Kids on the Block

People are looking at us. Not us. Me. I look suspicious. A white man driving a car full of black kids. In the most segregated city in the country. But statistics do not make people; people make statistics.

The girl in the front seat? A few nights ago she was crying on our front steps. I wondered how long she’d been sitting there. Kevin asked her what was wrong. Megan sat down and the girl pressed into her, eyes squeezed shut, as if wanting to be absorbed. Someone else’s mother called out. The girl walked over to her. “She just can’t find her mama,” the mother said.

The boy in the back seat? The other night he was holding his baby sister. “’Sup Ben?” He nodded, implying that holding a baby was now cool, because he was doing it. This is the same boy who recently rode his bike right in front of my car without looking. I imagined hitting him, holding his little body in the road, saying, No. No. No.

The boy sitting next to him? A couple days ago he asked, “Could you bring out the hoop?” I followed him to the garage, unlocked it, reached for the handle to lift up the door and stopped. “I’ve got to get a glove to lift it up,” I said, remembering how thin and sharp the handle is. “It’s fine, I’ve got it,” he said, gripping the handle and yanking upward. “You’ve got thick skin.” I told him. He smiled and held up his hand. It was bleeding.

“Does everyone have on their seatbelts?” I ask, checking the rear view mirror. I don’t see any kids. I lower the mirror and three little faces look back. While they are in my car I will keep them safe.

Mattresses and Ministry the life of me.

Mattresses… I had never really given them much thought before. I can sleep on pretty much anything and wake up the next day feeling fine. I’ve always appreciated my ability to sleep anywhere. Airplanes, trains, buses, the floor. I never ever thought that my first big boy job with benefits, insurance, and the delightful concept of a paid vacation would be selling mattresses.


When Meg and I decided that we wanted to answer God’s call on our lives to minister and love children, especially those from tough situations, and live among them I knew I was going to need to get another job as well. But mattresses…Really? Weird? I never grew up thinking about being a mattress salesman…


Having a calling and spending forty hours a week on something that’s not my calling makes for an interesting situation. In some ways it’s fantastic. The kids in the neighborhood see me get up, put on a tie, and go to work every day to provide for my family and that is a wonderful. They don’t often see examples of that type of behavior modeled for them and I love that aspect of my job. I have wonderful bosses that allow me to only work 4 days a week instead of five and still receive benefits and vacation time. They are flexible with my schedule and I was able to come to all of VBS this past week and that was fantastic and wonderful time to see God work. I get each Tuesday off so that I can be here at the house for bible club and be a part of what God is doing through that.


Other days it’s a little tougher. I missed a lot of basketball games that kids in the neighborhood wanted me to attend because I work eleven hours on Saturday and that’s game day. Some days the store is slammed and I come home really tired and all I want to do is sit inside my house and rest, not go and play cans with the 9 year old next store. Having to work the occasional Sunday afternoon and rush out of church as soon as the sermon is over. Less time to spend planning what I am going to teach on a Sunday morning in Sunday school.


All in all being bi vocational is working out really well. Megan and I love being at TCC and being a part of the community. We love being here in the neighborhood, seeing community built and racial barriers being torn down. God is blessing our ministry both here in the community house and at the church on Sunday mornings. We are seeing those two groups interact more and more and it’s a wonderful thing. Our bills are paid and we’re getting the chance to do what we’re called to do with our lives. Some days were tired and worn, but God and the community that makes up TCC fills and recharges our batteries. God has us exactly where he wants us to be and is working in ways we would never expect, like a mattress store.

Love v. Fear

We live in a culture of fear. Advertisers advertise their products to us often times by creating a scenario where something terrible will happen if we do not use their product. Politicians often play on our worst fears of war, terrorism, financial collapse to solicit our votes. Churches and pastors sometimes literally try to scare the hell out of us. We find fear everywhere and often times we fall prey to this fear as well. We begin to make decision based on fear. We pick neighborhoods to live in based on how safe it is because we fear for our safety. We often give up on our dreams and opt for the path that leads to financial security. I could go on and on…Fear. Fear. Fear. And if we are honest with ourselves we find many of our the decision we make – the big decisions – often have fear at the center.

But Scripture says again and again, “Fear not.” “Fear not.” “Fear not.” It appears that fear is not what God wants of us. Fear should not be a motivation of what we do or do not do.

Philippians says this, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ.”(1.9-11)

That your love may abound, overflow, overwhelm one another. This love is not “like” love – its agape love – the type of love that seeks the benefit of the other. It destroys selfishness. It pours itself out for the benefit of the other.

Paul is saying here that our ability to “discern” should be based in love. So the decisions we make should not be made out of fear – but rather should be made out of the love that seeks the benefit of the other above the benefit of ourselves.

Dangerous neighborhood? Maybe our decision to engage that neighborhood should not be based in fear of what may happen to us if we go there but rather how we are called to love there. Following my dreams? Afraid of what it will cost you? Maybe we are fearing the wrong thing – maybe we should be afraid of what it will cost us if we do not follow our dreams. What it will cost us to not follow Jesus where He is leading.

Some people say that the opposite of love is indifference. That may be so – but I’d say the opposite of love is fear. Fear paralyzes. Fear builds walls between us and those that are different from us. Fear keeps us from following Jesus into those hard and risky places and engaging in those relationships that are not so easy.

But we are not called to fear. We are called to love – abounding, overwhelming agape love. From that place of love we should build our lives and make our decisions.

What if all the followers of Jesus all over our country decided to make decision of where they will live, where they will work, how they will spend their time and money and resources not based out of fear or self-interest but rather out of abounding love for others – the type of agape, self-sacrificing love that Paul is talking about here. I wonder what kind of world that would look like?

Today – what decisions are you making out of fear? Where are you afraid to follow Jesus because you are afraid of the consequences?

What does love have to say about that?

Town & Country

The birds sing in a discord of styles: some sound like they are in an opera, others in a lounge, others in a glee club; still, they sing in harmony. The sun scales the smooth bluff of a blue sky. The trees bustle about in preparation for the day.

This is my Father’s world.

I forgot…In the city, the boomrattle of car stereos, the screamed conversations, the yodeling of police sirens…I forgot.

God’s house is everywhere; each of His servants is called to a different part of it. But we must remember we were born in the garden.