Creative Leadership

This weekend the American nation turns its attention to celebrating the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. One of the his greatest attributes was his creativity in response to complex social issues. He understood that passivity and violence were both ineffective responses to the deep rooted problems in our culture. He was always thinking about and implementing innovative responses within a population that mostly focused on simplistic responses to complex problems. In the struggle for civil rights, many people were either arming themselves and turning to violence or they were being passive by either letting people dominate them or standing idly on the sidelines and watching things play out. Sadly, many Christian leaders chose either violence or passivity during that struggle. Dr. King said, "A mere condemnation of violence is empty without understanding the daily violence that our society inflicts upon many of its members. The violence of poverty and humiliation hurts as intensely as the violence of the club. This is a situation that calls for statesmanship and creative leadership."

Dr. King is such an inspiration to me because God has called me to be a leader who stands up and does something about the violence in my city. I am thankful that there are other leaders who God is calling to do the same thing and join in the struggle to bring about God's shalom community in Pittsburgh and in cities around the world. The violence in my city is not a simple issue that can be broken down into right versus left, the law versus the criminals, or bad guys against good guys. Systemic brokenness in my city has contributed greatly to the violence of poverty and humiliation. In learning from Dr. King, I dedicate much of my time as a leader to thinking about and implementing creative solutions to complex urban and cultural problems. Responding to violence with violence is wrong, and responding to pain and brokenness passively by standing on the sidelines is wrong. My heart has broken for the violence in my city. I have great hopes for the transformation that God is bringing about through leading a church in the city, by leading a mentoring program involving some of Pittsburgh's most vulnerable youth population, and by mobilizing thousands of people at my church to begin to reconcile with one another across racial, socioeconomic, cultural, neighborhood, and religious boundaries. My hope is that God will continue to open up my eyes to creative leadership and grow me as a leader in a society that desperately needs innovative responses to complex issues.

Literature Review

I recently completed my dissertation literature review.  I read and reviewed fifteen books related to different approaches to transforming the lives of at-risk youth.  For anyone interested in checking out a wide variety of perspectives on impacting kids, here's the list of books:

Reclaiming our Prodigal Sons and Daughters (Larson and Brendtro)
Rethinking Adolescence (D'Ambrosio)
A Fragile Foundation (Search Institute)
Whatever It Takes (Tough)
Standy By Me (Rhodes)
On Your Own Without a Net (Osgood, et.al.)
Managing to Make It (Furstenberg, et.al.)
The Miracles of Mentoring (Dortch)
Hearts and Hands (Rodriguez)
A Framework for Understand Poverty (Payne)
The Way of the Wild Heart (Eldredge)
Youth At Risk (Olsen)
The Least of These (Ruthruff)
To Own a Dragon (Miller)
Code of the Streets (Anderson)

Different Heartbeats

A little over four years ago I drove to Homewood for the first time. That day will probably be etched in my memory forever. I had volunteered to "help get LAMP up and running" at North Way. We did a lot of planning early on, and eventually it became clear that some of us would actually have to go to the school in Homewood to meet with the school representatives in person to discuss the new partnership. I had never been to Homewood before, even though I grew up in the Pittsburgh area. In my mind, it was one of those neighborhoods that people stayed away from because bad things happened there. As I drove through Homewood for the first time, I noticed many abandoned houses and the weeds that had overtaken vacant lots. I noticed graffiti and other signs of neglect. I parked as close as I could to the front entrance to the school, and I remember thinking that the place I parked looked shady (I parked right in front of a boarded-up row home with what appeared to be bullet holes in one of the windows). I made sure to lock my car doors (I remember double-checking to make sure my horn beeped signifying that indeed the doors were locked... just in case I hadn't really heard to horn beep the first time I locked the doors). I remember that my heart was beating fast. I nervously made my way across the street to the main entrance to the school... and my life has not been the same ever since. I met some great people who turned out to be wonderful partners that day at the school. Still, it's the kids I remember. From that day forward, my attention started to shift away from the blight of the neighborhood and I began focusing on the relationships with the people I met. That day, my focus shifted from implementing a program to building relationships with kids.

Fastforward to the present. Last night I was driving back to Homewood, where I now live, and I intentionally chose to take the route on Hamilton Avenue that took me right past the houses of several of the LAMP kids I know. That particular street has a bad reputation for violence and gunshots at night, but I drove there hoping to bump into the kids I know who are usually sitting out on their front porch with their relatives at that time of night. My windows were down and my doors were unlocked... not because I am brave or anything like that... but because I was waiting in joyful anticipation for who I might see and talk to on my drive home. I drove past the place where I parked just over four years ago. My heart was beating fast once again, but this time it was not out of fear or anxiety. My heart was beating fast because I was home. This is where I now belong. This is my community. I value these relationships.

A lot has changed for me over the past four years. I am a different person than I was back then. God has taken me on an amazing journey, and I have exprienced great joy because I was obedient to the calling he placed on my life. Several people have asked me lately if I'm optimistic or cynical about the future of LAMP and the future of the Homewood community. On one hand, many of the same signs of need that were here four years ago are still here today. The community is still struggling in many ways, and I do often become frustrated by the lack of Christians in Pittsburgh who are willing to mentor a child in Homewood. On the other hand, I see many signs of hope in Homewood. I also see many signs of hope in the body of Christ in Pittsburgh. From my perspective, a transformational leader is able to live in that tension between the signs of hope and the signs of need, and be an effective bridge builder. I love Homewood. Specifically, I love the people in Homewood. I want to do everything I can to contribute to the health of my community. Also, I love the church. I love my church. I want to do everything I can to encourage the Christians I know to get involved relationally with the kids in Homewood through LAMP. I know that if God could lead me on a life-changing journey, he can certainly do the same thing for other Christians in Pittsburgh who are willing to risk and live out the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ with people in need. I can't wait to see what's in store for the next four years. Life on the edge with God is an amazing place to be.