the good….The sky was beautiful. The sun was shining. Everybody laughed a lot. And finally, our guide was a young lady who had lived in a tent all summer and was covered with a lethal combination of tattoos and dreadlocks. Thank you LORD for your amazing creation and the unique way you meet us there. You didn’t have to but you did.