Tag: Texas pastor

15-passenger Sanctuary

Worship Without Service…Isn’t.

I spend two hours most Friday nights in a sanctuary. It seats 15.

November 2017

It’s nearing midnight as I drive down the highway at 70 mph (okay…75 mph). The driver’s side window motor on the church van broke month’s ago. We’re finally trying to fix it. Wires and hardware from inside the door are visible next to my leg after removing the door panel. A wood 2×4 sits wedged vertically inside the door panel, preventing the van window from slamming to the bottom. But I mis-measured. The window has a 1-inch crack in the top, so loud wind is blowing inside. The smell of delicious home-cooked Indian curry still clings to our clothing. My ears fill with sounds of English and various dialects from India. On my right sits a soft-spoken young Indian man, curious about all-things-American. I concentrate on understanding simultaneously understanding his accent without being able to read his lips, my eyes directed on the highway.
At 11:30, we drop off the last Indian college student and drive 30 minutes back home to Southwest Fort Worth. We pull into the parking lot. My Indian friend and pastor opens his car door to drive home. It’s cold outside. I reach for my house keys to quietly slip inside, wherever my wife and little boys are sound asleep.

Summer 2013
I’m driving to our church building on a Saturday morning. We don’t yet live in the parsonage house on church property. We’re in apartments a mile away, working for an apartment ministry that plans resident activities. On my short commute, I pass a park and see Indian men playing cricket in the field. They play every Saturday and the occasional Sunday. At least, I think they’re Indian. But they could be Pakistani. I guess I should find out.
(A year ago, I planned to walk my dog at the park when I knew the men would be playing. As I pass by, I yelled out what must have sounded like an extremely strange question, “Are y’all Indian or Pakistani?” Indian).
I see many Indians in our neighborhood. I see the Indian women taking strolls in their saris, traditional Indian clothing made with abundant amounts of colorful fabric. I pass them in the grocery store. Occasionally, I see them walking slowly with a deer-in-the-headlights look and assume they must have recently moved to the United States. And we even serve them food during events in our apartment clubhouse. With our Indian apartment neighbors, we’re privileged learn their stories. Most traveled here on short-term contracts with their companies. They’re happy to take unfamiliar assignments in the United States, because it looks good on their resumes when they travel back home to India.
Whenever I see them, I smile warmly and then offer up a short silent prayer: “Lord, give me a pastor who can help me tell these dear people about Jesus.”

Summer 2017
God answered my prayer for an Indian pastor. I’m driving our church’s 15-passenger van. But it’s lately been a 2-5 passenger van. The bench seats sat in our gym much of the summer. We removed them and transformed our van into a furniture delivery vehicle.

Our Indian pastor and his family arrive from Kansas City in a couple of days. With the help of summer interns, we’ve moved furniture countless times. We’ve filled the van with donated items from homes and storage units, purchased used furniture from storage lockers, thrift stores, and Craigslist. The interns and I load it in the van, and then carry it upstairs in our gym, where a few rooms sit filled with household items. Children from our summer day camp and feeding program ask why we’re carrying mattresses into the gym.

I spent hours hunting for a rental house for the family. Two days before they arrive from Kansas City, we fill their new home with furniture.

Fall 2017
I’ve introduced our Indian pastor, Premal, to a contact I have with Baptist Student Ministries at a university where an estimated 4,000 Indian students attend. Premal’s entire family begins making the 30-minute drive to the BSM’s weekly International Student night. God gives them great favor. They play ping-pong, eat pizza, and meet invite Indian.
In October Premal began their weekly Friday night meals in their home. Which brings me back to this cold November night…

Each week, we make the 30 minute drive to pick up a van-full of Indian students and drive 30 minutes back to southwest Fort Worth. We then spend hours eating authentic Indian food, a real treat for these young people so far from home. We close our time as we began it, with prayer. About half the students are Christian. The either half either claim Hinduism or no faith at all. Premal has carefully planned these fellowships. The opening and closing prayers to Jesus make clear his family follows Jesus; the casual intervening time makes clear the family will not force their faith upon their guests.

My status during these weekly visits ranges between “honored guest” and, my preferred status of, “silent observer.” This time was not created for me. Non-English conversations swirl around me. Smells from recipes which originated thousands of miles away fill the air. The customs are Indian, not American. The goal is to make the Indian students feel at home, not me. This is as it should be. I’m simply the van driver.
And as I drive, I worship.
Sometimes I worship when I walk into a building intended for Christian gatherings, such as a church building. Such times are vital to the Christian faith.

And I enjoy the times I’m overwhelmed with emotion as I worship through song. The emotions that spill out through my tear ducts as I sing praise to God remind me of the One who created my emotions. Why shouldn’t I express love to him with the very emotions He created?
Other times, however, I’m invited into worship in thoroughly non-churchy environments…such as an unattractive 15-passenger van with a broken window, missing a door panel…while I’m chauffeuring college students who don’t own vehicles.

I drove a school bus while college and grad school. And my training kicks in when I drive the van. I drive with a laser-focus on the road and cars around me. I dedicate all my mental effort to safely transporting a van full of people on a busy interstate. In other words, it’s a rather emotionless time. Tears never well up in my eyes. I have no wish to raise my hands in worship. I don’t get ‘Holy Spirit goosebumps.’ I can’t say I’ve ever “felt” God’s presence in the same way I’ve “felt” it during a worship service. There’s never any worship music playing on the radio. And, yet, I know God is present. I know I’m in a sanctuary. I’m worshiping Jesus.

Friday, I started volunteering at an elementary school. I helped two first graders, quite behind in Reading, work on alphabet recognition and simple sight words, like ball, cat, and dog.

Minutes before I meet with my first students, I’m in a 10-minute meeting with the school principal. When I shake her hand to leave, I’ve agreed to find more volunteers, start a School Dads program, and adopt a family of 6 children who need Christmas presents.

A first-grade teacher gave me two packs of flash cards. In two 30-minute segments, I tutored a child in the school library. Both children fidgeted non-stop in the sturdy oak chairs. It’s as though the little girl’s legs were a wind-up toy. Her feet cover every imaginable inch of territory, other than directly on the floor beneath her chair.

My second student was a 6-year old boy with a speech impediment. I assumed we’d breeze through the alphabet flash cards and move on to the sight words. He recognized about half of the alphabet.

Our oldest son has known his entire alphabet since he was 3. I suddenly realized how humbling it is to volunteer my time helping others learn a concept that is entirely fundamental for me.
For one hour, I got a taste of Jesus’ entire life. Jesus came to be our Teacher. The entire human race couldn’t understand the Fundamentals their Creator laid out for us long ago.
God-In-Flesh came to teach us the ‘Remedial Humanity.’

Long ago, we should have learned such fundamental concepts as “God is Love,” “love your neighbor as yourself,” and “it’s better to give than to receive.” Even a people group who walked with God for centuries, the Jews, needed to re-learn basic concepts about the God they worship.
The night before Jesus died, Philip, one of his disciples asks Jesus to show him the Father. But Jesus replies, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

It’s as though Jesus’ entire life was a living flash card with the word “God the Father” below it.

But Philip doesn’t make the connection.
Jesus of Nazareth, the very embodiment of God, came to earth to serve. In fact, he says this very thing: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28).
On the same night of Jesus’ famous last supper, he washed his disciples’ feet. Few tasks were as humbling in ancient times as washing sandal-clad feet that may have just waded outside through animal or human waste.

And then, in John 13:14, Jesus spoke these words: “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher (emphasis, mine), have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”

While leaving the elementary school Friday morning, I passed a Nativity display in someone’s front yard. Mary, Joseph, and the Shepherds gathered around baby Jesus.
I remembered the angelic heavenly host who first sang in earshot of those Shepherds, “Glory to God in the Highest.”

It’s Christmas, so let us continue loudly singing our praises to God. When we sing the majestic Christmas hymns, we follow in the footsteps (or wing flaps) of those angels.
And let’s reenact the great Nativity scenes. Let’s exchange gifts, remembering those first Wise Men who understood it is better to give than receive. Let us raise our hands in worship. Let us shout and weep with joy at the forgiveness Christ provides.
But, let’s remember it is our “God in the Highest” who chose to act as lowly Foot Washer…and commanded us to do the same.
Let us also remember our worship is incomplete if we do not obey Jesus’ command to serve one another.

Yes, ‘imitation’ really is the ‘best form of flattery.’ And, when it comes to Jesus, it’s also the best form of worship.
When I spend hours driving a beat up church van to pick up lonely Indian college students who don’t know Jesus, I am worshiping the Newborn King, who came to seek and save the lost and commanded us to make disciples of “all nations” and not just “my nation.”

And when I, a white man, spend time teaching little Black boys and girls how to read, I am worshiping Jesus (my teacher), by following his example of lovingly interacting with all people, not just his own race.

When I serve others with no expectation of being served myself, I am worshiping Jesus. When I visit someone sick and lonely in the hospital or nursing home, just to be with them, I’m following the example of Immanuel, “God with Us.” When I serve the least of these, I am serving–worshiping– Jesus.
When you understand that ‘Service to others’ is ‘Obedience to Christ,’ then the simplest acts become opportunities for worship.

A deck of flash cards becomes your hymnal. A library chair becomes your pew. Your steering wheel becomes an instrument for praise. And a church van becomes your sanctuary.

Brothers and Sisters,
This Christmas season, and all our lives, let us worship not only through song, but through service in the name of Christ.

For Fleas and Floods, I’m Thankful.

Sunday, 6:46pm – One of the congregations that uses uses our church’s building Sunday evenings calls me. The main building is flooding. It’s bad. Real bad.

I text our youth director. He’s over in the gym with a few teens from our neighborhood. He walks to the building to help. I walk over a few minutes later, after I’ve helped my wife with our nightly bedtime/bathtime routine.

I walk in to see about an inch of standing water in a hallway. Our youth director, two members from our church, and the man who first alerted me to the water all working. They’re using shop-vacs and mops. It’s bad but could be worse. And then I open doors to our sanctuary.

It’s worse. Much worse.

Throughout the facility, an area larger than my entire house is now wet.

Over an inch of water stands at the base of our sanctuary platform.

I send out some texts and phone calls to our church members and leaders from the church that rents our sanctuary. Within 30 minutes, our associate pastor and a deacon from another church are working with us.

The deacon had made a phone call on his way over. A man in their church owns a company with carpet extractors. The man arrives an hour later to deliver two commercial carpet extractors and then leaves to pick up more equipment.

First, we focus on our sanctuary. We must work fast to dry carpets around the wood pews. Replacing drywall is cheaper than replacing 16-foot pews.

We’re a motley crew of carpet cleaners, using a commercial carpet extractor, a home carpet cleaner, and two shop-vacs. Our associate pastor is working barefoot in the inch-deep water.

Eventually, our youth director and associate pastor leave for home. They both have other jobs to pay the bills. We mainly pay them with appreciation!

By around 11pm, it’s just me and the two men from the church that rents our sanctuary.

The powerful shop-vac I’m using starts hurting my ears. Our equipment is loud. We have to off our machines to hear each other talk.

I’ve already been in here 4 hours. I’m bent over on my knees with a vacuum hose pressed tightly against the carpet. My body is always in pain, but my knees, back, and hands especially begin to ache.

I put in my headphones to quiet the noise. I continue listening to the newest audiobook I’ve borrowed from the library. I read The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom a few years ago, but I wanted to read it again.

I’ve just heard Ten Boom’s account of 80 women jammed into a small freight car and transported to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Many women panicked in the claustrophobic space and fainted, “although in the tight-wedged crowd, they remained upright.”

I hear her explain how sitting required coordination with the entire group. All at once, each woman sat down with their legs outstretched around the woman in front of them, like a bobsled team.

The train made a slow trip from Holland into Germany over several days. A foul stench filled the smothering boxcar as the trapped women had to urinate and defecate where they sat.

And then, with my knees on the hard floor, I hear Betsy Ten Boom’s words of thankfulness. Betsy was Corrie’s sister.  They were both arrested for helping hide Jews in Holland and placed in the same prison and concentration camp. Always a frail woman, Betsy quickly developed a high fever on the train.

“Do you know what I am thankful for?” Betsy’s gentle voice startled me in that squirming madhouse. “I’m thankful that father is in Heaven today.”

The sisters’ elderly father had also been arrested by Nazi SS, but died only a few days into his imprisonment.

My body is sore but I continue extracting water, encouraged by Betsy’s attitude of gratitude. A little water is nothing.

Extract. Dump the water. Extract. Dump the water.

About 30 minutes later I hear Corrie describe their medical inspections, which occurred every Friday. The doctors only look down each woman’s throat, examine their teeth, and then check between each finger. Yet the malnourished women must strip naked for each inspection:

“We trooped again down the long, cold corridor and picked up the X-marked dresses at the door. But it was one of these mornings while we were waiting, shivering in the corridor that yet another page in the Bible lept into life for me: “He hung naked on the cross.”

I had not known. I had not thought. The paintings, the carved crucifixes showed, at the least, a scrap of cloth. But this, I suddenly knew, was the respect and reverence of the artist. But oh, at the time (itself on that other Friday morning) there had been no reverence, no more than I saw in the faces around us now.

I leaned toward Betsy, ahead of me in line. Her shoulder blades stood out sharp and thin beneath her blue mottled skin. “Betsy, they took His clothes too.” Ahead of me, I heard a little gasp. “Oh Corrie, and I never thanked him.”

A few minutes later, I hear Betsy’s most famous expression of gratitude recorded in The Hiding Place. Corrie describes their entrance into their barracks. She recounts straw beds that are “soiled and rancid,” an overflowing toilet, a horrible stench, and wooden platforms for sleeping stacked so tightly together that women could not sit up without hitting the platform above them:

Suddenly I sat up, striking my head on the cross slats above. Something had pinched my leg. “Fleas!” I cried. “Betsy, the place is swarming with them!” We scrambled across the intervening platforms, head low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle, and edged our way to a patch of light. “Here. And here another one!” I wailed. “Betsy, how can we live in such a place.”

“Show us. Show us how.” It was said so matter-of-factly, it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more, the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsy. “Corrie,” she said excitedly, “He’s given us the answer before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning…where was it? Read that part again.”

[Read The Hiding Place to learn the miraculous way God kept their Bible from being confiscated upon first entering Ravensbrück.]

I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. “It was in 1 Thessalonians,” I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen [their first prison in Holland]. In the feeble light I turned the pages. “Here it is. ‘Comfort the frightened. Help the weak. Be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.’ “

It seemed written expressly to Ravensbrück.

“Go on. That wasn’t all.”

“Oh, yes – ‘to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.’ “

“That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer…’Give thanks in all circumstances!’ That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks.”

I stared at her, then around me at the dark foul-aired room.

“Such as?” I said.

“Such as being assigned here together.”

I bit my lip. “Oh yes, Lord Jesus.”

“Such as what you’re holding in your hands.”

I looked down at the Bible. “Yes, thank you, dear Lord, that there was no inspection as we entered here. Thank you for all the women here in this room who will meet You in these pages.”

“Yes.” Said Betsy. “Thank you for the very crowding here, since we’re packed so close that many more will hear.”

She looked at me expectantly.

“Corrie?” She prodded.

“Oh, alright…Thank you for the jammed, cramped, stuffed, packed, suffocating crowds.”

“Thank you,” Betsy went on serenely “for the fleas…”

“The fleas!!” This was too much. “Betsy! There’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

“Give thanks for all circumstances,” she quoted. “It doesn’t say ‘for pleasant circumstances.’ Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”

And so, we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas, but this time I was sure Betsy was wrong.”

I continue working. The work is monotonous. I’m exhausted. I keep listening.

If you’re familiar with the story, you’ll know the women later learn the reasons Nazi guards never enter their barracks… the fleas. This particular barracks was notorious among the guards for its severe flea infestation. No guard ever wanted to enter, for fear of getting fleas on themselves.

But Betsy and Corrie could keep their contraband Bible, hold Bible studies multiple times each day, and even sing worship songs, all without fear of inspection, confiscation, or punishment.

Yes, Betsy Ten Boom. I agree with you.

Thank you, Lord, for the fleas. For many years I have remembered this story. It has reminded me to thank God for all circumstances. It has reminded me our loving God may use even our most severe trials inconveniences as an unknown gift of grace to us.

I finish the audiobook that night and finally succumb to my weak body. I go home at 2:30am. I’m 32 and feel embarrassed to leave 55-year-old and 70-year-old coworkers to continue working.  As I walk in the dark early morning the few feet to my back door, I thank God for all my circumstances.

Thank you for a church that meets in our main building Sunday evenings. Without them, no one would have caught this flood until Monday morning.

That church’s pastor and leaders were away on a mission trip. But thank you, God, that you gave me the idea to share my cell number with the man in charge that night. You saved us precious time when that man immediately called my cell upon seeing the flooding.

Thank you, Lord, for three church members on the property who could immediately start working.

Thank you for our volunteer associate pastor, (a young man who accidentally entered our building two years ago when he meant to visit a different church!), who immediately drove to help upon receiving my text.

Thank you, God, for the two men from Abundant Life (the large African-American congregation that uses our building’s main sanctuary) and the men who came to help. And thank you for the commercial carpet extraction equipment they brought.

Thank you that our church, a historically ‘white’ church, have such a beautiful relationship with two Black churches that use our building.

Thank you for multiple churches and a funeral home who rent this building, allowing our congregation to keep the building when we, otherwise, would have had to sell it just to pay the bills.

Thank you for the simple ways you help us practice racial reconciliation, such as working next to these men, as we share this space.

Thank you for fibromyalgia. It daily reminds me my strength to endure comes from you.

Thank you for a frail and weak body. It reminds me I, alone, can’t save this building. It truly keeps me humble when men old enough to be my father and grandfather can work longer than me.

Thank you for the chance to serve you as I clean a building used by your Church.

Thank you, Lord, for the fleas. And thank you for this flood.

A Cross In Our Front Yard…With Your Name On It

My son wants to build a cross in our front yard…with your name on it.

I’m the chief story reader in our home. Our 4-year old son has developed an elaborate bedtime story routine. Each night, I’m required to read from a children’s devotional book and three different children’s storybook Bibles. After reading, I must also sing three songs before kissing him goodnight: Jesus Loves Me, Silent Night, and Jingle Bell Rock. I have no clue how those last two became nightly requirements.

One Bible (The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones) must always be read last. And he always requests the “Jesus dying on the cross” story. The illustrations are beautiful. One page depicts Jesus hanging on the cross with a sign above him (the sign described in the Gospel of John 19:19-21). As we read the story again the other night, our 4-year-old interrupted me:

“Daddy, I want to build a cross in our front yard.”

“A cross?”

“Yeah, I want to build a cross and put a sign on it.”

“A sign? What would you put on the sign”

“People would come by and put their names on it and then I’ll erase their names.”

“Why would you erase their names?”

“For more people to come by and put their names on the sign.”

“And then what would you do?”

“And then I’ll erase their names so other people can put their names on it.”

As I gazed into that little boy’s eyes, I had an Emperor’s New Clothes moment. My son has no clue how powerful is words are, but I do.

While only 4-years old, he already understands the Cross has a message for us today; it’s not merely a historical artifact. 

Our children’s Bible pictures Jesus on a cross, with a sign hanging above him but… 

Without being taught, he concludes the sign on the cross should really have your name on it…and my name. 

He’s reasoned, ‘if that Cross has a connection with any one person, the connection is to us, not Jesus.’

How true, son. How true. One day our little boy will grow out of Bibles filled with pictures and large text. And he will eventually read the conversation between two men who died on crosses next to Jesus:

“And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:41).

I think of words from the Bible, Isaiah 53:4-6:

Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Our son’s sign idea reminds me about the “Deep Magic” in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. One day, we’ll read this book together and come to that famous dialogue between the Witch and Aslan:

“You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to kill…. And so that human creature is mine. His life is forfeit to me. His blood is my property… unless I have blood as the Law says all Narnia will be overturned and perish in fire and water.”

Last, our son understands the Cross is for public viewing…as public as a front yard next to a busy road.

Sadly, we use our front yard as much as most suburban families, which is… not at all. We spend all outdoor play time the back yard. The back yard is peaceful. The back yard is safe. The back yard is fenced-in so neither children, nor dog, can escape. And the backyard is private. 

Our front yard, however, is none of those things. Several neighbors do not have cars. A bus stop and a Dollar General are both a few hundred feet from our front door. Put all those things together and what do you have? You have people cutting through our front yard at all hours of the day. Multiple homeless pass by each week. Two busy roads intersect at our house, bringing several hundred cars by our front yard each day. And a Goodwill donation drop-off site across from our garage cause 100+ people to stop, unload their unwanted belongings, and get back in their cars. Our front yard is not private. 

This little redhead’s father has spent years keeping his faith private…discreet. I’m most outspoken when preaching before other Christians, or typing before a computer screen. But our sweet boy only knows one way to express his faith–publicly, before all the world. Is this why Jesus praises the faith of children?

During the average week, our 4-year old might spend 2 minutes in our front yard. Yet he doesn’t want this cross in the back yard where we spend our time. He wants it in the front yard, where everyone else can see it, see their name on it, and then see their name erased.

“I, I am the One who erases all your sins, for my sake;
    I will not remember your sins (Isaiah 43:25 NCV).

Yes, it probably makes more sense to see our names on that cross, than to see Jesus’ name up there- the only person who “knew no sin.” But the historical reality is that Jesus’ name was on that cross. It’s as if our names are erased from that cross because his name is there instead. Or, to use the Apostle Paul’s words, “one died for all, and therefore all died.” And that, my friends, is Good News.

I’ll never pressure our boys to choose the same profession as their Dad. But I’m already wondering if our 4-year old might follow in my footsteps. If I may borrow a message from this 4-year old preacher,

I pray you see your name on that cross, hanging above where traitors died. But I also pray you see your name erased, by the One who gladly “erases all your sins.” And I pray you also want to ‘go public’ with Christ’s Cross. 

O Lamb of God, for sinners slain,
I plead with thee, my suit to gain, —
I plead what thou hast done:
Didst thou not die the death for me?
Jesus, remember Calvary,
And break my heart of stone.

Take the dear purchase of thy blood,
My Friend and Advocate with God,
My Ransom and my Peace,
Surety, who all my debt hast paid,
For all my sins atonement made,
The Lord my Righteousness.

O let thy Spirit shed abroad
The love, the perfect love of God,
In this cold heart of mine!
O might he now descend, and rest,
And dwell forever in my breast,
And make it all divine!

O Lamb of God, For Sinners Slain— Charles Wesley, 1749

He Knows My Name, So I Learn Theirs

 

man-with-cap-and-beard
We were backing out of the garage one morning when we saw a man walking to the bus stop. We turned right  on the major road beside our house. At an intersection, we saw another man crossing the road. My 3-year-old asked, “who’s that, Daddy?”
We saw two men, but my son only assumed I knew one of them. Both were the same ethnicity. Both were wearing jeans and a t-shirt. One looked like he would spend his day at a workplace with minimal dress code. The other man looked like he’d worn those clothes for weeks. One was homeless. The other looked like he had a job and a place to call home.
Interesting…my 3-year-old has already learned to guess who is homeless by their clothing. Even more interesting? My son assumes I know any homeless person we see.

Two weeks ago, a homeless man I’ve known for 3 years attended our church’s Sunday morning service. He was sober the entire service. About 3 minutes after he left our service, a deacon from a church that rents our main sanctuary came to find me. I was at home with a dozen other church leaders. I was about to start an important meeting.

The deacon (who knows the homeless man’s alcoholic past) says my friend is extremely drunk and had just been escorted out the front door. “Impossible,” I reply. I leave our church leaders to wait at my house as I walk to the main building. Someone else stops me and I’m caught up in a conversation. A minute later, another usher says people found my friend having a seizure in overflow parking across the street. They called 911. I walk across the street.
Several people stand gathered around him as he sits on the pavement. No one standing around knew who he was. I walk to my friend still sitting the ground and say his name. One of the passersby then asks me, “You know this man?”

I send a text to cancel the important meeting. The seizure temporarily disabled my friend’s speech abilities. He needs someone with him who knows his name. I know some of his medical history. I should share what I know with the paramedics.

My 3-year-old and our 100-pound chocolate lab are walking at the park by our church. We see the same man I’ve seen countless times in our area. Whenever he’s at the park, he’s always alone at the same picnic table. It’s the picnic table farthest away from people. Several bags lay around him. The man is wearing the same clothes I’ve seen him wear since July. He never talks to anyone. We’ve made two laps around the park and no one has yet spoken to him. Not even the other guys from the street know him, and that’s very unusual. It seems he is a true Loner.

I decide to introduce myself. I push the stroller off the walking path towards the picnic table. Even in the open air and with a light breeze, his odor is strong. A half-eaten box of iced Halloween cookies from the grocery store sits on the table. Halloween was last week. Guys on the street know store employees sometimes give away expired food to them instead of throwing it in the dumpster at night. I give him a big smile. His smile is weak and unsure.

He’s probably wondering if I’m just one more parent who will shew him away from the children. I introduce myself, my son, and our dog to him. He tells me his name but barely makes eye contact. I explain I decided to say hi since I see him so often. He nods. I ask him if he’s living on the streets. He extends his arm and says  “over there,” pointing towards a neighborhood filled with $200,000-250,000 homes. He mumbles something about saving money to buy a car. I say goodbye and we continue our walk.

During our short conversation, and the rest of our time at the park, the man keeps rubbing a shaving razor against his stubble. It reminds me of my sleepy son rubbing his luvee (a miniature blanket topped with a stuffed animal’s head) against his face. He’s not really shaving, just rubbing it against his face.

As I push the stroller around the walking path, my son asks why the man was sitting at the park.

“He’s homeless.”

“Homeless? What’s that?”

“It means he doesn’t have a home.”

“Why doesn’t he have a home?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh. Okay. Can we play now?”

Before leaving, I loudly yell goodbye to the man from across the playground. I’m loud on purpose. I want other parents to hear me. It’s my way of saying, “This homeless man has a name and is not someone you should fear.” I hope other parents at the playground will see me, a white man with my All-American family dog and a pre-schooler, talking to this awkward black homeless man on the bench.

I hope my conversation with him encourages other parents to start conversations, instead of casting suspicious stares.  At the very least, I hope it discourages others from reporting him to the police for loitering.
Back at the house my son says, “Daddy, tell Mommy about the man at the picnic table.”

“Who is that man, Daddy?”

“That’s _________, son.”


“You know this man?”

“Yeah, I know _________. He’s my friend. He attended our church this morning.”


“Daddy, tell Mommy about the man at the picnic table.”

“We met ____________ today at the park.”

 

In the New Testament, the Gospel of Luke tells a story about Zacchaeus. I can’t type his name without thinking of the children’s church song describing him as a “wee little man.” He heard Jesus was on his way and wanted to see him. But Zacchaeus was short and couldn’t see Jesus over the crowds. So he climbed a tree. When Jesus came to the tree, “he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” ” (Luke 19:5). Verse 7 says,  “All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He [Jesus] has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” He calls the notorious tax collector by name and invites himself to dinner.

I’m sure everyone in town knew Zacchaeus’s name. Many families living there had to interact with him, or one of his employees, when they paid taxes. But hated people like Zacchaeus are often called by more…colorful terms. Ask a homeless person all the hateful names thrown at them. But Jesus has no use for the mean terms and labels of this world. He simply addresses Zacchaeus by his name.

I’m also sure plenty of taller people on that day knew Zacchaeus was trying to get a peek at Jesus. How do you not notice when a notorious and hated tax cheat is standing in your presence?? But they probably did what we do with “distasteful” people in our society today, we pretend they aren’t there. If you pretend the “wee little man” isn’t standing there, you don’t have to step aside for him to see Jesus. It’s that easy. Completely ignore him.

Recently, I laid out a list of important life practices with our church family. I’ve encouraged our people to go where Jesus goes, say what Jesus would say, and do what Jesus would do.  One item in the list of practices is “Teach others weekly how to be Jesus’ disciple.” A few posts ago, I mentioned I need to practice what I preach. We preachers are often bad at practicing what we preach. But you already knew that.

So I’m teaching my son what it means to be Jesus’ disciple. I do it in simple ways a 3-year-old understands. The same day we met the man at the picnic table, I told my son how Jesus gave us great weather for walking at the park. Jesus’ disciples thank him for simple blessings. We prayed together, “Thank you Jesus for the good weather.” It’s disciple-making, 10 seconds at a time.

I NEVER thought I’d be a pastor who spent much time befriending the homeless. I wasn’t against the idea. I just literally never thought about it. But there’s a lot of things I now thing about as I pastor in a diverse community.

Thankfully, my son is also learning one more way to be Jesus’ disciple…learning the names of people our society considers “the least of these.” For my sweet 3-year-old, meeting a homeless man is an exciting part of life with daddy, not something distasteful or annoying. He wants to tell Mommy who we met. He now thinks Daddy knows all the homeless men.  I believe Jesus would take the time to learn their names, so I take time to learn their names. And I’m teaching my son their names.

I cannot solve Homelessness. But I can befriend the homeless in my community, as Jesus has befriended me. As Jesus speaks with his disciples in John 15:15 he says, “I have called you friends.” And what friend doesn’t know your name?

Jesus befriended me, so I befriend them. Jesus knows my name, so I learn theirs.

 *Stock photo

“When first I heard His bles-sed voice,

Sin filled my heart with shame.

But now, forgiven, I rejoice–

He knows my name.

–“He Knows Me By Name” William M. Lighthall, 1908

 

Pastor With A Plunger, Practicing the Presence


I woke up yesterday morning on the couch. A fussy, swaddled two-week old is finally asleep on my chest. Our 3-year-old sits next to me. He’s been watching train videos on the iPad for 30 minutes…while I slept. Whoops. Don’t tell his mother. She’s asleep in the bedroom, recovering from a very long night.

I hurriedly get our red-haired train fanatic ready for Mother’s Day Out. Momma does this faster than me. But she’s busy nursing the baby. I hear crying from the back seat during our entire 8 minute car ride. He wanted to stay home today. We arrive 10 minutes late.

On my way home, I stop by a homeless hideout. It’s behind a row of businesses. A man I’ve been working with is in his sleeping bag. He doesn’t think the help I’ve offered him is enough. So he’s back here again, trying to make it on his own, sleeping by the dumpsters.  I wake him up and we talk for a while.

A few weeks ago, a drug dealer came here and offered one of the guys $1,000/week, an apartment, and a BMW. All this homeless man had to do was make some weekly “deliveries.” He rejected the dealer’s offer and immediately called my cell. He needed encouragement that he’d just made the right decision. Fast food employees go in and out a back door, taking trash to the dumpsters. They recognize the homeless man, but not me. I wonder what they’re thinking as I see them steal furtive glances my way. Who do they think I am? Another drug dealer? A friend? 

I try having a meaningful conversation as I sit on the dirt. But I’m also watching out for ants that may bite my leg at any second.

My offer of help is politely refused today (but accepted later that night, before the rainstorm comes). I get back in the car and head for home.

I see I’ve missed two phone calls and two texts. I’m needed at church. A storage closet is locked and I’m the Keeper Of The Keys.

I pull into the garage just as someone else is pulling up to our front door. It’s a kind friend who’s donating her double stroller to us. She shows us how to use it, then asks me how to best help when people ask for money on the streets. That woman yesterday in the grocery store parking lot…should she have given her money? Is that just enabling addictions?

I encourage her to ask the Holy Spirit for guidance in each interaction. Lancaster Street has three organizations that can truly help them. Beyond that, I have no good answers.

Two more missed texts. I forgot about the locked storage closet. I’ve now kept a person waiting at church for 45 minutes. Whoops. I go unlock the door.

I’m now talking with a homeless man who’s working inside. I’m paying him a little to help us at church. We’re interrupted…The women’s bathroom in our building’s old section flooded.

A sink won’t drain. A slow stream of water filled the wash basin all night, even with the faucets turned off. And the shutoff valve underneath is rusted stuck. It’s a trifecta of plumbing woes.

As weird as it sounds, this is a pretty normal morning for me.

I grab a plunger. The wet carpet sloshes beneath my feet. I begin plunging the sink.

Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up.

Nasty brown debris comes out of the drain. It’s just rust…I hope.

I suddenly remember Brother Lawrence, a 17th century monk. A priest compiled a list of Lawrence’s personal resolutions, from what we would call ‘journal entries.’ The man also transcribed several conversations he had with Brother Lawrence. Lawrence’s writings and conversations became known as a work entitled The Practice of the Presence of God.

Brother Lawrence served as a cook in his monastery for many years. An old injury and limp eventually forced Lawrence to take a job with less standing — mending monk’s old and sweaty sandals. In a hot kitchen, Lawrence first learned to “practice the presence of God” while preparing food, cleaning pots, and cooking over fires.

My sink plunging continues. Am I plunging the way my preaching professors taught me in seminary?

Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up.

Brother Lawrence once said:

“Men invent means and methods of coming at God’s love, they learn rules and set up devices to remind them of that love, and it seems like a world of trouble to bring oneself into the consciousness of God’s presence. Yet it might be so simple. Is it not quicker and easier just to do our common business wholly for the love of him?”

Renovating and repairing our church’s old facility is “common business” for me. Can I plunge this sink wholly for the love of God?

The lowly kitchen monk also said:

“Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him.”

The sink is still clogged and now the water looks disgusting. I stick my finger down the overflow drain near the sink’s top.

Now my finger stops the plunger from pushing dirty water up through that hole and making a bigger mess.

Lawrence said:

We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.

A church leadership expert would probably say I should delegate work like this. Maybe I should. But the carpet is wet now. It’s too late to delegate this. Didn’t one professor say I should spend 20 hours a week preparing my sermon? Whoops. No time this week.

My hands are filthy. Water splashed on the fake marble sink and wallpaper. We really should renovate this bathroom. 

The humble monk encouraged us:

“Along with this total abandonment must go a complete acceptance of God’s will with equanimity and resignation. No matter what troubles and ills come our way, they are to be willingly and indeed joyously endured since they come from God, and God knows what He is doing.”

I’m not there yet, Brother Lawrence, but I’m getting closer. I’m learning Jesus uses these broken items in our church building for his glory. In my last post, I mentioned how Jesus gives me a new story to share each time an a/c unit breaks. This man sold us refrigerant at cost, this company gave us an amazing deal on labor. The pastor of the newest church to use our building just told me his buddy owns an a/c repair company, etc, etc.

As I stood on soggy carpet plunging the sink, a Facebook message was waiting for me in my inbox. It was from a licensed plumber. I’ve never met him. He doesn’t live in my neighborhood. We have no Facebook friends in common. Yet, he somehow heard about our church’s past plumbing problems. He messaged to say he was available this week to work for us. As I write this sentence, he’ll be here in two hours.

I’m finally learning to obey Jesus’ command about not worrying. I’m doing exactly what Jesus called me to do. I’m serving his Church. This church building is simply one more tool God uses for his Church. And Jesus will build his church. We strive to faithfully use this old, dilapidated building in ways that glorify Jesus. So, of course, Jesus would put a plumber’s random offer of help in my Facebook inbox!

Just like Brother Lawrence said, “No matter what troubles and ills come our way, they are to be willingly and indeed joyously endured since they come from God, and God knows what He is doing.” My God knew what he was doing when he allowed that trifecta of plumbing woes to come my way. He knew what he was doing when he put it on a plumber’s heart to seek me out and offer his services.

As long as I continually follow where Jesus leads, he will provide my every need. I’ll keep doing my best to love people like Jesus loves. I’ll keep seeking out the homeless behind buildings. I’ll strive to be a husband and father who honors Jesus in all I do.

I’ll continue to be a pastor with a plunger, practicing the presence of God in all I do. I haven’t reached my goal yet, but I’ll keep practicing. I’ll keep inviting God’s presence into my daily, sleep-deprived and hurried pastor’s life. And I know he will never reject my invitation to join me.