The Present Kingdom

Just got to talk to a friend from school tonight, whooo it was awesome. I haven't gotten to talk to a lot of my friends down in Austin this summer because everyone is working a freaking camp somewhere!! Haha, it's all good though, I still love them all and miss them like crazy. But it just made my night for 10 minutes to get a glimpse into what the Lord is doing in my friend's life, and share a little bit about what he's doing in mine. Man, it freakin pumps me up :). Last week I kind of went through this thing where I got a little scared to go back to school, like I'd go back and fail or something. That's probably always been one of my biggest fears, that'd I'll fail at something big, not that it's important to me but that it's important to the people I love. I think we all harbor a little bit of that fear, we put so much emphasis on how other people view us and that attributes to our success. How screwed up is that? Yet it's so hard to get away from. The Lord has really stripped me of that feeling within the past year and particularly this summer. I'll always be "successful" as long as I'm living for him, even when I "screw" up. That's just it, there's no such thing as a "successful" life, just a FULL life. That's what I want. I don't really care about what job I'm going to have (as long as I don't sit in an office), or where I live, or what car I drive, working for all those things means just that, you're going to always be working for/looking for something better. I finished Velvet Elvis last week and this week I started Rob Bell's new book Sex God (easy there), it's about relating spirituality to sexuality. Intriguing, yes, go out and buy it, really makes you think of your surroundings on a completely spiritual level. Rob Bell really tries to emphasize the whole "Kingdom of God is among you" idea, which is really more of a truth than an idea. That's just it, you can't escape the truth of that. We're in one of God's kingdoms right now, and how are we treating it? Are we just ready to move to the next one? Are we really living for this one NOW? We all fall short of that, I know I do. But I've been thinking a lot about how we step into that Kingdom now, breath it, eat it, sleep it, live it. Whooo! It gives me chills to think of the immense power we have within Jesus Christ. I mean seriously, we can rock the socks off this world right now! I'll catch myself lately just wanting to quit school and go move someplace crazy like Africa or Indonesia. Just engulf myself in other cultures and soak up their love of life, see what Christ's passion looks like half-way accross the globe. Maybe I'll just be a little nomad for the rest of my life, man my dad would love that one! Then I say to myself, wait a second, that "Kingdom" is right here too, even in little old Keller, Texas. So for now I'll fight the urge to jump on a plane and never come back :) (even though I am getting on that plane sometime soon). I don't want to always be waiting for the "next" thing in my life, Lord let me just soak up what you've put in my life now!! Don't let me waste time worrying about the next moment, but let me cherish and glorify you in the present!

A Prideful Heartache

It’s been an interesting week to say the least…A lot’s happened and it’s taking me a little while to wrap my head around it all. The Lord put some things into overdrive this week and I’ve had a couple moments where I felt like I really need to slam on the “breaks” if you know what I mean. The power of prayer continues to kick me in the butt. It’s amazing how faithful the Lord is when we give him control over our lives and I don’t mean ask him for the things “we want,” I mean handing him the things we think we want and letting him decide what’s right for us, or for others. One thing that happened this week was my parents sold our house, kind of weird, still can’t wrap my head around all that. I’ve known they’re moving to Pennsylvania for a couple of months (my dad’s already there) but I guess I never let it sink it. A lot has changed for me since then too, which led me to kind of push that whole “moving” idea into the back of my mind. I also chopped my hair off this week…not really a huge deal but one of those “weight off your shoulders” moments, literally. I don’t have an attachment to hair so I kind of did it on a whim and since my friend was the one cutting it I just gave her free reign. While I was getting it cut we talked about a lot of stuff, as most hairstylists and their clients do, but it was kind of crazy to talk about how the Lord’s putting us on the same page with so much. It’s just like this transition thing we’ve got going on, and I think so many people are in it too. We’re sitting watching life go by, having yearned for so long to just pursue Christ with all our hearts and get past this whole “American Dream” thing that’s been shoved down our throats, just not aware of how to do it. But now it’s happening, we see the footprints he’s laid before us and all we have to do is jump in. Just jump. Scary. Really scary. But exciting. The last sermon I went to at the Village talked about dreaming “Godly Dreams” for your children. Wow. Could you do ever do anything more for them??? Well, since I don’t have any kids, or am even close (that boat isn’t even at harbor if you know what I mean), I thought all week about what it means to dream those dreams for ourselves, and for the ones we love. Mind you, this isn’t “gee I hope I’ll get that golf swing down” or “man, if only I could make 6 figures!” We’re talking about Godly dreams, the ones God has in store for us when we go after Him first and foremost. The dreams where we live in the Kingdom of Heaven now, not tip-toe into it when our earthly bodies die, but the one where we run to it NOW.

I just finished Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell, kick A book you should read it. In there he talks about bringing living in the Kingdom today,

“True spirituality then is not about escaping this world to some other place where we will be forever. A Christian is not someone who expects to spend forever in heaven there. A Christian is someone who anticipates spending forever here, in a new heaven that comes to earth.”

I finished this earlier in the week, and like I said, it was an eventful week. Yet again, God graced me with so much more than I deserve (P.S. I learned a lot about grace this week, but we’ll get to that later). On Saturday we went down to Lancaster again and put on a little “jam” session, it was pretty tight I must say. Our friends Tay and Thomas sang and jammed for us, along with a bunch of their friends and ours. These people have more spiritual wisdom than anyone I’ve ever seen, it’s incredible. It’s like when they sing, the words that echo from the mic are only a fraction of the burning that’s in their hearts. You can see it in their eyes. There’s no show involved, they just get down to business. Not many people make me feel really young, but talking to Thomas makes me feel spiritually immature, and I am. Then again, he makes us all look like amateurs. He can sit there and tell me about how he went to jail for petty theft, and how he went back a couple of times for missing his parole hearings, but there is no bitterness in his heart about these things you know why? Thomas is first to admit that his pride got him in jail, his pride kept him there, and then his pride sent him back. This man is homeless! He never went to college, never read a self-help book or watched Dr. Phil to know he had to man up to his immaturity. He doesn’t complain about being homeless, he’s never even mentioned it to me. He only talks about the Lord, his family, his friends, and music. His character bursts with authenticity and honesty. Man I hope I can one day harbor half of the spirit that man has. More and more I see that by having “nothing” (and by nothing I mean the material things we’ve been told have meaning) we have so much more spiritually. It’s not an easy place to get to, especially in the culture we live in, and sometimes I catch myself wondering how the heck I could ever get to such a place. That’s where the transition phase comes in. We’re “in between” journeys here, ready to catch the next plane but a little scared to fly at the same time. But that’s when we look around and notice we’re not the only ones standing at the ticket counter ready to board, there’s a whole family beside us, ready to embark on the journey with us. So while we’re “transitioning” around these days, the Lord is placing people in our paths with the same anxieties and fears, but also with the same heart beat.

I ended the weekend at a John Mayer concert so I find it appropriate to use some of his lyrics to wrap up this week…“Someday I’ll fly/someday I’ll soar/Someday I’ll be/ something much more/Cause I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for…” So here’s to dreaming some Godly dreams this week…just get ready to soar when you do

Humbled in His presence...

So here's where it gets tough...I've got to confess what I've been struggling with lately. I struggle with judgement, and not with people I don't know, but with those I know and love the best. The Lord's been working on my heart with this for a while now, and praise His name that my eyes have been unveiled to it in the last year. I can do whatever I want to change the inside, but ONLY Christ Jesus can transform my heart, praise be to Him! This is where Satan likes to latch onto us when we're pursuing Christ. He likes to whisper in our ears that we've got it all figured out, that this new way of thinking is the "best way" or the "only way." Who am I to tell someone that how they pursue Christ is wrong? I am NOTHING but a beggar in the same line as they are, reaching for the same goal.

We've really been burdened with this going to downtown Ft. Worth. We're working with a homeless ministry there to buy this building and turn it into an outreach/resource center for the community off of East Lancaster. It would be a place where people could store their belongings (so crucial for these people you would not believe), get a mailbox, and hopefully have a voicemail system all in the hopes of getting them permanently off the streets. Literally this has the potential to transform the homeless community down there and even erase it completely from the area. Yet one of the things we've been humbled by (thank you Jesus!) is that feeding these people will do them little good, they don't "want our sandwich" as we've been told countless times. But for years churches have gone down there to hand out food, trying to serve these people the best way they think possible. It's easy to sit here and point the finger, tell them they're enabling the problem, tell them we have "the answer." But who are we? Who are we to claim our way is God's way? We can't, and God help us not to! Let us only cry out for more for these people. Let us only reach down into our own pockets for more than money. Let us fall flat on our faces, begging God to show us his will!

We have no right to harbor bitterness, resentment, anger, frustration, or anything else in vain. We have no right because Jesus was given these rights and he turned them away. He was given the Kingdom of Heaven and all of its riches, only to come down to earth and shed all his "rights" for our eternal salvation. Yet we can't help it. We harbour it, store it up, maybe even seek out more. I'm guilty of it, and I hate it. I hate that I can't let things go. I hate that I only want to unconditionally love others and seek nothing in return, yet as hard I try to avoid it I still sometimes get disappointed when it's not returned. For this reason I fall on my face and cry out to Jesus to forgive me for my pride. How did he do this? How did he love us so much? How did he bear the burden of our sin all while giving us his Kingdom in return? Tonight I am utterly humbled by his presence. He is SOO faithful in this journey how do I ever think for a second he will not deliver? Lord let me continue to fall on my face. Let me continue to be humbled again and again by your word. Let me give you all glory for your faitfullness that I am completely undeserving of...

"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any afflection and sympathy, complete my job by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in HUMILITY count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is in Christ Jesus."
Phillipians 2:1-5

Taking back Jesus' Neighborhood

"poverty is so hard to see
when it’s only on your tv and twenty miles across town
where we’re all living so good
that we moved out of Jesus’ neighborhood
where he’s hungry and not feeling so good
from going through our trash
he says, more than just your cash and coin
i want your time, i want your voice
i want the things you just can’t give me"

I witnessed one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen this morning. As I sat talking to a man at the Resource Center on Lancaster this morning, I watched as my friend Becca went and got some paper and a pen to sit down with a woman and teach her how to read and write. Um, WOW. That is some radically lovin right there...There was a patience about it all, a geniune care for this woman she had only met a few minutes prior. Yet I don't think she doubted doing it for one minute. That's the character of Christ, unconditional love. You want to know how miracles happen??? Let's talk about how Becca and I were barely even friends in high school. Yet Christ worked on both our hearts for the past year, brought us together on the same beat, and before we knew it we were trying to figure out how to live this thing together. Beautiful, simply beautiful.

I cease to be amazed by the wisdom of those who "have the least" in this world. As much as we have to give to them, we have so much more to learn from them. We've type-casted them on the outskirts of society, yet they are living much more authentic lives than any of us could ever dream of!! The single mom on her own, the homeless man under the bridge, the teenage prostitute trying to support her family, they all impart a wisdom that utters to the heart of Christ. I've really been thinking lately what it would look like for us to become communities of believers again. Now I don't just mean round up all your Christian friends and throw them in a house, I mean like live on the same street as "the least of them." Live out your life alongside them, with them. Yeah it's scary, but do we really have a choice?

"So what must we do?

Here in the west we want to follow you

We speak the language and we keep all the rules

Even a few we made up

Come on and follow me

But sell your house, sell your suv

Sell your stocks, sell your security

And give it to the poor

What is this, hey what’s the deal?

I don’t sleep around and i don’t steal

I want the things you just can’t give me"

This incredible thing is taking place under our feet, under the church buildings, and it's about to happen right before our eyes. It's more than a movement, because we're using more than our feet, it's a revolution, transformed by our hands, feet, eyes, ears, hearts, souls, minds. We're not judging what's behind us, or even what we sit in now, we're just crying out that Jesus demands more, and we desire with all our hearts, soul, and mind to give it to Him. So many of us are groaning for the same things and we haven't even talked before...that's what you call Jesus' righteousness right there. It's not a blueprint, it's not a another set of rules to abide by, it's simply being driven by our hearts, our desire to live our lives as close to the beat of Christ as possible. To hold his children, ALL HIS CHILDREN, against our breast and cry for the same heartache, ache for the same pains, and forgive for the same sins. Let us not forget we are all beggars at the feet of Christ. None of us could ever be worthy of a drop of his righteousness on our own, but that's why we have each other. The bible was first and foremost a communal book, people had to wrestle in it together because there was no other choice. Yet now that it's the most published book in the world, we can keep it to ourselves, or better yet, keep it on the shelves...

"Because what you do to the least of these

My brother’s, you have done it to me

Because I want the things you just can’t give me"

Lord, let us get back to this place of community! Let us wrestle, question, beg, laugh, cry, hunger, toil, beat, and LOVE together once again! Let us shine light upon your Kingdom, the Kingdom that "is upon us", and let us not waste one drop of its glory on anybody but you...

Lovin' on East Lancaster

So please excuse what will probably be countless errors and maybe even some fuzzy thoughts seeing as I'm writing this from the end of my incredibly long day!!! Let's just start this by saying I got about 3 hours of sleep last night, partly because I was out bowling until 1 a.m. (of which I owned those lanes by the way:) and partly because I woke up the lovely sound of my sick sister (I think she just caught the flu...and the bathroom didn't exactly make out easy if you know what I mean). Regardless, I pulled myself out of bed and down to Starbuck's to meet up with everyone for a beautiful morning of some downtown lovin, mmmm.

I love going down to Lancaster. The people there have such character, not to mention ARE such characters...there's never a dull moment that's for sure. There were a lot more people this Saturday than last, and it was just a little bit hotter (ok a lot). I was disappointed not to find my friend William from last week, but I'll keep looking for him. One scene from today that really captured my heart was this old man trying to get to his belongings that were locked behind an outside cage at the Resource Center. I don't know why he couldn't get in it (maybe he could of just asked someone) but to stand there and watch him struggle to reach his bag with a stick just so he could take something out was heartbreaking. These people have nothing and what little they do carry with them is either left unattended in the streets or "locked away in a cage." I can't even begin to think what I would carry with me on an everyday basis if that's all I had in life, could you? It's also pretty easy to see that drugs are definately the devil's candy down there. It's sad but yet it's so much more frustrating to think of what these people's lives could have/will be without them. I don't think it's an unrealistic goal. And to see so many people my own age! To think I get to go to college and get an education while they suffer on the streets, how blessed am I? Again, it's not about going down there to give them a meal. Yes, they are incredibly greatful for that, but look around, you won't see many starving bodies if you know what I mean. Today we talked to a young couple who, while eating their hot dog so graciously given by a local church mission, stood there and told us they wished the churches would just stop giving out food because it makes that life too easy. This is where I see the changes we have to make as a church BODY, not just a building or a denomination or whatever. What if we all got on the same page as one force of God's children? Dang, talk about moving some mountains...more and more I see that's what has to happen, and not just with the homeless. If we break out of those buildings just a little bit to see what our church neighbors are doing next door, maybe we can then see the people we're called to serve living down the street...

Try this parable on for size...

So one of the first times we met for my rhetoric class last semester, my professor told us a non-canonical parable Jesus had told (non-canonical meaning not found in the New Testament). The parable is Rabbidic tradition and is almost impossible to find (or as he said, "you can't google this one"). From the moment he recited it to us, something inside me took a hold of it. It spoke so much truth to me as well as got me thinking, alot. Part of our final of sorts at the end of the year was to re-tell the parable. Since I'd already re-told it to pretty much everyone I knew, it wasn't too much of a stretch for me. What I love about it is that it's so profoundly what Jesus' parables were about, asking questions, "flipping the tables" if you will on how we view the world vs. what Jesus' was bringing to the world. See for yourself...

The Grain Merchant's Parable:
There once was a successful grain merchant who had an assistant. His assistant always did what he was told, never questioning his master's orders. The two worked side-by-side for years and the merchant fully entrusted his business to his assistant. His assistant had numerous opportunities to steal or scam both his master or their customers, but he never did. One day it came out that the merchant had been fixing the scales, and he himself had been cheating his customers out of money without his assistant's knowledge. The two were tried for their crimes. The judge gave the merchant his sentence, more like a slap on the wrist if you will, but for his assistant he said, "but for you, you will recieve the harshest penalty." The assistant was astonished, asking the judge "but how your honor? I have done nothing wrong, I was completely faithfull to my master and only did what was asked of me!" The judge replied, "exactly, but your morality hid an immorality."

Don't get it? That's ok, that's usually how Jesus liked it anyways :). To me, picking up your cross doesn't mean walking in a straight line up the mountain with your head to the ground. It means looking around you, seeing who's walking beside you, picking up their cross when they can't go any further, and maybe even saying, why walk to the Kingdom when we could run, even if the burden is hard to bear? It's ok to question things, Jesus demanded this from us! His parables were nuts! They made no sense to the audiences that heard them. The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed? Now why would I want to be a part of something that destroys all my crops? Because it brings new life, it grows among the weeds and the roses, it is small, but it multiplies (and maybe it makes a good condiment, but personally mustard grosses me out:). As Shane Claiborne says, It is grace in a "scandalous" disguise...

Breaking down the walls to build up the body

It's time for a little bit of reflection over the last week...WOW. That kind of sums it up. Has it really only been a week? I mean, yes, it's been a while now that I've had a lot of these thoughts, but as far as putting them in motion goes, yeah that's only been a week. Last night we got to come together for some conversations, prayer, worship, and love. Sound like a church service to you? Well, if you call a bunch of passionate believers who sit around for four hours trying to figure out how we can build up and transform the body of Christ, then sure. But I've never really been to a service like that and something tells me you haven't either. Not to say that it's not out there though because one of the things I've also learned is that there are some radical people in this world living that gospel day in and day out. But why don't we all as "Christians" burn just as passionately? Why is it so hard for us to take the gospels seriously? I think Jesus has a great sense of humor, atleast towards me anyways, but I doubt he was joking about the "sell all your posessions and give to the poor" thing, or "take up your cross and follow me." I think that's a question we need to desperately answer. When I say Jesus has a sense of humor, it's because I think it's funny that I think about stuff during a week, and then I go to a service and it seems to miraculously be the topic. Ok, maybe that's not funny to you, but I think it is. I went to the Village for the first time on Saturday and their current series is begging that question (podcast it baby, it'll rock your socks off). But I don't know how to fully answer that either. I think it's a multitude of things, especially for people living in this country. We don't burn passionately for the Lord because we really don't HAVE to, we have the American Dream to keep us "happy" for life. And isn't it ironic that we've attached Christianity to that whole thing anyways? Like yes, Jesus wants us all to have the white picket fence and drive an SUV! Now don't get me wrong here either, I can't sit here and judge us for these things (I am sitting in my parent's upper-middle class house right now), but I can say that I think we're missing it. Have you ever noticed that the US is just about the only country where people don't send missionaries to? And as part of the US, we send our "body" to every corner of the globe, except for down the street. I really believe there is coming a day when this cute little sign we have sitting over us reading, "hey look, we've got it all together, and oh yeah, we love Jesus too!" gets a little dose of spiritual transparency, you know what I mean?

One of the beautiful things about when we come together is the power of prayer. It's not a go around the circle, say a prayer request and hope someone remembers it later this week thing. If we have something to pray about, we stop and we do it for as long as we feel like necessary. And man, is that some powerful stuff. I think we make it too easy to pray sometimes. We pray for the easy stuff in life, that would probably happen anyways, but we just have to "make sure God hears what WE want" so we throw it in there. What about the hard stuff? Do we pray for the things we have absolutely no idea how they could go? Do we pray for the things we're scared to get answered? Do we pray for the people that it's hardest for us to love? That's when we really start to see things transform. As the body of Christ, we are so much more than people you can shove into a building. We are his hands, his feet, his eyes, his ears, his mind, his heart. We are so much more than walls! Yet it's become mechanic for us to just go once a week, maybe even more, drop some money in the offering basket, maybe even go on one mission trip a year. But what are we doing with the time in between? Are we still connected to the body of Christ? Or do we press the pause button on Jesus because we just can't be those hands for him today...

One of the girls in our group last night made a great point that really echoes into the heart of the power we have to transform this world. Jesus left the whole "blueprint" if you will, of the church up to 12 disciples, only 12! So basically, 12 men got this thing going (with a little help from JC of course). So just what kind of power do we have as an even greater body of believers?

Jesus has a gang?

So I got to do something pretty rad today. This morning (after a lovely 5:30 am wakeup, woohoo) I met up with some of the people I'm working with (more like discipling from) this summer to head down to Lancaster Ave. in Ft. Worth where they serve the homeless every Saturday morning. And by serve I don't mean hand them a meal and a bible verse, I mean listen to them, try in help them with whatever we can, and just love on them. Initially, we stand on the corner of a vacant lot and hand out water to people as they are let out of the shelters for the day. Michael, who head's up a ministry for the homeless, has built a relationship with many of these people so it's a really incredibly friendly atmosphere. After a while we walked down to what's called a "resource center" where people go after they get out of the shelters. As we were standing and talking amongst ourselves, a guy sitting at a nearby table asked us "who yall with?" And, since nobody heard/answered, I told him we were all together and working with Lighthouse Community Church (after I asked Morgan the exact name of the church, oops!) So I walked over and sat next to this guy, started talking with him. He asked what we were doing and I told him a little bit about their plans to buy a building nearby. I also made sure to tell him I was a "newbie" and couldn't justly answer a lot of his questions or even explain in detail what exactly the plans are. But we got to talking, and William starting spilling his frustrations to me, talking about how they called this place a "resource center" when there were no resources around. He told me some of his ideas for what a real resource center would look like, and I couldn't help but become captured by his intelligence and heart. His ideas were also eerily similar to many of the ones that Lighthouse and I.G. have envisioned for the building. He told me that some people around here are just content with the way things are, but he isn't. I'll never forget one of the first things he asked me, he said "look around, you don't see many people here right now, you know why? It's the beginning of the month and they just all got their checks." They have no idea what to do with it, they can't get bank accounts because 1- they don't have ID's and 2-they don't know how to manage them. We talked about a time when he was part of a gang in Chicago that ended up becoming a "gang of disciples" as he called it, his passion for Jesus was also beautifully present. He sat there, spilling his heart to me with such raw honesty, confessing that one day he hoped to get his life in order and do some of these things, but right now, right now he's an addict. I had to leave William sooner than I wanted to, but I won't forget our conversation, nor will I forget him. Hopefully I will be able to see him again next week, and continue to turn his ideas into our actions.

What strikes me so much about his story is how we're taught to stand on the other side of the street to a man like William. Like he's scary or something. There was nothing scary about a 25 year old man who is trying to seek after a better life, as well as Christ, yet can't help but get caught in the crossfire of the American Dream. Can some of these people go and get jobs, yes. Are some of them content sleeping in shelters for the rest of their lives, yes. But the majority are hungry for more than a meal, they just don't know how to stand in line for an open heart to listen. Is there even a line for such a thing? Look into the eyes of a man like William and just tell him to "go get a job," something tells me you couldn't do it, your heart wouldn't let you.

So Encouraged

Wow. So once again the Lord has completely rocked my world this week. I really didn't know what I was being led into with all this, but he has been COMPLETELY faithful in everything I've gone after. I can't even begin to say how encouraging it has been to hear from so many people, people I've known for years and those I've barely met. Wow. It's been yet another testimony that the heart of Christ is not only alive but thriving in so many people today. We're a groaning generation and the things we're yearning for are so purely from the heart that it's breaking in two. Today I got to meet with two different girls on two different occasions that I went to high school with. I was never close to them for four years but today we connected on such a beautiful and transparent level. I drove home just praising God for being so faithful and so truthful in my life and in their lives lately. I know my encouragement will not last forever and I know there will be many trying days ahead of me. But today, today I am wooed by the Spirit like never before. I'm greatful for every compliment I've been given, but the most encouraging thing came from my mom, after I tried to explain to her at 6 am what I had done the night before and what I would be doing with my summer she asked me "you're not joining a cult are you?" ha, no mom, but if people who are trying to live out the gospel every day are a cult, then yeah, you can report me to the FBI. I know she was mostly joking but there was some truth to that. What's encourages me most about it is that if she think's I'm a bit nutty, then I must be doing something right :) Being complimented is awesome, being told I'm a little crazy is more like it...