shall we gather at the river?

It's not often that you find within yourself a hint of that which you are fighting so strongly against. When you do, it causes you to shudder, to cue a splatter-flick scream, to grab a razor blade and cut the tell-tale heart from your body...or it simply causes you to chuckle that you aren't perfect, but are learning. The latter happened to me this weekend as I attended a party thrown by some friends from church. I was playing ball with their son, going out on paddle boats, eating, etc., when suddenly someone yells 'there's gonna be a baptism!' Now, of course, having endured the brunt of many jokes involving 'baptism' and large pools of water in my childhood, I assumed it was a joke. The smirk on my pastor-friend's face, however, told me otherwise. Instantly, the flesh inside me began to squirm. It's as if a switch were turned on in my mind - I began to rationalize every excuse not to go over to the water. My mind screamed at me that THIS WAS WRONG. Baptisms are to be done in church, right? Just who did my friend think he was, interrupting a good party to baptize someone? And then squirm number two occured. It was not only a 'someone', but two someones: my friends who were hosting the party! These were two upstanding, committed members of the church. They had been active church-going Christians for a long time. Why? What possessed them to do this now, on a RIVER of all places? Why not in a baptismal, in front of 'church people', like a 10 year old boy had done the night before (which, I was to discover later, was the motivation for my friends to finally make the decision in the first place)? Then I felt another feeling:

Shut up.

What?

SHUT UP!

"...and as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the
eunuch said, 'See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?' And he
commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip
and the eunuch, and he baptized him." Acts 8:36, 38

Yeah, that's from the Bible, not my head, just in case you were wondering...however, it did pop into my head as these objections were springing up in me. All of the tradition and bias and 'religious thinking' that was influencing me...it just melted away in the light of Truth. This is church - people gathering to celebrate the greatness of God. Not the singing and order of service and proclamation of the Word we call 'worship' (although those are all expressions of and fruit produced by worship), church is people sitting at the feet of God and soaking up His wonder - even if it is at the mouth of a river.

glory AND fire

So, this Charlie Hall song I listened to before my missions experiences this summer referenced santification by glory and by fire. I am slowly learning what this means - and it is one of the most painful and yet joyful experiences in the world (no, I have not converted to sadism - keep reading). This week I am working with a church (not my regular assignment) that I have little desire to work with. Through a variety of complicated circumstances, my missions partner and I have committed to working with a pastor to reach his community. We are over our heads. This pastor has family troubles, the church is dying, and the area is intimidating. We, no... I, am struggling every step of the way with a desire to quit - not because the job is hard, but because this church is not traveling in the direction that I want to place my efforts. Their passion is to grow their church (by this I mean keep their church alive), at the expense of seemingly-open doors if need be. My passion, on the other hand, is to challenge the status quo and reach people even IF it requires mixing things up. Yet I myself question both these passions as secondary, and perhaps even incorrect. My passion must be Christ - His name being echoed in every corner of the earth. I must serve this pastor even if it hurts. That is what glory and fire means. Some days I will be dancing before God in exuberant awe, and some days I will be writhing in pain. I think we too often focus on one or the other: seeing God either only when things are going well and we want to 'get our praise on' as some gospel singers like to put it, or thinking we must run this gauntlet of purgatory to become like Christ. Instead, we must see both as ingredients in a larger plan - our santification for God's renown. God has given me a trial this week to honor Him through, and He has given me reasons to praise Him for limitless grace and love shown to me in a thousand places. This is proof that love hurts - but what a sweet Love it is.

re connections

I just got off the phone with a good friend of mine from back home. We had a wonderful conversation. I guess that's been an interesting product of my stay on the mission field long term - seeing the growth and change in my friends lives from a disconnected perspective. I have to talk to them without ever seeing them, ever taking them out to lunch or staying up late and watching a movie together. It's almost like life, distilled. How do you relate to someone who isn't living life with you everything that's been going on? Words can't describe where I've been, what I've felt, or what I've done - which brings me to the conclusion at hand.

This is going to be an interesting homecoming.

Seriously, if I've realized one thing more than anything else this summer, it's that when I said goodbye to my friends before leaving for Maryland, I was saying goodbye to them for good - because in a way, they're dead. My friends as I once knew them are dead. This summer has changed those I once knew so much: maturing many, humbling some, changing all. And the scary thing is, I'm not immune. I am as much a changed man as any of them are. My experiences on mission have made me more retless than ever, but are slowly building in me a love for people, and not just change. I am realizing that I am not a fluke - God made me to speak, to serve, to lead and to support. Do you get that!?! God really does have a purpose for me! It' s like putting together a 5000 piece puzzle, and finally getting the border right - you don't know the picture yet, but you have a shape, some color, and a direction. God's direction is a beautiful thing.

tears for pasadena?

I recently recieved an update from a friend who is serving God somewhere in Asia, and it floored me. It floored me becuase she was so passionate about the people she was ministering to, so passionate about the fact that they were lost. She said she cried for them. No, more than that...she begged God for them INDIVIDUALLY, as if each one of them broke her heart. How close to the heart of God this is!

Now, my predicament is that I am not burdened for the people I am serving in Maryland. Not that I don't care about them, but there is a difference between caring about people and the compassion God has for them. My prayer is that God would break His people for those who would become His people. That means me mourning the fact that Pasadena is mostly lost. That means you overcoming the fear of talking to your neighbor about Christ. That means Christians actually taking the mind of Christ each and every day, seeing a lost world, and "having compassion on them, for they [are] like sheep without a shepard."

What a difference this would have on the world, if Christians would be burdened for the lost! We are the priests the prophet Joel spoke of when he wrote:

"'Even now', declares the Lord, 'return t0 me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' Rend your heart and not your garments...Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, 'Spare your people, O Lord.'" -Joel 2:12-13, 15-17

the task is so big and yet so small

I'm currently recovering from a rollar coaster of emotions centering around God's amazing and immeasurable task of taking the gospel to all nations and peoples. Our story begins a month ago, when I was riding up a mountain in Wiwili, Nicaragua. As I rode up the mountain in an old pickup truck, I felt a sense of awe and wonder at the vastness of God's creation. We'd see houses on top of mountains, and our missionary leader would tell us "Someone's gotta go there. They need to know." That's passion for the lost. And his passion was contagious, for before long I, too, was seeing the task as something bigger than I had ever imagined, but also as something doable, especially with awesome workers like Loren and Karen Dickey and Adam Elliot. That emotion snowballed up through the rest of my break and into Maryland, until yesterday. Yesterday, I travelled to Baltimore. There, amongst the harbor and all the tourist attractions, I was crushed by the shear amount of people there - and the fact that a good portion of them are lost. How do we reach them? I don't even work in Baltimore; I work in Pasadena! And even there, it looks as though our efforts are barely making a dent for the kingdom. Despair and depression set in (believe me, it's nasty stuff!). But today, God reminded me that He is still soverign, and that YES, the task is bigger than we can comprehend, but it is smaller than He, and that is what matters. Today, I got to know Jenny, the family life director at New Hope Community Church. Jenny is amazing. She just got back from a mission trip to Indonesia, and is currently attending seminary. As we all talked about God's vision to see us go out, I also remembered a sermon I've been studying by louie Giglio on the Unthinkable Endeavor (missions). God IS glorious, and His purposes WILL be accomplished. We just have to wait and see, and be amazed (Habakkuk 1:5) - for God IS doing something that I can't grasp yet. But that's okay. Really.

perhaps a point is a line after all

After discussing this small group idea with various people, I have come to a few conclusions:

1. People are still afraid of change. People like the way things are, even if other ways could be more effective in reaching people for Christ.

2. Christ does not operate by ideas or models, even this "small group" model. There is no one way of starting a church or reaching people for Christ. Therefore, there must be a greater foundation. This foundation is Christ, and His Word. We must always hold what we do to the standard of Christ.

3. God has and does use methods of reaching people even as He changes them. Would anyone argue that no one was worshipping God in the Catholic church at the time of the Reformation? We must trust that even as God transforms His people, He still uses us.

So, these happen to be my conclusions. My friend and I spoke on this subject a few days ago, and I wonder something. First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, FL, has roughly 26,000 members. They reach many people for Christ each year through a huge televised worship service each Sunday, a 7-block church complex, and various programs for people. However, what would happen if they shattered this paradigm and split their membership up into groups of 10 people? Each group would be responsible for reaching the 20 or so houses around where they meet for worship and community. That's 2,600 houses scattered throughout Jacksonville, reaching out to the community. And that's one church. Just a thought, that perhaps this new church planting movement, that stresses reaching people and personal discipleship, missions and love, flexibility and grace, is not a point (another idea floating around amongst a myriad of programs, models, and ideas) but a line, a call to return to a church with a mission. This line intersects the line of the new "emergent church", the line of the modern missions movement, the line of authentic worship, and the line of theology available to the masses, and creates a movement that only God could have authored.

!viva la revolution!

I have learned from Yoda today. No, really. Yoda is a 5'5'' member of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary's faculty named Randy Milwood, and he is amazing (and really, he looks like Yoda). Today, with my pastor, I attended a round-table discussion of small groups as the direction that the church needs to go. I felt like I was among giants. Having just come from a two-day prayer conference for new church plants in Baltimore, I was so excited to sit and listen to a bunch of church planters, pastors, and missionaries speak their heart on the condition of the modern church and how things need to be changed. Small groups are a philosophy stemming from the NT church where they "met in their homes, and broke bread together", putting emphasis on the community of God's people over corperate worship. This is revolutionary! This destroys years upon years of programs, Sunday School promotions, and evangelism training sessions, favoring relational evangelism and living in community with each other over meetings and sessions. The church I'm at now has 3 real leadership meetings a YEAR. Yet they are fostering new believers who are excited about learning about God and teaching others, in an amazing way. All this, while in the south I see churches having to press for more people through Sunday school promotions and leadership training courses. I'm not saying I haven't seen peoples lives changed through these church programs, but I'm beginning to question the validity of them. Why is it hard to get people who have gone to church their entire lives to reach out with the joy they supposedly have in Christ, while people who are slowly coming to Christ, with no religous background whatsoever, can be so passionate about living by Christ's example? Have we in the Bible belt forgotten how it feels to be lost so much that we have placed an immense gap between ourselves and the lost guy across the street? I don't know what this philosophy means for mega-churches (where I'm working at now, that means 300+), but I think that it will have drastic rammifications as churches, even in the Bible belt, realize that they are more and more simply creating clones, devoid of true passion and approachablilty, caring more about their own posessions and position in life than about their lost friends coming to Christ. Hmm...clones? A mega-church empire? Rebellion? Not as far from Yoda as I thought...

small group, big power

I just left a small group, my first with New Hope Community Church, and it was amazing. Not amazing because of worship or feeling or deepness of theology, but of simplicity and reality. We sat and ate pizza and cake. We listened to a praise DVD, and though no one spontaniously busted out into song, there was worship. We talked about how a small group worked, and about trials in our lives. Again, no one confessed to some deep, dark sin, but the seeds of accountability were there. We talked about the Bible, and I was reminded that theology need not have the words systematic, Calvin, soverignty, or Edwards associated with it for it to be covered in the widsom of God.

No, this was different. This was the God of the trenches, where people hurt and struggle and fall, yet are still there, holding onto grace. These people probably wouldn't know what terms like predestination or postmodernism mean, yet they live daily with sword in hand, fighting side by side with Jesus for their lives. Hearing a man praise his wife, even though they have marital problems, is beautiful. Seeing a woman who obviously is going through a horrible storm work through the peace of God is beautiful. Seeing a man who was once a drug addict do ministry to these people as a pastor (a wonderful one at that) is beautiful. I am conviced more and more daily that the God we serve is not a clean, polished, glowing thing in the sky, but is a Jesus who resembles a construction worker after a day of heavy labor - dirty, with tired eyes and blistered hands, hungry and cold, yet knowing that the only thing he wants to do in the morning is to get up and do it again. That is the picture of the God I want to follow.

what's in a name?

"what's in an name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet..." -Juliet

People are probably wondering why I've named this blog the way I have. Those who know me are either like "He's got a great heart! Why'd he name it like that?" or "Often? How about always?" At any rate, the name comes from a note I recieved last Christmas from a girl who has become my best friend in the world. She gave me a quote from missionary Jim Elliot that read, "What good is Greek, commentary, books, study, and the like, if there is no heart for Christ?" She said I have that heart, which she often lacks. As awesome as she is, I'm not always sure if I do have the heart I need to have, a heart that loves those who hurt others, a heart who forgives those who turn others off to Christ as much as those who are easily marked as "sinners". The heart of Jesus. That's the heart I often lack. That's the heart all of us often lack, and it's the heart we have to find to live.

and there was evening, and there was morning - the first day...

Wow...there were always three things I said I'd never get involved in while I was away at college: AOL Instant Messenger, thefacebook.com, and any kind of weblog/live journal. Guess I broke my promise. No, really. The reason I have this thing is that right now, I'm in Pasidena, Maryland, serving as a summer missionary for the North American Mission Board. Crazy, huh? Anyway, NAMB recommended having a place to update people on the internet, so here it is. This journal is not my primary journal, nor is it a be-all, end-all update system. I'd compare it more to a series of essays about my life, shaped by the events in mission-land. Anyway, rock on - may God bless the journey.