Watching the Sunset

Ever had one of those moments? It may have been a stunning sunset, or the view from a mountaintop, or the cry of a newborn baby. Something about that moment took your breath away. You were caught up in wonder at the sheer beauty of whatever it was that had captivated your attention.

Right now for me it's watching God at work in our lives and in Emmaus Road, our new church. When I simply sit back and consider what it going on all around us--things way beyond ourselves or our ability to create--I have to shake my head. Wha? How? Can it be?

When we were looking for a house in Toledo, we were praying for and seeking an area that fit with our experiences and giftedness in ministry. So we focused on an area near the University of Toledo and in an older and more heavily populated part of town. We're simply not suburban folk. And more than that, we feel like much of the church has abandoned the city in favor of the everyone's-the-same McSuburbs. We believe God cares about lost people in the city as much as He cares about the folks in the burbs.

In the end, God blessed us with an awesome house complete with avocado green 40-year-old appliances and orange shag carpet (don't worry, we're replacing the appliances and pulling up the carpet). The house is great, but what's beyond belief is the neighborhood. While it's not nearly as diverse as our Longfellow neighborhood in Kansas City, we continue to sense God affirming that it was the right place through a variety of circumstances.

First, I've never lived somewhere where so many people go for walks in the evening. We've met literally dozens of people already just out walking. Many of them have actually come up to us and introduced themselves while we're out in the yard with the kids.

Second, Barb is already starting a playgroup for mothers with young children. Many of the people living in this area are young families with young children. Already, one of the lady's has expressed a lot of interest in Emmaus Road.

Third, just last week, we found out that our neighbor across the street is the director of the International Ministries branch of Campus Crusade at UT (Uni. of Toledo)! Turned out that there just happened to be a dinner coming up later in the week at which all the directors would be in attendance. And just like that she got us in to it with a seat at her table and a personal introduction to the directors of Campus Crusade and Athletes in Action. What I had figured would take a lot of running around and making phone calls to do (getting to know some of these leaders on campus) happened at one dinner through this lady that God brought across our path. Now we have an instant connection to all that's going on in those ministries on campus.

There's so much more I could describe, like the connection I made with another youth pastor who happens to do web design for non-profits, or the electrician we met who is doing a little updating at our house for free, or the worship arts pastor at a local mega church who I had coffee with who offered to help us out with any resources they have available, or the treasurer from a large church on our district who wants to help us be sure we get everything set up right from the beginning, or the another pastor who wants to donate Alpha Course materials and videos to us. Each encounter, each connection, looks more and more like the hand of God.

I've sung in a lot of choirs in my life. Every once in a while you have that feeling that you're part of something bigger than just a collection of individuals who happen to be singing the same song. Something larger is happening--there's a collective harmony that is created that cannot happen in isolation from one another. All the elements come together: the composer's vision and creation, the conductor's guidance, melody and counter melody, the harmony, the acoustics, the aesthetics, the audience--each join forces to create something much larger than any single part. It's sometimes during those moments that you find yourself caught up in it all, simply watching it take place around you and boggling at its beauty.

That's like the feeling I get working in concert with God starting Emmaus Road here in Toledo. It's like a work of art, like a brilliant sunset.

And right now, I'm loving the view.

Active Waiting

How do you "Wait on God"?

Is it like waiting on a train? Does it imply sitting around listening for a heavenly phone to ring with God on the other line telling us what to do? Are we to wait patiently or impatiently? Are we allowed to be frustrated in the waiting process? And while we're at it, how do we know we're not missing the very thing we've been waiting for?

The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said, "the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" (30:18).

The enitre context of chapter 30 is a declaration of suffering which has come upon the Israelites, God's own people, for their disobedience in forging their own path. "They say to the seers, 'See no more visions!' and to the prophets, 'Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!' (vv. 10-11). As one reads through the implacations against them in Isaiah, it becomes apparent that they concerned themselves more with short term prosperity than with longterm integrity. They demonstrated the antithesis of waiting on God.

The Hebrew word for "wait" most often used in the scriptures has an active meaning. It typically connotes endurance: "In waiting for God the Hebrew was in tense anticipation, full of hope, and willing to endure till God should come" (The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, 796). One waits in trouble. One waits through suffering. One waits even in prosperity. But all the while, one waits actively.

How then should we wait?

This question weighs on my mind these days. I'm in a position where there is a lot of freedom, a lot of free time with which I can do what I want. Planting a new church that is a month along and as of yet has no gathering body, means that there are few immediate or pressing tasks which require my time. If I wanted, I could likely spend my days sitting here at my desk reading the news, organizing things, or doing any number of trivialities, and I could blame it on the fact that I'm "waiting on God" to build His church here through us.

But if I take the Biblical meaning of waiting on God, that is I wait actively, then I can't just sit in my office and do nothing and expect a church to miraculously appear. No, I must be involved in doing.

Now that doing doesn't mean I do my own thing, which is precisely what the Israelites were guilty of. Instead, I get busy doing God's work--reaching out to people with love and hope, meeting them where they are, utilizing the resources and gifts God's given me and my family for His purposes and Kingdom here on earth.

Just before He ascended to heaven, Jesus told His disciples to wait for Him in Jerusalem. Had they chosen to wait like the Israelites or like I often do, they probably would have just returned to Jerusalem, returned to their jobs and families and tucked Jesus' command away in the corner of their minds. That's not what they did.

"Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God" (Luke 24:53). It is likely that this is the place where they were when the Holy Spirit descended upon them with power 50 days later during Pentecost. They were actively waiting on God. Had they not waited in this way, how might things have been different?

And so I'm trying to learn how to wait on God by doing what I sense He's leading me to do. As I read His word and pray, as I listen throughout the day, as I keep my spiritual antenna tuned to His voice and leading, I'm trying simply to follow what I believe He's saying. I'm using my best judgment in discerning what He'd have me to do. Some of these efforts may be met with little success. Others may produce outward fruit. All of them lead to a heart willing to do whatever it is He asks of me.

It's not easy. It's not always clear or simple. In fact, sometimes I may not much feel like waiting on God at all. I certainly don't profess to be perfect at this waiting thing. But by I believe that waiting is the only faithful response to what God has shown us through His word and through the accumulative experiences of Christians throughout history.

So, I'll wait.

Can you hear me now?

So, I'm in my office the other day(at my house, of course) , and I hear the kids down the hall asking Barb where I am. They're looking all around, but fail to check in here for some reason. Nothing too unusual.

But then I got to thinking about it. All they had to do was call my name, and I would have answered them.

How much is that like our God? How often do we run all over looking for Him, trying to find Him or His will, and all the while, He's just waiting for us to call His name? Jesus said that unless we become like little children in our faith, we can't enter the kingdom of heaven (Mark 10:13-16).

I've spent some time considering this, especially now that I have children of my own and I learn so much from them. My kids are completely dependent and trusting of me and my wife. Everything they have and need comes from us. They inherently come to us if and when they need anything--or even, rather especially, if they WANT something. They don't even stop to consider whether they should be asking for these things or not. They simply come and ask, trusting we will answer. We are their providers; they know to whom to come for everything.

What's more, they never question our love. Even when they've been disciplined for something, they recognize they're still completely and wholly loved. We love them, and there's nothing they can do to change that. We work hard at being sure they know that we love them beyond any shadow of a doubt.

When it comes to our faith, I'm wrestling with how we apply Christ's words. For one I think it must mean what I said above. When we need Him, when we're looking for Him--He's waiting to be found. We simply need to call out His name--He will answer.

It also means His love for us is infinite and all encompassing. Psalm 139 says there's no place we can go to escape it.

But it also must mean that we accept what comes our way as a child accepts what a parent sends its way. We must embrace God's law, His will, His ways without question. Not that we don't struggle mightily to make sense of it all, or even act like we have it, any of it, figured out at all. Never-the-less, we recognize that we're the created ones, and He's the Creator.

I heard a pastor recently preaching about the story of Job. What he said at the end caught my attention. (Forgive me ahead of time for having to leave so much out.) He said that Job suffered precisely because He did the right thing. His pain was the result of his being a righteous and good person. Had he not been faithful, he wouldn't have suffered.

And so the preacher concluded this: Job suffered because He was good. But Job was blessed because God is good.

Simply because we're good, or faithful, or honest, or righteous--or whatever adjective you want to use to describe it--doesn't mean we'll never experience pain, personal loss, confusion, sickness, mental illness, or any myriad of calamities. In fact, if Job's story teaches anything it's that we're more likely than not to experience them simply because we are good and faithful.

Yet, whenever we do experience something good, or blessed, or lovely, we, like children, must recognize it as coming from the hand of a good God. Blessing and God's goodness are inextricably bound together.

In starting out in this new endeavor, I've had a lot of questions. There's so much uncertainty with planting a new church from scratch. But this is the place I want to be--right in the place where my very life and future depend on the blessing and direction that comes from the hand of God.

I hope that I'm learning more and more each day to call on God's name, to depend on Him for everything, and to accept what He sends my way--in essence, to become like a child in my faith and trust in Him.

I hope you are too.

Meeting People

Today I met a man named Ernie in the McDonalds not far from my home. Barb and I took the kids there because it had a playplace and they needed to burn off some energy. Since it was raining and cold, they couldn't do it outside (and I might have had a hankering for a Big Mac).

When I walked in the playplace, there was a man sitting there watching a young boy scampering through the mazes and down the slide. I don't do real well at just starting up conversations with people unless I'm in an unusual mood. Just my personality. But I figured I would anyway. Soon we were talking about raising young children, our jobs (he's a mechanic), and the like. When we left, we gave him our contact information.

I've never done a good job of just reaching out to people unless I have a conducive environment for talking to them. I mean, unless I'm in a situation that lends itself naturally to engaging another person, I'm more inclined just to smile (maybe) and move on.

But I was talking to Barb the other day and saying that if we're going to see God use us to grow this church from scratch, we're going to have to step out of that coccoon and talk to people. Engage them. Enter into their life and experience a bit.

The problem is, it's not me to a great extent. I don't just naturally go up to people and start talking to them. So the dilemma: Do I put on my game face and become something I'm not, or do I just sit back and wait for those elusive, natural connections?

Talking to Ernie this morning got me thinking. For one, in looking back, I find that almost without fail, when I do reach out and connect to people, strangers, that I leave that encounter sensing something right about it. There's something profound about connecting with another human being--even if it is a stranger and perhaps because it IS a stranger. My horizon is expanded, my understanding of the world and of people grows with each contact.

Second, maybe my reticence is no more part of my personality than selfishness is. Rather, my restraint or fear or apathy in connecting with others might just be a vestige of the Fall on my personality. In other words, God didn't create me to be reclusive and reticent toward my fellow human beings. Instead, it is much more likely (indeed Biblical) that He created me for community with others. The Fall and the consequent sinfulness we inherit, drives wedges between us, sometimes through the very excuses we make such as when we say, "It's just my personality." No. My real, God intended, personality is one that is expansive and welcoming of the stranger and the foreigner (and friend).

When I meet someone like Ernie, or Isaiah the county tax assessor (another story for another day), I'm living into the reality for which God created me. Sure it's taking me outside of a level of comfort I'm used to, but in truth, that comfort level is most likely a wall I've built around myself--one that God never intended me to build in the first place.

Here's to meeting more people.