At the Margins

It’s funny how quickly I revert back into the institutional function.  It’s something I’m going to have to be mindful of—a lot.  There was a little snafu in the middle of Sunday’s worship where I said I would pray and the woman who was sharing her story (she did such a great job!) thought I was asking her to pray and a look of dread came over her.  I cleared it up that I was planning to pray. 

At the end, she and I talked about how hard it is for her to pray out loud (something I’ve heard from many people before).  She added that I pray so well.  I told her that one of my friends has often challenged me, “do you talk to anyone in the manner that you pray out loud.”  The truth is I don’t.  I use stilted flourishes, not to mention a different voice.

For a little while in high school I sang in the church choir.  We would pray at the beginning of each rehearsal and I remember always looking forward to hearing Ms. C pray.  Unlike anyone I’d known to that point, she truly prayed to “Daddy.”  Her prayers were simple, intimate, and loving, but at the same time, there was no confusing the awe and revere she had for her Father.

When I pray religious prayers, I enforce the lie that God desires prayers that are formal and articulate rather than personal and sincere.  My actions tell people that they are unable to pray.  For shame!  When I pray formally it is certainly not for God, rather for show and the institution. I need to pray simply, intimately, lovingly, personally, and sincerely—he’s my Dad after all—so that others may know that they are able to talk with Him as well.

Keith, a friend who often joins us at Culpeper House for Wednesday dinners, shared a wonderful post by one of his previous pastors.  It’s a damning critique of the institutional church:

“Someone somewhere along the line got the idea of putting on a ‘play’ for people and calling it church.”

Take a moment to read “What I think of Church”

A few weeks ago I applied for a job with a local church (I know shocking).  More about that later.  At the suggestion of the guy who disciples me, I provided them a personal Philosophy of Ministry.  I thought it might be cool to share it.

In my interactions with people, I most often impart the love that Jesus has for his own people, stirring people up to love one another and to become connected in relationships with one another.  My calling is to the Church, helping people develop authentic, deep relationships of great love with God and with one another where they have freedom to seek after Him with reckless abandon, that is disciple-making.  I desire for people to come alive in their relationship with God—for Him to be the tangible and core reason for being and doing and the ultimate decision maker in their lives.  Often this requires people to leave the control, safety, success, and comfort they perceive themselves as having and simply trust what God has told/shown them to do.  This can only happen when people have a deep and abiding knowledge that they are children of God and that, as such, He loves them and desires for their best.  Having been loved and liberated by Christ, people gain freedom to reveal the sin and brokenness that afflicts them that they may be healed and set free to go and love more and more like Him—self-sacrificially.  As they love more and more like God, God uses them to make disciples and thus the Kingdom grows.

So practically, what does that look like?  For me it looks like (and I’m far from perfect at it):

• listening
• praying
• seeking to actively love all I come into contact/surrounding them with love
• sharing meals with people in groups and individually
• spending time with people one-on-one
• coming to relationships with the understanding that we both have things to teach one-another
• hearing people’s passions and connecting them with people of similar passions
• being available to people
• helping people discover/understand their spiritual gifts and helping them learn to use them
• helping people understand that they worship a God who speaks and learn to recognize and obey His voice
• helping people to allow faith to guide their actions/make God the decision-maker in their life (moving from belief in God’s existence to faith in God’s promises/identity)
• listening to the Holy Spirit and allowing Him to guide my conversations
• seeking to learn and grow each and every day
• seeking to chase after God with reckless abandon myself, making Him the decision-maker in my life
• being “discipled” myself
• living and functioning in community
• walking alongside people on their journey/getting on their sinking ships with them and helping them plug the hole instead of simply bailing out the water

Unfortunately, disciple-making is a messy, time-consuming, labor-intensive process that requires depth of relationship to be developed and, as such, is impossible to do in mass or quickly. The good news however is that, as people become disciples, the Holy Spirit will equip them and provide them opportunities to make disciples themselves… thus the Kingdom grows both exponentially and with power.

Jan at Church for Starving Artists wrote yesterday about the need to hear one another’s stories in building authentic community.

Sharing our stories is so important. 

I’ve found it the best foundation to lay for any group whether a missions team, intentional Christian community, or sunday gathering.

It enables us to love one another so much better.  Suddenly I have a glimpse into why Susan does all those things that drive me nuts and it’s not so bad any more. I’m able to sit in silence less awkwardly becaue I now know why John never speaks. Knowing how Jim grew up affords me more grace when he snaps at me.

A practical suggestion, having done this quite a few times by this point, is to have someone who is willing to be particularly vulnerable go first and set the tone.  It’s also good to encourage everyone to have a turn, sharing only what (and if) they are comfortable, taking particular care to value however much or little is shared.  It can take people a really long time to share their story, so I’ve found, if it’s a small group, taking a weekend retreat with the primary purpose of hearing everyone’s story makes it actually less arduous and forms a great foundation for authentic Christian community.

I used to think that I truly enjoyed conflict.  While I was in primary and secondary school, I loved to debate and was quick to jump into a fray.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve abandoned debating (having the desire to win) and started discussing (having the desire to learn).  I’m quick to challenge prevailing wisdom and theology and to seek to get to the Truth.  For me, it’s a socratic excercise that is apart from my feelings and who I am.  It’s why I used to think I was not conflict averse.

The last several weeks though, I have come into the realization that I am completely and utterly conflict adverse if the conflict has to do with interpersonal relationships or who I am.  It’s why I don’t speed when I drive.  Avoid breaking rules.  Hate getting into trouble no matter how minor it is.  And choose to ignore conflict instead of resolving it.  Real conflict exhausts me.  I don’t want to hurt or be hurt, so I pretend it doesn’t exist. 

I’m happy to change what I think–in fact I love for people to show me where I am academically wrong as it means I can be correct tomorrow.  However, I am not excited about changing who I am. I avoid conflict when it means that I might actually have to change what I do–become less selfish, love on another person’s terms, do something I find boring or banal.  Changing one’s position theologically takes mere moments and comes at little cost.  Changing how one lives takes time, long, arduous time.  It’s costly and it hurts–the Refiner’s fire is always uncomfortable.  Conflict requires me to contemplate the fact that I am not who I desire to be, that I am broken, sinful, and imperfect.  However, it is the only route to growth and holiness.

We live in community so that we can grow and become more like Christ.  Growth often, if not always, requires conflict. It’s why we have a committment to not only resolve conflict, but to acknowledge it when it exists.  It’s the thing I find hardest in community.  I love being surrounded by people 24-7–serving them and sharing the gospel.  I am easy-going and love sharing hospitality and bearing joy.  I enjoy listening to other’s problems and binding up their wounds.  I am made for community and so much of it comes completely and utterly naturally for me–it seldom if ever feels like a sacrifice.  And what a blessing that is!  The thing is, it means that I can so often ignore the fact that I am broken, selfish, and sinful; that I need to grow, need to learn, need to sacrifice, and need to change.  That I, too, am in need of the Spirit’s transformation.

Last night I went to Holy Grounds at our neighbor’s church.  Rob Ross, a friend I’d met through Displace Me, was preaching his last sermon from Luke 10:38-42.

It’s the story that is often used to instruct people to slow down and sit at the feet of God.

Rob chose a different exposition, encouraging a balance between prayer and simply time with God and with service.  Certainly a true and good teaching from the verses!

While he was speaking, I kept asking God to speak to me about the verses.

The imagery he put in my heart was about the homeless in DC.  On any given evening, you can sit in one of the parks and see church van after church van, coming by to drop off food.  Those churches are doing a wonderful thing and Jesus spoke a lot about feeding the hungry.  The problem is that there are very few Marys willing to sit at the feet of the homeless men and women and just listen.

So often I want to see the results of my work, to know that my labor is effective.  The problem is that Christ often asks us to do things which we will never see the results of.  Sometimes we are so focused on doing things that we forget to slow down to listen and love.  Love takes time.  Love takes sacrifice.  And scariest of all, loving someone else means that we will often get hurt.  Love is intangible–I can say I gave out 100 meals or built a home for a family, but it’s impossible to quantify love.  Besides telling people that you sit on a bench and talked to a homeless person all evening is a lot less glamorous than saying you fed dozens of people.  Even worse, people might think you are lazy.

For the past couple of years Grace Community Church has been sending teams to visit the Quaresma family–a brazilian couple that, after having 3 biological kids, began adopting.  Today their family is over 30 and by the grace of God they are the most functional family I have ever known.  The first year we went, we wanted to help them build their new house, instead we cleared a field and spent a lot of time with the family.  The next year, we painted their new house.  The thing is though, what the Quaresmas cared about was not the painting or the hoeing–the cost of our plane tickets alone would have paid for our labor many times over.  What they cared about was getting to know us and us them.  They would have been just as happy for us to just show up and hang out.

Our desire was to build something we could see and touch, God’s desire was to build love in our hearts.

Thursday I went to the last Urban Prayer Breakfast, at least for a few months and probably forever.  It’s been a wonderful home for a couple mornings a week almost my entire time in DC.  Here are only a few stories of the people there who have taught me so much.

A few months before coming to the Urban Prayer Breakfast, Momma had been on her deathbed.  She made a request from God that she not die with the anger she had in her heart.  You see, years ago, Momma’s husband had become a homeless adict.  God answered her request.  He gave her a reprive from death and sent her to lovingly cook breakfast for over hundred people every morning.  She described how he’d sent her to look into the eyes of dozens of homeless men each morning, see her husband, and choose to love and serve them anyway.  It was a daily discipline that wicked away the anger that had consumed her heart.  I love and miss Momma Charlotte so much.  Her cancer came back and she disappeared, literally without a trace.  Part of me thinks she is literally an angel.

Brother Maclean came to be chef after Momma’s departure.  Actually, he’d been the chef before Momma, but had been sick with cancer and had had a heart attack and had to spend some time recovering.  I am his adopted son and I love him so dearly.  He has taught me so much.  God wakes him up early every morning, and I mean early, usually around 4AM.  He fills the strength move out through his 76-year-old body, strength he needs each day to do the work Father has given him.

During the time Momma was there, so was Ray.  For months I just thought Ray was another volunteer.  One day I found out that he was homeless.  Ray was an incredible joy to work with in the kitchen, constantly cracking jokes and truly loving on everyone there.  After several months of workin alongside Ray, he found out he had colon cancer.  They successfully removed it, but within a month an infection had setup and he died.

One day I was driving away from the Breakfast when I saw Momma Smith, a woman in her late 80s who lived in the neighborhood and would often play the piano for us after she ate, pushing her cart along the sidewalk as was her custom.  I asked her where she was going and if I could give her a ride.  She said in a barely comprehensible voice that she was only going a few more feet to the bus stop where she was going to study the scriptures until it was time for the noon bible study at a nearby church building.  She then began to speak of a specific passage of scripture and how it applied to me that day.  From then on, I would seek to sneak a moment talking with Momma.  Only able to understand every few words, I would labor to understand what she had to teach me that day.  A few months ago, quite to her dismay, Momma went to an assisted living facility.

I haven’t seen Sister Lyles for a few months, but she is a woman who seeks after God with incredible, quiet, humility.  She’s an older woman who always wore a big red fleece sweetshirt, that is except for the couple of months she wore sack-cloth near the time I first came to the breakfast–I assume she was mourning, but I regret never asking her why.  Woman are served first at the Urban Prayer Breakfast, however Sister Lyles would often go at the very last, after all the men.  Like the widow, every morning she would bring her offering–a few coins, sometimes a dollar bill–but it constituted much, if not all of what she had.  What a testimony! 

One time I was at Union Station for a meeting and I saw Sister Lyles outside.  I stopped and we spoke for a little while.  At one point during the conversation God told me to give her the money in my wallet.  I grabbed the 20 dollar bill and gave it to her.  “Oh no.” She responded.  “I can’t take that… that much money is dangerous.”  Jesus had a lot to say about money and it was pretty much never good.  Money is dangerous.  So often I go through life with little thought to the 20 dollars I spend here and there.  What an important reminder from Sister Lyles!

My time at the Urban Prayer Breakfast has been an incredible blessing and I am so thankful God put me there.  What a blessing!

Those of you who know me, know I’ve been talking about going dumpster diving for literally months.  The reality is, though, as of Thursday afternoon, I’d yet to actually do it.  Enter Thursday night, a car full of folks from our community headed up to Bailey’s Crossroads to garner some food that would otherwise fill a landfill. 

It was exhilerating!  Not to mention we came back with a ton of bread and bagels, banannas, bell peppers, some flowers, some cheese, and some carrot juice, just to name a few highlights.

 So why is it salvation food?  When Jesus referred to hell, it was actually a specific place, a burning dump heap on the outskirts of town.  When we take food from the trashcan, we save it from hell, allowing it to be used for what it was intended.

Thousands of people die each day from starvation, while Americans throw away tons of food that doesn’t meet our quality standards.  Sure, the bannanas were bruised and the peppers were scarred, but they still tasted great. 

The longterm desire is that such actions will free up resources so that others may eat.  We will see.  I’m just happy to no longer be a dumpster diving virgin.

1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” is such a wonderful challenge to us as followers of Christ.

Unfortunately, I’ve often heard these verses misappropriated as a carte blanche for someone to do anything they want. “As long as I do it to the glory of God, I can do whatever I want.” Far from it. At times, doing something to the “glory of God” means not doing it.

That aside, I find it really exciting to ask what it means to do each thing I do to the glory of God…

What does it mean to eat to the glory of God? Perhaps, as John Wesley argued, not meat, since it is resource intense? Perhaps it means not over-eating (or under-eating for that matter)? Perhaps it means buying local?

What does it mean to work to the glory of God?

What does it mean to shop to the glory of God?

What does it mean to drive to the glory of God?

What does it mean to shower to the glory of God?

What does it mean to vote to the glory of God?

What does it mean to watch TV to the glory of God?

While these questions may seam simple to begin with, they are in fact quite difficult to answer. They even might vary from season of life to season of life. Praise God we have a lifetime to try to understand them and grace to fail.