Being a pastor in the city is so interesting. Every single day of my life is different, and I really never know what to expect. One of the things I'm working very hard on is authenticity. Strategy and programs are important, but a good foundation in ministry starts when people can look at my life and see that I am trying to actually live out what I am challenging others to do.
This approach to life plays itself out in many different ways. When I challenge people to pop the Christian bubble and intentionally spend time with people who are not Christians, then I had better back that up with the choices I make on how and where I spend my time. I send my kids to the local public schools in the city because it helps our family to spend a lot of time with people who may not be Christians. I try to spend a lot of time out in the streets of my city meeting new people because that's what Jesus modeled. As a pastor, I hope to eventually spend at least 50 percent of my time with people outside the church. I am also called to be a pastor to the followers of Jesus who attend the church where God has placed me in leadership. When I challenge our church to disciple new believers, I need to be intentionally discipling newer believers myself. That's why the LAMP mentoring is still such a big part of what I do each week. It's life on life, it costs me time and resources, and it is deep discipleship with people who really need it. When I challenge people to live out the biblical mandate to care for the poor, I had better be spending a lot of my time caring for the poor. When I challenge business men and women to live out of their hearts, passionately, in their vocational callings, I had better be spending a lot of time visiting them and spending time with them where they work. When I challenge our church to do something about the violence in our city, I had better go out into my community to have God work through me to minister to people when I hear gun shots. I need to be the same person in the streets as I am standing talking from the platform to hundreds of people on Sunday morning. When I challenge people to reject materialism and cultural Christianity, then my own lifestyle had better reflect that. If I challenge men to stand up and be the husbands and fathers that he has called us to be, then I had better be loving my wife and children as God intends.
I am a work in progress, and I still have a lot of transformation that God needs to take me through over the years that God may give me. I mess up every day. If I am open to God guiding me every day, then I will know that I am fully equipped to take on whatever may come my way as an urban pastor on any given day. My goal is to die to my self every single day so that God can use me however he wants to use me to advance his mission to reach people in this world who are desperate for good news. I could lose my life tonight, or I might have many more decades to live. That's all up to God, and I trust him completely. My prayer is that God would help me to be able to authentically, relationally, and passionately live out his purposes on a daily basis. I'm finding that to be a huge challenge!
Monday, March 5, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Thankful For My Wife
I usually don't write mushy stuff about my family on this blog, but I couldn't resist today. My wife, Julie, and I have spent most of our weekend at an elders retreat at our church. This marks the one time each year where all elders and wives from all campuses gather together. We were greatly encouraged by the time together with everyone... there are some amazing leaders at North Way!
Several people commented to me that they really appreciated Julie for her leadership. My wife is a gifted leader, and she is a wonderful support for me and the girls. I knew from the first time that I met Julie that she was a special person who God was going to use for amazing purposes in her life. God just does beautiful things through her on a daily basis.
After thirteen years of marriage, I can say that every new day with my wife is a blessing and an adventure. We are true partners in God's mission to reach the world. My goal as her husband is to serve her, to love her sacrificially, for every single day that God gives me with her. I have a long way to go in that department. Still, I love it when other people experience how powerful it is to see her living in her incredible calling. Thank you, Julie, for loving me so well!
Several people commented to me that they really appreciated Julie for her leadership. My wife is a gifted leader, and she is a wonderful support for me and the girls. I knew from the first time that I met Julie that she was a special person who God was going to use for amazing purposes in her life. God just does beautiful things through her on a daily basis.
After thirteen years of marriage, I can say that every new day with my wife is a blessing and an adventure. We are true partners in God's mission to reach the world. My goal as her husband is to serve her, to love her sacrificially, for every single day that God gives me with her. I have a long way to go in that department. Still, I love it when other people experience how powerful it is to see her living in her incredible calling. Thank you, Julie, for loving me so well!
Friday, March 2, 2012
Living in God's Adventure
One of mentees from Homewood texted me a little while ago with a simple "What's up?" I know he was just checking in, as most of my mentees do each week, to see if we could get together. There is always a deeper question behind the "What's up?" The deeper question is, "What does God have in store for my life if we spend time together today?" Following Jesus is an amazing adventure, and over the past six years I've introduced all of my mentees to the adventure. When they spend time with me, they never know what to expect one from week to the next. I am passionate about God, and I am passionate about life. When I follow Jesus with reckless abondon, completely sold out to the radical, countercultural gospel message, then my mentees see God's light in me and they want to experience that light from God too. They are drawn to God, as all of us are, even though they may not know that is what they are expriencing. I don't know what my mentees and I will experience next time we hang out, but we all have great expectations for what life will bring.
This is how I want to live life every day. All of us were designed to find amazing adventure and purpose in God's grand adventure of life. We were made to take risks and live in God's transcendent purposes. When I live that way, as if every day is all about an unpredictable adventure with the Lord, then my wife is drawn into the adventure, my children are drawn into the adventure, the church I lead is drawn into the adventure, my mentees are drawn into the adventure, my friends and nieghbors are drawn into the adventure, and even my enemies can be drawn into the adventure. Every day requires me to reject safety, comfort, and materialism in order to embrace the radical message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God's great adventure is experienced through downward mobility, not the upward mobility that the world has so carefully crafted for Americans. We find life when we die to our selves and fully embrace God's grand narrative. Yep, this is shaping up to be a good day.
This is how I want to live life every day. All of us were designed to find amazing adventure and purpose in God's grand adventure of life. We were made to take risks and live in God's transcendent purposes. When I live that way, as if every day is all about an unpredictable adventure with the Lord, then my wife is drawn into the adventure, my children are drawn into the adventure, the church I lead is drawn into the adventure, my mentees are drawn into the adventure, my friends and nieghbors are drawn into the adventure, and even my enemies can be drawn into the adventure. Every day requires me to reject safety, comfort, and materialism in order to embrace the radical message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. God's great adventure is experienced through downward mobility, not the upward mobility that the world has so carefully crafted for Americans. We find life when we die to our selves and fully embrace God's grand narrative. Yep, this is shaping up to be a good day.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Living in God's Mission
Last week a team from North Way Christian Community went on a mission trip to Honduras. I had the opportunity to go to Honduras last summer for research on my doctoral dissertation, so I know first hand how transformational the experience must have been for the team that went on this trip. The time spent in Honduras is life changing! Today several people who went on the trip shared with me about some of the amazing things that God did through this group of people from our church while in Honduras. God moved in many ways, and lives were impacted both with the people living in Honduras and with the people from Pittsburgh who went on the trip.
I am greatly encouraged by what God is doing globally, and I am also greatly encouraged by what God is doing in Pittsburgh. I have reached out to the people who went on the Honduras trip because I really want to connect them with what God is doing in Pittsburgh as well. Sometimes in the church we notice a tension between global and local missions, but there really is no difference to God. God is on mission to redeem every part of this world all of the time locally and globally, and he has chosen the church to accomplish his mission during this particular period of history. Global outreach is valuable, and local outreach is valuable. The point is that when we join God's mission to reach people in need in this world, we grow closer to Christ.
The big secret in living the countercultural Christian lifestyle in America is that the spiritual high or "feeling" that we get when we go on mission trips and serve the poor abroad... we can experience that closeness to God or "feeling" all of the time. I mean every single day of our lives. God designed us to live in his mission to reach the world all of the time, whether it's through volunteering locally where ever God has planted us or in our vocations or with our families. The world encourages us in America to be upwardly mobile and distance ourselves from people in need with our lifestyles, but the radical nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ encourages us to be downwardly mobile and give ourselves away relationally with marginalized people. God takes the things of this world and flips them on their head, and that still applies to modern day America. As followers of Jesus, we can find great purpose and meaning in life through living missionally all of the time... locally and globally.
I am greatly encouraged by what God is doing globally, and I am also greatly encouraged by what God is doing in Pittsburgh. I have reached out to the people who went on the Honduras trip because I really want to connect them with what God is doing in Pittsburgh as well. Sometimes in the church we notice a tension between global and local missions, but there really is no difference to God. God is on mission to redeem every part of this world all of the time locally and globally, and he has chosen the church to accomplish his mission during this particular period of history. Global outreach is valuable, and local outreach is valuable. The point is that when we join God's mission to reach people in need in this world, we grow closer to Christ.
The big secret in living the countercultural Christian lifestyle in America is that the spiritual high or "feeling" that we get when we go on mission trips and serve the poor abroad... we can experience that closeness to God or "feeling" all of the time. I mean every single day of our lives. God designed us to live in his mission to reach the world all of the time, whether it's through volunteering locally where ever God has planted us or in our vocations or with our families. The world encourages us in America to be upwardly mobile and distance ourselves from people in need with our lifestyles, but the radical nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ encourages us to be downwardly mobile and give ourselves away relationally with marginalized people. God takes the things of this world and flips them on their head, and that still applies to modern day America. As followers of Jesus, we can find great purpose and meaning in life through living missionally all of the time... locally and globally.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Prayer-focused, Cross-cultural, and Missional
This morning I gathered to pray with several people who have committed to praying for North Way East End every Saturday morning at 7am. The time together is always unique because there are so many details to launching a church campus and new prayer requests arise on a daily basis. One of the things I am committed to as a pastor is that our church will be built on a foundation of prayer. Many churches and church leaders talk about prayer being important, but they fail to emphasize prayer or model it for people and so corporate prayer can become lost in the shuffle.
I've also been intentional about building cross-cultural community in the East End, and Pastor Freedom and I have been out in the community each week building relationships across cultures. I've been encouraging the staff and elders at North Way East End to go out of their way to emphasize authentic relationships across cultures. I wouldn't say that we have "arrived" at being cross-cultural by any stretch of the imagination, but we're making good progress toward that goal. Many church leaders like to talk about being cross cultural, but I want to actually be a cross cultural faith community.
Another emphasis of North Way East End is that we are a missional church community. That means that we serve the poor and marginalized people in our city and across the world. We serve people outside the walls of the church well beyond Sunday mornings. We gather together to worship on Sundays so that we can go out and impact the world in every sector of society and across socioeconomic boundaries. As a pastor, I spent a great deal of my time this week with people living in desperate poverty in the inner city. I also spent a significant amount of time with business leaders who steward a lot of resources throughout the course of the week. Many churches like to talk a lot about serving the poor and being missional, but our leaders in the East End are working toward following God's lead to make this a part of everything that we do at the church and in our city.
Prayer-focused. Cross-cultural. Missional. These are key foundations of the North Way East End church, and we are seeking to live them out in the city so that God will be glorified. We are just starting in the process, and we have a long way to go. We are, however, off to a promising start in these areas!
I've also been intentional about building cross-cultural community in the East End, and Pastor Freedom and I have been out in the community each week building relationships across cultures. I've been encouraging the staff and elders at North Way East End to go out of their way to emphasize authentic relationships across cultures. I wouldn't say that we have "arrived" at being cross-cultural by any stretch of the imagination, but we're making good progress toward that goal. Many church leaders like to talk about being cross cultural, but I want to actually be a cross cultural faith community.
Another emphasis of North Way East End is that we are a missional church community. That means that we serve the poor and marginalized people in our city and across the world. We serve people outside the walls of the church well beyond Sunday mornings. We gather together to worship on Sundays so that we can go out and impact the world in every sector of society and across socioeconomic boundaries. As a pastor, I spent a great deal of my time this week with people living in desperate poverty in the inner city. I also spent a significant amount of time with business leaders who steward a lot of resources throughout the course of the week. Many churches like to talk a lot about serving the poor and being missional, but our leaders in the East End are working toward following God's lead to make this a part of everything that we do at the church and in our city.
Prayer-focused. Cross-cultural. Missional. These are key foundations of the North Way East End church, and we are seeking to live them out in the city so that God will be glorified. We are just starting in the process, and we have a long way to go. We are, however, off to a promising start in these areas!
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
New Programs in the City
Today I had the opportunity to meet with a young person who has some great ideas about programs designed to impact at-risk youth in the inner city. These particular programs involved sports and leadership, and the curriculum was very promising and well researched. This individual wanted to meet with me to talk about how he might be able to implement the program in Homewood. I told him that I thought the program was much needed in my neighborhood, and that no doubt it could help a lot of people. However, there are already several other organizations doing similar sports-related outreach in Homewood. Also, he didn't really know anyone from Homewood so he wasn't quite sure where to begin or if the programs would be effective.
We talked for a while, and he had a humble spirit as he asked me about the work that I do with at-risk youth in Homewood. He listened as I shared some of my journey of serving in the inner city over the past six years... my failures and break throughs. I encouraged my new friend that struggling urban neighborhoods can definitely use outside programs and resources, but the outside support needs to be implemented very carefully. I encouraged him to set his program/curriculum aside and go to Homewood and spend time in the neighborhood getting to know people. I offered to introduce him to some gatekeepers into the community who might be willing to let him in. Also, I encouraged him to identify and appreciate the assets in the inner city... including sports outreach programs that have been operating in the neighborhood for years. I mentioned that he might just want to spend months, maybe years, in the neighborhood getting to know people before he started to implement any programming. That's what contextualization and asset-building are all about. Outside programs can be very effective when partnered well with inside and already established programs. Relationships are also important, and the goal of the programs should lead to transformation and empowerment in building on the assets that are already in the community.
I may have overwhelmed the young man I met with today, but I really encouraged him to stay the course and work toward helping people living in struggling urban neighborhoods through sports outreach. I hope that from today on he will give himself away to people in need, and that he will do it through partnerships and relationships that will be sustainable and empowering for years to come. Sometimes good intentions can cause great harm, and sometimes the slow process of transformation is more about consistent relationships with people over time than it is about some program that's brought in from the outside. Still, cities are complex places that require a complex response from people who are trying to help out. Both insiders and outsiders are needed to bring about positive change in the city.
We talked for a while, and he had a humble spirit as he asked me about the work that I do with at-risk youth in Homewood. He listened as I shared some of my journey of serving in the inner city over the past six years... my failures and break throughs. I encouraged my new friend that struggling urban neighborhoods can definitely use outside programs and resources, but the outside support needs to be implemented very carefully. I encouraged him to set his program/curriculum aside and go to Homewood and spend time in the neighborhood getting to know people. I offered to introduce him to some gatekeepers into the community who might be willing to let him in. Also, I encouraged him to identify and appreciate the assets in the inner city... including sports outreach programs that have been operating in the neighborhood for years. I mentioned that he might just want to spend months, maybe years, in the neighborhood getting to know people before he started to implement any programming. That's what contextualization and asset-building are all about. Outside programs can be very effective when partnered well with inside and already established programs. Relationships are also important, and the goal of the programs should lead to transformation and empowerment in building on the assets that are already in the community.
I may have overwhelmed the young man I met with today, but I really encouraged him to stay the course and work toward helping people living in struggling urban neighborhoods through sports outreach. I hope that from today on he will give himself away to people in need, and that he will do it through partnerships and relationships that will be sustainable and empowering for years to come. Sometimes good intentions can cause great harm, and sometimes the slow process of transformation is more about consistent relationships with people over time than it is about some program that's brought in from the outside. Still, cities are complex places that require a complex response from people who are trying to help out. Both insiders and outsiders are needed to bring about positive change in the city.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Reflecting on a Prison Fire in Honduras
Many people have been asking me if I heard on the news about the prison fire in Honduras where over 300 people died. That news really broke my heart for a variety of reasons. I had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time in youth detention centers in Honduras last summer interviewing inmates for my dissertation and implementing the LAMP mentoring model in cities in Honduras. I heard heartbreaking stories from the at-risk youth that I interviewed and visited with. I was thankful for the acces that I had in the jail, but it was definitely a rough environment. It hurt to see so many young people locked up in difficult conditions. Then again, it breaks my heart that so many people in America are locked up. America has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world! The conditions in American prisons may be better than the conditions in prisons in places like Honduras, but I am troubled by any large amount of people losing their freedom and their lives.
People need to be held accountable for their actions, but having been involved in working with at-risk youth for many years now I have seen first hand how broken the system is. In the detention centers I spent time at in Honduras, the young people were overcrowded and they were not receiving an education or many other basic things needed to succeed in life. In America, we spend huge amounts of money to build jails and there are many, many adults who work professionally in the system. When I go to court with the young people in Homewood, the first thing that strikes me is how many adults are needed in the court room just to deal with one offense... including judges, prosecuting lawyers, defense lawyers, probation officers, clerks and administrative staff, and more. It costs way more to lock somebody up than it does to proactively intervene in young people's lives before they get in trouble, and yet the majority of money aimed at heading off crime grows on the reactive end through the courts and incarceration systems.
As Christians, we should be greatly disturbed by what happened with the prison burning and hundreds of people dying in Honduras. As Christians, we should be greatly disturbed by so many young people dying violently in America even with the highest rate of incarceration in the world. And still... we see things on the news and it does not affect us. We go on living our lives like that stuff doesn't really matter. That stuff matters to God, though. All of it. And he wants his church to do something about it. That's why faith-based mentoring initiatives like LAMP in Homewood and in Honduras are so crucial... because these programs organize the church to make a huge impact in the lives of at-risk youth before they die violently or become incarcerated. Christians should let our hearts break for brokenness in this world, and then we should all go and do something about it for the sake of God's glory. What will we do with this prison fire in Honduras? Will we let our hearts break, or will we keep flipping through the channels? It's our choice, and God is paying attention.
People need to be held accountable for their actions, but having been involved in working with at-risk youth for many years now I have seen first hand how broken the system is. In the detention centers I spent time at in Honduras, the young people were overcrowded and they were not receiving an education or many other basic things needed to succeed in life. In America, we spend huge amounts of money to build jails and there are many, many adults who work professionally in the system. When I go to court with the young people in Homewood, the first thing that strikes me is how many adults are needed in the court room just to deal with one offense... including judges, prosecuting lawyers, defense lawyers, probation officers, clerks and administrative staff, and more. It costs way more to lock somebody up than it does to proactively intervene in young people's lives before they get in trouble, and yet the majority of money aimed at heading off crime grows on the reactive end through the courts and incarceration systems.
As Christians, we should be greatly disturbed by what happened with the prison burning and hundreds of people dying in Honduras. As Christians, we should be greatly disturbed by so many young people dying violently in America even with the highest rate of incarceration in the world. And still... we see things on the news and it does not affect us. We go on living our lives like that stuff doesn't really matter. That stuff matters to God, though. All of it. And he wants his church to do something about it. That's why faith-based mentoring initiatives like LAMP in Homewood and in Honduras are so crucial... because these programs organize the church to make a huge impact in the lives of at-risk youth before they die violently or become incarcerated. Christians should let our hearts break for brokenness in this world, and then we should all go and do something about it for the sake of God's glory. What will we do with this prison fire in Honduras? Will we let our hearts break, or will we keep flipping through the channels? It's our choice, and God is paying attention.
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