I love to take every opportunity to let you guys know how God is using a place like UC Fellowship in ways that you may not be aware of. This week a two year old church in the Charlotte area emailed to me to say:
During the retreat of our church’s elders last Saturday we all agreed that we need to sit down with you and have you walk us through your vision for UCF and how this is being implemented week by week. We sense that you are going the same direction that we are headed but you guys have a track record and we are just getting started.
I am always honored to share what I know, but they really don’t want information as much as they want transformation. You see, some leaders in this church have spent some extended time with many of you at UC Fellowship. They are truly awed by the work that God is doing in your lives and how you are seeking to love loud, risk often and hope always. They have seen God’s work in you and want to see that same transformation happen over and over again in the life of their church. They aren’t looking for new “methods,” cute “slogans,” or the next great church strategy. They want to understand how God is transforming people at UCF. You need to know this because you need to know what an amazing work God IS doing and the unique way He is using UCF for His Kingdom.
On Tuesday, I responded to another request from a mission strategy and planning group that I have talked with in the past. They want to do a profile on our church to be able to share with other churches and mission agencies. They are really excited about our approach to making a global impact in Ethiopia. In many ways, mission work is at a critical time due to a couple of factors.
1) Nearly all mainline denominational churches are declining and their mission involvement is declining as well.
2) Most new churches (younger than 10 years old) are not focused on making a global impact at all. Nearly all of their resources are focused locally or are consumed by the church itself.
This leaves a huge hole that is getting wider and wider every day. I believe God has called us as a church to lead the way missionally and blaze a trail for many other new churches to follow. God has led us to this point and you have made it happen through your prayers, your passion, your sacrifice, your giving, your willingness to go and your resolve to never forget about the world around you.
So once again, I want to say thanks for being you, for being the church and for being a model that God can use to help lead others.
Love loud… risk often… hope always,
David
10.29.2009
10.22.2009
BEING the church... UCFellowship.
A note to the movement known as UC Fellowship... a missional community that some call "church."
Thanks for BEING UCFellowship. Notice I didn't say "being a part of" UCFellowship but truly BEING UCFellowship. You are the church. What you do defines who we are and so when you serve, we are a serving church; when you give we are a generous church. When you love we are a loving church. I want to thank you for being several things:
1) Servants - I get complements all the time about how this church serves. You serve all the time...Sundays, Saturdays, early morning, late night, all week long, public, private, local, global, poor, rich... it is amazing to see. So thanks for BEING servants. Several church around recently did a "campaign" to serve the city around them for a day. They asked me if I wanted our church to be a part of it. I politely (or maybe not so politely) told them that I didn't want anyone in our church finding out that at other churches you only have to serve when there is a campaign to do it at one point in the year. I was afraid for you to find out that some people define serving by something you do during a special emphasis, rather than something that God calls us to BE. Simply put, most of the things they were DOING once a year is what we are BEING day in, day out! You make me and other marvel at who we ARE.
2) Authentic - I have NEVER been a part of a more authentic, genuine, real gathering of people. I know that me being authentic helps you to be authentic, but you being authentic helps me to be authentic as well. This past Sunday was amazing. It is great to know that I can come and share my life with a large community that cares about what our family is facing right now in our adoption process. I love sharing the struggles, knowing that I will find compassion, love and care. If you missed the service, please listen to the message from our website. A lot of spiritual leaders just don't feel like they can be authentic AND lead. Unfortunately, their model of leadership is built around the appearance of strength and success with little room for struggle and weakness. Thanks for BEING authentic and allowing me to authentically lead out of my struggles and weakness.
3) Relentless Pursuit of the Mission - Our mission is to "challenge people to trust and imitate Jesus in missional communities for the good of the world." I love the ideas that I get from you daily about how this could play out in your work, home, schools etc. I love how we have created a place that DARES TO DREAM about the way things could be and the way things should be. I love that many of you think about going into the darkest places and bringing the light and hope of God there. I love that we are a place that forms unique connections with the community around us in ways that show unconditional love. I am grateful that many of you are beginning to dream about continuing to expand the mission. It is mission critical for us to never be stagnant, to never slow down and to never give up. Hope will always produce action rooted in faith and prayer.
So thanks for BEING the church!
Definitely need to read this article in preparation for this Sunday's Neighborhood Gathering. Kind of neat that God has us already doing something about this.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_bi_ge/af_ethiopia_drought
Love loud... risk often... hope always,
David
Thanks for BEING UCFellowship. Notice I didn't say "being a part of" UCFellowship but truly BEING UCFellowship. You are the church. What you do defines who we are and so when you serve, we are a serving church; when you give we are a generous church. When you love we are a loving church. I want to thank you for being several things:
1) Servants - I get complements all the time about how this church serves. You serve all the time...Sundays, Saturdays, early morning, late night, all week long, public, private, local, global, poor, rich... it is amazing to see. So thanks for BEING servants. Several church around recently did a "campaign" to serve the city around them for a day. They asked me if I wanted our church to be a part of it. I politely (or maybe not so politely) told them that I didn't want anyone in our church finding out that at other churches you only have to serve when there is a campaign to do it at one point in the year. I was afraid for you to find out that some people define serving by something you do during a special emphasis, rather than something that God calls us to BE. Simply put, most of the things they were DOING once a year is what we are BEING day in, day out! You make me and other marvel at who we ARE.
2) Authentic - I have NEVER been a part of a more authentic, genuine, real gathering of people. I know that me being authentic helps you to be authentic, but you being authentic helps me to be authentic as well. This past Sunday was amazing. It is great to know that I can come and share my life with a large community that cares about what our family is facing right now in our adoption process. I love sharing the struggles, knowing that I will find compassion, love and care. If you missed the service, please listen to the message from our website. A lot of spiritual leaders just don't feel like they can be authentic AND lead. Unfortunately, their model of leadership is built around the appearance of strength and success with little room for struggle and weakness. Thanks for BEING authentic and allowing me to authentically lead out of my struggles and weakness.
3) Relentless Pursuit of the Mission - Our mission is to "challenge people to trust and imitate Jesus in missional communities for the good of the world." I love the ideas that I get from you daily about how this could play out in your work, home, schools etc. I love how we have created a place that DARES TO DREAM about the way things could be and the way things should be. I love that many of you think about going into the darkest places and bringing the light and hope of God there. I love that we are a place that forms unique connections with the community around us in ways that show unconditional love. I am grateful that many of you are beginning to dream about continuing to expand the mission. It is mission critical for us to never be stagnant, to never slow down and to never give up. Hope will always produce action rooted in faith and prayer.
So thanks for BEING the church!
Definitely need to read this article in preparation for this Sunday's Neighborhood Gathering. Kind of neat that God has us already doing something about this.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_bi_ge/af_ethiopia_drought
Love loud... risk often... hope always,
David
9.12.2009
A tribute to my wife.
The series that we ended last week, Jon and Kate PLUS, is one that has obviously had a powerful impact on people in and around UCF. This whole topic of marriage and parenting is so close to my heart because I know it is so close to God's heart. It was God that create this whole idea of marriage, 1000's of years ago, so it kind of stands to reason that everyone ought to at least consider his ideas about marriage, particularly if your marriage doesn't seem to be working out the way you planned.
I love talking about the challenges of marriage and being authentic with the struggle we all face. Each time I do I am reminded of the gift that God has given me in my wife, Mendy. For those of you that don't know, Mendy and I met when her family began attending the church where my family attended in Knoxville, TN. We were good friends for a few years and Mendy tells the story that she said to her mom when she was 13, "I am going to marry David Henderson." Her mom told her she didn't even really know what marriage was, but that did not deter Mendy. We were married five years later on May 23, 1992.
If there is one characteristic that shines out in my wife, it is a "whatever it takes, servant-like devotion." She has always loved me and I have always been able to count on it. There are two challenges (actually more but two that stand out) to being married to me. One is ME. I am not easy to be married to, in the high times, life could not be better and in the low times everything seems dim. It takes a special person just to love me through the highs, the lows and everything in between. The second challenge is the path (sometimes I call it a burden... like the prophets referred to it) that God has chosen for my life. Midway through my freshman year at the University of Tennessee, God led me to give up my current course of study to follow His leadership and become a pastor. I don't care who you are, it isn't easy being married to a pastor. There is a struggle between work/home that is always blurry. There is spiritual opposition to everything you are trying to do and be as a married couple and as a family. There are endless expectations from others around you, who rarely understand that anyone has any expectations of you at all. For all of these reasons and more, being married to me isn't easy. Yet, God knew that it would take someone with radical "whatever it takes" devotion to be my wife and He convinced her early on to want to marry me.
Mendy has displayed her devotion to me in countless ways, but rather than just calling them "countless" and leaving it at that, I wanted to let everyone else know a few of the ways this woman has loved me with a reckless devotion.
-We decided to get married after her freshman year of college. She was studying early childhood education at the University of Tennessee. I had just graduated from college and was planning on starting and completing graduate school as soon as possible. We knew graduate school was going to cost a lot of money and decided it would be best to work hard and save for a year before beginning. This meant us both getting full time jobs (in addition to the "part time" youth ministry position I had) to save. It also meant that she would quit pursuing her degree. This was done with gladness and devotion.
-When we were married in '92, I had already been a youth pastor for 3 years. My youth were used to David (the single guy) being able to hang out at all hours of the day (AND night). Whatever these 7th-12th grade students needed to take the next step in their spiritual journey, I did my best to provide. When we got married, we moved closer to the church to be even more engaged in the community. Mendy jumped right in with the entire church community. She loved deeply and poured herself into many of the girls in our group as well as many others in that church. She tolerated the late night "drop in's" and the come and go at all hours from many of the youth.
-Fourteen months after we were married, we moved to Dallas, TX so I could attend Dallas Theological Seminary. Moving 15 hours away for some might not seem that big of a deal, but nearly all of Mendy's family and extended family lived in and around Knoxville. Getting together for birthdays, holidays etc was at least a monthly gathering, gatherings that we would no longer be a part of. We knew God wanted us in Dallas, Mendy always maintained that same "whatever it takes" devotion. We have never moved back to Knoxville and I know at times the distance has been difficult, but we know God’s promises for those who have left father and mother to follow him.
-As I found a part-time youth pastor position in Dallas, Mendy worked full time to put me through grad school. We graduated with no school debt... whatever it takes.
-For the last nine months of her job in Dallas, Mendy was pregnant with Megan. At one point early in the pregnancy, the doctor's became very concerned and warned us that we might lose this baby. I saw fear in Mendy's eyes and felt it in my voice as we prayed, and at the same time I saw an amazing determination and resolve. The doctor's said Mendy needed a specific medicine that seemed to be very difficult for them to find and needed it as soon as possible. Through many calls, Mendy found the medicine before our doctors office did. We believed then and still do that this doctor’s diagnosis and the timeliness of the medication saved Megan’s life… devotion… whatever it takes.
-We moved to eastern NC for my first job as a Senior Pastor. I was 26 and Mendy was 22. She adapted to a small town of 8000 people surrounded by farmland. It was a great place to start a family, but a very lonely place for Mendy. I watched her struggle, but always gracefully and willingly because we knew God had called us there.
-Two years into this position, I knew God was growing us and changing us. He was doing a work in both of our hearts that would totally change the direction of our lives and our ministry. Up until this point we were pretty comfortable people in a comfortable church with a comfortable future ahead of us. God had different plans. The next 2 ½ years God shaped in both our hearts a deep love for people far away from God and far away from the church. He placed in us a deep desire to pursue them with our lives. This is NOT a comfortable transformation, particularly when you act on it. And act on it we did. I remember being with Mendy at the 1st Evangelism conference that Willow Creek Community Church ever held. I stood in the parking lot of a grocery store in South Barrington, ILL after two days of that conference and Mendy and I said to each other, “I will not waste my life anymore focusing on comfortable religious people. I will take the message of Christ into the dark places in our world.” The reality of our lives now can be traced to that day. It was maybe a bigger stretch for Mendy than for me… and of course all I saw was devotion… to me… but more importantly to our Savior Jesus Christ… what it takes!
-A few years later this decision led us to begin a new church. We moved to Charlotte in June of 2000. When we committed to do this Mendy was pregnant with our third child and we had a secure income of $1,000 per month. The rest of our salary would be up to us to come up with. This situation alone would have been enough for many women to say, “no way… enough… I have to have more security than that.” Mendy didn’t just go along with it, she genuinely welcomed the insecurity as we stayed devoted to our God and His call on our life. Mendy gave birth to Jacob on August 14th, 45 days after we moved to Charlotte. Oh and we had the first gathering of UCF in our living room on July 20 with 14 people…. Whatever it takes!
-The first year of church planting is a total whirlwind. In those days there were not a ton of resources on church planting and truth be known, we really didn’t know what we were doing. But God called and He blessed. Mendy worked beside me every step of the way. She did not attend a service for the first year of our church because she gave herself to making sure the children’s areas were being led well… by her. She also quickly found herself cooking once a week for about 50-70 college students at our house… it was a zoo at our house. In August of 2001, Mendy called me mid morning to come home because she was not feeling well. Minutes later I was taking her to the Emergency Room. For 6 anxious days, Mendy was in excruciating pain that only subsided with pain medication that knocked her out. The diagnosis was double pneumonia and meningitis. All of this was simply brought on by fatigue. After 9 days in the hospital, Mendy came home. She missed Jacob’s 1st birthday because of her hospital stay. When I say we have given our lives to follow God’s call to begin this church, I mean it. We definitely tried to make some adjustments in our schedule, but with three preschoolers and a new church there wasn’t much room… devotion… whatever it takes.
-Through the years Mendy has watched me go through some amazing highs and some deep valleys. She has seen first hand my joys and pains and she has been with me on every emotional roller coaster ride I have taken her on. She has tried to buffer our family from the difficult days and protect our home from the struggles, but it is kind of hard when you open your home to everyone and truly love and serve them while they are there… a servant-minded devotion… whatever it takes.
-After giving birth to Lindsay in October of 2003, Mendy and I faced the most difficult time of our life to this point. She was diagnosed with heart failure brought on by the pregnancy and delivery. Three months after this diagnosis, we believed we were facing the need for a heart transplant (I have written a blog on this time title “Heart Failure”). Although she had NO energy and the medication completely fatigued her even more, Mendy did whatever was needed for our marriage and for our family. I watched her drag herself out of bed to serve our family and our community… and try to get rest in the momentary down times. I watched her wrestle with God and I wrestled with her. This lasted for three years, before the Lord healed her heart… devotion… whatever it takes.
-With each new stage that our children enter into, Mendy is there, fully present. She is the force that makes me a better dad by reminding me to do the little things and the big things that make our family what it is. Our kids don’t fully know, and maybe they never will, but Mendy’s devotion to me and to them is immeasurable. She knows what is needed and just figures out a way to make it happen… a servant minded devotion… whatever it takes.
-I have an enduring HOPE for things that are not real yet. I dream often about what could be and what should be. I look at the person furthest away from God and simply dream about what their life could be like if they went ALL OUT in their devotion to God. This leads me to dream and hope out loud a lot. Usually it is Mendy who is listening to the idealistic ramblings and outrageous dreams about what the Kingdom could be here and around the world. She has poured herself into others with me. It’s the kind of sacrifice that you only make when you have such a tremendous hope for what a person could be and should be. But hoping deeply also creates the potential to hurt deeply when it doesn’t work out or when evil wins a battle. I have watched Mendy both hope and hurt and she has been my comfort in my own hoping and hurting times… whatever it takes.
-I watched God call my wife to join Him in His work in Ethiopia. Mendy who is not nearly as ambitious as I am and hates to fly obediently said “yes” when God led her to go. You may look at her now and think she was ALL IN from the beginning, but in the beginning I know she went out of pure obedience to God and His voice. Four trips later and full of amazing stories of God’s work, Mendy’s obedience to go to Ethiopia has formed and shaped us in huge ways… devotion…. Whatever it takes!
-I really could go on and on, but I will stop with this one. I am currently watching Mendy’s devotion directed toward Tizita and Geremew (our two kids in Ethiopia that we are waiting to adopt). She has never met them, and they do not know it, but there is already a deep devotion to them in her heart. They are already treated like they are our kids. I can’t wait for the day that her devotion to this adoption leads to it’s completion. I want these kids to see the eyes of their mom and feel her servant minded devotion and on that day they will know that they have a mom who will always do WHATEVER IT TAKES!
You simply amaze me.
I love talking about the challenges of marriage and being authentic with the struggle we all face. Each time I do I am reminded of the gift that God has given me in my wife, Mendy. For those of you that don't know, Mendy and I met when her family began attending the church where my family attended in Knoxville, TN. We were good friends for a few years and Mendy tells the story that she said to her mom when she was 13, "I am going to marry David Henderson." Her mom told her she didn't even really know what marriage was, but that did not deter Mendy. We were married five years later on May 23, 1992.
If there is one characteristic that shines out in my wife, it is a "whatever it takes, servant-like devotion." She has always loved me and I have always been able to count on it. There are two challenges (actually more but two that stand out) to being married to me. One is ME. I am not easy to be married to, in the high times, life could not be better and in the low times everything seems dim. It takes a special person just to love me through the highs, the lows and everything in between. The second challenge is the path (sometimes I call it a burden... like the prophets referred to it) that God has chosen for my life. Midway through my freshman year at the University of Tennessee, God led me to give up my current course of study to follow His leadership and become a pastor. I don't care who you are, it isn't easy being married to a pastor. There is a struggle between work/home that is always blurry. There is spiritual opposition to everything you are trying to do and be as a married couple and as a family. There are endless expectations from others around you, who rarely understand that anyone has any expectations of you at all. For all of these reasons and more, being married to me isn't easy. Yet, God knew that it would take someone with radical "whatever it takes" devotion to be my wife and He convinced her early on to want to marry me.
Mendy has displayed her devotion to me in countless ways, but rather than just calling them "countless" and leaving it at that, I wanted to let everyone else know a few of the ways this woman has loved me with a reckless devotion.
-We decided to get married after her freshman year of college. She was studying early childhood education at the University of Tennessee. I had just graduated from college and was planning on starting and completing graduate school as soon as possible. We knew graduate school was going to cost a lot of money and decided it would be best to work hard and save for a year before beginning. This meant us both getting full time jobs (in addition to the "part time" youth ministry position I had) to save. It also meant that she would quit pursuing her degree. This was done with gladness and devotion.
-When we were married in '92, I had already been a youth pastor for 3 years. My youth were used to David (the single guy) being able to hang out at all hours of the day (AND night). Whatever these 7th-12th grade students needed to take the next step in their spiritual journey, I did my best to provide. When we got married, we moved closer to the church to be even more engaged in the community. Mendy jumped right in with the entire church community. She loved deeply and poured herself into many of the girls in our group as well as many others in that church. She tolerated the late night "drop in's" and the come and go at all hours from many of the youth.
-Fourteen months after we were married, we moved to Dallas, TX so I could attend Dallas Theological Seminary. Moving 15 hours away for some might not seem that big of a deal, but nearly all of Mendy's family and extended family lived in and around Knoxville. Getting together for birthdays, holidays etc was at least a monthly gathering, gatherings that we would no longer be a part of. We knew God wanted us in Dallas, Mendy always maintained that same "whatever it takes" devotion. We have never moved back to Knoxville and I know at times the distance has been difficult, but we know God’s promises for those who have left father and mother to follow him.
-As I found a part-time youth pastor position in Dallas, Mendy worked full time to put me through grad school. We graduated with no school debt... whatever it takes.
-For the last nine months of her job in Dallas, Mendy was pregnant with Megan. At one point early in the pregnancy, the doctor's became very concerned and warned us that we might lose this baby. I saw fear in Mendy's eyes and felt it in my voice as we prayed, and at the same time I saw an amazing determination and resolve. The doctor's said Mendy needed a specific medicine that seemed to be very difficult for them to find and needed it as soon as possible. Through many calls, Mendy found the medicine before our doctors office did. We believed then and still do that this doctor’s diagnosis and the timeliness of the medication saved Megan’s life… devotion… whatever it takes.
-We moved to eastern NC for my first job as a Senior Pastor. I was 26 and Mendy was 22. She adapted to a small town of 8000 people surrounded by farmland. It was a great place to start a family, but a very lonely place for Mendy. I watched her struggle, but always gracefully and willingly because we knew God had called us there.
-Two years into this position, I knew God was growing us and changing us. He was doing a work in both of our hearts that would totally change the direction of our lives and our ministry. Up until this point we were pretty comfortable people in a comfortable church with a comfortable future ahead of us. God had different plans. The next 2 ½ years God shaped in both our hearts a deep love for people far away from God and far away from the church. He placed in us a deep desire to pursue them with our lives. This is NOT a comfortable transformation, particularly when you act on it. And act on it we did. I remember being with Mendy at the 1st Evangelism conference that Willow Creek Community Church ever held. I stood in the parking lot of a grocery store in South Barrington, ILL after two days of that conference and Mendy and I said to each other, “I will not waste my life anymore focusing on comfortable religious people. I will take the message of Christ into the dark places in our world.” The reality of our lives now can be traced to that day. It was maybe a bigger stretch for Mendy than for me… and of course all I saw was devotion… to me… but more importantly to our Savior Jesus Christ… what it takes!
-A few years later this decision led us to begin a new church. We moved to Charlotte in June of 2000. When we committed to do this Mendy was pregnant with our third child and we had a secure income of $1,000 per month. The rest of our salary would be up to us to come up with. This situation alone would have been enough for many women to say, “no way… enough… I have to have more security than that.” Mendy didn’t just go along with it, she genuinely welcomed the insecurity as we stayed devoted to our God and His call on our life. Mendy gave birth to Jacob on August 14th, 45 days after we moved to Charlotte. Oh and we had the first gathering of UCF in our living room on July 20 with 14 people…. Whatever it takes!
-The first year of church planting is a total whirlwind. In those days there were not a ton of resources on church planting and truth be known, we really didn’t know what we were doing. But God called and He blessed. Mendy worked beside me every step of the way. She did not attend a service for the first year of our church because she gave herself to making sure the children’s areas were being led well… by her. She also quickly found herself cooking once a week for about 50-70 college students at our house… it was a zoo at our house. In August of 2001, Mendy called me mid morning to come home because she was not feeling well. Minutes later I was taking her to the Emergency Room. For 6 anxious days, Mendy was in excruciating pain that only subsided with pain medication that knocked her out. The diagnosis was double pneumonia and meningitis. All of this was simply brought on by fatigue. After 9 days in the hospital, Mendy came home. She missed Jacob’s 1st birthday because of her hospital stay. When I say we have given our lives to follow God’s call to begin this church, I mean it. We definitely tried to make some adjustments in our schedule, but with three preschoolers and a new church there wasn’t much room… devotion… whatever it takes.
-Through the years Mendy has watched me go through some amazing highs and some deep valleys. She has seen first hand my joys and pains and she has been with me on every emotional roller coaster ride I have taken her on. She has tried to buffer our family from the difficult days and protect our home from the struggles, but it is kind of hard when you open your home to everyone and truly love and serve them while they are there… a servant-minded devotion… whatever it takes.
-After giving birth to Lindsay in October of 2003, Mendy and I faced the most difficult time of our life to this point. She was diagnosed with heart failure brought on by the pregnancy and delivery. Three months after this diagnosis, we believed we were facing the need for a heart transplant (I have written a blog on this time title “Heart Failure”). Although she had NO energy and the medication completely fatigued her even more, Mendy did whatever was needed for our marriage and for our family. I watched her drag herself out of bed to serve our family and our community… and try to get rest in the momentary down times. I watched her wrestle with God and I wrestled with her. This lasted for three years, before the Lord healed her heart… devotion… whatever it takes.
-With each new stage that our children enter into, Mendy is there, fully present. She is the force that makes me a better dad by reminding me to do the little things and the big things that make our family what it is. Our kids don’t fully know, and maybe they never will, but Mendy’s devotion to me and to them is immeasurable. She knows what is needed and just figures out a way to make it happen… a servant minded devotion… whatever it takes.
-I have an enduring HOPE for things that are not real yet. I dream often about what could be and what should be. I look at the person furthest away from God and simply dream about what their life could be like if they went ALL OUT in their devotion to God. This leads me to dream and hope out loud a lot. Usually it is Mendy who is listening to the idealistic ramblings and outrageous dreams about what the Kingdom could be here and around the world. She has poured herself into others with me. It’s the kind of sacrifice that you only make when you have such a tremendous hope for what a person could be and should be. But hoping deeply also creates the potential to hurt deeply when it doesn’t work out or when evil wins a battle. I have watched Mendy both hope and hurt and she has been my comfort in my own hoping and hurting times… whatever it takes.
-I watched God call my wife to join Him in His work in Ethiopia. Mendy who is not nearly as ambitious as I am and hates to fly obediently said “yes” when God led her to go. You may look at her now and think she was ALL IN from the beginning, but in the beginning I know she went out of pure obedience to God and His voice. Four trips later and full of amazing stories of God’s work, Mendy’s obedience to go to Ethiopia has formed and shaped us in huge ways… devotion…. Whatever it takes!
-I really could go on and on, but I will stop with this one. I am currently watching Mendy’s devotion directed toward Tizita and Geremew (our two kids in Ethiopia that we are waiting to adopt). She has never met them, and they do not know it, but there is already a deep devotion to them in her heart. They are already treated like they are our kids. I can’t wait for the day that her devotion to this adoption leads to it’s completion. I want these kids to see the eyes of their mom and feel her servant minded devotion and on that day they will know that they have a mom who will always do WHATEVER IT TAKES!
You simply amaze me.
4.30.2009
ReJesus :: Penetrating Conversations - Welcome?
This post is in response to a group learning activity that we had during out Neighborhood Gathering on April 26. I said I would post responses to the penetrating questions we used here so you could know what I think. There are five questions and I will create a new post for each question.
4. I came here because I heard your church was a friendly place, but other than someone saying “Hi” to me at the door, no one has said a word to me yet this morning. What’s up with that?
If you have been to UCF for more than six months and you call UCF “your church.” You need to wake up to what is going on around you on Sunday mornings. You are UCF. You may not feel like an insider, but to a new person walking in the door you are an insider, you are UCF. The new person walking in our church doesn’t know if you have been there 6 months or 6 years. They draw conclusions about whether or not we are a friendly church based on how you engage and respond to them. It is vital that you take this on as your responsibility.
We can plan to have greeters and welcomers etc, but let’s face it, when you walk by a greeter, you know they are supposed to be there “doing their job.” And while this job is important, it is more important that a person feels like everyone is welcoming, not just the people we picked to do the job. To be honest with you, most of the churches around have an elaborate system of greeting people – parking lot greeters, front door greeters, greeters here, greeters there, greeters everywhere. I have been to some of these places and you get the sense that these people aren’t really friendly, it is just what they are supposed to do, so they do it. It’s kind of like being greeted by the Walmart greeter – they don’t really care about you – they say hi and give your kid a sticker because it is their job! However I have been to a few places where the greeters at the door were just the tip in the iceburg – you walked in to a completely authentic welcoming community. You felt it because it was from everyone.
Bottom line on this one is that you are not a welcoming person because you are too self-focused. My professor Howard Hendricks once told me, “the reason you don’t remember someone’s name is that you are too worried about them remembering yours.” It’s true, the reason we aren’t welcoming, is because we would rather just show up and talk to who we want to talk to. It is most comfortable to talk with people in your small group or your close friends, but loving others as you love yourself requires you to have an others first mindset.
General rule #1 – if you can usually talk to a group of people during the week, don’t waste the precious time 10 minutes before and after each service talking to the same people. People in my family room (small group) pretty much know that I don’t talk with them much on Sunday morning, I can talk to them through the week and on Wednesday nights when we are getting together. With a new person I have one chance to express love to them by putting them first.
General Rule #2 – We need to implement the 10 minute rule. For the first 10 minutes after each service, you are not allowed to talk to anyone you already know. Build some new friendships. Take some risks.
If you didn’t realize it we are growing. We have new people and new families coming in the doors every single week. Some of these people are giving church “one more chance” after being out of church for years. You are UCF, what will you do? And what will the new families feel because of it?
4. I came here because I heard your church was a friendly place, but other than someone saying “Hi” to me at the door, no one has said a word to me yet this morning. What’s up with that?
If you have been to UCF for more than six months and you call UCF “your church.” You need to wake up to what is going on around you on Sunday mornings. You are UCF. You may not feel like an insider, but to a new person walking in the door you are an insider, you are UCF. The new person walking in our church doesn’t know if you have been there 6 months or 6 years. They draw conclusions about whether or not we are a friendly church based on how you engage and respond to them. It is vital that you take this on as your responsibility.
We can plan to have greeters and welcomers etc, but let’s face it, when you walk by a greeter, you know they are supposed to be there “doing their job.” And while this job is important, it is more important that a person feels like everyone is welcoming, not just the people we picked to do the job. To be honest with you, most of the churches around have an elaborate system of greeting people – parking lot greeters, front door greeters, greeters here, greeters there, greeters everywhere. I have been to some of these places and you get the sense that these people aren’t really friendly, it is just what they are supposed to do, so they do it. It’s kind of like being greeted by the Walmart greeter – they don’t really care about you – they say hi and give your kid a sticker because it is their job! However I have been to a few places where the greeters at the door were just the tip in the iceburg – you walked in to a completely authentic welcoming community. You felt it because it was from everyone.
Bottom line on this one is that you are not a welcoming person because you are too self-focused. My professor Howard Hendricks once told me, “the reason you don’t remember someone’s name is that you are too worried about them remembering yours.” It’s true, the reason we aren’t welcoming, is because we would rather just show up and talk to who we want to talk to. It is most comfortable to talk with people in your small group or your close friends, but loving others as you love yourself requires you to have an others first mindset.
General rule #1 – if you can usually talk to a group of people during the week, don’t waste the precious time 10 minutes before and after each service talking to the same people. People in my family room (small group) pretty much know that I don’t talk with them much on Sunday morning, I can talk to them through the week and on Wednesday nights when we are getting together. With a new person I have one chance to express love to them by putting them first.
General Rule #2 – We need to implement the 10 minute rule. For the first 10 minutes after each service, you are not allowed to talk to anyone you already know. Build some new friendships. Take some risks.
If you didn’t realize it we are growing. We have new people and new families coming in the doors every single week. Some of these people are giving church “one more chance” after being out of church for years. You are UCF, what will you do? And what will the new families feel because of it?
4.29.2009
ReJesus :: Penetrating Conversations - Generosity
3. Speaking of money, why do you keep pushing us to give more when our country’s in the middle of a financial crisis?
Your only protection against a recession is to follow God. Your only protection when we are not in a recession is to follow God. I am challenging you to be truly generous people, holding on to everything loosely. Our economic outlook has no influence on what I am going to challenge you to do. If anything, I believe the challenge to follow God’s wisdom concerning your finances and being a generous person needs to be more heavily emphasized in times like these. Think about these promises from God.
A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Proverbs 11:25
A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. Proverbs 22:9
Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Psalm 112:5
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written: "He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever." 10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9
I challenge you to give generously because it is the only path that invites God’s activity into your finances. If we do what He asks us to do with our money then our future is in His hands and He can choose to do what He wants with us. The bible tends to indicate that things work out better when we place things in God’s hands. And if most of you were honest, we make a pretty big mess of things when we do our own thing. Some of you have lost a bunch of money recently due to the decline in value of stocks, investments, etc. If you had invested that money in the Kingdom of God years ago, your investment would have been safe. Instead, you stored up treasures for yourself here on the earth “where moths eat and rust corrodes and where thieves break in and steal.” Store up treasure in heaven by investing in the things of God and your dividends will truly be secure.
One of the most quoted verses in the bible “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is written by Paul as he is speaking about living in times of need and in times of plenty. The verse speaks about trusting in Christ to give us the strength to live in times like these. Trust Him! You have an absolutely amazing opportunity in your world right now to live with God’s peace when it comes to the economy. People are going to continue to get more anxious and stressed out over finances to the point that those who live in peace will shine brightly and have great opportunities to share where their peace comes from.
Your only protection against a recession is to follow God. Your only protection when we are not in a recession is to follow God. I am challenging you to be truly generous people, holding on to everything loosely. Our economic outlook has no influence on what I am going to challenge you to do. If anything, I believe the challenge to follow God’s wisdom concerning your finances and being a generous person needs to be more heavily emphasized in times like these. Think about these promises from God.
A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. Proverbs 11:25
A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. Proverbs 22:9
Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely, who conducts his affairs with justice. Psalm 112:5
6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 9 As it is written: "He has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor; his righteousness endures forever." 10 Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 12 This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God's people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9
I challenge you to give generously because it is the only path that invites God’s activity into your finances. If we do what He asks us to do with our money then our future is in His hands and He can choose to do what He wants with us. The bible tends to indicate that things work out better when we place things in God’s hands. And if most of you were honest, we make a pretty big mess of things when we do our own thing. Some of you have lost a bunch of money recently due to the decline in value of stocks, investments, etc. If you had invested that money in the Kingdom of God years ago, your investment would have been safe. Instead, you stored up treasures for yourself here on the earth “where moths eat and rust corrodes and where thieves break in and steal.” Store up treasure in heaven by investing in the things of God and your dividends will truly be secure.
One of the most quoted verses in the bible “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is written by Paul as he is speaking about living in times of need and in times of plenty. The verse speaks about trusting in Christ to give us the strength to live in times like these. Trust Him! You have an absolutely amazing opportunity in your world right now to live with God’s peace when it comes to the economy. People are going to continue to get more anxious and stressed out over finances to the point that those who live in peace will shine brightly and have great opportunities to share where their peace comes from.
4.28.2009
ReJesus :: Penetrating Conversations - Poor
Why are we always serving the poor? People with money have problems, too, you know.
As I said in the response to yesterday’s question, I don’t think we get to choose who we will serve. We are humanity’s slave. That applies to where people live and it applies to their economic standing. We are called to serve the poor, serve the rich and everyone in between. A few thoughts to consider:
-University City Fellowship serves primarily the wealthy on Sunday mornings. Some of you would not necessarily agree with that, but nearly everyone who comes drives to get there in a car that they (or their family) own. That means they are “rich” from the world’s standpoint. Our messages and style are more focused on reaching out to those in the top 25% of the world’s wealth, mainly because if you live in this geographic region then you are in this category.
-I realize that money doesn’t solve problems and often it creates problems for people. That is one reason that we are doing life here in the Charlotte area and not in the streets of Calcutta.
-God does direct us to give to and serve to poor. It doesn’t take too much effort to find God’s heart for the poor in the Bible. One verse that I especially like is Proverbs 19:17, “If you help the poor, you are lending to the LORD – and he will repay you!” It is kind of different to think of what we are doing as “lending” to God. I also simply love Jesus’ words that “when you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.” I don’t know about you, but I want to serve Jesus and one of the best ways to do it is to serve and give to the poor. We will always be this kind of place with this kind of focus.
-I think God does a renovation in our hearts (with our attitudes and motives) when we serve the poor. Sometimes this renovation is a little trying and painful. Try it and see.
As I said in the response to yesterday’s question, I don’t think we get to choose who we will serve. We are humanity’s slave. That applies to where people live and it applies to their economic standing. We are called to serve the poor, serve the rich and everyone in between. A few thoughts to consider:
-University City Fellowship serves primarily the wealthy on Sunday mornings. Some of you would not necessarily agree with that, but nearly everyone who comes drives to get there in a car that they (or their family) own. That means they are “rich” from the world’s standpoint. Our messages and style are more focused on reaching out to those in the top 25% of the world’s wealth, mainly because if you live in this geographic region then you are in this category.
-I realize that money doesn’t solve problems and often it creates problems for people. That is one reason that we are doing life here in the Charlotte area and not in the streets of Calcutta.
-God does direct us to give to and serve to poor. It doesn’t take too much effort to find God’s heart for the poor in the Bible. One verse that I especially like is Proverbs 19:17, “If you help the poor, you are lending to the LORD – and he will repay you!” It is kind of different to think of what we are doing as “lending” to God. I also simply love Jesus’ words that “when you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.” I don’t know about you, but I want to serve Jesus and one of the best ways to do it is to serve and give to the poor. We will always be this kind of place with this kind of focus.
-I think God does a renovation in our hearts (with our attitudes and motives) when we serve the poor. Sometimes this renovation is a little trying and painful. Try it and see.
4.27.2009
ReJesus :: Penetrating Conversations - Missions
This post is in response to a group learning activity that we had during out Neighborhood Gathering on April 26. I said I would post responses to the penetrating questions we used here so you could know what I think. There are five questions and I will create a new post for each question.
Why are we so concerned about people in Ethiopia and Mexico when there are lots of people with needs right here in America?
First of all I will address the question and then I will address the real reason I think people ask it. As followers of Christ we, don’t get to pick and choose who we will serve and who we will not serve. We are “humanity's slave” which is actually our next mini-series in the ReJesus series. We are servants of everyone, everywhere. There is a blindness in the church planting / new church movement AND IT IS THE LACK OF FOREIGN MISSION ENGAGEMENT. Lord willing, we will never fall into this blindness. Most of the focus and money that comes into a new church is spent on the ministries of that church itself. This is especially true if that church is focusing on purchasing land and building buildings. The lead team at UCF is wrestling with what it looks like to love people around us as much as we love ourselves when it comes to finances at UCF. Currently we probably give/spend about $100,000 per year on our missional projects in Ethiopia and Mexico. The majority of this is outside our regular operating budget. We also provide one full time salary for a ministry leader in Ethiopia for every full time staff position we have at UCF through our regular operating budget.
In my history of leading ministries, I have seen a lot of models of engaging the world around us. I think Matthew 28:19-20 among many other verses in the Bible, lays out a strategy that involves local AND global engagement. Our strategy of investing in a few global areas over a long period of time has come about through much seeking, much experience and much prayer. Currently these areas are Ethiopia and Mexico. I realize there are needs everywhere around us in this country, but the scale of NEED reaches entirely different levels when you travel out of our country into places where people live on $1-3 a day, have no access to clean drinking water and little or no opportunity to hear the message of Jesus Christ. The bible continually urges us to serve those in need and we cannot confine that to just those “in our country.” And still the large majority of our focus is spent on reaching out to people right hear in our own city and our own neighborhood. We serve a weekly meal to our homeless friends and have for the last five years. We throw a neighborhood party for families called Movies in the Park and we have a staff that serves – children, middle school students, high school students and college students. When you think of it like this we do more for our own country than we do for other countries.
The majority of the times I have heard this question, it comes mostly from a person who isn’t very engaged in serving people around the world or in this country. And honestly, the question comes off pretty empty to me. Conviction comes when we present needs and many people try to deflect this conviction by pointing out other needs that we aren’t doing something about. They present this as if to say, “If we were serving people in say Texas, THEN I would jump in and help!” The problem is when we do go to Texas (like we did this month) they don’t seem to jump in there either. If you have a passion for serving people we currently don’t serve and are willing to lead us to engage in new places, we are ready to listen and help you plan. Like I said, we are “humanity’s slave” and the more people we can serve the better. It takes a lot of persistence and tenacity to forge new works that consistently serve people around us but we are better when everyone is engaged. Jesus said something like, "the harvest is huge but the workers are few, so pray to God who controls the harvest to send more workers." Pray and then join the work.
Some people at UCF are currently working on a new idea to serve people all over the United States called U.S. I-27. Ask me about it.
Why are we so concerned about people in Ethiopia and Mexico when there are lots of people with needs right here in America?
First of all I will address the question and then I will address the real reason I think people ask it. As followers of Christ we, don’t get to pick and choose who we will serve and who we will not serve. We are “humanity's slave” which is actually our next mini-series in the ReJesus series. We are servants of everyone, everywhere. There is a blindness in the church planting / new church movement AND IT IS THE LACK OF FOREIGN MISSION ENGAGEMENT. Lord willing, we will never fall into this blindness. Most of the focus and money that comes into a new church is spent on the ministries of that church itself. This is especially true if that church is focusing on purchasing land and building buildings. The lead team at UCF is wrestling with what it looks like to love people around us as much as we love ourselves when it comes to finances at UCF. Currently we probably give/spend about $100,000 per year on our missional projects in Ethiopia and Mexico. The majority of this is outside our regular operating budget. We also provide one full time salary for a ministry leader in Ethiopia for every full time staff position we have at UCF through our regular operating budget.
In my history of leading ministries, I have seen a lot of models of engaging the world around us. I think Matthew 28:19-20 among many other verses in the Bible, lays out a strategy that involves local AND global engagement. Our strategy of investing in a few global areas over a long period of time has come about through much seeking, much experience and much prayer. Currently these areas are Ethiopia and Mexico. I realize there are needs everywhere around us in this country, but the scale of NEED reaches entirely different levels when you travel out of our country into places where people live on $1-3 a day, have no access to clean drinking water and little or no opportunity to hear the message of Jesus Christ. The bible continually urges us to serve those in need and we cannot confine that to just those “in our country.” And still the large majority of our focus is spent on reaching out to people right hear in our own city and our own neighborhood. We serve a weekly meal to our homeless friends and have for the last five years. We throw a neighborhood party for families called Movies in the Park and we have a staff that serves – children, middle school students, high school students and college students. When you think of it like this we do more for our own country than we do for other countries.
The majority of the times I have heard this question, it comes mostly from a person who isn’t very engaged in serving people around the world or in this country. And honestly, the question comes off pretty empty to me. Conviction comes when we present needs and many people try to deflect this conviction by pointing out other needs that we aren’t doing something about. They present this as if to say, “If we were serving people in say Texas, THEN I would jump in and help!” The problem is when we do go to Texas (like we did this month) they don’t seem to jump in there either. If you have a passion for serving people we currently don’t serve and are willing to lead us to engage in new places, we are ready to listen and help you plan. Like I said, we are “humanity’s slave” and the more people we can serve the better. It takes a lot of persistence and tenacity to forge new works that consistently serve people around us but we are better when everyone is engaged. Jesus said something like, "the harvest is huge but the workers are few, so pray to God who controls the harvest to send more workers." Pray and then join the work.
Some people at UCF are currently working on a new idea to serve people all over the United States called U.S. I-27. Ask me about it.
3.26.2009
Mind Dump
Several things are beating around in my head this morning.
One – We have an amazing collection of people that serve as the lead team of UCF. This morning we just had an incredible conversation about trust, accountability and mission. I love how God has molded this group into a subtly powerful force for the kingdom. Not in the normal sense that you might think of from other church leadership groups, but in a serving, giving, not-settling-for-the-status-quo kind of way that is very energizing and challenging to me. We meet every Thursday at 6 AM to continue a dialogue about what God is doing in us personally and collectively in this spiritual community called University City Fellowship. I am simply amazed at how the individual gifts of each person combine to form a very effective serving group. This was the hardest part of planting a church. Our first run at forming a lead team was a complete disaster. We had the wrong people with the wrong idea of what we were trying to create and form. I learned a ton from this failure and because of it I am that much more grateful for what God has formed over the last five years.
Two – I love the conversations that usually take place after our lead team even more. Mostly because these people are aware of and respond to the activity of God in their own lives and wonder out loud what it means for our community. I know God is birthing something very transformational. I have prayed for it and I have sensed it for a year or two, but now he is beginning to awaken others and call them to the same transformational pursuit. I cannot express the form that it will take, I only know that this morning’s conversations with Todd and Gray put me on a whole new level. After those conversations, I felt a lot less pressure to try to communicate what I think God wants us to do, because He is already preparing these guys for what is next. (And by the way, God has a way of communicating that is just a whole lot better than what I would come up with.) There is a burden to make sure our lives live up to their full redemptive potential that God had planned for us all. To be all in and go all out. To not let anything stand in the way of God’s full reign in us, so that He can lead us easily into the next opportunity. It is happening and it is humbling to feel like I am supposed to be the one leading this thing from a human perspective.
Three – I am reading and re-reading a book that resonates so deeply within my soul, that I can’t wait to get to the next page, but I keep finding myself re-reading pages because they so clearly express things that God has been building in my heart for years. I will try to write some of them down here so hopefully you can join the journey. The book is The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. Some of this stuff describes our community to a T and other parts of it challenge us to become something different – never settling for the safety and security of what we have done in the last 8 years. Get ready for a wild ride.
One – We have an amazing collection of people that serve as the lead team of UCF. This morning we just had an incredible conversation about trust, accountability and mission. I love how God has molded this group into a subtly powerful force for the kingdom. Not in the normal sense that you might think of from other church leadership groups, but in a serving, giving, not-settling-for-the-status-quo kind of way that is very energizing and challenging to me. We meet every Thursday at 6 AM to continue a dialogue about what God is doing in us personally and collectively in this spiritual community called University City Fellowship. I am simply amazed at how the individual gifts of each person combine to form a very effective serving group. This was the hardest part of planting a church. Our first run at forming a lead team was a complete disaster. We had the wrong people with the wrong idea of what we were trying to create and form. I learned a ton from this failure and because of it I am that much more grateful for what God has formed over the last five years.
Two – I love the conversations that usually take place after our lead team even more. Mostly because these people are aware of and respond to the activity of God in their own lives and wonder out loud what it means for our community. I know God is birthing something very transformational. I have prayed for it and I have sensed it for a year or two, but now he is beginning to awaken others and call them to the same transformational pursuit. I cannot express the form that it will take, I only know that this morning’s conversations with Todd and Gray put me on a whole new level. After those conversations, I felt a lot less pressure to try to communicate what I think God wants us to do, because He is already preparing these guys for what is next. (And by the way, God has a way of communicating that is just a whole lot better than what I would come up with.) There is a burden to make sure our lives live up to their full redemptive potential that God had planned for us all. To be all in and go all out. To not let anything stand in the way of God’s full reign in us, so that He can lead us easily into the next opportunity. It is happening and it is humbling to feel like I am supposed to be the one leading this thing from a human perspective.
Three – I am reading and re-reading a book that resonates so deeply within my soul, that I can’t wait to get to the next page, but I keep finding myself re-reading pages because they so clearly express things that God has been building in my heart for years. I will try to write some of them down here so hopefully you can join the journey. The book is The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. Some of this stuff describes our community to a T and other parts of it challenge us to become something different – never settling for the safety and security of what we have done in the last 8 years. Get ready for a wild ride.
3.24.2009
Adoption :: Resolve
For several years Mendy and I have talked about (and around) the idea of adopting a child. But most of these conversations had the tone of “one day” or “some day” or “we’ll see what happens.” This tone began to change two years ago when I spent the night on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with a few orphaned street kids. When one of these boys told me that his mom died when he was five and he just walked to the city where he knew he could survive, something happened deep inside me. It was a resolve to quit talking and start doing.
In January 2007, I led a series of talks at church titled The Monday After Pill, in which I simply focused on taking action on the things we all know God has asked us to do. One of these messages was from James 1 where James tells every Christ follower to DO what the Word says instead of just listening to the Word. He follows that teaching by telling us to care for widows and orphans in their distress. One month after giving this message to our spiritual community, I am face to face all night long with these orphans in Ethiopia. There was a resolve to ACT!
I have always HATED when I hear other pastors say something like, “I just love to preach the Word!” I didn’t know why this phrase bothered me so much until recently I was thinking, “I don’t think I like preaching the Word near as much as I like trying to live the Word.” What good is being more excited about telling others to follow Christ than actually following Christ myself! From this point on there was a resolution in my soul to get active about the pursuit of adoption.
For the next two years, Mendy and I prayed, planned and prepared. January 1, 2009 was our start date. We began the paperwork process, fund-raising process and intensified our search for the kids we would bring into our family.
In January 2007, I led a series of talks at church titled The Monday After Pill, in which I simply focused on taking action on the things we all know God has asked us to do. One of these messages was from James 1 where James tells every Christ follower to DO what the Word says instead of just listening to the Word. He follows that teaching by telling us to care for widows and orphans in their distress. One month after giving this message to our spiritual community, I am face to face all night long with these orphans in Ethiopia. There was a resolve to ACT!
I have always HATED when I hear other pastors say something like, “I just love to preach the Word!” I didn’t know why this phrase bothered me so much until recently I was thinking, “I don’t think I like preaching the Word near as much as I like trying to live the Word.” What good is being more excited about telling others to follow Christ than actually following Christ myself! From this point on there was a resolution in my soul to get active about the pursuit of adoption.
For the next two years, Mendy and I prayed, planned and prepared. January 1, 2009 was our start date. We began the paperwork process, fund-raising process and intensified our search for the kids we would bring into our family.
7.10.2008
The Auction Results!
Okay guys, I am sorry for the slow update on the Nance Bay Buffalo Nickel Auction which ended on Monday. For those new to this topic you need to read the previous post. The numbers that I am going to report are only significant as they relate to the story of God’s work in the life UCF and the people who are moved by God to accomplish his work. I could write for a long time of the endless connections and stories that this idea has generated and the amazing things that God is doing through it. I will try to give you a glimpse.
First of all the numbers: The total auction raised right at $4,000 with the winning bid going to Amy Montgomery. She bid on this so that she could give this nickel to her son Zachary who is currently working with Teen Mania Ministries and is heading to Bible College soon. Zachary’s story of life change is truly amazing and I have been blessed to just be able to watch God work in someone’s life to this extent. When I emailed Zachary about the Auction he told me that he wept and that his heart is really full of compassion for those who are struggling with homelessness. I am excited that he will have a real life reminder of the faith that leads a homeless man to give all that he had to help someone share Jesus with people in Ethiopia.
The money will help to pay for some of the transition costs for Mike and Amy Rodgers who moved last month to their permanent location at Lake Langano, Ethiopia. We have a mission trip with 10 people heading there in 14 days so please pray for God’s activity to be realized and responded to in huge ways.
Now for another side story to the whole Nance Bay Buffalo Nickel. This story requires a text from the bible where Paul writes,
6 Remember this – a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. 7 You must each make up your own mind as to how much you should give. Don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves the person who gives cheerfully. 8 And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. 9 As the Scriptures say, "Godly people give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will never be forgotten." 10 For God is the one who gives seed to the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will give you many opportunities to do good, and he will produce a great harvest of generosity in you. 11 Yes, you will be enriched so that you can give even more generously. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will break out in thanksgiving to God. 12 So two good things will happen – the needs of the Christians in Jerusalem will be met, and they will joyfully express their thanksgiving to God. 13 You will be glorifying God through your generous gifts. For your generosity to them will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ. 14 And they will pray for you with deep affection because of the wonderful grace of God shown through you. 15 Thank God for his Son – a gift too wonderful for words! 2 Corinthians 9
God is definitely at work in our church producing a culture of generosity… it is becoming who we are and it comes so close to the heart of God that it is exciting to see. Some of you have read the above verses with a little skepticism because it tends to indicate that to the person who gives cheerfully, God will in turn “generously provide all you need.” In a sense it kind of indicates that if we give cheerfully we will receive from God generously. Now many misguided TV evangelists have selfishly and wickedly used these verses to pad their pockets, but that should not distract us from the truth of the bible. You might wonder where I am going with this. Well here is the deal... one of the bids for Nance’s Nickel was written for $500, enclosed also was a separate check for $1,000 to help out with anything that we feel Nance might need. The end result is this, a homeless man in obedient to God and give all he has to God’s Kingdom work, this is used to raise $4,000 for UCF’s missionaries and another $1,000 to help the same homeless man who gave the original nickel. Pretty good return… I think the bible calls that a “generous crop.” Now I wonder what would happen if we all began to act in faith and give to the things of God. Generosity is contagious and the joy that comes with it is a rush.
Note: The $1,000 that was given for Nance will be given to those at UCF who have a relationship with him and are able to give to him as they see the needs arise. I am excited to see what God does through the money and the relationships it will deepen.
Love loud… risk often.
David
First of all the numbers: The total auction raised right at $4,000 with the winning bid going to Amy Montgomery. She bid on this so that she could give this nickel to her son Zachary who is currently working with Teen Mania Ministries and is heading to Bible College soon. Zachary’s story of life change is truly amazing and I have been blessed to just be able to watch God work in someone’s life to this extent. When I emailed Zachary about the Auction he told me that he wept and that his heart is really full of compassion for those who are struggling with homelessness. I am excited that he will have a real life reminder of the faith that leads a homeless man to give all that he had to help someone share Jesus with people in Ethiopia.
The money will help to pay for some of the transition costs for Mike and Amy Rodgers who moved last month to their permanent location at Lake Langano, Ethiopia. We have a mission trip with 10 people heading there in 14 days so please pray for God’s activity to be realized and responded to in huge ways.
Now for another side story to the whole Nance Bay Buffalo Nickel. This story requires a text from the bible where Paul writes,
6 Remember this – a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. 7 You must each make up your own mind as to how much you should give. Don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure. For God loves the person who gives cheerfully. 8 And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. 9 As the Scriptures say, "Godly people give generously to the poor. Their good deeds will never be forgotten." 10 For God is the one who gives seed to the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will give you many opportunities to do good, and he will produce a great harvest of generosity in you. 11 Yes, you will be enriched so that you can give even more generously. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will break out in thanksgiving to God. 12 So two good things will happen – the needs of the Christians in Jerusalem will be met, and they will joyfully express their thanksgiving to God. 13 You will be glorifying God through your generous gifts. For your generosity to them will prove that you are obedient to the Good News of Christ. 14 And they will pray for you with deep affection because of the wonderful grace of God shown through you. 15 Thank God for his Son – a gift too wonderful for words! 2 Corinthians 9
God is definitely at work in our church producing a culture of generosity… it is becoming who we are and it comes so close to the heart of God that it is exciting to see. Some of you have read the above verses with a little skepticism because it tends to indicate that to the person who gives cheerfully, God will in turn “generously provide all you need.” In a sense it kind of indicates that if we give cheerfully we will receive from God generously. Now many misguided TV evangelists have selfishly and wickedly used these verses to pad their pockets, but that should not distract us from the truth of the bible. You might wonder where I am going with this. Well here is the deal... one of the bids for Nance’s Nickel was written for $500, enclosed also was a separate check for $1,000 to help out with anything that we feel Nance might need. The end result is this, a homeless man in obedient to God and give all he has to God’s Kingdom work, this is used to raise $4,000 for UCF’s missionaries and another $1,000 to help the same homeless man who gave the original nickel. Pretty good return… I think the bible calls that a “generous crop.” Now I wonder what would happen if we all began to act in faith and give to the things of God. Generosity is contagious and the joy that comes with it is a rush.
Note: The $1,000 that was given for Nance will be given to those at UCF who have a relationship with him and are able to give to him as they see the needs arise. I am excited to see what God does through the money and the relationships it will deepen.
Love loud… risk often.
David
6.20.2008
A homeless man... a buffalo nickel... and God's plan!
First I want to introduce you to someone who has been to UCF twice. His name is Nans Bay. In the picture, Nans (on right) is standing with Joe Pelham, a regular at UCF. Joe met Nans in uptown Charlotte on a Sunday afternoon several months ago. 
Nans is one of our friends who doesn’t have a home and lives on the street. Joe picked him up for church back in May for his first visit and this past Sunday he came again with Joe.
At the end of this Sunday’s neighborhood gathering, I had planned on challenging everyone to give to two areas of need. The first was to Mike and Amy Rodgers (UCF’s missionaries to Ethiopia). They have just finished 9 months of language training and moved last week to their long-term home at Lake Langano. They have about $10,000 worth of one-time needs that are related to their move (things like furniture, generators, solar power system, etc). The second area of need was the UCF update we are planning for the Fall that includes all of our environments with particular attention to K-12th grades.
I challenged people to give $210 to each project. Why $210? Well, it costs $210 to provide for all of Mike and Amy needs for a single day and I thought I would mention that as well. Besides, $210 just seemed right. I have challenged people of the last few weeks to give a portion of their economic stimulus check that everyone has been receiving lately. After all, I believe it is simply God’s way of getting the US Government to fund mission work in Ethiopia. All it takes is our cooperation.
I think I was bolder than I have ever been, because in the middle of my challenge I simply thought, “if anyone knows a church that is doing more to reach out to the world around us with less, I want to know!” But instead of just thinking it I said it out loud. (That happens a lot in my world!) But the more I thought about it, the more I believed it. We are doing a great job of maximizing the money that comes into this place. And if there is another place that is doing more than we are with the same amount or less, I want to know so that we can learn from them how to do better. Bottom line, sometimes it isn’t about getting more for less, it is about challenging people to give more to places that are getting God’s work done! And right now, our mission needs to expand financially!
The service ended and I went to the Respond Area to spend some time with anyone who wanted to talk about the message. The first person that came up to me was Nans Bay. I greeted him with a hug because it was great to see him again. He said he needed to talk to me and he had a serious tone. He reached down and grabbed my hand and began to put something in it. As he was doing this he said, “now I don’t have $210, if I had it I’d of already gave it to ya. All I got is this nickel! Now it isn’t just any nickel, it’s a 1934 Buffalo Nickel. Now, I’m sure it’s not worth $210 but it’s all I got and maybe it can help your friends over there in Africa!” With a stunned silence, I looked down at the buffalo nickel he put in my hand. I was speechless as my eyes started to water a bit as I looked at Nans. He said, “I’ve been carrying this with me for a while now, but this is definitely where it needs to go!”
The story that immediately raced through my head was of Jesus and his disciples watching the widow give her only two coins to the offering in Luke 21…
While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people putting their gifts into the collection box. 2 Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two pennies. 3 "I assure you," he said, "this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. 4 For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has."
In one of my favorite books of the bible, James writes these penetrating words…
My dear brothers and sisters, F5 how can you claim that you have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people more than others? 2 For instance, suppose someone comes into your meeting F6 dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in shabby clothes. 3 If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, "You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor" – well, 4 doesn't this discrimination show that you are guided by wrong motives? 5 Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren't they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? 6 And yet, you insult the poor man!
I started to say to Nans, “thanks man, but you need this more than Mike and Amy.” But then the Spirit seemed to stop me. What I heard in my mind were two things,
“Don’t insult his faith by robbing him of the blessing of giving”
“I have a plan for that nickel.”
I thanked Nans and assured him that God has a plan for his nickel. He walked away and my mind immediately began churning on what to do with Nans nickel. Sunday afternoon I prayed and thought about it and here is what I sense the plan should be.
We are going to hold a Nans Bay Nickel Auction with all of the proceeds going to help Mike and Amy Rodgers work in Ethiopia. And here is how the auction will work, from now until July 6th we will be taking bids. All bids must be submitted in the form of a check made out to “UCF” with “Nans Nickel” in the memo line. The top bidder on July 6th will be awarded the nickel. The big difference in this auction is that all bids will be cashed! When you submit a bid by check, your check will be cashed and be added to the total. So let the bidding begin and check back here for updates!!!
You guys need to make this happen so that I can go back and tell Nans what God did with his buffalo nickel and his faith. Make it happen!
Nans is one of our friends who doesn’t have a home and lives on the street. Joe picked him up for church back in May for his first visit and this past Sunday he came again with Joe. At the end of this Sunday’s neighborhood gathering, I had planned on challenging everyone to give to two areas of need. The first was to Mike and Amy Rodgers (UCF’s missionaries to Ethiopia). They have just finished 9 months of language training and moved last week to their long-term home at Lake Langano. They have about $10,000 worth of one-time needs that are related to their move (things like furniture, generators, solar power system, etc). The second area of need was the UCF update we are planning for the Fall that includes all of our environments with particular attention to K-12th grades.
I challenged people to give $210 to each project. Why $210? Well, it costs $210 to provide for all of Mike and Amy needs for a single day and I thought I would mention that as well. Besides, $210 just seemed right. I have challenged people of the last few weeks to give a portion of their economic stimulus check that everyone has been receiving lately. After all, I believe it is simply God’s way of getting the US Government to fund mission work in Ethiopia. All it takes is our cooperation.
I think I was bolder than I have ever been, because in the middle of my challenge I simply thought, “if anyone knows a church that is doing more to reach out to the world around us with less, I want to know!” But instead of just thinking it I said it out loud. (That happens a lot in my world!) But the more I thought about it, the more I believed it. We are doing a great job of maximizing the money that comes into this place. And if there is another place that is doing more than we are with the same amount or less, I want to know so that we can learn from them how to do better. Bottom line, sometimes it isn’t about getting more for less, it is about challenging people to give more to places that are getting God’s work done! And right now, our mission needs to expand financially!
The service ended and I went to the Respond Area to spend some time with anyone who wanted to talk about the message. The first person that came up to me was Nans Bay. I greeted him with a hug because it was great to see him again. He said he needed to talk to me and he had a serious tone. He reached down and grabbed my hand and began to put something in it. As he was doing this he said, “now I don’t have $210, if I had it I’d of already gave it to ya. All I got is this nickel! Now it isn’t just any nickel, it’s a 1934 Buffalo Nickel. Now, I’m sure it’s not worth $210 but it’s all I got and maybe it can help your friends over there in Africa!” With a stunned silence, I looked down at the buffalo nickel he put in my hand. I was speechless as my eyes started to water a bit as I looked at Nans. He said, “I’ve been carrying this with me for a while now, but this is definitely where it needs to go!”
The story that immediately raced through my head was of Jesus and his disciples watching the widow give her only two coins to the offering in Luke 21…
While Jesus was in the Temple, he watched the rich people putting their gifts into the collection box. 2 Then a poor widow came by and dropped in two pennies. 3 "I assure you," he said, "this poor widow has given more than all the rest of them. 4 For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has."
In one of my favorite books of the bible, James writes these penetrating words…
My dear brothers and sisters, F5 how can you claim that you have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people more than others? 2 For instance, suppose someone comes into your meeting F6 dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in shabby clothes. 3 If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, "You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor" – well, 4 doesn't this discrimination show that you are guided by wrong motives? 5 Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren't they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him? 6 And yet, you insult the poor man!
I started to say to Nans, “thanks man, but you need this more than Mike and Amy.” But then the Spirit seemed to stop me. What I heard in my mind were two things,
“Don’t insult his faith by robbing him of the blessing of giving”
“I have a plan for that nickel.”
I thanked Nans and assured him that God has a plan for his nickel. He walked away and my mind immediately began churning on what to do with Nans nickel. Sunday afternoon I prayed and thought about it and here is what I sense the plan should be.
We are going to hold a Nans Bay Nickel Auction with all of the proceeds going to help Mike and Amy Rodgers work in Ethiopia. And here is how the auction will work, from now until July 6th we will be taking bids. All bids must be submitted in the form of a check made out to “UCF” with “Nans Nickel” in the memo line. The top bidder on July 6th will be awarded the nickel. The big difference in this auction is that all bids will be cashed! When you submit a bid by check, your check will be cashed and be added to the total. So let the bidding begin and check back here for updates!!!
You guys need to make this happen so that I can go back and tell Nans what God did with his buffalo nickel and his faith. Make it happen!
5.21.2008
Sunday and a man called, "Sam"
I think this past Sunday was an incredible wrap up to our UCF Backstage Series. I am in awe at God's providence and plan. I was excited going into the service because I knew the parts of the service that were going to be incredibly powerful - worship, parent-child dedication, the talk and the baptism video. Having a baptism video (that was shot at the baptism celebration on May 4th) at the end of the service was incredible. It is the capstone of all that we do because it is the outward expression of people choosing to trust Jesus and begin imitating Him. The baptism video was the planned part and a man who called himself "Sam" was the unplanned part.
Now regarding Sam, I know this may astonish some of you, but I believe that Sam was a person trying to scam our church and prey on the generosity of UCF. I did not know this at the point in the service when he stood up unsolicited and shared his story. For those who were not there, he shared that he was homeless, but had recently accepted Jesus as his Savior when someone shared Christ with him at a Burger King restaurant. He shared how God miraculously provided some clothes for him and that he had called his mom who had been praying for him. He stated that he was trying to get to Oklahoma to see his mom. I was stunned and felt compelled to let him tell his story. All I knew to do was pray for him and work out the details of helping him after the service. I prayed earnestly for him and thanked God for everything that we had been a part of in welcoming and showing love to Sam that morning. As soon as I sat down, during the closing song, I heard from a few people that this story was the same story that someone who called himself "Sam" stood up and shared at three other churches in our community recently. After a few seconds of thought and prayer, I asked Todd Murphy (part of UCF's Lead Team) to talk with Sam and decide how to handle the situation. There was a news report tonight on this scam taking place in several churches around the Charlotte area. Many of you handed me money to use for Sam's need. After talking with Sam and inquiring a little deeper into his story, Todd took him out to eat, dropped him at McDonald's to meet “his ride” and gave him a modest amount of travel money. He knew that we were on to him, but we still loved him and helped him.
Here is a few of my thoughts...
... the first thing that came to my mind when I realized what was probably going on was a verse in Genesis 50:20. Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers is now facing the challenge of forgiving his brothers as he is now the one in power in Egypt and they are at his mercy. And this is what he says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done." Joseph knew that God is so powerful that He can work his will out through the selfish ambition and devious schemes of people. I believe that is what God did on Sunday morning. While "Sam" may have thought he was there to get some fast cash and pull off a scheme, he didn't realize that he was a part of a service that God had planned. He didn't realize that is words drove home the point of how important it is to love and serve people, no matter what their agendas are. We loved him, accepted him, put out a sign for him, set up a cafe for him, provided coffee and bagels for him, engaged him in conversation and generally loved him - even after we knew what he was about. He drove home the point of Sunday's message better than I could have and he didn’t even know it. What he intended for harm, God intended for good to accomplish what is being done at UCF.
... The message that many of you experienced on Sunday was real even though the motives behind the message from Sam was fraudulent. God genuinely moved in your hearts and you felt compassion for a man you didn’t know and you wanted to help. Do not allow the sin and selfishness of people to harden you to the real need that is all around you. The world is coming to us (19th fastest growing county in the US) and we need to meet them with generosity and compassion so that we can point them to the one that makes all the difference in the world – Jesus.
… Jesus said that we are sent out like “sheep among wolves” so we are to be “shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.” I think we were definitely this on Sunday. We were wise and shrewd. We didn’t fill Sam’s pockets with money and allow his scam to work, but we didn’t turn him away either. We genuinely loved him, prayed for him and gave modestly to him. Everything that was given to me to give to him wasn’t needed, so I am giving it to Patrick Shaunessy to purchase some bus passed for our friends in uptown Charlotte who are homeless and really need some rides. We have limited amounts of time, money and energy. We must be good stewards of all of these so that we can advance God’s agenda most effectively in the world. We have to evaluate and make a plan. We didn’t necessarily have a plan for this scenario going in, but we had leaders in place who knew what to do and initiated compassionate, wise, innocent action. That is the community of God at work.
… Think of the boldness that it takes to pull off a scheme like that. To interrupt a service and boldly tell your story even though it is false. That takes guts and it is risky! He comes into our church and stands up and speaks up. I wonder what would happen if we went into our world and loved people with that kind of boldness and risk. I wonder what would happen if we went out with pure motives and took major risks to communicate love.
… Sam knew that we were on to his scam and yet he still experienced love and generosity moving towards him. I hope that Sam would be genuinely stunned by how people served him, talked with him, sat with him, and loved him – before and after we found out what he was up to. I am proud to be a part of a generous, caring, God-orchestrated community – keep loving loud… Sam heard it!
Love Loud… Risk Often,
David
Now regarding Sam, I know this may astonish some of you, but I believe that Sam was a person trying to scam our church and prey on the generosity of UCF. I did not know this at the point in the service when he stood up unsolicited and shared his story. For those who were not there, he shared that he was homeless, but had recently accepted Jesus as his Savior when someone shared Christ with him at a Burger King restaurant. He shared how God miraculously provided some clothes for him and that he had called his mom who had been praying for him. He stated that he was trying to get to Oklahoma to see his mom. I was stunned and felt compelled to let him tell his story. All I knew to do was pray for him and work out the details of helping him after the service. I prayed earnestly for him and thanked God for everything that we had been a part of in welcoming and showing love to Sam that morning. As soon as I sat down, during the closing song, I heard from a few people that this story was the same story that someone who called himself "Sam" stood up and shared at three other churches in our community recently. After a few seconds of thought and prayer, I asked Todd Murphy (part of UCF's Lead Team) to talk with Sam and decide how to handle the situation. There was a news report tonight on this scam taking place in several churches around the Charlotte area. Many of you handed me money to use for Sam's need. After talking with Sam and inquiring a little deeper into his story, Todd took him out to eat, dropped him at McDonald's to meet “his ride” and gave him a modest amount of travel money. He knew that we were on to him, but we still loved him and helped him.
Here is a few of my thoughts...
... the first thing that came to my mind when I realized what was probably going on was a verse in Genesis 50:20. Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers is now facing the challenge of forgiving his brothers as he is now the one in power in Egypt and they are at his mercy. And this is what he says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done." Joseph knew that God is so powerful that He can work his will out through the selfish ambition and devious schemes of people. I believe that is what God did on Sunday morning. While "Sam" may have thought he was there to get some fast cash and pull off a scheme, he didn't realize that he was a part of a service that God had planned. He didn't realize that is words drove home the point of how important it is to love and serve people, no matter what their agendas are. We loved him, accepted him, put out a sign for him, set up a cafe for him, provided coffee and bagels for him, engaged him in conversation and generally loved him - even after we knew what he was about. He drove home the point of Sunday's message better than I could have and he didn’t even know it. What he intended for harm, God intended for good to accomplish what is being done at UCF.
... The message that many of you experienced on Sunday was real even though the motives behind the message from Sam was fraudulent. God genuinely moved in your hearts and you felt compassion for a man you didn’t know and you wanted to help. Do not allow the sin and selfishness of people to harden you to the real need that is all around you. The world is coming to us (19th fastest growing county in the US) and we need to meet them with generosity and compassion so that we can point them to the one that makes all the difference in the world – Jesus.
… Jesus said that we are sent out like “sheep among wolves” so we are to be “shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves.” I think we were definitely this on Sunday. We were wise and shrewd. We didn’t fill Sam’s pockets with money and allow his scam to work, but we didn’t turn him away either. We genuinely loved him, prayed for him and gave modestly to him. Everything that was given to me to give to him wasn’t needed, so I am giving it to Patrick Shaunessy to purchase some bus passed for our friends in uptown Charlotte who are homeless and really need some rides. We have limited amounts of time, money and energy. We must be good stewards of all of these so that we can advance God’s agenda most effectively in the world. We have to evaluate and make a plan. We didn’t necessarily have a plan for this scenario going in, but we had leaders in place who knew what to do and initiated compassionate, wise, innocent action. That is the community of God at work.
… Think of the boldness that it takes to pull off a scheme like that. To interrupt a service and boldly tell your story even though it is false. That takes guts and it is risky! He comes into our church and stands up and speaks up. I wonder what would happen if we went into our world and loved people with that kind of boldness and risk. I wonder what would happen if we went out with pure motives and took major risks to communicate love.
… Sam knew that we were on to his scam and yet he still experienced love and generosity moving towards him. I hope that Sam would be genuinely stunned by how people served him, talked with him, sat with him, and loved him – before and after we found out what he was up to. I am proud to be a part of a generous, caring, God-orchestrated community – keep loving loud… Sam heard it!
Love Loud… Risk Often,
David
5.10.2008
US Government pays for mission work in Ethiopia!
Last Friday night's Movies in the Park (see www.MoviesInTheParkHarrisburg.com) was incredible. We simply created a perfect night for families in Harrisburg (1500-2000 people) to enjoy some great time together. Family after family thanked me for putting on an incredible event. The most impressive part to everyone by far was simply the friendliness of the volunteers. I also spoke with a couple of families on Sunday morning who came to UCF for the first time because they were at the movie on Friday. People simply want to be a part of a place that loves like you guys love. You all are awesome and I love being a part of leading such a loving group of people. The next movie is May 30th so make you plans.
I know many of you are receiving your "tax rebates" soon. Last week I proposed a plan for all of us who call UCF "my church" to give a portion of those rebates to Mike and Amy Rodgers support. My proposal was for each family to give $210, the amount that the Rodgers family needs for one day in Ethiopia. If we do this it will be the US governments way of sharing the love of God with kids in Ethiopia, kind of a cool way to think about it... but you are the key link. This plan grew even more urgent with an email I received this week from Amy Rodgers. Here is the email...
We are so grateful to be able to serve the Lord here in Ethiopia with Sports Friends and SIM and appreciate the sacrifices that so many of our friends have made to make this ministry possible. This has been a truly amazing year. In the next few weeks we will graduate from Amharic language school, pack up our family, and move to Camp Langano. We will be there ready to run six weeks of camping sessions that will be held between July 7 and August 15. In order to ease the transition for us when we arrived in Addis Ababa, SIM provided a furnished home to us during language school. Now that we are going out to do the ministry God called us to we are responsible for raising funds for some one-time ministry expenses to help get us established at Camp Langano. We will need to purchase the following items:
-Electric refrigerator $ 800
-Butane Freezer $ 500
-Butane Stove $ 800
-Generator, inverter and batteries $4,200
-Ceramic Water Filters $ 900
-Furniture $3,000
TOTAL $10,200
Mike and Amy Rodgers
If just 50 families at UCF decided to give $210 of their tax rebate we could meet this entire need. In praying through this, God may lead some of you to pay for some of these item entirely. I look forward to seeing how God uses us to make sure His work continues 365 days a year in Ethiopia. Let's make it happen. Write a check and put "Rodgers Tax Rebate" in the memo line so we know what it is for. Mike and Amy also need some more long term financial partners who will support them annually by paying for one or more days a year. At this point I believe that we need to cover about 15 more days to meet our support goal.
I will see you Sunday and out at the Lowe's Motor Speedway Workshop next week!
Love Loud... Risk Often,
David
I know many of you are receiving your "tax rebates" soon. Last week I proposed a plan for all of us who call UCF "my church" to give a portion of those rebates to Mike and Amy Rodgers support. My proposal was for each family to give $210, the amount that the Rodgers family needs for one day in Ethiopia. If we do this it will be the US governments way of sharing the love of God with kids in Ethiopia, kind of a cool way to think about it... but you are the key link. This plan grew even more urgent with an email I received this week from Amy Rodgers. Here is the email...
We are so grateful to be able to serve the Lord here in Ethiopia with Sports Friends and SIM and appreciate the sacrifices that so many of our friends have made to make this ministry possible. This has been a truly amazing year. In the next few weeks we will graduate from Amharic language school, pack up our family, and move to Camp Langano. We will be there ready to run six weeks of camping sessions that will be held between July 7 and August 15. In order to ease the transition for us when we arrived in Addis Ababa, SIM provided a furnished home to us during language school. Now that we are going out to do the ministry God called us to we are responsible for raising funds for some one-time ministry expenses to help get us established at Camp Langano. We will need to purchase the following items:
-Electric refrigerator $ 800
-Butane Freezer $ 500
-Butane Stove $ 800
-Generator, inverter and batteries $4,200
-Ceramic Water Filters $ 900
-Furniture $3,000
TOTAL $10,200
Mike and Amy Rodgers
If just 50 families at UCF decided to give $210 of their tax rebate we could meet this entire need. In praying through this, God may lead some of you to pay for some of these item entirely. I look forward to seeing how God uses us to make sure His work continues 365 days a year in Ethiopia. Let's make it happen. Write a check and put "Rodgers Tax Rebate" in the memo line so we know what it is for. Mike and Amy also need some more long term financial partners who will support them annually by paying for one or more days a year. At this point I believe that we need to cover about 15 more days to meet our support goal.
I will see you Sunday and out at the Lowe's Motor Speedway Workshop next week!
Love Loud... Risk Often,
David
5.03.2008
Movies in the Park... Amazing!
Amazing!!! What an incredible night tonight was. Our first Movies in the Park event could not have been better. After 1900 hits on our MoviesInTheParkHarrisburg.com website yesterday, I was a little concerned that we would be completely overwhelmed with 12,000 people. However, this time we were ready. At 8:15 the Cabarrus County Sheriffs Dept. called the park “full” and a few thousand people enjoyed a great night featuring “The Bee Movie” and tons of smiles. Every detail seemed to be covered right down to having bug spray for people! Unfortunately, we had to turn some people away due to space but that was the plan to eliminate overcrowding and make the experience enjoyable for the 2000-3000 people that were there.
I love being able to express the love that I have for people and even more I love seeing you guys at UCF express that love to your friends and neighbors. Tonight our love was LOUD! It speaks loudly to serve people with something that they obviously want and enjoy. It gives us the opportunity to show love in ways that they easily receive and gives God the opportunity to change some people’s minds about what people who follow Christ look and act like. I have so much confidence in the people who serve at UCF. I can only imagine that we are going to be needing more on Sunday mornings because of the new people that will be giving church another try because of tonight’s event. But even if people don’t show up at UCF because of this movie, tonight they know we care.
I have to get some sleep… AIDS walk is tomorrow and I am expecting to see another 100 UCF servants bight and early in uptown Charlotte at 9:00. Meet at the stage to get your newly designed UCF t-shirts to walk in. And thanks for caring for the forgotten and the suffering. See you in 7 hours!!!
Thanks for loving loud!
I love being able to express the love that I have for people and even more I love seeing you guys at UCF express that love to your friends and neighbors. Tonight our love was LOUD! It speaks loudly to serve people with something that they obviously want and enjoy. It gives us the opportunity to show love in ways that they easily receive and gives God the opportunity to change some people’s minds about what people who follow Christ look and act like. I have so much confidence in the people who serve at UCF. I can only imagine that we are going to be needing more on Sunday mornings because of the new people that will be giving church another try because of tonight’s event. But even if people don’t show up at UCF because of this movie, tonight they know we care.
I have to get some sleep… AIDS walk is tomorrow and I am expecting to see another 100 UCF servants bight and early in uptown Charlotte at 9:00. Meet at the stage to get your newly designed UCF t-shirts to walk in. And thanks for caring for the forgotten and the suffering. See you in 7 hours!!!
Thanks for loving loud!
5.02.2008
This week at the UC!
This weekend is UCF all out!
-Friday - Movies in the Park @ Harrisburg Park @ 8
-Saturday - AIDS Walk @ Uptown Charlotte @ 9
-Sunday - Baptism Celebration right after the Neighborhood Gathering.
This Sunday is going to be incredible. I am anticipating an amazing day as we celebrate those who have trusted Christ over the last few months and are following him in baptism. I love the journeys that lead us to this point and I love being a part of the life-change that God brings when people trust him. I received this email this week from someone who will be baptized this Sunday and I wanted to share with you a glimpse of what God is doing in the lives of those around us at UCF.
The part about how those two guys were re-baptized by Paul is so personal to me because when I was first baptized I knew it was a public declaration of my faith in God, but that was its only significance to me- "Yes, I believe in God"- But, like I told you on the phone, Christ has become so personal to me over the past few years that I feel like I need to be baptized again. Its because though I always believed in God, Jesus was never my personal savior, I didn't relate Him to my life and he wasn't the center of my focus. Let me tell you, the reason why I wept and gave my heart and everything that I am to God on Decmber 24, 2004 was because two things kept running through my mind. One: "He went through that for me" (meaning crucifixion & even more painful; seperation from God) and two: "I don't deserve this" (meaning that kind of mercy). I don't remember who it was but someone told me once when I was growing up that even if I had been the only person on Earth, Jesus still would've come and given up His life for me, I didn't realize the magnitude of that statement until I was able to see what He went through.
But even more than the fact that I want to "publicly declare" my belief and faith in God, the bigger reason for why I want to be baptized is that I want to affirm to myself and to God "Hey, I'm with You, I believe in You and love You." I want to discard my old self and way of life and be re-born, this time with a Greater purpose. I am not the way I used to be and I know that that truth remains the same whether I get baptized or not, but I still have this desire to physically do something that says I AM NOT THE SAME.
You are not going to want to miss this baptism!
ALSO, I have had a huge thought over the last few weeks as I have anticipated receiving my tax rebate in the mail. I would really like for everyone to consider giving $210 of your tax rebate to support Mike and Amy Rodgers. For those of you who don't know, Mike and Amy are UCF's first missionaries in Ethiopia. They have been there for 9 months and UCF supplies about 25% of their daily support. $210 is what it takes to provide for the Rodgers family for one day. So whether you are already a regular supporter, or this is the first time you have heard about it, please consider making it happen. If everyone kicks in, we will be able to fully fund and go above and beyond. I know they will have several extra costs coming up as the transition from Addis Ababa down to Lake Langano. This would make a huge impact and be an incredible encouragement to them as they serve. The second thought I had was to give that amount to Starfish Ministries which is led by Dave and Robin Laney. You can give this to UCF and put the place in the memo line! Just think of it as the US Government's way of getting the gospel to Ethiopia... kind of cool!
Love Loud... Risk Often,
David
-Friday - Movies in the Park @ Harrisburg Park @ 8
-Saturday - AIDS Walk @ Uptown Charlotte @ 9
-Sunday - Baptism Celebration right after the Neighborhood Gathering.
This Sunday is going to be incredible. I am anticipating an amazing day as we celebrate those who have trusted Christ over the last few months and are following him in baptism. I love the journeys that lead us to this point and I love being a part of the life-change that God brings when people trust him. I received this email this week from someone who will be baptized this Sunday and I wanted to share with you a glimpse of what God is doing in the lives of those around us at UCF.
The part about how those two guys were re-baptized by Paul is so personal to me because when I was first baptized I knew it was a public declaration of my faith in God, but that was its only significance to me- "Yes, I believe in God"- But, like I told you on the phone, Christ has become so personal to me over the past few years that I feel like I need to be baptized again. Its because though I always believed in God, Jesus was never my personal savior, I didn't relate Him to my life and he wasn't the center of my focus. Let me tell you, the reason why I wept and gave my heart and everything that I am to God on Decmber 24, 2004 was because two things kept running through my mind. One: "He went through that for me" (meaning crucifixion & even more painful; seperation from God) and two: "I don't deserve this" (meaning that kind of mercy). I don't remember who it was but someone told me once when I was growing up that even if I had been the only person on Earth, Jesus still would've come and given up His life for me, I didn't realize the magnitude of that statement until I was able to see what He went through.
But even more than the fact that I want to "publicly declare" my belief and faith in God, the bigger reason for why I want to be baptized is that I want to affirm to myself and to God "Hey, I'm with You, I believe in You and love You." I want to discard my old self and way of life and be re-born, this time with a Greater purpose. I am not the way I used to be and I know that that truth remains the same whether I get baptized or not, but I still have this desire to physically do something that says I AM NOT THE SAME.
You are not going to want to miss this baptism!
ALSO, I have had a huge thought over the last few weeks as I have anticipated receiving my tax rebate in the mail. I would really like for everyone to consider giving $210 of your tax rebate to support Mike and Amy Rodgers. For those of you who don't know, Mike and Amy are UCF's first missionaries in Ethiopia. They have been there for 9 months and UCF supplies about 25% of their daily support. $210 is what it takes to provide for the Rodgers family for one day. So whether you are already a regular supporter, or this is the first time you have heard about it, please consider making it happen. If everyone kicks in, we will be able to fully fund and go above and beyond. I know they will have several extra costs coming up as the transition from Addis Ababa down to Lake Langano. This would make a huge impact and be an incredible encouragement to them as they serve. The second thought I had was to give that amount to Starfish Ministries which is led by Dave and Robin Laney. You can give this to UCF and put the place in the memo line! Just think of it as the US Government's way of getting the gospel to Ethiopia... kind of cool!
Love Loud... Risk Often,
David
4.07.2008
The Compassion Ripple
This Sunday was one of those days that we had a great plan and everything worked. I know that God is always present (when people say “God showed up” it is always odd to me) but there are sometimes when we are more aware or in tune with his presence than others. Today was one of those days for me. I knew that God wanted me to turn the focus of The Compassion Ripple on the ripple that is closest to us relationally. I look forward to hear the stories of life change as you move with compassionate love toward your spouse, your kids, your neighbors and co-workers. I know that many of you are at the end of yourselves and ready to all God to bring life beyond your wildest dreams into your life. One person who talked to me after the service simply said, “I am so there!” He meant that he is at the point of the end of himself and the beginning of God.
The video of how compassionate UCF is to the world around was incredible. The shots of houses being built in Mexico, homeless being fed in Charlotte and Omaha, houses being built for cancer patients in Hickory and a small party being thrown for 12,000 of our closet friends in Harrisburg… it was incredible. To think all of this took place in the last 20 days is even more amazing. The way that this community moves out into the world with compassionate love absolutely blows me away. That is why I didn’t have to spend much time today challenging UCF to serve the world more… all I had to do was celebrate it. This church is incredible.
We had 37 people at our “New to UCF” lunch. It was a great time of sharing who we are in a creative way that is distinctly UCF. I look forward to seeing how God uses each new person in our community.
A day at Ridge Church. Most of the staff went to Ridge Church on Sunday night. They are a new church (6 months young) that meets in Matthews. I was very excited about how much I knew we would learn from simply being in their environments and seeing how they create an amazing experience for people. We showed up at 2 pm to help them load in and set up for their service at 6 pm. Seeing a group of people who have planned and prayed for a few years to begin a church in itself is an awesome sight. The feelings of 20-30 volunteers doing something that significant with their time is incredible to be around. We are already making notes on what we learned and what it means for UCF. More to come.
The video of how compassionate UCF is to the world around was incredible. The shots of houses being built in Mexico, homeless being fed in Charlotte and Omaha, houses being built for cancer patients in Hickory and a small party being thrown for 12,000 of our closet friends in Harrisburg… it was incredible. To think all of this took place in the last 20 days is even more amazing. The way that this community moves out into the world with compassionate love absolutely blows me away. That is why I didn’t have to spend much time today challenging UCF to serve the world more… all I had to do was celebrate it. This church is incredible.
We had 37 people at our “New to UCF” lunch. It was a great time of sharing who we are in a creative way that is distinctly UCF. I look forward to seeing how God uses each new person in our community.
A day at Ridge Church. Most of the staff went to Ridge Church on Sunday night. They are a new church (6 months young) that meets in Matthews. I was very excited about how much I knew we would learn from simply being in their environments and seeing how they create an amazing experience for people. We showed up at 2 pm to help them load in and set up for their service at 6 pm. Seeing a group of people who have planned and prayed for a few years to begin a church in itself is an awesome sight. The feelings of 20-30 volunteers doing something that significant with their time is incredible to be around. We are already making notes on what we learned and what it means for UCF. More to come.
3.20.2008
Throwing a Party for Harrisburg: The Great Harrisburg Egg Drop!
We had a great idea to throw a party for Harrisburg AND 8000+ PEOPLE SHOWED UP! We approached the town of Harrisburg a few months with the idea of doing The Great Harrisburg Egg Drop. The idea came from hearing about it at a few different churches around the country. But our real motivation behind the event was the question, “what does our community really need?” We feel like the Harrisburg / University City community needs some times where families can have a great time together spending time with other families. So we began our planning. And boy were we RIGHT! Families definitely want to have a great time playing together along side other families in our community. We just didn’t know how right we were. When 8,000 – 12,000 people show up, you have definitely tapped into a need. It was great and challenging all at the same time. The crowds were awesome and also created some chaos that we are already working hard at solving for the future. Check out www.eggdropharrisburg.com for pictures of the event!
It was particularly interesting how one reporter characterized the event in a conversation with him. He started out by saying that he generally “HATES covering these things.” He doesn’t go to church and usually all of these type of events are nothing more than one long promotion for the church putting them on. As he put it, “They play this crappy music and mention their church over and over again.” All in all they masquerade as events that serve the community, but they are really more about just getting people to show up on Sunday morning. UCF is different. We want to love people around us by tapping into and meeting a heart-felt need whether they come to church or not. We certainly hope that people do come to UCF, but we don’t want people to have to endure our endless promotions so that they can enjoy a day in the park. This reporter was pleasantly surprised with our event. He knew by the materials and the volunteers that a church sponsored this event, but it wasn’t thrown in his face and shoved down his throat. He appreciated that. It made him curious as to why we would do something this way and we simply said, “for people like you.”
Doing things this way is different, because you have to put in a lot of extra steps. You begin to forge friendships with others who care about the community and have to avoid the different agendas of many. You reach into the lives of the many people who have been burned by churches just doing their church thing because you exist “for the good of the world” and not just “for the good of your church.” It is a cool thing to be a part of.
So what does our community really need? From a spiritual standpoint, I think the answer to that question is pretty easy, people need to be in a life-changing relationship with God in such a way that it impacts every aspect of how they relate to people around them.
The problem is that the very people who need this are pretty sure they don’t need it. However somewhere in the lives of those in our community, there is the need for something. A need for love, for community, for peace, for real joy, for contentment… and the list could go on. I know these things are ultimately found in God and I simply want to help people connect the dots!
The other problem is that some church people who think they have it (a life-changing relationship with God that impacts every aspect of how they relate to people around them)… don’t because it doesn’t cause them to love their neighbor as much as they love their self… their church… their agenda. The sooner church people can get over their own agenda and adopt the agenda of “love,” the sooner people in the world see a true picture of God.
love loud... risk often!
It was particularly interesting how one reporter characterized the event in a conversation with him. He started out by saying that he generally “HATES covering these things.” He doesn’t go to church and usually all of these type of events are nothing more than one long promotion for the church putting them on. As he put it, “They play this crappy music and mention their church over and over again.” All in all they masquerade as events that serve the community, but they are really more about just getting people to show up on Sunday morning. UCF is different. We want to love people around us by tapping into and meeting a heart-felt need whether they come to church or not. We certainly hope that people do come to UCF, but we don’t want people to have to endure our endless promotions so that they can enjoy a day in the park. This reporter was pleasantly surprised with our event. He knew by the materials and the volunteers that a church sponsored this event, but it wasn’t thrown in his face and shoved down his throat. He appreciated that. It made him curious as to why we would do something this way and we simply said, “for people like you.”
Doing things this way is different, because you have to put in a lot of extra steps. You begin to forge friendships with others who care about the community and have to avoid the different agendas of many. You reach into the lives of the many people who have been burned by churches just doing their church thing because you exist “for the good of the world” and not just “for the good of your church.” It is a cool thing to be a part of.
So what does our community really need? From a spiritual standpoint, I think the answer to that question is pretty easy, people need to be in a life-changing relationship with God in such a way that it impacts every aspect of how they relate to people around them.
The problem is that the very people who need this are pretty sure they don’t need it. However somewhere in the lives of those in our community, there is the need for something. A need for love, for community, for peace, for real joy, for contentment… and the list could go on. I know these things are ultimately found in God and I simply want to help people connect the dots!
The other problem is that some church people who think they have it (a life-changing relationship with God that impacts every aspect of how they relate to people around them)… don’t because it doesn’t cause them to love their neighbor as much as they love their self… their church… their agenda. The sooner church people can get over their own agenda and adopt the agenda of “love,” the sooner people in the world see a true picture of God.
love loud... risk often!
1.03.2008
Heart Failure!
Four years ago we were celebrating the birth of our fourth child Lindsay. The day after Lindsay was born during a routine check of Mendy’s vital signs, the doctors became concerned about an irregularity in Mendy’s heartbeat. After a few tests, the doctor’s scheduled an immediate appointment with a heart specialists. After several heart tests including an echocardiogram, Mendy was diagnosed with perinatal cardiomyopathy, which is a complicated way of saying that Mendy’s heart was failing due to the stress of the pregnancy/delivery. Her ejection fraction (which is the percentage of the blood that the heart pumps out with each beat) was 33% and normal range was 55+%. Needless to say we were a little concerned, but the doctors seemed very nonchalant about it, gave Mendy a prescription and said come back in three months because “sometimes these things just go away,” as he put it.
It seems weird now to say that we didn’t give too much thought to this at the time, or at least I didn’t. There was the task of bringing a fourth child home, helping our 7,6 and 3 year olds get used to having a new child which meant new competition for our attention. Needless to say it was demanding. At the same time there were some major transitions taking place within the church that required my involvement, so I kind of handled this like the heart doctor and thought it was something that would hopefully just go away. In the little research Mendy did on-line she found out enough scary things to realize that we probably needed a second opinion and she scheduled her follow-up with another heart doctor.
Every once in a while the thought would occur to me, “what if this thing is serious… what if it doesn’t get better… what if this thing gets worse… what if… what if… what if?” I began to struggle a little bit with the whole thing because Mendy and I had talked a lot about not having any more children naturally (we have always thought we might adopt more someday). Mendy was leaning toward not having any more and I was always pushing a little to have another child. In my family, I was the youngest of four, so I guess I am just glad that my parents didn’t stop at three. I began to feel a little guilty for wanting to have another child and all my “what if” questions began to turn into “what if my desire to have another child has actually endangered my wife’s life?” My mind began to race at times and I would be faced with some very anxious thoughts. But again the distraction of the daily routine was more than enough to keep me preoccupied with other stuff. The next three months were a blur!!!
In late January 2004, Mendy returned for her three-month check up with a different heart specialist at the Sanger Clinic in Charlotte. After doing another echocardiogram we waited for the doctors to give us an update. Waiting in a small room is never easy for me, especially when you are hoping for some good news. When the doctor came in, he looked concerned. He said that Mendy’s ejection fraction was at 22% and that we needed to follow an immediate and radical course of action. He explained to us that in the case of perinatal cardiomyopathy, about 1/3 of the patients recover the full heart strength, about 1/3 stay the same for the rest of their lives and about 1/3 get worse which leads to complete heart failure within the first year. With knowing what we knew about her earlier ejection fraction, we knew which 1/3 we were in. One of the doctor’s assistants had her white medical coat on with the words “Pre-Transplant Coordinator” printed under her name as her title. Those words were etched in my mind like no others. The thoughts of that day still are very real to me. That evening we had plans to take the older girls to a concert. During the concert Jeremy Camp sang, “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman. In this song the words “You give and take away but my heart will chose to say Blessed by Your name” became so real to us. Still to this day Mendy can’t sing this song without crying as she is reminded of that night as she stood by her girls and I and realized that in His plan He gives and takes away.
In the doctor’s words, Mendy’s heart looked like an elderly person’s heart. It was enlarged and the only thing consistent about the heart beat was that it was consistently irregular… a few beats and then mumble, mumble, gurgle then a beat and then more mumble. The doctor prescribed two medications and ace inhibitor and a beta blocker. The medications meant that Mendy would have to immediately stop breast-feeding Lindsay, which was a big blow to a mom with her last child. The beta-blockers were going to decrease Mendy’s heart rate and lower her blood pressure. The ace inhibitors would further decrease the blood pressure. All this meant that Mendy would be completely exhausted because the medicines are designed to keep her heart from working very hard. It was a tough day for both of us to swallow. We left the Sanger Clinic scared, worried, anxious and quiet. I don’t remember what we talked about the rest of the day, but we both knew what the other was thinking. All of my “what if” thoughts seemed that day to come alive in a nightmare. All of my “worst case scenario” was coming true.
Some of the medication was so intense that they have to ramp you up slowly and continually monitor how your heart and body responds over weeks and months. We had doctor’s appointments scheduled every three weeks for a period of six months. It started slowly, but I could see Mendy’s strength wearing away and I could see how she dreaded each new visit to the Sanger clinic, which brought about an increased dosage and more exhaustion. I could see Mendy struggling physically and emotionally. Each time she went to the doctor she had to say she could handle more medicine because she thought this was her only hope for survival. At the same time she knew that an increased dosage meant extreme exhaustion, more days trying to keep her eyes open, more nights trying to go to bed earlier, and more guilt that she couldn’t be what our kids needed her to be, in such a critical time of life.
There were nights that I would come to bed long after Mendy was asleep and stare at her and think and wonder. In the best of those times, there was a great deal of thankfulness and gratitude for our marriage and our family and our life. It’s the time in life where (as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes) it is better to think about death because sadness and sorrow have a refining influence on us. I thought many times about how we met, and how God had directed our lives in paths we never could have imagined. I can remember laying my head on her chest as she slept to listen to her gurgled heartbeat while I would pray that God would heal her heart. In the worst of those times, there were the thoughts of how could I live without her and who would I be. I mean I have been good friends with, or dating, or engaged, or married to this woman since I was 16. A lot of my identity is US. And then there were the thoughts of how I would raise four kids without their mom around… overwhelming!!!
Other nights I would get to bed before she would go to sleep and we would ultimately end up talking about what came next. Night after night I would listen to Mendy struggle with the reality of her condition and sooner or later she would get real quiet and ask, “David, am I going to die?” It was the question I dreaded and the question I had no answer for other than, “I don’t know.” I didn’t know, but I thought about it all the time and I knew Mendy did to. We both have such great families, that I knew somehow we would have all the support we would need no matter what, but it was really impossible imagining the worst, but you simply had to from time to time. It was a possibility! We prayed all the time.
The doctor prescribed cardiac rehab and Mendy began attending a support group for others with the same condition. The cardiac rehab turned out to be a little comic relief. Mendy was the youngest one in the group by about 45 years!!! Everyone thought she worked there, but she would explain her situation and jump into the activities with the rest of the 75 year olds. From what I hear, it seems as though the men would wait for her so they could walk behind her around the track, and “take in the view.” I told her she should wear several layers of clothes and begin shedding a few of them with each lap so that she could hear the heart monitors going off on all those guys.
As she read of others and talked with others in a support group who had the same condition, we got a little more sobering picture of this condition. Many women become completely debilitated with this condition and are basically on strict bed rest 24 hours a day. The stories of in-laws moving in to help care for the family and kids were numerous. Thankfully, that was not our experience. I think Mendy was somewhat determined that this was not going to slow her down. I would watch her force herself up in the mornings, do as much as she could possibly do to maintain normalcy in our house. And with four kids “normalcy” is a relative term. She resumed many of her roles in the church that she had before delivering Lindsay and even picked up a few. As I said before, there were some major threats to the sustaining mission of the church that ended up requiring a lot of my attention and whenever I needed Mendy she was there. At the end of each day there was a collapse into bed and the routine would start again.
Looking back, it was truly one of the loneliest times in our lives. It was the only time I wished that I were the pastor of a traditional church, with a guaranteed structure that was going to keep plodding along whether I was there or not. That people would show up, people would serve, people would give, other leaders would understand and the mission would continue without my attention. And maybe UCF would have been just fine if I had backed off, but it sure didn’t seem like it to me. These were the times when Mendy and I both began to have thoughts like… “come on God, can you give us a break here… we have sacrificed and served and followed you to start this church… we have poured our lives into this thing…. And this is what we get?... are you for us at all… where are you… do you know what you are doing here?” It was truly painful. I can remember Mendy and I on New Year’s Eve 2004 sitting together and crying and thinking and praying... if we have another year like 2004, I’m not sure we can take it. During this time, I can also remember reading a book by Brennan Manning called Ruthless Trust that rocked my world then and is still rocking my world today. I won’t explain it here, but if you just read it, you will experience the struggle of trusting God with your WHOLE LIFE.
The medication steadily increased over the next 6 months and the doctor didn’t want to test again until she had been at full strength medication for 3 months. It is hard to face a condition like this because the timing is so long in between. From the panic of January it was going to be 9 full months until we knew anything different. Nine months of doing what the doctors said and hoping and praying without knowing anything. I know that Mendy was tempted to quit the medication several times. Her reasoning was simple. If I am not going to make it then I want my kids to remember a vibrant mom who played with them until the very end, rather than a mom who was in bed for the last 9 months of her life. But she had to take the medication, so she did.
I can remember one office visit when they checked her heart rate and it was at 32 beats per minute. At that point they quit upping the dosage because they didn’t want her heart rate to go that low. I remember constantly listening to Mendy’s heart (sometimes at my request but most of the times at her request) to see if there was any regularity. There always seemed to be a few hopeful constant beats, but soon the mumble came and there was a sense of hopelessness. I dreaded looking into her eyes after listening to her heart gurgle. Her eyes were always hopeful for healing. Each time I looked up at her, she knew the answer and the hope in her eyes immediately turned to uncertainty, disappointment and sadness.
In October of 2004, as Lindsay turned one we returned to the doctor for our first real check to see if nine months of medication and struggle was worth it. To be honest, I didn’t expect much. I felt like I kind of knew what 1/3 we were in and knew that tougher times might be ahead. As I remember, the doctor came in with the good news/ bad news kind of look. The good news was that Mendy’s ejection fraction had not gotten any worse; the bad news was that it had not gotten any better. Overall, it was good news. It immediately gave us a little hope and for the time being took the talk of a heart transplant off the table. The doctor seemed to assure us at that point that often times the medication would stabilize a weakened heart and that this was your new reality of life. It might mean that you would be on medication for the rest of your life in order to maintain the present strength of the heart. During this time, I kept saying that where we are now is the “new normal.” People would often ask how Mendy was and how she looked like she was back to normal. I would say that we are at a stage of “new normal” and if you could see what I see at night and in the morning, you wouldn’t think she was back to normal. It wasn’t great news, but it was the best we had heard in 9 months.
It was a weird joy. Glad for the reverse of the negative, but facing some very long-term medication options that were completely exhausting for Mendy. The other frustrating reality was that check ups from this point were every 3 months, a long time to wait before finding out progress. In November of 2004, I left on a trip to Africa for 15 days. Mendy was in good hands and I can remember spending large portions of the trip praying and hoping for change. I wrestled with God on the “why” of all of this and I kept hearing a phrase that I came up with as I read Ruthless Trust. It’s a question phrased from God to me, “David, do you trust me with the outcome of your life?” To me it means for me to do what I know to do in following God and leave the outcome of my life and the circumstances around it to God. My response is another phrase that I learned from Brennan Manning at a retreat he led. It is the phrase, “Abba, I belong to You!” In the most difficult moments and still today I remember how Manning taught me to use this phrase. You inhale on “Abba” and you exhale on “I belong to You.” It goes with my breathing pattern so I could repeat it endlessly until I believed it again and again.
In Jan 2005, we went for our first of four scheduled check ups for the year. As I remember, this visit was largely the same as before. Mendy’s heart wasn’t getting better, but it wasn’t getting worse. However, our first encouraging news came in April when the ejection fraction of her heart actually increased from the base line of 22% to 27-28%. The medicine was working and actually allowing her heart to regain some strength. The next visit in July her ejection fraction moved to 37%. We kind of felt like we were on a roll and the prospects of recovery became something we began to talk about again. We were thankful for the reversal, and cautiously optimistic about the future. In October, Mendy’s checkup was the same as July. She had leveled off which was bad news but also good news. The first few visits of 2006 revealed the same thing. The medication was working in that it had allowed her heart to heal, but now we were really facing another "new normal." It looked as if this is where Mendy would be for the rest of her life, but the doctors said that this would probably only be possible if she maintained her current medication levels for the foreseeable future. When we would ask about life expectancy the doctor never give us a direct answer. He always said you can read the stats, but “you are not a statistic.” I know he was trying to help, but it always gave me the impression that he didn’t want to tell us the truth. When we would ask about coming off the medication, he would say we would talk about it in a couple of years! YEARS!!! At this point he wanted to see Mendy back in October 2006. At this visit nothing changed and he scheduled another check up in one year.
At some point during 2007, the length of the this struggle and the consistency of being drained by the medication had taken its toll on Mendy. She went through periods of taking herself off the medication. On those occasions, she would get a taste of what having some real energy was like. Without my knowledge, she would go weeks without taking her medicines, at some point I would discover it and we would talk through it to the point where she would agree to begin again. Those times were filled with frustration, because of the fatigue that would come with the medication. It is probably hard to understand unless you have lived it. At some point during the Spring / Summer of 2007 Mendy quit taking the medication all together. It is something she just did. Something I would have strongly disagreed with had I known, but what is done is done.
In November 2007, Mendy was scheduled for her annual check up. She knew she had not taken her medicine and was going to tell the doctor and see what he wanted her to do from here. After having another echocardiogram, Mendy waited for the doctor to come in and give the results. I didn’t go with her for this check up. There comes a time when you just don’t expect much different to happen, so you just settle in to the routines of life and keep going. The intensity of every visit and the condition as a whole seems to fade away a little. It is always there, but somehow you feel like you just have to go on with life and not talk about it so much. We continually prayed for healing, but I’m not sure we expected much. The doctor returned and asked Mendy several questions and then shared with Mendy to most unexpected news. Her heart had returned to full strength. The strength of the heart of a normal 34 year old woman. Something that we were told would never happen. It was truly amazing to the doctor and to Mendy. The doctor said that he had never seen this happen and he really couldn’t explain it. Mendy knew that she could explain it and was able to say to her doctor that she knew where the healing had come from. When she called with the news, I was stunned. Stunned because it was so completely unexpected, stunned because of the joy I heard in Mendy’s voice, stunned at the goodness of God and stunned at my lack of expectant faith.
We end this year (2007) with incredibly grateful healthy hearts. The journey has been long and God has been good. We give thanks to Him and wake up every day with the full understanding that the outcome of our lives is in His hands. We are thankful for His healing in this life and we know that He will ultimately heal “all our diseases” in the life to come. As with all things that we consider “ours,” we don’t believe that God gives us something without a plan for how it should be used, and that includes our health. We look forward to investing the healthy bodies He has given us as a living sacrifice to Him, expanding His kingdom through our brief moments on this earth.
I hope that this blog serves as a very grateful “thank you” to all who have fervently prayed with us for healing. I know that there are many and we are blessed because of your prayers and faith.
Love loud… risk often,
david
It seems weird now to say that we didn’t give too much thought to this at the time, or at least I didn’t. There was the task of bringing a fourth child home, helping our 7,6 and 3 year olds get used to having a new child which meant new competition for our attention. Needless to say it was demanding. At the same time there were some major transitions taking place within the church that required my involvement, so I kind of handled this like the heart doctor and thought it was something that would hopefully just go away. In the little research Mendy did on-line she found out enough scary things to realize that we probably needed a second opinion and she scheduled her follow-up with another heart doctor.
Every once in a while the thought would occur to me, “what if this thing is serious… what if it doesn’t get better… what if this thing gets worse… what if… what if… what if?” I began to struggle a little bit with the whole thing because Mendy and I had talked a lot about not having any more children naturally (we have always thought we might adopt more someday). Mendy was leaning toward not having any more and I was always pushing a little to have another child. In my family, I was the youngest of four, so I guess I am just glad that my parents didn’t stop at three. I began to feel a little guilty for wanting to have another child and all my “what if” questions began to turn into “what if my desire to have another child has actually endangered my wife’s life?” My mind began to race at times and I would be faced with some very anxious thoughts. But again the distraction of the daily routine was more than enough to keep me preoccupied with other stuff. The next three months were a blur!!!
In late January 2004, Mendy returned for her three-month check up with a different heart specialist at the Sanger Clinic in Charlotte. After doing another echocardiogram we waited for the doctors to give us an update. Waiting in a small room is never easy for me, especially when you are hoping for some good news. When the doctor came in, he looked concerned. He said that Mendy’s ejection fraction was at 22% and that we needed to follow an immediate and radical course of action. He explained to us that in the case of perinatal cardiomyopathy, about 1/3 of the patients recover the full heart strength, about 1/3 stay the same for the rest of their lives and about 1/3 get worse which leads to complete heart failure within the first year. With knowing what we knew about her earlier ejection fraction, we knew which 1/3 we were in. One of the doctor’s assistants had her white medical coat on with the words “Pre-Transplant Coordinator” printed under her name as her title. Those words were etched in my mind like no others. The thoughts of that day still are very real to me. That evening we had plans to take the older girls to a concert. During the concert Jeremy Camp sang, “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman. In this song the words “You give and take away but my heart will chose to say Blessed by Your name” became so real to us. Still to this day Mendy can’t sing this song without crying as she is reminded of that night as she stood by her girls and I and realized that in His plan He gives and takes away.
In the doctor’s words, Mendy’s heart looked like an elderly person’s heart. It was enlarged and the only thing consistent about the heart beat was that it was consistently irregular… a few beats and then mumble, mumble, gurgle then a beat and then more mumble. The doctor prescribed two medications and ace inhibitor and a beta blocker. The medications meant that Mendy would have to immediately stop breast-feeding Lindsay, which was a big blow to a mom with her last child. The beta-blockers were going to decrease Mendy’s heart rate and lower her blood pressure. The ace inhibitors would further decrease the blood pressure. All this meant that Mendy would be completely exhausted because the medicines are designed to keep her heart from working very hard. It was a tough day for both of us to swallow. We left the Sanger Clinic scared, worried, anxious and quiet. I don’t remember what we talked about the rest of the day, but we both knew what the other was thinking. All of my “what if” thoughts seemed that day to come alive in a nightmare. All of my “worst case scenario” was coming true.
Some of the medication was so intense that they have to ramp you up slowly and continually monitor how your heart and body responds over weeks and months. We had doctor’s appointments scheduled every three weeks for a period of six months. It started slowly, but I could see Mendy’s strength wearing away and I could see how she dreaded each new visit to the Sanger clinic, which brought about an increased dosage and more exhaustion. I could see Mendy struggling physically and emotionally. Each time she went to the doctor she had to say she could handle more medicine because she thought this was her only hope for survival. At the same time she knew that an increased dosage meant extreme exhaustion, more days trying to keep her eyes open, more nights trying to go to bed earlier, and more guilt that she couldn’t be what our kids needed her to be, in such a critical time of life.
There were nights that I would come to bed long after Mendy was asleep and stare at her and think and wonder. In the best of those times, there was a great deal of thankfulness and gratitude for our marriage and our family and our life. It’s the time in life where (as Solomon says in Ecclesiastes) it is better to think about death because sadness and sorrow have a refining influence on us. I thought many times about how we met, and how God had directed our lives in paths we never could have imagined. I can remember laying my head on her chest as she slept to listen to her gurgled heartbeat while I would pray that God would heal her heart. In the worst of those times, there were the thoughts of how could I live without her and who would I be. I mean I have been good friends with, or dating, or engaged, or married to this woman since I was 16. A lot of my identity is US. And then there were the thoughts of how I would raise four kids without their mom around… overwhelming!!!
Other nights I would get to bed before she would go to sleep and we would ultimately end up talking about what came next. Night after night I would listen to Mendy struggle with the reality of her condition and sooner or later she would get real quiet and ask, “David, am I going to die?” It was the question I dreaded and the question I had no answer for other than, “I don’t know.” I didn’t know, but I thought about it all the time and I knew Mendy did to. We both have such great families, that I knew somehow we would have all the support we would need no matter what, but it was really impossible imagining the worst, but you simply had to from time to time. It was a possibility! We prayed all the time.
The doctor prescribed cardiac rehab and Mendy began attending a support group for others with the same condition. The cardiac rehab turned out to be a little comic relief. Mendy was the youngest one in the group by about 45 years!!! Everyone thought she worked there, but she would explain her situation and jump into the activities with the rest of the 75 year olds. From what I hear, it seems as though the men would wait for her so they could walk behind her around the track, and “take in the view.” I told her she should wear several layers of clothes and begin shedding a few of them with each lap so that she could hear the heart monitors going off on all those guys.
As she read of others and talked with others in a support group who had the same condition, we got a little more sobering picture of this condition. Many women become completely debilitated with this condition and are basically on strict bed rest 24 hours a day. The stories of in-laws moving in to help care for the family and kids were numerous. Thankfully, that was not our experience. I think Mendy was somewhat determined that this was not going to slow her down. I would watch her force herself up in the mornings, do as much as she could possibly do to maintain normalcy in our house. And with four kids “normalcy” is a relative term. She resumed many of her roles in the church that she had before delivering Lindsay and even picked up a few. As I said before, there were some major threats to the sustaining mission of the church that ended up requiring a lot of my attention and whenever I needed Mendy she was there. At the end of each day there was a collapse into bed and the routine would start again.
Looking back, it was truly one of the loneliest times in our lives. It was the only time I wished that I were the pastor of a traditional church, with a guaranteed structure that was going to keep plodding along whether I was there or not. That people would show up, people would serve, people would give, other leaders would understand and the mission would continue without my attention. And maybe UCF would have been just fine if I had backed off, but it sure didn’t seem like it to me. These were the times when Mendy and I both began to have thoughts like… “come on God, can you give us a break here… we have sacrificed and served and followed you to start this church… we have poured our lives into this thing…. And this is what we get?... are you for us at all… where are you… do you know what you are doing here?” It was truly painful. I can remember Mendy and I on New Year’s Eve 2004 sitting together and crying and thinking and praying... if we have another year like 2004, I’m not sure we can take it. During this time, I can also remember reading a book by Brennan Manning called Ruthless Trust that rocked my world then and is still rocking my world today. I won’t explain it here, but if you just read it, you will experience the struggle of trusting God with your WHOLE LIFE.
The medication steadily increased over the next 6 months and the doctor didn’t want to test again until she had been at full strength medication for 3 months. It is hard to face a condition like this because the timing is so long in between. From the panic of January it was going to be 9 full months until we knew anything different. Nine months of doing what the doctors said and hoping and praying without knowing anything. I know that Mendy was tempted to quit the medication several times. Her reasoning was simple. If I am not going to make it then I want my kids to remember a vibrant mom who played with them until the very end, rather than a mom who was in bed for the last 9 months of her life. But she had to take the medication, so she did.
I can remember one office visit when they checked her heart rate and it was at 32 beats per minute. At that point they quit upping the dosage because they didn’t want her heart rate to go that low. I remember constantly listening to Mendy’s heart (sometimes at my request but most of the times at her request) to see if there was any regularity. There always seemed to be a few hopeful constant beats, but soon the mumble came and there was a sense of hopelessness. I dreaded looking into her eyes after listening to her heart gurgle. Her eyes were always hopeful for healing. Each time I looked up at her, she knew the answer and the hope in her eyes immediately turned to uncertainty, disappointment and sadness.
In October of 2004, as Lindsay turned one we returned to the doctor for our first real check to see if nine months of medication and struggle was worth it. To be honest, I didn’t expect much. I felt like I kind of knew what 1/3 we were in and knew that tougher times might be ahead. As I remember, the doctor came in with the good news/ bad news kind of look. The good news was that Mendy’s ejection fraction had not gotten any worse; the bad news was that it had not gotten any better. Overall, it was good news. It immediately gave us a little hope and for the time being took the talk of a heart transplant off the table. The doctor seemed to assure us at that point that often times the medication would stabilize a weakened heart and that this was your new reality of life. It might mean that you would be on medication for the rest of your life in order to maintain the present strength of the heart. During this time, I kept saying that where we are now is the “new normal.” People would often ask how Mendy was and how she looked like she was back to normal. I would say that we are at a stage of “new normal” and if you could see what I see at night and in the morning, you wouldn’t think she was back to normal. It wasn’t great news, but it was the best we had heard in 9 months.
It was a weird joy. Glad for the reverse of the negative, but facing some very long-term medication options that were completely exhausting for Mendy. The other frustrating reality was that check ups from this point were every 3 months, a long time to wait before finding out progress. In November of 2004, I left on a trip to Africa for 15 days. Mendy was in good hands and I can remember spending large portions of the trip praying and hoping for change. I wrestled with God on the “why” of all of this and I kept hearing a phrase that I came up with as I read Ruthless Trust. It’s a question phrased from God to me, “David, do you trust me with the outcome of your life?” To me it means for me to do what I know to do in following God and leave the outcome of my life and the circumstances around it to God. My response is another phrase that I learned from Brennan Manning at a retreat he led. It is the phrase, “Abba, I belong to You!” In the most difficult moments and still today I remember how Manning taught me to use this phrase. You inhale on “Abba” and you exhale on “I belong to You.” It goes with my breathing pattern so I could repeat it endlessly until I believed it again and again.
In Jan 2005, we went for our first of four scheduled check ups for the year. As I remember, this visit was largely the same as before. Mendy’s heart wasn’t getting better, but it wasn’t getting worse. However, our first encouraging news came in April when the ejection fraction of her heart actually increased from the base line of 22% to 27-28%. The medicine was working and actually allowing her heart to regain some strength. The next visit in July her ejection fraction moved to 37%. We kind of felt like we were on a roll and the prospects of recovery became something we began to talk about again. We were thankful for the reversal, and cautiously optimistic about the future. In October, Mendy’s checkup was the same as July. She had leveled off which was bad news but also good news. The first few visits of 2006 revealed the same thing. The medication was working in that it had allowed her heart to heal, but now we were really facing another "new normal." It looked as if this is where Mendy would be for the rest of her life, but the doctors said that this would probably only be possible if she maintained her current medication levels for the foreseeable future. When we would ask about life expectancy the doctor never give us a direct answer. He always said you can read the stats, but “you are not a statistic.” I know he was trying to help, but it always gave me the impression that he didn’t want to tell us the truth. When we would ask about coming off the medication, he would say we would talk about it in a couple of years! YEARS!!! At this point he wanted to see Mendy back in October 2006. At this visit nothing changed and he scheduled another check up in one year.
At some point during 2007, the length of the this struggle and the consistency of being drained by the medication had taken its toll on Mendy. She went through periods of taking herself off the medication. On those occasions, she would get a taste of what having some real energy was like. Without my knowledge, she would go weeks without taking her medicines, at some point I would discover it and we would talk through it to the point where she would agree to begin again. Those times were filled with frustration, because of the fatigue that would come with the medication. It is probably hard to understand unless you have lived it. At some point during the Spring / Summer of 2007 Mendy quit taking the medication all together. It is something she just did. Something I would have strongly disagreed with had I known, but what is done is done.
In November 2007, Mendy was scheduled for her annual check up. She knew she had not taken her medicine and was going to tell the doctor and see what he wanted her to do from here. After having another echocardiogram, Mendy waited for the doctor to come in and give the results. I didn’t go with her for this check up. There comes a time when you just don’t expect much different to happen, so you just settle in to the routines of life and keep going. The intensity of every visit and the condition as a whole seems to fade away a little. It is always there, but somehow you feel like you just have to go on with life and not talk about it so much. We continually prayed for healing, but I’m not sure we expected much. The doctor returned and asked Mendy several questions and then shared with Mendy to most unexpected news. Her heart had returned to full strength. The strength of the heart of a normal 34 year old woman. Something that we were told would never happen. It was truly amazing to the doctor and to Mendy. The doctor said that he had never seen this happen and he really couldn’t explain it. Mendy knew that she could explain it and was able to say to her doctor that she knew where the healing had come from. When she called with the news, I was stunned. Stunned because it was so completely unexpected, stunned because of the joy I heard in Mendy’s voice, stunned at the goodness of God and stunned at my lack of expectant faith.
We end this year (2007) with incredibly grateful healthy hearts. The journey has been long and God has been good. We give thanks to Him and wake up every day with the full understanding that the outcome of our lives is in His hands. We are thankful for His healing in this life and we know that He will ultimately heal “all our diseases” in the life to come. As with all things that we consider “ours,” we don’t believe that God gives us something without a plan for how it should be used, and that includes our health. We look forward to investing the healthy bodies He has given us as a living sacrifice to Him, expanding His kingdom through our brief moments on this earth.
I hope that this blog serves as a very grateful “thank you” to all who have fervently prayed with us for healing. I know that there are many and we are blessed because of your prayers and faith.
Love loud… risk often,
david
10.29.2007
Watershed Church and UCF
Today when I got to my desk I had a small package sitting on it. I opened it to find a DVD from Scott Hofert and Matt O’Neil at Watershed Church in uptown Charlotte. The video came as a thank you from them to University City Fellowship on their two year anniversary. It doesn’t seem like that long ago when we helped them launch. And I am filled with joy that we had an opportunity to play a part in getting them off the ground. Now they are a force for the kingdom of God in uptown Charlotte and I don’t know of two better people to lead a church that the uptown area needs other than Scott and Matt.
I laugh when I think of the six months that Scott spent on our staff. I laugh because we called him the “Intern.” He was the “intern” that knew more than all of us combined about what the church should be and how to make that a reality. When Scott and I would talk, I would be the one with making notes and trying to remember what he would say. Scott is one of those guys that I always look forward to hanging out with because they are always rich times. I had lunch last week with him to pick his brain about a Justice type series that I am working on for the early part of ’08.
When I think of opportunities like planting a church - really beginning a mission focused expression of the body of Christ that is set free to explode into a community- I am grateful. I am grateful for the way this changes me and us. They are thanking us (UCF) and all I can think of is thanking them for what they are leading and what they have poured into us.
So many times we miss out on these kind of opportunities because we do a quick cost-benefit analysis and we decide we don’t have time, don’t have the money, don’t have the leadership capacity to help someone or something else out. Situations where we are the strength or establishment or the mentor and we decide that we just can’t help a weaker person, a start-up group or someone in need of help. What we miss out on is the life change that would happen in us, if we would engage and give of ourselves. When we decide we just can’t we cut off the potential for life change.
We (Mendy and I, and our kids) are currently planning on adopting a child from Ethiopia. And while my heart breaks for the present conditions that this child is living in, and while I am fully aware that we will give him hope that he has never experienced, I think I am heading into this looking forward to how this child is going to change us. I can’t wait for a thank you card from a child, thanking us for changing his life. When I receive it… I will just laugh and know in my own heart that I am the one who will have been changed. Let the journey begin.
On a different note: A few things that are blowing me away right now:
1. Dave and Robin Laney (Omaha) – you HAVE TO READ what they are up to weekly
2. Mike and Amy Rodgers (Ethiopia) – simply amazed at their faithful journey and the
weekly updates on their blog
3. Creating a 3rd Space – anyone know what I am talking about
4. Our new family room (UCF’s small groups)
5. Stories from those of you who are investing in relationships and inviting them to church.
I laugh when I think of the six months that Scott spent on our staff. I laugh because we called him the “Intern.” He was the “intern” that knew more than all of us combined about what the church should be and how to make that a reality. When Scott and I would talk, I would be the one with making notes and trying to remember what he would say. Scott is one of those guys that I always look forward to hanging out with because they are always rich times. I had lunch last week with him to pick his brain about a Justice type series that I am working on for the early part of ’08.
When I think of opportunities like planting a church - really beginning a mission focused expression of the body of Christ that is set free to explode into a community- I am grateful. I am grateful for the way this changes me and us. They are thanking us (UCF) and all I can think of is thanking them for what they are leading and what they have poured into us.
So many times we miss out on these kind of opportunities because we do a quick cost-benefit analysis and we decide we don’t have time, don’t have the money, don’t have the leadership capacity to help someone or something else out. Situations where we are the strength or establishment or the mentor and we decide that we just can’t help a weaker person, a start-up group or someone in need of help. What we miss out on is the life change that would happen in us, if we would engage and give of ourselves. When we decide we just can’t we cut off the potential for life change.
We (Mendy and I, and our kids) are currently planning on adopting a child from Ethiopia. And while my heart breaks for the present conditions that this child is living in, and while I am fully aware that we will give him hope that he has never experienced, I think I am heading into this looking forward to how this child is going to change us. I can’t wait for a thank you card from a child, thanking us for changing his life. When I receive it… I will just laugh and know in my own heart that I am the one who will have been changed. Let the journey begin.
On a different note: A few things that are blowing me away right now:
1. Dave and Robin Laney (Omaha) – you HAVE TO READ what they are up to weekly
2. Mike and Amy Rodgers (Ethiopia) – simply amazed at their faithful journey and the
weekly updates on their blog
3. Creating a 3rd Space – anyone know what I am talking about
4. Our new family room (UCF’s small groups)
5. Stories from those of you who are investing in relationships and inviting them to church.
9.27.2007
What I should have said on Sunday...
Every once in a while when speaking on Sunday mornings (more often for me than others) things get a little twisted and some clarification is necessary. So periodically I will post some things I should have said on Sunday. My wife Mendy, thinks I ought to start a post titled “things I shouldn’t have said on Sunday” as well. In order for this to make sense, you need to listen to the talk from this past Sunday (Co-workers – available online under the recent messages tab).
I get passionately offended when I see the church being used for any other purpose than leading people to trust and imitate Jesus Christ. It is how Jesus intended the church to be used. When Peter says “you (Jesus) are the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of the living God,” Jesus answers that upon this confession I will build my church (gathering or assembly). In stating this, Jesus is defining why a group should gather together and call themselves a church. It is for the purpose of leading people to trust that Jesus is the Savior and truly the Son of God, and because of this we should follow him in every area of our life. Now following Jesus in every area of our life does mean that we become “for” certain things and “against” certain things. But we do this based on the words of the Bible and the actions of Christ, not because any other group says we should.
When “churches” (I put that in quotes because I’m not sure that they are actual churches in Jesus’ original definition) rally primarily around any other confession, or any other platform, or any other cause… they forfeit there right to be called churches as Jesus defined them. I see this consistently today in the realm of politics, “churches” that forfeit their mission by adopting a certain political party’s platform. Most of us have been to these “churches” where everyone is a democrat, or republican, or independent, or whatever. In these “churches” following Christ is re-defined as voting a certain way. And politicians of all shapes and sizes have always been ready to garner support by using religion to do it.
My point is that our primary defining mission of being a church compels us to adopt whole-heartedly Jesus’ platform and forsake any other. In adopting Jesus’ platform, we should passionately stand up for the right that every person has to live including the unborn and we should do it not because a political party says we should, but because Christ’s platform compels us to. In adopting Jesus’ platform, we should be deeply concerned and moved by compassion toward helping the poor, and we should do this not because a political party says we should but because Christ compels us to. A church’s platform is defined by Jesus… his words, his actions, and his heartfelt drives. We should challenge each others thinking and life based on the words of Christ.
I did not intend to communicate on Sunday that church should be a place where everyone can believe whatever they want to believe and be for anything they want to be for and that should be okay. We are to conform our lives to the platform of Christ and challenge each other to do the same. We are a place for people to come no matter what your perspective to examine who Christ is and what a relationship with God through Jesus looks like.
I DID intend to communicate on Sunday that we cannot pick and choose which parts of Jesus’ platform we want to adopt and which we want to ignore. Many people grab a portion of Jesus’ message (the portion that happens to agree with their political perspective) and make a very spiritual sounding plea for others to join their cause. All the while they are ignoring the part of Jesus’ message that agrees with another political perspective. We are to follow Jesus, not use him to prop up our position.
At UCF we want to challenge people to trust and imitate Jesus Christ. That is what we are about and it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. We want to help you engage the life God created you to enjoy. When the issues become more prominent then our passion to see people engage Jesus Christ we cease to become a church and we begin using God’s name in vain to advance our own particular agenda.
And that is what I should have said on Sunday…
I get passionately offended when I see the church being used for any other purpose than leading people to trust and imitate Jesus Christ. It is how Jesus intended the church to be used. When Peter says “you (Jesus) are the Christ (the Messiah), the Son of the living God,” Jesus answers that upon this confession I will build my church (gathering or assembly). In stating this, Jesus is defining why a group should gather together and call themselves a church. It is for the purpose of leading people to trust that Jesus is the Savior and truly the Son of God, and because of this we should follow him in every area of our life. Now following Jesus in every area of our life does mean that we become “for” certain things and “against” certain things. But we do this based on the words of the Bible and the actions of Christ, not because any other group says we should.
When “churches” (I put that in quotes because I’m not sure that they are actual churches in Jesus’ original definition) rally primarily around any other confession, or any other platform, or any other cause… they forfeit there right to be called churches as Jesus defined them. I see this consistently today in the realm of politics, “churches” that forfeit their mission by adopting a certain political party’s platform. Most of us have been to these “churches” where everyone is a democrat, or republican, or independent, or whatever. In these “churches” following Christ is re-defined as voting a certain way. And politicians of all shapes and sizes have always been ready to garner support by using religion to do it.
My point is that our primary defining mission of being a church compels us to adopt whole-heartedly Jesus’ platform and forsake any other. In adopting Jesus’ platform, we should passionately stand up for the right that every person has to live including the unborn and we should do it not because a political party says we should, but because Christ’s platform compels us to. In adopting Jesus’ platform, we should be deeply concerned and moved by compassion toward helping the poor, and we should do this not because a political party says we should but because Christ compels us to. A church’s platform is defined by Jesus… his words, his actions, and his heartfelt drives. We should challenge each others thinking and life based on the words of Christ.
I did not intend to communicate on Sunday that church should be a place where everyone can believe whatever they want to believe and be for anything they want to be for and that should be okay. We are to conform our lives to the platform of Christ and challenge each other to do the same. We are a place for people to come no matter what your perspective to examine who Christ is and what a relationship with God through Jesus looks like.
I DID intend to communicate on Sunday that we cannot pick and choose which parts of Jesus’ platform we want to adopt and which we want to ignore. Many people grab a portion of Jesus’ message (the portion that happens to agree with their political perspective) and make a very spiritual sounding plea for others to join their cause. All the while they are ignoring the part of Jesus’ message that agrees with another political perspective. We are to follow Jesus, not use him to prop up our position.
At UCF we want to challenge people to trust and imitate Jesus Christ. That is what we are about and it doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from. We want to help you engage the life God created you to enjoy. When the issues become more prominent then our passion to see people engage Jesus Christ we cease to become a church and we begin using God’s name in vain to advance our own particular agenda.
And that is what I should have said on Sunday…
9.10.2007
Last Sunday
Yesterday was huge!!! I am pumped about our new series and our Kidstuf kickoff. The ingenuity that went into transforming the auditorium from our main neighborhood gathering into the most incredible kid's environment in the area is amazing! Several years ago when I first heard about Kidstuf, I imagined a day like yesterday happening at a church that I was a part of. I simply loved the idea of providing a service for KIDS AND THEIR PARENTS to learn and grow together.
Somehow churches have to wake up to the idea that what they have been doing for the last 40 years with children and youth ISN'T WORKING. Just look at the stats. My point is that no matter how cool, how new, or how innovative churches become in their approach to children and youth, it isn't going to help until they help parents actually engage their kids and be great parents. Most churches I know actually re-enforce the problem because they enable parents to dis-engage their kids by dropping them off and not having to worry about them for the next hour or so. Kidstuf does the exact opposite. It gives the child and the parent a SHARED EXPERIENCE that they both love so that they can interact throughout the week on what they are learning. I love the fact that UCF is equipping my family to be a great family all week long 365 days a year. The Neighborhood Gathering give us the adult time (with kids in their ministries for "their" time), but then we get to experience an incredible service together.
I talked to a mom yesterday afternoon who has a 10 month old and plays a part in Kidstuf. She simply expressed to me how excited she was that she was going to be raising her family in a place that made this possible week after week. I look forward to hearing the stories of parents being great parents, of kids knowing that their parents are involved in their lives, and of churches that care enough to provide a place for this to happen.
Somehow churches have to wake up to the idea that what they have been doing for the last 40 years with children and youth ISN'T WORKING. Just look at the stats. My point is that no matter how cool, how new, or how innovative churches become in their approach to children and youth, it isn't going to help until they help parents actually engage their kids and be great parents. Most churches I know actually re-enforce the problem because they enable parents to dis-engage their kids by dropping them off and not having to worry about them for the next hour or so. Kidstuf does the exact opposite. It gives the child and the parent a SHARED EXPERIENCE that they both love so that they can interact throughout the week on what they are learning. I love the fact that UCF is equipping my family to be a great family all week long 365 days a year. The Neighborhood Gathering give us the adult time (with kids in their ministries for "their" time), but then we get to experience an incredible service together.
I talked to a mom yesterday afternoon who has a 10 month old and plays a part in Kidstuf. She simply expressed to me how excited she was that she was going to be raising her family in a place that made this possible week after week. I look forward to hearing the stories of parents being great parents, of kids knowing that their parents are involved in their lives, and of churches that care enough to provide a place for this to happen.
8.31.2007
A "Dangerous" Church
I remember a conversation I had with someone who had been to UCF a few months and wanted to know a little more. At the end of our conversation he called us a "dangerous church." Dangerous in the sense that our desire to follow Christ takes on a barbaric, unconventional, sometimes inappropriate expression - but it IS unmistakably following Christ. Dangerous in that we are not bound by the usual thinking of most churches, dangerous because we are focused on the world, dangerous because we are clear in our focus, and dangerous because we don't seem to take the same path as most new suburban churches.
I think one of the things that makes us dangerous is the responsiveness of UCF as a community.
-A few weeks ago we received all the commitments necessary to provide 25% of the funds necessary for Mike and Amy Rodgers (missionaries to Ethiopia). Initially we committed to 17% of their support (which we raised in one day in Feb.). But two months ago we realized they were running short on their full support and needed to get on the ground in Ethiopia in August to begin language training. We committed to picking up another 8% of their support. You guys have stepped up in huge ways to make sure the mission of Christ is fully funded and fully resourced. Thanks for being responsive to this need.
-A few weeks ago, I talked with Rich Garretson who is leading our Habitat for Humanity work here in our community. He told me that over the last two weeks he has been overwhelmed with the number of people who have signed up for Sept 8th and Sept 15th. We have all we need, but he isn't going to turn anyone away. Thanks for being responsive to a simple opportunity to serve people in our backyard.
-We are approaching the 4 year mark of feeding our homeless friends every Saturday in uptown Charlotte. And we aren’t talking about 20 or 30, we are talking about over 100 each week. And it isn’t only about feeding people, it is about using a meal to build relationships with friends… friends who happen to not have a house.
-8 months ago, I knew I couldn’t ignore God’s directions to care for orphans. It started in James 1, but spread to the other parts of the bible. It began in my heart and mind but was exploded in my face on the streets of Ethiopia. In the last few months God has led several to begin the adoption process, we have a passionate point leader (Ron Smith) making plans, we held our first adoption workshop led by Aimee Pfitzner with 16 families represented who are open to what God has for them regarding the orphans of the world, and we have begun a plan to help fund adoptions for years to come which has over $30,000 in it at this point.
-on top of this is 8 houses built in Mexico, a family service every week like KIDSTUF, middle school and high school communities that are thriving, and a growing focus on changing lives one on one.
These things have left me thinking about who we are as a church. "Dangerous" is a good word. We respond to God, we respond to our world, we respond to our community and we respond to people! We engage what God puts before us and we make it happen. I talk many times with people who wonder how a church our size loves people this much. I mean we don't have a thousand people knocking these things out. The fact of the matter is those churches that do have a thousand people usually only have about 20-30% of the people actually loving people around them. I'm not sure but I think we probably have at least 75% of the people doing something to express God's love in our world. I wonder what a church that has 100% of people loving others looks like.
Note: At this point some of you are saying, "wait a minute, what do you mean by love people that much." All people love, all churches love... right! Well, love is measured by action not by words. People and churches can say they love people, but love is a verb! Love is responsive, love is active, love changes people, love changes the world around us. I love the way you guys love. Thanks for loving!
I think one of the things that makes us dangerous is the responsiveness of UCF as a community.
-A few weeks ago we received all the commitments necessary to provide 25% of the funds necessary for Mike and Amy Rodgers (missionaries to Ethiopia). Initially we committed to 17% of their support (which we raised in one day in Feb.). But two months ago we realized they were running short on their full support and needed to get on the ground in Ethiopia in August to begin language training. We committed to picking up another 8% of their support. You guys have stepped up in huge ways to make sure the mission of Christ is fully funded and fully resourced. Thanks for being responsive to this need.
-A few weeks ago, I talked with Rich Garretson who is leading our Habitat for Humanity work here in our community. He told me that over the last two weeks he has been overwhelmed with the number of people who have signed up for Sept 8th and Sept 15th. We have all we need, but he isn't going to turn anyone away. Thanks for being responsive to a simple opportunity to serve people in our backyard.
-We are approaching the 4 year mark of feeding our homeless friends every Saturday in uptown Charlotte. And we aren’t talking about 20 or 30, we are talking about over 100 each week. And it isn’t only about feeding people, it is about using a meal to build relationships with friends… friends who happen to not have a house.
-8 months ago, I knew I couldn’t ignore God’s directions to care for orphans. It started in James 1, but spread to the other parts of the bible. It began in my heart and mind but was exploded in my face on the streets of Ethiopia. In the last few months God has led several to begin the adoption process, we have a passionate point leader (Ron Smith) making plans, we held our first adoption workshop led by Aimee Pfitzner with 16 families represented who are open to what God has for them regarding the orphans of the world, and we have begun a plan to help fund adoptions for years to come which has over $30,000 in it at this point.
-on top of this is 8 houses built in Mexico, a family service every week like KIDSTUF, middle school and high school communities that are thriving, and a growing focus on changing lives one on one.
These things have left me thinking about who we are as a church. "Dangerous" is a good word. We respond to God, we respond to our world, we respond to our community and we respond to people! We engage what God puts before us and we make it happen. I talk many times with people who wonder how a church our size loves people this much. I mean we don't have a thousand people knocking these things out. The fact of the matter is those churches that do have a thousand people usually only have about 20-30% of the people actually loving people around them. I'm not sure but I think we probably have at least 75% of the people doing something to express God's love in our world. I wonder what a church that has 100% of people loving others looks like.
Note: At this point some of you are saying, "wait a minute, what do you mean by love people that much." All people love, all churches love... right! Well, love is measured by action not by words. People and churches can say they love people, but love is a verb! Love is responsive, love is active, love changes people, love changes the world around us. I love the way you guys love. Thanks for loving!
Baptism
This past Sunday's baptism was one of the highlights of the six years that UCF has existed. It is hard for me to put my finger on why, other than the obvious (people expressing faith in Jesus Christ, people's lives changing, celebrating God and those relationships that He has used in the process of salvation). But there was something else about this baptism... there was freedom... joy... life... community... love… all openly expressed and felt. My conclusion is that these are all things that come from God's Spirit. Now I know that God's Spirit was present, but it is always present when we a doing God's business. 
So what was the difference. I think the difference was me, my perspective, my awareness of how pervasive the Spirit always is, my realization of how he has worked in the lives of those in the water, my gratitude that God has used me to play a part in the process. It left me a little bit speechless... and overwhelmingly grateful. I love what God continues to do in this spiritual community called UCF!
8.23.2007
a Night on the Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - part 6
ethiopia journal - feb 19 part 6
"stone cold"
At first we all sat with our backs against the wall. Soon the boy who wasn’t feeling so well curled up on the ground. Ephraim covered him up with a light blanket that he had. The taller boy curled up next to him and the other boy stayed against the wall. Within five minutes of us sitting down all three boys were sound asleep. The boy against the wall didn’t seem very comfortable so I helped him lay down.
It was sad to me that these boys fell asleep so quickly. To me it meant that they were comfortable with their surroundings, they were used to the dirt, they were used to the hard ground, they were used to curling up and supporting their heads without a pillow, they were used to the cold, they were used to the smell, they were used to the fear of the unknown, they were used to being completely vulnerable, they were used to being exposed to the elements, they were used to not having a mom and dad tuck them in, they were used to being alone. I was overwhelmed with sadness as I looked at these boys resting. It was at this moment that I had another one of those REAL but very UNREAL moments. I couldn’t believe that we were sitting there with three homeless boys who were sleeping. I couldn’t believe that there were boys 8, 9 and 12 who lived like this and yet there was absolutely no denying it. They were lying all around me. I could hear their breaths. I could reach out and touch them.
It was true that even though we were there with them, we would never fully identify with them. Maybe they had no fear because this was all they knew. Part of my fear was the fact that I have a lot to lose if something happened to me. I have a wife and four kids to care for and a spiritual community to lead. On top of that I am a very wealthy person in this setting. These boys have nothing, why would anyone even bother them – even if they died would anyone even notice?
Soon I decided to settle in and try to sleep. I laid down on my back with one boy a few feet to my left, two others a few feet to my right and Andrew and Ephraim close by. I didn’t want to look at what I was going to lay on. I put my head on the stone riser and my feet rested against the other stone riser. I stared at the sky and wondered what kind of world we live in that tolerates and allows this kind of existence. It was sad but somehow I felt good just trying to identify with what these boys experience every night.
One of the boys was obviously cold so Andrew took off his sweatshirt and laid it over the little boy. That left Andrew with only a t-shirt on. One thing we had not taken into account was how cold it was. I think I went to sleep for a few minutes but soon I woke up because I was so cold. My back and my neck were freezing cold and I had to get off the ground. I laid there for a few more minutes, looked over at Andrew who was wide awake, and got up and sat on the wall. I tried everything to stay warm, but it didn’t work very well. I wondered how tired I would have to be to actually fall asleep like these boys. Throughout the night I tried several times to lay down and sleep but simply couldn’t. Ephraim seemed to be sleeping, but Andrew and I were in for a long night.
We ended up talking about the whole experience together – our thoughts and our feelings about the night so far. I started doing push ups to try to warm up and after several sets it started to work. I began to do those over and over again when I would get cold. Andrew and I were trying to guess what time it was because the night seemed endless. We guessed that it had to be close to 6 am, but found out later that it was probably just 3:30 or 4:00. The long night intensified in my mind the struggle that these boys face every day. It made me sick that they were so comfortable with their circumstances. I could only imagine the fear, anxiety and trauma that would happen if one of my children had to live for one night like these boys live every night.
"stone cold"
At first we all sat with our backs against the wall. Soon the boy who wasn’t feeling so well curled up on the ground. Ephraim covered him up with a light blanket that he had. The taller boy curled up next to him and the other boy stayed against the wall. Within five minutes of us sitting down all three boys were sound asleep. The boy against the wall didn’t seem very comfortable so I helped him lay down.
It was sad to me that these boys fell asleep so quickly. To me it meant that they were comfortable with their surroundings, they were used to the dirt, they were used to the hard ground, they were used to curling up and supporting their heads without a pillow, they were used to the cold, they were used to the smell, they were used to the fear of the unknown, they were used to being completely vulnerable, they were used to being exposed to the elements, they were used to not having a mom and dad tuck them in, they were used to being alone. I was overwhelmed with sadness as I looked at these boys resting. It was at this moment that I had another one of those REAL but very UNREAL moments. I couldn’t believe that we were sitting there with three homeless boys who were sleeping. I couldn’t believe that there were boys 8, 9 and 12 who lived like this and yet there was absolutely no denying it. They were lying all around me. I could hear their breaths. I could reach out and touch them.
It was true that even though we were there with them, we would never fully identify with them. Maybe they had no fear because this was all they knew. Part of my fear was the fact that I have a lot to lose if something happened to me. I have a wife and four kids to care for and a spiritual community to lead. On top of that I am a very wealthy person in this setting. These boys have nothing, why would anyone even bother them – even if they died would anyone even notice?
Soon I decided to settle in and try to sleep. I laid down on my back with one boy a few feet to my left, two others a few feet to my right and Andrew and Ephraim close by. I didn’t want to look at what I was going to lay on. I put my head on the stone riser and my feet rested against the other stone riser. I stared at the sky and wondered what kind of world we live in that tolerates and allows this kind of existence. It was sad but somehow I felt good just trying to identify with what these boys experience every night.
One of the boys was obviously cold so Andrew took off his sweatshirt and laid it over the little boy. That left Andrew with only a t-shirt on. One thing we had not taken into account was how cold it was. I think I went to sleep for a few minutes but soon I woke up because I was so cold. My back and my neck were freezing cold and I had to get off the ground. I laid there for a few more minutes, looked over at Andrew who was wide awake, and got up and sat on the wall. I tried everything to stay warm, but it didn’t work very well. I wondered how tired I would have to be to actually fall asleep like these boys. Throughout the night I tried several times to lay down and sleep but simply couldn’t. Ephraim seemed to be sleeping, but Andrew and I were in for a long night.
We ended up talking about the whole experience together – our thoughts and our feelings about the night so far. I started doing push ups to try to warm up and after several sets it started to work. I began to do those over and over again when I would get cold. Andrew and I were trying to guess what time it was because the night seemed endless. We guessed that it had to be close to 6 am, but found out later that it was probably just 3:30 or 4:00. The long night intensified in my mind the struggle that these boys face every day. It made me sick that they were so comfortable with their circumstances. I could only imagine the fear, anxiety and trauma that would happen if one of my children had to live for one night like these boys live every night.
8.02.2007
A church, a building, a family and lake langano
A church, a building, a family and lake langano
Often times I am asked, "why doesn't UCF have a building yet?" We are a church that is 6 years old and most new churches our age have already bought land (or maybe I should say are making payments on land) and are trying to rally their people to build a building. I sometimes get a little defensive when I am asked this question, but the ultimate answer is, "Up to this point, I simply have not been led by God to lead us into a land/building process." God has given me certain ideas about what we will build once he says "go for it." But for now, I will lead us to engage in what God has laid in front of us as a church. He has led us to engage in a specific region of Ethiopia called Lake Langano. He has called out Mike and Amy Rodgers to move their family there to invest their lives in the region. AND HE HAS CALLED US AS A CHURCH TO SEND THEM!
That is what this Sunday is about. It is a celebration of a family and a church following God's plan even though it might not make sense to people around and even though it is different than what most people and most churches are doing. I will lead us to follow God even when it goes against the flow of our culture.
I guess the question that this bring up in my mind is this, "why don't more people who go the churches engaging in land/building programs ask their pastors why they haven't sent any missionaries out yet?" I think it is a continual preoccupation with ourselves and building our own significance. People in churches really do believe that a building gives them credibility. I listened to a fund-raising DVD put together by a church a few hours from here where this statement was expressed. The church leader actually said that a building would give them more credibility with their community and how meeting in a school made them somehow inferior as a church. It made me want to vomit! But hey whatever you have to do to raise money right! For whatever reason our culture values buildings and why not? Man has worshipped buildings since Genesis 11. But then and now it has come at the expense of following God and whole-heartedly pursuing his mission. So maybe after this Sunday we can start a revolution in churches to the point that 5 or 10 years from now people will start evaluating churches by how many missionaries they have sent out rather than the buildings they have built.
I know some of you are saying churches can do both, right? Well maybe. Every pastor in a building program will tell you they want to do both, however when given the opportunity to support a missionary it never seems to be the right time. I don't know if God will ever lead us to a building, but it has been clear since Paul wrote Romans 10:5-15 that God has called us to send. So get ready UCF... Sunday is going to be AWESOME. And it is just the beginning!
love loud... live full... laugh hard... RISK OFTEN,
Often times I am asked, "why doesn't UCF have a building yet?" We are a church that is 6 years old and most new churches our age have already bought land (or maybe I should say are making payments on land) and are trying to rally their people to build a building. I sometimes get a little defensive when I am asked this question, but the ultimate answer is, "Up to this point, I simply have not been led by God to lead us into a land/building process." God has given me certain ideas about what we will build once he says "go for it." But for now, I will lead us to engage in what God has laid in front of us as a church. He has led us to engage in a specific region of Ethiopia called Lake Langano. He has called out Mike and Amy Rodgers to move their family there to invest their lives in the region. AND HE HAS CALLED US AS A CHURCH TO SEND THEM!
That is what this Sunday is about. It is a celebration of a family and a church following God's plan even though it might not make sense to people around and even though it is different than what most people and most churches are doing. I will lead us to follow God even when it goes against the flow of our culture.I guess the question that this bring up in my mind is this, "why don't more people who go the churches engaging in land/building programs ask their pastors why they haven't sent any missionaries out yet?" I think it is a continual preoccupation with ourselves and building our own significance. People in churches really do believe that a building gives them credibility. I listened to a fund-raising DVD put together by a church a few hours from here where this statement was expressed. The church leader actually said that a building would give them more credibility with their community and how meeting in a school made them somehow inferior as a church. It made me want to vomit! But hey whatever you have to do to raise money right! For whatever reason our culture values buildings and why not? Man has worshipped buildings since Genesis 11. But then and now it has come at the expense of following God and whole-heartedly pursuing his mission. So maybe after this Sunday we can start a revolution in churches to the point that 5 or 10 years from now people will start evaluating churches by how many missionaries they have sent out rather than the buildings they have built.
I know some of you are saying churches can do both, right? Well maybe. Every pastor in a building program will tell you they want to do both, however when given the opportunity to support a missionary it never seems to be the right time. I don't know if God will ever lead us to a building, but it has been clear since Paul wrote Romans 10:5-15 that God has called us to send. So get ready UCF... Sunday is going to be AWESOME. And it is just the beginning!
love loud... live full... laugh hard... RISK OFTEN,
6.10.2007
A Night on the Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - part 5
ethiopia journal – feb 19 part 5
“meskel square”
After what seemed to be about an hour we left Ephraim’s house and walked up the stone pathway toward the street. Two of the boys stopped to pee. This happened several more times. Ephraim said that all the street kids have very small stomachs and bladders because they simply don’t get that much to eat. Each of them stopped to pee two or three times in the next 30 minutes.
We decided, or I should say Ephraim decided that we should try to sleep at Meskel Square, a large open gathering place that was a few miles away. We began walking. The boy who didn’t feel good was very tired and I felt like I should have carried him, but I didn’t know how far I would have been able to. The other two boys got on each side of him and put their arms around him and his around them. It was then that I noticed that he didn’t have any shoes on at all. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t notice it before. The reason I noticed it now was that the oldest boy was taking off his sandals and putting them on the sick boys feet. It was another real/unreal moment. One that stunned me by the need present but also by the incredible care they had for each other.
Walking on each side of him, the two boys propped him up between them. A few minutes later I heard the two boys laughing and then a few minutes later they laughed again. I asked them what they were laughing at. They told us that the boy in the middle was falling asleep while he was walking. It was funny to them and a little to me – but overall my feeling was sadness. Sadness that this boy had no mom or dad to care for him – sadness that the boy had no bed to sleep in – sadness that suffering like this exists every night – sadness that I was actually one of the reasons he wasn’t laying down right now asleep already.
We walked a long way stepping over dry and not so dry puddles of urine. Most of which were two or three yards away from a person lying on the sidewalk completely covered with a blanket.
Soon we passed a woman standing alone on the corner. I didn’t see her face, but the setting told me everything I needed to know. Ephraim confirmed that she was a prostitute, one of the thousands upon thousands in Addis Ababa. We walked by her before she knew we were even close by. I didn’t turn back to look at her – I didn’t want to see her face or her pain – that is for another time. We continued our journey walking down the street and soon passed a few men selling little things (at 1:30 am???). They bothered us for a second and then we walked on. As I was leaving these men I turned to look forward and I glanced down to my left. Sitting in the window sill a few feet from me was a girl maybe 17 or 18. She was a girl probably trapped in prostitution with these men. She looked up at me and I was forced to see her sadness. She had a beautiful face and beautiful eyes, but the saddest most stoic look – a look of hopelessness. It is a look that I feel like I had avoided, but one that God wanted me to see… and feel. It is a look that I will not soon forget – a look of pain. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke volumes to me.
Several blocks later we again attracted some attention, but of a different kind. We obviously passed a house of prostitution and after we passed, two girls came running down the street after us. They both called out for us in a brash, sickeningly-sweet tone that almost mocked at us. I could only imagine what they were saying. I didn’t look back and maybe I started walking a little faster. After a few minutes they finally listened to Ephraim and gave up their pursuits – their hope for the night of making money. It was a sickening experience, but very brief.
After a while we arrived at the meskel square. It was a huge open area with about 10 lanes of roads, an open courtyard and some kind of stadium type steps or rows. Each step was about five feet deep and was formed by a rise of concrete and then dirt. Climbing each step felt a lot like stepping over railroad tracks. The whole place seemed empty, but it is a huge place dimly lit. The area is probably 400 yards long and several football fields wide. We decided to climb to the top to settle in along the tree line. I didn’t see anyone around, which surprised me a little because during the day this area is packed with street kids.
We walked to the top and began to settle in quickly.
“meskel square”
After what seemed to be about an hour we left Ephraim’s house and walked up the stone pathway toward the street. Two of the boys stopped to pee. This happened several more times. Ephraim said that all the street kids have very small stomachs and bladders because they simply don’t get that much to eat. Each of them stopped to pee two or three times in the next 30 minutes.
We decided, or I should say Ephraim decided that we should try to sleep at Meskel Square, a large open gathering place that was a few miles away. We began walking. The boy who didn’t feel good was very tired and I felt like I should have carried him, but I didn’t know how far I would have been able to. The other two boys got on each side of him and put their arms around him and his around them. It was then that I noticed that he didn’t have any shoes on at all. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t notice it before. The reason I noticed it now was that the oldest boy was taking off his sandals and putting them on the sick boys feet. It was another real/unreal moment. One that stunned me by the need present but also by the incredible care they had for each other.
Walking on each side of him, the two boys propped him up between them. A few minutes later I heard the two boys laughing and then a few minutes later they laughed again. I asked them what they were laughing at. They told us that the boy in the middle was falling asleep while he was walking. It was funny to them and a little to me – but overall my feeling was sadness. Sadness that this boy had no mom or dad to care for him – sadness that the boy had no bed to sleep in – sadness that suffering like this exists every night – sadness that I was actually one of the reasons he wasn’t laying down right now asleep already.
We walked a long way stepping over dry and not so dry puddles of urine. Most of which were two or three yards away from a person lying on the sidewalk completely covered with a blanket.
Soon we passed a woman standing alone on the corner. I didn’t see her face, but the setting told me everything I needed to know. Ephraim confirmed that she was a prostitute, one of the thousands upon thousands in Addis Ababa. We walked by her before she knew we were even close by. I didn’t turn back to look at her – I didn’t want to see her face or her pain – that is for another time. We continued our journey walking down the street and soon passed a few men selling little things (at 1:30 am???). They bothered us for a second and then we walked on. As I was leaving these men I turned to look forward and I glanced down to my left. Sitting in the window sill a few feet from me was a girl maybe 17 or 18. She was a girl probably trapped in prostitution with these men. She looked up at me and I was forced to see her sadness. She had a beautiful face and beautiful eyes, but the saddest most stoic look – a look of hopelessness. It is a look that I feel like I had avoided, but one that God wanted me to see… and feel. It is a look that I will not soon forget – a look of pain. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke volumes to me.
Several blocks later we again attracted some attention, but of a different kind. We obviously passed a house of prostitution and after we passed, two girls came running down the street after us. They both called out for us in a brash, sickeningly-sweet tone that almost mocked at us. I could only imagine what they were saying. I didn’t look back and maybe I started walking a little faster. After a few minutes they finally listened to Ephraim and gave up their pursuits – their hope for the night of making money. It was a sickening experience, but very brief.
After a while we arrived at the meskel square. It was a huge open area with about 10 lanes of roads, an open courtyard and some kind of stadium type steps or rows. Each step was about five feet deep and was formed by a rise of concrete and then dirt. Climbing each step felt a lot like stepping over railroad tracks. The whole place seemed empty, but it is a huge place dimly lit. The area is probably 400 yards long and several football fields wide. We decided to climb to the top to settle in along the tree line. I didn’t see anyone around, which surprised me a little because during the day this area is packed with street kids.
We walked to the top and began to settle in quickly.
6.08.2007
A Night on the Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - part 4
"epraim's house ... and hope"
ethiopia journal - feb 19 part 4
As we left the first group, one of the guys who was following us earlier got up and followed us again but he soon gave up interest. However, we did attract the attention of another man who happily followed us. After walking a couple of miles through the streets, we arrived at Ephraim’s living place. (I call it a living place because if I called it a house everyone reading this would have some preconceived idea about what it looked like. And your idea would be much bigger and more spacious that this place.) No one followed us as we entered Ephraim’s “house.” As we entered we woke up his sister who already thought we were crazy.
Ephraim asked if the boys were hungry – they all said they had not eaten since the morning – leftovers from a restaurant. Ephraim got out a big bowl of leftover pourage – something like oatmeal. He set it on the table with three spoons. At that moment, another amazing thing happened. None of the boys began eating and one of the boys offered the bowl to Andrew and I. I can’t describe the feelings I had. It was a small gesture, but it spoke volumes to me. It amazed me that they were able to place us in front of their hunger – it was priceless. We quickly refused and the boys began to dig in. They all ate quietly and we asked on of them how long he had been on the streets and what happened to his parents. He told us (through Ephraim’s translation) that he grew up in the countryside. He said his mom died when he was about 5 years old and he decided he needed to go to the city, so he began walking to the city. Just listening to him was hard to take – as Ephraim translated his words I couldn’t help but cry. I simply can’t fathom the thought process of a five year old deciding to travel to a city of 5 million people to live on the streets. My thoughts went to my own son Jacob and the fact that I can’t imagine him having to make any kind of decision like that. My stomach ached for this boy. He never mentioned his dad and we didn’t ask. There was already enough sadness in the room.
I am trying again to describe a feeling that I have no words for – surreal or “real/unreal” is maybe the best. Everything in my mind says that there is no way that this happens in this world… there is no way that 5 year-old boys make those kind of decisions… there is no way that 3 boys band together to survive in a city of 5 million people… there is no way that the boys are eating at a strangers house at 1:00 am and no one cares that they aren’t at home… no one is calling for them, searching for them or wondering where they are. It has to be an unreal dream… a nightmare… NOT REALITY! And yet I know that I am alive and awake and experiencing this REALITY. I can smell the boys. I can hear the rattle of their spoons against the tin bowl. I can see their black skin with an ash white covering because it is dried out. I can see their eyes and hear their voices. I know that they are real boys… with real feelings… with real hunger… with real need… with real pain… AND with real LOVE for each other.
Half way through eating I could tell that one of the boys didn’t look good at all. I asked Ephraim to ask about him. The other boys said that he had a sore throat and a fever and hasn’t been feeling well all day. For whatever reason I hadn’t noticed other than the fact that he was the one who fell asleep earlier. I was amazed at the care the other two boys had for this boy. Ephraim gave him some Tylenol.
(By the way, Ephraim’s house is a 12X12 room with a small bench that the boys sat on, a small table that they ate off of, a large cabinet, a small fridge, a bookshelf and a very narrow bed. A ladder goes straight up to another room the same size. Very humble yet livable.)
The sick boy took the medicine and they all drank a lot of water. Quickly the sick boy quit eating and the tallest boy put his arm around him and began to make him eat a little bit more by feeding him. He did this over and over until the boy fell asleep sitting up. When he fell asleep the tallest boy propped the boys head up with his arm so that his head wouldn’t fall over and wake himself up.
We asked the other boy (the one who left home at 5) if he thought he would be on the street his whole life. He quickly answered Ephraim and Ephraim told us he said “no – that he did have some hope. Hope that one day he could get some help from a NGO (non-government organization) and this would get him a home and some education.” Again it is amazing that hope endures in this boy. But you could see it in his eyes and all over his face (he is the boy on the right in the picture of “displacement 2”). He really did have hope and a smile –simply amazing!
ethiopia journal - feb 19 part 4
As we left the first group, one of the guys who was following us earlier got up and followed us again but he soon gave up interest. However, we did attract the attention of another man who happily followed us. After walking a couple of miles through the streets, we arrived at Ephraim’s living place. (I call it a living place because if I called it a house everyone reading this would have some preconceived idea about what it looked like. And your idea would be much bigger and more spacious that this place.) No one followed us as we entered Ephraim’s “house.” As we entered we woke up his sister who already thought we were crazy.
Ephraim asked if the boys were hungry – they all said they had not eaten since the morning – leftovers from a restaurant. Ephraim got out a big bowl of leftover pourage – something like oatmeal. He set it on the table with three spoons. At that moment, another amazing thing happened. None of the boys began eating and one of the boys offered the bowl to Andrew and I. I can’t describe the feelings I had. It was a small gesture, but it spoke volumes to me. It amazed me that they were able to place us in front of their hunger – it was priceless. We quickly refused and the boys began to dig in. They all ate quietly and we asked on of them how long he had been on the streets and what happened to his parents. He told us (through Ephraim’s translation) that he grew up in the countryside. He said his mom died when he was about 5 years old and he decided he needed to go to the city, so he began walking to the city. Just listening to him was hard to take – as Ephraim translated his words I couldn’t help but cry. I simply can’t fathom the thought process of a five year old deciding to travel to a city of 5 million people to live on the streets. My thoughts went to my own son Jacob and the fact that I can’t imagine him having to make any kind of decision like that. My stomach ached for this boy. He never mentioned his dad and we didn’t ask. There was already enough sadness in the room.
I am trying again to describe a feeling that I have no words for – surreal or “real/unreal” is maybe the best. Everything in my mind says that there is no way that this happens in this world… there is no way that 5 year-old boys make those kind of decisions… there is no way that 3 boys band together to survive in a city of 5 million people… there is no way that the boys are eating at a strangers house at 1:00 am and no one cares that they aren’t at home… no one is calling for them, searching for them or wondering where they are. It has to be an unreal dream… a nightmare… NOT REALITY! And yet I know that I am alive and awake and experiencing this REALITY. I can smell the boys. I can hear the rattle of their spoons against the tin bowl. I can see their black skin with an ash white covering because it is dried out. I can see their eyes and hear their voices. I know that they are real boys… with real feelings… with real hunger… with real need… with real pain… AND with real LOVE for each other.
Half way through eating I could tell that one of the boys didn’t look good at all. I asked Ephraim to ask about him. The other boys said that he had a sore throat and a fever and hasn’t been feeling well all day. For whatever reason I hadn’t noticed other than the fact that he was the one who fell asleep earlier. I was amazed at the care the other two boys had for this boy. Ephraim gave him some Tylenol.
(By the way, Ephraim’s house is a 12X12 room with a small bench that the boys sat on, a small table that they ate off of, a large cabinet, a small fridge, a bookshelf and a very narrow bed. A ladder goes straight up to another room the same size. Very humble yet livable.)
The sick boy took the medicine and they all drank a lot of water. Quickly the sick boy quit eating and the tallest boy put his arm around him and began to make him eat a little bit more by feeding him. He did this over and over until the boy fell asleep sitting up. When he fell asleep the tallest boy propped the boys head up with his arm so that his head wouldn’t fall over and wake himself up.
We asked the other boy (the one who left home at 5) if he thought he would be on the street his whole life. He quickly answered Ephraim and Ephraim told us he said “no – that he did have some hope. Hope that one day he could get some help from a NGO (non-government organization) and this would get him a home and some education.” Again it is amazing that hope endures in this boy. But you could see it in his eyes and all over his face (he is the boy on the right in the picture of “displacement 2”). He really did have hope and a smile –simply amazing!
6.02.2007
A Night on the Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - part 3
"No place to lay my head"
ethiopia journal, feb 19 part 3
As Andrew and I began to sit down, a boy who was probably 14 or 15 jumped up and gave me a piece of the cardboard he was sitting on, so that I didn’t have to sit on the dirt. He gave the other piece he had to Andrew, which left him with nothing left to sit on. It left me in awe! This little gesture was so amazing to me. The thought process that had to go through this boys mind that said I will give whatever I have to make a stranger just a little more comfortable – even if it means going without. As I looked around I realized that this was a place that several people stayed not only at night but during the day as well. There was trash, paper and junk everywhere, so having something to sit on was something of value. I felt bad about taking the cardboard, but it was one of those situations where I didn’t feel like I could reject it. I took the cardboard and sat down on it.
One of the men had a little fire going and he had made some sort of tea, which he quickly offered to us. This man seemed to be the voice for the group. We quickly refused the tea with thankfulness. It really did amaze me that within thirty seconds of approaching the group we had been offered cardboard and something to drink. The generosity of those that have so little was stunning to me and I started to think that this place might not be so bad to spend the night in.
It was now that I finally got a good look at the three boys who were with us. The oldest had a red hooded sweatshirt on and was much taller than the other two. His face was plain and stoic, but he didn’t seem sad. The second boy was animated. You could tell that he thought it was cool to be on a different kind of adventure with Ephraim, Andrew and me. The third boy didn’t look very good and as they sat down he quickly laid down. The next time I glanced over he had laid his head in the lap of the second boy, and the second boy was patting his head as he slept. It was amazing care for each other. I was stunned by the heart he had for his friend.
After being offered some chote (the local drug of choice) the conversation began to get louder and I could tell something wasn’t right. The main leader and Ephraim were talking and it seemed a little tense – but everything seems a little tense when you are displacing yourself. Long story short, the spokesman for the group seemed to want us to leave. The conversation died down a bit, but then two of the guys who had been following us both sat down separately with the group. Soon two more guys who seemed to be a part of the regular group sat down and began talking. The spokesman then said that he did not want us here because we were there to laugh at them. Ephraim assured them that this was not our intention, which worked for a while but then the talking began to get really tense. I think the idea of two foreigners (who have almost a god-like status in Ethiopia – or at least a rock star status) actually wanting to experience what these boys experience was something that was impossible for them to grasp. Our presence with them just made them very uncomfortable. They kept questioning “why and would not accept any of our answers. Finally the two that joined the group late said that we might actually be putting them in danger by staying with them because others around might not like that we are there and treat them badly because we were with them. Finally we decided to leave. As I got up to leave I really wanted to keep the piece of cardboard that had been given to me so that I could remember the night and this incredibly kind gift. But I could never actually walk away – keeping something that the boy would use. I gave him both pieces of cardboard and thanked him.
At that time Ephraim decided that we needed to go to his house so that anyone following us would leave us alone. After a while we would then look for another place to sleep. The second boy woke the third boy up from his sleep and the six of us began traveling to Ephraim’s house.
ethiopia journal, feb 19 part 3
As Andrew and I began to sit down, a boy who was probably 14 or 15 jumped up and gave me a piece of the cardboard he was sitting on, so that I didn’t have to sit on the dirt. He gave the other piece he had to Andrew, which left him with nothing left to sit on. It left me in awe! This little gesture was so amazing to me. The thought process that had to go through this boys mind that said I will give whatever I have to make a stranger just a little more comfortable – even if it means going without. As I looked around I realized that this was a place that several people stayed not only at night but during the day as well. There was trash, paper and junk everywhere, so having something to sit on was something of value. I felt bad about taking the cardboard, but it was one of those situations where I didn’t feel like I could reject it. I took the cardboard and sat down on it.
One of the men had a little fire going and he had made some sort of tea, which he quickly offered to us. This man seemed to be the voice for the group. We quickly refused the tea with thankfulness. It really did amaze me that within thirty seconds of approaching the group we had been offered cardboard and something to drink. The generosity of those that have so little was stunning to me and I started to think that this place might not be so bad to spend the night in.
It was now that I finally got a good look at the three boys who were with us. The oldest had a red hooded sweatshirt on and was much taller than the other two. His face was plain and stoic, but he didn’t seem sad. The second boy was animated. You could tell that he thought it was cool to be on a different kind of adventure with Ephraim, Andrew and me. The third boy didn’t look very good and as they sat down he quickly laid down. The next time I glanced over he had laid his head in the lap of the second boy, and the second boy was patting his head as he slept. It was amazing care for each other. I was stunned by the heart he had for his friend.
After being offered some chote (the local drug of choice) the conversation began to get louder and I could tell something wasn’t right. The main leader and Ephraim were talking and it seemed a little tense – but everything seems a little tense when you are displacing yourself. Long story short, the spokesman for the group seemed to want us to leave. The conversation died down a bit, but then two of the guys who had been following us both sat down separately with the group. Soon two more guys who seemed to be a part of the regular group sat down and began talking. The spokesman then said that he did not want us here because we were there to laugh at them. Ephraim assured them that this was not our intention, which worked for a while but then the talking began to get really tense. I think the idea of two foreigners (who have almost a god-like status in Ethiopia – or at least a rock star status) actually wanting to experience what these boys experience was something that was impossible for them to grasp. Our presence with them just made them very uncomfortable. They kept questioning “why and would not accept any of our answers. Finally the two that joined the group late said that we might actually be putting them in danger by staying with them because others around might not like that we are there and treat them badly because we were with them. Finally we decided to leave. As I got up to leave I really wanted to keep the piece of cardboard that had been given to me so that I could remember the night and this incredibly kind gift. But I could never actually walk away – keeping something that the boy would use. I gave him both pieces of cardboard and thanked him.
At that time Ephraim decided that we needed to go to his house so that anyone following us would leave us alone. After a while we would then look for another place to sleep. The second boy woke the third boy up from his sleep and the six of us began traveling to Ephraim’s house.
5.31.2007
A Night on the Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - part 2
"three boys"
ethiopia journal – feb 19 part 2
We met at 11:00 and started walking. It didn’t take us long to start really talking about what we were going to do. Andrew (my fellow UCF adventurer) said something that I had thought a lot about. He said he was glad we were doing this but he realized that we would never really be able to identify with the street kids because we had showers, shelters and soft beds to go back to. I agreed! No amount of effort was going to allow us to fully identify with them, because it was only going to be one night, but for one night we would try.
I put on my jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a light pull over jacket. I left all my money and anything valuable at the SIM headquarters and we met Ephraim around 11:15. He said that he knew where some kids would be, so we followed him. Immediately we seemed to attract a lot of attention – one man who passed us began to turn around and follow us. Soon after he quit following us another man started following. I don’t think they were dangerous – just curious or maybe hoping to get some help from the two white guys. In hindsight, I should have worn a hooded sweatshirt (for a few reasons) that would have hidden our identity more. We walked a mile or two through the streets of Addis and suddenly three kids came running up to Ephraim.
(Ephraim –pictured in the first journal - seems to be a very trustworthy and responsible – almost too trustworthy! But he has been consistent throughout and seems to have a real heart for kids on the street. He demonstrates kind compassion and many of them know him by name. They yell to him as he walks by.)
The three boys were full of energy – at least they seemed to be. I asked their names, but all of them seemed to be too difficult to pronounce. I asked (through Ephraim) their ages and they told me 12, 8 and 9. It didn’t seem like they had a regular place to sleep, so we kept walking trying to find a place to sleep.
Just thinking of actually sleeping out on the streets almost made me vomit. Many times as we were walking on the sidewalk, I would be overwhelmed by the smell of stale urine, or the wreak of crap, or a funky combination of the two combined with a wet trash smell. I just hoped we could find a place that didn’t wreak. As we would walk I would step over puddle after puddle of urine - most of them very close to people who were sleeping on the sidewalks. We passed 100’s of people scattered along street after street. Each of them were usually covered up completely by a blanket. Some of them had some padding, but most were just lumps on the sidewalk. Several of the businesses we passed actually had night guards sitting or laying in front of them to keep everyone else away each night. It was awkward passing them in that you would think they would make you feel more secure, but in reality most of them are probably street people themselves and this is their job at night. Some of the nicer businesses actually had a small rectangular tin structure that one guard would sleep in while the other guard kept watch.
As we were trying to find a place to go to sleep, another man started following us, and then another. It wasn’t frightening at the time, just a little creepy. At some point you kind of realize that Andrew and I are some of the biggest, strongest guys around. We obviously didn’t have any weapons, but we did have some size on just about everyone around. (which is comforting because you don’t want to get into a foot race with an Ethiopian). We tried to lose these guys, but couldn’t. Finally Ephraim led us to a group of 5 or 6 street people who were huddled in a corner. It wasn’t what I had envisioned when I had the idea, but I was simply following Ephraim at this point. We asked if we could sit down and in Amharic they said that we could.
ethiopia journal – feb 19 part 2
We met at 11:00 and started walking. It didn’t take us long to start really talking about what we were going to do. Andrew (my fellow UCF adventurer) said something that I had thought a lot about. He said he was glad we were doing this but he realized that we would never really be able to identify with the street kids because we had showers, shelters and soft beds to go back to. I agreed! No amount of effort was going to allow us to fully identify with them, because it was only going to be one night, but for one night we would try.
I put on my jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a light pull over jacket. I left all my money and anything valuable at the SIM headquarters and we met Ephraim around 11:15. He said that he knew where some kids would be, so we followed him. Immediately we seemed to attract a lot of attention – one man who passed us began to turn around and follow us. Soon after he quit following us another man started following. I don’t think they were dangerous – just curious or maybe hoping to get some help from the two white guys. In hindsight, I should have worn a hooded sweatshirt (for a few reasons) that would have hidden our identity more. We walked a mile or two through the streets of Addis and suddenly three kids came running up to Ephraim.
(Ephraim –pictured in the first journal - seems to be a very trustworthy and responsible – almost too trustworthy! But he has been consistent throughout and seems to have a real heart for kids on the street. He demonstrates kind compassion and many of them know him by name. They yell to him as he walks by.)
The three boys were full of energy – at least they seemed to be. I asked their names, but all of them seemed to be too difficult to pronounce. I asked (through Ephraim) their ages and they told me 12, 8 and 9. It didn’t seem like they had a regular place to sleep, so we kept walking trying to find a place to sleep.
Just thinking of actually sleeping out on the streets almost made me vomit. Many times as we were walking on the sidewalk, I would be overwhelmed by the smell of stale urine, or the wreak of crap, or a funky combination of the two combined with a wet trash smell. I just hoped we could find a place that didn’t wreak. As we would walk I would step over puddle after puddle of urine - most of them very close to people who were sleeping on the sidewalks. We passed 100’s of people scattered along street after street. Each of them were usually covered up completely by a blanket. Some of them had some padding, but most were just lumps on the sidewalk. Several of the businesses we passed actually had night guards sitting or laying in front of them to keep everyone else away each night. It was awkward passing them in that you would think they would make you feel more secure, but in reality most of them are probably street people themselves and this is their job at night. Some of the nicer businesses actually had a small rectangular tin structure that one guard would sleep in while the other guard kept watch.
As we were trying to find a place to go to sleep, another man started following us, and then another. It wasn’t frightening at the time, just a little creepy. At some point you kind of realize that Andrew and I are some of the biggest, strongest guys around. We obviously didn’t have any weapons, but we did have some size on just about everyone around. (which is comforting because you don’t want to get into a foot race with an Ethiopian). We tried to lose these guys, but couldn’t. Finally Ephraim led us to a group of 5 or 6 street people who were huddled in a corner. It wasn’t what I had envisioned when I had the idea, but I was simply following Ephraim at this point. We asked if we could sit down and in Amharic they said that we could.
5.30.2007
A Night on the Street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - part 1
"What does God want from me?"
ethiopia journal – feb 19, 2007
Last night was one of the most real/unreal experiences I have ever had in my ministry or really in my life. It started with an idea I had the day after we played soccer with a few street kids. The thought was, “I wonder what their lives are really like.” I mean nothing in me can fathom kids really existing on the streets in ANY place let alone on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – a city of 5 million people in one of the poorest countries of the world. The thought that I had was what would it be like to just spend one night on the street with just a few of these kids – to feel what they feel, think what they think, see what they see, fear what they fear, touch what they touch, lay down on what they lay down on, smell what they smell, experience what they experience and live just for one night like they live.
At first it was just a thought, but soon it became a prayer. A prayer that asked if this was what God was leading me to do. A few days ago a spent a few days praying for some friends who were in Charlotte planning to spend the night on the streets with a few of their homeless friends. So maybe it actually began with a prayer for them. I would never claim that this is the wisest thing to do nor did I really want anyone else around the SIM compound to know I was contemplating it. So was it God’s Spirit that was leading me to do this? That was my prayer.
After some prayer, I asked Andrew what he thought about the idea. Later he told me that he thought I was just kidding. On Saturday or Sunday we met a guy named Ephraim who is a 23 year old local guy who has been around the SIM (Serving In Missions) for several years. He seems to have a ministry heart and a gladness about serving. He had just finished helping a long term missionary couple, so he came highly recommended as a guide. We spent some time with Ephraim on Sunday and I asked him about my idea. He first wanted me to ask him again because he wasn’t sure he heard me right. Then he told me that he had once been a street kid when he was about 10 years old and someone at SIM had helped him out. He said he knew many of the street kids around and knew where several of them slept for the night. He was surprised at my request because no one had ever asked him anything like that before. I told him I would pray some more and we would see. On Monday I asked him if he would take us to some street kids and spend the night with us (Andrew and I). I still wasn’t sure I was going to go through with it, but I thought that this might be God’s provision of a perfect guide for us. Someone who could speak English and Amharic, someone who had experience being on the street. I told him I would pray some more and call him later.
Monday afternoon came and I felt for sure we would give it a try. When else am I going to get a chance to displace myself to be with some of the most hidden forgotten people in this world. Why would I not do this? I decided safety was the only reason not to – something that rarely holds me back. I remembered my phrase “risk often” and called Ephraim to see if he could definitely go with us. He said yes and that he would meet us around 11:30.
ethiopia journal – feb 19, 2007
Last night was one of the most real/unreal experiences I have ever had in my ministry or really in my life. It started with an idea I had the day after we played soccer with a few street kids. The thought was, “I wonder what their lives are really like.” I mean nothing in me can fathom kids really existing on the streets in ANY place let alone on the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – a city of 5 million people in one of the poorest countries of the world. The thought that I had was what would it be like to just spend one night on the street with just a few of these kids – to feel what they feel, think what they think, see what they see, fear what they fear, touch what they touch, lay down on what they lay down on, smell what they smell, experience what they experience and live just for one night like they live.
At first it was just a thought, but soon it became a prayer. A prayer that asked if this was what God was leading me to do. A few days ago a spent a few days praying for some friends who were in Charlotte planning to spend the night on the streets with a few of their homeless friends. So maybe it actually began with a prayer for them. I would never claim that this is the wisest thing to do nor did I really want anyone else around the SIM compound to know I was contemplating it. So was it God’s Spirit that was leading me to do this? That was my prayer.
After some prayer, I asked Andrew what he thought about the idea. Later he told me that he thought I was just kidding. On Saturday or Sunday we met a guy named Ephraim who is a 23 year old local guy who has been around the SIM (Serving In Missions) for several years. He seems to have a ministry heart and a gladness about serving. He had just finished helping a long term missionary couple, so he came highly recommended as a guide. We spent some time with Ephraim on Sunday and I asked him about my idea. He first wanted me to ask him again because he wasn’t sure he heard me right. Then he told me that he had once been a street kid when he was about 10 years old and someone at SIM had helped him out. He said he knew many of the street kids around and knew where several of them slept for the night. He was surprised at my request because no one had ever asked him anything like that before. I told him I would pray some more and we would see. On Monday I asked him if he would take us to some street kids and spend the night with us (Andrew and I). I still wasn’t sure I was going to go through with it, but I thought that this might be God’s provision of a perfect guide for us. Someone who could speak English and Amharic, someone who had experience being on the street. I told him I would pray some more and call him later.
Monday afternoon came and I felt for sure we would give it a try. When else am I going to get a chance to displace myself to be with some of the most hidden forgotten people in this world. Why would I not do this? I decided safety was the only reason not to – something that rarely holds me back. I remembered my phrase “risk often” and called Ephraim to see if he could definitely go with us. He said yes and that he would meet us around 11:30.
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