TBT: Redeeming Country Music

Note: This is a throwback post from July.

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?

Hollow to Hallow

Halloween is an opportunity.  An opportunity for the religious to condemn and judge the outside world.  It is feared, shunned, and marginalized by folks afraid of it having a horrible impact on an unsuspecting world. I know this because I heard this. Most of my childhood. I may have even propagated the message among confused peers a time or two. 

It can be a day of fear.  A day of isolation. A day of hiding.

Halloween can also be a day for community.  What other day is your neighborhood going to show up at your door and invite you to make their lives taste better?  What other day will families welcome strangers into their house, and build a connection with people they barely know otherwise? What other day will you be able to look ridiculous and get candy for it?

Hopesprings in Bangor uses Halloween as an opportunity to engage and serve our neighbors.  Folks came to the gathering on Sunday morning in costume, and afterwards our people gave candy and hot chocolate to the families out for trick-or-treating. It was awesome and a great display of what serving simply can look like. 

So Hopesprings in Sioux City is taking a page from Hopesprings in Bangor tomorrow.  Our community group is going to open up the Amman house for our neighbors. We will give away good candy, food, and coffee for parents. We will meet some neighbors we may never have had another opportunity to meet.  We will build connections, and look for opportunities to love and serve the neighborhood.   

I don't care about the backstory or dark dimensions of Halloween.  I do know hundreds of kids will be in our neighborhood, with their parents, and asking to be a part of our lives for a couple minutes.  Some will be dressed in scary costumes, some will have darker motives, and I have no idea if our hospitality will be taken as a bit of God's love or not. I do know we will be loving people in a tangible way, and that love is never wasted. 

How can we be good neighbors on Halloween?

Tunes Tuesday: King Without a Crown

The tune for today is one of my favorite jams. I love Matisyahu, and if you don't I will fight you. I won't really fight you, but I will definitely try to convince you to love this song.  It is beautiful.  Not going to pick a couple favorite lines, because they are all my favorite lines. Also this is surprising if you know me, but the guitar solo in this song is my favorite guitar solo of all time. Not because it is super complicated or intricate, and not because it is something I would normally like, but because it is the perfect solo in the perfect place played perfectly in a perfect song.  Have I raised expectations too high? Great...here's the jam: (also the video is cool)

Dusty Prayers

There are many reasons and ways to pray. You can pray about illness, an exam, a relationship gone off the rails, or confess your deepest darkest to God. You can write, speak, meditate, pray with people, pray alone, just listen, yell, scream, cry, etc. 

In the Scriptures we find all of these expressions of prayer, and they are beautiful.  

For religious folks prayer can be dangerous. (That is a funny sentence) Prayer can easily be reduced to a way to keep score in your life. How long did I pray? The longer I pray the closer I am to God. Did God say yes to all my prayers? If He says yes that must mean He loves me and I am being a good boy. You can judge the words and ways other people pray. You can set up a bunch of rules for how when, why, and what people pray about. 

See what I mean? (Religion can ruin just about anything.)

In its negative and broken and destructive contexts, religion is about control, and prayer inside religion is a way of controlling/judging others. It is a way of trying to control God. Fortunately God is great at escaping from the ways religious folks try to control Him. (see the resurrection)

I have used prayer to keep score in my life. It sucks. I am always losing the games I try to play with God.  Jesus shocks me out of this, and frees me from my sad attempts to control God...

"Do you think you will be heard for your many words and repetition? Quit. Babbling."

"You think you can surprise/convince God of what you need?"

"Do you think you can have bitterness in your heart while giving me a shopping list? Get honest and talk about what is really going on."

(Matthew 6, Amman Paraphrase Version)

Lately I have seen a couple one-sentence prayers prayed a handful of times over the last several years get answered in some pretty significant ways.  It has been surprising and exciting and has me thinking about all the games I've played with God in prayer, and at how simply and honestly we are meant to pray.

Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition (definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. -Philippians 4.6

Keep praying. -I Thess 5.17

Call out! I will answer. -Jeremiah 33.3

It seems once again the Scripture is alive and beautiful and true. Prayer matters, God is listening, and the answers are forthcoming. It doesn't matter what words you use or how frequently you pray for the same thing (like there is a number you will reach where God will have to give you what you want). 

Honest, simple, desperate prayer brings us a bit closer to God. It fuels our hope and faith. It gives us more trust, more confidence in our relationships with God and people. Wild stuff happens. Why am I surprised?

Flare Request Friday: A Patch For My Eye-Holes

"We're going to get really sick. You need to start taking vitamins."

This was what a war-weary Summer said to me yesterday. We have been in Sioux City for a few weeks, and we are really excited about the journey we are on, and about the road ahead, aware there will be bumps, twists, turns, even a sinkhole or two.  

We prepared ourselves mentally for what this life would be like, for the time, energy, resources, and patience it would take to be able to partner with God in planting Hopesprings in Sioux City.  We prayed, planned, prepared, faced our dreams and nightmares, and pushed all our chips in.

But we're in it now.  

In it means a schedule that looks downright crazy.  In it means me seeing our kids a fraction of the time I used to and Summer seeing them too much. In it means go. In it means you have no idea what the future looks like, and little idea about the next right step sometimes. In it means you are through the foothills you thought were mountains, and you are staring up at the himalayas.

I can be a little dramatic sometimes. 

There were two moments yesterday that really indicated I am starting to break down a bit. I was running an errand for Summer after The Day Job (which is another story altogether) which required me to stand in line at customer service in Target. (#fun) I started thinking about her and the kids and tears came rushing to my eye-holes. The lady at the counter must have thought the rug I was asking about was pretty riveting, or that maybe she should call the police.

The second came when a baby smiled at me. Not our baby. Someone else's baby. A baby I barely know.  I thought for a second about all her parents would go through to raise her, about how lovely she was and how fast she would grow...again with the waterworks.

This is what happens when I get tired...my heart, which is already permanently affixed to my sleeve, starts gushing tears. My emotions, already barely under-control by the power of a severe grace, bubble over.

This flare request is for Summer and I, and for everyone heavily involved in planting Hopesprings in Sioux City. We need to keep moving, but we also need opportunities to rest and recharge and take breath. They will be brief, but may those moments be powerful and restorative. You could also pray I break in a good way not a bad one. 

We are not alone, and in the middle of the weariness, I am more aware of where the strength comes from. He is with us, beside us, behind us...He knows and feels and walks with us. Any strength I have comes from Jesus.  I know I can love because He loves me. I know I can take my next step because He's been where I've been.  I don't have to be afraid...even to weep, because he knows my every struggle and He wept.

So have a good cry, take your vitamins, and take the next step.

Thanks for reading and for the prayers. 

TBT: All Things Green

This is a throwback post...hope you enjoy...

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, just days later?

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. The mysteries of the grape vine are beyond me. But I 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. 

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.

The Place Between the Crazies

It's funny to be surprised when your faith turns out to be well-placed.

Have you ever had this happen? You pray, trust, believe, hope, throw your life out there on the line and then BOOM! God does something incredible and you find yourself surprised? Almost like your faith is really small and God's grace really is just that overwhelming?

This happened to me yesterday.  One of the things this journey of Hopesprings into Sioux City was predicated upon was a deeply held faith that Hopesprings in Bangor would be able to survive thrive in the transition and that Hopesprings in both places would be able to move forward in a healthy direction. A faith that God had something bigger in mind for everyone. A faith that we were stronger than we felt, more ready than we felt, more able than we felt.

Yesterday we got the happy news that the guy checking out the lead pastor position in Bangor this past weekend said yes to the wild ride that is Hopesprings. If the people of Hoepsprings in Bangor accept him, it looks like we have a new lead pastor in Bangor! (All of the feedback I have been hearing is extremely positive.) 

Now the joy in this post is a hair premature given not everything is set in stone yet, but I am willing to see my little faith grow a bit given what is happening and how things are moving. This is huge. 

While we had faith going into the transition, there was (is?) a ton of fear crouching at our heart and mind-doors. It was like jumping off of a cliff into some water...we have faith we are going to be fine (or we wouldn't jump), but we are screaming the whole way down.

I believe this is a growing, healthy faith.  Gone is the swagger of certainty, and we carry with us very real fears. There is no brazen spit thrown in the face of the fear...because we are really scared. But faith is jumping, sometimes screaming, into the unknown. 

If we weren't afraid, we would be crazy.
If we didn't have the faith to jump, that would also make us crazy. 
So we do the least crazy thing and trust God.

It is a pretty wild place to live, this Place Between The Crazies.  It can make you crazy sometimes. But hey, it turns out, once again, our faith is well-placed.  We don't place it in a leader, in a happy ending, in money or stuff or "sucess" or ourselves or anything else but the Kingdom of God taking its next step in our lives and the world around us.  We place our faith in Jesus, in His life invading all mess and turning it upside-down. In the one who began and makes our wobbly faith more complete by the hour.

Tunes Tuesday: Secret Crowds

Couple things:
...I love Angels and Airwaves more than any hater hates them. #poppunk4lyfe
...This video is wierd. 
..."Spread love like violence", "watch your words spread hope like fire", and "secret crowds rise up and gather" are three of my favorite lyrics of all time forever and ever. 

Seeds, Sown

This weekend Hopesprings in Sioux City spent some time in our community loving and serving people in a really simple way. We raked leaves. It is a small thing, but a tangible extension of the love we've been given by God. It was also a cool way to meet some of our neighbors in the city.  

I have mentioned Sioux City being diverse before, but living here I am beginning to see it more clearly. We raked 10 homes, and at five of those homes we met folks who were a different ethnicity than I am (3 Hispanic families, 1 Native American family, 1 Asian family). There were two elderly families. There was a distinct language barrier at two of the homes. These homes were all within a couple blocks of each other.

Yesterday I spoke about the parable of the Sower at Hopesprings. It is a great story Jesus tells, and I used to think it was all about who's in and who's out. I thought it was a way of seeing if I measured up, if there was enough growth in my life to call it good soil. I see the passage and the story a little bit differently now. I am obsessed with the farmer these days.

The farmer scatters seed indiscriminately. He scatters seed recklessly. Some commentators talk about how the ground wasn't tilled, so the farmer doesn't know what kind of soil is underneath. 

But do you know the farmer we're dealing with here? 

Without a care (it seems) for the response, for the yield, for the fruit, seed is sown. Sometimes the crop is bountiful, sometimes not. Sometimes the plants grow, other times the soil is too poor, unready, and the farmer gets nothing. 

Jesus tells us the farmer sows the Word. The Good Word. The Word of God. The Last Word. The I-made-you-and-love-you-and-will-keep-pursuing-you Word. We are challenged to sow like the Sower sows. Invited into the kingdom of God, His mission becomes ours. Our lives become the fertile soil and the seed is scattered further. Wider. Deeper.

We have no idea where the good soil is in Sioux City. I do know the soil is diverse, and the challenges in sowing here will be great. I don't speak Vietnamese, and my two years of high school Spanish will not be enough. I can rake leaves. 

There is little strategy and a great deal of faith and tenacity in a story about a sower who sows recklessly and yields bountifully. We will sow like the Sower sows. Because you know what? I have been every kind of soil and God still came after me. The Word was sown in my life long before any crop came up. 

Fall Flare Request

Hey sorry for not posting for the last couple days.  Have not been able to, but I'm back with a flare request. (A flare request is a much cooler term for what has commonly been referred  to as a prayer request...)

When you buy a house, there are a lot of things you are unprepared for. How much it will cost, the added responsibility of fixing things that break, additional anxiety that fire or burglars or zombies will take over the house. One thing I was grossly unprepared to deal with is all of the yard-work we have to catch up on. Mowing, trimming our trees, and the mountain of leaves being distributed on a daily basis all over our yard.  There is no grass...there are only and forever leaves. It is a (in no way) scientific fact that leaves, upon falling on your yard, reproduce exponentially. (I also took math in school)

With great leaf, comes great opportunity.

Today our Hopesprings crew in Sioux City is going to head out into our community to make that fall avalanche a bit more manageable for folks.  We are going to grab our rakes, knock on a few doors, and see if we can't serve some folks with a case of the how-in-the-world-will-we-ever-deal-with-these-leaves blues.  

This is our first adventure into practically loving the people of Siouxland, and we are excited.  And a bit scared.  And praying for the people we come into contact with.  We want to share the love of God in a really tangible way. Would you throw up some flares for us and for the people we will meet?  Thanks!

Trending Tunes Tuesday

Did you know blogs can time travel?  You can have a Tunes Tuesday post on Wednesday morning if it is early enough...it's in the rules somewhere. 

Just when I promised that last week's post was going to be the girliest jam we put on here, I am going to break that promise. Today's is the girliest yet. 

Summer suggested this track because it goes absolutely perfectly with the post from yesterday. It does. I actually thought about posting this tune yesterday but chickened out because I wanted a different jam after last week's tear-jerker. Summer was right. I was wrong. Repeat.  

In related news it's also our anniversary today! Woohoo! Nine years. Can't believe it. We have had a wild ride together and I can't imagine a better woman to share my life with.  

Back to the tune. Sara Groves is THE BEST SONGWRITER I KNOW. There. I said it. In print. I say this because I have cried listening to almost every single song she has ever written. No joke. Seriously. Like blubbery-teenage-girl-watching-The-Notebook type of tears. Sometimes I don't like the music...but this just adds (to the beauty? Boom...you'll get that in a sec) to how awesome her lyrics are.  

Plus, this is a live jam and it has a dude from Jars of Clay on it.  #oldschool. Also she sings perfectly live. 

Anyway here is the link...happy blubbering!

http://youtu.be/qBhaX0eDBbY

Surprised by the Sun

The beauty around us is extreme and gratuitous. Around us, all of the time, it demands an answer. We are beckoned by beauty to wonder where it all comes from, and where it's all going. Beauty is always sneaking up on us. Always surprising us. Always thrilling us. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My new full-time job requires me to be on the road headed to work before 7 AM. This is not fun. On the flipside, it does come with one amazing side effect: almost every morning I see the sunrise. #nofiltersrequired

Did you know this happens every morning?

Specifically this:

And this:

And even this:

Surely God was up this early, and I did not know it. 

Now, ugliness is real. Dark is dark. Broken is broken. Sunrises do not account for this. But if we demand answers for the ugly, we must do the same for the beautiful.

I cannot look at those skies and not be inspired. I cannot witness that beauty without being awed. There may be a scientific explanation for how the sun rises, but there is no explanation for those colors. 

Or more specifically, for what those colors do to my soul.

In the scripture we are challenged to shine like stars. We are invited into the story of God. We are welcomed into its beauty, our own colors adding something to its majesty. Like those sunrises, the beauty in our mess is often surprising, unexpected...and you have to be awake to see it.

May Hopesprings in Sioux City add to the beauty of the picture God is painting in this community. 

Where are you surprised by the beauty of God?

Flare Request Friday: The Part After the Start

We have been in Sioux City for one week. In that week, Hopesprings in Sioux City has met as a community group and had our Sunday morning gathering, both for the first time. I have started a new, full-time, very physical job. We have been living with Summer's parents. Our kids have been wrestling with a life-turned-upside-down, not having slept in their own bed or had a sense of "normal" in several weeks. We closed on a house. We moved our stuff in yesterday. That is in the last week. Seven days. 

Wow.

Then I open up the Scriptures this morning and read THIS:
Then David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that You have brought me this far? And yet this was insignificant in Your eyes, O Lord God, for You have spoken also of the house of Your servant concerning the distant future... For the sake of Your word, and according to Your own heart, You have done all this greatness to let Your servant know. For this reason You are great, O Lord God; forthere is none like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears. -2 Samuel 7

Double Wow.

I have heard and seen and been a part of so much grace in the last few months it is unreal. To see Hopesprings walk through this transition, and see God walk with us every step of the way, is something big and profound to me. He is who we have read about, sang to, prayed to, wrestled with. He does what He says He will do. He loves us more than we could dream of. 

To say that it has all been a little overwhelming would be to grossly underestimate what is going on in our minds, hearts, and lives. I feel like I am one Hallmark commercial away from a complete emotional breakdown (in a good way!). I am so thankful and tired and happy and scared and excited. So much has happened, and there is so much more to come. In fact, the exciting part hasn't really even happened yet.

The part where we get to show and tell the good news of a God who could do all this to the people in Siouxland starved for hope.
The part where lives are changed because Jesus is alive.
The part where love and grace win out over judgment and fear.
The part where people can be themselves and that's ok because we are all taking our next step towards the life God has for us.
The part where we see change because we were willing to serve and love and give like Jesus does.

It has been a pretty wild start for having just barely started.

This is a flare request for the next part of our journey. That Hopesprings in Sioux City could discover where in this city we need to be, love, serve, and give. That people would experience the God who is bigger and wilder and more true and more beautiful than any counterfeit god we are tempted to let into the center of our lives. That our vision and mission in this city would become increasingly clear. Thank you!

Throwback Thursday: 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?

Wake Up Call

My new schedule requires me to get up at 5 a.m. to work a couple hours before beginning my day job at 7 a.m. I know to anyone who is an early bird out there this seems normal, but for me this is a HUGE adjustment.  Whether or not "Morning People" exist (I think the whole term is probably a conspiracy by folks like me who stay up too late and who just don't want to get out of bed in the morning), I have never naturally gotten up this early and thought it was a good thing.  

Couple with this the new reality that my day job is physical, and demanding. 
Couple with that the idea that we just picked up and moved across the country.
Add to that a bunch of grief that I can barely access let alone process regarding my mom's death.
Sprinkle in the enormous work of starting Hopesprings in Sioux City.
Throw in a dash of an enormous (and exciting) next few days of moving into our first house.

I will stop there.
(There is more, but I think I have made my point...)

This is a recipe for weariness.  For physical, emotional, spiritual, cellular weariness.  And we are a week in. (Weak in?  Sorry that is the 5 a.m. talking) Getting up this morning was difficult...and I mean physically rolling out of bed...I mean getting my brain to rule out the roar of my "muscles". I haven't seen Summer much this week...and I know she is busy with kids and the logistics of the move.

This morning as I was waking up, I got into the Scripture. I flipped on my phone, went over to the YouVersion app, (whichisamazingyoushouldgetitandloveitrightnow) and just read the chapter from the verse of the day. This is what I read:

Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord,

And the justice due me escapes the notice of my God”?

So often I think or feel or act like I am in this alone, like God is out to get us. In my stress, worry, anxiety, weariness I assume one way or another that God is absent. This is so ridiculous I am ashamed to type it.

Do you not know? Have you not heard?


When God asks you rhetorical questions, WATCH OUT. Something is about to go down.  In a really good way. 

The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth


Does not become weary or tired.


His understanding is inscrutable.

He gives strength to the weary,
 

And to him who lacks might He increases power.

Though youths grow weary and tired,
 

And vigorous young men stumble badly,

Yet those who wait for the Lord
 

Will gain new strength;


The Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, cares about the weary? About the ones who don't understand? The weak? Tired young folks? Those who stumble?

Unlike me, He is never tired or weary.

Unlike me, His understanding is perfect.

Unlike me, He is powerful.
And He wants to give those things away. To us.  

They will mount up with wings like eagles,


They will run and not get tired,


They will walk and not become weary.

Get up. Run. Walk. Move. This is exactly the passage on exactly the morning I needed it.  Have a feeling I will need it often. Like every hour or so. We are in a place of need, weariness, worry, stress, but God is overcoming all of those things, reminding me that this is His rodeo, that this is what He wanted and what He has been moving along all along.  He is giving us His strength, His understanding, His power. And His is more than enough for me today.

Tunes Tuesday: Corner

This is Tunes Tuesday was composed on my phone, so please bear with me.  Planting Hopesprings is hard in every way, including from the perspective of our marriage.  This song helped me get through the miscarriage we went through before Asher was born, and it reminds me of the power of our relationship, as well as our relationship with God. This also may be the girliest song we ever put up here.  Our anniversary is next week, and amidst all the crazy I needed to listen to this jam. Also below is a dub step remix that will melt your face. Enjoy.

The Baby of My Nightmares

Rewriting a sermon on Saturday at 11:30 p.m. is one of my greatest nightmares.

Losing my beloved MacBook to some clumsy error on my part is also one of my greatest nightmares.  

Saturday night those two nightmares made a baby. 

I was trying to get things sorted on the technology side of things for the gathering in the morning so that I could finish the message when I "pulled a Michael" and dumped a full glass of water all over my computer. A full glass.  Of water. On a laptop. 

Self-destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2...

It was horrible. My laptop is without battery sitting in the house drying, where tomorrow I will press the power button and hope for the best.  Saturday all I felt was panic. 

But then something wonderful happened.  Summer prayed for me.  And it helped calm me down and focus. I was able to settle down and get to work.

Yesterday Hopesprings met for the first time in Sioux City.  A group of people gathered together to take their next step towards God and each other.  We sang, ate, reflected on some Scripture, and got to know people better.  It was great. We are so excited about the journey that lies ahead.  Oh and Saturday night while I was freaking out, I got pulled away from my freak out by a guy who is hurting and needed some hope and prayer and a friend...way bigger deal than anything I was worried about. I got pulled away from "my work" to do the work.

So don't cry over spilled water.  God's world is bigger and the opportunities to live out the love we've been given are much better than a silly computer or the inconvenience of a late night rewrite. I want the last few weeks to be chiseled on my mind and heart.  There is challenge and difficulty and heartaches ahead, but all that is nothing beside the love of God and the story He is telling here. 

To see Him in and among and through this adventure, and to know Him better...this is worth any potholes in the road we are on.  

PS:

Space will be an issue in the location we are using Sundays...we need to move soon. Great problem to have. Keep those flares coming. 

Saturday Night Special

Just a few quick things, because I am getting ready for tomorrow:

Speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow Hopesprings is meeting for the first time in Sioux City. 518 Nebraska Street. 10:30 A.M. Rock. And. Roll.

We have a Hopesprings in Sioux City Facebook Page.  You can check that out here.

We have a Hopesprings Sioux City Twitter Page.  You can check that out here.

Thanks for reading, praying sharing. We are so grateful.  And we love you.

First Flare Request Friday in Siouxland!

We are in Sioux City!!!!

It is pretty surreal. We left here six years ago for adventure. We have returned for adventure. We love adventure.  

I feel like I have been riding a roller coaster for weeks. In reality it is like we have been riding the tea cups. The roller coaster awaits. 

Yesterday, upon arriving in Sioux City, we had to make an essential stop. We had to go to a place that is REASON ENOUGH to move to Sioux City, a place that resembles heaven. A place that is one of my favorite places on Planet Earth. I am in love with this place.

This place is La Juanita's. The burritos there are absolute proof heaven and God exist, and they intersect with Earth. I have started a love poem to La Juanita's. I am dead serious about this...this place is amazing.  

I wasn't expecting to make it there for a while, but we needed food, and were driving right by, and my wife is awesome and suggested it. I gathered my emotions together, and went inside. After ordering, I was waiting for my food and just soaking up the goodness of being there, when in walked a guy I hadn't seen since we moved out of Sioux City six years ago.  

This guy is one of the reasons we moved back to Sioux City. I knew him through our time in student ministry, and he is a young adult who can't seem to "get out". He has had an incredibly rough life, and has searched for God for a long time. When we thought and prayed about moving to Sioux City, this guy was one of the people who came to mind and who we prayed for. And he was the guy who walked into La Juanita's yesterday, moments after I did, in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. I asked him how things were going, exchanged numbers, and hugged him a bit too tightly.

Coincidence? 

I. 

Think. 

NOT.

This was one of those many moments demonstrating the presence of God in the middle of our story. This is one of those moments when I feel the weight and need for the gospel to spread hope like fire in this community. It was a small meeting with a big impact in my heart and mind. 

This flare request is for my friend. That he and the TENS OF THOUSANDS of folks like him would find hope and help and identity in the family of God. That he would know he is seen, heard, known, loved and accepted by a God who loves this city and its people.

Keep the flares coming! Thanks for being on this journey with us!

Other News:
Last night we had our first community group time, and it was great. We shared a great meal together, made some plans for moving forward, got into the Scripture, and prayed. I love the people partnering with us and am so excited to see what God will do through this group of people committed to sharing the love of God with the community of Siouxland. 

Throwback Thursday: 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.  

Safe and Sound in a Tidal Wave

Some songs just take up residence inside you.  In a deep, dark, bright place. Sometimes it's the words, sometimes it's the tunes, sometimes just the vibe...when I hear some ear candy it can be in my head for weeks.  

When I am driving, I love to turn up the jams to 11. I will listen to mostly anything, sometimes just scanning the radio waves looking for pure awesome.  When driving across the country, you have time to think, and to rock.  There were several tunes that got into my DNA on the drive to Iowa, but one in particular has taken up residence in my head for the last couple days.

It has a couple lines that go like this:
Even in a hurricane of frowns, I know we'll be safe and sound...
In a tidal wave of mystery, You'll still be standing next to me....

There are no accidents, even on the radio driving across Eastern Iowa. A hurricane of frowns? Mine, theirs, the ones ahead. That is one well-written metaphor. A tidal wave of mystery? I feel like that is what has hit us the past few weeks. I feel like that tidal wave is where we all live our lives.  

God is trying to get my attention. In everything, everywhere, all the time, He is trying to communicate peace to me.  A connection with Him and the others I find caught up in the same tidal wave. It has happened in ways big and small, profound and mundane, realized and not, the past few days on the wild ride we are on.  

I feel Him with us. And this is a comforting thought.  

"...God is with me like a dread champion.."

One of the interesting things about going on a real, risky, dangerous journey with God is that you become almost hyper-sensitive to everything around you. You are hungry.  You see and experience providence and grace in a fresh way. You are acutely aware of the things in the way of you becoming the thing you should be. 

"The closer you are to danger, the further you are from harm..."

The safest place to be is the place where you find God challenging you. The place where the sad and the small are confronted in you. It is also, simultaneously, the place we are most afraid of most often. I don't know about tomorrow or about the next minute, but right now we are safe and sound.  And that is more than enough for right now.  

Tunes Tuesday: On The Move

Today, we drive.  We tackle Indiana, Illinois, and half of Iowa, hopefully emerging victors, Warriors of the Road.  To get juiced up for a journey, you listen to the Homeless Gospel Choir.  You just do.  

What I love about this Tune:

...Derek Zanetti.  
...Everything Else.

God in Who-Knows-Where-We-Are, Indiana

The last few days feel monolithic...they feel like stones, moved with weight and significance that is largely lost on me. It is all moving so quickly, and with so many things to try to think about, that I have not really been able to think much about any of it.  It is happening.  

Today we hope to land in Iowa.  

Yesterday we left our home, our friends, family brought together by a community of faith where being yourself is encouraged and people grow as they find a space to breathe in, wrestling God's grace the whole way down in their lives.  

Two days ago we packed up everything we own into a space the size of one large room with the help of a flock of people angry to have to let us go but loving us enough to help.  

Hopesprings in Bangor. Asher saying goodbye to little bros I know he will be asking about today or tomorrow. Even the coming beauty of the fall in Pennsylvania. Leaving what we know for what we don't.  It is all hard and scary and fun.  

As we are heading for the hotel last night, I turned on the radio. I had been listening to podcasts all afternoon and wanted to listen to something old-school. Switching it on, I expected to have to switch stations, as I don't believe they carry 91.9 from Centenary College in Who-Knows-Where-We-Are, Indiana. They don't, but they do carry Jesus Radio.  Hmmm.  Interesting.  

There was someone preaching, and so I thought I would listen for a bit. (Because preachers love them some preaching...) And then the pastor did something strange...he read the passage I preached on THE DAY BEFORE. (There are quite a few passages in the Bible...this is a flag you missed something or need something) It goes like this:

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us -Ephesians 3.20

Sunday I preached that verse as part of an encouragement to Hopesprings in Bangor to keep on track. To not lose heart at sending their pastor halfway across the country. To know God was at the center of the story, to know He is abundant beyond what we could even dream of...

Apparently I forgot to preach it to myself. I have been cautious (hahaha! Me! Cautious!) throughout this process...much more than is normal for me. I have weighed, measured, calculated, and tried to be as practical as I can. It is easy....SO EASY...to forget that as much as I could dream, God's dream is better than my small ones. As much as I could plan, He is meticulous on a cellular level. Literally. 

I have some fear. I have some grief. These are real, and ok, and I need to deal with these stones in my head and heart. But last night, in Who-Knows-Where-We-Are, Indiana, my heart in some small-but-powerful way, felt God with us, guiding us, protecting us, planning for us, and preparing things I could never dream up. 

Surely God was in this place, but I did not know it...

Because honestly, who could dream this stuff up?