We're famous!!!

Well, if this counts we are...

Jesus died for pink-haired people too.

This weekend Andy and I went with a group from our church to Albuquerque, NM, to team up with City on a Hill - the Acts 29 church that we're paired up with (they are in a way our mentoring church). We were really encouraged and challenged by the entire trip, but here's a few things that stood out to us.

City on a Hill is located in the Lobo theatre in downtown Albuquerque. This is a very rough part of town, and at night there are prostitutes, druggies, and lots of "rifraf" all around this area. This is also one of the poorest areas in the city. The location is very strategic for the church, and they have structured much of their church around reaching the lost. They have what they call "neighborhoods", where they have split their small groups in to focuses on areas of the city they want to reach - there is a group of artists who want to engage with the unbelieving art community in the city, a community events group, a group that is working with the elementary schools in the area, etc. What we did was basically tag along with these groups to see what they are doing. It was extremely exciting to see how the Lord is really using City on Hill to reach the neglected people in their city. For example, the community events group is attending an AIDS walk in a few weeks, and they were asked by the people who were organizing the event if they would like to set up a booth, which of course they do. So, what they are going to do is have cards that say on one side "We are sorry for ignoring the AIDS epidemic" and on the back side have a place asking how they can pray for them. Wow!

Saturday morning we did some good old fashioned manual labor at a housing complex called Casa Shalom. Basically, Casa Shalom is a couple of apartment complexes in a below-poverty-line neighborhood near City on a Hill that was just put together by a man who really has a vision for reaching this neighborhood. He has gotten 18 low income families who are almost entirely Spanish speaking families together, who would otherwise be unable to afford home ownership. They have all gone in to purchase individual apartments, and will be living in this complex, eating meals together weekly, and hopefully reaching out to the violent neighborhood around them. This area has major problems with drugs and prostitution. The man who is heading this ministry up was probably around 40 years old, white, highly educated, and is married with 2 children. He and his family have moved right in the middle of the complex with the vision of really enabling the residents of Casa Shalom to reach out to their neighbors and share the love of Christ with them.

The exciting thing about all of this is that when you go to a Sunday morning service, you can really see the diversity of the church. They are now about 40% minority. Yesterday morning they had a baptism, with everything from a 9 year old girl, to pregnant woman, to a rough looking old man, to a girl with short pink hair. It was such a reminder to me that the gospel can transform, and is transforming, all types of people. The Church really is diverse.

This trip was also very challenging to us. Andy and I have been hashing out how we can really care for the people in Lubbock that the church ignores. These are the people that Jesus was engaging on earth - broken people. "For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost." Luke 19:10 Jesus was contstantly being criticized by the religious people of his day for eating with tax collectors, prostitutes, the poor and sick. Why should we think we should be any different?

Jesus is actively calling people to Himself right now, and has commanded us to be his means to do this. These people are broken down and needy, and they don't necessarily look like me. They are people that might have major problems like drug addictions, poverty, or broken families. And they are people that I will probably be criticized for spending time with. If Jesus Himself made broken people a priority, why should I do any different?

I am a hypocrite.

"After years of consideration I've come to the conclusion that, within limits, gear is more important as a topic of conversation than as a way of making music. It's just not that important."
- Chris Smither

For the last several weeks, or probably months, Andy and I have been on a mission to determine our stance on small groups. Do they work? Are they beneficial? Are they a waste of time? Are more "organic" groups that are unofficial and unstructured the way to go? Should we even go to a small group? Have we ever been to a small group where we felt a real connection, felt like we had real community, or were impacted deeply? I call it a misson because that's how we saw it. We began asking friends all of these questions about their thoughts on small groups, to gather data to come to our hypothesis. We began to pick apart everything about small groups, talking about all the flaws, looking at it from every angle. And, the strange thing is, the more that we talked about it, the more negative and discouraged we became about it, until we finally almost reached the conclusion that we just shouldn't waste our time with small groups - what is the point? The more we talked about it, the more critical we became, the more discouraged we became, and the more we started to make other people discouraged along with us.

Finally, it dawned on me. I am a hypocrite. For all my talk about small groups having lack of community, I have not made an effort to really get to know the different people in my small group. For all my talk about not being impacted deeply by the teaching, I realized, how can I be impacted deeply when I go in with a passive attitude about being taught, not ready to learn? I say I want diversity in the small group, but when people who have vastly different personalities or ideas than me are present, I would much rather them sit still and quiet, so that I am not bothered by their different opinions.

All of the sudden, like a ton of bricks, I was struck with the fact that I am just like the Israelites in the wilderness, wandering around complaining day in and day out, while all the while the Lord was providing for them manna from heaven. I am just like the Israelites, who when they were delivered from Egypt, began grumbling and complaining, "Why did you bring us out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?" (Exodus 17:3) God has provided for me a wonderful local church. Seriously, I can't imagine what I would do without it. My pastor is amazing, he is sound doctrinally, and is so incredibly challenging. The vision of the church is incredible - exactly what I think it should be. And yet, instead of diving in and choosing to love people, choosing to begin to cultivate community and care for people (even people who are vastly different than me), I am complaining, just like the Israelites. And, if I'm honest, complaining is sin.

The quote I began with is a quote from Chris Smither, an excellent guitarist and musician. Any musician will tell you that there are ongoing debates on what kind of gear is the best, what kind of guitars to use, what kind of strings are the best, and so on. Chris comes to the conclusion that it's not the gear that is important in making music - it's the musician. An excellent guitarist will still be an excellent guitarist, even if he is using a cheap, crappy guitar. Likewise, a crappy guitarist will still be a crappy guitarist, even if he is using a top notch $20,000 guitar. Now, this doesn't mean that a better guitar won't sound better. What it does mean though is that the musician is more important than the gear they are using.

In the same way, I think you could compare this to small groups. When it comes down to it, I think my conclusion is that the method of small groups is not as important as my heart is. Methods will change. In ten years, the way that we are doing small groups will most likely not look the same as it does today. It will morph and change. However, if I go in to a small group with a negative attitude, and am not pouring myself out, like Paul said, as a drink offering (2 Timothy 4:6), then why should I expect to see anything positive. I am ultimately the problem. What we really and truly need is a collective group of people with an attitude that they will pour themselves out, their time, their money, their comfort, and convenience, so that the body of Christ will be edified and so that, ultimately, Christ will be exalted! What we really need is the blessing of God. Without it, we will not succeed. All of this begins with me taking on a humble attitude, and begging the Lord to create community where it is impossible.

I think we have a choice. I can choose to either complain and be miserable, bitter, and jaded about the church, or I can choose to pour my life into people. I can choose to pour out mercy on imperfect people, who are just like me. I think in general we are on one of two sides of mercy: either receiving it or giving it away. I don't want to look back on my life and realize that I spent it being bitter about the imperfections of people, or the church. I would much rather look back on my life and realize that there are imperfections, and lots of them, but look back on my life and realize that I have poured out myself as a drink offering for the sake of the gospel, I have been constantly giving mercy away.

Oh that the Lord would grant us humble attitudes, that he would draw us out of the sin of complaining, and would grant us the grace to serve and to love imperfect people (even hypocrites), just like Jesus did!

Diversity and the Church

Andy and I have been doing a little bit of research here lately on diversity in the church and why we even need diversity. Here is a quote I stumbled across that I really liked:

"'Church' is not an event. It is people—people whom God calls us to love. What is more, it is in a very important sense an involuntary community of people: we don’t choose our brothers and sisters—God does. And sometimes (oftentimes) those people are not terribly compatible with us—not the people we would choose to hang out with. But it is this very incompatibility that is so important, for at least two reasons. First, learning to love the people I don’t like is by far the best way to learn how to love (it’s easy to love people I happen to like). Second, the church is supposed to be a sociological miracle—a demonstration that Jesus has died and risen to create a new humanity composed of all sorts of people.” Charles Drew