Wednesday, March 30

The Ultimate Gift

“We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave His life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers.” 1 John 3:16(GW)

We often dramatize this verse…..giving our physical life into death for another believer. We pat ourselves on the back and think we’re doing something wonderful if we have that moment in which our life becomes forfeit for another….in that situation. Then we continue on about our day, ignoring the brothers and sisters struggling to make ends meet and having disasters visit their doorstep. We will help so long as it doesn’t create for us any inconvenience or trouble. We will do outreach with our churches only if several conditions are met; our funds have covered our building and salary expenses and it fits into our ‘free’ time. We will do anything and everything so long as it is in our best interests and meets our desires.

Look at the verse again.

Christ gave His life. This life did not start at the age of thirty, when most theologians believe He started His earth-bound ministry. It didn’t start in the height of royalty or wealth. We look at the end of Christ’s life (and reasonably so) and forget that He lived a life from birth to death that spanned thirty-three years. Now read that verse again. His life, not just the end of His life or a moment or two. He gave His entire life to the love that He holds for each of us. Before we were even born.

The Ultimate Gift, we call it.

Now how does that reflect in your life?

Two people recently stepped up to me and blessed me with some things that were needed in my life, both of them were inconvenienced somewhat by their blessings. They gave a part of their lives so that I would be blessed. They stepped out of their world and into mine, with the intentionality of making a difference for me. It would’ve been easier to just let the moment pass by. They are still alive, living life on this broken world…….but I would say they’ve exemplified this verse.

How have you reflected your love in this way to those around you?

How have you been an ultimate gift to those who believe like you?

Tuesday, March 29

purposed? Purposed!

“May He give you what your heart desires and fulfill your whole purpose.” Psalm 20:4 HCSB

I realized, as I was giving my testimony to a group of “Gideon-like” men, that I have come to a point in my story where the focus has shifted from where it was….mired in the details of reliving it all and has become freed of the muck and grime of that living into a place where I am glad for its adventurous tales, whether of woe or joy.
My story defines me. It is who I am, who I was and who I was never allowed being and who I never let myself become. It is a cherished thing, growing in detail and purpose at each retelling; never embellishing or stretching the tales to be told but bringing life to the deaths that occurred in its long and winding road.
Someone once told me that I have to ‘get beyond’ my past to realize my future. I have to heal the pains, close the wounds and release the past in order to be able to embrace the wonders of the future. It’s part of the Christian experience, I’ve been told, a part of ‘becoming that new creature.”
I think the message has gotten confused and it’s the main reason why we ‘lose’ the children as they grow up into the college-aged people who have left the church or redefined it tossing out the biblical text in favor of a more postmodern ‘peace’ that reflects an unfocused, ‘get-along’ attitude of a worldly nature. It is what is necessary to counterbalance the pain of this world…..for that is the ultimate goal of many of us. A respite from the pain.
Christ never promised exemption from the pain, but rather seems to tell us that it will get worse before it gets better. We are comfortable in our homes, so comfortable that the homeless that wander the streets of our downtowns are a nuisance and eyesore that we face confused at ‘how to handle the problem.’ We refuse to release our holds on funds to simply be the Church and Christians, rather following a ‘practical’ model of business that negates challenging the status quo. We refuse to risk, even with the ultimate risk-backer Jesus.
He faced death for us, coming to the point where He asked…no begged…for the reasoning behind His Father’s rejection as He died. He stood where we do, He did what we can do, and He challenges us to do ‘greater things’ than He did on this world.
It takes us rejecting our comfort and ‘bottom line’ and dealing honestly and lovingly with those struggling in the darkness and lost in the woods. It takes those who have been broken in those places to return with a vivid memory of the dangers and the pains so they will not fall and they can love even when love hurts.
I don’t wish for the events of my life to disappear. If I had a time machine, I would give it away or destroy it because I do not wish to go back and change my life. For each sorrow, each pain, each heartache and loss, each mistake, each sinful disobedience that I did….they have a part in the story that God started before I was born and watched with loving sorrow and joyful redemption as I’ve walked this world. It is a story of disobedience and loving purpose and it is part of my Father’s story for those still lost in the dark woods of this world.
I am a bard in my Father’s court, telling the tales of a life redeemed.
I have the desire of my heart: release from the mire of my past and the purpose of my life: to testify of the life restored and a life lived.

Sunday, March 27

Man of Valor

“On that day it will be said, ‘Look, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He has saved us. This is the Lord; we have waited for Him. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.’ For the Lord’s power will rest on this mountain.” Isaiah 25:9-10 HCASB

The verses before speak of the “Feast of the Father” as labeled by Timothy Keller in his book, Prodigal God, which I have spent the last few months going through with some brothers I’ve joined on Wednesday nights at Knox Presbyterian Church in A2…just up the street from my home in the Orchard Grove Community. Though the feast is of great importance to us, all of us, as believers, it is the following two verses immediately after that seemed to hit me after this weekend experience.

Because of the generosity of a brother in the group, whom I shall probably never know, I was able to attend a 24-hour seminar with the larger community of Knox men at a Retreat at Camp FoHoLo (Faith, Love, Hope) in Grass Lake Michigan. It is the Knox Men’s annual retreat, dating back to I believe 1996.

One of the greatest sorrows in my life has always been the lost of the community of men that I have been blessed to be in fellowship out in Troy, the M3 and Able Men under the leadership of Scott Engleman. When we moved out to A2, I left that community which had become further physical and spiritually from me in hopes of finding another with the same fellowship and impact that had shaped me into a man questing after God. I haven’t been blessed to be immersed into such fellowship, though I have a good ‘communal’ relationship with Mosaic’s Men’s Fraternity group and have come to cherish the time with the group under the leadership of Lewis Clark at Knox’s Wednesday night. I even appreciate the fellowship of several ‘long-distance’ brothers whom I have shared a cyber connection to in several online communities.

In this season, where God seems to be waiting upon me to take up the mantle of what He has purposed and called me to, such loss of deep committed fellowship is less than problematic as it is dangerous. A mentor once told me that I would know when God was truly prompting me to go when I started ‘gathering’ a team to hold me accountable, edify the call and ensure support (spiritual) in the path ahead. To ‘jump the gun’ and charge in would be to invite human fragility to become the dangerous ingredient and ultimate reason for my demise.

Bowery this year left me very unsettled, because I saw what God can do and the difference of my obedience and my disobedience to the purpose. I also recognized ‘key’ players in my life; some that were even unaware of such designations and probably never will know. I recognized too, in a renewed sense of clarity, the realization that my call did not support my ‘desire’ to fix the church that has gone off mission in several regards but rather, focus on the purposed calling of my anointing and leave the church renewal to those who have been so purposed by God to do so.

Pastor Chuck, the Lead Pastor of Knox, talked about Gideon…that ‘weakest of the weakest’ warrior who led 300 against 135,000 and saw victory. We all know of this little man of Manasseh told in the pages of Judges 6-8. I’ve written about Gideon as well, http://chapel-michigan.blogspot.com/2007/10/but-i-am-least-of-least.html . But, as I have discovered in my years since I’ve answered that still small voice’s question that overturned my soul, God works in layers of His Word, helping us discover in the same passages new meanings for the seasons of our life here on this world. And Pastor Chuck brought this hero alive once more. And God challenged me to accept His vision of who I am even as I struggle to believe its truth.

Gideon, weakest of the weakest, was a little man who was hiding in a winepress trying to ‘eek’ out a living in an oppressed land. And the Angel of the Lord came to him and called him a “mighty man of valor.” Gideon signed on for the mission and immediately engaged in it. At the end, in chapter 8 of Judges, it is interesting to see how the defeated and captured Kings of Midan told him he …..”resembled a son of a king.” From the weakest of the weakest to a son of a king.

Being a man of valor doesn’t mean we have some exceptional skills or opportunity. We don’t have to be Upper class or even middle class. We can be the poorest of the poor and weakest of the weak and yet, when we step into the mission purpose that God has given us….putting on the armor and protection of our King……..mighty deeds are done through the strength He’s given us by the Spirit.

And I saw a lot of Gideons at the Knox Men’s Retreat yesterday……..mighty men of valor!

Tuesday, March 22

Living in love

“As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love. If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:9-11 NIV

“We can beat our heads against the wall,” a friend wrote me in a little novella when I asked her for feedback, “Or be open to other directions...”

A pastor once told me to jump in to the volunteering in the community called church and let God lead you to where He would have you be what He has designed you to be, purposed you to become and equipped you to work. I am a j-o-t (jack of all trades) with enough knowledge to be dangerous in many things and good at a relatively few select ones.

February 14th, 2004 I surrendered to Christ. October of that same year, I was so involved in the community that was my ‘home’ church that they invited (and paid) for me to go to a conference for “Acts 2” churches at Willow Creek. I’ve told the story of my calling so many times and yet, I can still feel the energy in the air, hear the reverb of the microphone as Gene Appel spoke and the gentle, wave-like murmur of the conferencees talking in quiet tones around the sanctuary. Much like I can when God finally got my attention on that February day.

In the moments where God is revealed….even if it is His back we are able to glimpse (like Moses)….these stay with you forever, engrained upon your soul and picked apart in the darkness of isolation when it seems to be nothing more than just a dream that happened to someone else.

We pull them out in moments when we are afraid again……for comfort, for strength and for affirmation.

“Maybe God is taking you in a direction that may have never even considered,” my friend continued. (As I told you, she wrote a novella. Aspiring writer?)

My sweet spot, that place where I ‘pound my fists’ in passionate debate or fevered oratory, is and will always be preaching and ministry. What began as a simple, “This you’ll do for Me” picture of Gene Appel on-stage preaching about the neighborhood ministry he does has developed as I have been developed and discipled to be a Men’s pastor to the homeless, specifically Veterans (I am one). It is with this realization of why I’ve come to Ann Arbor, who has a larger-than-most concentration of homeless veterans who are men because of the location of the VA Hospital next to the University of Michigan’s hospital complex.

Of course, as seems to have been the case on all aspects of my “God moments,” it seems He’s only given the vision to me and hasn’t dissimulated it down the ‘chain-of-command’ of the organism called Church.

Its enough to make you want to throw it in and walk away from the whole mess. After all, why bother bloodying yourself upon the wall of disbelief for the purpose of nothing more than to be bloodied?

“The Enemy will whisper to you that you are not wanted...and having gone through some of the rejection you've endured in your life...” my friend writes, “it touches a wound for you.”

Part of my rejection of the whole corporate concept of the western church, far beyond its pretty modeling of how to ‘do church and succeed,’ is the uncomfortable feeling of isolation I have standing in the community that ebbs and flows within its brick and mortar walls. For some reason, I have never felt at home there surrounded by those who profess the same foundational beliefs as I do even as we stray from commonality with some doctrinal discussions. I crave this community and yet haven’t found a community that is ‘strong enough’ to endure my ‘integration’ into its life. I fear the rejection that has always come, and continues in some ways, in that community that I crave for the most.

Maybe the Hutterite or Mennonite communities would be a better choice for me to seek the aspect of community, or the strength of the same, that I crave for even as I realize the loneliness of being a loner. There, life is lived in community in all aspects and the health of the community is dependent on everyone who calls it home.

“You are a good man Jim...” my friend concludes her missive, “You are not your mistakes and failures... You are not your wounds...you are not your past. yes they are a part of you..but they are not you. Also you are not your expectations or the expectations of others...you are God's and His expectations are the ones that matter.”

And until God’s expectations are realized by those He’s equipped to send me where He would have me go, I’ll be chaffing at the bit. God continues to compel me to realize a life uncomfortable and as I remain uncomfortable, He moves further into the purpose He realized and set aside before I was born to be done in His strength, with His grace and through His mercy.

Learning to live with the rejection of those who can’t see it is something I’ll continue to learn how to deal with.

As I have all other things God has brought me through thus far.

I will never be a servant who hides the talents his Master has given him to be increased…..

I dare to dream impossible dreams, because I am loved.

Yes, I am worthless and fragile. I am destined to failure and prone to defeat. I am invaluable and useless. I am a broken piece of pottery and ugly. I am completely without merit and have rejected the wealth of my father's house. This the devil knows to be true, and in all honesty I cannot deny it. For I was all this and still am.

But through the grace of God and the love of His Only Begotten Son, I am not those things. I have been redeemed and strengthened by His sacrifice. I have a destiny to greater things than He Himself had done and the assurance of success. I am a King's son, adopted and inheritance-bound, and purposed to do the work of my Father's kingdom vision. I am valued beyond the wonders of His creation and looked for along the hills and valleys of the approaches to His home by He Himself. I have been restored to the wealth of my Father's lands and have found favor in His eyes. This the devil knows is true as well. This is what I am and what I was meant to be.

I will dream impossible dreams, because of who I was and who I was meant to be.

Courage begets honor

"‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’/Was there a man dismay’d?/Not tho’ the solider knew/Someone had blunder’d/Theirs not to make reply/Theirs not to reason why/Theirs but to do & die/Into the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred/Cannon to right of them/Cannon to left of them/Volley’d & thunder’d/Storm’d at with shot and shell/Boldly they rode and well/Into the jaws of Death/Into the mouth of Hell/Rode the six hundred."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote this poem to memorialize a suicidal charge of British light cavalry against Russian forces. It is the same war that propelled Florence Nightingale into renown for her battlefield nursing.

It is the poem that comes to mind when I read the devotional for the E.A.C.H. 33:3 preparation campaign.

“If you want favor with both God and man, and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely; don’t ever trust yourself. In everything you do, put God first, and He will direct you and crown your efforts with success.” Proverbs 3:4-6 TLB

In the movie, “The Blind Side”, Michael Oher writes about the charge of the Light Brigade in the final essay of his senior year that drives his grade point average up to the point where he qualifies for a college sports scholarship and then into the fame of the NFL. He writes, “Sometimes it is best to shoot for courage and hope for honor.”

247 of the 637 British soldiers to charge the Russian position were killed or wounded, just over a third of the whole unit lay on the battlefield because of the mistake of someone who was in charge. Courage caused them to spur their steeds onward, honor kept them pushing forward. Honor, in that circumstance, is indeed something you find in the midst of the chaos and it is something that requires the courage to seek it within yourself.

A friend of mine told me that someone had once told her that one should take on the responsibilities of a desired role before actually attaining the title of that role. In the early church, there was a preacher, a teacher; proclaiming and confessing Christ as Lord.

Maybe that is why the Light Brigade and the verse have set off such a deep feeling for me. In all things, it is what you trust in (the men around you, your training, the leaders above you) that drives you to take courage and seek honor.

Even when the leadership tells you that the direction you see God calling you isn't the direction He's calling you. Courage to seek God's vision even if there's those who don't see it. Risking the cannon fire of those who can't dream so large. Taking courage so God can forge honor in the fire of trials.



That is all the success I hope for in the battles for the Kingdom; to be honorable for my King.

Sunday, March 20

We have met the enemy.....

"You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine (your light must shine) before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:14-16 HCASB


"The church was intended to be a movement of changed lives," was one of the two points that Pastor Marshall Mobley of Mosaic A2 declared today. If you get the opportunity, you should go to www.mosaica2.org and download the mp3 to listen to it. Mosaic is part of the E.A.C.H. movement that is underway in SE Michigan to give E-veryone A C-hance to H-ear the Gospel. You can go to www.eachtoday.com or www.2wordstory.com for more information on joining this revival. Mosaic is currently into the third week of the 'why' of the story and it hosts small groups who are going through the 'how' of the story telling.


I would drive it deeper though....."The church was intended to be a movement of changed lives changing lives in a community of fluid, organic living, rather than being a stagnant, wall-dwelling operational base that sends out search-n-rescue parties to 'shock and awe' the enemy." We have a tendency to bulid a church wherever we can find the space and ignore the community around it, separating ourselves from them in huddles of 'saved' and the 'needing to be' categories and limiting our outreach in the community to vivable 'returns.' We live with an agenda God did not give us, of forcing transformation rather than living transformed lives to entice and teach others how they can live such life themselves and letting God deal with the 'heart, which no man can know.' I am glad I wasn't built for the brick and mortar, for now I understand why I don't feel the most comfortable there. It isn't the community that exists inside those walls, its the community that exists outside those walls. Pastor Mobley helped me realize some things like that today. And it isn't to say that the community within Mosaic's walls or the community within the walls of some other 400 churches that I know of that are part of the E.A.C.H. movement are not involved or trying to engage their communities that lie around the locations of their assemblies, too many are or are seeking real and heart-driven ways to live the Gospel in them, not in spite of them.


For too long, we have allowed the passion of the Church to be 'shock and awe' inspired attempts at 'community building' with the intentionality of 'congregational' building that we have lost the effectiveness of the mission; to be a community within the community reflecting God back into it to transform lives by our community of transformed lives. We have trained our pastors to be 'nice' with the Gospel and the Christian experience so as not to offend and incite the 'insurgents' against the mission of the Church and have downplayed the real meat and potatoes of the Gospel. We overlook the intent of God's plan for the Church and the development of its members; all members of the same family if the biblical truths are their foundations.


We have become a 'seek-n-rescue', 'hit-and-get' mobile group of guerrillas who never stay for long and consider our rapid success in surface transformation to be an inspired and God-led thing when the enemy leader, Satan, is simply waiting for time to come to his aid and negate our limited, fragile message of 'love, love, love' and 'joy' to be weathered away by the sands of this world. It is the intention of the E.A.C.H. grassroots movment to change that 'shock and awe' into the realistic and heartdriven intention of community building by living in the community and showing the Gospel truth in the life lived.


Paul showed us how to do it in Acts. It never was his intention to go somewhere and simply preach, erecting a few tents here and there for business sake (since he was a self-employed preacher) and then move on when either the community or the message ended. He preached, led others to Christ and then followed God's lead in the community there to create the bedrock of a church plant. Then he would move on to the next location God compelled him to. We are not 'preaching' something new and haven't had anything new to say in some 2,000 plus years. The message is the same, as Paul taught to the Athenians in the Areopagus, "what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you." (Acts 17:23 HCASB)

We are attracting those who are coming to realize the emptiness of the pursuits of this world and answering the questions with the honesty of the Truth. As we do that, lives are being transformed and then discipled in the reality of the Gospel mission.

That is an army I want to be a part of and a mission that will not be over until the King returns!


Sunday, March 6

Spiritual attack or indigestion?

“Timothy, my child, I am giving you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies previously made about you, so that by them you may strongly engage in battle, having faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and have suffered the shipwreck of their faith.” (1 Timothy 1:18-19 HCSB)

I will write this post and leave for once my personal opinion out of it as much as possible. What happened is either spiritual warfare or simple self-piety…..or coincidence. You decide.

It was Thursday evening, the day after an amazing experience chasing after God for the entire day. It was an humbling experience to have God remove me out of the picture and then impose a ‘gag-rule’ by those in the team with me. I think that’s the longest I’ve ever been quiet since I learned how to make sounds into speech. He was faithful to show the wondrous plan He had made with Joan Bernard’s sermon and the effectiveness of her testimony….that coupled with the wonderful sounds of the Worship crew…and I thought it was a awesome worship that Lydia led as Nellie gave a sermon around a song she had written and Sarah added her voice to the echoes of God’s Word in the hallowed halls of the Bowery Chapel. Thursday morning was our final chapel that we were ‘responsible’ for and the whole house echoed with the men’s disappointment about that fact. Our time in the Bowery was winding down, so much more quickly than I realized.

The worship by the Mosaic Team and the Bowery Team went over and with Nellie’s sermon and Sarah’s the time rapidly disappeared……and it is very important as we have learned in our Bowery experience that everything end on time…they have listened to worship and service and are ready to eat. I passed on my ‘verse’ that I was going to read. I was a little upset about it, but realized that was selfish in nature and gave it to God. There really was no way to follow the powerful impact of Nellie’s gifting and offering. Which is why God ended the service as He did. I had spoke to Joan about my feelings and had them validated, that being a little jealous was not honoring to either my friend Nellie or God.

But for some reason I felt intense displeasure towards the evening and literally ran out of the Bowery Mission into the streets of New York’s lower Manhattan. I didn’t realize it then, but God removed His hand from me and left me to the wilds of the streets because I was burdened with self-doubt and uncertainty about my purpose and gift. Even if this is what God called me to, I didn’t feel equipped and purposed enough to do so, even though I was told I was more bold and confident in the pastoral end of the Bowery responsibilities than last year. Even though several members of the team expressed that they were blessed with the sermons and had been told by others in the Bowery the same.

A few nights when the duties of the Bowery were done, I wandered the streets of the area looking for homeless to invite to the shelter or to give some McDonald’s or to speak to so I could be immersed in the culture, the society and the experience. I felt it was important to God for me to do so so that I would be totally a servant to those who He had sent me and the team to minister to in the Bowery and the community who were served outside of the Disciple program that the Bowery runs. I was burdened heavily by the attitude of many New Yorkers towards the homeless; they were something to be ignored outside the community of the homeless shelters, something to be used for a sick type of entertainment in their environs and abused by those who were uncomfortable in the comforts of their lives that the homeless exposed as false satisfactions. It hurt and broken my heart to see these things. As Pastor Shannon said today, this is some of the things that cause me to pound my fists on the table with passion. I learned a lot about how the homeless perceive the ‘help’ and the ‘truthfulness’ of what they receive……………and some take advantage of while the core of them are simply surviving in grace.

One, constantly a source of amusement for both patron and employees at the McDonald’s across the Hudson Bridge I never got his name. He was one of the mentally challenged homeless that are scattered across the concrete environment of New York and a easy source of feeling superior to those around him. He was always being kicked out of the restaurant because he wasn’t buying food. He would sit there hunched over and very quiet, not muttering or making disturbing comments to patrons or even panhandling. But without fail, the employees would sent out the biggest and meanest looking among them to shame him into leaving. And the New Yorkers who were gathered there to enjoy their happy meals would watch. I approached him this night and asked him if I could buy him a meal….as I watched the employees gesturing and smiling at the thought of beginning the nightly eviction process. He swung around and pulled a switchblade knife on me. I guess I wasn’t too disturbed by it and we quickly resolved the problem. I bought him a meal and the employees hovered until he was done, promptly evicting him. Into the night he disappeared and I was never able to find him….I had followed him out as quickly as I could but he was enveloped into the darkness.

I wandered the streets for a while and came across one gentlemen who was hiding in the recess of a doorway. There was nothing unusual about this man, his dress and posture spoke of nights spent on the streets of New York and he made no threatening gestures or words to me. I simply said hello and felt the hairs on my neck stand up as he whispered a few words that I hadn’t heard in years…..”So, pretty boy, wanna play?” It was a phrase I had heard in several bars in several cities over the years when I was unsaved and they were the harbinger of a fight. I quickly turned and headed back to the Bowery, but the feeling of peace didn’t return and I tossed and turned all night long. Maybe, I reasoned as I woke up the next morning, it was simply coincidence and nothing to be upset about. I was invited to go out with my friend Mantell to do outreach in the Bronx with ‘Drew and I jumped full-heartedly into such an adventure. We dropped off extra donations at a small church in the South Bronx and over near Central Park where Will Smith filmed the movie “I am Legend.” We dropped off the rest of the bread and took some coolers with wheels over to the “Rescue Bus”, a ministry that travels from New Jersey over to New York and parks at various areas in the city with soup, hot liquids and occasionally clothes. It was our intention to see if some of the men wanted to come back to the Bowery in our empty truck and get showers/clothes for themselves. We had fifteen takers. In the clothing room back at the Bowery, one of the guys had problems finding a jacket. I emptied my pockets and gave him mine. He refused, until I offered to ‘trade’ him his windbreaker for my new coat. He finally agreed…….once the showers were over, the guys left the Bowery equipped with a Metro card to get them back to the areas they wanted to be. It was in the clothing area that the second ‘coincidence’ happened.

Several of the community homeless, those who were not in the Bowery Disciple program, were getting into verbal fights as they fought over the meager offerings of clothing at the Bowery. We managed to control the situation to a degree, with the calming influence of our teammate ‘Drew. But there were a couple that shook me to the core and I fled in fear from the Bowery’s clothing room. They were trading verbal abuses and I told them they would have to stop or they would both have to leave the Bowery. This is the rules and the homeless whom the Bowery serves are knowledgeable of them. One looked at me in the eye and said, “So, pretty boy, wanna play?” and made a gesture like he was going to ‘come at me.’ Maybe this was something surprisingly simple, but to me it was a full blast from my past down to the very gesture. My nose in slanted to one side because of the experience I speak of…..I still get migraines from the broken piece of my skull bone that lies in the indent between my eyes. It wasn’t the ‘blast from the past’ that caused me to flee, but the feelings familiar to those days of my past life that were suddenly in full force………I wanted to respond with the force he ‘threatened’ me with.

Maybe I’m making too much of a simple thing, mixing in my feelings of insecurity and my burdened heart about the insensitivity of communities all over the United States about the homeless. But the unusualness of the events and the feelings that they invoked make me wonder.

Spiritual warfare or something else?

Wednesday, March 2

Opportunity knocks.....


“And it happened, as Aaron was speaking to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, they turned toward the wilderness. And, behold! The glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud!” (Exodus 16:10 LITV)

God presents us with opportunities, opportunities in which if we step into the unknown and follow that one small voice. We spend our ‘due diligence’ in preparation for the service that we’ve surrendered to God and it is our best presentation. But, if we bring our best to the table, it will never be enough. We are a broken, disbelieving people even as we trust in Christ to deliver upon the promise that He has made as His hands were stretched out and nailed to the Cross. Even then, as we walk into the life of disciples following Christ, growing in faith and obedience, we are at our best a broken and fallen people undeserving of the best of the Gospel promise but given it the same.

In those opportunities, God takes our best freely and fully given to Him and amplifies it to become something far beyond our abilities to deliver; something so special that we can recognize the presence of the Spirit wherever it occurs. It happened last year at the Bowery Mission and it happened again today at the Bowery Street home we share with the men of the Bowery.

Two weeks ago, I was prompted by God to go up to Joan Bernard and tell her, “You are going to preach one sermon at the Bowery.” No ‘please’, no ‘would you consider’ but rather a direct ‘command’ from God. She agreed and it has been a blessing to watch the transformation. When we got to the Bowery and I was given our ‘chapel responsibility’ schedule, I gave Joan the choice of when she wanted to do her sermon. She chose Wednesday afternoon.

But God had other plans.

Last night, after my sojourn of eight miles through the ‘wilds’ of New York, I came back with my cold in full effect to the point where I was losing my voice. And anyone who knows me knows there's not that stops me from talking….except losing my voice. I tried to get some good sleep and medicated myself as best I could. I even went to sleep earlier so that I’d get extra recovery time. And when I got up this morning, it was better but not good enough apparently for God’s work.

So I was given an opportunity to literally step out of the way of the work that God was doing and allow someone else He had selected to be the momentum to His glory; Joan.

And was able to sit back and watch God glorified.

As a daughter of the most High King and a son of the same walked into the leadership roles He had prepared for them to glorify His name. John stepped into a leadership role in the worship, singing the song “My God” and I knew my stepping back into a supportive role was God-designed rather than self-imposed, because as Joan stepped up to the pulpit and began her sermon…..God walked in the room and joined the Spirit which had come in during John’s presentation of worship.

And, as we well know, God rocks the house.

Once again, as I sat there praying over Joan’s service God showed His pleasure in His daughter by amplifying her best and making it the awesome and inspirational presentation of His word. And the glories that arose were all His.

Of course, He gave me an affirmation of what He had planned all along….for what Joan spoke of this morning, God’s given me the ‘closing’ statement on it for this afternoon.

Powerful indeed are the works of the Lord.

A lesson in humility though, first, before I can present God’s word this afternoon. The team, concerned for my voice, have imposed a ‘gag-rule’ on me until 12:15 when chapel starts. I cannot say a word, giving my voice a period of time to rest. I am not worried, though about being silent…….

God’s provided me with enough paper to ‘speak my peace’ well into the afternoon.

As they say here at the Bowery, “God is good!” All the time, everytime!!!

Tuesday, March 1

Boldness

“Then having such hope, we use much boldness.” (2 Corinthians 3:12 LITV)

Its been hard trying to get some time since I walked through the Red Doors again for the Bowery Mission 2011; in terms of wind-down time, no Wi-Fi access and Bowery living. It makes me glad that I’ve got the opportunity today to sit down at the Central Library, just down from Central Station and rest my very aching bones and feet with some ‘modern conveniences.’ When we arrived at the Bowery after 14 hours of busing, walking, train-riding, walking, subway-ing and more walking, it was with delight that we found the volunteer rooms had undergone transformation. Installed were blinds (nice ones), and painted surfaces with some modern looking and feeling metal bunk beds with extra thick mattresses. Bill, the supervisor who was such a great friend last year, was on duty and couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. It was the beginning of the process for me, opening myself to the wonders anew that God would present here at the Bowery Street Mission.

Of course, our arrival in New York wouldn’t have been complete without Ray’s Pizza…….as a group we trouped back up Prince Street and sat down inside the tiny little ‘to go’ part of the business. 15 people quickly claimed that space as their own.

My heart has been broken anew even as my eyes are opened to the things I missed before, the very humanism of the Bowery and the dynamic flexible intense relationship it invites and demands of us all. The all too real agenda side of some of the members of the community here and how it is dealt with with the disciples of the community…..not in anger but with patience and understanding. It is not the perfect and ideal place, rather it is a place where God walks and is dynamic and fluid and attentive to those who would listen and that specialness is lost on those who refuse to see it.

I miss having Shannon Carey here because I could decompress and unwind with her, discussing those things I’ve seen and the experiences (yes, it has been ONE day) that I have been confronted with. The discussion of the preaching on Monday morning, the first time I’ve ever seen anyone preach with Ali, one of the supervisors of the program there, and just the connection of two men who shared only a cup of coffee had with bringing the Word to the Community. It was as if we had discussed the balance and synergy of the preaching to use---it was that blended and supportive of each other with the power to drive one of the disciples in the program up to surrender the rest of what he was holding back to the community. Sheldon, gentle warrior, got it all. Since that time, Ali has been walking around calling me “Pastor” even after I spend all day yesterday telling him no, I’m just Jim. But there is a boldness about my steps and a big grin on my face. I am indeed 'home.'

Speaking with boldness, expecting without timidity and demanding in earnest that God break me again and again in His wisdom and direction here.

We went to Tromley Park for outreach yesterday with my dear friend Mantell who was a student last year when I was here and now is a supervisor of Outreach for the Bowery this year. It is the first time that a volunteer got to drive the Bowery Outreach truck and I must admit that I kept the experience as true to the original I had last year as I could. Hearing the exclamation “I’m airborne” after we headed back proves that I got it right. There is nothing like New York roads and New York Drivers……and giving the keys to a Michigan boy probably isn’t the best idea they had. :D

This morning I was introduced to Pastor John who was delivering the message at morning chapel since we were off for the day. When we went into chapel, Ali insisted I sit up on the stage with Pastor John and he ‘because you are one of the leaders in this house this morning….’ I was told. When I remarked that I wasn’t, that Joseph was, he laughed and pointed to the chair…..

Tomorrow morning and afternoon, we’re responsible for the Chapel and Thursday morning as well and that will conclude our chapel ‘responsibilities.’ Please keep Joan Bernard in prayer as she shapes and molds her sermon for Wed. Afternoon carefully with prayerful insight and questions. Keep Nellie in prayer as she expressed some need for some time on Thursday’s service to answer God’s call. Keep Jay, Casey and Sarah in prayer as God shapes and leads them this week….they were the first God called to be prayed over by the group at our meeting last night.

When I woke up yesterday morning, it hit me like a ton of bricks……”this is home.”

Oh, not the Bowery Street Mission or even the environs of New York City…..

But living in the intensity of God’s work, being a small part of the larger picture He calls us all to join in as His children, His redeemed and His saved.

This morning, after serving breakfast and helping the Bowery guys clean up, we headed out to a restaurant to have some breakfast before we departed as individual groups to our planned (or in my case unplanned) outings. It was a great time of fellowship.

But then I got the ‘hair-brained’ idea to go with one group down to the Statue of Liberty at Battery Park. After the group was ‘settled’ in, Drew and I spilt from them and headed out……..

From Battery Park to Central Library.

Can someone come help me get back to the Bowery???

I don’t think I can walk anymore………..