Building Relationships in the City

There was a significant snow storm in Pittsburgh last night, so I was surprised when our doorbell rang right in the middle of an intense period of the storm. Turns out it was a young man that we've grown close to over the years. He lives in Homewood, and he was walking back to his house after walking to a store to get some basic groceries. He and his brothers have become like family to us since their mom died a few years ago. They are all welcome to stop by to see us at any time, so that's what Will did last night. He just stopped in to visit, to catch up on life, to tell some stories about he and his brothers, and to ask us how we're doing. There is nothing forced about our relationship. It's just doing life together. And that is the subtle progress of incarnational urban ministry.

The slow process of transformation in our part of the city happens through relationships that are built over time... one life on one life... one family with another family... our paths intersect and Jesus accomplishes amazing things. Relationships win out over programs any day. Relationships will last for eternity... relationships with God, and, as a result, relationships with one another. There are no quick fixes when it comes to the complexities of the urban environment. Dramatic improvements are few and far between. I'm thankful for the little signs of hope that I get to experience on a seemingly daily basis, and I'm thankful for the people that God has brought into my life.

A Safe House in Homewood

Jesus modeled the type of incarnational living where we give ourselves away to others. We find out where marginalized or vulnerable people are in our world, we go to them, we spend time with them, and God takes everyone on a process of transformation as we build relationships with one another. The concept seems simple enough, right?

The problem is that mainstream society, especially in America, does not hold to those types of values. The American Dream actually causes us to distance ourselves from the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our society. Upward mobility, at its very core, involves making our lives more comfortable so that we don't have to deal with as much messiness or discomfort.

To be a follower of Jesus, we should be downwardly mobile. We should be spending time with people in the places where God asks us to go, the very places where he promises us that we will find life if we will only give up control of our lives. We find the Holy Spirit at work in surprising places in our world, the Almighty God giving scandalous amounts of grace away to those who need it most... both the comfortable and those of need find God's grace in the margins.

My friends in Homewood, Pastor Freedom Blackwell and his wife, Freed, live out incarnational ministry like Jesus on a daily basis. This week they led a housing blitz in Homewood where an abandoned home was converted into a safe house for children in the middle of the neighborhood. It will be a place of refuge for kids to get off the streets for a little while. It was rebuilt by residents of Homewood for residents of Homewood.

I am excited to see what God does through the safe house in Homewood. Many of the children who have spent countless hours playing at my house or eating dinner at my dinner table will now have another place to go. The young people who are some of the brightest assets in the community now have a place to go that is an asset in the community.

I know that we will still welcome people into our home in Homewood, Pastor Freedom and Free will, and there are several other people living out incarnational ministry in Homewood who will continue to do so. Still, it is great to have another place for kids to go when we are unable to be there for the kids. I am praying that God raises up many more people in Homewood to live like Jesus in many more houses that are restored by the residents of Homewood in partnership with volunteers located throughout the city of Pittsburgh. God is truly doing an amazing redemptive work in Homewood, and I am privileged to experience that work up close.

Living in God's Grand Adventure

I recently spent some time looking through photos of my mentoring adventures, and I was kind of surprised about how many times my two daughters popped up in the photos. By choosing to live in the inner city neighborhood where I also work at leading a mentoring program, I have intentionally brought my family along as a meaningful part of the adventure of life. My calling is not a special solo mission for daddy. My daughters are learning how to live in God's mission to reach others on a daily basis. The gospel message of Jesus Christ is real to them on a daily basis because we all live it out together. I am excited to see what God does in their own lives as they grow into the callings that God has for them.

It's impossible to be effective at advancing the kingdom of God from a safe distance. The best ministry happens through hands on experiences and authentic relationship building. I'm happy that my daughters are learning these things from a young age. Our family loves living in God's mission together.

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!

An Intense Week of Urban Ministry

Being a pastor in the city and living in the city definitely make for an interesting life. Every day when I wake up, I never know what to expect. Relationships are important to me, so life is unpredictable because relationships are unpredictable. Also, the city is unpredictable. The injustices of this world are always right in front of me, and the joys of this world are always right in front of me. By choosing to live in the area where I work and lead, I enter fully into the pain of brokenness and the full enjoyment of experiencing the light of God overcoming darkness. Each new day in the city is thick with anticipation. It is not a comfortable calling, or a safe calling, or a "normal" lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination. But is a good calling, filled with the profound purpose of joining God's mission to go into hard places to reach the lost and redeem every part of the city.

This past week is a good example of life as a pastor in the city. My family served lunch to the staff at the local elementary school in order to kick off another year of school-based mentoring. We've had a whole bunch of neighborhood kids from Homewood in and out of our house. Some joined us for dinner. Some went to a local waterpark with us. Many kids stopped by to see us for an after school snack. We found out that one of the teenager's we've been working with for several years was arrested and placed in the juvenile detention center. Another teenager we know stopped by to visit us right after he was released from placement, and he accidentally fried my wife's macbook by spilling lemonade all over it. I spent most of yesterday with one of my mentees who was supposed to be in school, but instead the school district messed up his paperwork and they couldn't figure out which high school he was supposed to be attending. He is at risk to drop out of school now, so I'm advocating for him against the injustices of the educational system. A couple days ago I confronted a motorcycle rider who was causing problems in the parking lot next to our house. At 4am last night I confronted an Allied Waste truck driver who was illegally collecting trash in the middle of the night (I'm sure he was intimidated by me in my PJs with my bed head). This week I also went to several meetings involving the church, including a marketing meeting, a budget meeting, and performance appraisals. I preached a sermon. I rode go karts with a bunch of mentees. I played Nerf dart tag in the ministry center. I met with the church elders. I walked the streets of the inner city where I interacted with all kinds of different people. I prayed a lot. I helped a single mom with finding a car. I spent a lot of time with my wife and daughters. It was an intense week, but it was worth every second.

The kingdom of God is advancing in the East End of the city of Pittsburgh. The urban, cross-cultural church that God has called me to lead is growing. The LAMP mentoring program is going strong, and the lives of some of the most high risk youth in Homewood are being dramatically impacted and transformed. My family is enjoying being a part of an urban adventure where we join God's mission to transform the city. We build relationships. We love our neighbors. We fight against injustices. This is life in the inner city. Bring on another week!

Congrats to the Himmlers!

I am so excited about some very good friends of mine who are moving to East Liberty, an urban neighborhood in the East End of Pittsburgh, this weekend. They have an amazing story! I met Chad and Kristin at the North Way Wexford church location in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh probably four or five years ago. We first met at church, and we had a lot in common raising young children. We eventually ended up in a small group together, and they have been good friends with our family ever since. They have four children, recently adopting their youngest son from Ethiopa in a huge leap of faith. They each also serve as LAMP mentors to children in Homewood, and they serve in many different ways at the North Way East End campus as a part of the launch team. I have been so grateful for their friendship over the years... they were very big supporters of our move to Homewood at a time when many of our friends and peers thought we were crazy for leaving the comforts of the suburbs to move into the inner city. Chad started reading a lot of the same books I was reading, and he started asking a lot of the questions I was asking about God's potential calling to raise a family in the city. Julie and I were thrilled when Chad and Kristin made the decision to sell their home in the suburbs north of Pittsburgh and move their family into the inner city. We walked with them through the many ups and downs of selling their house and praying through where they would live and how they would educate their children once they moved to the city. I am happy to say that they are fully embracing incarnational urban ministry in its fullest form. They are taking a huge risk to move into unfamiliar, uncomfortable territory in order to be able to be obedient to the calling that God is giving their family. I know that God is going to be glorified in many ways by their obedience, and this is only the beginning of the urban adventure that God has in store for them!

So why would a family abandon the upwardly mobile, safe and comfortable lifestyle to move into a marginalized and transitional urban neighborhood? That kind of a calling only comes from God, but I can speak first hand that it is an incredible calling. The world is rapidly becoming more and more urban, and Christians who choose to move into cities to be used by God to advance his purposes are actually positioning themselves in great position to reach many people for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Chad and Kristin will have the opportunity to serve amongst the poor instead of distancing themselves from the poor. They'll also have the opportunity to have diverse neighbors from many different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. They'll actually have the opportunity to live in a neighborhood that is much more reflective of the diversity that is in the modern world. They are giving their four children a huge gift by raising them in the city, because the world where their children will live when they become adults is going to be defined by the urban reality. They are giving their children a great gift by raising them around other children who represent the socioeconomic and cultural differences that reflect what the world is really like. They are giving their children a tremendous gift by modeling for them how to fully live out the downward mobility of following Jesus Christ in a worldly culture that overemphasizes upward mobility, comfort, and safety. This family will experience the joy of living in God's mission all of the time. Many modern Christians take short term mission trips to third world countries to experience what it's like to live in God's mission to marginalized people, when they could be experiencing the joys of living in God's mission to the poor all of the time right in their own cities. Most importantly, this family will experience the joy that comes with being obedient to God's unique calling on their lives. I'm so happy for them! Congrats Chad and Kristin!

Reflecting on Three Years of Living in Homewood

About three years ago my family made a big move from an affluent neighborhood in the suburbs to a neighborhood in the inner city where the average family income is $18,000 per year. At the time of the move, my wife and I had never lived in a city before let alone a place where the average daily experience of my neighbors seemed to be defined by the struggles of poverty. My family walked away from the traditional comforts of the upwardly mobile American Dream in order to pursue to calling that God gave our family to become downwardly mobile. We have experienced more joy in life and closeness to God over the past few years than ever before. As I reflect on the past three years, I have learned that it is important to share about my family's journey because many people are curious about our lifestyle. The American Dream seems promising with all of its promises of comfort, safety, and security, but, as with all narratives that the world offers up, the American Dream ends up leading to struggles and emptiness. That is because I believe that most aspects of the American Dream are unbiblical and far removed from what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ. Don't get me wrong... I love America and I love being an American. I am thankful to be living in a country where I am free, and I know that freedom has come with a great cost. As as pastor, however, I spend a lot of time helping people unpack what goes wrong when the full embrace of the American Dream narrative leads to destruction. Americans are more depressed than any other people group in the world. We have, by far, the highest incarceration rate of any country. More importantly, the pillars of the American Dream actually keep us from possibly living out the lifestyle that Jesus set forth for us. The following are some examples of the staples of the American Dream that I believe keep many American Christians from experiencing the full joys of following Jesus:

Bigger homes: Three years ago I bought a home in Homewood where the average home value is $22,000. My wife and I joyfully invested our life savings into a neighborhood that may never experience any property value growth during our lifetime. It was a scandalous investment. It made no sense by any upwardly mobile standards. Yet, it was the best investment we've ever made because it was a kingdom of God investment. It was an eternal investment with our life savings. We are blessed to be living in Homewood. We have neighbors who stop by our house all the time. Our home has become a refuge for some of the most vulnerable people in our city. We've welcomed homeless people into our home to feed them and offer them shelter. The goal of the American Dream is to start out by buying a starter home, and then over the course of our lifetimes continue to buy bigger and bigger houses in more affluent neighborhoods so that we can be sitting on a bunch of home equity when we're older. One major flaw with that philosophy is that living in big homes in affluent neighborhoods separates us from the poor. When we intentionally distance ourselves from the poor, we miss out on the joys of being in relationships with people in need as a natural part of our lives. Also, us humans are always trying to get back to the garden of Eden. We try to build paradise for ourselves during our short lifetimes, but I don't think that God wants us to build paradise with our homes. A huge home in an affluent neighborhood may seem like a good goal, but in the end that goal may actually distance us from the mission that God has for all of us Christians to advance the kingdom of God and eternal purposes.

Financial Security:  The goal of the American Dream seems to be to save up as much money for ourselves as we can, but only after we've bought as much as we possibly can to make ourselves look better, feel better, and be safer. Americans seem to be obsessed with safety, security, and comfort. The gospel of Jesus Christ runs counter to the concepts of spending a bunch of money on ourselves or saving up a bunch of money for ourselves. The gospel of Jesus Christ is scandalous. Jesus was crucified. Ten of his closest followers, his disciples, lived in poverty and died violently simply for following the downwardly mobile ways of Jesus. Followers of Jesus during the first few centuries after Jesus' life experienced extreme persecution and many were martyred, yet Christianity grew faster than at any other time since then. When we put our focus on ourselves and our comforts, then we lose sight of what life is all about... God's mission to redeem the world. God wants to work through us, and that means that we sacrifice all. We should give time and money away to other Christians and to our neighbors freely, whenever God prompts us to do so. The gospel of Jesus runs counter to the world. I am constantly wrestling through this concept with Julie. Our goal is to give away more money to God's mission. Even the concept of retirement, or saving up a bunch of money to live on later in life, is unbiblical. The goal of life is not to live a comfortable lifestyle. The goal is to be obedient to Christ, and Christ may call us to give everything away... even our lives if we are called to do so. My goal in life is not to leave a bunch of money for my children to spend after I die and after I have lived comfortably in my golden years. For the rest of my life, no matter how old I am, I hope to be right out on the front lines advancing the gospel of Jesus Christ in dangerous places. I experience profound community and meaning in life when I live and minister in places of poverty. Modeling for my children about how to really live out the gospel in a world that desperately needs Christians to be authentic and credible is much, much more important to me than leaving money to my children when I die. This is all about making an eternal investment, not an earthly investment. I think God is big enough to figure out how to take care of my family members after I die, so there's no sense in me losing any sleep over something like that.

Prosperity Christianity:  Prosperity doctrine is heresy. The self help gospel is heresy. These movements have no place in the church. American Christians are desperately trying to integrate the gospel message of Jesus Christ with affluence and power, and that is simply not possible. God often calls me to enter into other people's pain and suffering in order to bring about his purposes. Sometimes God calls me to go pray with people after a shooting happens in my neighborhood. That is holy ground. Sometimes God calls me to sit with homeless people or struggling, single moms in order to share the good news of Christ. Just like everyone else I could lose my life at any time, so I don't want to waste any time trying to get rich or trying to make myself feel better about myself. I am confident enough in who I am through Christ. I don't need marketers of the American Dream to tell me who I am. I don't need a self help guru to tell me who I am. I am a son of the Most High God, a co-heir of the kingdom of God because of what Jesus did for me. As a result, I've given up trying to be prosperous in this short life in exchange for being obedient to God's ways. I have experienced profound joy through being made uncomfortable in my calling from God.

The great mystery here is that tremendous joy is found in the downward mobility of the cross of Jesus Christ. Around the world, Christianity is experiencing explosive growth amongst people groups living in poverty. Christianity is rapidly declining in areas of the world like Europe and America where well-intentioned people are trying to integrate Christianity with health, wealth, and success. 100 years ago 80 percent of the world's Christians lived in the West. Today, we represent only 20 percent of the world's Christians even though the percentage of overall Christians in the world has stayed about the same (around 34 percent). I believe that God can bring about revival in America, and that we can once again experience a profound movement of God throughout the country. For that to happen, I really believe that we will need to let go of the comforts of this world being offered up by the American Dream in order to embrace the radical, countercultural, and downwardly mobile lifestyle of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

What Does it Mean to Love our Neighbors?

Last night we invited a couple from church over to our house for dinner. We had a great time getting to know them. It was a perfect, warm night so we decided to eat outside on the back patio. We shared our life stories together, and it was fun getting to know them better. Part way through the meal our doorbell rang as it often does, and we invited five teenagers into the house to eat and hang out. I hadn't really warned our guests that this type of thing happens all the time. We had some good conversations about the calling that God has given us in Pittsburgh, and we got to talk about the kids who were hanging out in our house on a Friday night. I didn't really go into too many details, though, of the kids in our living room who have become a part of our family. Three of the five kids are brothers who happen to each have different fathers. Their mother, a woman who we had developed a friendship with through outreach in the community, died last year, and the boys are social orphans who are in and out of the foster care system. They often come to our house for refuge and peace from the streets. One is already a convicted felon and a gang member. All of the kids that visited us last night are loosely affiliated with the local gangs since they need protection from the violence that hapens right on their street.

Our biggest goal in living incarnationally in Pittsburgh is to be able to show the love of Christ conistently and relationally to people. God has called us strategically to a neighborhood with high crime and poverty, and we love living there because we feel close to Jesus when we get to share the love of Christ with people that mainstream society ignores. We experience God's grace in low places with the powerless. When we share our house with hungry people that God brings across our path, we experience God's love in greater proportions than when we used to live as though we were separating ourselves from people in need.

Loving our neighbors and serving the poor are basical foundational aspects of following Jesus. Our faith will not make sense if we fail to do these things. James 1:27 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." For us, this means finding the orphans and widows in our own city where God has placed us and intentionally giving our lives away to them through service in order to show the profound love of Jesus Christ. It also means that we "keep ourselves from being polluted by the world" by walking away from the American Dream. The American Dream is essentially based on idolatry... bigger houses, bigger jobs, more power, worshipping our bodies and celebrities, and upward mobility. The way of the cross of Jesus Christ is downward mobility and rejection of the comforts of this world, and all of that so that we can experience the life-changing love of God by giving ourselves away to others. In Matthew 16:24-26, Jesus says, "If anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Walking in the City

I love to take walks in the city. The walks in my nieghborhood partially help my young and extremely energetic dog, Bella, to get out a lot of her pent up stress (hence, not taking that pent up stress out on chewing furniture or destroying my yard). The walks also allow me to get to know people and find out more about what's really going on in the streets. As a pastor in the city, it is really important for me to be out and about in the community to interact with people. There is no such thing as effective urban ministry that is done from a safe, sterile church office. Urban theology is hashed out in the streets, in neighborhoods, with people and in the midst of the complex urban environment. As I walk, I search the city for signs of hope and signs of need. I look for assets that can be built upon. Just yesterday I happened to meet a businessman who has owned a business in my church's neighborhood for fifty years. He told me all kinds of great things to know about the neighborhood. That's how contextualization happens. I listen a lot. I get out of my comfort zone a lot. And that's right where the Holy Spirit loves to work on my heart and help me grow as a leader.

The Life of an Ordinary Radical

Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk to somebody for the first time about the incarnational urban ministry that my family lives out in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The person asked lots of questions, as many people do, and I just really enjoyed the platform that God gave me to share about the amazing mission that God is up to in Homewood. The concept of incarnational ministry is so simple... Jesus came into the world 2,000 years ago and he modeled a perfect life. Jesus modeled the standard to which every human being should aspire to live. He lived out the ultimate lifestyle of presence. He didn't shout down from the clouds with a heavenly megaphone. He became like us. He entered into our context and our human experience. He became present. He was present with the powerful religous people of his day, and he had some harsh words for them so they wanted to kill him. He was present with nonreligous people all the time because they were the ones who needed the good news. He was present with adults, kids, sinners (all of us), rich people, poor people, powerful people, marginalized people, sick people, prostitutes, drunks, and just about everyone in between. People, people, people. Jesus' life was all about relationships with people because his mission involved ushering in the Kingdom of God for the sake of every single person who has ever lived. So, just as Jesus entered into other people's contexts and became the ultimate servant of others, then we should enter into other people's contexts and become the servants of all. That's the ultimate expression of what it means to follow Jesus during the short life that God gives us here. We love God and love others well.

Jesus is the one who inspired my family to live incarnationally in a world that is in desperate need of Christians who will love God and love others well. In our particular case, God called us to Homewood. It is a wonderful calling. It is an amazing, astounding, profound, joyful calling filled with so much purpose and meaning in our lives. God has given our family a huge gift in allowing us the opportunity to reach people in Homewood that most people in our city and in our world ignore. Over the past several years we've developed friendships with rich people, poor people, powerful people, and marginalized people. My wife, my daughters, and I have developed meaningful friendships with thieves, homeless people, prostitutes, addicts, convicted felons, drug dealers, graffiti artists, elderly residents who have lived in Homewood for over 50 years, single moms living on government assistance, dads struggling to make ends meet because of the lack of good paying jobs in my community, kids who sleep on the floor and only have one change of clothes, orphans, widows, and just about every other kind of person in between. This calling has not been a burden. It has been the great joy of my life to serve my neighbors.

People are curious about my family's calling to incarnational urban ministry because it is countercultural. As Christians, our lives should be countercultural. If our lives look exactly the same as everyone around us in the world, which they often do in the American church, then something is drastically wrong. Following Jesus should make us all radicals because Jesus was the ultimate radical. People killed him because he was such a radical. Our lifestyles as Christians in America should be radical, but instead most of us choose to conform to the world. And it is a choice. We don't just randomly end up separated from the people who need the love of Jesus. We make a choice not to interact with them. We makea choice not to go into poor neighborhoods and to avoid people who are different than us racially and socioeconomically. We make a choice to live in places where we have virtually no interaction with our neighbors. We make choices that keep us from loving others. We choose not to be incarnational in a world that desperately needs it, and so we choose not to be like Jesus. Isn't that the point of following Jesus in the first place? And I'm not saying that everyone's calling should be like mine in Homewood. God calls each of us to go into different places for different purposes that align with his mission to reach the lost in this world. What I am saying is that as Christians in America, if we're not careful, our lives won't look any different than anyone else in our culture. We won't be radicals, we won't be present with the people who need the love of Christ, and we run the risk of missing out on the purpose for which God has placed us on this planet. And we might miss out on the joy that comes with the downward mobility that Jesus modeled so well for us, instead choosing to somehow find joy and meaning in the smaller stories that the world tries to manufacture for us to live in. Yes, I'm a radical. But I'm just an ordinary radical. And that's how God made me.

An Average Night in Homewood

One of the greatest things about incarnational urban ministry is that I get to keep up with meaningful relationships much more effectively than when I was commuting into the community where I work. Last night was a good example. Last night around 8:30pm a senior at a local high school stopped by to spend some time with me. His mom died a few weeks ago, and I've been helping him to work through things that he's experiencing as a result. If he was just a kid in a program that I was working, then our entire relationship would be developed mostly on my terms during regular business hours. Instead, I live in the same community as him and he knows that my wife and I have an open door policy. He is welcome to stop by and visit with us any time. Our relationship is a true friendship... not one of a youth worker delivering services to a recipient. Last night a third grader at the school right next to us where our church has a mentoring program stopped by to play with my daughters and eat dinner with us.  I'd bet that he's had dinner with us close to a hundred times since we've moved to Homewood, and he comes over to our house to hang out with my daughters almost every day. If I was just working a mentoring program, I'd see him maybe once a week on my terms. This way, I get to build a meaningful relationship with him over time that is truly transformational for both of us. He teaches me as much about Homewood as I teach him about life. His mom is in jail and he has never known his father, so God has allowed us to pinch hit as his family. It is a great privilege that our family enjoys... simply being his friend and demonstrating the love of Christ. Also last night, one of my long term mentees stopped by to visit with us and tell us how he's doing. He lived with us for a few weeks recently, but we have been working hard to restore his relationship with his mother so that he can live with his family. I've been through many ups and downs with him. Although he is a junior in high school, he is one of my friends and I think that God has big plans for his life. He has taught me a lot about resilience and courage while persevering through difficult life circumstances. Last night I just chatted with him on my front porch for a little while, and then he went on his way.

I think Jesus likes that my dinner table is known by many people who are struggling in life. I think Jesus likes that my home is a safe place for my neighbors. I think Jesus likes the fact that I am friends with high risk kids who might end up in gangs or getting involved in the violence in my community. Just last week, a good friend of mind who lives in a different neighborhood stopped by my house for a church small group and as we stood in my back yard we heard about ten gun shots. I'm not afraid of gun shots... that's just a part of my calling that I am working hard to resolve. God has opened up the door for my family to develop many meaningful relationships with people in need over the past few years, and I am so thankful that God has allowed that to happen. Sometimes I think that my kids are the greatest asset that Julie and I have in ministry! So much for worrying about their safety... God is taking care of all of those little details of our urban ministry adventure. Although God may be working through my family to impact some people, sometimes I think that God is slowly transforming our lives according to his purposes. God is teaching us so much about how this world really operates, and these lessons play themselves out in the day to day details that the we call life in Homewood.

A Late Night Visit

This was a long weekend. On Saturday I was at a LAMP cultural training all morning (15 new mentors... woohoo!), and then Julie and I took a whole bunch of kids from Homewood to a Pittburgh Penguins hockey game.  On Sunday I hosted four worship services at North Way Oakland. In between all of those things, we have been investing in four boys in Homewood whose mom passed away suddenly at the end of last week. To say that I was tired when I got home at 9:30pm last night would be an understatement. I just wanted to chill out and relax on the couch. That relaxation time lasted for about 30 minutes, and apparently God wasn't done working through me yet.  Our doorbell rang at 10pm and I looked at Julie and said, "I don't know if I have anything left for anyone right now. Can you check and see who it is?" If it had been a visit from a neighborhood kid for a snack or just a visit to say hi, she would have chatted for a minute and then sent them on their way. Unfortunately, when kids visit us after 10pm it usually means something bad happened in my community... somebody got shot, or they got beat up, or something bad is happening in their home and they have nowhere else to go. In the case last night, one of my mentees who I have been building a relationship with for six years stopped by because he had nowhere else to go. His family was in crisis, and he needed a place to sleep last night. So, tired as I was, I invited him in to stay the night. We fed him and helped him talk through his life circumstances for a little while.

We have built enough trust with many people in our neighborhood that they know that our home is a safe place for them to go if they are ever in need, whether they are hungry or thirsty or homeless or in danger. This is such a crucial component to our faith as followers of Jesus Christ. God desires for all of us to be in relationship with people in need. In Isaiah 58, God says, "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard." God is not interested in a bunch of religous activity from us. True faith involves us giving ourselves away sacrifically to the poor, among many other things. The problem is, we must actually be in deep, meaningful relationships with people in need if we are planning to live out God's call to serve them. If we distance ourselves from the poor due to fear or busyness or anything like that, then we are intentionally missing out on one of the most profound parts of our faith in Christ. Even though my work is difficult sometimes, I experience an amazing connection with Christ when I open my home up to people in need. It brings me tremendous joy to be able to serve others incarnationally as Jesus did.

From Ideal to Ordeal and Back Again

Things have been pretty tough in Homewood lately. After living in Homewood for three full summers now, I'm learning that summer is difficult because violence is at its peak and the young people that we work with need us more than ever because they are out of school and often left alone to grind out an existence in the midst of urban poverty. Plus, my wife and I know that we have come under some pretty intense spiritual warfare this summer. I know that we have an enemy that hates that we are following Christ with all of our hearts, and that we are making an impact for the Kingdom of God in this neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Where the enemy has a vision for desperation and destruction, we know that God has a plan for the people in our neighborhood to prosper and overcome their hardships. After six years of working in Homewood, I know that God still wants to work through me and my family to reach people with his profound, life-changing love.

Julie and I had to laugh this morning when we woke up to the news that something bad had happened to us, we prayed about it, and within probably half an hour God had taken the "bad" situation and turned it into a positive so that God would be glorified. Lately, God seems to be working like that every single day! It's almost too much to take. If fact, many incarnational leaders end up quitting after a year or two because this whole incarnational urban ministry thing is almost too much to take. We feel very often like sometimes this is all just a big fiasco, and life would be easier if God would just give us a more comfortable calling in a more stable location. Sometimes Julie and I long for the days when life wasn't so hard on a daily basis... the days when we thought we were safe and secure on the path of the American Dream and God got a hold of us and showed us the calling that he has given us to reach young people in Homewood and people living in poverty in the city of Pittsburgh. This calling is difficult, but we're not about to quit. We know God's up to something... it's just a matter of us staying the course and being obedient.

In his classic book on incarnational urban ministry, Sub-merge, John Hayes describes how incarnational workers among the poor initially experience the jubilation of the "ideal" for a short period of time before struggles begin to make life an "ordeal." When we first start serving the urban poor, "We feel liberated from the 'real world' and its drive to get ahead and we find new purpose in working for eternal results among the most needy. For a few of us, the danger and risk of ministering on the streets adds a glamour that contributes to the ideal. Eventually, the ideal gives way to the ordeal. Typically, the ordeal comes to us in the form of unmet expectations and culture shock... Unfortunately, the ordeal is a season during which many Christian workers among the poor burn out and/or check out."

So, life in Homewood often feels like an ordeal. It just seems like too much to take sometimes. But, we can choose how we respond to the ordeal. When the realities of urban ministry set in, it's important to learn what God wants us to learn in the journey through the desert and come back through the other side ready to make an even bigger difference with our lives. The only other option is to quit and try to run back to life as we knew it... and that's not something that we're planning to do. God desires to work through us in our adversity. That's how he operated all throughout the Scriptures. God works through us best when we endure through tough times. Or, as John Hayes describes it, "The long journey across the desert is His way of starving our last attitudes from Egypt, or in some cases, the hangover of consumer Christianity. He tests us in the desert to see if we will sacrifice our new freedom for security. The ordeal is really the process of hammering our ideal into His ideal." A few years ago, I stopped living the American Dream and I embraced the gospel of message of Jesus Christ without the baggage of cultural Christianity. I am free from cultural captivity, and I wouldn't trade that in for anything that this world has to offer. I know this tough season of urban ministry is simply a matter of the cost that comes with joining God's mission to reach the lost in this world. And, for me, that's what this one short life is all about.