Go Day Part 2

As we sought to serve Baton Rouge, my team split up and tackled 3 projects.  We tackled overgrown lawns of two of our widows because we need to begin with those in our household (Gal 6:10).  I primarily worked with my kids and two of their friends cleaning up an overpass in the neighborhood adjacent to our church.  If we miss the people next door, we've missed everything.  Many people, from the neighborhood, waved and shouted their thanks out of their car windows.  Some people stopped to thank us for our small sacrifice, and we got to point to the big sacrifice of Christ.  It was a GREAT day!

GO Day

Tomorrow our church is embarking on what we are calling "Go Day".  Instead of holding our regularly scheduled worship service and Sunday morning classes, we are going out into the surrounding community to serve others.  The tag line for this is, "Don't just go to church, go BE the church."  In anticipation for the event, here are some things that I like about it already:

It forces us to challenge our presuppositions about what "church" really is.

Because it's not regularly scheduled, I've had lots of Christ-centered interactions with people I don't normally come in contact with when I'm living out my "regular schedule".

"Go Day" has prompted many to see ideas of how they can serve others outside of this morning, which means that this event is serving as a catalyst for ongoing ministry.

Families will do this TOGETHER.

My kids are excited about it.  They can't wait to paint over some graffiti under an overpass near our church tomorrow.  It's going to be a good memory.

The Spiritual Discipline of Yard Work

Having a large annoying gum ball tree in the front yard and other more pleasant trees around the house, I got way behind in getting the yard cleaned up. So, yesterday, I spent 4+ hours getting it done. The kids helped me for two of those hours, and it was a good time for all of us...really. They did great...we worked together...accomplished a lot.

The last two hours was just me. Undistracted, all other sounds muffled by the engine of the lawn mower, I finished the job. The best part of it all was the solitude and reflection that comes with standing behind a lawn mower. Sure, this was just a couple of hours, but I needed it more than I realized. It energized me.

Coming off a crazy few days dealing with a lot of "noise", the yard work cleared my head. Since then, I feel more "present" with the people I am around. A while back I heard someone say, "You can't truly be with other people if you can't be by yourself." There's truth in that. It's in being by yourself that we realize we are really never alone. But, that's a whole other topic.

Children's Ministry

It's been a while since I have been able to write anything. It's just been one of those seasons where there is little margin to get to any sort of reflection. However, along the way, over the past few weeks, I have had great moments of increased thanksgiving.

My decreased "margin" and increased thanksgiving come by way of me standing in the gap of our children's ministry. Our children's minister resigned, and we were fortunate enough to find a great person to continue the work. However, there is that gap of a few weeks where someone has to take point, and that has been me.

Children's ministry is so heavy with administrative tasks and details. Visions of supply closets keep me up at night. However, teaching kids God's Word, talking to parents about real issues of life, high-fiving fifth graders, and feeling 3 year olds hug my shins are things that make it all worth it.

Children's ministers have great jobs! While I no longer will be "on point", I am going to look hard for ways to stay involved. The work is hard, but the rewards are awesome.

Significant Time

A couple of days ago, I received a great email from Amy, who I consider to be a great friend. Amy was in my student ministry years ago, and she is now in NYC doing great things. Outside of the random, "we are both in Dallas, so lets catch up" occurrences, we touch base via facebook and email. We don't correspond regularly. However, she will always be one of those significant friends in my life.

Significant because there is so much good in her and because of the significant time we spent working life out. Great conversations ensued about God, church, family, authenticity, hypocrisy, meaning, purpose, forgiveness and grace.

Blessed again, today, I received a phone call from Craig, who I haven't heard from in a while. Craig is another one of those friends who, like Amy, shared real life with me. Together, we worked out many of the same things in the context of ministry and fatherhood.

Wrestling through those topics with others are gifts from God, and I'm convinced that we too often take those opportunities for granted. It's so easy to live our lives "being productive" and "getting through the day," that we ultimately miss the heart of the people right in front of us. Worse than that, we don't cultivate our own heart, and we become emotionally numb. Without correcting that way of living, we end up with lots of acquaintances, but with no REAL friends.

So, as a result of an email and phone call, I thank God for Amy and Craig and others just like them. I'm thankful for all the people who God has used to shape me. I'm also re-energized to evaluate my time, shifting more of it away from the urgent, and onto the significant. Life really is too short to do otherwise.

Making Memories

I just finished Donald Miller's, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years. It was a good read, and I recommend it. Somewhere in that book he wrote of the value of the "setting" of our life's story. As when we remember scenes from a movie, we may not remember what was being spoken, but we do remember the scene. The main point of this portion of Miller's book is that it is important to get out of the routine settings of our life to make memories. Setting is important.

With that in mind, I took Michael deer hunting last weekend. I hardly ever hunt...only when someone makes the opportunity available and I can make the time. Michael has never been hunting. We went and had a great time sitting in the stand together. I didn't care if we didn't even see a deer. The experience was the goal.

But then we did see a deer (a nice 5 point) and "we" shot it. Our setting moved from the stand into the woods where we found him dead. We drug him out, harvested the meat, and took his head home. Then our setting changed again to the back yard, where we boiled the deer head, preparing a "European skull mount".

All of this has been a great scene that we'll never forget. Good times...

Learning Contentment 2

Thanks to all for the emails and input. From conversations with you and from listening to others, I've worked out some of what it means to learn contentment. If you are interested in the message, then go to: http://istrouma.org/mediaplayer_1 and click on "sermon series" and then go to the sermon on 12/27/09.