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- 90% of the kids of our elementary school get free or reduce lunches.
- There are a ton of obvious community needs. Walk down our street one time as a visitor and you can name about 10.
- It’s about 90% unchurched with many people frankly hostile to the Church.
- We went to that place financially solid enough so that we wouldn’t be a burden on the people there.
- We tried our best to bless the businesses by buying locally and gave to the needs of the community.
- We usually gave a financial gift to our hosts & the local churches as well.
Taste.
June 25th, 2010
Early this morning I went on a walk – early enough that there wasn’t a lot of traffic to obscure the sounds and smells of nature.
As I walked I inhaled the odors of flowers, grass, leaves, and ocean. It’s saddening to think of all the times that I don’t stop and just sniff the air. It’s a vast array of salty and sweet, strong and faint, perfumey and pungent. You know, air really never smells as vanilla as I treat it most of the time.
I rubbed my fingers over leaves and flowers – cautiously looking at windows to make sure the neighbors weren’t peeking at me manhandling their foliage. I felt the scratchy, abrasive trunk of countless palm trees. It almost hurt at times. And I could imagine that if I accidentally rubbed my shoulder against one while running that it would leave me pink and raw.
I walked with a cup of coffee in hand and washed the morning taste out of my mouth. Where would I be without something as simple as taste?
I can actually make a perfect cup of coffee. My tastebuds are accurate enough to detect the precise amount of sugar if my coffee is too bitter.
I can cook something that others can find appealing – actually bring joy to their faces. And that same sense of taste can help me prepare people for the disaster their about to experience. I’ve recommended restaurants. Praised my wife. Shared morsels of what I was experiencing. Brushed my teeth from the internal alerts from my mouth.
Taste and see that the LORD is good; – Psalm 34:8
The Scripture crossed my mind. Taste is a metaphor here and there are many deep and fascinating places I could go with it.
But on a much simpler note (and not even a good hermeneutical one for those who are so inclined), I wonder if taste alone, as a sense, is a good enough indicator of the fact that God is good. I mean, if you never ever got anything else you wanted in life in terms of material possessions or relationships, etc. – if you had only been given the sense of taste would it cause you to conclude that: “Wow, this Creator of mine is a really good to me. He gave me the sense of taste.”
Think about the sense taste though: it is uniquely yours. No one can convince you that something tastes good. No amount of talking or reasoning, no famous named chef can cause you to like or dislike something. In fact, chances are you like the taste of something that makes other people cringe.
The sense of taste seems to have no other use but to give us enjoyment. Now granted there’s gag reflex that sometimes can save your life and desiring the flavor of something is sometimes the indicator that your body has unmet nutritional needs. But all in all, the sense of taste in most of its use is only to bring us pleasure. We typically don’t eat things we don’t like the taste of. We eat things because we like them. And most of the time, eating isn’t a burden.
Taste.
Why would God create such a subjective thing?
Isn’t that a weird thing to come up with?
Who could have thought of such a thing?
If you created life out of nothing, would you be so concerned about its pleasure? It’s joy?
Personally, I think I’d be more concerned about my own pleasure as a creator.
When I was a little kid, my grandmotther would cook these fabulous artery clogging Southern meals. And after she’d cook, she’d just sit at the table with a smirk on my face and watch me eat. I was 6 years old and I still vividly remember how weird (and a little uncomfortable) it was that she’d stare at me. But she’d always say why: “Nanny just loves watching her baby eatin’ good.”
Even explaining the why she did it, doesn’t make it any less strange I guess. But I think today she helps me understand God a little more.
What a weird thing it is for God to give us taste buds. But He loves watching us.
I think God was paying attention to me 2 nights ago when I ate my wife’s meatloaf. It was an insanely good meatloaf. And I was really grateful.
But I think God’s much more enthralled with us than we give Him credit for. In fact, I think we might be pretty uncomfortable with Him if we knew how much. You’d probably be asking the similar question that I was asking: “Why are You staring at me while I eat?”
And He’d say, “Because I love you. I love just watching you. I like just seeing you happy and enjoying something.”
And we’d think that was weird.
And He’d be totally okay with that.
God’s always watching. And not for the reasons we think.
He’s always trying to catch us….just like a Father.
Devotion…
May 19th, 2010
It’s easier to give God devotion rather than your heart.
Devotion doesn’t have any risks. It can actually be used as a bargaining chip to point out why we deserve something.
Choosing friends…
May 14th, 2010I grew up hearing all the cliches that you hear regarding friends – “birds of a feather…,” “…peas in a pod,” “be careful choosing friends…” – I have to say they did get a little smarter as I got older. And these days, you’re bound to see one of those smarter quotes resurrected as a wall post on Facebook like:
“A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.”
And that is a Shakespeare quote by the way.
The truth is that most of the people we find in relationship with us are as much like us as we can possibly find. In part, I think we just love ourselves that much. I mean, if you can’t hang out with yourself, you might as well find someone who at least reminds you of yourself.
I think agreement is good, and there are some great and powerful things that come out of agreement. But there’s negative things as well like assuming you’re right because someone else agrees with you, while condemning others because they don’t. You know, it’s easy to make a bad guy out of someone who disagrees.
The problem is that we’ve sliced so thinly the community that I think we were meant to have.
Community is a huge part of the transformative process. We don’t change on our own. And, you know what? We don’t change just by hanging out with people who agree nearly 100% with us.
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. – Proverbs 27:17
That’s such a sexy verse. It’s pretty much become cliche as well. We’ve dressed it up to sound so friendly, but I really don’t think it’s as nice as everyone would like to think.
Iron cannot actually sharpen iron. It can’t.
Take two steak knives out of a drawer and try sharpening them by rubbing them together or something. It just can’t happen.
And I think that’s one of the points of this scripture is that if two are so much alike, if they are of the same hardness, that is the degree of sharpness that you will get by their collision. What you’ll have is a high degree of no change at all. But the two will be just alike. They’ll be buddies.
The point is that there cannot be change where there is no real conflict.
When iron is being sharpened, it’s messy. There are sparks and slivers of metal everywhere. In any sharpening something gives in and something dominates. Equals do not sharpen they dull.
In these days of political correctness and tolerance, I think we’ve all become a bunch of weenies who get our feelings hurt too easily. We run away from relationships because we say they’re too painful, and we hole up with people who’ll always agree – or – even if they disagree, they won’t tell us because they’re afraid of conflict.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not right all the time. And sometimes, I’m in conflict with people and I’m 100% sure I’m right…for a while…and then some months later I allow myself to be broken and sharpened.
Don’t get me wrong – I hate conflict. I really do. I’ve always wanted everyone – everyone! – to like me. But I hate not changing. I hate that inauthentic dance that we do around in relationships when we don’t disagree. I hate that giving up on a relationship because I find myself on the polar opposite of an issue. I need all these people. I really do.
The Path…
May 12th, 2010About a year ago, I finally retired my Myspace account and grew up and created at Facebook one.
It found it a little boring at first that Facebook was so simple and uncluttered, but rediscovered a lot of people that I assumed forgot about me by now. Obviously, some of those people just wanted to add me as a friend so that they could compare wrinkles, but some of them have truly been worthwhile reconnections.
One of those has been a friend from high school named Josh Kennedy. I was reminded of his wit from high school as I read some of his status updates and notes. We chatted from time to time and realized that we’ve both migrated to the West Coast.
This past weekend, Josh made a road trip from Portland to San Diego, and we caught up for lunch at a Poma’s Deli – a place that I’ve passed in my many frequent trips to the beach but never stopped at because off street parking is such a pain.
I arrived at Poma’s a few minutes before Josh. It’s a small place, and I stepped in to do a quick visual pass to make sure Josh wasn’t already there. He wasn’t. I was sending a quick text to Josh when a guy behind the counter asked me “Can I help you?” in a very unhelpful manner with a taste of Jersey shore confrontation.
“Just waiting on someone” I replied.
A minute or so later, I saw a man in sunglasses across the street studying his phone as he walked down the sidewalk. I pushed the door open and stepped outside and reunited with Josh.
“20 years? Are you serious?” Josh said, replying to post I’d made on Facebook that morning.
And our hug felt like a greater sense of brotherhood, which was even more interesting, because in high school it’s not like we hung out all the time. Sure, we talked every day because it was a small school, and his locker was 3 spaces down from mine, but we wouldn’t have called ourselves best friends or anything. I just remember enjoying his wit & humor and I remember fondly the greatest trick first base play in the world was made by him.
For me, it was a fascinating conversation. When you retrace the footsteps of nearly 20 years, most people have a pretty predictable path. Josh not so much.
How many graduates of conservative John Brown University end up in L.A. working for Fox Films sandwiched between stints of working with at-risk kids in group homes?
Ultimately, Josh would find yet another gifting in music as a self-taught guitar player and keyboarding impersonator for a band. The music scene admittedly is not that great in San Diego, so a couple of years ago, Josh headed north with his band to settle in Portland.
We talked a lot of life. We honestly didn’t talk about high school. Most people get together with high school friends to talk about the past. For us, the journey that lead us to Poma’s was much more important.
I shared a lot of Josh’s experience (not the cool movie or music part but…). Following a significant chunk of my life in a little town called Caruthersville, Missouri, I attended 3 different high schools. I remember moving to Louisiana and attending a small school in Covington where I met a lot of great people. It was so cool being the new guy and being a great player on a horrible basketball team. Everyone was so appreciative of what I did on the court. It was like what I did was a silver lining as we racked up numbers in the L column. I’ll never forget hitting a half court shot and everyone going nuts, despite the fact that we lost by 10.
After that great year, I ended up finishing school in Memphis. Looking back, on a personal level, I lost a lot. The ensuing years of that followed that transition perpetuated more transition. It still was cool being the new guy. I loved that. But it wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I looked back and realized that I grown up to be a person who had lived a life without community. I think my personal and professional goals always became a weak substitute for relationship.
We talked a lot about community – it’s transformative process through the ups and downs and personal disagreements.
We talked about being observers of the every day in life and how both of us as people have been called as people to make people aware of that conversation going on every day. People all see the same thing, but they don’t notice it. We’re not so smart. We’re just making you aware of what you’ve seen.
I was so filled from our conversation (and the pastrami sandwich). To hear what Josh has to say, you know he’s full of wisdom, and, quite frankly, one look at his whispy beard and you know he’s smarter than you.
The cool thing about the journey is that I think both of us have grown a little wiser than our years.
Wish Josh lived around here though. I can imagine a lot of late night stimulating conversations when he’d smoke from a pipe and pull something intriguing out of its puff of smoke.
There was a real transcendence in our hug bye. It was bigger than he or I. It’s just something that only God can do. When you walk away different and infused with the power of God…well, I don’t want to knock relationships that people might have with their friends. I can only say that this is what God meant for community. And I just think that I’ve settled for too long.
VIDEO: Kinda ironic how our yearbook was called, “The Path.” Josh noticed it. I didn’t.
Knee problems…
April 28th, 2010
Yesterday I went to my first physical therapy appointment for my knee. Honestly, there was very little actual therapy, just a ton of questions.
The first question: “Where does it hurt?”
And it’s amazing that after all this pain and the high degree of communicative ability that I have (at least that I’d like to think I have) that I struggled for several minutes to describe the pain and exactly where it was located in my knee.
Second question: “So it hurts when you walk?”
And I’m like, “not really.”
“When you run?”
“No.”
And at that point I’m thinking the physical therapist thinks I really don’t have a knee problem. I actually felt a little alarmed internally because I didn’t think she was going to treat me.
I mean, my knee really did hurt, not when I walk…most of the time. It hurts when I jump. It hurts when I make a sudden move or climb the stairs…but not every time. But when it hurts my leg totally goes limp.
“Is it getting worse?”
I don’t think so. I don’t know. It could be.
And after a long list of more questions, the physical therapist skeptically began her examination of my knee. I walked, stepped, and resisted applied pressure and winced as visibly as I could because I actually wanted to get this thing taken care of.
Finally she looked at my quads and said, “How long have you been having this problem?”
Like 2 years.
“So why didn’t you get physical therapy?”
Because I’m a guy and I hate going to the doctor and I figure things will just work their way out.
“Yeah, I can tell you’ve been dealing with this for a while…your right leg is smaller than the other. In fact, there’s a big difference.” And she actually measures both of my quads to prove to me how much of a difference really existed.
And it dawned on me stupid it was for me to wait so long. How I’ve stayed out of pain by walking and using that leg less and refraining from activities that I used to enjoy. I’ve managed my pain, but I really haven’t gotten better. I live around the pain. I nervously walk up and down stairs.
It’s become normal. I just didn’t realize how normal it’s become.
What happened yesterday sorta mirrors what’s been going on in my conversation with Jesus over the last year or so. I realize now that my times of bad attitude, my defensiveness, my guilt, my shame, my lack of trust, my greedy grasping, etc. – these things are all ways that I’ve compensated for pain and brokenness. I realize those things rear their head so that I don’t have to experience the pain that I’ve never dealt with.
Some of that pain is from religion, from relationship with people, circumstances, and often (and most times) it stems from a wrong belief about God.
Reactly wrongly to people, circumstances, and God feels like something that’s happening in the moment. Someone crosses us or something happens and we react in a way that maybe we wish we didn’t. But we believe ourselves to be fair people who would at least be reacting objectively.
Truth is, we’re broken people. We may feel at times like we’re more whole than we really are – and that’s just because we’ve compensated so long that we can’t even see the limp that we walk with while others may even be able to see it a mile away.
Some of the junk we really thought would just work it’s way out. But that’s not what happens. Not talking to people or not thinking about a situation or a hurt doesn’t mean that we’ve been healed. And that’s where God wants to bring us – to wholeness.
Right now, I’m staring at the beginning of some physical therapy that can strengthen and bring healing to my knee. I’m kinda not looking forward to it. But this problem has been 2 years in the making and it’s not going to resolve from one doctor’s visit.
I’m so reminded of the story of Jesus with the man at the pool of Bethesda (John 15:1-15). He’d been an invalid for 38 years, and Jesus asked him a really startling question: “Do you want to get well?”
What Jesus asked was a really huge question on a lot of levels for this guy. For brevity I won’t go into the endless number of things that would have changed including the fact that he would have to actually get a job and support himself.
The initial encounter with Jesus was really the easy part. Yeah, Jesus could heal him physically. And that sounds so over the top, who couldn’t be happy and better off with that?
But I think Jesus was seeing ahead. This was going to change everything. This guy was going to have to be reintroduced to life, and honestly I think it was going to be pretty tough. I think he was going to have to go through a healing process of brokenness with himself, with brokenness with family who allowed him to be on the streets, with people who walked past him every day and thought he was trash…he was even going to have to sort through bitterness that he possibly held against God for 38 years of his life.
Jesus was more than willing to touch his physical body and heal it. But Jesus’ desire for his life was much greater than that guy could have ever known. Jesus wanted him to be whole.
And for us that’s His same desire.
It’s not okay to be sick.
It’s not normal.
It’s not acceptable.
We can’t live in a place of compensating for brokenness. We can’t enable environment that accepts people to continually walk around in their woundedness.
Sponged…
March 25th, 2010
I was a little bummed today when I was looking up a new church plant in my community and found a community news item that they have a fundraiser this weekend.
Now I’ll admit that I have a personal opinion regarding a church fundraising from the community. And I’ll reserve that opinion.
But I’m greatly concerned about the message it sends when a new church springs up with zero credibility and relationship with a heavily unchurched community and organizes a fundraiser for missions to another part of the globe. Included in the article was that they’re hoping to sponge $2500 off the community.
A COUPLE OF FACTS ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY:
Do I think this church is trying to be a sponge? Of course not. I’m sure they haven’t even considered the fact that the perception of the Church in our community is that the Church really doesn’t care about anything and only comes out of the 4 walls during the Christmas parade so that it can leap on an opportunity to convert someone.
What bugs me the most is that – by now – we should start considering these things.
A church plant is mostly likely not going to make $2500 off of themselves at a fundraiser. Obviously, if they were that wealthy they wouldn’t be doing a fundraiser in the first place.
So the intention, like it or not, is sponging off of a bunch of already broke unchurched people who already think we don’t care.
Last time I checked, we’re supposed to be the people serving our community. It just kills me when we get it wrong.
Whenever I think of the trips that we’ve taken as missionaries to other countries, there were a few things that were no-brainers:
So why don’t we treat out own communities with the same courtesy?
Hey, Fundraise. But ask people who are following Jesus to make a sacrifice toward what you believe He’s calling you to do.
Go to every place on the planet with the Gospel. But don’t have your introduction to your primary mission field be with your palm out – not in hospitality – but in asking them to serve your cause.
Here’s a clip from one of our giveaways in this same community. The most we say is, “It’s just a small way to say Jesus loves you – no strings attached.”
At the end of the video (difficult to hear) a person had a keen insight: “Wow, That’s they way it should be!”
WWE invades Gold’s Gym
March 24th, 2010Hey, the fact that I like pro wrestling is the only redneck thing about me. I promise!
Wisdom from the poor man…
March 3rd, 2010
I wonder if anything is more despised or looked down upon than the wisdom of a poor man.
If you sat on a sidewalk for hours a day with a poor man, do you think you’d be wiser?
If you knew someone who sat on a sidewalk for hours a day listening to a poor man, do you think they’d be wiser? Or do you think they’d wasted their time?
Is a poor man’s words less wise than a rich man?
Does a person with worldly success possess wisdom? Maybe not you’d assume, because you think of yourself as less shallow than that. But, then again, when was the last time you listened or sought the wisdom of a poor man.
Our minimum standards are probably upper middle class mean at least I think – credible enough because they have some standard of success yet authentic enough that they have struggles and a measure of brokenness.
We should be more appalled at ourselves than this. After all, Jesus did some pretty great talks explaining the distinction between the foolish and the wise and the rich and the poor.
But we still think the poor man speaks of only madness and failure. We think the poor man earned his place because of his own choices and sin.
Sounds kinda familiar to me, because they thought the same thing about Jesus:
Isaiah 53:2-4
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ..yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
Layers…
February 26th, 2010
Lately, I’ve pressed in to God a bit more. I can’t really take credit for that. It’s a response to grace and the drawing of the Holy Spirit obviously. I realize in me there still exists things that have kept God at a safe(r) distance. Which is stunning to me, because you can’t help but convince yourself that you grow to a point of trusting God implicitly, where you truly know that He’s good.
But I’m continually coming to the realization that this revolution of the heart is an unending process. Until God is so known and locked into our hearts, until fear is completely washed away and only love remains, God still exposes places in our hearts that He’s not taken yet.
I’m learning that a lot of stuff that I said was no big deal or were just old hurts of the past really still are a big deal to God. They numb our hearts and keep us from experiencing His love.
I’m actually really excited about peeling the layers back. I know that sounds like a scary prospect for some people, but the level of intimacy with the Father is of such great value to me. I just want to know Him more. And I want to trust Him more.
Words of Wisdom (2.24.10)
February 25th, 2010Last night my oldest daughter told me that her school gave them a number to call for help with teen issues where you can talk to adults.
ME: What kind of issues?
VICTORIA: Anything we go through…like depression…puberty…
ME: Puberty? They have a crisis line for puberty? What kind of call would… that be? ‘Hello Teen Crisis Center, can I help you?’ ‘Help me! Hair has started growing in my pits!’
