Simple steps toward financial margin (ninth in a series)

1) Make a budget 2) Establish an emergency fund 3) Pay off debt

Make a Budget: One of the best defenses against marginless finances and one of the best ways to ensure that we can give generously to God’s work is simply to have a budget. In fact, I don't know how people manage their money and have funds to give without having a budget. Having a plan for where your money is going before you even get it and knowing where you are spending your income allows you to establish margin from the get go. If giving/tithing is a priority for us, then rather than waiting to see if there is anything left at the end to give, we ought to make “Giving” a line item in our budget (perhaps THE line item) and adjust our "want-to" spending around it. Diane and I have determined a percentage that we want to give, and so we adjust our giving percentage-wise to the amount of income that comes in.

We use two tools to help us budget. One is a simple excel sheet on which we list every conceivable area of spending. There are line items for personal spending money for me and Diane, money set aside each month towards Christmas presents, vacation, and car repairs, money for clothes for our kids and more. We do a "zero-balance budget", which means that we have a place to put every dollar that is coming in, even if that place is "extra funds."

The other is an online program called mVelopes (www.mvelopes.com). The way that mVelopes works is that it allows you to put money from your bank account into virtual “envelopes” so that you know where every dollar is going. So when you use your debit card at Food Lion, for example, mVelopes downloads that transaction from your bank account. Then you drag and drop that into your envelope for “grocery store” and it subtracts that amount from what you budgeted for the month.

This system enables you to budget for many different areas of life, it tracks every dollar that you spend, and it helps you know when to say when. For example, when you have used up all of your “eating out money”, your envelope is at $0 and you know that it’s time to pack your lunch for the rest of the month. For us, mVelopes has been nothing short of amazing, and I would highly recommend the free, 30-day trial you can get online.

An emergency fund helps with margin because if you know that you have $1,000 set aside for nothing but Murphy’s Law, it makes things like a busted radiator ($600 for my 1995 Honda Civic, I found out last month) be nothing more than a blip on the radar. It’s covered. Financial advisor Dave Ramsey http://www.daveramsey.com/ suggests that after paying all of your “have-to” bills (including minimum balances on credit cards), putting all extra money towards building a $1,000 emergency fund that you DO NOT TOUCH is a necessity for margin. Having that margin allows for a measure of peace in times that could easily feel like crisis.

The Debt Snowball: Once that emergency fund is established, if you have non-house debt your extra money should go towards the principle of your lowest amount owed. Then when that debt is paid off, take its minimum payment and apply that, with any extra each month, to the principle of your next lowest debt, and so on. This is what Ramsey calls the “debt snowball.” Eliminating debt removes some of the “have-to” payments and allows us to give more and save more. It’s also wise to not incur further debt, so for example, don’t buy a more expensive car than you can afford to pay off immediately (or within a few months).

Now, let’s say you have your $1,000, you are putting all your extra money into your debt, and then an emergency happens and you dip into your fund. Focus next on replenishing your emergency fund, then back to debt.

Diane and I have been following this 3-step plan for a few years, and we have reduced our non-house debt by over $12,000, and have experienced a great deal of financial peace and have seen our ability and desire to give increase. While we don’t have tons of room for all the “extras” that we desire, we have found our way to having joy in the financial margins.

Margin in Finances (eighth in a series)

Having margin is not just relegated to having time to relax and room for relationship. Financial margin is having some space between our income and our outflow, which allows room in our finances for giving, for saving, and for emergencies that inevitably come. This is another area where margin is key for us to have peace, and it’s an area where so many in our culture and in the Church are way out of whack.

It’s hard to have financial margin here in America. Advertisers are after us from the time we are pre-schoolers, telling us about one more toy or cereal that we can’t live without, and they don’t ease off as we get older. In fact the “toys” and “cereals” get more expensive, and the benefits that they promise seem more and more alluring, because they promise us beauty, status, happiness, sex, and fulfillment.

And so we are encouraged to live right up to our financial limits, spending every dollar as soon as we get it, and even to go beyond our limits, charging things on credit. We make choices to have payments and bills for things that we may or may not need, and spend a lot of time worrying about how to pay those bills or spend more time working in order to afford what we bought.

One of the costs of living this way is that our ability to participate financially in building God’s Kingdom is severely limited. Many times, in our heart of hearts we want to give more than we do, but there is just not room left when we add up what needs to go out plus the things that we want.

Another cost is that our time and attention is taken up by a focus on money, giving us less and less of those things to give to resting with God, being in relationship with others, and more. Financial stress is one of the leading causes of stress in America and is one of the leading causes of divorce. Such a premium has been placed on money, and it has been elevated to such a place of delivering hope and happiness that when we don’t have as much as we think we should, it can consume us.

But the Lord doesn’t want us consumed with money and worrying about that. Jesus said, “Why do you worry about clothes and food? Your Father knows you need those things. Seek God and His kingdom first, and everything else will fall into place.”

Financial margin gives us room for that seeking. Next we will look at three simple ways to move towards financial margin.

Shameless Self Promotion

We interrupt this series on Margin to let me plug a short piece that I wrote and was published on InterVarsity's national web site: Open Air Evangelism Still Draws a Crowd

Back to our regularly-scheduled series soon!

Margin gives space for vision (seventh in a series)

A couple of weeks ago, one of my church’s pastors met with some of us who live in Glenwood. One thing he asked was, “What is your vision for ministry here?” And I had nothing to say. I was weary, overwhelmed, and honestly, it had been months since I had thought about having any vision for my neighborhood. Ironic, since in that span of time I had led a summer missions project here in Glenwood.

As we continued to talk, I realized that a major reason I had no answer for the vision question was that I had no time or space to think vision thoughts. For the most part, I was in survival mode, making it week to week and day to day. Remembering what “had to be done” was enough for my brain to handle.

Without margin, busyness and a full life can act like a fog, allowing us to see only a few steps ahead. The problem with living like this for long periods of time is that we spend our lives living reactively to whatever comes up, not thinking proactively in the long term. Instead of charting a new course, we just dodge ruts and potholes.

I believe that vision is important for everyone's life; it’s not just for business people who want to increase their bottom line or vocational ministers who are trying to hear from God. I think that God wants us to make time and space to hear from Him about our relationships and our purpose in life. Maybe He has more in mind for us than simply paying the bills and making life work. Maybe He has a special call for us in loving people in our neighborhood or work place. Maybe He has a call and a purpose for your family and your role in their lives. Vision helps us see beyond what is good to what is best.

Having vision gives us clarity about why we are here, where we are headed, and moves us to new places of partnership with God and dependence on Him, transforming a life of simply surviving into a life aiming at the building of God’s Kingdom in small and large ways, and margin gives space for us to hear God's voice in the vision-seeking process.

Margin is necessary for relationship with God (sixth in a series)

For years now Isaiah 30:15-30 has been one of those “anchor passages” in my busy, often margin-less life (it might help to skim it right quick). This passage is so counter cultural, because it tells us that in repentance and rest is our salvation, in quiet and trust is our strength. That seems like crazy talk to me. Resting, being quiet, trusting – those things don’t get anything done! They’re so passive, just sitting there.

Waiting….... quietly…... trusting.

What I’d rather do is handle life myself, get busy fixing the problem and helping God get things sorted out. Isaiah says, “God offers you all this, but you would have none of it.” He calls this “jumping on my horse”, riding swiftly away from my problems (or to solve them). But at the end of the ride, the problems are still there, waiting, always one step ahead.

What God often does through this passage is calling me to margin, to make space for relationship with God. See, I can talk God’s ear off while I ride off on my busy horse. I can ask Him to bless my efforts, tell him all about the things I am doing. But relationship requires listening, reciprocity, and time. It requires me being quiet, listening for God’s voice. It means repenting of thinking I can get it done, and asking God what, if anything, He wants me to do. It means resting, hanging out with God. Relationship.

When I don’t have margin, relationship with God becomes very one-sided, a monologue rather than a dialogue. I read the Bible quickly, looking for nuggets of insight about me, rather than looking for deeper relationship with God (here's a great post about how to avoid this). Without margin, the things that are urgent (or seem urgent) overwhelm and drown out the thing that is best and most necessary. Margin gives me opportunity to commune with God, the God that Isaiah says “longs to be gracious to you, who rises to show you compassion.”

And what is the key to receive this gracious compassion? Time and space. “Blessed are those who wait for Him.” Waiting…quietly…trusting.

Margin is necessary for relationship (fifth in a series)

In response to some things God showed me at a recent Urban Ministry conference, I took a prayer walk on Monday in my neighborhood. One of the things that I heard God say to me in that time was, “Relationship.” See, my life had gotten so full with kids, elder board, regular job stuff, fantasy football, exercising, taking kids to preschool and more, that I had lost touch with my neighbors. Time felt so scarce that I would go from the house to the car before work, and car to the house when I got home. No time to walk around the block with my dog. No time to talk with people on the street as I pulled up. I worked right up to my margins – I need to be home by “x” time, and so I pull up right at “x” time (or a few minutes after) and know that I need to run in the house and help with the kids. There was no time for relationship – what if people wanted to talk or pray or complain or laugh? That would take time and I was already late.

But today as I walked and prayed, I knew that I had time and space set aside. So when I saw a man and a woman walking down the street, I asked them if I could pray with them, and we prayed (in the middle of the street). On my way to an appointment later that morning, I was 15 minutes early. I was dropping something off at a friend’s house, and felt the Lord telling me to go and pray with their next-door neighbors. Because I had margin in my schedule, I did, and it was a special time.

Diane got to go to the aforementioned conference with me and it was just me and her for the first time in a long time. Being there with no kids for 4 days gave margin for our relationship, and we talked and laughed and spent time together in ways that we just don’t do when there are kids to care for. Margin gave room for relationship to grow, even in the midst of a packed conference schedule.

Margin is essential for relationship. When I am careening from one meeting to the next, I have no choice but to pass you by if I am going to be on time. Without margin, people are "one more thing" instead of precious ones created in God’s image. When my heart is crowded with worry and details, I cannot give you my full attention, and friendships feel draining. But when there is margin, I have space to care, plenty of green grass for Jesus to have us sit down in, space for Him to work.

Why don't we have margin? (fourth in a series)

Diane and the kids and I were recently invited to go the beach for a weekend with two families that we have not hung out with in a long time, and everything in me wanted to go. I didn’t want to miss out on what is sure to be an awesome time; I feared not being included. But looking at the calendar, that weekend would be the fourth straight weekend for my family where one or all of us had at least one major event (more than four hours long), and the weekend after that I am scheduled to go on a retreat with our church youth group. And so we reluctantly said no. This was a big moment for us, choosing wisdom and what was best for us over fear, urgency, and what seemed very good.

Margin requires choice – this means turning off the TV or the computer and going to bed at a decent hour. It means stopping work even when there are things undone, trusting that they can be done tomorrow. It means saying no to perfectly good events and opportunities so that you can just be at home, reading or talking with a friend. It means doing without a "want" item so that there is room to bless others.

Margin can also be costly – working less means getting paid less which means having less stuff. Saying "no" means risking disappointing people or possibly missing out on something. Being quiet and still means we might have to actually deal with things that have long been stuffed down inside.

Margin is counter-cultural - when we have it, we feel like we are falling behind, as though we are less-significant. Everyone else is running at breakneck speed and seems to be finding life and joy in the things that fill their lives, and so we want to keep up.

Plus, for the Christian, having no margin seems so spiritual – who wouldn’t want to be busy for Jesus? Who isn’t impressed by the ministry leader who gives countless hours to the church? Shouldn’t we work hard for Jesus to show Him how thankful we are for all He has done for us (so the logic goes)?

But, returning to John 6, Jesus does not call us to feed all 5,000. He calls us to give Him what we have, and in His hands, our less is more than our striving could ever provide.

And I am finding that the benefits of margin far outweigh the costs, as margin gives space for relationship, vision, financial peace, and rest, all of which empower and impact the world for Christ in great ways. And talking about these benefits are where we are headed next.

Why all the fuss about margin? (third in a series)

So why all the fuss about margin? Why is our housemate Dayna about to strangle me if I say the word “margin” one more time? It’s because for too long my life has felt overloaded and overfull. It seems as though I am just awakening to the reality that my family now has three children in it, not just two, and that significant amounts of time and energy have been necessarily taken by this change, but I have continued to accept responsibility at the same pace as before. I often feel like my mind can’t hold another thought, that my heart can’t take another disappointment, and yet I still feel compelled to say “yes” to things that add to those loads. Sound familiar to anyone?

I know that I’m not alone – I read a blog by a former GUPY and found that she was drowning in a sea of schoolwork and ministry. I listen to my neighbors down the street talk about the toll of a workday that begins at 6:30 am and ends after 9:00 pm. I realize that in a recent sharing time at my elder meeting, 7 out of 8 of us on the elder board feel overloaded by work, life, and family. And while there will certianly be busy seasons of life, I just don’t believe that this is how Jesus would have us live week after week after week.

It’s so tempting to live a marginless life. The things that we add seem so good, necessary even. Isn’t it good to teach a Sunday School class, to give someone a ride to church each week, to go to the beach for a weekend with friends, to visit family who live out of town? Isn’t it nice to have a late-model car, even if it means more debt? Aren’t the things that we spend our hard-earned money on the things that we feel are important and valuable? Sure they are. But one more thing plus one more thing plus one more thing equals three more things, which are added to what is already there. And at some point, we have to admit that there are limits to our time, our emotional reserves, and our finances. But you’d never know it by looking at typical American culture. We live as though there is plenty of room for more, that our days are 27 hours long and that we earn several hundred more dollars per month than what actually shows up in our bank accounts.

I’m making a fuss because I agree with the author of the book Margin when he says that marginless living is a disease that is robbing our nation and the Church of spiritual, emotional, physical, and family health. I think that while most people know that life ought to not be so overfull, few of us have diagnosed the problem correctly, instead thinking that there must be something more that we need to do or buy in order to fix it. And of those who have diagnosed the problem correctly, taking the step of making the change proves to be very hard, almost impossible.

But as an elder, I don’t want to shepherd my church into busyness and overload. As an IV staff, I don’t want to develop leaders for the Church who accept burnout as just part of what it means to be a Christian. And as a father and husband, I want to have more to offer my wife and children than the scraps of my life at the end of the days and weeks. There truly is joy in the margins, but right now myself and many of my friends are missing it.

Margin is a key to joy (second in a series)

Continuing with the John 6 passage from my last post, another thing that my friend pointed out was the small detail of “there was plenty of grass in that place.” John's gospel is the only one to note this about the grass, and this small detail has a big impact in thinking about margin. Jesus had plenty of space to work, plenty of space for a miracle to happen. I so often go through life running from event to event, meeting to meeting, task to task, and rarely is there space or time for me to allow Jesus to speak or really work. There is not “plenty of grass” where He could lead me to a random person, where He could have me sit down for a time of listening to Him. There is no room for a miracle, and really, there is functionally no need for a miracle because my life is so controlled, filled right up to the limit or the breaking point.

But watching Jesus in this story reveals no hurry, no pressure, no crowding. There is room to love, room to provide. And in this place of roominess and margin, there is enough. Actually, there is more than enough. We see phrases like “as much as they wanted” (not needed), and “they all had enough to eat”, and “they filled 12 baskets with the pieces left over.”

Think of it – we see five loaves and two fish (“two small fish", Andrew says), which represent our lives with limited time and resources and we say, “It’s not enough, Lord, in the face of such a fantastic need, so let me try harder and do more.” But Jesus only asks that we give Him what we have and allow Him to make it enough.

Andy Stanley has recently preached a series on margin called “Take It to the Limit” (you can download the podcast for free by searching Northpoint Ministries on iTunes), and one thing he posits is that our lack of margin is primarily driven by fear – fear that we will miss out on something good. Whether it is a good material thing (so we spend all that we have), or it’s a good social thing (so we overload relationally), or it’s a good ministry thing (so we say yes to every opportunity that comes our way as long as Jesus is involved), we are afraid to miss out on the “good life.” The irony is that life with margin and space is not the good life, it’s actually the best life. It might not be full of “stuff”; it might not be full of people; it might not be full of "ministry" for the church resumé. But there is room for real relationship with God and with people. And there is plenty of grass for Jesus to work miracles, both in our hearts and through our meager offering of our lives.

Here is a great article on margin from the IV student site, Studentsoul.org

Margin is a key to joy (first in a series)

The other week my wife and I were invited over to watch a TV show with some friends, and when she called to remind me that we were going that night, I crumpled inside. It had nothing to do with our friends, whom we love. It was just that I felt so overloaded with my life that even doing something fun like that felt like a burden; I wasn’t sure that I could even enjoy it. If ever there was a sign that something was wrong inside me, that was it.

Perhaps you can relate on some level to this experience – my bet would be that most people in the Western World could, as I hear more and more stories of overloaded people being crushed by their schedules and their finances and continuing to feel the need to add more and more to their lives. Those who have spent time with me know that for about a month I’ve been beating a drum called MARGIN, and now it’s time to put that beat onto “paper” in the blogosphere.

To start this series, I want to share a place in Scripture that God has used to encourage me to make room for more in my life. Jesus feeding the 5,000 is the only miracle (besides the resurrection) recorded in all four Gospels, and John’s account of this event comes in chapter 6. I recently spent a day looking at this passage with some other InterVarsity staff in a guided retreat, and as we came together and shared at the end of the day, a fellow overloaded staff had some great insight into the passage.

She first noticed that Jesus asks, “Where can we find bread to feed all these people?” and Phillip replies with a “how” answer – “Six months wages couldn’t buy enough.” Andrew answers the “where” question correctly (“Here is a boy with 5 loaves and a few fish), but doubts that what is “here” is enough (“but how far will they go among so many?”). If I were a disciple, I may have answered like Andrew (on a good day) and then I would have made every effort to add to what was “here.” Maybe try and bake some bread, or run to town and get some bread to add, whatever I could do. But ultimately, it would never have been enough to feed 5,000.

Attempting to do more or create more than what we have “here” erases margin. Cramming more in an attempt to help Jesus accomplish His work erases margin. Well-intentioned efforts to fix the brokenness of the world can erase margin.

Simply giving Jesus what we have, recognizing and accepting the limitations, and trusting Him to make it “enough” is the beginning of having space and rest in our lives.

Glorious Ones

Last week during a time of prayer with another staff, we were praying through John 17:18-23, where Jesus prays for all Believers. The part that stood out to me the most as we read and re-read it was verse 22. Jesus says, “I have given them the glory that You have given me, that they may be one as You and I are one: I am in them and You in me.”

As I prayed through that verse, it seems that Jesus was saying that somehow giving us glory was connected to our unity with one another, but why? Then God began to speak to me about my own heart and about certain relationships where I have been unwilling or unable to forgive those who have hurt me. He showed me that most of those wounds were a result of my feeling rejected or unimportant, or in other words, those people had not given me the “glory” I thought I was due. The result of this was that there was disunity between us because my heart was hard and guarded around them.

If I lived my life as one who had already been given glory, then perhaps the opinions and acceptance of others wouldn’t hold such a place of power. Perhaps I would love simply to love and not to gain something in return. If I lived my life as one surrounded by Brothers and Sisters who had already been given glory, perhaps I would treat them with more honor and love. Imagine, living as glorious ones could bring the thing that Jesus was asking for, unity and one-ness.

And why was Jesus asking for unity among Believers? “So that the world may believe that You sent me.” And, “ to let the world know that You sent me.” Our love for one another, our treating each other as glorious ones, reveals Jesus to the world.

Jesus, who had all glory, gave it away. He didn’t need to hold onto it, because He knew who He was and Whose He was. I’m not sure yet what it means that I have been given glory. I certainly don’t often feel glorious. But I think that there is freedom here, freedom from seeking my own life and glory from others or from my own abilities, and as that freedom flows, so will forgiveness, unity, and the power of Christ in our world.

Jesus draws a crowd

As Mike (campus staff at UNCC) and I walked towards Belk Tower on the campus of UNC Charlotte, the sound of “Hells Bells” by AC/DC drifted through the air. There was an international studies fair planned at the tower, and we knew that a controversial open-air preacher was there as well, but where AC/DC fit into that was beyond me. The answer became clear as we approached the tower, which has a small hill at its base. The preacher, Bible in hand and wearing a baseball cap that read “REPENT”, argued with a crowd of students, while above him on the hill, a student played heavy metal on his guitar, amp cranked to “11.”

It was a chaotic scene to say the least. The preacher hollered about homos, and the students hollered back and even videotaped his rants to post on YouTube. Some laughed, others seethed. Cell phones were out, snapping pictures and calling friends to come and see the show, and over it all, the student dressed in black whaled away, moving from Jimi Hendrix back into AC/DC, this time playing “Highway to Hell.”

Admittedly, it was entertaining in its circus-like nature. But it also broke my heart. Here were students that were eager to talk about Jesus, to engage religious ideas, but they were being taken to places of anger, cynicism and untruth. They were being yelled at and condemned and the beauty of Christ was being distorted into a crude caricature. Occasionally, in moments of calm, the preacher would say something that was spot-on, and he even said it with respect. But mostly it was a saddening chaos.

I tried to talk with some of the students in the crowd, and most of them professed to be Christians (not a surprise here in the South). One guy that I talked with attended church sometimes, kind of on an as-needed basis, and seemed reluctant to consider that his need might be greater than he suspected. He was much more interested in laughing at the preacher than talking with me.

This was the fourth day of the preacher-show at the tower, and I think that for many there, the novelty was wearing off. Besides, he was merely confirming their stereotypes of fundamentalist Christians anyway.

But what if someone had stood on that hill and yelled at people as they walked past, “You! Young woman – you are created fearfully and well by God! You have been made beautifully!”

“You, young man – you have been loved from the beginning of time. You have a good Father who adores you!”

“You, who struggle with sexual brokenness, there is healing and wholeness available for free!”

“Rejected, unloved, confused – there is peace and freedom and acceptance. It will cost you everything but will give you so much more than everything!”

“Hey, you who are burnt out on religion, burnt out on life – there is another way to connect with God, a way that is real and true!”

Would this draw a crowd? Would people stop to hear more? Or would they walk away, averting their gaze from the crazy guy with a weird message?

It seems that Jesus can still draw a crowd, but doing it in a way that is refreshing and surprising, filled with hope – that is a skill we need to learn, providing an alternative to the caricature.

Help Me, Obi-Marshall, You're My Only Hope!

"Dear Marshall, please do me this favor and bail me out for $100... I could be here from 3-5 months and I receive a monthly social security check, and I'm afraid that if I'm not there, someone may help themselves to my money....Please, I really need your help. I have nobody else to depend on, please."

"I would like for you to check in on my daughter. She just got her place. She doesn't have any furniture or pots and pans. She has three girls, 2 yrs old, 1 yr old, and 3 months old. I know that Christmas time is coming and she'll need help in that department, too."

Diane and I received each of these requests in the same envelope, sent to us from the Greensboro jail this week. Both people who wrote have known me and Diane for years, and we have tried to help them in various ways from prayer to food to money. As I read, I felt overwhelmed; I mean, one of them has no one else to depend on and if I don't come through, they are going to be in jail for months and lose their money. If I don't come through, this single mom with 3 kids will be in a house with no furniture or pots and pans.

Everything in me wants to respond and fix these things, but not for the right reason. I'm driven by a voice that says, "You have the $100. You have plenty of household things. You owe it to the poor to help them every time that you can. You're a Christian, for crying out loud. You have the resources, so help them. Now!"

But is Jesus leading me to help? While I have known these two for years, I have little to no ongoing relationship with them. One of them I saw for the first time in 5 years this summer. The other only comes around in times of need. Will transformation happen if a band-aid is applied without ongoing commitment and care? Can I provide that? Do they want that? Why is the first person in jail and is it better for them to get out right now and be saved from consequences or could the Lord have something He wants to do in them by making them face their choices? My church has worked with the single mom before, to no avail, no transformation.

I know that there is a time and place for emergency help, for RIGHT NOW aid. But so many needs that we see seem to be RIGHT NOW, and you just can't go around putting out fires and trying to stem the tide by putting a piece of chewing gum over the leak. Yet saying no seems mean and un-Christian. I have to remember that there is one Savior, His name is Jesus Christ, and my call is to follow His voice, not my guilt or others' needs. There is plenty of work to be done, and in His timing, He will lead us to it.

The Courage of Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a nice word. It’s a happy concept. Lately in the Church it’s often been linked to crossing racial or cultural lines. But when the rubber meets the road, when it’s time to move reconciliation from concept into action, reconciliation requires courage.

It’s a messy business, because there is no reconciliation without brokenness coming first. No two people see their brokenness the same, and the layers of hurt and interpretations are deep and intertwined and confusing.

It’s a risky business, because parties on both sides are opening themselves to being hurt again, giving one another permission to wound. You risk reputation as people who are not ready to forgive call you reckless or uncaring.

It requires humility, admitting wrongs and relinquishing the right to be right.

Frankly, it’s easier to be cynical or bitter, to believe that you are right and the other is wrong, and to live as though there are some things that the cross of Jesus Christ cannot handle this side of heaven. It’s easier to move on, pretend the hurt doesn’t matter, to not bring things up again. It’s easier to let relationships just fade away and find a way to make life work.

Reconciliation requires courage, believing the cross of Jesus Christ to be bigger than all sin, and that its power extends to the deepest and crappiest places of our hearts. It requires us to believe that as we walk in faith towards the life and forgiveness of Jesus, He will meet us’ to hope that He will show up in our places of fear; to trust that He will supply the many things that we lack.

But as we walk courageously towards one another, with Christ as our guide and anchor, God is glorified and Christ is revealed, and we have the opportunity to not just talk about the power of the cross but to live it, to experience it, and to meet Jesus in ways we never dreamed. Courage has its rewards.

Normal for Glenwood, Weird in General

On Saturday I spent a few hours outside in our neighborhood painting our fence and then taking my kids to the park with my father-in-law. The things that occurred all around me were normal things for Glenwood, and it was surreal in the way that it seemed normal to me. Across the street at a house that is home to at least one prostitute and several drug users, one guy talked on the phone to his mom, handing it off to one of the prostitutes for her to talk for a few minutes ("Hey, mom," she said, "nice to meet you over the phone.") My neighbor from across the street, who reminds me a good deal of the lead guitarist for the Muppet Band, shuffled home, and both prostitutes and addicts were coming in and out of his apartment (he talks with me a lot about all the people that have come to Christ through his preaching and healing ministry, but I am not sure that he is not addicted to crack himself). A man that I could not see yelled for about 5 minutes around the corner, hidden by the bushes, telling someone that this was "his bleepin' 'hood", and continued to drop f-bombs by the dozen, as another addict made calls on his cell phone and paced the sidewalk. My friend Ben, who makes his living by going through garbage cans and recycling the metal he finds, stopped to give Joe some vienna sausages that he dug out of the trash up the street. A young man who had been kicked out of his house for the third time in three months stopped by with the car that he had bought for $100 (not having plates for it, insurance, or a driver's license) and asked for a couple of bucks to buy a burger at McDonalds. As we walked to the park, we passed lawns that were immaculately groomed and even decked out with artificial flowers, houses that were boarded up or trashed in the front. We passed a houseful of Hispanic workers having a beer and hanging out. On our return route, we had a drug deal go down right in front of us, passed a Latino man heading to the store (as a prostitute called out to him, "Hey, Amigo!"), were asked about the tutoring program by a guy who was drinking a 40 with his buddies, and passed a houseful of college students who would later have a party that went into the wee hours of the night. As we walked up the hill to the house, I said to my father-in-law, "My neighborhood is so weird." Where else do you find all these people and contrasts? And not only is it weird, but when I think about it, it is broken and sad, and I wonder what more we could be doing, need to be doing. And in some strange way, I am thankful for this "normal."

Why We Have Tutoring

Our Glenwood Tutoring Program kicks off its 6th year today, with over 30 kids signed up and over 40 volunteers at the ready. This is something I shared last night at our volunteer orientation meeting.

Why do we do we have this tutoring program?

First off, you and I are not hear to save these kids. I was meeting with a friend and talking about" saving the Glenwood kids", and he said, “Marshall, what if God sent you to these kids so that they could save you?”

And they have. From selfishness and pride, from impatience and a hard heart, from stereotypes and racism. These kids have shown me love and Christ, and have been used in powerful ways in my life.

Tutoring is an opportunity to give and to receive.

There is a principle in science called the principle of equilibrium. It says that If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, or total pressure; the equilibrium will shift in order to minimize that change. The principle is used by chemists in order to manipulate the outcomes of reversible reactions, often to increase the yield of reactions.

A practical example is that when you exercise, your body generates a high concentration of heat and energy inside. It wants equilibrium, so you sweat, releasing that heat and cooling the body until its temperature returns to 98.6 degrees.

There is a spiritual application to this as well. God has given people high concentrations of some things, that they might flow into areas of lower concentration, an opportunity to give.

I believe that our volunteers have been given a high concentration of love, of opportunity, and of education, and that our kids often have a low concentration of those things. This is an opportunity for you to bring balance, equilibrium, justice. Our kids have a high concentration of energy, potential, and smarts, and we need to channel those things so that they flow into positive, productive places, like college, like learning to volunteer and love others, like into their families.

Equilibrium also presents an opportunity to receive. Our kids also have a high concentration of struggles, from families who are poor to parents who struggle with addiction, to peer pressure that encourages them to settle for less. As you love them and spend time with them, those sufferings will flow to you, and as you receive that, God will develop in you compassion, love, patience, and humility.

Our kids have a high concentration of love to give, but there are few safe outlets for them to give it. Your presence in their lives, the trust that you build allows them to take a chance to love you, to trust you, and to let you be their friend. That is a gift, to receive their friendship and love.

Lastly, we do this because we believe that this principle of equilibrium was modeled for us by Jesus Christ. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

God looked at each person in the world, saw us in our place of need and poverty without Him, and He came to earth as man, giving up all the glory and power that was His in heaven, lived a perfect life, died an innocent death, and was raised so that we might know God and have true life. God did not hoard His love, but gave it away freely to us. And so this program was begun as a response to that love which was given to us first.

Finally, Back to Giving

Well, you may not remember that way back in June I posted a couple of times about giving. (For review, you can check them out here and here.)

I've written several times about my struggles with consumerism. Its rampant in our culture, and I fall prey to wanting the same things that everyone else does. There seems to be very little motivation to live any differently from the rest of the culture and very few of us live counter-culturally with great joy. I know that often times when I make decisions to live with less, I think more about the sacrifice than the benefit.

But God is not bound by our culture, and He has something to say about what we do with our resources. His Word reorients us to understanding how to see our blessings appropriately, and I think that His Word is an anchor for us when everything in us tells us to take care of #1. Remembering that the Spirit leads us in joyful giving, giving throug us, let's take a quick look at a short Old Testament passage (we'll check out a New Testament passage next week).

Genesis 12:1-3 The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you. 2 "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

Simply put, we are blessed in order that we might be a blessing to others. There is a Hebrew word picture associated with this passage, and it is of a camel kneeling to receive a burden. The camel has no use for the spices, gold, and other goods that it is carrying, but its job is to take those things somewhere else for someone who needs them. Abraham is receiving blessing, but it is not for him. It is to bless others, to be given away, that all the nations will be blessed through him. Next up, the principle of equilibrium.

A Post for Mommies, in honor of Diane

My wife doesn't get weekends off. The life of caring for our children, loving them and instructing them, molding us into a family, doesn't take a break between Friday and Monday. The weekend simply means that I am more readily available to help and ease the load (unless I am preoccupied with moving furniture or re-routing plumbing, as I was this weekend). And I know that for her it is easy to see her work as menial, ordinary, and having little or nothing to do with "building the Kingdom." In her head she knows that's not true, but in the midst of day-to-day "clutter control" and diaper duty, the eternal gets a bit lost in the shuffle. That is why I am so thankful for a song on the new Caedmon's Call album (Overdressed), called Sacred. The lyrics are below, and I hope that it encourages moms (and dads) out there to remember and see the holy work before us each day as we care for our kids. Diane, if you're reading, thank you for the holy work you do each day with such grace and love, even when you feel like you've lost your patience too many times or just can't pour another glass of juice. God is using you in a great and wonderful way.

"Sacred" by Caedmon’s Call

This house is a good mess, it’s the proof of life
No way would I trade jobs, but it don’t pay overtime
I’ll get to the laundry I don’t know when
I’m saying a prayer tonight cause tomorrow it starts again

(chorus)
Could it be that everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I’ve dreamed of has been right before my eyes

The children are sleeping, but they’re running through my mind
The sun makes them happy, and the music makes them unwind
My cup runneth over, I worry about the stain
Teach me to run to You like they run to me for every little thing

'Cause everything is sacred And all this time
Everything I’ve dreamed of has been right before my eyes

When I forget to drink from you I can feel the banks harden
Lord make me like a stream to feed the garden

Wake up little sleeper
The Lord God Almighty
Made your mama keeper
So rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine

Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I’ve dreamed of has been right before my eyes

Remembering to live soulfully

Today Eugene has me thinking about how easily we reduce one another into something less-than human. In the Hebrew language, the word for soul, nephesh, is a metaphor for the word neck. The neck is a connector, bringing breath from the mouth to the lungs and back again, connecting the head to the body, nerves to the brain, ideas to actions. To remove our neck would be to disconnect us - a head is no good without a body. Soul is a connecting word, implying relationship and connectedness with God, with others. To be a soulish being reminds us that our spirit is not unimportant to our body, and that God is necessary for conversation and vocation, for friendship and service. When we remove the soul from our view of ourselves and others, we are reduced to being consumers, people who are a resource to be used or people who are using others.

Peterson writes, "In our current culture, "soul" has given way to "self" as the term of choice to designate who and what we are. Self is the soul minus God. Self is what is left of soul with all the transcendence and intimacy squeezed out.... Widespread consumerism results in extensive depersonalization. And when depersonalization occurs, life leaks out."

As I thought about what this means for life and ministry, I realized how quickly I disconnect people. I can see the poor as a problem to be solved or a mouth to feed. I can be seen by the poor as a solution to their problem, a resource. InterVarsity students and staff can see new students coming to their groups as a resource to replenish leadership structures or to boost numbers.

And so, when everything in our culture has trained us to consume or be consumed, how do we go about our life and work remembering that people are more than what we see, more than their needs, more than what they can give us? The answer is Jesus and living by the Spirit. Jesus refused to see people as problems to be solved or a means to His own ends. His end was to glorify the Father, and He knew that the Father received glory when children came home, when men and women walked in right relationship to God and one another. Sometimes a meal of bread and fish was a way to move people towards the Father. Sometimes it was a hard word of truth. Sometimes it was ignoring the needs of many and attending to silence and prayer. People were not to be consumed, but to be restored to connectedness, head to heart, physical and spiritual hunger satisfied. Life infused rather than life leaked out.

I don't want life to leak out from me. Jesus has created us for life, life and more life, connected to God, connected to others. Spirit and body connected. Soulful living.

GUPY 2007 Recap in less than 90 seconds

Here is a brief look at our summer!

Spirit living, obedience and discipline

Galatians 5 talks a great deal about the freedom that we have as Believers to live by the Spirit, in the Spirit. Freedom from law, freedom from regulations and religiosity, freedom from things like having to have a Quiet Time every day in order to be in God's good graces. But in the midst of all this freedom, where does discipline come into play? Where is the room for obedience? When you talk about grace and freedom enough, those questions are inevitable.

Discipline and obedience have an important place in life and in discipleship. I'm trying, again, to exercise three days a week. It's not my body's preference to get up at 6:00 am and run several miles - I have to have a measure of discipline to make my body do something that it rebels against. Discipline and training are good, but our question should be, "What is driving it?" I can be proud of myself for getting up in the morning, but the reality is, I am praying that God would help me get up, that He would bear the fruit of self-control in my life so that I go to bed at a decent hour, that the Spirit enable me to get up when the alarm goes off, that in Christ I would press through my sore legs that balk at jogging. Seriously. I believe that jogging in the early morning is a Spirit work.

It's the same with our discipline and obedience in following Jesus. I often worry when I hear young couples talk about their strict dating guidelines to govern physical behavior, not because I don't think that their intentions are good, but because all-to-often their source and motive is their own will power and their desire to have a "Godly relationship." I worry when friends declare that they will spend time with God every morning of every day for a set number of minutes, not because that would be a bad thing, but because that can easily be a self-fueled exercise. When we discipline ourselves apart from the Spirit, it can easily have the opposite effect than what we desire. Our flesh, sin that is at work in us (Romans 7) rebels against the rules and laws that we set up, enticed to act against them. (In fact, Paul says that the law is the power of sin, 1 Corinthians 15:56).

Discipline and obedience led by the Spirit looks like this, according to Galatians 5:6 - "For in Christ, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision (religious obedience) has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself in love." So for the couple who wants to be godly in their physical relationship, they have faith that God has called them to love one another, and loving one another means that they guard their hearts and bodies from lust. So they ask the Spirit to show them ways to love each other and love God by bearing the fruit of Self Control in their lives and relationship, and that the Spirit would enable them to live as holy children of the Father who have all their needs met in Christ.
For the earnest Christian who wants to have a daily quiet time, faith says that his sonship is not contingent on how much Bible reading or prayer he does, and that God's love for Him is unchanging and perfect. Faith says that one way to love God is to learn His truth and live that truth in obedience and love, and asks the Spirit to give discipline to spend time in the Scriptures, that the Spirit illuminate what is read, and that the Spirit lead and energize the living out of those truths. Are these semantical maneuverings? I don't think so. Spirit living is not always a feeling, but is often a decision, a remembering the presence of God in every part of life, and a yielding to our need for Him in all things.

Functional atheism where God is a reality in some parts of life but in the rest of our days and ways we make it work on our own, is very dangerous to the Christian life. Life in the Spirit says that every moment is God's to orchestrate and our need for Him runs deeper than we would imagine, and His ability to give us all that we need, whether it is grace, mercy, freedom or even discipline and obedience, knows no limits.

Like a Sailboat at Talladega

Yesterday I was talking with a good friend about his frustrations with work. He used to be in vocational ministry, and now he's in a job that, in his estimation, is making very little difference for the Kingdom. We were talking about his possibly returning to vocational ministry, and he said that he didn't want to run to that like a crutch. But for this guy, I don't think it would be a crutch - I think it's what he was made to do, and so, searching for an analogy, I told him that maybe him doing this job was like building a sailboat and sticking on the race track at Talladega and wondering why it doesn't work right. The boat was made for water, not the 33-degree banking of my favorite NASCAR superspeedway.

As we continued to talk, the conversation turned to living in the flesh versus living by the Spirit. Living by the flesh (i.e. "making life work" apart from dependence on Christ) can be OK for a while. We can be successful or we can wink and nod at our sin or we can get proud of how religious we are. But eventually, things just don't feel right. We have a nagging sense that we are not operating the way we were created, that we are going against our soul's design.

Which takes us back to the sailboat on the racetrack. We, as Christians, have been recreated in Christ to live in dependence on the Father, through the Spirit, created to sail in water. We have been freed from making life work, from trusting in our own resources, and have been freed to living as God intended, yet we often choose to beach ourselves. Most times when life doesn't work we blame our circumstances or the people who just aren't meeting our needs, but for Christians, conflict and frustration are often God's mouthpiece, reminding us of who we are (and who we are not). Sure, there are rough waters even when we live by the Spirit, but there is a sense, even in the storms, that we are living life as we were created to be.

Spirit living, Eugene style

On the recomendation of my friend Doug Flatherty, I re-started Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson, whose first chapter deals with the work of God's Spirit. At the same time, I was reading Romans 8, looking for God's leading in living by the Spirit. Living by the Spirit is such a balancing act, walking between two unhealthy extremes. On the one hand we have the obvious unhealthy extreme of blatant sin, indulging our "sinful nature" (NIV's translation) with all sorts of sinful things. On the other hand we have self-righteous moralism, in which we are in control of and in charge of keeping our heart and soul on the straight and narrow, managing our own sin. The Spirit leads us away from sin and away from self-reliance, leading us to.. dependence on God in all things.
I love how Peterson translates Romans 8:5-8: Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

When I read this passage in the NIV, my focus tends to be on the words "sinful nature" and, really, on the "sinful" part. Don't we tend to think of being in the flesh as doing sinful things? But Peterson, bless him, doesn't define the flesh as "sinful" (though it certainly is). Instead, he equates it to a self-focused life. Self-focus inevitably leads us to measure our moral muscle without exercising it, which inevitably to making life work apart from God, either by sin or by religion. Thank the Lord that God's Spirit leads us into an open, spacious, free life. The trick is to believe that this freedom is true-er and better than the self-satisfaction of moralism or the fleeting pleasures of escape into sin.

You have to watch this

I don't often link to external, You-Tube-ish stuff, but you have to see this. In this video, a herd of buffalo comes back to rescue a baby buffalo that has been taken down by a pack of lions. It does have a happy ending (unless you side with hungry lions).
Hungry Lions Stay Hungry

Back on the horse

Our time in Mexico at the end of GUPY was really wonderful. Even though most of us spoke little to no Spanish, we felt surprisingly at home in a strange culture, and felt very loved by our church family there. But coming back to Glenwood was surprisingly jarring for a number of us on the GUPY team, myself included. My neighborhood didn't feel like home - it felt scary, dangerous again, and it was strange. Perhaps it didn't help that our church van was flagged down on my street at 2 am on our back from the airport so that we could be offered crack (my weary reply was, "No thanks, man, we just got home from a missions trip"). For some reason it was strange for me to be around African Americans again (I saw only one person of African descent in our 10 days in Mexico), and I felt old fears come back.

And so I felt tempted to revert back to old ways of hiding out in the house, going to other parks rather than my local playground, and just not feeling at peace. But, as the saying goes, when you fall off the horse, you have to get right back on, and I knew it was important to get back out in the neighborhood, walk the streets, meet the neighbors. So I took my kids to the park around the corner to play. I went to get veggies from the community garden. I walked home from my church. Simple things, normal things, but things that can be avoided in the course of "normal" life.

Why was I not comfortable in my home of 7 years? Some of it has to do with the power of assumptions/fears/stereotypes about race and class that are still latent in my heart. Some of it has to do with the ways poverty plays itself out in America versus in Mexico City. Some of it has to do with spending our time in Mexico surrounded by Christians who loved us, laid down their lives for us, gave us their food, their beds, their homes, whereas in Glenwood, often times those that you try to help respond with a shrug at best, an insult at worst - not much payoff there.

I think that Mexico helped exposed further work that God has to do in me, and I hope that it awakened the GUPY's to the need right in our backyard for love and service to go out, received or not, in proclaiming Christ's love and presence.

You Run the Risk of Weeping if you Let Yourself Be Tamed

(this post did not, in fact, post, on Friday, so I am retrying; I'm feeling better today)

The heading is a line from “The Little Prince,” and describes the cost involved in loving deeply. In the book, the prince meets a fox on another planet, and eventually they become friends. The fox begins to cry when the prince has to leave, and when the prince tells him not to be sad, the fox replies, “One runs the risk of weeping when he lets himself be tamed.”

The GUPY students left yesterday, and I’ve been crying intermittently since Monday (when we left Mexico City). I have really loved these student and given them my heart (and they have done the same), and now it’s just too quiet here at the house without them coming in and out. Right now I don’t want to have GUPY 2008 because I don’t want to feel this sadness again next year. But I know that in time, the sadness will pass and what will remain will be the memories of how God used our 6 weeks in mighty ways, both in Greensboro and in the students.

For now, driving around town reminds me of all that we did together, and I wish that the students were still here with us, learning and growing, laughing and loving, being stretched by God to live out His word in faithful ways.

While tears are no fun (and having them come at random times, such as while taking out the garbage or walking into Harris Teeter, is inconvenient), they are a sign that I was tamed this summer, making 10 new friends and being a small part of God’s bigger work in the world. It is small price to pay, and there will one day be much celebration of the ways God continued to use GUPY 2007 long after this summer.

Shame, Identity, and Rest

Well, I am back for a brief moment, having lost my blogging energy and time due to our urban project (GUPY). I have loved being with our 10 students this summer and am looking forward to heading to Mexico City on Friday for 10 days with them. Below I am pasting a reflection that I wrote for my students. When I return from Mexico, I hope to resume my series on giving.
One of my “go to” passages of Scripture is Isaiah 30:15-26, and I want to encourage you to spend some time in it yourselves, because it talks about resting in the Lord in order to receive strength. As you all can tell, I am a “do-er” in my flesh, and I will go and go until I cannot go anymore. I want to apologize for leading last night’s Bible study in my own strength and my flesh. I felt like we needed to just get it done, to complete the agenda, and in doing so, I think that the Spirit was not as free to operate, and in your tiredness you may not have been as free and able to receive what the Lord had for you.

As I was spending time in Isaiah 30 today, I read verses 1-14, and in those verses, the Lord rebukes Israel for carrying out plans that are not God’s and for depending on Egypt for strength. And then I noticed something interesting – in verses 3 and 5, God says that their dependence on Egypt leads them to shame. Over and over I tell people that God’s heart for them is not to feel ashamed. (Quick definition: guilt = I feel bad because I did something wrong; shame = I feel bad because I am wrong). So why would God let Israel feel shame? I think that it is because the core issue here (as in all sin) is independence (or lack of dependence on God). When you or I depend on anything or anyone other than God, in a sense we become our own God, our own provider. This then leads us to put our identity and our hope in ourselves and when we fail, shame enters. “I failed and because it was all up to me, I am wrong.”

Even in doing good things for God, we can operate in independence. I sensed that in myself last night, but I plowed ahead anyway. When the study did not go as smoothly as I hoped (I felt like I just could not communicate in a way that was grace-filled), I began to feel shame – I am wrong; I did not do a good job. Shame is a consequence of self-dependence.

And so, back to Isaiah, God tells them (and us) in verse 12-14 that when we depend on things other than Him, in His grace and mercy He allows our sin to become a high wall that cracks and breaks, crashing around us. That is God’s goodness to us to not let us persist in independence. He offers another way, the way of the Spirit, the way of trust. And that leads into Isaiah 30:15-26, calling us to repentance and rest for salvation, to quietness and trust for strength. I get so caught up in finding identity (salvation/strength) in what I do, that it is easy for me to drive myself and others to do more and more. But God is calling us to rest. So whatever that looks like for you, do it. I would suggest taking time to be quiet with the Lord and ask Him what rest might look like for you. It might be Harry Potter. It might be playing guitar. It might be Nerts. It might be sitting under a tree. One thing that I am fairly certain of, rest for us all involved going to sleep by 10:30 (or heading that way). I need to be present to my kids and my wife, to watch an episode of Lost, and to go to bed at a decent hour instead of staying up to give Dan and Erin a lesson in how to play Nerts.

I love you all, and again hope that you see I am on a journey with you in learning who I am in Christ and how to not depend on my flesh but on the Spirit.

Published online

An article I wrote about being robbed in San Francisco has been published on IV's student web site, Student Soul. Look for the article "Tenderloin Adventure."

A helpful link dealing with our identity in Christ

In my previous post I talked about the Believer's being identified with Christ and Christ living His life through us. This link is a concise article that explains this very well.

Giving out of grace, not law

OK, so let's get first things first. Why do (notice I didn't say "should") Christians give? We give because it's our nature. We are give-ers because we are in Christ, new creations who have the very life of Christ living in us (2 Corinthians 5:17). Who is more giving than our God, who did not spare His own son but generously gave Him for us (Romans 8:32)? Who is more giving than Jesus, who though He was rich for our sakes became poor so that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9)? The Lord does not change, and this same Jesus lives in us and has given us His very life and nature. So I am, by nature, a give-er.

So why don't I/we give more, then? Because we have been taught from birth to fend for ourselves, to depend on ourselves. It's the way of the world and the only way people who don't know Jesus can make life work. It's called "the flesh", and the flesh is any way that we make life work apart from dependence on Jesus. Once a person comes to Christ, they receive a new nature, but their flesh is still there. So Christ in me longs to give and be generous, but my natural instincts are to take what's mine, hang on to what is valuable, to save just in case I need it later. Living this way is self-provision, which is, more simply, sin. (Note: this does not mean that I do not have a savings account or that I am not planning for retirement or that saving is sinful. It does mean that perhaps I should worry about these things less and put my hope in them less).

Giving generously is a declaration of dependence on God, acknowledging that all we are and all that we have are from Him, and that we do not have to provide for ourselves. Its is an opportunity to live in freedom from our own efforts, freedom from materialism. It is an act of worship, declaring that we love God more than our stuff, and that we seek to honor Him by passing on the blessings that He gives us in order that others might be blessed.

Giving is also an act of grace - Paul prays that the Corinthians might excel in the grace of giving and even puts giving on par with faith, knowledge, earnestness, speech, and love (2 Corinthians 8:7). Giving is a spirit-empowered, grace-empowered act that reveals the goodness of God in our lives. It is a reminder that God is always the give-er, we always the receive-er. We would have nothing to give if it were not for God. We would not have life or breath or being if it were not for God the give-er (Acts 17:28). This not to say that we need to feel guilty about what we have but rather be thankful and from that thankful place, enter into the joy of our giving God by participating in this act of blessing.

To me, this is a grace-empowered, Spirit-led call to giving, and it is the place where we must begin.

Thoughts on giving

I've been thinking a lot about giving lately, and am not exactly sure how to post about it, so I figured I would just start writing and see what comes out. First off, I have to say that were it not for generous and sacrificial men and women, I would not be able to have the job that I have. Over my ten years on IV staff, many thousands of dollars have been given to enable me to minister to students and others full-time. Because people are generous givers, I have all of my needs and many of my wants, and I get to do a job that I love.

That said, I feel like I need to issue a call, a challenge to the Church (and myself) to reconsider how we give and how we live. We've fallen prey to the lie of Western consumerism and have allowed it to infiltrate our faith and how we practice it. This is a tricky issue, because I do not always practice what I preach in terms of simplicity and generosity. Also, money seems to be one of those things that we can't talk about or challenge each other on - it's our own private business and who is anyone to judge or tell us what to do with our finances.

But I think that the Bible inconveniently tells us a great deal about what to do with our money and what purpose it is given to us, yet we can be very selective in our reading and appplication of those verses and passages.

Before getting into those, let me outline my hopes for this little series. One is to call us to rethink how to live and how to give not from a position of guilt, shame, or law. I struggle mightily with living from those places, and can motivate myself and others from spiritual principles that are not rooted in grace and love. The New Testament does not set a specific guideline for giving, for instance. The tithe is a part of the Old Testament law, which all Christians are freed from following as a means of righteousness or finding favor with God. What we are called to give in the NT is what God puts on our hearts to give, and we are called to be generous and give joyfully. As Christ lives in us, He fulfills the law through us, and actually we often exceed the law's expectations (for example, the Law forbids adultery, but Jesus said that this extends past a purely physical act into the realm of what we look at and think about).

Second, I hope to bring Scriptures to the forefront which call us to generosity and sharing. My friend Alex Kirk has been blogging recently about the plethora of Scriptures dealing with justice, contrasting those with the verses dealing with sexual purity and suggesting that we overemphasize sex, though the weight of Scripture would call us to give more time and attention to justice. I think that a similar argument for simplicity and generosity can be made.

Third, I would like to share some strategies that have helped me and Diane to live more generously than is comfortable for us. A tension here is that I do not want to seem to be flaunting a form of self-righteousness or lifting myself up as a standard. The struggle is there, because one of the ways that I deal with my personal frustrations with the overall lack of giving in the Church is to become self-righteous in my anger. That is not living by the Spirit and it is not offering the grace and love that I have received from Jesus.

So, comments are welcome and I look forward to sharing more in the coming days!

Rent "The Boys of Baraka"

Last night my family and I watched a PBS documentary called The Boys of Baraka, which follows some boys from Baltimore's inner city to a school in Kenya for one year. The program is designed to prepare 20 middle schoolers to apply for and get into better public high schools and help them escape the cycles of poverty and crime that are rampant in their neighborhoods.

For Diane, it was the perfect movie, combining her life in Glenwood and her African roots, and there was so much familiar to her about both settings. It was amazing how similar the things that the boys said and how they responded to life were to what I hear from kids in Glenwood. Of course our neighborhood is nowhere near those parts of Baltimore in terms of violence and poverty, but the influences of hopelessness, seeing only a small portion of the world, lack of educational opportunities, and absentee parents (fathers and mothers in jail, out of the picture) are eerily familiar.

It's only 84 minutes long and they leave you wanting more of the story. While seeing the situations (and final destinations) of some of these boys is hard to watch, there are also moments of hope and lots of laughter watching these boys finally get to truly be kids as they play in their African home.

Not sure if you can just roll up to Blockbuster and rent this, but it available on Netflix and Blockbuster Online. (Side note: If you are not a member of either, I would suggest the Blockbuster $9.99 a month plan - movies are still mailed to you, and you get the option of taking them back and exchanging them for another movie in the store while you wait for your next mailer, and the movies get to you just as quickly as Netflix. To me it's a no-brainer about choosing Blockbuster over Netflix. We can get 8 movies a months for $10, and could get even more than that if we had time to watch them. OK, commercial over.)

What do you do with "grumpy Jesus"?

Today I attended a day of retreat for IV staff led by one of our senior staff in the region. Usually when you go on a guided retreat like this, you look at a passage like the prodigal son or the Jesus blessing the children or feeding the 5,000. But for this day, God led our director to Matthew 17:14-20 (click here to read it).

This is not warm and fuzzy Jesus. Instead, this is "grumpy Jesus", tired of dealing with people who time after time do not catch what He is teaching. He has just returned from being on the mountaintop talking with Moses and Elijah, and He finds a crowd of people around his disciples who are trying without success to cast out a demon. He calls them a "faithless and perverse generation," heals the boy, and tells the disciples that they failed to bring healing because they lacked faith. We all wondered how Jesus managed to be grumpy and yet not sin in the midst of that frustration.

All of us at the retreat would prefer to skip this passage. To skip the places where Jesus seems disappointed with the disciples, because for us it hits close to home. I often feel like Jesus ought to be disappointed in me and how little I "get it", despite being taught time and again. And I fear that He is grumpy with me because I just don't have enough faith, and passages like this tend to confirm that, if read without a lens of grace.

After putting on the grace goggles, the best I could do with settling this unsettling picture of Jesus is to guess that the disciples' problem was not so much an improper amount of faith, but rather faith that was misplaced, and thus useless. A mustard seed is not very much, and surely they believed to some degree that this boy could be healed. But was their belief placed in God or in themselves? They had done the healing/casting out thing before when Jesus sent them two by two, and I am sure that during that time, they were depending on God like crazy and they saw Him do things through them that they never imagined. So here is round two and the subtle temptation is to go through the motions, trust their experience, and have faith in their ability to get the job done while Jesus was on the mountain. A mustard seed of dependent faith in God can indeed move a mountain, but a mountain of self-reliant faith will produce little lasting fruit besides frustration.

As for whether Jesus is grumpy with us now, I think that He is not. We have been transformed, made into new creations, and we enjoy all the favor and blessing of His righteousness and Right-standing with the Father. He longs for us to have a dependent faith, and urges us to that place of constant trust in the Father, disciplining us and exhorting us from a position of love.

Things I learned at the grocery store

Today I went shopping (we had no food after our beach trip, and so our girls ate peanut butter toast for breakfast and peanut butter and jelly for lunch), and because Diane and I have decided to take part in the Grocery Game, I went to three stores.

I started at Aldi, which mostly has its own brand of food (i.e. does not sell the name brands), doesn't have shelves (the items are stacked on pallets) and you bag your own groceries. You also have to deposit a quarter to get a shopping cart and get the quarter back when you return the cart. The cashier scans your items and drops them in a waiting cart, which you wheel to the side when you are done to bag your items. For a family on a budget, I've found no place better for quality and price, and we have certain staples that we always get there (once we figured out which Aldi-brand foods we liked just as well as name-brand). While I was there I saw people from at least four different countries, and you could tell that the people there were thrifty and intent on saving money.

Next I went to Food Lion, the one near my house. This store is OK - it's not lightning fast at checkout, but usually has what you need. The mix at this store was much like the mix of our neighborhood - mostly African American and Hispanic, and the whites who were shopping there were either elderly or seemed to be poor-er. I also bagged my own groceries here (because there was no available bagger, and it gave me a chance to show off my skills honed at the Statesville Food Lion as a bagboy in high school).

Finally I went to the local Taj MaTeeter (Harris Teeter + Taj Mahal = Taj MaTeeter). Their produce section alone was nearly as big as the entier Aldi store. 95% of the shoppers were white, middle-to-upper class. Many of them sipped coffees from the Starbucks in the store as they shopped. At the seafood and fresh meats station, free samples of hot chicken stir fry were being given away, and two butchers stood by to cut meats to your specifications. This was not a grocery store, it was a sensory experience with shopping thrown in. The cashier and bag-girl each talked with me, asked me how my day was and how I was doing, were excited with me to see how much I saved, and urged me to come back again. (I could have picked out my items online, paid for them with a credit card, and had them bagged and waiting for me to pick up, too).

I was struck by the progression of service and quality of experience from one store to the next, and I think I was learning something about values and privilege in our country. If you have plenty of money, you can afford to value a sensory shopping experience over saving money. You can afford to value having your groceries bagged in a courteous and swift manner. It's not wrong to be able to afford that (I certainly was able to, obviously).

As I thought about why I was even in Harris Teeter to begin with (I usually only go there to buy orange Gatorade mix and the buy one-get one bags of chicken), I realized it was due to another small privilege that I take for granted - the ability to play the Grocery Game. I have an internet connection at my house (high speed), the ability to pay $10 every 8 weeks for the Grocery Game service (which you access online), the transportation and time to shop at three different stores in order to get the best deal, and access to simple information, such as the fact that there is such a thing as "the Grocery Game" out there. I am quite confident that if one looked at the demographics of who was using the Grocery Game, it would be largely white, middle-class (and up). There is nothing wrong with that. It's just that the poor are not even aware that this thing exists or have access to the resources to make it happen.

I've even thought about being able to shop at Aldi as being a privilege - there are many in Glenwood who go to Food Lion because it's reachable on foot. Aldi is several miles up the road, meaning a long bus ride or paying for a cab.

I'm not here to make a judgment on those who shop at Harris Teeter or condemn the affluent. I'm not even sure that I have a point except to say that there are all kinds of things we can learn about race and class in all sorts of places, even the grocery store, and I think that there are bigger things at play than I can put my finger on right now.

Relearning rest

Rest doesn’t look the same as it once did. It used to be that when I needed a break or a vacation, I did whatever I wanted. Slept in. Watched a lot of TV. Took extended times with the Lord. Went to movies. Funny how having three children under the age of four will disrupt such simple and self-focused patterns.

It has taken me a while to accept that rest looks different now than it used to, and I have found that the more I embrace where I am, rather than wish for where I was, the more rest comes.

A few weeks ago we went to the beach (and whoever said “getting there is half the fun” did not spend a full morning loading a Toyota Sienna with luggage, toys, a portable potty seat, and enough finger food to stuff a preschool class), and for the first day I was really frustrated. My kids needed and wanted to spend time with me. My wife needed and wanted time to read a book and relax. And I needed and wanted to rest, which I thought entailed my being alone, doing whatever I wanted, and playing with my kids when it was convenient for me. That expectation was being shattered, and for a while I resented and resisted learning to rest in a new way.

Thank goodness for the love of God for me and in me, as He began to lead me in letting go of my way and submitting to the season of life that He has for me right now. My children won’t be this little for very long. Precious times of playing in the sand, reading books before bedtime, fixing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches will be gone before I know it. And in loving my wife and kids, and being loved by them, was great rest. I came back from the trip refreshed and thankful.

This week, post-Rockbridge, has been a similar experience. There is a part of me that longs for the days when, as a single staff, the “comp-week” after Rockbridge was filled with, well, me-time. But this week I have been to the museum with Psalter, to the zoo with Eliza, Psalter, Diane, and Jacob, and to story time at the library with them all. God is redefining rest, and I learn that the most rest comes when I simply cooperate and receive what He has and find Him in the midst.

Ruined Again

Tonight was the next-to-last session of worship for Rockbridge, and once again I am so thankful for the ministry of InterVarsity and what God is doing in us in the area of multiethnicity. In the worship set tonight we went from a gospel song to a song in Swahili to a song in Hindi to a gospel-style medley to a Chris Tomlin song. I can’t describe how great it was to see students of all races worshiping God through various styles and forms, and not just going through the motions but really entering in and enjoying the different cultures represented. They were dancing along with the Gospel song, trying to sing the words in the Hindi verses, shouting in the call and response of the Swahili song. And they were being led by a worship team of black, white, and Asian students and staff who were all taking turns leading the music and singing. It was especially sweet for me to be led in a Hindi song by a white student from Wake Forest who, I am guessing, never would have thought his role as worship leader would have included that style of song. Yet he led us in praise to Jesus, and you could see joy on his face as he pronounced some very difficult words.

To me this is such a picture of what the Church should look like, worshippers of different races in one place, leading one another to see a bigger and bigger picture of the Lord Jesus and different ways to respond to Him in love. Perhaps it’s just that I have a heart for multiethnicity (ME), so I enjoy things like this. But I doubt that all 400 of the college students here at camp had ME as a high value or had even experienced worship like this anywhere except maybe Urbana. Yet they have embraced it and they worshipped God, whether or not they understood the words they were singing (we also sang this week in Hebrew, Korean, Tswana, French, Spanish, and Mohawk (Native American). I have seen African American students worshipping their heart out to “white” contemporary Christian songs and white students making up dances to gospel songs. This generation is so open to being shown new ways to praise God.

And so now it is hard to go back to my home church where our worship music is nowhere near as diverse. This doesn’t mean that the music is bad or insincere or that I am being critical of what is there. It’s just that being here with IV reminds me of all the worship forms that are not at my church (or at most churches), and I really think that when our worship is more monocultural, we are missing out on seeing and experience more of God. I know that in a few weeks I will reacclimate myself to worship that is more main-stream evangelical, and I will enjoy meeting God in that form, while still hoping and waiting to see the Church (and my church) move towards being a place of diversity in unity as we worship one Lord through many languages, styles, and expressions.
PS For a taste of what we were enjoying, or to even begin a journey of diversifying your own worship experience, order a copy of One Calling, Live, the worship CD from Urbana.

Remembering the Intimidator

Tonight Diane and I went with two friends to see Dale, the documentary about Dale Earnhardt Senior (to see the trailer, click here ). To get tickets I had to go and test drive a Chevy (I drove a $31,000 Silverado pickup), and I have to say that movie was WAY more than worth the time that it took to do that test drive. Whether you are a race fan or not, the story was compelling enough that you would enjoy yourself the whole time, and for me, it really was one of the most enjoyable movies I have ever watched. The Carolina Theatre here in Greensboro was nearly full, which was cool to see.

The things that I appreciated about the movie were the ways that it showed what a regular, “everyman” that Dale Sr was, and what a great sense of humor he had. On the track he intimidated and dominated, and off the track he fed his cows and farmed his land. There were also some very sad and poignant footage of Dale Junior as a kid, watching his dad from afar at the track and in victory lane, longing to be noticed and invited closer but not receiving that. It made me sad for him, and I could see why he was so driven to succeed in racing, seeing it as a way to get closer to his dad. I also see the everyman quality in Junior today – he doesn’t seem to take himself too seriously, takes racing for what it is, and shoots straight with people.

I can understand now why Teresa Earnhardt is reluctant to sell the majority share of DEI to Dale Jr, too. She was Senior’s business partner, helping him build that company from the ground up, and I think that she really had a lot to do with its success. To put herself in a minority ownership position after all that would be hard.

There was great racing footage, too, and it was interesting to see how dominant DEI was becoming as a race team, with Senior, Junior, and Michael Waltrip. Had he not died, there’s not telling what that outfit would be now.

We laughed a lot, and everyone cheered when Dale finally won the Daytona 500 in 1998 (I remembered watching that race in my living room, pounding my basketball into the floor during the final laps). And the last line was classic. It was during the credits, and Senior was filming a “how to be a considerate driver” piece (it seemed like it was for young race drivers). He was talking about looking out for people around you and checking your mirrors, and then he said, “And if you see that it’s Jeff Gordon, put that sum-bitch into the wall.” A roar went up, the lights came on, and it was time to go home. What a fun night.

It's Bigger Than a Fence

Tonight at our neighborhood association meeting, we had a lively discussion about our Community Garden’s fence. Sounds riveting, I know (I think my journalism professors would give me an “F” with that uninspiring lead). But, as the title says, it’s bigger than a fence.

See, our garden is up and running with 20 plots built, 4x20 feet each, and people are planting and things are growing. But two weeks ago the city began construction on the fence around the garden and the poles were eight feet high! I was concerned. An eight-foot chain link fence does not say, “Welcome to our garden.” It says either, “Keep out!” or “We’re afraid of you!” or both. I mentioned this to my new friend Todd, who is very justice minded, and soon emails were flying. Todd began talking with plot holders, the people from the city parks division and county agricultural extension, as well as the neighborhood association leadership, and tonight we had a long discussion as a group about the fence.

It was a good discussion, but it was interesting to hear the opinions of each side of the argument. There were people saying, “They will vandalize”, “They will jump the fence,” “There are drug dealers out there in the park.” “I’ve seen them jump an 8-foot fence like it was nothing.” Then there was us saying, “Some of those homeless/drug dealers/prostitutes are our friends, and those who aren’t, we want to try to welcome them, not run them off. Plus, all our neighbors who come to the park don't fall into those categories.”

For me, I am not worried if people take my cucumbers or if they walk on my plants. I am not concerned with vandalism of the tool shed. A community garden is designed to build community, and it’s hard to lean over an eight-foot fence to talk with your neighbor.

But the issue is bigger than a fence. It’s a neighborhood in transition, trying to figure out how to build community across race and, especially, class lines. It’s prejudices and ideas about race and culture framing how we perceive the world around us. It’s the language of “us versus them." I’m not trying to cast the people on the other side of the fence (har har) in a poor light; I really think that they are sincere and are working out what they think a neighborhood should be.

This issue points towards gentrification, towards people with power due to race and class being able to move others on without much of a fight, towards those with a voice sticking up for those who don’t. It’s bigger than a fence. And it’s a conversation that will continue, that needs to continue, for a longer period of time. It was great to talk with my neighbors about this and to have a dialogue about a small thing that is actually very important.

For the record, we held a vote as to whether to lower the fence to 6 feet or 4 feet, and my group, the four-footers, lost 13-9.