Taking Some Time Off

I have taken some time off this week from my official duties as a pastor of a church community that I love leading in the East End of the city of Pittsburgh. The rest has been wonderful, and I've had the opportunity to spend some great time with my family. We didn't go anywhere on vacation this Christmas, so we've been spending a lot of time at our house in Homewood.

Down time in Homewood is never really down time. My urban neighborhood actually becomes more accessible to me when I slow down the pace of my life. As always, I've experienced the negative emotions that come with gun shots and other crazy stuff that happens in my neighborhood. However, I've also experienced some amazing things that have brought much joy and meaning into my life. God was able to work through me to be a good neighbor to some of my neighbors who desperately needed some support this week.

God is transforming my heart as he allows me to enter into the lives of the some of the most resilient people living in this city. I am so thankful for the opportunity that God has given me to not just run a program in a distressed urban neighborhood, but to become a part of the fabric of the community and to lock arms with people who are navigating through extremely difficult life circumstances. God is showing me new things every day through the eyes of my neighbors.

A Christmas Gift

A few months ago, a sixteen year old girl who attends one of North Way's suburban locations decided to do something that was very generous. Instead of receiving gifts at her birthday party, she asked people to give her cash donations that she could give away to a good cause. She received over $300 in cash, and she gave it to the LAMP mentoring program at North Way. She wanted the money to go to LAMP, but she only asked that it go to "help somebody who really needed it."

I prayed through how God might want me to steward this gift, and nothing really came up over the past couple of months. Then, right before Christmas a single mom from Homewood who has five children in the LAMP program called me to ask for help. She didn't have any money to provide a Christmas dinner or any gifts for her children this year, and I felt like God was prompting me to use the special gift from months earlier to provide Christmas support for this family. My family went shopping and brought a full Christmas dinner and some small gifts over to her house in Homewood, thanks to the generosity of a sixteen year old girl who decided to do something special on her birthday. When I explained the story to the mom in Homewood, she was so moved. We all prayed together, and I got to see first hand how much the gift meant to her this Christmas.

Stories like this remind me that God's profound love transcends all manmade social boundaries... suburban and urban, racial, economic, generational, and cultural. God is on mission to redeem the world all of the time, and ordinary followers of Jesus play an important role in that mission. I was thankful to be an eyewitness to God answering a mom's prayer this Christmas.

A Rough Start to Christmas Morning

My Christmas Day probably started off differently than most people. I was jolted out of a deep sleep in the early morning hours by a gun battle going on right outside of my house. We hear gun shots relatively often in Homewood, but these shots fired were the closest they've ever come to our house. I've been talking to some neighbors this morning trying to sort out the details... the police came, but we still don't know who was shot in the pickup truck in the middle of our street or if that person survived. Thankfully, our daughters sleep with loud fans in their rooms and they didn't hear the gun shots. So, we woke up on Christmas morning and opened our gifts as we normally do, but my pastor's heart is heavy for the violence in my neighborhood. Working toward bringing God's shalom in my city comes with many challenges, and gun shots are just a reminder of the ups and downs that come with advancing the kingdom of God in a complex urban environment. Just a few hours before this shooting, God worked through me to lead several people into a relationship with Jesus Christ at our church's Christmas Eve worship service. In times like these, I must trust God for the protection of my family. That's a big part of urban incarnational ministry. On this Christmas Day in 2012, I am thankful that God provided a hedge of protection around my girls from the gunfire last night. And, I am all the more resilient in my calling to do something about the violence that is in my city and right on my doorstep. There may be evil in this world, but I know how things go for our enemy. God wins!

Ministry in the City

Every new day brings about a great sense of anticipation for pastors in the city. I never know what to expect. God could bring any new kind of person or any new kind of circumstance across my path at any given moment, and it's my job to engage each situation with the love of Jesus Christ. I love it when people ask me to pray with them, or to answer a question about God or the purpose of life. There are at least 100,000 people living and working within walking distance of the church I lead. If I engage my city at all levels, including powerful and powerless places, then God is able to work through me to impact lives. And I've seen many lives impacted over this last year that North Way East End has been around. This is urban ministry... taking risks, radically living out the incarnational message of Jesus Christ, embracing unpredictability, building authentic relationships, and engaging the city with the whole gospel.

Transformation in the East End

North Way East End is a church with an incredible worship experience on Sunday mornings. Our worship style is cross-cultural, the sermons are powerful and biblical, and we pray a lot expecting the Holy Spirit to impact people. We share the gospel of Jesus Christ on a weekly basis. Our church, however, is not limited to Sunday morning gatherings. We are dedicated to bringing about God's transformation in our personal lives and in our city every minute of every day of every week. We see ourselves as an integral part of God's mission to reach our entire city. Two of our church members, Tony and Jordan Deane, are just one example of how our church is involved in the transformation of the East End of the city of Pittsburgh.

Earlier this year, Tony and Jordan discerned that God was calling them to buy a small church in an East End neighborhood called Wilkinsburg. Wilkinsburg is an urban neighborhood right next to Homewood that experiences much of the pain of urban decay, including struggling schools, closed businesses, boarded up homes, drugs, violence, and other crime. There are, however, many assets in Wilkinsburg, as there are in any neighborhood, including resilient people, churches, and businesses. The Deanes ended up buying a church that had been abandoned, they spent much of their personal savings to fix it up, and they are now planning to steward it for Kingdom of God purposes. The building will host small group meetings and special events for churches and other organizations in the area, including people from North Way East End. Jordan now runs her successful interior design consignment business out of the building (moved over from where her location was in Squirrel Hill). Tony will be running his landscaping business out of a building that he is planning to build next to the church. They want to open the building to all kinds of community events. What was once a vacant building in a blighted urban neighborhood is now an asset in the community because a Christian family decided to make an investment in the city. Here are some photos:

I am so happy for Tony and Jordan, and I can't wait to see what God does through their obedience in the months and years to come. The East End of Pittsburgh is a better place because of these ordinary followers of Jesus becoming ordinary radicals. This young couple is passionate about racial and socioeconomic reconciliation, they are passionate about urban transformation, and they are passionate about Jesus. I am praying that God continues to work in the hearts of the people who worship at North Way East End to rise up as a church and make a profound difference in the lives of people living in our city.

A Tragedy

My heart is definitely breaking for the victims of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut earlier today. I am joining many others around the nation who are praying for the families and that community. As a former teacher and education administrator, this violent act hits close to home. As a pastor, I am praying that God will heal hearts in the midst of tremendous pain and suffering. I have dedicated much of the past seven years of my life to actually doing something about the violence in my own city, and events like what happened today remind me that I need to continue doing everything I can to advocate against violence in our world.

Embracing Diversity

Christians in America struggle with the issue of church diversity. Less than 7% of churches in the United States are multiracial as defined by at least one ethnic minority group making up at least 20% of the church's attendance. I am very passionate about seeing Christians leading the way in embracing people across cultures, so we're building relationships with many different kinds of people at North Way East End. Our goal is to be a church that fully embraces and reflects the diversity that is all around us in the city of Pittsburgh.

This weekend is just one example of how we are following the Holy Spirit's leading in the area of diversity. On Friday evening, our city Christmas concerts at the Kelly Strayhorn theater incorporated many different types of music genres including rock, gospel, country, hip hop, and soul. The stage was filled with people of various racial backgrounds, including African-American, Asian-American, and Caucasian. I'm looking forward to today's worship service at North Way East End where the worship experience will be led by two African-American singers, and the live preaching will be coming from my friend in leadership at the East End, Freedom Blackwell. Freedom is a strong African-American leader in the city of Pittsburgh, and he and I have a lot in common in leading a diverse church together. We both live in Homewood, a mostly African-American neighborhood in the East End of the city. We both have a passion for reaching people across socioeconomic barriers, not just racial barriers. And, we are both missional pastors who have a desire to mobilize the church to reach people who are marginalized in our city.

North Way East End has not "arrived" by any stretch of the imagination in terms of being a multiracial church, but we are well on our way in our first year because we are intentionally planning everything we do with the lens of diversity. God is bringing many different kinds of people to our church, racially, culturally, and socioeconomically. It's a beautiful thing to be a part of. I can't wait to see how God grows us in relationship with one another in the coming months and years.

Investing in Others

One of my former LAMP school-based mentees showed up at the North Way Christmas concert last night in East Liberty. He changed school districts when he entered high school, so I had not been able to serve as his school-based mentor any longer. Still, when I saw him we kind of picked up right where we had left off in our relationship two years ago. It's amazing how much of an impact we can make when we choose to invest in the lives of young people as they develop. The kids who I've had the privilege of mentoring, coaching, teaching, and pastoring over the past 15 years have brought tremendous joy and purpose into my life, and it's exciting to watch them develop into adults who take on the world. Every person is uniquely created by God, and it's been so much fun to walk through life with so many different people in different parts of Pittsburgh, Ohio, and California over the years. And it never gets old... I look forward each and every day to seeing which people God will bring across my path. Following Jesus, to me, is all about giving myself away to others through meaningful relationships.

North Way City Christmas Concerts

It's so amazing when God puts a vision on your heart, combines that vision with a passionate calling, and then orchestrates other followers of Jesus to bring it all together into reality. Last night was a dream come true for me because of the opening night of the North Way city campus Christmas concert. God has given us a clear calling to reach the East End of the city with all of it's diverse people. God gave us a strategy that was missional, cross-cultural, and contextualized to the urban environment. The city Christmas concerned most importantly gave glory to God, and it did so through musicians and artists from the North Way Oakland and East End churches combining to create a powerful worship experience. The music mixed in rock, gospel, hip hop, and classical arrangements. The experience also incorporated video, spoken word, and creative lighting. The performing artists on stage represented the diversity that is located throughout the city.

We still have two more nights of Christmas concerts at the Kelly Strayhorn Theater on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. I can't wait to see how God is going to work as we continue to advance his mission to reach the city in the name of Jesus Christ.

A Big Week

This is going to be a great week at North Way East End. We have the city campus Christmas concerts at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings. Our team is preparing to reach people from all over the city of Pittsburgh with the powerful story of Christmas. Then, my good friend Pastor Freedom Blackwell will be preaching live at North Way East End on Sunday morning at 10am. I'm excited to hear what God puts on his heart to share with people. I'm sure he will have a meaningful message for the city.