Word Vomit

Urban Ministry: CityLights & why I kept going back

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past 4 and a half years of my life. As a person fresh out of college and trying to figure out life outside of the world that was my alma mater, I’ve been pondering: how did I become the person I am today? My life has been radically transformed over the past few years. How do I reconcile who I am today with returning back to the place where I was a completely different person? What does it look like and how do I continue the path I’ve been set on since stepping onto the Geneseo campus 4 and a half years ago?

To figure that out, my thoughts have gone to reminiscing over the most significant experiences I’ve had in college. CityLights, my InterVarsity chapter’s annual spring break missions trip to St. Louis comes to mind as the primary formative experiences I’ve had.

I’ve attended this trip all 4 years of college and spent a summer before my junior year as an intern with that program. Why did I spend so much time there? Why did I go so many times? Coming in as a freshman, I wanted to go serve. I had never done any type of service trip or been in a place of such poverty. I went to make my contribution to making the world a better place. By the end of that trip, and what I had not anticipated, I fell in love with everything that was St. Louis. The people, the Church, the culture, the diversity, etc. At first, I was overwhelmed with all the problems and injustices that existed in St. Louis but so much more in love with God as I learned that He cared for these things, that it grieved His heart, and actually called the Church to be part in His doing something about it all.

I expected that over time, and with more visits to the city, I would become more knowledgeable about how to do urban ministry. I would become more knowledgeable about the systems that caused such social injustice, more knowledgeable about the kind of crime and violence and brokenness of the city, and at last, knowledgeable about what ways God would use me in “fixing” all the problems.

After 4 years, I find that God has given me none of those things. Rather, I’ve found that after 4 years, the only thing that I’ve grown knowledgeable about is the fact that all of that violence, brokenness, habits and systems the perpetuate injustice… I am that. I am all of those things. 4 years of partnering with the ministries down in St. Louis to find that the same sins that you see responsible for the brokenness, systematic injustice, and plight of the urban poor are the same sins that wreck and impoverishes my soul and my life.

I not only am that. But, I need that.

I need all the wreckage and brokenness I saw in the city to reveal the wreckage and brokenness in my own life that has pervaded so deeply and diseased my soul. Perhaps I wasn’t conscious of it my first few tours in the city. But on some level, I think that’s why I kept going back. Because until I was out of my comfort zone and away from all my familiarities, part of me was blind and numb to my need for a deliverer and savior. St. Louis’ poverty revealed my own poverty of soul. Its need for Jesus revealed my need for Him. Funny how I once thought this city “needed” me. Turns out, I’ve needed it all along.

Jesus, I know that You are everywhere. I am only so comfortable where I am so much as I allow myself to be. As I find myself with new and different barriers to seeing Your face, I pray that I would keep looking for You. That I would trust that You said if I knocked, You would answer. I need You. I constantly need You. Help me to follow You to the places that desperately need the love of a Savior and to find that I too, am desperate for one.

IVCF on Campus. Does it even matter?

I want to share something I came across today. InterVarsity posted this link today as the establishment of christian fellowships on university campuses are being challenged.

http://www.intervarsity.org/blog/intervarsity-important-campus-because

“This past year, InterVarsity’s ministry has been challenged on 41 campuses (most recently at the University of Buffalo and Vanderbilt University). And while InterVarsity does not enjoy such disagreements, they do provide an opportunity to showcase the value of having an InterVarsity chapter on today’s campus.

So InterVarsity would like to know: Do you believe that InterVarsity makes a difference on today’s campus? If so, how is InterVarsity a positive influence in the university world?”

It got me thinking back to a conversation I had with a student leader back when I was a freshman on campus. We were talking about InterVarsity, its purpose, and the future of our fellowship. We got to talking about our presence as a body of Christ on campus in the present and started dreaming about what it would look like if InterVarsity became such a presence on our campus so much so that if we ceased to exist here our absence would be mourned.

Why? Because maybe..

The people in InterVarsity were the ones who cared. They were the ones who were active in student life on campus. They responded to the needs of the campuses, they were in tune with relevant issues on campus, whether a death in the student body or a natural disaster halfway around the world, InterVarsity was the first to respond. Maybe the people in InterVarsity were the ones pushing the envelope of reconciliation on campus and doing justice. Maybe they were the ones who were not just relevant in their own little pockets of campus life, but they engaged the whole campus. They were the ones who cared.

So the above page from InterVarsity really has me thinking. Does our campus need InterVarsity? Are we a positive influence on campus life? As a ministry, what do we exist for? 

In my understanding and in my time in InterVarsity, IVCF exists as a ministry to the university not a ministry who happens to be on a college campus. We are on campus on purpose. InterVarsity is not a place of escape for the Christian from the world. It is a place where transformation and spiritual formation happen to go deeper and engage more holistically with the world around us. We are called to be a redeeming influence among university people, ideas, and structures. God said He was making all things new, not all new things. So, we do not exist as a ministry for the sake of ourselves, but we exist for the sake of His purposes for the world around us: the campus. We are called to be partners in God’s plan of redemption, renewal, and restoration of a broken world.

So if InterVarsity ceased to exist on our campus, would it matter just for the members or would campus life suffer a significant loss? On campus or not, does it make a difference?

For those of you still on campus, this is not a critique but an invitation to dream with me and the student leaders who have gone before you. Does it matter if we’re on campus or not?

Brothers and sisters still on campus, may I humbly submit to you a request: do better than us. If we believe that this dying world needs Jesus, may we live out that radical kind of love and life that the campus can’t simply live without. 

When this vision was first presented to me as a freshman, I remember being so enamored by the idea of it all. What a wondrous vision: The kingdom of God advancing into Geneseo. I hope and pray that it would fill you as well with such awe and wonder. That it would be fuel for these dreams to be brought into fruition.

I love the Geneseo campus, down to every last detail. It’s been a blessing that God has entrusted the campus and its people to me to love for a short while. I believe He makes us caretakers of this place while we are called to be there as students. With each new class of freshmen, I am blessed and encouraged to see future leaders and disciples of Christ who will be the hands and feet of Jesus on campus. As a former caretaker of the campus, I am delighted to leave it to such wonderful people. And I humbly ask of you again: do better than us. 

 ”Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. -Phil. 3:12-14

Rediscovering Jesus in the City

I’m back on Long Island after a week and a half trip to Geneseo. I spent about half-hour in Penn Station waiting for the LIRR. In that half-hour, I witnessed 2 different people on 2 separate occasions belittle and verbally abuse service workers and sat across the table from a woman who seemed to suffer from Schizophrenia.

Since I’ve gone to school in upstate NY, I’ve noticed that the more time I’ve spent up there, the more culture shock I would feel when coming back to Long Island during college breaks. So at first, I was bitter. Bitter that I was back downstate rather than upstate. Annoyed at the crowds of people and already wanting to make plans to move back to beautiful, amiable, and wide-open upstate NY.

Next, I got kicked out of McDonald’s. You’re only allowed to sit for about 20 minutes. That made me even more annoyed with the City. As I gathered my things and made my way to the LIRR’s waiting area, I recalled my conversation with Pastor Dave earlier today. With the St. Louis trip coming up for my fellowship back in Geneseo, we were talking about my future and how Dave realizes that I’ve grown a heart for ministry in cities in my 4 years of attendance at CityLights. I was taken aback by how his observations contrasted my current sentiments.

I know I love the city. I’ve loved seeing God move in cities. I love how cities are places of many different cultures and people. It’s diverse. It’s exciting. Dave was right. I do love cities.

So what’s changed?

Yes, the people in general are meaner down here than in upstate in general. I feel like that’s a natural result in densely populated areas. But that’s not news… downstate hasn’t changed. I have.

I used to not be phased by the “mean” culture that is downstate NY. When I went to school, strangers were drastically kinder to me. I started to prefer upstate’s culture to the one I had grown up with. And my time at Citylights taught me to look deeper into city culture with a new set of eyes to see the brokenness of the city and its people.

Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of post-graduate life that makes me find any little reason to reject life here and return to what is now more comfortable: life in western NY. Whatever the case, I was convicted that I was feeling so annoyed to be back.

I started to think about Gerry, the director of CityLights, my role model, and my adoptive father. Over the years, I’ve observed how he interacts with his environment, how he approaches ministry, people, etc. What were the differences in his everyday living that made him such a force of calvary-like love and transformation in the city of St. Louis? I wondered what it would look like if Gerry were walking in my steps tonight. What would it look like?

I recalled an experience I had with him at a Waffle House during the summer of 2009. It was about 3am. We were driving around together and we stopped in for a late-night snack. He was so kind to the woman behind the counter. Knowing it was a graveyard shift, he looked around the back knowing that she’d probably been on her feet for hours and seeing that there was no place for her to sit and rest her feet. He gracefully struck up a conversation about her. He was engaged with her. He showed such a profound level of compassion and empathy for this stranger. Upon leaving, he left her an extremely generous tip. The woman was so blessed. It was such a small thing but it left a profound mark in my memory. People in the service industry are treated with no dignity. But I saw Jesus that night. Gerry sees the situation with a different set of eyes. It’s what I believe to be a new set of eyes followers of Jesus should see the world with. He saw her the way Jesus sees her.

Consider the woman across from me possibly suffering from mental illness. She’s society’s outcast. Much like the lepers in Biblical times, she’s “unclean” or “untouchable”. She belongs to the kind of people that we do not want to associate with. We pretend not to see them so much so that maybe, we really don’t see them anymore. I know that was me. There are so many people in the city like that. I forced myself not to see them to avoid the internal conflict between my uncompassionate heart and the work of the Spirit. And so, over time, I really didn’t see them.

How did Jesus treat the social outcasts of His time? Take the story of the leper for instance in Mark 1. Jesus heals the leper. Not only does He heal him, Jesus touches him. In that time, people used to run across the street away from a leper screaming, “Unclean! Unclean!” Can you imagine for this leper how long it must have been since he had human contact? What does it do to a person’s soul to not even be dignified as a human being with one simple touch? Jesus could have simply said, “Be healed!” and by His words, the leper would be healed. We’ve seen that happen in the Gospels where Jesus heals simply by uttering words. But no, Jesus saw that the leper needed also the healing that would come from touch, human contact, for the first time in a long time. Oh to love like Jesus. To see how He sees. What a difference it would make!

I stand convicted that I am not a loving person. I don’t love Jesus as much as I love comfort and familiarity. And I certainly do not love His people. I especially do not love people who may be rougher around the edges. The city is full of broken people. It’s crowded with them. The problem doesn’t lie in the masses of broken people but within my own broken and unloving self. I’m annoyed with the crowds of broken people. Jesus was constantly followed and pursued by crowds broken people. He was never annoyed with them. Mark 6:34 says, “When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.”

The service workers, the mentally ill, the homeless… you might compare them to the “sparrows” in Matthew 10. Seemingly insignificant to us, but are loved and cared for all the same by our Heavenly Father. How do we treat the “sparrows” in our lives?

Jesus, I’m so sorry for the way I’ve grown so complacent. Renew my mind and give me a new set of eyes to see the world in light of the Gospel. Teach me how to love like You. Transform my life and give me a heart that loves the unlovable and touches the untouchable. May I never just be a passerby but change me to live the kind of life that reflects the good news of Jesus Christ wherever I go. In the big things and the little things, may You be glorified.

The city desperately needs Jesus. Gerry is taking up his cross in St. Louis. What will I do? What will we do?

I love the city. I really do. 

Community

“Worship is not about God needing us, as if our love and admiration were necessary for God to feel complete. God is not that co-dependent. The beauty is not that God needs us, but that God wants us. The love of the Trinity was so big that it spilled over into the creation of man and woman. The love of the Trinity was so big, we were created to share in the community of God. And we are the image of that love. If loving communion is at the core of the Trinity, then it is also the core of who we are. “Who am I?” cannot be answered without asking “Who are we?” We cannot properly know ourselves until we conceive of God and our neighbor.

Liturgy invites us into a new “we”. The Church actually reflects the most diverse community in the world—white, black, and all shades in between, rich and poor, all walks of life … called together to bring our lives and our cultures and become a new community.”

Watch Night (From the book of Common Prayer)

Established in African-American communities on December 31, 1862, Watch Night is a gathering to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation becoming law. When the clock struck midnight on January 1, 1863, all slaves in the Confederate States were proclaimed free. Since that date 146 years ago, African-Americans have celebrated the good news of freedom in local churches on New Year’s Eve. Like the slaves who first gathered while the Civil War raged on, we proclaim freedom for all captives in Jesus’ name, knowing that for millions, freedom is not a reality. Our celebration is a commitment to join modern-day slaves and undocumented workers in their struggle for justice.

Shout the glad tidings o’er Egypt’s dark sea : Jehovah has triumphed; his people are free!

Writing about the first Watch Night, Booker T. Washington said, “As the great day grew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. True, they had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain that the ‘freedom’ in these songs referred to the next world, and had no connection with life in this world. Now they gradually threw off the mask; and were not afraid to let it be known that the ‘freedom’ in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world.”

Lord, we know that freedom will prevail because you are already victorious. Help us never lose hope, never stop celebrating your victory, and never stop walking alongside those who struggle to see this freedom come on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

—-

Brothers and Sisters, celebrate His kingdom advancing on Earth as it is in heaven! Rejoice with all the church as we remember the end of the last great global tyranny on earth and continue to pray for the end of today’s modern day slave trade. God has been and will forever be faithful in bringing His justice forth. Hallelujah!

Ministry

“More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems.

My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.”

– Henri Nouwen

Common Prayer

Fourth-century church father Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “God became human and poor for our sake, to raise up our flesh, to recover our divine image, to recreate humanity. We no longer observe distinctions arriving from the flesh, but are to bear within ourselves only the seal of God, by whom and for whom we were created. We are to be so formed and molded by Jesus that we are recognized as belonging to his one family. If only we could be what we hope to be, by the great kindness of our generous God!”

Lord, your coming is still miraculous. Your joining the family of the poor and displaced still baffles and convicts us. Keep us by your manger until we learn the way of love. Amen.

O Holy Night

“Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.”

                        -Placide Cappeau

Drawing from the book Everyday Justice by Julie Clawson

In 1847, after this songs release in France, a French bishop denounced the song for its “lack of musical taste and total absence of the spirit of religion.” The author of this now popular Christmas carol apparently faced opposition for his “extreme” political views, namely his opposition to inequality, slavery, injustice, and other kinds of oppression. The bishop didn’t consider such stances to represent “proper religious values”.

The song captures Paul’s message to Philemon, a message seemingly forgotten in most of the church by the nineteenth century. Yet a few brave people were willing to adopt unpopular, “extreme” views because they recognized those views in the Bible. They grasped the revolutionary nature of the call to embrace the slave as our brother, and thus they took on the challenge of ending slavery in their own day. This wasn’t just a social movement; this was a spiritual commitment to seek justice and love their neighbor.

——

As we take the time to meditate and reflect on Jesus this Christmas, let us once again consider what it meant when Word became flesh.

Bishop N.T. Wright has written “The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term in the future. And what he was promising for that future and doing in the present was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way of the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose - and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that large project.”

And what was Jesus’ ministry all about? In Luke 4:

   ¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
   because he has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
   and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
   ¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 ²⁰ Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. ²¹ He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

We are reminded today that the birth of Jesus marks the Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. As Jesus told the pharisees in Luke 17, the Kingdom is not something that is here or there but it is in our midst. With that same Spirit alive in us who believe, wherever we step, whatever we do, whatever we say, our very presence should proclaim the good news that Christ the liberator has come!

May this season be more than just a time to reflect on the personal benefits of the coming of Jesus. May this season be a time when we remember everything that it meant when Jesus came and let it stir us into action as we are called to take this message to the ends of the earth. That call, not reserved for a specific few but a call on ALL who believe to lay their lives down for the living Christ and His purposes for the world.

“Steadfast God, perhaps one of the greatest mysteries is why you continue to entrust the work of your kingdom into our clumsy hands. But we are forever grateful that you do not want to change the world without us. May we become the church you dream of. Amen.”