Prayer Letter June 2010

Summit is a two week urban project designed to explore core InterVarsity values. We spend six hours a day volunteering with local service agencies. We spend two hours each afternoon in prayer, praying for transformation in the neighborhood as well as in our own lives. We live simply, cooking our own meals with healthy and filling ingredients. We limit our cell phone usage so that we can spend more time with each other. We study scripture together to learn more about the character of God and His heart for the world. We watch videos about individuals who have lived out these values in their lives like Mother Teresa. For two weeks, we soak students in the values of simplicity, prayer, community and service. They leave in a process of transformation. A few highlights from students:

• “I learned a lot about prayer and I think that as I spend much more time in prayer, that God will change my life.”
• “Summit has changed my perspective on how to approach intimacy with God. As I leave, the greatest change will be in my daily walk with God. I know now my need to daily surrender my power to God as an act of dependence and invite him in to speak and work.”

Year in Review…

- In August, Jeremiah and Donan hosted “Sexy Pizza,” a Q and A on sex and the bible. 75 students at WSU attended.

- In October, WSU and UI students attended annual Fall Conference and encountered God in new ways.

- 6 students from University of Idaho attended Urbana, a national missions conferences.

- 2 Greek women from WSU attended InterVarsity’s national Greek conference in Charlotte.

- WSU InterVarsity grows from 5 at the beginning of the year to 10!

- 4 WSU students and 3 UI students attended Summit.

Thank you for your partnership in seeing lives changed, campuses transformed and world changers developed!!

core values

Summit number 1 of the summer is in the books. I am now two days out from the experience and I am still trying to transition into the "real world". For those of you who don't know what Summit is; Summit is a radical two week experiment that gathers InterVarsity students into a house and steeps them in Prayer, Community, Service and Simplicty. These core values are lived out in community service, simple living, daily spiritual disciplines and outreach to the Hilltop community of Tacoma.

My job at Summit this year was to be the keeper of the Summit ethos. I defended, taught and harped on our values in group discussions. For two weeks I attempted to live our values, so that I could help impart our values. I prayed that Jesus would make those values mine so that it would be the most natural thing in the world to re-enforce them.

Now I am back. I am typing on a laptop, drinking a cup of coffee, staring at an InterVarsity budget and wondering if these are the values that define my own life.

I had a dream last night that Donan and I bought a house in the inner city and charged a group of people $400 per month for rent and food costs (essentially the cost of Summit spread over a month) and made Summit values our life values.

I am not sure that dream is realistic or is consistent with the other calls that Jesus has put on my life (namely doing college ministry!) but it does challenge and rupture a part of my heart. How much privacy do I need? How much financial freedom?

I have participated in six Summits and will do one more this summer and two next summer. I am asking myself how much these values have sunk in. Do I really believe that service is a joy? That prayer is essential and makes a difference? That we hear God better without the noise affluence?

Perhaps the central question really is...can I allow Jesus to be the keeper of the Summit ethos in my own life?

Donan's back...and she has thoughts to share!

Cultural intimidation at the Yard Waste disposal

I was hauling yard waste on Saturday when I had a realization: I have a fear of looking stupid at Yard Waste. I’ve found that there are specific rules that must be followed:

- Back in. This just makes practical sense since the branches/bags/etc are in the back of the car.

- Wear work gloves. I have ladylike garden gloves but they fake people out.

- Drive a pick-up. Can’t do that one but I like the Matrix!

- Be a man. Seriously, 95% of the people I see are men. Do only men work in the yard? I do turn on sports radio loudly so I appear man-friendly.

Conclusion: I will always look stupid dropping off yard waste because I can only meet 50% of the rules. Does this mean I should stop going to yard waste? I guess I could but that would work very well in terms of disposing my waste (i.e. it would sit in the shed until next spring when I would either ask Jeremiah to take it OR go at a time when I didn’t think anyone else would be there…)

This conclusion got me thinking about the dozens of situations we encounter where we feel out of place. We feel there is an expected rule of behavior and we don’t know it. To come clean, I realize very few people dropping of their yard waste care about me and how I appear dropping off mine. However, this potential fear of looking stupid is a powerful motivator for me. I will avoid looking stupid at all costs.

How many things that might be beneficial to me do I avoid because I fear I’ll look stupid? How many things do I avoid because I assume I don’t know the operating procedure so I just want to avoid altogether?

The more powerful question for me professionally, what situations do I create/participate in that have expected rules of behavior? Church is a perfect example! We stand up and sit down at certain times. How do you know when to do this? Does someone prompt you or does everything do it automatically? We sing songs out of an old blue book. How loud do you sing? What if you can’t read music? Do you just open the hymnal and pretend that you are singing? Why would someone walk into that?

So, my new question: how do I translate culture so people feel alright walking in? How do I say that it’s ok to not know the rules? How do I help people enter cultures I care about?

day without shoes

from a talented you blogger named Donan Nealon (who happens to be my wife :)

One Day without Shoes was April 8^th. I felt like everybody was talking about it until I left the house of April 8^th and realized that only a small number of people actually knew about it. I just happen to live fully in that small number. Why? Because I work with college students who live part of their lives on Facebook.

Some of you might read some negative connections in that last statement. Please don’t. I’m not trying to communicate any values with that statement. I’m just stating a fact that I realized on April 8^th. I have an unique view into the values and perspectives of Americans.

It’s a beautiful thing that college students care deeply. Historically, college students have spearheaded important social movements. I love that students don’t want to simply give money to a cause but they want to try to ‘walk a day barefoot’ to raise awareness about the experiences of these children. The problem is real and has serious consequences. As stated on www.onedaywithoutshoes.com:

· In some developing nations, children must walk for miles to school, clean water and to seek medical help.

· Cuts and sores on feet can lead to serious infection.

· Often, children cannot attend school barefoot.

· In Ethiopia, approximately one million people are suffering from Podoconiosis, a debilitating and disfiguring disease caused by walking barefoot in volcanic soil.

· Podoconiosis is 100% preventable with basic foot hygiene and wearing shoes.

I was particularly impressed with students in Moscow/Pullman because it was inconvenient to go that particular day without shoes. It was about 45 degrees and very windy. Our house lost power for 30 minutes due to high winds. Nonetheless, I saw students braving the elements to support the cause.

Significantly inspired by my college friends, I did my best to join with them. I walked from my house to my car with flip flops in hand. I then put on shoes to drive the car (it’s illegal to drive barefoot…) and wore shoes into the grocery store (didn’t want to violate health code…) However, once I finished my grocery store errand, I took the flip flops off and walked around my carpeted house barefoot. I then got back into the car barefoot (as a passenger this time… no laws broken) and didn’t wear shoes for the 2+ hour drive to an overnight retreat/meeting.

In the midst of sharing this experience with my college friends, I pondered how my riding in the car or walking around on my carpeted floor in my heated house raised awareness for barefooted children in Africa. I felt like I was missing the point of the day but I was just going through my normal routine. My normal routine doesn’t involve walking for hours. My normal routine doesn’t involve hot and dusty roads. My cold feet only give me a momentary taste of life barefoot.

So, high five to the folks at Tom’s Shoes (www.toms.com) for mobilizing college students. I’m impressed with a company that gives one pair of shoes to children in Africa for every pair purchases. However, I’m not satisfied with just one day set aside for thinking about the lives of others. I think that’s an everyday call. How do you publicize that on Facebook?

passion

Things that I love to do:

• Run
• Fix broken things
• Read stories of heroism
• Preach
• Pray
• Play ultimate
  
• Talk with friends long into the night (food and beverage included)

What prevents me from doing these things:

• Laziness and injury
• No time
• Apathy
• Lack of opportunity
• Unsettled feelings about God. Fear of His presence. Lack of discipline.
• Time/Season
• Ruts and routines

It takes effort to do what I love. It takes time. Planning. Prioritization. Discipline.

I often believe that the things that I love to do are simply going to happen. That I will do what I love naturally. That frisbee, or prayer, or good stories happen as naturally as breathing. They don't. Friends have to be called. I have to choose to pray. I have to turn off the TV and open the book.

I will lament lack of passion. I will treat it like a sickness that just happened to me. But I am not sure that this is accurate or true. I think that lack of passion is something that I choose. I choose to live life less fully. I choose to be less engaged with God, my friends, my wife, my own body. I trade the things of life for things that are easy.

Passion is a gift. But I don't think it is a gift the way that a toy wagon is a gift. A toy wagon can sit in the garage for months and years at a time. But when you take that wagon out, the wagon is going to work. The wheels will turn and treasure can be stacked in the bed of the wagon. I think that passion is more like a plant. It must be watered and nurtured. It needs light to feed it. It has needs, wagon's don't have needs. Without the food it needs, passion begins to wilt. Too long without food and passion dies.

The celebration of Easter is a celebration of resurrection. Christians get to live out a crazy belief that things need to die in order to live and that nothing that finds itself dead has to stay dead. One of the things that I get to see consistently happen in the lives of students I work with is that they go away on retreats and resurrection happens in their hearts. The passion plant comes back to life and blooms again.

My prayer in this last week leading to Easter is that God would resurrect my passion plant and that I would learn that it doesn't belong in my garage, but in my window. I want that which gives me life to be exposed more fully to light and I am thankful for a God that gives me all the chances I need to learn this lesson.

grace

November 2009 was ten years since I made a decision to be a follower of Jesus. In these past ten years I have studied scripture, prayed, been taught and taught others. I was a student leader with InterVarsity, then an intern, then a campus volunteer and now am a staff. I have worked on two campuses with over 100 students. I have had blinders removed concerning social justice, racial reconciliation, worship and global mission. I have embraced the life-long challenge of separating my cultural biases from the gospel. My beliefs have brought me great joy. In worship I have experienced God in ways that are more intimate then I ever dreamed possible. I have been in environments of prayer where prophesy has been spoken that I am sure is from God and I have seen come to fruition. I have experienced students being transformed from hostility towards Jesus, do being radically inspired disciples.

Ten years I ago I was part of a very small, very two-dimensional world. Now, I am part of a very large, very three-dimensional world.

Yet I am not sure that I understand anything more about grace.

Grace, the belief that through Jesus all can be forgiven. The belief that there is an unearned and undeserved power in the world that flips on its head our understanding of guilt and innocence. Belief in the grace of Jesus is central to understanding Jesus. It is by grace that the author enters his story. It is by grace that he dwells. It is by grace that he heals. It is by grace that he dies. It is by grace that he resurrects and establishes a new creation. This creation is one that all can share in and be transformed by, regardless of past and future transgressions. Jesus is grace (and truth) incarnate and he is the firstborn of all creation. Grace extends all the way back before time and extends all the way forward into eternity.

I understand grace enough to write about it. But I consistently fail to embody it.

I know I cannot earn God's love, but instead of finding freedom and peace in that reality I allow myself to be consumed with guilt. I am guilty for what I have done, thought, will do and will think.

Like Adam and Eve I am tempted to be "like God". I want to prove that I can stand with the one with whom no one can stand. I want to pay back one who has already eliminated the debt.

I am bitter against those who do live as idolatrous to perfection as I do. I question their character, instead of my own health.

I never feel like I have done or am doing enough.

I forget that I am the only one who is ever shocked when I fail. God is not shocked. Donan is not shocked. My staff partners are not shocked. My students are not shocked.

In the fleeting moments that I understand grace the freedom is unbelievable. It is not the freedom of one that doesn't believe their actions have moral consequence, that is not freedom at all. It is the freedom of one who sees clearly the value of life, the value of the kingdom and the value of Jesus' incarnation and resurrection. It is the freedom of one who is without fear and guilt. It is the freedom of only knowing hope and gratitude.

I wonder what it would be like to live in that truth all day, everyday?

Finally, here is my favorite verse or my favorite hymn "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing". Not shockingly, this hymn says what I am thinking better and more concisely then I am able.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

the noble march

William Wallace is walking to the gallows.

Frodo and Sam are walking to Doom.

Luke is walking into the Emperor's chamber.

The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us.

Pilate has washed his hands.

"Lord forgive them, the know not what they do."

"It is finished."

faith

What is the real world application of your faith?

If you are a Christian, how does that fundamentally effect your life?

Do you go to church?

Pray?

Listen to worship music?

Go to Bible study?

If so... what function do these practices serve?

Do they make you feel better?

Do you feel like God would be mad if you didn't?

Are those places where your friends are?

Do you just not know what else to do?

I love the church. I love campus ministry and Christian community. However, I am worried that our practices lack any real meaning anymore. If faith is now a consumer product, something that we do so that we can feel better, or be seen, then I am not sure what the point really is. This world is crawling with Christians. WSU has at least 10 Christian groups. But what purpose are we really serving? What purpose are all of the churches that litter the Palouse and the US in general really fulfilling?

What is the measure of any Christian community? Is it members? Conversions? Bible studies? These things are great and they are not. They are great if they are helping people live fully Christ-integrated lives. Meaning lives that are rich, abundant, risky and revolutionary. They are not if they allow people to live in a fantasy world that is all of the aforementioned things, but then return to the real world without so much as a second thought or re-examination.

Perhaps all of the Christian structures were created to remind us that Jesus called us to be nothing less than a revolutionary presence in the world. But they all run the risk of being the places where we learn to pat ourselves on the backs and congratulate ourselves for our faithfulness.

Church, worship, Bible study...these can be the places in our lives where we allow God to deeply, deeply unsettle us. These can be the places where we lose our lives and find purpose. These can be the places where we become truly known by the one who truly knows us.

We need to settle for nothing less.

double standard?

A couple of weeks ago I advertised an event while not wearing a shirt. The response went well...lots of people showed up, people laughed and I think that many people were able to "re-look" at what Jesus has to do with our sexuality. Tomorrow I will be donning the pizza box again to advertise this event again. I asked a friend of mine to join me in this bit of exhibitionism for Jesus.

His response has been very interesting.

We has spent about 45 minutes today talking about whether this is an appropriate way to advertise a Christian event. In this count/counterpoint the question about whether a woman could participate in this form of advertising came up.

I am arguing that a woman could (I'll be it with the pizza box located in different places). The question seems to revolve around whether a woman would be tempting men. If she was, the idea follows, that she should not participate. And if a woman should not participate, then a man should not either.

I think I disagree with this idea at step one, that a woman should not ever dress in a way that could tempt a man. I struggle with this idea because it is so cultural. Is cleavage tempting? An ankle? Eyes? Shoulders? How can any culture agree what is a "sexual" part of the body?

Secondly, why is the responsibility for sexual sin placed on the woman? If I look at a woman lustfully is that lust my fault or hers? Does it matter how she is dressed?

Jesus says that a man who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery in his heart. It appears from my study that adultery in the Bible is ANY sex outside of marriage. So then, this is sex without mutual consent. This is mind rape that Jesus is talking about. Isn't the idea that woman is at fault then, just like the argument that if a woman is dressed provocatively and is raped that she is to blame? How much violence towards woman has followed this idea?

Finally, and I think that this is crux of my idea, what message does this send to woman inside and outside of the church? I know woman outside the church who do not own any non-t-shirt tops that are lacking cleavage. Can they come to church? How are the looked at when they come? What are people's disdainful looks telling them about Jesus?

Was the woman who was caught in adultery clothed when she was drug before Jesus? Was the woman at the well dressed appropriately?

Does it matter?

Men; I think that it is time that we take responsibility for our own sexual thoughts and practices. We are weak at times. We need Jesus' help. We need to grow in love for our sisters and to learn to respect ALL of them, not just the ones who are not physically tempting to us.

Women; your bodies are not dirty things that suddenly become beautiful when you get married. Please don't get your value from the ways that we men see you...it is a fleeting way to get value that will never bring long term worth. I apologize for any way that I have contributed to making you feel like your body is the only thing that makes you feel special or dirty. Neither extreme is what God has for you. You were fearfully and wonderfully made. Please remember this truth.

And to my friend who brought this up. These are my humble thoughts. I may be very wrong. It wouldn't be the first time :)

life abundant?

Jesus came to give life and life abundant.

He said so. I promise.

I am not sure that my life always reflects that abundance. Too often I settle for mediocrity. I often feel like the Mr. Incredible trying to sell insurance. I am trying to squeeze my life into the margins that it is supposed to fit. My faith can feel like the mold that I have to fit all of my passions into. My faith becomes about being well-behaved and polished.

But is it supposed to be that way?

I don't think so.

Before I was a Christian I was a classic "could of been" person.

"I could of made the basketball team, but the coach didn't like me".

"I could answer that question, but what's the point"?

"I could care about those people, but what can I do"?

"That person would never like me, who am I"?

It was Jesus who taught me passion. It is the lie of church culture that often tries to squash it. Love doesn't stop when it is pressured to, it pushes through, it finds cracks, it has to find a way to expand out or it has to shrivel up and die.

There are only two options.

I refuse to allow the great adventure of my life to be what I watch on TV, the video games I play, the music I listen to, or the books that I read.

If life with Jesus cannot be bold, passionate, full of love and an adventure than it is all a pile of shit and it is time to move on.

I believe that I life of Jesus can be terrifyingly beautiful and achingly exciting. I think that it can be abundant after all.

(ps. thanks spazham for inspiring me to try and blog again.)

passive aggressiveness

Why are Christians so willing to hurt each other with a smile on our faces?

Why can't we be honest about our feelings and our disagreements?

Why can't we be just straight forward and believe that grace is big enough to handle our descent?

Notes are not appropriate ways to handle frustrations. Hints and manipulation are not the right ways to get what you want. Words don't hurt less when they are written, typed, tweeted or facebooked.

Christian community will always be messy. It was meant to be this way. Look at Acts 2, the birth of the church. God creates His church multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual. Do you think that they experienced communication problems? Do you think that struggled with questions about the difference between truth and culture? Do you think that they had to lay down biases and fight some things out? Absolutely they did.

But they did.

They did.

Not with notes, but with honesty. They changed structures. They gave their lives side by side to the mission of the Kingdom of God.

They could've taken their balls and gone home. They could've sniped and gossiped their community away. They could've pissed in the well of their community.

This coming Sunday in Pentecost Sunday. If you are reading this note and are trying to follow Jesus' Way, I encourage you to take a look at whatever Christian community you call home.

Do you disagree honestly?

Do the different generations respect each other?

Is a voice of discontent allowed?

Do you fight fair?

Let's all strive to be Christ's community. In that effort we just may start to understand the necessity of the Holy Spirit.

two places that I am a consumer whore (otherwise known as Lent: day two)

1. Coffee Shops
2. Amazon.com mp3 downloads

I love coffee and trendy swag. I met a student at a coffee shop today and did NOT buy coffee. Or a trendy t-shirt. Or a newspaper. But I wanted to buy all of them. ALL OF THEM.

Firefox 3 does this very convicting thing...it sorts your most commonly visited pages. Number 5 on my list is the Amazon mp3 page.

Music. Coffee. Cool clothes. One day and three idols revealed.

39 to go...

lent: day one

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent. Lent is the forty days leading up to Easter and in the liturgical church traditions, Lent is a season of fasting to prepare for the good news of Jesus' resurrection. I have participated in Lent for the past 8 years, usually by fasting one item (coffee, TV, Internet, etc). This year I will attempt to "unplug" from consumer culture. This means that I will not purchase anything other than groceries for the next 40 days. No coffee shop trips, no eating out, no buying clothes, no mp3's. I feel like Christians need to embrace the call of simple living that permeates scripture. I also feel like I suck at this particular call of Christ.

I suspect that the next 40 days will be difficult and will hopefully call me to re-examine how I am living out the call of a homeless teacher from 2,000 years ago. I will be blogging about this experience here and will try to be honest about my struggles and (presumably) the freedom that I find as well.

thoughts on persecution 

In America there are legitimate difficulties in following Jesus. Historically, prosperity has been toxic to the Christian faith and the culture wars and politicizing of Christianity can make the message muddled. On part of the Christian message has made it through though, that Christians can be persecuted. This message seems to have been received and clung to by many American Christians (myself included). When someone on TV makes a jab at Jesus, we are persecuted. When the media focuses on a corrupt Christian leader, we are persecuted. When someone gets tight or weird around us when they find out what we believe, we are persecuted. But is this really persecution? In a world where people actually die, are imprisoned and are disowned by their families for their closeness to Jesus, can American Christians talk about persecution? 

I say no.

I think that we have been sold an "us vs. them" theology where we must always be on guard for those that are out to get us. We forget that every US President has shared the Christian faith. We forget that the majority of the country label themselves as Christian! 

Christians (like me) also fail to see what happens when we cry "persecution"; we insult and hurt those who are actually persecuted. We waste all of our compassion on ourselves. We take the message of a murdered teacher, who used is final moments to pray for compassion on his murderers and make his message about self-preservation. We are commanded to love those who are truly oppressed. 

I propose that American Christians take every bit of energy that we apply to our persecution and focus it on loving, serving and advocating those who are persecuted in the US today. Let us befriend and serve those who are persecuted on the basis of their sexuality, race, economic class or part of the country they live in. Let's stop giving our compassion only to those we agree with and share with all those who would benefit from the servant love of the largest and most powerful group in the US. 

I have complained and been hurt by reactions to my faith, but it is only recently that I have asked those who disagree with me what it is like to live in this country. They suffer more than me. They are mocked and characterized more than me. 

Note: I have no desire to make light of those in the world who are truly persecuted for their faith. Christians die daily for their belief. Those people are heroes of the Christian faith and all respect is due to them.