I have three posts lined up to write and I can’t write any of them. It has been such a long and such a confusing day that there’s no room for anything else. Yesterday I wrote about crying with others, and today I was given the opportunity to practice what I preach.
There are days when I feel that my life is filled with the mundane tasks that serve no purpose, that ministry is what happens to other people. Not today. Today ministry was the gut-wrenching stuff of life. By the time I hit breakfast-turned-into-lunch at 3:00 PM, I was used up by three different situations involving many different people. David and I wandered into Jeremy’s Starbucks, and that’s when God gave us a smile.
I sat texting in my own world when my friend, Garry Williams, a missional pastor here in town, sat down opposite me and said “God brings good things into our lives. In all the dysfunctions of life, he reminds us of the big picture.” Then he prayed over David and me. He didn’t even know what kind of a day we’d had. He didn’t know that God was asking me to cry with so many different people in my life today. But he knew that God had taken a random meeting in a Third Place and given him a job to do. And he did it. The rest of the day wasn’t any different, but my heart was.
Thank you, Garry. I don’t think you read this, but thank you anyway.
It doesn’t take long sitting out there where life happens before you realize that the process of moving through this world can be painful. It rubs us raw. It’s hard enough to bleed when it is our own wound we are processing, but the commitment to community means we bleed when the wound is not our own. We’ll find ourselves crying when the pain is across the coffee cup. We read posts from the International Justice Mission and we feel anger over injuries that happen a world away. We read, we hear, we hurt.
Without that commitment to carry each other’s burdens, true community can never grow. In fact, I believe that commitment has to be in place even before the weepers have noticed our arms around them. It is a decision made in times of joy to stand with one another in times of pain.
Life is pretty good. Whether I am sitting on my back porch or skimming across the water on the lake, life looks pretty good from my spot. But I know the tears are coming, and it’s my duty and joy to help share them. I need to share them with the people I meet out in the community, or even the people I’ve never met and never will. I share them because by HIS stripes, I was healed. Healing comes through community.
I know this is not my usual post, and not my usual thought process. But this week I’ve realized that some of the pain in my heart isn’t even my own: it is the load I’m hoping to help carry in whatever small way I can. I don’t know if I’m always willing to pick up that load. And yet I know it is the very essence of the kingdom. Load carrying.
And so I am left asking this question:can I cry other people’s tears?
I reprinted this recent entry from my church’s “Stories” newsletter. I was touched by John’s thoughtfulness in dealing with Ross. John was one of the Christ Fellowship Pastors who went to Q with us last April. This story is such a great picture of living out the life of Jesus in the kingdom one life at a time. You can read the original article here, along with a few other Christ Fellowship stories.
Ross prays for you when he goes to sleep at night – in his own bed, under a sturdy roof, in his sister’s apartment 15 miles outside St. Louis. Thanks to hearts beating with the love of Jesus Christ, hearts right here at Christ Fellowship, he’s home with people who love him and had been trying to find him. For years.
Not long ago, Ross’s home was a 6-by-6-foot dome tent in the woods south of Okeechobee Boulevard in downtown West Palm Beach. He shared the tiny space with another homeless guy, but they could only go there after dark, so they wouldn’t get caught by the police. They had to sleep in their clothes, because you never knew when somebody might show up looking for a fight.
During the day, Ross traveled between places where he could get a free shower, coffee, a doughnut – or city parks and the library where he could find shade or air conditioning. Then one afternoon, he came for one of the meals that Christ Fellowship is helping provide to the homeless in partnership with First Presbyterian. He happened to sit down across the table from CityPlace Campus Pastor John Poitevent.
“We started talking about things,” Ross says, and soon the subject of family came up. It had been seven or eight years since Ross had talked with his sister Anne. Though he missed her, he had no idea how to find her after so long.
But John did. He copied down all the information Ross had – Anne’s work history, maiden name, married names – and went online. A computer search led him to a nurse’s association in Missouri, and that led him to Anne.
She was thrilled. Anne and another brother had been trying for years to find Ross. “I was just overjoyed to know he was all right,” she says.
Conversation, and then an invitation
John arranged for Ross and Anne to talk, and Anne eventually suggested her brother come home to the St. Louis area. That’s when things started to happen. Fast.
Someone from a Christ Fellowship Small Group donated frequent flyer miles to cover his airfare. Someone else provided a duffle bag with toiletries, and others gave money for Ross to get some new clothes. Only a few days after they’d met, Pastor John and a small group of people from the CityPlace Campus put Ross on a 5 p.m. flight to St. Louis.
It was a terrible flight, Ross recalls, made worse by his worries about how he’d be received after so long. As it turned out, “everybody’s been wonderful to me,” he says now. “It’s been just like I never left.”
At last, a paycheck
And Ross, who hasn’t been able to work for more than a year because of a painful skin condition, now has a job in a warehouse.
“I drew my first paycheck when I was 13 years old,” says Ross, now 53. “That year I didn’t work was the first year since then that I didn’t make any money. I was so depressed. Now I’ve opened a bank account, I bought a bicycle, and I have practically everything I need.”
“Ross has done really well since he’s gotten home,” says Anne. “He’s a hard worker, and he’s getting back on his feet.” She really wants the people of Christ Fellowship to hear her when she thanks them for helping her brother. “Ross would still be out there lost,” she says. “Now he’s safe at home.”
Pastor John puts it this way: “Our investment in his life renewed his hope that God has a plan for his life, which gives him the faith to make the right choices. When you don’t think that God has a purpose and a plan for you, why not sleep in a tent in the woods?”
A gift from God
Ross knows it has all been a gift from God – finding his family, getting a job, having a home. “To make it come together so fast, so complete, it just couldn’t be anything but a miracle,” he says. “It has to be His work.”
He thinks often of the people at Christ Fellowship. “I go to sleep and I pray for their safety and their well-being,” Ross says. “I hope God keeps working through them, because He actually used them to fulfill His wishes for me.
“I have a whole new attitude on life. I love getting up in the morning and going to work. I’m just so thankful to have what I have.” Then Ross gets quiet, and a tiny bit of emotion creeps in, thinking how so many people don’t even have the basics – “people I know and love there in West Palm who are still on the streets.”
Ross doesn’t have to say it for you to take his meaning: Please don’t forget my friends, who still need homes, and food, and love.
This is Miles Strodel. He is the father of my best friend since kindergarten (or third grade if you ask her), Donna Strodel Aldridge. Miles was like a second father to me, and the legacy he left behind when he passed away June 27th will live in my heart forever. Today, I heard people describe him at his memorial service: joyful, full of integrity, an environmentalist before there was such a thing, crazy, a coach, a father. All of these words rang so true to me. Perhaps my pastor of my youth, Gordon MacDonald, summed it up best. Miles’ life FIT. It all fit together. Whether you knew him as a coach, a camper, a father, a school headmaster, he was the same man. He lived with principles and integrity, and he lived a clean life. The pieces of his life…FIT.
That’s what I want people to say about me. I want to be known as a woman who was on a consistent race to show God’s kingdom. I don’t want there to be any hidden corners where light can’t shine, or inconsistencies in words or actions. It’s a tall order, but really is there any other way to live? I saw a legacy today. I saw how one man, living his own life consistently and with integrity, can change the world.
What do you want people to say about you?
As an aside, I also got to spend time today with some of my oldest and dearest friends. OK…no, we aren’t OLD. But these friends are so dear. As one of my high school buddies, Dick, said, it seems like no time has gone by at all. We have all shared the bond of growing through this world with faith in the ultimate outcome and joy in the journey. We were able to walk into our old church and pick up as if this crazy life in between had never happened. And we all agreed: that’s what Heaven will be like! What an amazing plan.
When you get bloggers together this conversation usually happens. “Who do you read?” It’s kind of like peeking into your best friend’s bookshelf to see what books are hanging out there. So today I thought I’d just give you some links to the blogs I tend to read every day. These are the ones that I always click on if my Google reader tells me there’s something new.
These are mainly the “church and culture” blogs in my list. Next week I’ll post some of my “just for fun” blogs. I know this is kind of a blah post, but have fun exploring some of my favorites and I’ll be around later!
It was a dark and stormy night. It really was, and I’ve been waiting for years to write that line! So it was a dark and stormy night and we were flying in the turbulence over New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts again, back to New Hampshire. Our plane last night flew in an up and down and side to side holding pattern all over New England. It was then, on our second to last tour of the Northeast, that I was blessing my coffee cupping experience at Jeremy’s Starbucks. I do believe Jeremy saved my life — or at least my dignity.
You see, just before we walked out the door to the airport (after a seven hour delay!), I spied the little sample coffee bags of the beans we had tasted at the coffee cupping yesterday. Jeremy had given David and me the Arabian Mocha and the Gazebo blends to take home. Thinking that the beans could save me from having to run into Starbucks first thing in the morning up here, I threw them in my carry on. That’s what saved me.
The little boy across the aisle did not agree with our holding pattern. His stomach rebelled. And then my nose rebelled. And then my stomach began a little dance.
I reached for my carry on to get the little travel blanket I keep there, thinking to cover my nose. That’s when it hit me…the sweet, complex and oh-so-heavenly aroma of Jeremy’s beans. It permeated through my carry on, it seeped into my blanket. It floated out like a whisper of Eden itself. David and I both dived for the bag and opened the little bags of beans, the better to smell them. We remained happily sniffing until the plane pulled up to the taxi way. What comfort. What joy. What salvation!
So file this under travel tips or coffee tips: the aroma of coffee can mask unpleasant travel odors and soothe an upset brain and tummy at the same time.
And just because my brain works this way, let your worship and praise also be a fragrant offering to the king of kings, pleasant to smell and worthy of his amazing grace.
The year 2008 may go down in history as the year of television reruns. First we had the writer’s strike which forced us all to readjust our viewing habits. As soon as the strike was over it seemed we were into the summer siesta season with a choice between B-grade new shows or reruns of our favorites. And now there are rumors of an actor’s strike putting fear into all of our television-viewing hearts. With all of that, it sometimes seems as if there’s nothing new under the sun. Perhaps King Solomon was prophesying television when he wrote that in Ecclesiastes!
Some reruns stand the test of time: great moments in television history are lodged in our collective brains and pop out at odd times. You know what I mean! If I say “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha” we all picture Jan Brady. Say the words “Lucy and Ethel” and a host of sights and sounds flood our minds, including the lame remake of their show they attempted years later. Whole seasons of Seinfeld have become quotable conversation in everyday life. Current shows have a new life as reruns, too. For instance, let us take a moment to ponder the many classic episodes of The Office available for our quoting and viewing pleasure! I have never looked at a George Foreman Grill the same again.
Although reruns can entertain us, provide us with quotable moments and offer an odd sense of stability in a swiftly changing world, we also long for new territory. We want to meet new characters, hear new dialogues, see a plot line move forward. That’s why cliff hangers work so well at the end of a season. “Please, Jim, take the ring back out of your pocket!!!!” We are wired for the excitement and thrill of a new episode. Erwin McManus, in his new book Wide Awake, recently talked about getting stuck in “reruns” in our lives. We stop dreaming and begin living in the same patterns over and over.
Many of us need reinvented lives. We are living a rerun, and we need fresh stories, maybe some new characters to enter our story. When you get up in the morning, maybe you feel that your life is just a show waiting to be canceled, an endless rerun with worn-out story lines and superficial characters.
If you’re going to engage in a journey with God, if you are going to follow the God who created you, if you’re going to explore mysterious, dangerous, unknown, uncertain places — then you nee to know how to reinvent yourself. You have to learn how to adapt.
Those words caused me to stop and think about the reruns in my life, both literal and metaphorical. Ask yourself a few questions today as you think about your own adventure in the kingdom.
Am I stuck in a comfortable episode with a known outcome? Is this just a short summer break or a lifetime habit?
Is God planting a new storyline in my life? Do I feel a tug to a greater adventure growing inside?
Has God, perhaps, been sending you script after script while you download past seasons off iTunes?
What about your church: churches as individuals and the church as a whole can also get stuck in reruns. Are you relying on what worked in the past, when a new generation is seeking a plotline worthy of their lifetime devotion?
Does the community around you view you as a culture-influencer, or just a guardian of the sacred reruns?
Are you awake?
This post is part of Watercooler Wednesday at Randy Elrod’s place. Enjoy your Wednesday, everyone! David and I are flying back to Boston for a family funeral and — oddly — a friend’s restaurant opening. And maybe a little tie on the lake!
When you are in the presence of a true master of their craft, you know it. I’ve experienced that with decorators who can picture a room in a totally new way in minutes. Or doctors who can diagnose what stumps others. This afternoon I got to experience that with our friend Jeremy, who is a barista at our Starbucks. He led us neophytes in our first coffee cupping experience.
We gathered in Jeremy’s store in the middle of the afternoon. Joining me in the experience were David, my friend Robin and David Helbig, the internet pastor at our church. Jeremy had the table laid out with four African coffees: Sidamo, Kenyan, Gazebo Blend and Arabian Mocha Sanani.
First we smelled both whole beans and ground coffees. We tried to pretend that we knew what we were sniffing for, but it all smelled like good coffee to me. The Arabian Mocha looked different and smelled more intense.
Next Jeremy poured boiling water over each set of ground coffees. We waited for two minutes for the grounds to form a crust. During this time the aromas were bubbling up and we began to attract curious bystanders. At the end of two minutes we broke the crust with a spoon, then passed the coffees around to smell now. Heavenly. The coffees also began to smell different from each other at this stage. Kenyan — my normal favorite — had the best aroma in my opinion. We all had different opinions.
Now it was time to begin sampling the coffees. The procedure was simple: dip a teaspoon into the coffee, slurp the coffee and let it roll around your tongue. Do not swallow the coffee unless you are interested in a mouth full of grounds. We spit the coffee out into cups and evaluated the characteristics of each coffee. In general Jeremy asked us questions about what flavors we experienced (yes, that one is floral! Who knew?), the feel in our mouths, or how bitter or sweet or salty each blend was.
I am not a black coffee drinker. I’ve only recently been able to reduce my sugar. But somehow I was able to taste these coffees and begin to pick out differences. The Sidamo was the least bitter. The Arabian Mocha, which is an unwashed coffee, was the most intense and very fruity. Kenyan, my favorite brewed coffee, seemed almost sour in this form. The Gazebo blend had lots of flavors in it — I guess you would call that complex — but didn’t appeal to me as a drink. In addition, some coffees lingered on our tastebuds longer than others, the champ being my Kenyan.
All too soon we’d tasted and slurped our way through all the stages of the cupping, and had all formed opinions on our favorite blends. Jeremy spent a few minutes explaining coffee origins, fair trade, and the differences in regions. At the end we felt more knowledgeable and perhaps a little sophisticated. Robin and I were proud of our feat in sampling black coffee. We had to stifle a giggle or two at times, like when a miscellaneous customer mistook our cupping for a free sampling, and took a swig of coffee that had formed a nice crust of grounds. Jeremy gave us all coffee passports and stickers of all the sampled coffees, and off we went, a little more caffeinated!
This is a guest post from my friend, John Scott, a youth pastor in north Florida. I felt like this story about the weekend he and his wife spent with a group of musicians was a perfect example of living a tangible faith in the community. I first met John at Q, and have enjoyed getting to know him online through his blog ever since.
This weekend, I found myself surrounded by an entourage of guys that I’ll never forget. And for a few near-concussed moments of my life, I was the unofficial bouncer for 2 metal bands from Massachussetts.
The near concussion came at the hands of Hurricane Bertha. Her waves she sent to the NE Florida Atlantic Coast were over 10 feet tall at points…and they had no mercy on me. While boogie boarding last Friday, she sent me nosediving 5.5 feet underwater into the sand, jarring my neck and opening a wide scrape on my forehead. I jumped out of the water once I realized I wasn’t badly injured… leaving a trail of blood in the water..
So about those 9 guys from Worcester, MA…..
Rachel was making her second visit to Starbucks last Thursday….The $2 coupons from Starbucks are yet another marvel. If you purchase Starbucks before lunch, there’s a $2 coupon for the same day only that entices you to return in the afternoon. So, there she was, making her second (I hope) stop for caffeination, and she noticed 9 tatted up young guys in their late teens/early 20’s. After some questions, she found out that they were 2 bands from MA that were on day 12 of their 21 day EastCoast road trip. Funds were getting tighter, and they had spent the night before in their van, with some guys even sleeping on the WalMart parking lot (not a typo…they slept on the pavement). Her mother hen-ness took over, and she offered that they could sleep at our house if they needed a place. Sure enough, later that night, after they played a show a couple hours down the road, they called asking if the offer was still good.
They showed up at 3a.m. Friday morning. We fed the guys, put them up on couches, beds, and air matresses. The next day, they slept til 1 p.m. to awaken to the smell of french toast, eggs, and sausage. 3 p.m. rolled around, everyone was cleaning up and stirring, and at that moment, realizing their next show wasn’t til Saturday night, we told them it was laundry time and they could spend a second night. Rachel tackled the laundry task and gave me the mission of showing the guys around our city.
That led us to head out to take on Bertha…which was awesome. The guys loved the waves and hangin at the beach. After my incident, we headed down A1A to see the St. Augustine Lighthouse, which Kyle from one of the bands had seen on his favorite episode of Ghost Hunters. From there, we hit George Street in Historic St. Augustine. That was the point where I had that ‘Entourage’ moment. Cue the ‘Entourage’ music. And yeah, I think I was a little woozy from the knock on the head, cause I think I was way cooler than normal.
The rest of the wknd was just plain awesome. We took some sweet pics (below) and really had some good conversations. None of the guys really talked about church much, which in many ways was a relief. They knew Rachel and I were 13th year church youth workers and they had a few questions about what we do.
If I learned anything of value to other leaders, it’s this….. if the church is to reclaim this generation of 20 somethings, it will be through missional projects that show our love for those less fortunate than us. These 9 guys weren’t that impressed with numbers, groups, even quality of our stuff that we’ve worked so hard to perfect….. it was the missions-both local and beyond -that peaked their interest.
So keep being missional I guess. Be instant in season and out. Take that extra trip to balance your caffeination equation. Offer that helping hand when the spirit leads. These rare moments put you- God’s finest- right where He wants you. And ultimately, where He wants Himself.
