Another little piece of scraps of writing from way back when. Who knows, maybe this will turn into a story…

Honest stands on the street corner. To the left across the street a beaten down building with a tacky neon sign, “House of Thrills Adult Bookstore.” To the right the base line of a rock song emanates from an old church. It’s morning, the man’s head still throbs from a mix of alcohol and experiences he can’t quite recall at the moment. He went for a walk to clear his head; the frigid air clearing away depressed thoughts of past experiences he’d like to forget. Now his hands were cold and the alcohol was finally hitting his bladder.

On almost any other weekend he would have struck out to the left, used the restroom and then spent a few inconspicuous minutes browsing the shelves, pretending to be not overly interested. Today, today was different, and for whatever reason he turned right.

In the not too far distance the city skyline with big skyscrapers, sat gloomy and quiet. The streets littered with cups and papers from the revelries of the evening before.

The Church entrance was up a short set of stairs and as Honest climbed the steps he could feel the draft of warm air rushing through the doors. That’s what he would do too, rush out with the warm air, as soon as he used the restroom and got some free coffee. If there was one thing Honest had learned about church it was that it was a great place to get free coffee. Coffee and beer, two things Honest would show up for if you were just giving it out at a party. A lady greeted him at the door. She was young, maybe late twenties, short brown hair, and a smile that seemed plastered to her face. “Hi, welcome to our church. My name is Joan. Here’s a program, let me know if you have any questions.” At least she hadn’t asked him any questions, Honest wasn’t looking forward to trying to answer them. Before he could reply with “yeah, where’s the restroom?” Joan was already greeting the next folks coming through the door, and Honest hurried along trying to stay out of the way.

Looking around he spotted the coffee first and decided his bladder could wait…

To Be Continued, maybe.

It is the sin of pride and arrogance that has tended to vitiate [corrupt] the missionary impulse and to make of it an instrument of self-righteousness on the one hand and racial superiority on the other. -Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited [brackets mine]

Thurman manages to point out a very very large speck in the eye of his brother church goers in just one sentence. Again, he writes to a pre-Civil Rights audience in the USA, but his words still ring so true. Let me breakdown the two critiques briefly.

If we are honest with ourselves, it is very likely that just under the surface of our facade of humble service, there lies a deeply embedded air of self-righteousness to much of our serving others. I know I am extremely guilt of this, often subconsciously considering my time serving others as somehow exempting me from the need for prayer and confession. I think this is an area that needs to be dealt with much more from the pulpit and throughout the service projects of the church. There needs to be a recognition that much of what we do is ‘justice’ work, not charity. Much of the service that is needed, from soup kitchens, to tutoring, to building homes and more, is needed because of injustices that exist, they are not mere undeserved acts of charity.

The second critique, regarding racial superiority was glaringly obvious then, and yet is subtly still an issue today. It hides beneath the surface for many who’ve grown up knowing the PC things to say and think. They are not vicious feelings or ill-intended, but they’re impact on relationships, social impact and the gospel can be overwhelming. Rather than trying to explain this, let me simply leave you with a series of questions to illustrate the point.

1. Is the race and culture of the majority of your friends and church members similar to yours or different?
2. Is the race and culture of the majority of those you have served on missions trips or service outreaches similar to yours or different?
3. What affect do you think the realities of the questions above have on your outlook regarding people as it relates to their race and culture?

Why is it that Christianity seems impotent to deal radically, and therefore effectively, with the issues of discrimination and injustice on the basis of race, religion and national origin? Is this impotency due to a betrayal of the genius of the religion, or is it due to a basic weakness in the religion itself? -Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

The above statement was penned in 1949, a decade before the Civil Rights Movement. It is encouraging to know that a few years later, Martin Luther King and others would in fact deal ‘radically’ and ‘effectively’ with injustice in this country. What is unfortunate is that besides that brief highlight in recent history, this statement seems to be largely true today as well.

I believe the answer to the question Thurman raises is clearly that it has been a ‘betrayal of the genius of the religion’ that has kept us from dealing radically with injustice and discrimination. Whether he meant the person of Jesus or the words of the gospel as the ‘genius’, I’m not sure, but I do feel we have betrayed them, sanitized them, and remain fruitless, and impotent in our abilities to enact radical change.

Today we still face a largely racially segregated church in the USA, as well as class divided, systemic racism and sexism still has a stronghold in society, and patriotism toward country seems to trump allegiance toward fellow man and those in Christ. And at the same time, pastors across the country our preaching such a sanitized, watered-down version of the gospel, that we scarcely can recognize it for the radical genius that it once was.

We tend to here sermon’s that seem to place dealing with ‘injustice’ as of second importance (or third or worse) behind the idea of ‘evangelism.’ But let’s not forget, Jesus started his ministry with a call against injustice:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,”

“Now I get sick only when I go back to America… My American friends were shoveling platefuls of leftover food into the garbage disposal. I threw up all over the counter. I had forgotten what perfectly good food looked like going down the drain to the sewer. It was like watching a disgustingly drunk billionaire burn hundred-dollar bills in front of beggars.
…My mother’s next-door neighbor, a well-groomed, weight-gifted, vertically challenged accountant named Dave, brought out a leaf blower, a lawn mower, a leaf grinder, a mulcher, an edger, and a weed trimmer. He worked all day, making a terrific racket, chopping, trimming, and spraying toxins on a small patch of ground, which produced absolutely no food, only grass. The rest of the world spent the day standing in swamp water trying to grow a few mouthfuls of rice, while Dave sat on his porch with a cold beer admiring his chemical lawn. Sickening? You bet.” -Sisay from White Man’s Grave, by Richard Dooling

Regardless of who you voted for yesterday, or who gets elected this fall, there are some things about the ‘American’ way of life that probably won’t change all that much. There might be some divisions along party lines related to a whole lot of different issues, and it’s sad we can’t find more unity on those things, but that’s not what’s disturbing to a lot of the world. I don’t think a new president is going to be the answer to all of our problems. And, though a unified country will be good for the country, it also won’t bring true healing to anyone’s soul.

What can be addressed, and should be, by a unified church, is the sickening disease of NOT loving our neighbor. The above quote is from a fictional character who returns to his hometown in the USA after spending a few years as a PeaceCorps volunteer in Sierra Leone. I think there are many people who have spent time overseas who at one point, early in their return, relate to his feelings. It is unfortunate that much of the church in the USA looks like the neighbor spending all day grooming their lawn and tossing good food down the disposal, rather then living a life of sacrifice and love for our neighbors across the globe.

Dear Returning.

I pray this letter reaches you before that feeling deep inside of you is gone. My hope is that these words will be encouragement and acknowledgment of the truth that you are experiencing and have experienced from your encounters on your trip.

Let me speak to my experience just briefly, so you understand where I am coming from. I have personally taken four short-term trips in my life (including a two month YWAM Outreach). During each of those trips I came face to face with gripping poverty I had not been aware of before. Each time, I was moved by what I saw and stirred in my heart to live my life differently. My journal pages during those trips reflect that, as I’m sure yours do. Also, at the end of each experience two unique things happened. One, our group, as scheduled by the leaders of our team, did something ‘touristy’ and ‘fun.’ These last days often included shopping, spending larger amounts of money, and living in a way that was in direct contrast to the poverty and stirring that my heart was experiencing. The second thing that happened at the end of each trip was that the leader’s either said explicitly or implicitly that though I had some strong feelings about the way I had been living prior to my trip, I would eventually adjust to where I was comfortable again. Unfortunately, they were right.

What was never said to me, and what I want to say to you now is that that tugging at your heart, that current impassioned disgust with our consumeristic culture, that feeling that you should drastically change the way that you have been living, all of that is the Holy Spirit instilling truth in you. They are truth’s that you won’t hear preached from a pulpit, it won’t be the topic of a Youth Group Bible Study, and you will find very few leaders, mentors, or peers in your life that will encourage you in your new found convictions and passion, but don’t give them up. The Holy Spirit has placed a great stirring on your heart through the unique trip that you have gone on and it would be a shame to let others snuff that out.

I’m afraid you won’t hear this from anyone except this letter, so please, please hear this loud and clear: Those feelings that you are experiencing after your return from your trip, they are the work of the Holy Spirit on your life. Your opportunity to see face to face the depths of poverty of others in our world was an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to show you your brothers and sisters, God’s Children, whom you should, and do, care deeply about. Your heart is more then likely telling you that you should do something about those feelings. For many, they have a hard time coming back to their old lifestyle and eating out frequently or shopping, or just being surrounded by so much unnecessary stuff when others around the globe are barely surviving. Usually, entire groups feel those similar feelings, but no leader and rarely any group member stands up and says that they should take those feelings and put them into action. I’ve heard countless people return from missions trips deeply questioning their lifestyle and then slowly over a few weeks and months, return to life as usually, with only a handful of stories and pictures to show the effects of the trip on their lives. Never have I heard the story of a group returning from a missions trip, acknowledging the collective feelings of desire to change their lifestyles and then acting on them.

The Holy Spirit is working on your life and your heart. The feelings you have from your experience that our challenging your old way of life are the Holy Spirit working on your heart. Do not turn a deaf ear to them, do not let your culture, peers and even leaders, drown out that voice in your life. And for those who have already forgotten that feeling and that voice, pull out your photo album, remember the stories, and stir that tugging on your heart again. If you are involved in a church that is going on a short term trip this summer, especially youth, please tell them the Holy Spirit is working on their heart and encourage and support them to follow that leading, you might be the only one.

Peace in Christ,
Ariah Fine

“It will Change Their Lives”

The book I recently read, Serving with Eyes Wide Open, discusses at length some of the shortcomings of short term missions (no pun intended), one of which is the false premise that our missions work will change the lives of the people we go to serve. The book highlights a lot of typical comments of short-termer’s expounding on the lofty benefits their work will be on the recipients. The comments consistently give the impression that without the help and service of the short-termer’s the people would be in utter despair, without God, poor and hopeless.

One example given is a study by Kurt VerBeek, one of the few researchers actually studying the impact of short-term missions upon the local communities. After Hurricane Mitch, a organization raised two million dollars to rebuild homes in Honduras. They used the money both by using Honduran partners who hired Honduran builders to rebuild the homes, and they mobilized 31 short-term teams from the USA. VerBeek studied and compared the impact of the Honduran builders and the short-term groups.

“Through the data collected, VerBeek found no lasting impact, positive or negative, on the Honduran families and communities whose homes were built by North Americans as compared to those who never saw a short-term mission team. In fact, in a moment of candidness, the Hondurans confided that if given the choice, they’d rather see the money raised by each team who traveled to Honduras channeled toward building twenty more homes and employing Hondurans.” -p. 57, Serving With Eyes Wide Open

The point here is not to try and make another case against Short-term missions, but rather to encourage us to again be honest and aware of both the motivation and impact of the work that we are doing. Speaking from a financial outlook, there is are far better ways to steward our resources for the good of the Body of Christ to meet the needs of people worldwide. From a gifts outlook, there are for more equipped followers of Christ (namely people indigenous to the culture) to spread the gospel, train leaders and plant churches.

God chose a stuttering Moses to lead God’s people out of Egypt, an old Abraham and Sarah to father the chosen people, and God used a carpenter to bring salvation to all people, so God might very well use a bunch of teenagers on an adventurous summer trip to further the kingdom. In the mean time, I think it would be wise for us to think long and hard about short term missions work and consider if there might be wiser options.

This is a quote from Serving with Eyes Wide Open:

Read the letters and listen to the reports before and after mission trips, and those who go on trips tend to emphasize the so-called spiritual things: the number of souls saved, the lessons learned about prayer and materialism, and the impact made up the church visited. However, sit down for coffee with a friend who has just returned from a trip or eavesdrop on the picture party from a returning group, and the adventure of life in a new place seems to be the emphasis. Such conversations are filled with stories about who got stopped going through customs, what it was like to eat the food, bartering the shopkeeper down to a ridiculous price, and experiencing the driving habits of the locals.
Let’s be honest. Along with the seemingly more noble reasons for going on a short-term mission trip, many of us love the adventure of it all.

Now do a reality check for yourself: If you’ve ever been on a mission trip before, how true is this of you? I remember hearing a speaker when I went to YWAM, who talked at length about how he had been to 53 different countries, etc. I found myself both envious, and starkly aware of how easy it would be for me to fulfill my desire for travel under the guise of ‘missionary.’

Obviously, just because we have ulterior motives doesn’t mean no trip should ever happen, but I think it does call us to question seriously both who goes on trips, and how the trips are advertised, discussed and attended.
For one, I think the ‘fun’ day at the end of the trip (every mission trip I’ve ever been on had something like this) should be completely done away with. This is just my opinion, but I find it to be a terrible idea for a church to take people, especially young people, who’ve just had an eye opening experience into the world, and then encourage (even require) them to suddenly become materialistic, shopping consumerist a moment later.

I’ll leave you with some of the examples given in the book from well known missions organizations. Teen Mania, who have sent tens of thousands of short-term ‘missionaries’ send out full page brochures and advertisements with

“Missions Should Be Fun!” Below it was a picture featuring a group of American youth pushing a really cool-looking canoe down a tropical-like river with a few “natives” in tow.

Or this church bulletin advertising a mission trip to Mexico, including this line:

And this trip isn’t a “rough-roach-in-your-bed” kind of experience either-we’ll be housed in nice clean hotel roomes, eat lots of salsa, and have plenty of time to shop!
…If you’re remotely interested in this adventure-or if you’re just in the mood for Mexico after all this winter weather-call for more details about this fantastic outreach opportunity.

They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity. (Acts 2:44-46)

I was reading Derek‘s post on Josh’s blog about the Consumptive Church and it got me interested and longing to find a house church group to meet with in my area.
We’ve currently gotten connected with a large church nearby and plan on staying connected to it, attending events, small groups, helping out, but I don’t know that I see that as ‘church.’ Large churches definitely have some resources and abilities that small churches do not. The only reason I switched churches early in high school from a small church to a large one was because I really liked the youth group, it was big, they played big games and did big events, and I liked that.
However, I don’t think that’s what I consider church. In the post Derek writes he talks about the context of the Acts 2 passage, that the believers numbers had jumped up 3000 in one day, and then this verse is an example of what followed. I see the opportunity to meet in homes with other believes and break bread is a beautiful example of what I see the church looking like today. That’s where real intimacy, openness and growth can occur.

The only question is how I go about finding a house church in my area that I could attend. I don’t even know if there is anything like that in my neighborhood and if so, where is it?

Here’s to the journey.

I’ve probably mentioned this before, and if you haven’t heard it from me, hopefully you’ve had someone in your life who was crazy enough to say it.
In most cities (every one that I’ve actually seen the statistics compared), there are more abandoned housing units then there are homeless. That is to say specifically, there is enough housing for everyone. Of course, the red tape of our society usually prevents this solution from becoming a reality.
Also, in most cities, even if we are extremely conservative with our statistics, there appears to be many Bible-believing church-attending “Christians.” And of those Christians, even with conservative estimates, I would guess there are many more empty “guest bedrooms” in those homes then there are homeless out on the streets.

Even with this reality, we have plenty of excuses as to why my correlation (The “Christians” [who are supposed to practice hospitality, see Romans 12] with Empty Guest Bedrooms : Homeless Ratio) simply is not appropriate or feasible.
“Many homeless have mental conditions, that would make it unsafe for my family.”
“Most homeless have drug and alcohol problems which would put my families lives in danger.”
“And God calls us to protect our family and be wise” [sidenote: Can someone please show me where in the Bible it say that to “protect” our family is a top priority?]

LAME EXCUSES!
We have within our means the ability to radically live out the Christian calling of caring for the needy and practicing hospitality, and we are content to pass off some lame excuse.
Here’s why it’s lame. Keeping your family (and the people on the street) safe is a wonderful thing, really it is. Mental conditions should be treated, drug and alcohol problems should be controlled, nobody should be hurting or threatening anybody; but what does that have to do with opening your home to someone else?

Let me just cut to the chase. You are to be validated in your concerns. But, now it’s time to problem solve and find a solution for bringing together your desire for the well-being of all, and your calling to radically follow Christ.
If people (including many Christians) can spend thousands of dollars solving the problems of remodeling their outdated bathroom, or upgrading to a state of the art kitchen, then I think we can also put our minds and money to creating homes that can accommodate those who need a place to stay.

Maybe you put an outside door on the guest room and a regular locked door into the house. Or you remodel the office or the space above the garage to have not only a bedroom but a bathroom and a small kitchenette.  Use your imagination, you could go more elaborate or more practical, but look to solve problems rather then make excuses.

Maybe for some it means downsizing their home till it accommodates the basic needs for their immediate family and they then use the freed up additional wealth and resources to contribute to a community that is meeting the needs of the homeless.

Stop making lame excuses that justify your apathy to following Christ call. Instead have some fun and remodel your house (and in doing so open yourself to following Christ in ways you’ve never considered before)!