A Day in the Life

The past 24 hours kind of demonstrate how crazy our lives are with urban ministry.  While I was at a LAMP leadership team meeting in Wexford last night, Julie was at a community meeting with Kyra and Sierra in the East End about the flooding that has plagued our basement and many other parts of Pittsburgh over the past couple of years. She spoke in front of representatives and the mayor about the issues that we face in Homewood.  She even made today's newspaper in Pittsburgh!  This morning I was back up in Wexford for staff meetings while Julie fulfilled some PTA duties at our daughters' school.  Then we met up at the Pittsburgh City Council offices downtown for a meeting with our city council rep about the flooding in the basements of the new homes in Homewood.  I met with a person later in the afternoon to talk about the North Way East End campus launch.  Tonight we had a dinner at our house for a former Bayer executive who grew up in Homewood that is receiving an award in Pittsburgh and he is going to  be introduced for that award by one of my mentees at a fancy ceremony downtown.  My mentee had dinner with the executive and his wife at our house to get to know one another.  After everyone cleared out from the dinner a bunch of neighborhood kids stopped by to visit for a while.

The thing about urban ministry is that you never know what to expect from one day to the next, and you never know who you are going to cross paths with.  The role of a Christian leader is to build relationships across all sectors of society.  In our case over the last day or so, we've built relationships with some of the most influential people in Pittsburgh in the political and business arenas, and we've built relationships with young people struggling to grow up in a tough urban neighborhood.  We've been in churches, in schools, at coffee shops, and in our home.  The city is a busy place with many different dynamics, and I think that there is no better place for Christians to be than mixing it up in all kinds of different places in all kinds of different situations with all kinds of different people.  Christians should be leading the way in culture, not withdrawing from society trying to live safe, sterile lives away from all of the action.  We should be sticking our noses into all kinds of different places.  I can't wait to see what God has in store for me tomorrow.  I am loving this urban adventure!