Killing the Plants

My mom gave me an African Violet when I was home over Christmas. I knew it was a mistake to take it but she swore that with this special "violet pot" there was no way I could kill it. Well, apparently you can if you don't have the right soil. So, today I replanted my almost dead African Violet....we'll see if it makes it. By some measure of insanity, while buying the potting soil and plant food, I decided to buy more plants as well. This has been a pattern in my life - I love flowers so I buy a bunch of flowers and pots and create a beautiful arrangement on my porch and then over the course of about two months I kill them! (it's a good thing I don't have a puppy - or a child for that matter).

I've been thinking a lot about "planting and growing" lately. In working in full time ministry, we talk a lot about growing - growing movements, growing disciples, growing account balances, and I've always felt that to be a good 'Campus Crusader', I needed to grow things. The longer I've tried to fit into that mold, the more I see that I'm never going to be great at growing things (any one wanna make bets on how long these flowers on my porch are going to last?). I'm a much better starter. I have a gifting that we call "apostolic" but we don't live in an environment that really understands or even knows what to do with that gift. Our norm is that people would grow things - that we would want to grow things. I do want to see things grow, I don't just plant them for no purpose, I just know that I'm not the best person to grow them.

I long for the day when we start to understand and value how our gift mixes can really work together - when we have the faith to really move forward believing that it's okay to have different roles in the body of Christ. I think we're getting there - maybe slowly - but there are too many people who would say, "something is not working" for me to believe otherwise.

In the meantime, maybe I can convince my neighbor to take care of my plants for me......

Teams

My launching trip to Northern LA and Little Rock, AR came on the heels of the Organic Church Conference. It really caused me to question the way we are putting teams together within our organization. Neil Cole talked a lot about the way the gifts of Ephesians 4:11 (apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher) work together with the emphasis being on the gifts working together. I feel like we value some gifts more than others within our organization. We have some amazing shepherds and a reputation of discipling people well. I think this has led us to really value the shepherd/teacher giftings and not seek to develop the apostle/prophet giftings.

I wonder what it would like if we could start to create teams where those giftings work together. Before I went to the conference I was very adamant that we needed more apostles. I honestly was a little down on all the shepherds in our ministry. Now that I have been thinking about how the mix could work together and really got to experience my gifting (the apostolic - I want to start, find the connections, push people out, I don't want to maintain or grow things), I see how freeing it is to be able to operate in your gifting. What if we were able to create teams that had a combination of the gifts and released people to do what they were made to do rather than asking everyone to do a similar job? I think we'd release a powerful force on the campuses around the world.

Divine Appointments Part Three

My last "launching stop" on this trip was in Little Rock, Arkansas. I headed up to help out Doug and Becca Phillips as they begin a new missional team in Little Rock. The entire University of Arkansas team joined us as well as the St. Louis Metro team and John Achilles. It was an amazing two days.

My team was assigned to the University of Central Arkansas. The entire team worked so hard and did an amazing job! I got to spend two days doing what I absolutely love to do - challenging student leaders with the vision and making connections. I was blown away with what God is doing on that campus. I could tell hundreds of stories about the conversations I had but Rachel's story was unlike anything I'd ever heard.

Rachel went to Moody Bible in Chicago for two years but God had always placed UCA on her heart. She decided to transfer back to UCA. Even though her dad is on staff at a church with a major college ministry, she didn't feel really led to get involved there or in any other organization. She told me that just last week she had been driving through campus and thinking of a story from Bill Bright's (the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ) life. It was a story about when CCC had done a major event and he had hundreds of contacts laid out on his desk. He realized that all of those people didn't know the Lord and needed some one to tell them how to have a relationship with God. It led him to tears saying "they don't know, they just don't know". Rachel was driving through campus and felt that same sense of "they don't know" come over her. A week later, she walked into the union to find out table.




I'm so excited to see what God is going to do through the team in Little Rock - specifically at the University of Central Arkansas. I've known Doug and Becca for 8 years and I'm so proud of them for stepping out in faith and courage to follow the vision and passion God has given them!

Divine Appointments Part Two

After my little trip to Northwestern, I headed up to Ruston, LA. Shekinah and Chris had given us some contacts there. I also was connected with a pastor at the church from my days in Dallas. Bill and Stacy Prescott are working with Bridges (the international student ministry of Campus Crusade) and they graciously opened their home to me. Bill spent the day with me on Friday. Our first stop was the church office to meet with the pastor. As we walked in Bill asked me, "what's the plan". I replied, "I have no idea, we're just going to see what God is doing".

It was so great to reconnect with James. He is a pastor that has great vision for reaching out to his community! He really desires to mobilize students that are coming to his worship services to go back and reach their campuses. I'm excited to see what God might do through this church.

An hour later we headed over to campus to meet up with three students. There are some amazing churches that are building into students on the campus and those students are involved in one of those churches, but every student said "nothing is really going into the campus and intentionally trying to make Christ known". I could sense that longing in their hearts. They want to reach out to the places that God has them and they are exactly the kind of students we are looking for! I quickly discovered that Melanie was a sorority sister (I didn't even know they had Sigma Kappa at LA Tech). She invited me to join her for lunch with the house chaplain. As we talked, it was clear that they both really want to see God move in the Greek system. Melanie's story amazed me. God took her to another country last summer and all she could think about was her sorority. He has raised her up to make an impact on the Greek system at LA Tech!



Later she took me over to the Sigma Kappa house and we snapped a quick picture in front of the letters!

Divine Appointments

The last few days have been the most fun I've had all year! I headed up to Northern Louisiana last Thursday to hang out with some of our students at Northwestern. After a crazy start, I finally made it to the campus to spend some time with Shekinah and Chris. I really believe that God is up to something on this campus. On the way to our staff conference in November, a car load of our staff stopped on the exit for the university to grab lunch. We kind of jokingly mentioned we'd "launch a campus at lunch" and I threw up a half-hearted prayer. A little over a month later, Shekinah and Chris showed up at our Winter Conference. I really didn't make the connection until we were driving home from the conference and I saw the Wendy's off the exit. As I sat with Shekinah at a coffee shop on Thursday afternoon and heard her story, I was convinced that God has a divine purpose for her being at Northwestern. I don't know what's going to happen but I do have full confidence that the Holy Spirit is stirring some things up! I'm excited to see what will come of it. One last interesting thing about my trip to Northwestern - they certainly have the creepiest mascot I've ever seen. Yes, that is a demon wearing tennis shoes and jeans! I just can't bring myself to say "go demons"! (And I can't figure out how to flip pictures in blogger so if anyone knows, please tell me! It was just too creepy to leave the picture out)

Organic Church Conference Thoughts Part???

I've been really contemplating this Organic Church Conference that I attended last weekend this week. The first night Deb Hirsch spoke and I keep going back to her talk. Here are her main points and some things taht I got out of them:

Obstacles that keep us from engaging in the mission:
1. Wrong view of Jesus
We tend to view Jesus through our cultural and religious lens instead of seeing him as he is. A good way to counter this is through spending time in the gospels. I totally agreed with this point. As I've spent time in the last years just reading the gospels they've really changed my view of Jesus.
2. Wrong view of ourselves
We act out of what we think - a year of counseling and heartbreak really showed this to be true in my life.
3. Wrong view of others.
One thing that struck me about this point is that if some one asks a group of Christians what is true about all people, the first thing we tend to say is "they are a sinner" but that's not the first thing that's true about all people. The first thing is that all people are created in the image of God and in some way reflect that. It totally changes the way we view people when we think through this lens.
4. Distorted view of love
We tend to see love as only romantic love - "Hollywood love", but love often brings pain. It made me think of some of my best friends. Being in relationship with them has often caused pain but there is also real love there.
5. Distorted view of the world
We tend to see the world through our socioeconomic status. Wow - my view of the world has dramatically changed living in New Orleans so I couldn't agree with this more!
6. Distorted view about money and status
Deb spent a lot of time on this point because the church has bought into the "American dream". We want to follow Jesus without sacrificing our money or our status. I find that to be so true and it's not following this Jesus I read about in the Gospels - very convicting point!
7. Wrong view of the family
In Jesus' time, the family unit wasn't the nuclear family - it was a whole community. We tend to isolate with our family rather than view the community as valuable.

She ended by saying that the church has joined the culture rather than be followers of Jesus. That's so true and it's often difficult to know how to even get out of the culture. It was the first of many challenging things I heard over the weekend.

News Worthy

In the wee hours of the morning, I got home from the Organic Church Conference in California (after being delayed in Dallas for NO reason) and pulled myself out of bed early to give my good friends a ride to the airport for their vacation. Since one of my friends works for a major news network, we were chatting about the happenings over the weekend. On Friday, a girl in Baton Rouge walked into a technical college and killed two people and then herself. I asked him if he'd been sent to cover that story and his answer was "no, it wasn't important enough....really she killed herself too quickly for it to be news worthy". Now, this wasn't his decision, it was a network decision but I was shocked. The other "big" event in Louisiana this weekend was the presidential primary which did get major news coverage.

I think coming off of this conference where we talked so much about Christ, His Kingdom and His love for people, I was especially bothered by this. An act of violence that "only" killed three people was no longer sensational enough to warrant a major news story. Three lives were taken because something was so broken in this woman that she found the only way to fix it was to take a gun, kill two classmates and then herself....yet in our society that has now become less important than who will win the democratic primary. I think that must deeply grieve the heart of Jesus - the one who created those three lives that were taken....not only created them but created them in His image with a divine purpose for their lives.

Over the weekend, we kept singing a song taken from Isaiah 61. I've probably heard these verses many times before but living in the midst of the brokenness of life has opened my eyes so much to the hope of those verses.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon Me,
For the Lord has anointed Me
To bring GOOD NEWS to the POOR
He has sent Me to COMFORT the BROKENHEARTED
And to proclaim that CAPTIVES will be RELEASED
And PRISONERS will be FREED
He has sent Me to tell those who MOURN that the time of the Lord's FAVOR HAS COME.....
He will give a crown of beauty for ahses
A joyous blessing instead of mourning
Festive praise instead of despair
In their righteousness they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for His own glory.

Later in Luke 4, Jesus reads a part of this passage and says "The Scripture you've heard has been fulfilled this very day".

That really struck me, especially coming off of this conference. In Jesus and in Him alone is there hope, is there healing, is there what we need for the brokenness of the world - and He came to bring that.

So, it makes me wonder why we (the church) are so ineffective. It seems that we have more strategies, more money, more graphics and highly creative people than ever before but some how we're not brining this Jesus. We're bringing our very best but that's the problem - it's our very best rather than the Savior.

I guess that I'm at the place where I have to believe that only this Jesus can heal the deepest pains and it's not going happen if we do things the way we've done them for the last 50 years or so. Although I feel great despair when I look at the world around me. I also feel great hope about what is to come. I no longer want to live with a God that is convenient and neat, I want to live with God as He is - to know and believe and see that God. I have a feeling that it may rock my little Christian world, but I'm excited by the journey and thankful for the companions I'm finding along the way.

Mardi Gras

When most people outside of New Orleans think of Mardi Gras, hundreds of negative images come to mind.....wild streets filled with half-naked women is probably the most common one. What people outside of New Orleans don't realize is that the Mardi Gras they see is the Mardi Gras of the tourists. It's not the Mardi Gras that those who live here love to celebrate.

This is my second Mardi Gras and it has reminded me of the many reasons that I love this city. It's a city full of color and celebration. For five days, families and friends take time to gather and to celebrate.



It reminds me of what is good about this city - that people really care about each other....that relationships are more important than efficiency (which can be seen in how long it is taking to actually rebuild this city)....that traditions matter.



So on the eve of Ash Wednesday, I find myself sad that the Carnival season is over....no more parades to attend or balls to prepare for....no more King Cake on the aisles in stores....no more reason to spend an entire Sunday afternoon sitting outside catching beads and chatting with friends. Well, at least not until St. Patrick's Day! You've got to love a city that can always find a reason to celebrate!