Another Day

A day in the life in the city.

Reflecting on yesterday.... After a 7AM bible study with a man in my building, I met with the summer interns for the entire morning for our weekly group session. After some e-mails and casual conversations, I continued to meet with our missionary apprentice to review many of the issues at hand. After heading home at around 6:30PM, I realized the need to recant a decision I had made about an upcoming meeting, and so after arriving home, I went to the laptop making sure to keep my time brief. Family time.... playing with Adalia, Hylma folding clothes, daddy reading, dinner late in the evening. Then, around 9PM there was a knock on the door.

A man that is being reached out to brought me out to the elevator. We went down to the basement where another brother and I met the man's friend. His friend was 'coked up' (translation = high on cocaine). As a means of 'coming down,' he put down 48 ounces of alcohol inside of 30 minutes, smoking cigarettes and a blunt (translation = marajuana), and rambling on mostly in explitives about all the hate and pain in the world, how much he'd like to become a vigilante, and how he needs to divorce his wife. He told me why he hates white people even though he has white friends, and he explained how well he can quote the Bible. I thought to myself how much he needs to KNOW Jesus.

He seemed intrigued with how we just sat and listened. He refused prayer at first, but later agreed to it. As we prayed for him and for the power of the Living God to be at work, he became strangely calm. As we ended the prayer, he sat on the edge of tears, his disposition transformed. We shook his hand and gave him a hug as we returned upstairs, and the man who called us down to meet his friend continued to tell of how God was working in his life.

Continue to pray for us. Pray for the first man whom God is reaching. Pray for his friend who lives in the 'depths of the pit.' Petition the Lord of the harvest for workers. Pray for the power of the Risen Lord to fall upon the city. The war is waging. The Lord is moving.

Another day in the life in the city.

Unchurched Consciousness

I'm in Nashville for two weeks as part of a Fuller School of Intercultural Studies cohort. We've shared a lot of discussions both in and out of class concerning post-modernism, church, and misson. One of the guys in the group is a leader of one of the megachurch movements based in the South, and he said to me: "Nobody in America involved in church planting is patting themselves on the back right now." It was a humble admission that despite all the efforts at technical fixes and tweeking the programs, the unchurched/uncomitted population grows and churches continue to find themselves struggling to make a real difference in the emerging culture. 'Postmodernism' and the current cultural climate is a threat to some and a breath of fresh air to others. Either way, the Gospel remains the only answer.

Last night, I sat up praying, thinking, (and yea, I suppose this is a pretty "postmodern" thing to do) and consulting with God as I scrolled through the web. At one point I opened up Google and typed inside of quotes: "Why I don't go to church." I found 58 pages worth of why people 'don't go to church.' In some cases the sites were by Christians explaining a different way to think about church (organic/house church, or example), but many others were sincere people who've just given up. And a few were scary -- vampire sites, stuff like that.

For a moment the sensation came over me of how deeply, desperately Jesus wants these people... all of them... all of us. Below is one of the blog entries I found. It is without any of the offensive metaphors that you would find in some of the 580 (+1 now that this blog is posted) websites containing the phrase "why I don't go to church." It is one perspective of one lonely person who has 'been to church' but has yet to experience good news.

May this young man be as a prophet to us. He is another voice calling the church out of maintenance and into mission, out of audience and into community.
-jared

Lost Boy Blog Entry:
Well... today was,in
short,not one of my best days. I went to church for the first time in 5 and a half months and I ended up sitting alone. One of my friends invited me to sit with her because she knew how hard it was for me to come back after being gone so long. Then during worship she disappeared with her other friends and I was just left sitting there for about 15-20 minutes surrounded by a bunch of people I didn't know until I decided to go sit alone on the other side of the room. I don't know why I moved, either way I knew I was going to be alone. I was so annoyed. Not specifically at my friend for leaving me ,but at myself. It seems like wherever I go people either hate me or don't know I'm there. I felt so invisible to everyone,and yet still so self-conscious. I don't have a family to go to church with and I just don't feel like I belong. I dissapeared for 5 and a half months. When people ask me why I don't go to church anymore I don't know what to tell them because I don't even know. I feel like such an outsider. Everyone else practically grew up together or are just really close. I don't know why it's so hard for me to make friends,but I feel like I just don't belong. So after that I came home and I ate dinner in the kitchen alone. Today's not one of my best days but I'll just repeat my motto :"Tommorow will be different."

out of town

I'm in Nashville for the next two weeks. Perhaps I will blog, or perhaps not. Just thought I'd let anyone out there know what I'm up to.

prayer and the city

I've begun studying cities again. I did a lot of this kind of reading when I began working in Houston and as I prepared to migrate to NYC. Now, I sense a need for someone to look more closely at church multiplication in cities like NYC. I'm particularly drawn to a certain brand (or caliber) of city -- the global city. These cities combine a set of economic and cultural factors that make them world leaders, sort of nodes in vast urban global networks.

Urbanologists seem to group world class cities into tiers or a type of global urban hierarchy. There seems to be agreement that New York, Tokyo, London, and often Paris belong solidly in the top tier. Some place NYC solidly at the apex, and while NYC could be considered one of the most significant challenges to the North American church, each of these cities continue to remain largley unreached.

I suppose I am inclined to write about the need for the church to focus significant energy & resources on key world cities such as these. That was certainly a factor in the expansion in the early church. I do believe that we need innovation and strategic emphasis on urban centers. However, something else came to mind when I sat to write this e-mail.

When it comes to cities known for global power and influence and for millions of teeming masses of rich & poor, how does all of this impact spiritual warfare? The need for it? The intensity of it? Do we begin to understand at all the kind of prayer required of us if we really desire to see YOUR KINGDOM COME in world class cities? If we are doing more than spiritual Amway -- ie. religious multi-level marketing -- (and I believe that we are), then we are truly reliant on the power of God to push back darkness, to heal, to tranform, and to redeem. Do get it? Do we really want it? Are we actually happy with the status quo of the world?

I wonder if we understand the deep, really desperate need for God's power. His righteousness-justice is the only solution to the unspeakable pain on this planet, and while He works through the lives of His people, He moves through the prayers of His people. I don't know if I really get this. Do you? I mean in the way that our actions reveal it far more than our commentary.

Let me also offer a resource to consider as we think about prayer in the shadow of concrete & steel. As you will see, it comes from the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist denomination. It is a video about prayer and about our world. I hope that it is helpful... and at the very least inspiring.

http://www.imb.org/VideoLink/findresults.asp?name=history+belongs+to+intercessors