This week begins a crazy week for me. We’re preparing to launch the new Grace web site and I start classes on Wednesday morning. Fortunately I don’t have college group or small group anymore, which frees up my schedule, but I’m still beginning to feel overwhelmed.
Even in the midst of all this stuff going on, I am looking forward to helping out with girls club at Shepherd Community. I started volunteering this past winter with my friends as a way to serve God together, or better said, to serve with God together alongside my friends.
I could lie and tell you that it’s easy… and that I see the face of God in those children whenever I serve. But the truth is, sometimes it’s hard to picture Jesus when you’ve got a seven-year-old dressed up in a princess gown jumping at you screaming, "Save me Jesus! Save me Jesus!"
But it’s in my quiet time with God that I am reminded why we do what we do:
"Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." – Luke 18:15-17
I cannot tell you the many times we leave tired and exhausted. There are even times when we can’t get the girls to stop talking so we can do a lesson, apparently this is something women develop early in life. Ha ha!
But there is no greater reward than to sit in the cafeteria as the buses start to drop them off. The joy I get when I see some of my favorite kiddos get off the bus is indescribable. To have them jump in my arms and tell me about their day, or to sit on my lap while we do our lesson.. it’s priceless.
I remember one day when one of the girls ran into the cafeteria and jumped into Chad’s arms, excited to see him. She was holding her new Bible and was so excited to show it to Faith. Unfortunately, Faith wasn’t there that week, but I had my little camera and we sent her a video message. Every week this girl was so eager to get out her Bible and start reading, she’d get so excited about it! Honestly I don’t know how much of this "Bible knowledge" she’ll retain, in fact, I’m just stoked that her and the rest of the girls are developing their reading skills.
What’s most important to me is that these kids know that they’re loved by God. When I was their age, the most exposure I got to Jesus was through Vacation Bible School and occasionally going to Sunday school with my Grandma Hicks. I remember singing songs, though I can’t remember what they were. I remember playing with flannel graphs, though I don’t really recall the lesson. I also remember having some pretty sweet snacks during VBS, but once again, the only thing that really sticks out is Hi-C Orange Drink.
What I remember most though, through all those experiences, is how much the volunteers cared about me and made it such a wonderful experience. As these girls grow up, I don’t know if they’ll remember what we taught them or if they’ll remember our names. But hopefully what they will remember is that those people at Shepherd loved Jesus so much and loved them so much. And perhaps that may give them cause to learn for themselves who this Jesus guy really is.
–
If you’re interested in getting involved at Shepherd Community, the best way is to just give them a holler by filling out the contact form on their web site. Programs are starting to kick off for the year, so now is a great time to get plugged in. And just a free "advertisement" for our Outreach ministry at Grace, feel free to see them after weekend services and see if there’s a place you can serve with Jesus.
Serving, like anything else, takes discipline to tell yourself you’re going to do it. And while it takes a little bit of your time, you may find that you get a lot out of it, like I have.
On a whim today, I bought a book that I’ve been hearing great things about, The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. I have to tell you, that after reading a third of it, that I am being rocked to my core.
Why? Because it strikes deep in the heart of what our motivations are with God. If you’ve known me long enough, you know that I’m someone who tries to get beyond the surface of problems and find the real root of the matter. It’s like a father who gets upset with his son, when in reality, there are pressures at work and he’s taking it out on the child. Getting upset with the son is the surface issue, the real root of the problem is what’s going on at work.
The reason The Prodigal God is rocking my core, is because it’s really making me look past the "surface" issues of my relationship with God and striking the root. If you’ve never heard the story of "The Prodigal Son," it talks about how this man has two sons. One son decides that he doesn’t want anything to do with the family and asks for his share of the inheritance (1/3 of his father’s properties) and goes off and squanders it on prostitutes and all sorts of non-kosher things. One day he realizes what he has done and wants to come back and work for his father to repay the inheritance he squandered. Finally he gathers up the courage to go back to his father and as the father sees his son over the hill, he goes running towards his son, forgives him, puts the best clothes on him, throws a big party.
What we’ve forgotten about here is the older brother, who’s been with the father all along. He’s the "good" one who has done everything right, played by the rules.
Can you guess where this is going? If you’ve ever grown up with siblings, you know that sometimes it can seem as if a parent is giving preferential treatment to one of the siblings, it doesn’t seem fair! And it doesn’t seem fair to the older brother that he’s stuck around all this time, done all the right things, and his younger brother gets to come back scot-free.
What struck me about this book and about the story of "The Prodigal Son" is that both sons had bad motives. The younger son decided to go his own way, embarrass the family, and lost his portion of the inheritance. But what we fail to forget is that the older brother is just as guilty. Why? Because his motives for doing all the "right things" were to look after his own interests, protecting the 2/3 inheritance that was his. Neither son really cared for their father, they just wanted the rewards that came from the inheritance.
Keller goes on to relate our relationship with God to the two sons. There are some who go off and break all the rules and bask in God’s grace when they come to repentance. Then there are those who do everything they can to not sin and do certain things to essentially earn brownie points with God. Why is this wrong? It’s wrong because their motivation for obeying God and doing certain things isn’t out of respect and reverence for God, but they use it like a rewards card. When things don’t go their way they come crying to God, "Why God? After all I’ve done for you, why would you let this happen?"
Do you see how selfish that is? They weren’t trying to please and serve God, they were doing it to serve their own selfish interests.
As I was processing this, Ephesians 2:8-9 came to mind, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast."
Or to quote from The Message (a paraphrase), "Saving is all his [God's] idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."
I was talking to my friend Faith the other day about how I had this radical change of mindset regarding work (this was prior to reading this book). I told her that I began to realize that I didn’t work for Grace Community Church, but that I worked for Jesus. To which she replied, "I like to think that I work with Jesus." Combined with what Ephesians 2:8-9 said, my viewpoint was changed. If I work for Jesus, that implies an employee/boss scenario and I’m working hard to keep my job. BUT, if I work with Jesus, I can almost hear him saying, "Hey Kiel, here’s what I’m doing, let’s work on this together!" And I have to tell you, I’d rather work with Jesus than for Jesus. Do you see my point?
The parable and this book are causing me to re-think how I relate to Jesus. For example, instead of working with kids at Shepherd Community because I believe it will please God; I now work with kids at Shepherd and enjoy it because I know it pleases God. Instead of going to school so that I can be "good enough" to do God’s work, I take comfort in knowing that God delights in me with or without Bible college… so I should delight in learning. When I feel like I’m doing all the "right things," I shouldn’t get disheartened when someone "less deserving" gets ahead in life, because I’m not doing the "right things" to earn God’s favor.
Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s all about perspective, it’s all about attitude. This new "revelation" that I’m having doesn’t discount what I’ve done in the past for, or should I say, with God. I know in my heart that good things have come out of those endeavours. But I also realize I’m growing and that God is showing me new ways to look at things.
So I have to give thanks to God. After seven years of being at church and over five years in Bible college, I’m starting to get it.
After taking spring and summer semester off, I am finally heading back to school. Woo hoo!
Most of you know that I’ve been in school forever, or at least it seems like forever. After graduating from high school in 2001, I took a year off and started attending Ivy Tech in 2002, that was seven years ago.
I started out wanting to be a journalism major, but began to see the decline of the daily newspaper. Even though online news started to become popular, I felt more called to the ministry. So I began attending Crossroads Bible College on the east side of Indianapolis sometime in 2004 or 2005 (I can’t remember).
Earning my degree hasn’t come easily. I started out with great motivation, then my motivation waned, and then I began working full-time. While I enjoy learning, I like learning in little chunks, which is another reason its been taking so long. Instead of trying to prepare for five classes or more, I enjoyed the pace of having two or three classes at a time.
If I had to do it over again, I probably would have pushed through and finished in quicker time. But I’ve learned to be thankful for what God has done and what He will do. Has it taken a while to get my degree? Absolutely. Through that time, however, I’ve grown, struggled, gone through ups and downs. In short, I’ve developed into the person I am today. If school has taught me anything, it has taught me not to let things linger too long… to push through and get things done.
For the first time in a long time, I’m actually looking forward to going back to school. The east side has become a second home to me, a place I’ve become fond of. I love working with the kids at Shepherd Community Center, I love sitting by the drafty windows at Lazy Daze in the winter and write, I love grabbing dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called The Patio.
What’s my motivation to finish this time? First off, I’m so close! I have less than nine classes to complete. Second reason? My friends have promised me a graduation party! I’ve never had one, not for high school. For the first time in a while, I am thankful that I have friends that want to do that for me.
So I’m heading to school this week to register and looking forward to pushing through and getting it done. I’m so thankful for my friends and family who have been so supportive and I’m thankful for my college. I have spent the last several months completing my "To-Do List for 2009," I’m hoping that 2010 will find me with a Bachelor’s Degree in Religious Education (focusing on Pastoral Ministry). I’m ready, let’s do this!
I’m starting to see it. For the longest time I thought I had it figured out, but it turns out it was just an illusion. I’m talking about racial reconciliation.
When I started attending Crossroads Bible College in Indianapolis, I was required to take various classes, including one called, "Culture, Race, and the Church." Here’s the beautiful thing about my college and why I love it, we are a great mix of diversity! The entire mission of the college is "to reach a multi-ethnic, urban world for Christ."
To be quite honest with you, my main reason for attending Crossroads was because it was one of the few Bible colleges in town and it was close to home. So imagine my surprise when I had to take all these race-related classes. I went to a public high school, I never felt any racial tensions while there, aren’t we done with racial reconciliation?
The truth is, we are far from there. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., I’m still waiting for people to be "judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
So what brought about this blog idea? Obama. Yep, doesn’t everything nowadays have to do with the man? People have made such a great deal that he is our first African-American president. At first I thought to myself, "well, it is 2009, it’s about time." But what put it all in perspective was when I was talking to Pastor Wiggins prior to the election. The conversation went something like this:
"Brother Kiel, my wife likes to collect those presidential plates. And my kids, grandkids see these men… great men! But they look at these plates and say, ‘those men don’t look like me, does that mean I can’t be president someday?’ So I continue to wait for the day when my wife can put a plate up on the display where the kids can look at it and say, ‘look granddad, I can be president too!’"
Now some might say, "well, if we want people to be judged on the content of their character and not their skin color, why should it matter what color our president is?" The truth is that humans need someone to look up to, to find a characteristic that they identify with. "That guy grew up in my neighborhood, I can grow up to be like him!" or "She had breast cancer, I have breast cancer, I can identify with that."
When Pastor Wiggins was growing up, becoming president was probably something he never thought he could aspire to, because the culture back then told him that no black man could ever be president. Or we think of those who grew up in slavery ever wondering if future generations of people who looked like them (because they were slaves based on their color), would ever live to be free men and women.
I bring up race today friends, because it’s something that’s still prevalent. Oh, we may hide it well, but the truth is, many of us have racial prejudices. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, Latino, or Asian. Since there’s still some segregation amongst the races, it leaves the door open misunderstandings and prejudices to creep in. Take a few of these examples:
Glenn Beck said this today on Fox News: "This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people, or the white culture. I don’t what it is. You can’t sit in a pew with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years and not hear some of that stuff, and not have it wash over."
During his new crusade of Birtherism, Lou Dobbs suggested on his radio show this past Wednesday, right before the Gates flare-up, that Obama could be an illegal immigrant, tying this into his usual preoccupation. "I’m starting to think we have a document issue," Dobbs said. "You suppose he’s un– no, I won’t even use the word ‘undocumented,’ it wouldn’t be right."
There are people that LOVE to use his full name, "Barack Hussein Obama" or BHO. Over the entire history of the presidency, I don’t ever recall people using the President’s full name in regular conversation. "George HERBERT WALKER Bush," "William JEFFERSON Clinton," "Jimmy EARL Carter." The only reason, people use Barack’s middle name is because it is of Muslim origin and the prejudice people have towards Muslims. I can find no other reason. America is a melting pot of weird names, GET OVER IT. Using "Barack Hussein Obama" or BHO doesn’t make you racist, although you may want to check your motives before doing so. Let’s go back to calling presidents by their last name in conversation, "Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Kennedy."
America is such a melting pot of diversity, it’s not pre-dominantly white anymore… and that’s a good thing! What are these guys afraid of? They sit in front of the camera and spout this non-sense about race. The reason why race is still in issue is because they make it one.
I’m happy that we have a black president. And I’ll be happy when we have a Latino president and an Asian president. Hopefully there will come a day when someone will run for president and his or her skin color will not matter and Dr. King’s dream of "judging a man, not by the color of his skin, but on the content of his character" will truly be realized.
We’ve got a long way to go for Dr. King’s dream to become a reality.
Sometimes God finds us in the most ordinary of situations, in the everyday routines.
For me, I found God today after being utterly stressed out and frustrated. I wasn’t stressed out because of one thing, but a multitude of things that I let build up inside. Trying to be somewhat productive, I decided to bike the stress away by going for a ride on the Monon Trail.
I hadn’t felt 100 percent today and it was definitely showing in my riding, I arrived at 86th Street and contemplated turning back. As I looked to the sky, I saw rain clouds, but nothing was showing on radar. I still had some energy, so I decided to press on. As I headed down towards the School for the Blind, it started raining. It was the type of rain that everyone loves, a steady sprinkle with that great rain smell. And as I was riding, I started to smile, thankful for the rain and the smell of rain.
Once I reached the Blind School, I decided to turn around and head for home. The rain started picking up a fairly steady pace and a song started playing on my iPod, "Lead Me to the Cross" by Hillsong United.
Sometimes I get so caught up in myself or distracted by life, that I don’t let the words of songs penetrate my heart, but today was different, I opened my ears and my heart…
Savior I come
Quiet my soul remember
Redemption’s hill
Where Your blood was spilled
For my ransom
Everything I once held dear
I count it all as lost
Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross
The lyrics tied in perfectly to what we had talked about at staff prayer earlier in the day. Tim had picked out some proverbs to share with us and to pray specifically for the staff. I had to be reminded that I don’t work for Grace Community Church, I work for Jesus. Part of what has stressed me out is the deadlines and trying to get everything together… it’s all too easy to get caught up in that and forget why I’m here.
These lyrics just spoke to me in the moment:
Lead me to the cross Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Lead me, lead me to the cross
I felt so at-peace after I heard that song, so much so that I had to play it again. And I’m glad it was raining, because it hid a few of the tears that I cried (yes, I’m manly enough to admit that I cry). I felt so humbled in that moment as I was reminded who brought me to the place I am today, the one who has provided for me, and the one the I work for… Jesus.
On the last leg of the ride, the wind started picking up, leaves starting blowing at me… but I didn’t care. Normally I’d be struggling to pedal, but I felt so motivated that I kept going. And as I picked up my bike and walked upstairs to my apartment, it started storming outside. Great timing, right?
I’m so thankful that God met with me today when I really needed it.
"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
‘As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.’" - John 15:5-11
