Community House Impact

I was over at the community house yesterday doing some work on the outside, I'm going to put in a little sitting area with some paver stones and a bench in front of their porch. While I was there Bible Club was starting up - and about 15 kids wandered in from throughout the neighborhood and into Ben & Megan's house.
Sometimes even I am curious as to what type of things are going on over there - so they gave me a report. And here is what is happening at the Community House. As we talk about the season of resurrection, I can't think of better stories to illustrate the power of people making intentional choices about where they will live and then see the surprise and power of resurrection all around them like flowers blooming in an open field...

It’s difficult to break down into concrete “programs” and “activities” what happens at the Community House.  In many ways, we’re just neighbors.  Really nice neighbors who will hang out with your kids, shovel your sidewalk and invite you to dinner – no matter how many times you’ve turned us down. 

         In a strictly programmatic sense, we have three main foci: Bible Club, tutoring and mentoring.  Bible Club meets every Tuesday’s after school.  Each week anywhere between 6-15 kids gather in the lower of the Community House to sing songs, play games, do crafts and listen to a kid-appropriate Bible lesson with Kevin, Ben Cole, Ben Westra, and Megan.  The Bible Club kids eat a snack each week before heading home, and once a month a family from the church sponsors’ dinner for the kids.  During our monthly dinner, kids engage in table fellowship, learn basic manners, help prepare the meal and set the table and help clean up afterward.  (Usually washing the dishes is accompanied by dance music from the 90’s and electric slide dance steps).

         As we have gotten to know kids better through Bible Club, specific needs and passions have surfaced, leading us to begin the very early stages of a mentoring and tutoring program.  Currently, we have a boy on the block who is very interested in art and graphic design, and a man from TCC meets with this student once per week to mentor and teach him more about art.  We also have a 6^th grade student who currently reads on a very primary level (1^st-2^nd grade), a lady from TCC meets with this student once per week to tutor him in reading. 

         We hope, as we continue to build relationships and discover more about our neighbors, to continue to build mentor and tutor bridges between TCC and 44^th and 45^th Streets.  

         Much of the other ministry that occurs in and around the house is more impromptu.  Kevin and Ben regularly spend time  with Malcolm, Donnie, Nick and Vernell – high school students who used to live on the block but moved away.  Throughout the professional basketball season we take turns taking kids to Bucks games (and occasionally out to custard afterwards).   Trips to the library, countless games of uno and monopoly, walks and bike rides in the park,  and random pizza parties in the living room after kids shovel the entire blocks sidewalks (without being asked) – all of these are just a small part of what goes on day in and day out at the TCC Community House. 

         Before Christmas, we threw the kids involved in Bible Club (about 12 at the time) a party at Paradise Landing – an indoor water park in downtown Milwaukee.  The congregation at TCC sponsored kids so that we were able to provide a night of fun in the water park and more pizza than we thought would be possible to eat for free. 

         In addition to our ministry with the neighborhood kids Kevin hosts a young adult small group each week, and Ben and Megan take turns hosting a young married small group about once every other month.  We look forward to seeing how God continues to grow the ministry in and around the Community House as our relationships in the community deepen and the needs of our neighbors become more apparent.

Runny Eggs and Ketchup

Late one night a while back I found myself sitting with a friend of mine eating breakfast for dinner at George Webb, (the waffle house of the upper midwest). I began by complaining about a bunch of people who rubbed me the wrong way that day. I talked about how I had been wronged and how they were so self-centered and egotistical. And while I was complaining about them to my friend, I began to notice that he was dipping his over easy eggs, with the centers all runny into a huge pile of ketchup. “Gross!” I thought to myself, “What’s wrong with this guy? How can he live like that? Who raised him so wrongly that he would feel that this behavior was socially acceptable? And I began to think of Bible verses that I might show him to prove that what he was doing was ungodly. And then it hit me – maybe the people around me aren’t the problem at all. Maybe my attitude is the problem.

The Apostle Paul says we should take on the same attitude that Jesus took on – that being God he did not consider equality with God something to be exploited but that he took on the nature of a servant. But I struggle with this because I want others to perform at high levels around me. But maybe I need to let go of this.
Lately I've been struggling with being highly critical of people around me. This is one of the least attractive things a person can do. Not only do you look like a huge jerk, you begin to look for faults in people and then make lists of these faults. In the final analysis, you begin to define people by whatever you perceive their weaknesses to be. This is what social workers call a "deficit model." It is incredibly destructive to our personal relationships and according to my calculations there is only one person that can stand up to such critique and I ain’t Him. I’ve been asking God to remove this flawed thinking and he sent me some comfort from a 600 year old dead guy.

I've been reading the Imitation of Christ by Thomas A Kempis, and he says that judging others like this is never very fruitful. Instead he sees great spiritual value in taking the effort which we normally employ to criticize others and use that energy to judge ourselves.

This is not a popular approach in our culture. We tend to think of being critical of ourselves as having low self-esteem. I don’t think this is exactly the case. It takes a certain level of courage to honestly take a look at our lives. And this level of courage seems to come from the Holy Spirit. So that we aren’t trying to wallow in self-inflicted guilt but rather to ask God how we can change in order to love others like Jesus does. It is positive movement rather than negative – it is looking at our lives and asking God to build us up into his image. And it is a normal part of the Christian life. The good news is that God is all about change. He loves us where we are and he loves us into movement toward Him. Perhaps you might take a moment today to inventory how you are treating others and ask God to give you a vision of how you might love them like Jesus – even the ones who dip runny eggs into ketchup.

New Blog

Hey world (and TCC) - this is our new blog. Here we will tell stories and share our thoughts. Check back as we add more soon!