Short Cuts

Tonight I was driving from Pikesville to White Marsh at 5:30pm in the rain (all you Baltimore people know where this is going) and there was bumper to bumper traffic. Being the versatile man that I am I quickly consulted my map and found a "short cut" around the traffic. As I pulled off the beltway I thought to myself, "those simple minded fools... if only they knew MY short cut."

Well, as the traffic backed up at the 3rd light I realized that my short cut was not so short. I don't know what it is but I often look for short cuts when I am driving. I think it's a guy thing. We feel manly and like we've "gotten over" on the rest of the ingnorant masses of people going the "normal" way if we drive some other route that we think is faster. This is one of those topics than men discuss and swear that they've found the fastest way from point A to point B.

As I was sitting in the traffic of my short cut it caused me to think about life. There are no short cuts in life either. Yes, many of us try but it never ends up being shorter. Men and women want the rights (sexual intimacy) of marriage without the responsibility. We want money but don't want to work. People continue to look for short cuts in life but there aren't any. There is only the long hard road. If you want a good marriage you have to spend time daily with your spouse. If you want to raise your kids to follow Christ, you have to read the Bible to them regularly. Life takes work. I think part of our sinful nature is that we look for the easy way out. But there is none. However, I do believe that there is satisfaction in working hard and not taking those tempting short cuts.

Well, if you are wondering how the story ends... about 15 minutes wasted later I pulled back onto the beltway and arrived at my destination. Honestly, it was kind of a revelation that I could get back on my original course. I guess I thought at first that because I took the supposed short cut I should stay on that course all the way through. That's also true with life. If you've attempted to make life work with short cuts the good news is you can get back on course.

I want to challenge you to take the long hard road if you are sitting around looking for a short cut. I want to encourage you that if you have attempted to take a short cut through life, the good news is that you can repent by getting back on the right course.

Goodbye Infinity Church

For the past year and 3 months I have had the priviledge of working at a church plant in the suburbs of Laurel, Md called Infinity Church (www.infinitylaurel.com). Infinity is a predominantly African American congregation that was planted by Aaron Pankey over 9 years ago with a vision to plant more churches and become multi-cultural.

This Sunday was my last official Sunday on staff there and I thought it would be appropriate for me to reflect on the great brothers and sisters in Christ that I have had the priviledge of serving with.

First I am thankful to Pastor Aaron Pankey for calling me up in Portland, Or after he found out we had a heart to move back to Baltimore. He offered me a job at Infinity to help him establish some ministries most of which we able to do and I might not be back if employment at Infinity had not made that possible. Thanks man!

Sean and Shanika Robinson were among the first couple to extend hospitality to us as they drove all the way from Randalstown to North East B-more with their children to bring us a meal that first week we had moved back. I think our love for Baltimore, Theology, and our families connected us. Sean is a good brother and I am grateful for all the theological, urban, and real life conversations we have had. I look forward to seeing how the Lord uses him in his home and community.

Jeremy Dickson is a great brother with a true heart for the Lord. I am so grateful he invited me to speak into his life on several occasions and I can honestly say he has become a true brother to me. I know he is honest with me and I can be honest with him. I am also thankful for his wife Christina and her friendship to my wife.

Rob Reynolds, Turrae Jones, Eric Collier, and more recently Craig Walker and Chester Dade were all brothers who served along with me in various ways. I have been impressed with their character, teachability, and willingness to serve Jesus. I am a better man because of them and know I have made some life long friends with these guys!

Sidney Cutchins is a fellow Baltimore brother (at least until he moves to PG with the rest of Infinity :). When I first met him I was pretty intimidated as he is a Baltimore City Police Officer in the Western District (yeah that is where they filmed the Wire) who doubles as an immovable wall whenever you need one. But he opened up to me and let me in his life and for that I am grateful. He is an incredible bro with a great heart for Jesus and people. I know he is a brother for life and I can't wait to see him and Eb tie the knot!

Maina Mwaura is another incredilbe brother whom I've had the privilege of working with and becoming friends with at Infinity. Maina and I are pretty different and probably wouldn't be friends naturally except that we were forced to get to know each other working on various things throughout the year. Though we butted heads a few times he has become a close friend and a peer I go to for advice and wisdom now. He has been a huge blessing for me especially over the last few months.

Along with these men, there are some other incredible men of integrity at Infinity. These are guys who I could count on if I needed them and guys whose character stood out to me. If I died I could honestly say to my son's, "Hey, follow that guy and be like them." Dj Jordan, Mr.Pankey, James Willis, and Shannon Pankey all are great brothers and Infinity is a better church because of them.

Raphael Taylor, Mike and John McAdams, Arkim, Devon, Mark Blair and I am sure there are many more of you I could write about. Thanks for all the memories at our Home Community, HC leaders meetings, Servant team meetings, and Monday night leadership meetings. We love you all and though it didn't work out for us to serve with you for a longer season of time we are personally thankful for all your friendship and partnership in the gospel.

God hates visionary dreaming

Provocative title huh?

They are actually the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a small book he wrote called "Life Together." His words are challenging to us who follow Christ and are a part of His community called the Church. Read them carefully...

"Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this," (p. 6-7). We come into this community through Jesus. We exisit in community with Jesus. And our community is not centrally anything more or less than this!

This is significant to me because I often hear zealous Christians within the church and non-Christians outside of the church making comments on what the church should be. However, Bonhoeffer challenges us with our ideals about church.

"Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and try to realize it," (p.14).

Wow! We cannont come to the church with some lofty ideal of what the church should be. This would include visions of perfect brotherhood, no division, no sin, a perfect racial diversity (for those of you who think every church should be equally balanced culturally), a "cool" church that "really" reaches the unchurched, etc. A warning to us is to examine our hearts and minds. Do we have a specific ideal of what "church" should be? Or do we come with a simplicity that realizes our fellowship with each other is in Jesus and then seek to work that out?

A warning to Church Planters...

"Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to sruvive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the later, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial," (p.15).

Often times those of you who may be church planters or thinking about planting a church are encouraged to "dream big" for your church plant by various church plant networks and denominations who may be involved in your plant. This is dangerous. It encourages you to falsely come up with some dream of what you want your church to look like and usually with younger planters like myself we have a specific type of person we see in our church and we see a specific type of culture represented there (usually young, cool, hip, etc.). Planters are often asked, "What is your target group?" This allows us to play into ourselves and our preferences too much and we can easily make our "target group" people like us and people who we feel most comfortable with. But may I suggest that Christian community ceases whenever we get to pick all of those with whom we are in community with. Jesus picked the 12 disciples from varying back grounds. They didn't all know each other naturally and didn't all grow up in the same neighborhood. James warns us in Chapter two to "show no partiality" and I am afraid that much of this does exactly that.

Shaun Garman, pastor of Red Sea Church in Portland, Or taught me this principle well. We don't get to choose who comes to our churches and who doesn't. Our job is to throw the gospel seeds everywhere we can and watch to see where they grow. Then we need to effectively tend those "shoots" by discipling those who respond to the gospel.

If we don't heed this warning this is where it takes us...

"God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visonary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of the brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself," (p.15).

While I have been addressing church planters this warning goes for all of us in the church who at times become dissatisfied with the church and perhaps cling to an ideal. Read these last words by Bonhoeffer to get a biblical picture of Christian Community.

"Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders [ie. demanding a certan ideal of Christian Community exist] but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness and HIs promise," (p.16).

"Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize: it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that ground and strength and promise of all our fellowship is in Jesus Christ alone, the more serenely shall we think of our fellowship and pray and hope for it," (p.l9).

The benefit of preaching

Recently I read a blog that I really enjoyed. (so yes I am blogging about a blog). When you get a minute check out the link, his thoughts are better than mine.
http://www.challies.com/archives/articles/critics-of-the.php

Read this quote from Marsden's biography on the life of Jonathan Edwards...

“Critics of the awakenings alleged that when people heard many sermons in one week they would not be able to remember much of what they had heard. Edwards countered, ‘The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered.’” Marsden concludes, “Preaching, in other words, must first of all touch the affections” (Page 282).

Read Edwards quote again... ‘The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered.’”

As a preacher, this really rings true to my heart. It seems like the spirit of most preaching today is geared exclusively toward application. What I mean is that the value of hearing a sermon isn't in the hearing of it and in the experience of meeting with God through the preached word but rather on how it will be applied. We will often hear something like, "what you are hearing on Sunday only counts if you apply it in 'the real world' Monday - Saturday." Often this diminishes preaching itself as something that is necessary (though that is now debated) but something we need to "get through" so we can get to the "real work" of applying this in our lives.

The scariest piece of this in my opinion is that preachers in preparing a message neglect good exegesis and the actual preaching of the word and instead preach their outline, their points, or the "application" they pulled from the text. Where this leads us to is moralistic or "good Christian" preaching where the saints/sinners are just encouraged each week to try harder at following Jesus. People always leave with something to do rather than being more impressed with God and more in love with Jesus having just spent time with him.

I am still thinking this through but I think Edwards has it right.

Where is God in your life?

I was driving in my car the other day thinking about what God was calling me too and wondering how I was going to accomplish it when the Holy Spirit dropped these words into my heart.

Don't set up your life in such a way so that you don't need God to work.

You see, as I was making my plans and figuring out what I was going to do with my life I got discouarged (notice the over use of personal pronouns... big mistake). It was a slap to the face. God was saying, "Where am I in your plans?" "Do you even need me to work?" Isn't it amazing how so subtly we can find ourselves in a place where we don't really need God. We have our jobs, our ministries, our plans, and all these things we can pretty much take care of. There are no question marks. There are no, "God if you don't do __________, this will fail."

This is scary though isn't it?

This is the place of faith. If you are a leader of a church, ministry, home, etc. this is even more frightening because your decisions don't just affect you but others. For example, if God is calling you to move to a new area but you don't know how God will provide the housing you need... it requires faith to declare it. Why? Because once you make it known you are committed and you must move forward depending on God alone and others are watching. I remember when my wife and I knew that we were called to move from Chicago to Baltimore in 02'. We were expecting our second child a month before our move. We didn't renew our lease, I didn't have a job lined up, and we didn't have a place to live but we knew we were called. God provided all of that and more in an incredible way. What is God calling you to literally trust him with? What is it that you will believe him for that only He can do? God honors faith in Him!

Wow... my heart gets stirred even as I write this with incredible hope because when I think of operating in this way not only does peace come because I can trust God, not only does hope come because I know he will do more than I imagined, but even more incredible glory will be given to Jesus alone as he accomplishes His will in a way that only He can and I stand in amazement!

Check this dope verse...

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen" Ephesians 3.20-21

One person at a time...

Today as I drove around Baltimore, my heart was burdened for the people here. I kept asking myself and asking God out of a sense of desperation, “How do we reach Baltimore with the good news that Jesus died for them and loves them and is offering forgiveness, joy, and meaning for life now and for eternity?”

The answer is… one person at a time.

This past Tuesday we had a New Year’s Day party. We had 34 adults and 21 kids come by. It was great! They all showed up and left sometime between 2 and 6pm. Many of those who came were from our church and some were a mix of people I know in Baltimore. But we also had some of our neighbors and a friend of Miriam’s from school come with her family. It was great to see a mingling of Christians and those who don’t yet know Christ all in my house watching football and eating food. I was able to have some spiritual conversations with my friends and neighbors but mostly we just enjoyed each other, talked about life, and football. Through Christmas cookies, ham, and noisy kids upstairs I think some gospel seeds were planted.

Last week I found out that one of the fathers I know from Miriam and Samuel’s school… his fiancé had just given birth to a boy. I congratulated him and then brought him a meal. It is hard taking care of dinner when a newborn is around so it is a common practice in many churches that to bring dinners over for the family so they don’t have to deal with cooking. Many new parents who are unchurched don’t have anyone helping out. So it is an easy thing to do to show someone the love of Jesus through a frozen lasagna and bag of salad. He was blessed and very appreciative that we thought of them and even called me later to thank me again. Another seed was planted.

I know we can hold great events that will draw a crowd (like Jesus did) and this is also important when we think about planting churches and reaching people for Christ. However, I think what we need most is an army of Christians living out their lives missionally week in and week out sharing their lives and sharing their homes with those who don’t yet know Jesus. This is how we reach this city… one person at a time.

Ministry Leadership in Crisis

I am almost 30 years old. I have been in vocational ministry for 5 years and I have been a Christian for 12 years. In my short time as a believer and pastor I have seen many men in pastoral leaderhip fall into devastating sin. I have seen my mentor/proffessor in from the Bible College I graduated from as well as my first pastor (who also married me and my wife) both fall into sexual sin in their early 40's. One of whom lost his family because of it. I have personally known and even had the opportunity to confront a pastor (whose church was close to 1,000 regular attenders) who was dangerously close to adultery only to find out one month later he was caught in the act and he too was disqualified for ministry. Another pastor I knew indirectly had to resign for crack addiction and pain pill addiction. Recently, a church who I have worked with and whose leadership I respected all resigned from their Pastoral/Elder positions due to an inablility to lead the congregation. About a month ago I heard from a confidential resource that 2 well known pastors in the area have both been exposed for sexual immorality. And tonight I found out that a trusted friend of mine who had established a dynmic urban youth ministry was exposed for sexually abusing middle and high school boys in his care, was subsequently locked up, and lost his wife and children.

This latest news which I just recieved tonight has made me sick to my stomach. Not just for the repercussions on his own family and ministry which are devastating but this was someone I would have trusted alone with my children and someone who I had approached in the past about partnering with me in church planting. My question to all believers and leaders in ministry is, "WHEN WILL WE MAKE HEALTHY MINISTRY A PRIORITY?" If you are in ministry would you just admit that you are not superman and you are a normal human being who has limitations. Lead by example and lead in health. I have learned that health brings health. If a ministry is sick it is because it's leaders are sick.