A Weekend to Remember

What a crazy weekend this has been!  On Friday I rented a Uhaul truck and drove Compassion Day construction materials to several different locations in Pittsburgh.  When I was done with that, I made my way over to the Faison Primary School in Homewood to set up for the annual Harvest Party that North Way hosts at the school.  Over 1,000 people signed up to attend!  The Harvest Party ended up being a big hit, even though we were nervous about having enough food, candy, and room for that many people.  It all worked out, and the kids in Homewood had a blast!  Then, on Saturday morning many volunteers from North Way served in different places around the city.  Three Compassion Day projects were held in Homewood.  One group of volunteers picked up trash in the streets around the Faison Primary School and my housing development.  Another group of volunteers (pictured above) helped a LAMP mentee's family to move their belongings into a house.  For the third project, that same group of guys purchased close to $400 worth of drywall materials from Home Depot and loaded all of that material into my basement.  Every Monday night Julie and I open our house to kids from Homewood to come and hang out, and lately we've been averaging about 35 kids in our living room.  A small group from our church heard about our need for more space, so they are finishing our basement for us... hence the need for the drywall materials in our basement.

Most of my role at North Way involves mobilizing the people at our church to get involved with people and causes outside the walls of our church.  This is a difficult thing to do sometimes because we live in such a consumeristic society.  Many Christians think that their church experience is all about them and how they can get their own personal spiritual needs met.  Christians who think of church in that way are missing out on much of what the Christian life is all about.  God calls us to love our neighbors and give ourselves away to others on his behalf.  God has a big heart for people in this world who are struggling, and he calls his church to do something about it.  This was a big weekend for our church because we are continuing to make strides in those areas.  With each relationship that is built, and with each instance where we serve others, we grow closer to becoming more authentic followers of Jesus Christ.

Harvest Party

Tonight my church is hosting a harvest party at the Faison Primary School in Homewood.  I love this annual event so much!  North Way is trying to become an externally focused church, which means that although we seek to provide healthy programs and worship experiences we also seek to be involved relationally with people outside the walls of the church.  Many churches offer "Halloween alternative events" that are often called harvest parties.  The intention is to draw families to the church building instead of trick or treating in their neighborhoods as a part of Halloween.  North Way traditionally held such an event which drew hundreds of people to the main church campus.  A few years ago I challenged our church staff to think of creative ways that they could get our church involved in the community.  The kids and student ministries staff members came up with the idea to take the harvest party from being an internally focused event to being an externally focused event.  They simply took everything they did on that harvest party night and offered all of those things at our LAMP elementary partner school in Homewood.  This is the third year that the harvest party will be held in Homewood, and we're expecting over 750 people from Homewood and possibly 200+ people from North Way to participate in the event.  It's a great onramp for people from North Way to get involved in Homewood, and it's a wonderful event for the kids in my community.  It's a unique example of how churches can partner with public schools (and remember, we started the partnership with long term, authentic relationships that we have built with LAMP over the years).  We're expecting some great weather tonight and a fun time all around.  I can't wait!

The Steelers Visit Homewood

Heinz Ward and Mike Wallace from the Pittsburgh Steelers visited the children at Faison Primary School in Homewood this morning.  Faison won a $10,000 grant from the NFL Play 60 program to be used for bicycles and other physical activity that is so important to the healthy development of children.  The school staff at Faison works very hard to provide resources for the children in Homewood, and it was quite a celebration for everyone involved.  I spotted a few of my mentees in the crowd of kids who were listening closely to everything the Steelers had to say.  They heard a strong message about the need for kids to be physically active and work hard on their grades in school.

Many people choose to focus on the negative things in Homewood, but there really are so many positive things going on there right now.  Besides a visit from the Steelers, in just this one week over 100 LAMP mentors from Pittsburgh-area churches will spend several hours with their mentees, over 600 children and their families from Homewood will be participating in the Harvest Party sponsored by North Way at Faison Primary School this Friday night, and on Saturday morning for Compassion Day volunteers will be picking up trash around my neighborhood, helping a single mom move, and hanging drywall in my basement so that we can turn our basement into a youth recreation room.  I know there are also many other people who will be doing great work in Homewood this week.  Transformation is often a difficult process, so it's important to pause every once in a while to celebrate when positive things happen in the community.

Dasonii

Over two years ago Bryan Chae, an Asian-American from Korea, visited North Way Christian Community in Wexford for the first time.  One of the first things he noticed when he entered the church was a display in the lobby for LAMP.  He walked over to it, picked up a brochure, called me during the following week, and about six weeks later he was matched with a LAMP mentee from Homewood.  He and his mentee have had a lot of fun together over the past couple of years, and in many ways being a mentor has changed Bryan even more than it has changed his mentee.  LAMP has caused him to make some unique decisions in his life.

Bryan is a successful businessman who has a nice house in Cranberry Township, an affluent suburban area well-north of downtown Pittsburgh.  As the owner of a business that is well-established, he could afford to live comfortably and go into work as he chooses.  At this stage in life, he has achieved what many people consider to be the American dream:  Successful businessman, nice house in the suburbs, semi-retired early because he could work when he wanted... the good life.  But becoming a LAMP mentor messed with his paradigm.  Through his many trips to Homewood, God has given Bryan a strong call to take risks and do some incredible things.  First, he decided to be a leader by mobilizing many of his Korean Christian friends to become involved in the Homewood community.  His Christian friends have participated in neighborhood clean up efforts in Homewood, and they have big plans to help out where ever they can in the months and years to come.  He is a bridge builder between his Korean friends and North Way and Homewood.  And instead of sitting back and living comfortably off of the earnings of his successful business, Bryan has decided to utilize his business skills as mission by launching a new restaurant in Robinson Township.  It just opened a few days ago, and he decided to call it "Dasonii" which is a rare ancient Korean word that means "loving people."  He is intending to use the profits from the new restaurant to repair and restore old boarded up homes in Homewood (I have heard that as many as 48% of the real estate properties are abandoned).  He hopes to mobilize hundreds of volunteers to help to create housing for single moms and other people who may be in need of stable housing in Homewood.  I took my family, Bryan's mentee, and his mentee's grandmother out to eat at the new restaurant tonight and we had an amazing time.  When I asked Bryan why he decided to start a new business, with all of its hassles and long hours, at a time in his life when he could be living the comfortable life, he simply said, "LAMP."  He wants to do all he can to make an impact in Homewood with the skills that God has given him.

I think there are several important lessons to be learned from Bryan's story.  First, transformation begins with relationships.  Before Bryan decided to start a restaurant to help others or build a house in Homewood, he built relationships with a child and his family in Homewood.  This is such an important thing for leaders to understand.  There are many people who want to try to help people in need, but they build programs first instead of building relationships first.  Transformational leaders build relationships with the people being served first, and then the great innovative and life changing ideas spring out of those relationships.

Business is mission.  Many businessmen go into business simply to make more money for themselves and their families.  That story is too small of a story for a person to live in.  God desires for us to utilize our business skills to serve his mission to reach others.  When we hoard money for ourselves so that we can have bigger houses and nicer cars and fatter retirement accounts so that we can live comfortably, we may be missing the point of why God has gifted us in the area of business.  God may bless us so that we can give ourselves away to others.  Bryan is a great example of a simple principle... when effective businessmen are good at what they do and they generate prosperity, they can do harm to others along the way or they can do good.  And life is not all about advancing ourselves and our own families.  God gifts us to reach others in his mission, and business is a big part of that.  Work is not a cursed condition.  Good business is not evil.  Good business can help to transform society when businessmen act as stewards of God's resources (and I'm talking about much more than just tithing ten percent of personal income).

We should not be afraid of cross-cultural ministry.  Sunday morning is often the most segregated time of the week in America because most churches tend to consist of people who are similar racially and socioeconomically.  That should not be the case.  Christians should be leading the way in racial and socioeconomic reconciliation.  We should be leading by example.  My friend Bryan is leading by example.  His path has not been easy, but he has been paying attention to God's call on his life to be a bridge builder.  I have prayed many times since I've moved to Homewood that God would help me to have the heart of a bridge builder.

Christians should take risks and give ourselves away to others.  We should never reach a point in our lives where we have "arrived."  Comfort and safety are not necessarily things that we should be striving for. Many Christians will be called to experience suffering.  God wants us to embrace risk as a central theme to our lives.  And God has a tremendous heart for reaching people who are in need.  Dasonii is a beautiful word.  "Loving people."  That's what being a Christian is all about... not just loving ourselves or our own families.  We are called to love God, and we are called to love people.  Dasonii.

Hope for New Mentors

Yesterday I talked to a group of people at North Way about LAMP.  I shared several stories about kids from LAMP, and I also shared about the biblical founation for why Christians should become involved in mentoring.  I thought the stories about kids might impact folks to want to get involved, or maybe the theological insight might encourage people to become mentors.  At the end of the talk, I shared that I trust God and believe in the cause of LAMP so much that I moved my family into Homewood.  I then opened the floor for people to ask questions.

Most of the questions were about what it was like living in Homewood.  I shared honestly about some of the challenges, but mostly our move to Homewood has been a very positive experience for myself and also Julie and the girls.  We love our home.  We love the people that we meet in Homewood.  We especially enjoy building relationships with the kids in the community.  People asked so many questions about us living in Homewood that I was worried that the focus of my talk, which was LAMP, would somehow be missed.  I really didn't want to miss an opportunity to inspire folks to get involved in LAMP.  Afterwards, though, it was very interesting because lots of people came up to talk to me about getting involved in LAMP.  One woman told me, "I've known about LAMP for years but I have chosen not to get involved because Homewood is always in the news with all kinds of violence.  After hearing you speak today, I've decided to become a mentor because if you could move your family there then surely I can mentor I child there in the middle of the school day once a week."  Several other people made similar comments. 

At the end of the day, I guess it doesn't matter what I say that inspires people to become mentors.  I am not really in the business of inspiring people, anyways.  I think God inspires Christians to mentor at-risk kids.  Sometimes he may inspire people through my words or my actions, and often God will work through other people's words and actions.  I know one LAMP mentor who is mentoring today because their child heard about LAMP at church, and I know another mentor who is mentoring because a woman in his small group encouraged him to volunteer somewhere now that he is retired.  Whatever the reason, I'm just glad that people are still inspired to mentor.  That gives me hope.

Mentors or Celebrities?

I went to spend time with my new school-based mentee at Faison Primary School in Homewood on Monday afternoon.  When I made my way up the second floor where his classroom is located to pick him up, his classmates were all standing in line in the hallway to go downstairs to the library.  Several of the kids saw me coming from a ways out, and they started yelling, "Your mentee's not here today!"  I figured they were probably right, but I kept walking down the hallway just so I could speak to his teacher to confirm that he was absent.  Sure enough, he was out that day.  As I was having that brief conversation with the teacher, several of the kids in line started jumping up and down, waving their arms and saying "Ooh... Ooh... pick me... pick me Mr. Bryan... I'll go with you today!"  Some of the kids got out of line to get my attention to show me how bad they wanted to go with me.  It was kind of funny trying to talk to the teacher with kids pulling on my arms and waiving their hands in my face trying to get my attention.  I am just building a new relationship with this particular mentee, and I didn't want to cause any problems between he and I by spending the day with one of the other kids in has class.  So I politely declined the pleas of the other kids, and I told the teacher to tell my mentee I came and that I would be back to see him next Monday.  As I walked away I heard kids in the class making desperate appeals for me to come back and spend time with them.

This experience does not just happen to me.  It happens often to nearly every person that mentors children in the primary school in Homewood.  The word has gotten out over the past five years that many of the kids have mentors, and we do not have nearly enough mentors to match with all of the kids who actually want a mentor.  So the mentors who go consistently are often treated like celebrities, and kids who do not have mentors try many different approaches to try to get people to take an interest in them.  My big dream for LAMP is that we would be able to provide a mentor for every child that goes to school in Homewood.  I know that involves hundreds of children, but there are thousands of adults that attend LAMP churches.  Wouldn't it be incredible if the roles were reversed some day?  What if every kid in Homewood had a mentor, and adults from Pittsburgh-area churches were actually eagerly waiting to be matched with a child?  Imagine a situation where a line of students quietly walked down a hallway and there were adults lined up, jumping up and down, waiving their arms, getting in kids' faces and yelling, "Ooh... Ooh... pick me... pick me... I'll mentor you today!"  Who knows... maybe that dream will become a reality some day?  There are a lot of people and organizations focusing their attention on the kids in Homewood these days.  Wouldn't it be great if all of the kids were treated like celebrities by an overwhelming number of adults who were involved in their education?

Two Worlds Collide: 17-year-old Bryan and 34-year-old Bryan

This past Friday night was the Homecoming football game at Pine-Richland High School.  It just so happens that I was hanging out with some LAMP boys on Friday night.  A friend of mine heard I was with them, and he invited me to bring the boys to a tailgate party (no alcohol... just good food) that he and several North Allegheny (the opponent) families were having before the game.  It was a bit of a cold and partially rainy night, so when we arrived and we got our food the boys decided to eat in my car with the heat on so they could be warm and listen to music.  As the mentors and I mingled among the adults at our party, I looked over at the boys and felt disappointed that they had chosen to hole up in the car instead of hang out with everyone and meet some new people.  I wondered why they were being so shy... so reserved.  I guessed that they weren't having a good time.  I got engaged with someone in a conversation for only about five minutes, and the next thing I knew I looked over and the boys were dancing in the middle of a circle made up of about 50 NA students.  My mentee, who is usually very outgoing, had seen some NA kids trying to do a dance called "the jerk."  I guess they weren't doing it properly, and he just had to go over and show them how it was done.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  One second they're shivering in my car... the next second they're doing a dance-off in the middle of a cheering crowd of teenagers who they had never met before.  They had a great time for the next 30 minutes or so, then we went in and watched the football game for a while.  We had a great time, even though Pine Richland lost pretty bad.

That whole evening was kind of strange for me.  I graduated from Pine Richland, and I played football there.  But, honestly, love for my old high school or football glory stories never really crossed my mind while I was busy investing in the lives of four kids from Homewood.  When I was in high school, all I would have done was obsess about Homecoming and the battle that would be happening to win that game.  Seventeen years later, all I could think about was LAMP and the battle that is going on for the hearts and minds of kids in Homewood.  My values and goals in life were much different when I was seventeen.  On this Friday night, those two worlds collided for me.  At one point in the evening, someone came up to me and said, "You know, they're honoring the football alumni tonight."  I thought to myself, "Oh yeah.  I'm a football alumni, and this game should be really important to me."  There is nothing wrong with being a proud football alumni, I guess.  But there were probably some football alumni attending that game who are still stuck in that one small story of there lives when they were young and glorious.  Believe me, I can embellish high school football stories with the best of them.  But I've moved on to a different story now.  God is moving, and I'm trying to be obedient to his call on my life.  It's hard to look back when the best moments of my life are happening right now, almost every single day.  I'm living in God's adventure.  I have an amazing family to invest in each day.  When I wake up each morning, I look forward to what God has planned for me in the work I do with LAMP.  The work is hard, but God knows that I have what it takes.  God is so good to have blessed me so much.