Clogged.

I stopped an intruder breaking into our home over the weekend. The good news is it all went down while the kids were gone.

For the past 4 days, we'd been dealing with a clogged toilet. Because I'm stubborn, proud and too lazy to call a plumber, I kept working on it myself. Plunger. Roto Rooter. Hot Water. Some stupid "green" solution using kitchen items. I had tried it all and nothing was working.

I finally broke down and borrowed my dad's plunger, which is better than mine. Yeah, I know, aren't all plungers created equally?

I also borrowed his snake. A disgusting and annoying tool of plumbers everywhere that's a lot like that weird thing they do in medical dramas when they jam the tube down somebody's throat. And let's also establish the truth that I don't like anything with the word snake in it. Except maybe Whitesnake. But other than that snake brings nothing redeeming or encouraging to my mind.

If I'm being honest and I'd like to think I am, snaking a toilet is just about as awful a task as I've had to do as a home owner. It's like playing the disgust-o lottery. You are gambling on what will turn up and the odds of getting a prize you actually want is pretty much slim. What could you possibly find deep in the pipes of your toilet that you want? And yet you hope every time you do it that something does turn up since your toilet is broken.

As a sidelight, if you ever find yourself snaking a toilet make sure its not rusty and sharp like my dads. Otherwise you will end up scraping the inside of your toilet like crazy leaving it unclogged but looking worse than ever. Not that it happened to me mind you. Not saying I'm now researching how to restore the ceramic finish on the inside of my toilet bowl. But I could be.

So off I go "snaking my toilet" or in other words, wasting a perfectly good Sunday night when my kids are gone. And much to my dismay I learn that doing this particular task is something that must require a class or an apprenticeship because I can't seem to make any progress.

I finally begin to succeed when I encounter a stopping point. According to my extensive online research this is good news and may be moment of breakthrough. I find this both encouraging and terrifying.

So off I go, cranking clockwise. It's kind of like fishing except instead of an amazing Salmon or Steelhead out of the Deschutes River in Eastern Oregon I'm trying to pull something out of my toilet. It's like River Monsters meets Dirty Jobs.

And then it happens.

The water changes color a bit. Turns out that's the rust off the snake. But I see something in the shallow, murky, cold water. But in this significant moment of breakthrough I reach right in.

Since I've had time to reflect I realize this was stupid. In this case it worked out but I feel as though any time I would do this for the rest of my life it will not work out as well.

And that's when I found the intruder. Trying to sneak his way into our home and swipe all the things we love. It's a plastic Swiper toy from Dora the Explorer.

And he has this annoying grin on his face.

The next day I asked the kids about our masked toilet clogger. Turns out they were well aware he was in there. For the sake of time I won't record the dialogue that happened after that. Let's just say it involved a number of questions from me met with blank stares and shoulder shrugging from the kids.

Based on my interrogation though it sounds as though Swiper was working alone.

I've since returned my dad's snake and his vastly superior but unnecessary plunger. And it seems as though things are once again working as they should. Now to fix all those scratches.

Sight

After a fun day serving in East New York, our team was walking back to the subway to begin our trek home to Brooklyn. All week there have been interactions with folks on the street that everybody in our group has at one time or another. Sometimes its one of the guys from LMFAO panhandling in the Subway and other times it is friendly folks curious why 27 white folks from the midwest have come to the city. My favorite question by one Manhattan worker turned teacher today was "Did they come here to see what real poverty looks like?"

But as we approached the entrance to the Subway and prepared for 45 minutes underground with our thoughts, the now familiar screech of metal on metal and whoever God crossed our path with, I was stopped by a lady. "What are you guys, some company or organization?" I explained who we were and she shared how good what we were doing was. She happened to be living in the shelter we had served today. A place filled with 40 beds that are always filled by women escaping violent and abusive situations. "I've got some things I need to get right in my life," she said, "but after that I'm gonna do mission service with my life too. That's what God has in store for me." And at that point I thought this had been a cool interaction. "I have an artificial eye." she continued. "I lost it a domestic violence situation but I'm getting better."

I don't believe in any of that teleportation stuff that they do in Star Trek. But I do think there are moments where we are transported to another time and place as stories connect. In that moment it happened to me. Suddenly I wasn't in New York anymore but in a special little town in Cambodia. And it wasn't a woman I'd never met before who was before me but a little girl. And she was blind in both eyes from a different type of physical violence. And once again I wasn't angry as much as I was broken.

There's a lot of places my mind runs at this very moment. I've had a little time to think about this, I've been confronted with a though and scripture from my friend Joel that whacked me in the soul while he was leading a debrief of his students. So why do I share this here? I think because I need help to process and sometimes writing helps me.

Here's what I know: my little boy will respect all women all the time. He will treat them with dignity and he will protect them like he would his own sister. I know why i love my little girl so much and why I care who she meets, where she goes and who she will date some day. I don't own a shotgun, truth is I probably couldn't load one but I am tall, bald and ugly and that has its advantages as well.

But more than all that I'm reminded of why kingdom work matters. Everything we do, no matter who we are has the opportunity to redeem. To reconcile. To reconnect. It has the opportunity to provide hope. And healing. Whether it is preaching a sermon, pulling weeds, giving a kind glance or giving a few dollars to show people that they are worth something. Its why I love my friends here in New York who are giving their lives to help people connect with Jesus. Its why I love these 20 8th grade kids who are using their spring break to learn and serve and grow. And its why I'm praying that they all bring hope to the world in whatever way God's gifted them to do so. Even that one who won't shut up when we turn the lights out to go to sleep at night.

And its why I'm praying one of them falls in love with the particular city and comes back here to live and serve.

And its why I'm praying for my friend I met on the sidewalk to be restored so she can claim beauty out of ashes.

And its why I'm praying for my sister in the faith in Cambodia that she will continue to be transformed into the beautiful flower God has designed her to be in the midst of the dry and dusty soil she was planted in.

Head vs Heart

About a week ago I ran across this question in my quiet time. Its from a great little book my mentor gave me a while back Mystics,Mavericks and Miracle Workers: a 30-day journey with some saints. Here it is:
"In your relationship with God what has carried the most influence: feelings or intellect?"

**necessary paragraph** Obviously both are necessary. God created us as rational beings but also as emotional ones. One without the other is dangerous. We all know people who live too much in one camp or the other.

I've been wrestling through this question because I don't know how I answer this. When I think of significant moments in life, moments when the Spirit really kicks my tail, I'm finding my answer to be yes. Yes, because they influence on another. It's why it stirs so deeply inside me when it happens. And I've not yet figured out how to manipulate that or mass produce those moments. In fact the truth is the only thing I've brought to those breakthrough moments is my attention.

Combine that with the reminder these past couple weeks of just how faithful God is has my head spinning. I've grown up always looking to grow, always looking to change, always looking to become better. And I think I'm called to that to some extent. But I'm also seen as perfect by the one who knows me best. That doesn't make sense on an intellectual or emotional level. I am fully known by Him and that's not something to be ashamed of. In fact its something to embrace.

So here's to remembering again that He doesn't change. He never fails. He is always active. He is always there. And in a world where we value change, innovation, transformation and development, the greatest thing in the whole universe is the same today as He was 4000 years ago and that's a good thing. A good thing. Steady isn't always bad. And steady doesn't mean stagnant, stale or lame. It means if He is already awesome, already more than i can comprehend, already perfect than why change? It means no matter if I connect on a head level or a heart level, its tapping into what will only make sense on the other side of eternity.

Distribution vs Redistribution

Sometimes I write because I am confused. My hope is that by putting some words down things will start to connect. The danger of that is when I do it in a public space, you can see how dumb I am. This might be the case here. But more on that later.

I had the chance to hang out with some incredible people last week in Indianapolis. They are the CCDA and you can learn more about them at www.ccda.org If you haven’t heard of them or their founder John Perkins, you should remedy that problem as soon as you can. They are great thinkers but more than that, they are great practitioners on their thoughts. They aren’t perfect, but they are putting their words into action on a daily basis and that’s never a bad place to live.

In the midst of hanging out with them, one of their core values kept coming up, redistribution.  And that got me to thinking.

At its most basic level I got to wondering, what is the difference between distribution and redistribution?

Ok, besides the fact that one word as re on the front of it.

But that’s not a bad place to start. This prefix as they called it in my English classes is an important little thing. We in the church are very comfortable with the gifts that are ours because of re. Redeemed, restored, reconciled, removed and renewed are all Biblical concepts we’d be hopeless without. But how does that play out with distribution?

So we move to a Webster look at re to learn that it brings with it: 1.  indicating return to a previous condition, restoration, withdrawal, etc: rebuild; renew; retrace; reunite 2.  indicating repetition of an action: recopy; remarry

 

Here’s where I’m at today with all this. When I dig in scripture I don’t find the word redistribution. Not even in the Message. I do find a couple appearances by distribution. (Thanks MSG) Now the fact that I’m about to quote passages not from the NIV might make some of you uncomfortable but follow me for a second.

One is in John 3. "The One that God sent speaks God's words. And don't think he rations out the Spirit in bits and pieces. The Father loves the Son extravagantly. He turned everything over to him so he could give it away—a lavish distribution of gifts. That is why whoever accepts and trusts the Son gets in on everything, life complete and forever! “ (The Message)

Another is Acts 6. “But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.” (New Living Translation)

If I am being honest, I’m confused. Here’s what I’m taking away from this as of right now though: That when it comes to redistribution, it’s not about what I accumulate, but rather how I use what I’ve been given to empower and bless not just myself. When I think like that, it starts to sound like sound stewardship. It starts to sound like the way Jesus gifts us as believers. And that starts to smack against the way I sometimes distribute things based on what I want to give up or based on what I think you deserve. Otherwise I start to sound like a selfish only child. And when I see myself as a distributor, I put myself in a position of power that isn’t mine. And it starts to sound like a bad transactional relationship. I have a shirt; you need a shirt so take it and go away. No relationship, no ongoing partnership, no looking at the other as someone with value and someone who can speak into my weaknesses with their strength. 

So maybe I am trying to create a difference here that shouldn’t exist. But they are two different words thanks to re right?

Here’s what our friends at the CCDA say about redistribution and I like their words much more than mine right now.

“When men and women in the body of Christ are visibly present and living among the poor (relocation), and when people are intentionally loving their neighbor and their neighbor's family the way a person loves him or herself and family (reconciliation), the result is redistribution, or a just distribution of resources.

When God's people with resources (regardless of their race or culture) commit to living in underserved communities seeking to be good neighbors, being examples of what it means to be a follower of Christ, working for justice for the entire community, and utilizing their skills and resources to address the problems of that community alongside their neighbors, then redistribution is being practiced.

Redistribution brings the principles of Justice back to the underserved communities. Justice has left communities of color and lower economic status, leaving an unjust criminal court and prison system, unjust hiring practices, unjust housing development and injustice in the educational institutions. Justice has been available only to people with the economic means to acquire just treatment.

Redistribution brings new skills, new relationships, and new resources and puts them to work to empower the residents of a given community of need to bring about healthy transformation. This is redistribution.”

http://www.ccda.org/learn/philosophy/86-redistribution

So………

Are all mission trips created equal?

It's the weekend between our 2 weeks of CIY Engage the City here in Joplin. I cannot begin to tell you all the amazing things I heard, all the powerful ways God moved and all the unexpected moments that have happened and continue to unfold each day. At some point I hope to share a few of these stories as I know these 2 weeks here this summer are something that will shape who I am for the rest of my life.

My time here has certainly shaped more of my feelings and understandings about service and about the trips we take in youth ministry. There is one glimpse I'd like to share here that might help shed some light for all of us as we think about the trips we take our students on.

I had the opportunity to meet a group here in Joplin last week that was from out of state. I don't know all the details of how they ended up in Joplin but they came with a van load, a desire to serve but little preparation. They happened to be serving at one of the locations where part of our Engage teams were serving as well. As I talked with them I learned that they had found housing at the last minute and had found this one option for serving while here in Joplin. Other than that, there was nothing "built" around their service to help the trip equip them for ways to continue to engage their own community when they got home.

I compare their experience with what we saw last week. I do not say this to toot the CIY horn by any means but hopefully to help us see that we have to be intentional with our trips. Our groups were able to engage God's word in the morning, to serve in a variety of ways during the day but most importantly to hear from the churches here in Joplin each night. Whether it was a person impacted by the tornado, a survivor, a first responder, a variety of kingdom workers or a pastor sharing how their church was helping we learned a ton about what God is doing and what he has taught each of them.

Our groups were also able to take part in a prayer journey through the city, spent a great deal of time journaling and reflecting and even a beautiful prayer wall experience. At the end of the week our groups and theirs both did work. But it was all the other details that made the trip truly memorable and equipped them with Biblical truth and principles that equip them to do kingdom work when they get home. Not only did we engage our hands but also our heads and hearts.

At the end of the day, we take our students on service and mission trips in the hopes that it teaches them things that make a difference every day of their lives. These things do not happen by accident and students (and adults for that matter) need tools to think, to listen and to process. Debrief isn't just everybody telling a funny story at the end of the night. It's the hardest and i think most vital part of the experience as we together sharpen one another and develop tangible steps on how the things we do during the day make an impact on what we will do tomorrow.

So do me a favor, think back on your latest mission trip. Can you clearly articulate things that changed for the better in the lives of your students because of their trip. This isn't just the fun things they saw and ate. This is the people they learned from, the things God showed them and the changes that happened internally and externally because they gave their time and their full energy to become stronger disciples of Jesus.

Anybody can take a trip but not every trip is really worth the investment of dollars and peoples lives. It's why I love our teams at CIY. Trust me, we have plenty of things to learn but I'm grateful for the men and women who are dedicating their lives to worrying about the details and being intentional about all the things that create environments for God's call on a students life can be clearly heard.  There are things youth pastors can do that we at CIY cannot. But the reverse is also true and I hope that you will consider serving with us in the future so that together we can continue to train kingdom workers who are going to do things for God that will truly change our world.