I Live Here

And we like marmots. Along with running, basketball, eating in parks, goats that recycle and waterfalls.

I have been at a loss, once again, as to what to write sometimes. I want to tell my friends and family about the ‘ministry’ I am involved in, but when ministry becomes life sometimes I don’t know what to tell people what I ‘do’. Focusing on the ‘doing’, on the ‘ministry’, on the programs, on the conversions, on the buildings on the numbers can be dangerous and empty. I have been meeting with my pastor and a few other people in my church going over the gospel and what that means in our lives. Technically its an internship for potential leaders to equip us in our ministry, but the focus is on our hearts, on loving Jesus and helping point others to Him. My pastor steve understands that nothing good will come from our church if we are not worshiping Christ in our hearts. When this happens ‘ministry’ becomes manipulation and we begin to use Christ as an excuse to serve our selfishness.

As people we like the physical, the tangable, we like to see and do. We like programs, plans, numbers, stories with happy endings. We like being a part of something and feeling important, feeling like we are making a difference, all with apparently good intentions. But what matters in the end is our worship and devotion. God doesn’t work according to our standards. When he choose the unlikely David as king of Israel he said, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the ourward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7). We as Christians and missionaries like to live our lives without God’s crazy, upside down kingdom values.

We probably do not like to write missionairy support letters according to kingdom values. What if a support letter sounded something like this.

"Hello Friends and Family,

Because of the amazing grace God has poured out on me I have found myself compeled to live in a way that reflects this grace. I haven’t fitured it out yet, and I probably never will. Unfortunately, my new idenity did not come with a check list of activities that I can share with you.

I have been living as simply as possible in an obscure red-neck city in America and working a minimum wage job. I am involved in my church but do not have a title or specific responsibilities. We recently canceled our church service and started eating dinner together. I am involved in the lives of my co-workers, neigobors, housemates, friends and schoolmates. I try to share the gospel where ever I go but I don’t always do it right or the same way in every situation. I try to share the gospel by identifying the the lowest of the low in my city mentally, physically, spiritually, morally and finaicially. I can’t tell you I see any hope for these people, but God does, and so I live in His hope. I make mistake, sometimes big mistakes. I don’t always make the best decisions about my future, I don’t always use my time or money the most effective way. Sometimes I hurt the poeople I am trying to love.

Through all this I am trying to live out my idenity in Christ. I don’t really know where I am going or what I am doing, but my assurance is in the fact that Christ has adopted me and my hope is that that he is changing me and bringing me to himself. My desire point others I come in contact with to Christ and to live my life openly, bringing others into the same process."

God’s plans and values are not very pretty to us. The last shall be first and the first shall be last. The Lord does not look at the thing a man looks at. All that said, yes, I actually do things. Yes, I want to share my life with you. No, it won’t always be awesome...

I am currently reading Total Church: A Radical Reshaping Around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. They put it like this

"The vast majority of Christians have not been helped to see that who they are and what they do every day in schools, workplaces or clubs is significant to God, nor that the people they spend time with in those everyday contexts are they people who God is calling them to pray for, bless and witness to...We have simply not been envisioned, resourced and supported to share the Good News of Jesus in our everyday contexts...lf someone was being sent as a missionary into a hostile context overseas, our attitude would be something like this: We would expect to pray often for them. We would expect progress in building relationships and sharing the gospel to be slow. We would be excited by small steps - a gospel conversation here, an opportunity to get to know someone there. We would thrive on regular updates from the front line. But the truth is that the lives of many Christians in work, and play, are just like the life of that far-flung missionary! They are lived out in tough environments where progress is often slow and many factors make evangelism extremely difficult (36)."