Kitchens, Sewers, and the Armpit of Jesus

In our kitchen, to the right of the sink, directly in front of the cupboard, is heaven. When I am there, for a moment, for an instant, everything melts away into a peace I can hardly wrap my mind around. It isn't the rack of baby bottles drying on the counter, nor the plans I have for consuming a snack. It is not the gorgeous 70s orange countertop, or the hum of the refrigerator. It is the smell.

I don't know the makeup of the smell. I think it is a subtle mixture of soap, food, and cleanliness...but it may be just plain magic.

Some memories we have seem to be carried in our very DNA. Hard-wired. And some of the most powerful are related to our sense of smell. I am sure many can relate, but growing up there are a few smells that I can immediately recall, and, if smelled, transport me instantly to the time and place I experienced them. The entryway of my elementary school. A skinned knee. And my grandmother's kitchen.

That kitchen...I have no idea how she did it, but that smell traveled across the country and across my childhood. It was a smell that meant a haven for me...great food, kindness, and a sense of profound peace.

Sioux City is famous for an entirely different kind of smell. Some refer to it affectionately as Sewer City, though the city is working to address the sometimes foul oder that greets visitors to Siouxland. I have heard many hurting folks who didn't like they community refer to the smell in a way that made a statement about the community itself.

For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? 2 Corinthians 2.15-16

That is admittedly a strange passage and a hard one to fully grasp, but apparently our words and lives have a smell, a feel, a rhythm, a vibe to them. Our lives can smell like Jesus. As God wafts out the stench of greed, self-righteousness, fear, and guilt, our lives take on a different aroma. His love, His life, His grace and truth in harmony...they can emanate from us like smells from my grandmother's kitchen or a city in need of good news.  

And who is adequate? Great question, Paul...always asking the hard ones. Too many times my life has stunk of death like the inside of a middle-school armpit.

I would settle for smelling like Jesus'. [Note: In order for Jesus to be fully-man, His armpits had to stink to high heaven. That's theology, yo!]

Who is adequate?!?! Only Jesus in us. Only by our connection with His life, death, and resurrection can our lives be salt, light, and an air freshener to the places we live. To the relationships we have. To the city God sends us to.  

What does your city smell like? What does heaven smell like for you?

Redeeming Country Music and Garbage Cans

A text message I received yesterday:
"Who knew a garbage can and beat-boxing could be beautiful?"

Exactly. 

In the month of July our music team leader for Hopesprings is basically working non-stop and can't be with us, which is a bummer, but has also led to some pretty interesting moments. He sings and plays drums...and is a pretty key piece of the puzzle musically.  

Now I am not a drummer. I hit things sort-of-in-rhythm-sometimes-enough-to-maybe-not-have-songs-become-a-train-wreck. I have been known to imitate drum-like noises with my mouth, but a quick You Tube search will reveal I have no business calling myself a beat-boxer. But during the month of July, we experiment musically, and I get to pretend I handle the percussion.  

One of the weeks in July we went almost totally unplugged. No one was at the front, and we had guitars throughout our space and basically had a big singalong. I had been dreaming of this for years.

Another week, we did the set country. I mean banjo, washboard, kick drum, trash can country. I had dreamt of this only in my nightmares. (Note: if you are going country, go the whole way.) 

Yesterday, the percussion we used was a mix of beat-boxing, floor tom and trash can, kick drum and a couple cymbals. We also had a baby dedication yesterday and a lot of people visiting with that family. It was truly surreal.  

I am only brave when I am living out of a faith in God. Naturally I am a coward, and this was no different. I resisted trying this out for a long time because I was afraid. Would people get it? Would people be offended? Would people not engage?  

I also have wanted to try this for a long time. I believe that if a song is terrible lyrically, or terrible musically, it is terrible. (This does not apply to guilty pleasure jams...also it is terribly subjective, but that is another topic.) Aside from that, all genres, styles, and instruments are in play, fair game.  

If you told me 7 years ago that someday I would be a pastor preaching a message based loosely on Wonder Woman after beat-boxing and playing a trash can drum set, I would have hugged you for joy. And hoped you were not crazy...but definitely would have thought you were crazy.  

The Kingdom of God is a creative, wild, unexpected thing. It stretches us in ways we are not comfortable with or ready for. It compels us on a journey we could not have foreseen or expected. It is like a seed, a field, a story, a party. It transcends genre and style and skin color and account balances and our fears. It is powerful. And it is moving. In us. The family of God called to be a light in dark places and seasoning to lives and a world that tastes bitter.  

God is taking unexpected, broken, and ugly things and making them new. Even trash cans. He makes them beautiful, meaningful, capable of extending the message of grace and peace to a people weary and desperate for good news.  

Have you ever had a surreal experience of the Kingdom of God? What did that experience teach you?

Flares and Fault Lines

Let's get right to it. This is a flare request. (Flares=prayers)

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. James 1.27

Hopesprings wants nothing to do with the other kinds and forms of religion. We don't want to wound, manipulate, build up walls and barriers, or otherwise run aground in our pursuit of "holiness". We want to see Bangor, and now Siouxland, with Jesus' eyes and be a part of advancing the good news of God's grace and peace given freely to people in the life of His son. We want the reputation of Jesus, friend of sinners like me, the one who was called a drunkard, a glutton, and demon-possessed by the religiously powerful.  

To do this, we have done away with what is most often referred to as religion. The word itself is found only once in the Scripture, in the book of James, and is pretty clearly defined to fly in the face of what most people think of when the hear the word or talk about their experience with it.

Have you ever heard someone really, truly talk about their "religion" this way? How often has it been about "dos and don'ts", fear, guilt, manipulation, or a horrible memory that pushed someone far from God so long ago? How often has it been degenerated to something akin to a swear word?

Orphans and widows in their distress. This is how the Scripture refers to the lonely, the fatherless, the outcast, the hopeless, the down-and-out, the ones too far and too low for the "religious" to stop and offer hope and help (See Jesus' story about the Good Samaritan, metaphors about gnats, camels, dill, and white-washed tombs, and generally every word He ever said to the "religious elite").  

We want to see and serve the way Jesus sees and serves.  

We want to love with His tenacity and tendency to go after the least and the invisible.

We want to know the fatherless, the lonely...to be bearers of good news, shown and told in the cracks and crevices of hearts giving up on God and on religion.

Please pray for Hopesprings in Sioux City: that we might see as God sees and serve in the ways that redeem religion, creating a place of hope and help in the community.  

How is God challenging you to love and serve the lonely and the broken?

Throwback Thursday: Warning

Today is Thursday, and here is a throwback post...the one that started the blog with the vision that started the crazy dream to move cross-country.  Enjoy and Share...

WARNING:  the following words will ruin your life.  They have a way of starting new things.  They lodge themselves like a splinter in your head...a good splinter if there is such a thing.  They will cause you to take incredible risk to be a part of something bigger than yourself.  They have caused people to move hundreds of miles from everything they've known.  And then back again.  I believe they are words that can change a city.    

What if there were a people passionately in love with God and others who were captivated by the idea that together they could live out the story of Jesus? 

What if they believed that people of hope could change their neighborhoods by empowering the poor, strengthening the broken, embracing the lonely, seeking the lost and challenging the privileged to follow Him? 

What if they had this notion that being an authentic community of believers means that the ideas of compassion, love, and forgiveness, are not just doctrines but a way of life What if they believed in a God of fresh starts and second chances- a God who transforms brokenhearted and wounded people into hope filled Christ followers? 

What if they were us …?

Those words, and that vision, were a huge part of my wife and I packing up our stuff, our lives, saying goodbye to our families, and moving across the country.  We had dreamed of being a part of a community of faith who might take that vision for a place and for people seriously and live it out together.  We had seen glimpses, heard rumors, that such a place might exist...but we had never been a part of one.  

Six years ago we moved from Sioux City, Iowa to Bangor, Pennsylvania.  It was the furthest East I had ever been.  It was like a different planet in many ways, and I said so.  We moved to be a part of Hopesprings, a church that was offering us a place to live in exchange for partnering with them in bringing those words to life in a community.  It was the dumbest, scariest, bravest thing I think we have ever done.  

It was also the best.  

Since then those words, and more importantly the vision they describe for a community of faith, have taken up residence in our minds and hearts and imaginations.  We witnessed the growth of Hopesprings into a community of faith that embodies that vision and is passionate about seeing the Kindgom of God seep into the cracks of a broken and hurting community.  We have been back to Sioux City many times to visit, and in the last few years every time I am in the City of Sioux I see more clearly the need for a place with that kind of vision.  That kind of heartbeat.  That kind of mission.

And so, we are doing another crazy thing.  We are moving to Sioux City, the place where I was born, Summer grew up, where we graduated from West High, where we met, where we married, and where we began our life together, to be that kind of people in a community that desperately needs hope, help, and the love of God seen in the lives of people captivated by a question...

What if they were us...?

All Things Green

I am no gardener. My thumbs are any color but green...they are barely opposable. Yet I am fascinated by plants, farming, and the tenacity of all things green.  

I said tenacity. When you look out at the world, even the small part of it around you, there is a temptation to think that the green things you see are merely passive receivers of the water, sunlight, and processes that help them advance, grow, and take over the world. 

But have you seen a grapevine recently? Have you watched trees envelope rocks, shaping them even as they are shaped by them? Have you weeded some patch of patio or garden before a week of rain, only to marvel at the same patch covered with the same weeds?

We have an opportunistic grapevine in our backyard that I think is literally trying to take over the world. I "trimmed it" this spring, wondering if it would survive the treatment. (Trimmed is not really the word for it...hacking into submission or death is probably more accurate.)  It is a monster, and probably measures at least 30 feet end-to-end...and still it grows. It has partnered with some other unidentified vine to make its escape out of our yard, up the neighbors staircase, and out into the great wide world.  

This vine has big plans.  

I wonder how it does this, and no doubt the mysteries of the grape vine are beyond me, but you can watch it move. It casts out tendrils, looking for a hold, something to latch onto, some crack or crevice or bit of anything to set another base for advancement. In all directions, with all sorts of squiggly creativity, and maybe even a bit of hope.

"The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed."

"I am the vine, you are the branches..."

This green calls to mind the different kind of green it will take to plant Hopesprings in Sioux City, and the desperate, hopeful, tenacious advancement of the Kingdom of God. We have been inviting you to follow what we are thinking and praying about creating in Sioux City. Inviting you to pray with us, dream with us, and partner with us.  

This journey will mimic the journey of the grapevine across our yard. We will cast vision, seed, dreams for the Kingdom of God like tendrils in search of footholds in the hearts and minds of people desperate to be a part of God will do in this community of faith.  

We are praying for people to partner with us to help fund the initial stages of Hopesprings in Sioux City. We would ask you to think, pray, and consider giving generously. As a goal, we are praying for at least 25 people to commit to giving $100 per month for one year to help with the work in SIoux City. We are also praying for people to give one-time donations and monthly contributions of any amount.  

To get involved by partnering with us financially toward the advancement of this branch of the Kingdom of God in Sioux City, click here.
For a breakdown of our guidelines for creating the budget, click here.
You can check out the budget here.

I Love This Job

I had a conversation with someone after the gathering yesterday (gathering=Hopesprings Sunday morning times of celebration, music, and diving into the Scriptures together.) That was a fresh reminder of the nature of faith.  

I grew up learning the Bible, hearing the story, and even memorizing large portions of it (There were even awards involved...trophies, vests with plastic crowns...true story). I grew up being taught "truth". I also got a healthy dose of certainty thrown in. Awesome people went to great lengths to prove the Bible was reliable and true beyond a shadow of a doubt. Gold-star answers abounded and difficult questions were generally skirted.  

Now the Bible is true. It is reliable. It is meaningful, beautiful and alive. But I still have my doubts.

I do. Because I am still breathing. And so do you, if your mind and heart are awake and alive to the very real world we live in and all of the pain and heartache faced on a daily basis.  

We spent quite a bit of time in the book of Job yesterday morning, which is always interesting, difficult, and somewhat dangerous (handle these Scriptures with care...).  His story is a tough one. Not tough as in a walk uphill, tough as in an ultra-marathon through the Mojave Desert. He loses everything because Satan "incited [God] against him to ruin him without any reason."  (Job 2.3, emphasis clearly mine).  

I don't think I will EVER understand that passage.  

I was talking to a friend after the message, who is great at asking the hard, important, right questions. He was wondering why God would do this, and what was the point, and is God really good? Was it worth it? Worth all of the pain and the suffering, just to prove a point?  And what was the point? Great questions.

We spoke for just a few minutes, and it was evident (to me anyway) that the question behind all the questions was ultimately something like: is God really good, and is he worth putting faith in?

One of the reasons the book of Job is so good, so important, and so difficult, is that it poses questions without ultimately revealing the concrete answers.  

God does something to Job without cause. Job spends a couple dozen chapters arguing his case with God and his community of friends...

Pleading for justice.  

Stating his fidelity in the face of suffering.   

Yearning for hope and for God to show up and prove himself.  

God shows up at the end, launching into a beautiful description of how powerful and wonderful and awesome He is. YET HE DOESN'T REALLY GIVE AN ANSWER FOR WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO JOB.

Somehow, this is enough for Job.  God chastises Job's friends because Job was right to rail and plead and demand answers for questions that God himself really doesn't answer. Job's stuff is restored.

Case closed.  

For Job.  

Not for me.  I wrestle.  (I am guessing more wrestling happened for Job too.)

Our doubts can be addressed in this book.  Our fears come to the surface.  Our questions are real.  My friend and I wrestled with this for a bit, and then just ended up clinging to the reality that for Job, the one going through all of this pain, the one who lost everything, His faith was left strengthened by the questions.  Not destroyed.  His view was that all was grace, and that He was owed nothing except the existence of a good Creator and an opportunity to have a relationship with Him.  Here's what he has to say:

After losing his kids, his wealth, his stuff, his success:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I will return.  The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away, may the name of the Lord be praised."

After losing his health:

"Shall we accept good from God, and not adversity?"

In the midst of railing against the certainty of his friends and as he pleads his case:

"Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him"

And then this, which through the millennia may have made the whole thing worth it...maybe:

"I know my redeemer lives, and in the end he will stand on the earth."

Note: Job knows there must be a redeemer, someone to rescue us from suffering and sin and death, without a Bible.  

All the suffering, all the doubts, pushed Job into a place of faith where he was trusting that God had to be good.  That would have to step in.  That there were answers, and that the answer would have to be a redeemer, or God is not God.  And he put His life in a desperate, hungry, sometimes agonizing place of trust that God was good, and that everything in His life was grace.  

The Scripture is always kicking up these questions, leaving us to answer with our lives.  Is God good?  Is the journey of faith worth hazarding my life?  We jump into an answer with how we live and love, or with how we set about constructing our own sad little world apart from God.  

We seek to be a place where people can wrestle with hard questions, and discover a faith beyond easy answers, in a dynamic relationship with a God who is good and who loves us. 

What are the questions that have driven you into a deeper faith?

Flare Request + the Toots =

A few days ago we were hanging out with our life group when we had one of those wonderful moments you want to hold onto, catalogue, tattoo in your mind and heart.
One of those special times with your kids that you know you will recount to them over the decades to come.  

Our daughter Haven, who is about two months into her journey on this planet, had The Toots. Toots is a cuter, more sterile version, than the sounds that were actually emanating from her. She had a case of the Man-Farts.  

These were the kind of toots that you blame on the baby (babies are awesome for this reason alone...instant victims of fart-blame by fathers wafted throughout time) but are actually so powerful that the accusation seems ridiculous and people actually assume you are to blame.  

And it was awesome.  Awesome in the sense that we could barely keep the conversation going amidst the laughter and the noise of this precious little angel letting fly noises that would do any outhouse or teenage boy proud.  

[There really is a point to this besides praising the power of our daughter's tooting ability...hang in there.]

Babies are wonderful. They are totally authentic, totally honest, because they don't know how to be anything else. They don't hold in their farts, or their cries, or their smiles, and if they are bored or tired, they go to sleep wherever they are. I love them. They teach me things.  

I love taking everything seriously. Too seriously. I love to analyze, critique, and reflect more than is good for me. When you have kids involved in what you are doing, you can't take things too seriously if you are willing to let them be themselves. You have to relax, or go insane. You have to be flexible. You have to laugh at the Toots.  

And so I am asking you all to pray, to throw up flares for Hopesprings in Sioux City, that we would laugh.  That we would be authentic. That we would know how to throw a good party and celebrate the life God is giving to us and the hope we live inside. That we would love people enough to laugh with them, to take time from our work, from our effort, to rest and to be interrupted by Baby Toots. That we would dare to have fun with each other.  

Please pray. If you have prayed about supporting Hopesprings in Sioux City financially, I would invite you to click on the give link and do that. Share what we are doing with others.  And don't forget to laugh at the Toots.

Kaleidoscope of Community

A few glimpses of Community at Hopesprings...

• Giving away candy and hundreds of cups of hot chocolate to trick-or-treaters.
• Watching one of our friends die of cancer, even as we watched him live his life with eyes and heart open in his last days, clinging to Jesus and to his mission with his last breath.
• Being a part of a half-birthday party for a Latvian teenager who is a long way from home and making her feel loved...while supporting the family who took a great risk in welcoming her into their home.
• Singing with, crying with, dancing with, and partnering with friends as we take our next steps with God and people.
• Our life group partnering with Recovery Revolution, seeing stength and hope take root in lives and hearts and minds previously in the pit of addiction.
• Parties...lots of parties. Barbecues. Frisbee. Soccer. Good food.  
• Partying on a float in a halloween parade. Singing ridiculous songs and giving away cookies and smiles to neighbors in the city.
• Cutting hair for kids in the community while they get school supplies and backpacks; parents relieved that they have one less thing to worry about.
• Welcoming people who uprooted and moved halfway across the country to experience Hopesprings.  
• Performing a funeral for a neighbor of someone at Hopesprings as a result of that someone being a good neighbor.
• Watching a group of people be honest, messy, real...and seeing them stick together and grow in the midst of the mess.
• Seeing folks surround other folks taking huge steps of faith towards new life in Christ, giving them love and support along the way.

This has all happened IN THE PAST YEAR. These are the kind of things that typify the culture, the community, the family cultivated at Hopesprings in Bangor. These beautiful moments, and many, many others, are the things that get me excited about jumping out of a plane to see this kind of community take root in a new place.  

Building community can be a tricky, dangerous, wonderful thing. It takes more than you think you can give, stretching you in ways you never thought you could. It is scary. Yet it is what Jesus died to create...His people rescued. His family restored. His mission extended in and to anyone captivated by His love.  

Jesus' crew is a wild one. Zealots, tax collectors, fishermen, rich, poor...folks who would have hated each other are put together by Jesus, loved by Jesus, and turned loose by Jesus to show how powerful the grace of God can be in a community of people willing to love God and love others.  

I look around Hopesprings in Bangor, knowing the people that are gathered and scattered here, and I see a group of people who ONLY could have come together by God's astounding grace. I can't wait to see who and what He will rescue and create in Hopesprings Sioux City as we show and tell the story of God in a community of people.  

Portable Toilets and Street Cred

I am a road warrior.  
Let me clarify. I have spent a lot of time in cars on trips, both long and short. I have pulled all-nighters in blizzards and driven in some silly conditions and for silly distances. In all of this time, I have had remarkable bladder control. I have not had many roadside toileting emergencies. I have not had many instances where containers other than toilets came into play.  

Today, I must give up my Road Warrior Street Cred. (And yes, my qualification for road warrior basically consists of bladder control.)

This afternoon our "band" had a "gig".  (Those quotation marks are absolutely necessary)  It was about an hour away, outdoors, in a park. In this "band" I do all of the following (not at the same time): beat box, sing, play djembe, play guitar, kazoo, break drum sticks on trash cans, play not more than 4 notes total on keyboard, and hit cymbals more often than I should. Oh, and I also heckle my "bandmates".  

Anyway, to get through this gig we played outside, in 90 degree weather, for a couple hours, I had to hydrate. Mucho. I probably drank at least 6 water bottles to get through the various degrees of torture I inflicted upon my vocal chords and throat. You can see where this is going. We had about a 55 minute drive ahead of us.  

About 10 minutes in: "Oh, I have to go. I can probably make it."
About 30 minutes in: "There is no way I am going to make it. But maybe...too embarrassed to tell the guys I have to go."
INSERT STOP-AND-GO TRAFFIC
About 35 minutes in: "Guys we're going to have to stop. There is no way I am going to make it."
INSERT WATER NOISES AND HECKLING FROM BANDMATES.
About 55 minutes in:  

Here is the point: That moment, the one where I reach for the handle on a port-a-potty on the side of a busy highway, the moment when that door opens, IS A MOMENT OF EXTREME JOY FOR ME. Behind getting married, the birth of our children, getting to teach the Scripture, etc...you know, the real moments of joy...this was one of the happiest moments of my life. No joke.

It was exactly the right thing, at the right place, at the right time. It was, simply, perfect.  
I had an extreme need. Upholstery was at stake. (I had done the math, and the two empty water bottles were NOT going to cut it.) And there it was, right where it was needed, at the exact moment it was needed.  

What does this have to do with planting a church in Sioux City?

There have been many moments up to this point, and there will be many more ahead, where we, our team, and the people we are sent to will be in extreme need. An extreme circumstance. Where things infinitely more important than port-a-potties and upholstery are at stake. We will need more than we can muster. We will need power and energy and resources that are beyond us. We will need an intervention divine, timely, and suited to specific people, places, and times.  

It is a silly story, and I am not claiming divine intervention in a port-a-potty on the side of a highway, because, if anything, it would have been to give exasperated drivers a humorous respite from the annoying traffic. But I do know it got me laughing, and reflecting on the depth of our need and the impeccable timelines of God in our stories and in the life of this community of faith.  

Flare Request Friday: Deets and Dimes

We have been sharing some of the heart and vision for Hopesprings in Sioux City. Today I want to share some the financial information and challenge you to pray about getting involved.  

It is Flare Request Friday. (Flares are what some nerds like me call prayers)

We will be using these as guidelines for the budget for Hopesprings SUX:

Tithe/Giving: 15%

We are a generous community of faith. Money is not something that will be used to manipulate or guilt people at Hopesprings, but when we do talk about finances and giving, we will encourage people connected with Hopesprings to be generous, and we will model that generosity with our own finances. We believe God has given us everything we have, and we trust Him with our money if we trust Him at all...where we spend our money is reflective of where our heart is.  

This money will initially go exclusively towards the good of the people of Siouxland. 

It will go out on mission, towards giving away the good news in tangible, practical ways in the city. This could look like partnering with local organizations who are doing the work of God in the community, as well as finding creative ways to love and serve people in our neighborhoods.  

Later, this portion of our budget will also go towards mission internationally that is connected with the vision and mission of Hopesprings.  

Salaries:  35%

This money will initially go towards the salary of the lead pastor and will expand to include other salaries deemed an appropriate use of our resources by the leadership of Hopesprings. Salaries will be made public knowledge and will be reasonable in relation to the work being done through the ministry of Hopesprings.  

Building: 30%

In the beginning we will be meeting in homes in Sioux City, and when we need a space to accommodate our weekly gatherings, we will be looking for space in Sioux City to rent for cheap (or free as people are moved to generosity). There will be many needs in this area to set up whatever space we will be using for our gatherings. We will need to make a significant financial investment to make the space a warm place for people to connect with God and each other. If we do not have much need in this area in the early days, we will save in the hopes of securing space as we need it.  

Ministry/Admin: 20%

This will be money geared towards the functioning of any ministry associated with Hopesprings in Sioux City. Any money spent training leaders, helping community groups function, ministry to kids or students...all of that is included in this area.  

***

Hopesprings in Sioux City is accountable financially to Hopesprings Corporation, and all spending/use of resources will be reported to the leadership of Hopesprings. A working budget will be available on the blog next week. 

We are praying for people to partner with us to help fund the initial stages of Hopesprings in SIoux City. We would ask you to think, pray, and consider giving generously. As a goal, we are praying for at least 25 people to commit to giving $100 per month for one year to help with the work in Sioux City. We are also praying for people to give one-time donations and monthly contributions of any amount.  

We pray you might see any giving as an investment in the Kingdom of God and the work He is doing in Siouxland. We see great needs, and we trust a great God to move in the hearts of His people to fund His dreams for the community.    

If you are interested in giving to Hopesprings in Sioux City, please click here.
When you give, it would help us to remind and encourage you if you would send us an email letting us know your commitment.  You can email us here.

Receiving Fire

It is pretty interesting - often profound - to think of what Jesus is looking at when he is saying something. There is research suggesting, for example, that when Jesus talks about having the faith to move mountains into the sea, it is quite possible he is looking at a mountain made by the power-hungry and self-obsessed King Herod. Colors the passage a bit, right?
Today I wondered about something Jesus said:
Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. -Luke 18.17

Normally we think of a child jumping into the arms of a loving parent. Or a child believing anything you say. They receive love and acceptance and cookies. The verse strikes me most often as a warm and inviting way of relating the trust children have implicitly in us as a model for our own trust in God, which is an incredibly meaningful understanding of those words.

But today I was thinking of how our son receives fire.

We were spending time with our life group tonight celebrating a Latvian teenager's half-birthday, because that is just something we do. When you have a party outside, s'mores make everything better, and fire helps. There was a good-sized fire going, and our almost-three-year-old, of course, immediately made a dash for it, wanted to put stuff in it, and generally wanted to be as dangerously close to it as I would let him be. Marshmallows, sadly, were lost, and sparks flew quite literally.

And Jesus' words began haunting me, like they do if you listen to them, take them into your guts, and let them fester. (In a good way, people!) Children receive things easily and completely. All things. Even (and maybe especially) dangerous things.

Asher had absolutely NO regard for the danger of the fire. For its heat. For the risks inherent to weaponizing a poker intended for mallow-roasting and flinging sparks like less-than-charming fireflies into a summer gathering of friends. He lived near the fire with total joy and a complete absence of fear.

Was Jesus sitting around a fire watching a dad hold back a three-year-old from the danger in front of him? Is this disregard for danger, an open embrace of risks barely-known (if at all), something of the kind of receiving Jesus invites us into as he calls us into his upside-down Kingdom?

Maybe.

I do know that this dream of planting Hopesprings in Sioux City is something I have referred to as "stupid". Stupid in the sense that it is risky, dangerous, and a leap into the unknown. Stupid in the eyes of some (including oftentimes myself) who want more certainty, diagrams, and an assurance that this will 'work'. It is a wild, unknown, and dangerous thing. I am thankful we have a Good Dad protecting us from the fire.

Yet he is also kindling in us a powerful vision of the kingdom of God realized in a city, in neighborhoods, in the lives of people captivated by the love of God on a dangerous mission of rescue. The mission that His son received, that killed Him, and that ultimately resulted not just in His resurrection but in mine, and the resurrection of people and communities willing to receive the good, crazy, upside-down news.

I want to receive things more like Asher does. He made me a little less afraid of the fire and a little more joyful on the journey we are on together.

The Problem of Sweat

Ninety-degree heat will do some pretty wild things.  

It will fry an egg on the hood of your car (maybe...an internet search proved inconclusive...thinking of running a test on my car this week).

It will draw a river of sweat from you, take you back to a middle school locker with the smells it will produce, and put you into extreme dehydration.

It will make you yearn for the barren snowy winter wastelands of the midwest in July.

It may, in-fact, fry your brain.  

One of the other things it should do is ruin a gathering.

Sunday morning, Hopesprings in Bangor gathers at 301 Market St. for a time celebrating who God is and what He is doing in our lives. We get together to get to know each other better, dive into the Scripture together, and invite others into the story that God is telling in and through this community of faith. It is a friendly atmosphere, and has a vibe of belonging and welcome that I have not often experienced. We try to talk about things in a way devoid of churched language, and we have a pretty diverse group of people that get together to take their next step towards God and each other. There are a lot of cool things going on there.  But there is something very uncool going on there right now.  

It is July.

There is no form of air-conditioning except an army of fans deployed throughout the space and whose impact is similar to taking an oscillating fan to the Sahara and expecting a cool breeze.

It was 92 degrees yesterday. Put people in the space and it feels like 120 (hyberbole much?)

The building is basically designed as a furnace and often it will feel hotter inside than outside the building.  

Don't worry, this is not a vent-session. (Sorry...had to do it.) The bottom line is this: we should not be able to have people come and hang out at this building in July.  

But they do.  

They come and keep coming.

They sing and sweat and engage with a message centered on the story of God.

They bring their kids.  They even invite other people to come.  

And they stay after to connect and share their lives with each other.

The building at 301 Market St. was a beautiful gift to Hopesprings. It has come with some many challenges (little parking...no air conditioning...a space that has aged and has needed updating and repair), but it is a HUGE blessing, and it is right in the middle of the community God has called Hopesprings to minister to in Bangor.  

My heat-addled brain was thinking about something yesterday. We have had so many challenges to the identity, mission and vision of Hopesprings, but all those challenges are nothing compared to God at-work in the lives of people. If you are doing the thing you are meant to do, if you are doing the thing you are called to do,  (in our case) if you are loving and serving people, creating a culture where people can experience the grace of God and find their place in His story, the temperature of the building doesn't ultimately matter.

The mission of God is not about buildings. It cannot be contained by a clever strategy. It will not be derailed by details.

This is not to say the heat didn't affect us: IT DID.  

This is not to say we don't try to address the heat: WE DO.

Yet we stay faithful to our mission to love God and love people no matter how hot it may be in July on a Sunday morning. In the heat, in the struggle, we see they are nothing when God is working in a people.

Siouxland will bring its own host of challenges...and there will be barrier after barrier and challenge after challenge in staying faithful to our mission there to love the city, to serve its people, and to demonstrate the good news of Jesus in our actions and in our words. Yet none of those things can defeat God in search of people, and a community of faith that is on a mission of rescue in a city.   

Flare Request Friday

Flare Request:  Asking people to throw up flares (prayers) for a specific need.

Here on the blog chronicling the journey of Hopesprings to plant a church in Sioux City, we want to give you regular opportunities to pray for things specifically for the city, us, and the community of faith we are seeking to cultivate in Siouxland.  

Today that request is for the city.  

Please pray for sight, for vision, for insight given to anyone who will be a part of the core group planting this church.  We want our eyes to be able to see what God sees, for our hearts to beat with the same love and compassion His own heart has for the people of Sioux City.

We would ask you to pray for the peace, the welfare, and the leaders within this city.
We woud ask you to pray for the untouchable, the unseen, the unnoticed of this city.
We would ask you to pray that Siouxland would flourish and that God's dream for this community might become a reality.  

Thank you for praying with us.  

Deep End

"Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;"

We are in the deep end folks. Just a few things going on...
We just had a baby. Like 6 weeks ago. That is awesome. And overwhelming. And awesome. Repeat.
We are moving across the country to plant a church in three months.
There are at least 100,000 people in Siouxland unconnected with a community of faith. (by our estimates) There is a city desperate for hope and good news of a God in love and in search of people.
We will need to love and serve the people of Sioux City in meaningful, tangible ways. This will take creativity, wisdom, passion, and vision.
It will take leaders, people, financial resources, and much more to plant in Sioux City.
We are searching for a new Lead Pastor for Hopesprings in Bangor.

We are out of our depth.
This work is beyond us.

Yesterday I was feeling the weight of the need and the scope of the work ahead of us, and it felt deep. Heavy. Much too much for us to handle. And you know what? It IS too much for us to handle.

This is a good thing.

I was reflecting on Psalm 42, where the writer is in the pit; he's been crushed by the weight of life and feeling despair. He is in a horrible place. We are not in a horrible place, but I can relate to being in a deep place...a weighty place. A place where the writer feels overwhelmed. It is there, in that place, where deep calls to deep. Where he experiences love and hope, and the ability to question the weight of life that feels like a brick on his chest.

In the deep places when we are overwhelmed, when we don't have it together, when we are lost, broken, disheveled...these are the places where we meet God. In our need and desperation. There is good news for folks who find themselves in the deep end...

Jesus comes for the lost.
Jesus comes for the sick.
Jesus comes for the enslaved.
Jesus comes for the brokenhearted.
Jesus comes for the overwhelmed.

The realization that we don't have everything together creates space in our lives for God to work and for us to find resurrection in Jesus. The realization that the work is God's, that this is His Kingdom, that He is the one who will bring the resources and people to build His church, frees us up to focus instead of freak out.