New Eyes

Only a few people know this piece of my testimony and I think it is important to know about me to understand why I am where I am doing what I am.

I'm quiet.  My spoken words are few.  I think and write in more depth than I would ever say out loud. According to my parents, it was a long time before I used real words to speak, usually grunting or pointing to communicate what I wanted.  Fast forward through the awkward middle school and high school years of not growing as quickly as other kids, not wanting any attention or ridicule to come my way.  I found keeping quiet was the most strategic way to achieve this.  

Going forward to my freshman year of college, I had very few friends.  Yes, I'd talk to my randomly selected roommate when he was there.  Yes, if someone on my wing was around, I'd talk to them.  Often not exactly sure what I was doing in college, no real long term goals in my mind except that I'd probably be working towards a symphony job.  What I had going for me going into college--had a girlfriend, was in a good small Bible study, was enjoying what I was learning in my music classes.  Heading into the second semester, I no longer had a girlfriend (which took a toll emotionally), the Bible study dwindled down to just me and the Bible study leader (I didn't think it was going to continue), and again, still had very few friends.  Being the quiet guy I was, it wouldn't take too much effort to go a couple days at a time without talking.  Please don't feel bad for me, I'm an introvert and prefer spending time by myself over being around lots of people.

I wouldn't say this happened in an instant, and I don't think I realized this until years later, but what happened that second semester proved to be a pivotal part of my life.  Andrew, my Bible study leader who was a senior that year, could've easily decided that it wasn't worth continuing a study when barely anybody was able or wanted to.  He came to me, approached me and said he wanted to hang out once a week.  No study, no agenda, just hang out.  I agreed, mainly because it was very strange for me for a senior to want to spend time getting to know a freshman who didn't talk much, had really very little to offer in relationships.  I would eventually look back and notice that this was a clear example of God's pursuit of us.  No visible reason for Him to devote concern for me, yet it made a huge difference for how I viewed myself and how I eventually viewed others.

In the next couple of years, I received new eyes.  If I went to Primetime (the weekly meetings for a campus ministry I attended), if I saw someone sitting by themselves, I saw me.  He might just need a friend, not just someone to talk to them, but to relate to them.  My eyes would look to those ignored, those neglected, those forgotten.  Cars need to be filled with gasoline in order to function correctly.  Humans physically need to be filled with calories in order to function correctly.  I feel that mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, humans need unconditional love and displays of grace in order to obtain dignity and be truly full.  This new way of looking at life that God put in my heart led to many decisions and experiences that led to my eventual ditching of music as a career path and my path towards the inner city.  I feel many urban areas are forgotten about, ignored, or generalized.  Imagine a man from the inner city.  Describe them.  You might have to describe them based on what you see or hear on the news.  What could it look like if instead of isolated from people in the inner city, who are mostly black, people from the majority group sought to bring the minority into the whole of society.

Here's an excerpt from the book Generous Justice written by Tim Keller.

"An intriguing real life example of an entire community doing justice and seeking shalom is laid out in Yale professor Nora Ellen Croce's book 'Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language.'  In the 1980's Croce was researching hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard.  In the seventeenth century the original European settlers were all from a region in Kent, England, called 'the Weald' where there was a high incidence of hereditary deafness.  Because of their geographical isolation and intermarriage the percentage of deaf people increased across the whole island.  By the nineteenth century one out of twenty-five people in the town of Chilmark was deaf and in another small settlement almost a quarter of the people could not hear. (Today, because of the mobility of the population and marriage with off-islanders, hereditary deafness has vanished.  The last deaf person born on the Vineyard died in 1952.)

In most societies, physically handicapped people are forced to adapt to the life patterns of the nonhandicapped, but that is not what happened on the Vineyard.  One day Croce was interviewing an older island resident and she asked him what the hearing people thought of the deaf people.  'We didn't think anything about them, they were just like everyone else,' he replied.  Croce responded that it must have been necessary for everyone to write things down on paper in order to communicate with them.  The man responded in surprise, 'No, you see everyone here spoke sign language.'  The interviewer asked if he meant the deaf people's families.  No, he answered, 'Everybody in town--I used to speak it, my mother did, everybody.'  Another interviewee said, 'Those people weren't handicapped.  They were just deaf.'  One other remembered, 'They [the deaf] were like anybody else.  I wouldn't be overly kind because they, they'd be sensitive to that.  I'd just treat them the way I treated anybody.'

Indeed, what had happened was that an entire community had disadvantaged itself en masse for the sake of a minority.  Instead of making the nonhearing minority learn to read lips, the whole hearing majority learned signing.  All the hearing became bilingual, so deaf people were able to enter into full social participation.  as a result of 'doing justice' (disadvantaging themselves) the majority 'experienced shalom'--it included people in the social fabric who in other places would have fallen through it.  'When they had socials or anything up in Chilmark, why, everybody would go and they [the deaf] enjoyed it, just as much as anybody did.  they used to have fun--we all did....They were part of the crowd, they were accepted.  They were fishermen and farmers and everything else....Sometimes, if there were more deaf people than hearing there, everyone would speak sign language--just to be polite, you know.'  Deafness as a 'handicap' largely disappeared.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Croce's research was the revelation of how hearing people had their own communication abilities enhanced.  They found many uses for signing besides communication with the deaf.  Children signed to one another during sermons in church or behind a teacher's back at school.  Neighbors could sign to one another over distances in a field or even through a spyglass telescope.  One woman remembers how her father would be able to stand on a windy cliff and sign his intentions to fishermen below.  Another remembers how sick people who could not speak were able to sign to make their needs known.

In other words, the 'disadvantage' that the hearing Vineyarders assumed--the effort and trouble to learn another language--turned out to be for their benefit after all.  their new abilities made life easier and more productive.  they changed their culture in order to include an otherwise disadvantaged minority but in the process made themselves and their society richer.

Martha's Vineyard was a unique situation.  However, in every time and culture, the principle holds.  The strong must disadvantage themselves for the weak, the majority for the minority, or the community frays and the fabric breaks."

The way I see the world, thanks to the Lord, has changed big time and my heart just seems to gravitate towards those that people seem to write off, ignore, or not take a second glance at.  I'm quiet.  I like to think of multiple ways to do the same thing so I tend to make decisions and act slowly.  Anyway, I hope this connection between college, my personality, and working in inner city Jacksonville made sense to you.  I never know if what I'm feeling or thinking about is ever fully understood through my words, but thank you for reading all the way down here.

I will try to give more ministry updates as far as what's been going on.  I'm learning a ton of information and feel the need to get these thoughts down to help me remember them.  Thank you for your continued prayers.

The Better Half - Part 1

James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

In this verse, there are two main descriptions.  One: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. Two: to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.  The first is a form of outward piety or outward devoutness/godliness/devotion/righteousness.  The second is a form of inward piety.  If you looked at the church right now, which one of these two would you say is focused on more?  Which one gets neglected?  If you go into a Christian bookstore (I used to work at one), the percentage of self help books and personal growth books compared to those of helping the poor would be a pretty good score on a school paper, probably pushing 95% and that's no exaggeration.  The first one talks of poverty; the second, purity.  Both are very important, but the easiest half to focus on is purity.  How do I become the best me?  What are my weaknesses and what do I need to learn?  James 1:27 above was described in our staff training class as a "summation" verse of Christianity.  Not that everything you need to know about Christ is in this verse, but it is a very to-the-point simplification of our responsibilities now that Christ has been resurrected.

But wait!  What about in Matthew 26:6-11 when Jesus says "While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man know as Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.  When the disciples saw this, they were indignant.  'Why this waste?' they asked.  'This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.'  Aware of this, Jesus said to them, 'Why are you bothering this woman?  She has done a beautiful thing to me.  The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me." ?  Clearly the last sentence indicates that Jesus would rather have our resources sacrificed for him rather than give to the poor since the poverty problem will never subside.  Wrong.  This is not what Jesus is meaning right there.  He is referencing Deuteronomy 15:7-11 which says, "If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother.  Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs.  Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: 'The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,' so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing.  He may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be hound guilty of sin.  Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.  There will always be poor people in the land.  Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land."  This verse is saying that there will be ample opportunity to give to the poor since they are always with you in the land.  Now, going back to the first bold sentence in this paragraph, Jesus is describing the same thing.  "You will not always have me here with you, but there will always be poor among you to give generously to."  Do you see the difference?

Why are these things important to know?  Well, buckle up.  I feel that there are so many sections of the Bible that I never learned about or were never emphasized as important growing up.  Here's the template for church that the church in America has missed.  The end of Acts 4 says, "All the believers were one in heart and mind.  No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.  With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.  There were no needy persons among them.  For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."  What you have is not yours.  One church fund.  Everyone gave and put it in the pool.  And get this.  There were NO needy persons among them.  If non-believers saw this institution as a place where no poor are among them, wouldn't the church be an attractive place to go rather than the judgmental and uncompassionate repellent that so many unintentionally are.  I write this blog not to condemn or rebuke the church, but to make you aware that the church is handicapped when it is only an internal being.  As my blog last week talked about, the body of Christ is made up of many parts.  What if those parts are injured or there's an unknown disease plaguing the body?  God never promised us no suffering when we are adopted into his family.

I will leave you with 1 John 3:16.  "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our lives for our brothers."  This is not something to memorize and know with your mind, but love is a verb.

Obliterating a table (unrelated to this week's blog)

Many hands make

This week has been so tiring.  It probably feels that way since at the moment, I feel sore all over my body, too sore and tired to even nap.  The hard work started with some hard fun.  Friday night tennis was fun and intense, my calves were hurting pretty badly.  I only had a couple short breaks in the two hours of playing.  Saturday was even more draining. 

From 9:30am to 1:30pm, members of the Shiloh Baptist Church Young Adults Ministry Study (YAMS), members of Eastside Community Church, and staff from 2nd Mile Ministries came out to help swing sledgehammers, cut pipes, shovel up destroyed cinder blocks, sweep, and partake in renovations for the building we've been working on.  The big guys knocked down a few more cement walls which really opened up the bottom floor, metal piping was electrically sawed from the ceiling, heavy rubble and bricks were wheel barrowed and hauled and lifted into a huge dumpster, the shed was organized so all our equipment could fit and be found.  Teamwork was key, everyone had their own role, some did more intense work based on their physical ability, some lead groups of people based on their leadership ability, no person less important than the other.  My job was to chisel out the cement that was sticking up above the ground where the old bathrooms used to be.  It was hard, kneeling down, bending over, repeatedly swinging a big hammer close to my hands, toes, and legs.  Luckily, I only came away with a blister on my hammering hand and a bruised left had (when I accidently hit myself not once but twice in a row).  Here's my friend doing the same job in a more direct and powerful way.

About a month and a half ago, there has been the hope that playing basketball consistently every Sunday at 2:30 at Brentwood park would gather some attention and interest.  I've gone out for a few weeks and have returned home sweaty, achy, and thirsty.  Despite being physically drained, I can't help but feel that this planned activity will fill up many guys' boredom and emptiness in their weekends.  I don't want to presume anything about them, but I do get excited when they willingly join us in our games.  Today, I just came back from four or five games of 4-on-4.  Me and my teammates won all the games by a small margin.  Each player had a role, the more powerful players took it to the hole more often (dribbled the ball towards the hoop), I tended to play on the outside to shoot open shots but also get the ball to open players in the post, and one player on our team wasn't very good, but he was consistent at passing the ball in and working hard on defense.  Everyone had their role based on the gifts given to them, every person needed to win, no player more important than the other.

In each week of our future staff meetings, each of us will have the opportunity to learn about one person on staff--their testimony, their personality traits, more of how God created them internally and externally.  Everyone on staff is so different from each other and we hope that this uniqueness will help us learn how to deny ourselves, our selfish ambitions, and understand that the world is seen through many different eyes.  1 Corinthians 12 talks about spiritual gifts and the body of Christ.  The body of Christ is very intriguing to me.  This is a metaphor for the church.

1 Corinthians 12:14-20
¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.  ¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

No one person needs to be an exact replica of everyone else.  I noticed at our staff retreat at the end of December that because there was an environment for each person to bring their ideas to the table, many ideas that I would never have even thought of were contributed.  I believed understanding your gifts and also allowing yourself to understand the value of other peoples' opinions and life experiences is important for the growth of a group.  Without that type of environment, it would be very easy to be close-minded, stubborn, or prideful.  The body is made up of many parts, not just one.  It was really cool to see this picture in action yesterday.

(Lots of the guys lifted this old metal furnace thing into the dumpster)

I hope you are encouraged by this.  God made you unique to anyone else He's ever created, for a unique purpose.

Luke 6:42

I'm back in Jacksonville and I'm excited to start the 2013 year strong.  As I look back on Christmas break, I am happy with the times I got to spend with family and a few friends, I just wish I was more prepared in advance that I would not have the same amount of time off as last year to see everyone I wanted.  I wish I could've seen many more people, grabbed lunch, or coffee, and caught up on life, but it was a very fun time nonetheless.  As my last blog indicates, it snowed, and I made a snowman.  Later I got to go sledding with my brother and sister, make Christmas cookies, play Christmas songs in a grocery store for 6 hours, play games, watch movies.  There are two things I watched over break that seemed to coincide.  I watched Hunger Games and a documentary on the Fab Five (the 5 freshman that started for the 1991 Michigan basketball team).

I would like to apologize to all of those people who have read the Hunger Games book.  This remembrance is from someone who has only seen the movie a couple times.  The movie consists of 12 districts, and from my inferences, these districts seem to be very poor and run by a bigger government type thingy.  We experience the story through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen, a girl who is pretty talented with a bow and arrow.  In case you have no idea of the premise, every year, a boy and girl are selected from each district as participants in the Hunger Games, a fight-to-the-death competition where only one of the 24 will survive (win).  The "lucky" selected few get taken to some city in a fancy train with fancy food, the slaughter-loving masses shout with starving smiles as they see their temporary idols carted in, as if they had been going through a drought and now saw a train full of meat.  The games are televised and this "super government" is entertained.  Everyone in this society dresses with exaggerated styles.  If it weren't for the Hunger Games, I bet thoughts of the people in the 12 districts would be nonexistent.  When we know all the pain, actual hunger, and oppression that happens in the districts, it is easy to get angry at this super-government for sacrificing teenagers in order to be entertained and maintain peace.  When we know the pain and even know the character, we naturally side with them more.

For those of you who are not sports fans, the Fab Five are a group of five freshman players that were recruited to play for the 1991 Michigan team.  Jimmy King, Jalen Rose, Chris Webber, Ray Jackson, and Juwan Howard.  As each player was doing an interview, remembering their college years and all the doubts from the college world if these boys could compete as freshman, the viewers got a peek inside their lives growing up.  People saw them as trash-talkers, bringing a hip hop style, they wore baggier shorts than others, they came from "the hood".  It could be easy to assume many things about them based on their upbringings.  But as the documentary told us the story through their eyes, showing the viewers the places where they grew up, some of the 5 lacking parents, being threatened by rival schools.  I remember an interview that Jalen Rose had talking about the time they were going to play reigning champion Duke, with Christian Laettner, Grant Hill, and Bobby Hurley.  He spoke of how everyone saw Grant Hill as the perfect black basketball player, son of Dallas Cowboys great Calvin Hill.  His mom was college roommates with Hilary Clinton.  He went to Duke, doing mighty good for himself.  The Fab Five hated him and the Duke Blue Devils.  Jalen Rose felt that his Michigan teammates were hated, less than human, incapable, and being like Grant Hill was the only way to be liked or acceptable to society.  (Funny story, growing up, Grant Hill was my favorite player, I was obsessed, knew way too much about him, drew pictures of him, collected so many basketball cards of him, wrote him a letter, etc.)  It's easier to get angry at those who are given everything when you look through the eyes of those who just scraped by.

Switching back and forth from Jacksonville to Milwaukee, ghetto to suburbs, lower class to middle class, black to white neighborhoods, I notice more and more the ignorance and lack of understanding on both sides of the other side.  You may have a sense of what these other people are like, from the news, from movies, from particular encounters of people unlike yourself, but I feel it's very dangerous to generalize, make assumptions, ignore a group for the sake of comfort, and it goes both ways, but I feel that more responsibility lies with the majority group to lift up the least of us.

These are just a few thoughts I had over break.

I have one request regarding ministry.  In order to bless a couple of the elementary schools in our neighborhood with much-needed supplies, we took a tally of which supplies individual teachers needed the most including dry erase markers, pencils (kids always break them and take them home), lined paper, hand sanitizer, construction paper, etc.  I want to give you the opportunity to be a blessing to our teachers here in Brentwood.  If you'd like to donate any supplies listed above, you can ship them to 325 W. 22nd St., Jacksonville, FL 32206 or if you'd like to make a special donation, you can go to 2ndmile-jax.com and click "Donate" and in the comment box put, "School Supplies" and make a one-time donation.  Blessings.

The Fab Five