Conversations that Interest Me

So many things to talk about—so little time!  I’ve been thinking of all the conversations going on around me—and in my own head sometimes.  There are countless books to read, news to scan, websites and blogs to visit, podcasts to download and listen to, videos to watch…  Information overload!   

With all of it, my tendency is to feel overwhelmed and burdened down—to have a mind that is cluttered and unfocused.  How do I decide what is really important?  Which conversations to engage?   

Sometimes, I just need to unwind—catch a movie with my wife, watch some sports on TV, check out my fantasy baseball team, shoot some baskets with my daughters.   

I like talking about lots of things… 

But as I think about the conversations that really interest me right now—three of them rise to the surface.  They continue to draw me in…

A Conversation about Church 

What does it look like for a group of people to form around Jesus—to live as a vibrant community with Jesus as the head?    

What does it mean to be Christ’s church?  What are the essential DNA, the understandings and practices of the church of Christ?  In what ways is this being lived out in the real world around me?  What difference is it making in the lives of Christians and the world around these Christians?  What are the stories—what does this look like?    

A Conversation about Mission 

What does it look like to follow Jesus on mission?   

What is Jesus doing in our world?  In what ways can we join Jesus in his mission?  In what ways can we incarnate Christ and engage real people around us with the gospel of Christ?  How is that going?  What are stories of people on mission?   

I’m especially interested in mission among and to those who are “unreached” and even “unreachable” by normal Christian churches (traditional approaches).  I’m especially interested in those who are separated by too much cultural distance to have a meaningful encounter with Christ and the gospel in typical, traditional churches.   I wonder how many people are interested in Jesus–but not able to have a meaningful encounter with him in existing churches. 

Of course, I’m interested in this conversation regarding mission in Mexico—reaching those who are unreached in my region.  I’m also interested in this conversation regarding mission among unreached people in the U.S.   

A Conversation about Jesus and Following Him 

What does it look like to follow Jesus and be transformed by him?   

Who is Jesus and what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?  For sometime I’ve been especially intrigued with Jesus’ words:  “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice” (Luke 8:21).  I’m interested in practicing this individually and with others.  I’m interested in the questions:  “What are we hearing from God?” and “In what ways are we responding?”  I’m impressed with how conversations around these questions are usually vibrant and transformational.   

These three conversations have my sustained attention lately.  I’m especially interested—especially listening.  

A Grace-Filled Weekend: On Mission to Kids with A House Church in La Piedad

We spent the weekend on mission with a house church in La Piedad, Michoacan.  This church began 2 ½ years ago.  Martin and Rosa are people of peace who invited us into their home and into their network of relationships to demonstrate and proclaim the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom.  From the beginning of our relationship, they have wanted us to help them grow to be a vibrant spiritual family of Jesus in and to their neighborhood.  Experiencing God’s work through their lives has been one of the highlights of the past couple of years.   

Martin and Rosa—and virtually everyone around them—live in a world marked by alcohol and drug addiction.  Almost everyone they know fall into at least one of these categories:  addict, recovering addict, codependent family member of addict.   

They believe that God has rescued and graced them so they can participate with God to rescue others.  They especially feel fashioned by God to help kids and youth to choose a better path for their lives.   

This past weekend, we accompanied them in their 2^nd kids/youth weekend.  The 1^st one was back in November.  This time, four leaders from 2 of the house churches in Guadalajara joined my family and me and almost 30 kids and youth from their network of friends and family.   

We spent about 28 hours in and around Martin’s house ministering to, playing with, and talking and listening to kids.  It was messy.  At times it was wild.  There were really 2 groups of kids.  There were about 20 young kids (5 to 11 years old).  There were 8 youth (13-17).   

It felt good to be useful in God’s hands—to really feel like God reached in to the lives of desperate and hurting kids.   

We told and played three stories from scripture.  Early on Saturday, we told the story of Creation—were able to really talk about God’s dream for humans and for the world God made.  We listened to each other admit that the world we live in seems a lot different than the perfect one that God called “good.”   

Later on that afternoon, we told the story of the 1^st humans and their choice to not trust God and to disobey—we were able to really talk about the lies being spoken around us—about consequences—specifically the ones we’ve seen with our own eyes and experienced.  We discovered together again that God looks for people even when we’ve messed up.   

On Sunday morning we told the story of Adam’s and Eve’s children and how as 2^nd generation humans, they had to suffer consequences of their folks’ disobedience—and how they also got a chance to choose for themselves.  We challenged one another to not live as victims. 

In the hours after each story, there were conversations and games.  There were activities and some really powerful skits and object lessons.   There was singing and praying…and some crying. 

It was a great weekend—great to feel used by God for good in the lives of kids who really need some good.   It was especially good to see God work through my friends—to see people very dear to me live more fully into God’s design for their lives–and for them to know it. 

Guadalajara Partners’ Meeting

Today, I’m in reflection mode as I think about the last few days—and the days leading up to them.   

This past weekend we hosted our 4^th Partners’ Meeting for the Guadalajara Multiple Church Planting Project.  We’ve hosted four such meetings since our mission effort began here 10 years ago—in 1999, 2002, 2005 and 2008.  The general idea of these events are to invite representatives, church leaders, ministers, etc. from the U.S. churches that partner with our mission to spend a long weekend with us—seeing, experiencing, discussing, and evaluating with us the ongoing mission partnership we share in our region.   

This year we hosted 26 representatives from eight Churches of Christ in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Washington.  We chose the theme “The Story Continues…” and tried to facilitate the presentations of multiple perspectives of the ongoing story in which we find ourselves.  This year was unique because we invited a couple of missionary families who are living a similar vision in Mexico City to join us in the telling of the story.  All and all there were 41 adults—seven missionary families and the stateside partners.   

We started off on Friday night with a Noche Mexicana eating tacos, listening to Mariachi music, and allowing everyone to get acquainted with one another.  Saturday morning was spent with presentations, stories, videos, break out sessions and group discussion related to “Telling Our Story” from the perspective of the missionary families.  We especially focused on telling and trying to interpret what has happened since our last meeting in 2005.  Saturday afternoon and evening was spent in smaller groups as the partners went with missionary families to their homes and/or the homes of Mexican Christians—a taste of Mexican family life and culture.  On Sunday we spent several hours at a park with the fellowship of Mexican house churches.  Five groups were represented as we spent time in worship, food, fun and fellowship.  After eating, we invited people to stand and tell a story of God working in their lives.  It was cool to hear the stories of both Mexican and U.S. Christians.  On Sunday evening, the missionaries and U.S. partners met for a wrap-up session where we asked the partners to reflect honestly on  and share their perspective of the story—to give us feedback on what they had seen and thought.  Monday morning was spent shopping in a tourist area of the city—everyone boarded planes and were gone from Guadalajara by mid-afternoon.   

The weekend was full.  I was overloaded with multiple conversations, ideas and feelings.   

Today I’m tired.  I sense the need to reflect and collect my thoughts—to discern God’s word in this weekend—to seek clarity. 

I sense it was an important weekend.   

Today, I’m thinking of the story recorded in Luke 8:19-21.  I want to live as “family” with Jesus.  I want to clearly hear God’s word.  I want to put it into practice. 

Playing Together With God

Last weekend was a lot of fun!  About 30 of us spent Saturday and Sunday playing together with God in and around Martin and Rosa’s house.  Since they and their family began following Jesus a couple of years ago, they’ve wondered what God wanted them and their house church to do to make a difference in the lives of the children who live around them.  Though they are always ministering to and providing surrogate “parenting” for the kids around them, the idea of a “kid’s weekend” began to emerge…  They asked Nancy and me to help them.  It needed to be simple.  It needed to be reproducible for normal Mexican Christians.  It needed to be cheap.  So, after praying and describing to one another what we believed God was leading us to do, we decided to dive in.   

Beginning about noon on Saturday, we began the party.  There were seven adults and 25 kids (ages ranged from 3 to 16 with the average being about 9).  As we described what we were doing, two images were used over and again.  One image was that of caldo (Mexican soup).  Although Nancy provided a basic framework of organization, we talked about the weekend being like a soup that we make together, each one adding their ingredient and trusting that in the end it will taste good.  The other image was “playing.”  We reminded each other that we were just “playing together with God.”  And play we did!  We “played” three stories from the life of Jesus.  We “played” each one at least three times with different kids playing the parts in each telling—afterwards we talked about what we liked about the story—we wondered and discussed together what the stories mean to kids like us.  We played games.  We played soccer.  We played musical chairs.  We played with clay.  We had a campfire and roasted marsh mellows.  We sang songs to the Lord and to each other.  We sang silly songs.  We prayed together.  Everyone brought bedrolls and we “camped out” there in the house.  We ate simple meals that we prepared and cleaned up after together.  We talked and listened to one another talk about real life in a place where poverty, addictions and abuse are the norm.  There were tears.  And did I mention that there was playing?   

I wonder what God will do with the seeds planted in all of us last weekend?  I’m not sure, but I think something significant happened in the hearts of the adults.  Martin and Rosa want to do this again in January or February—maybe plan to have a kid’s weekend every month or two.  They see it as their way to incarnate Christ and his missional presence among children in their little corner of the world.  I wonder about some of the other small Christ communities around us and how they might choose to incarnate Christ among the children in their neighborhoods.

Staying Saved (part 3)

I continue to reflect on my recent experience with M—trying to learn about the battle we are in and how we must protect ourselves and one another.    

As an addict, M has always insisted that his relationship with other addicts is a key element in his ongoing recovery.  For him, that was fleshed out in his participation in the “4^th and 5^th Step Group.”  This is where he initially found sobriety and began a more focused search for God in his life.  It seems that this group (like many 12-step groups) acknowledges the role of a Supreme Being.  This group seems to be more explicit in their acknowledgment that the Supreme Being is the God of the Bible.  Yet, the group exists for recovery from addictions.  It is still recovery-centered and not mainly God/Christ centered.  Anyway… 

A couple of years back, in the context of his recovery and experience with his group, M began a serious search for God…reading his Bible regularly…praying…seeking answers.  During this time, God brought our paths together.  My family and I began helping M to grow as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  We helped he and his family envision simple discipleship and the formation of a Christ community based in their home and family.  We confirmed him in his desire to remain connected to his recovery group…to continue to see this as a key element of his community…perhaps a place where he can continue to minister incarnationally to others with a similar past.  This seemed to work for him. 

However, with time, M began to be drawn to a group within the larger recovery group.  This smaller group (5-7 of them) shared a desire to follow Jesus, study the Bible together, etc.  I’m not sure all that happened but this smaller group became increasingly desirous of forming a more “Christ-centered” recovery group.  They were bothered by some of the practices of the larger group.  There were some strong personalities in this group and there may have also been some underlying conflicts that contributed to all of this.  Anyway, they began meeting separately—met two or three times weekly to discuss their ongoing recovery and once each week for a more specific time of Bible study.  One of their primary goals was to rethink the monthly Experiencia (outreach event) that the 4^th and 5^th Step groups do.  They wanted to continue doing this…but do it in a more Christ-centered way.  This conversation and shift began back in January.   

I live a couple of hours away and was listening in on the conversation, traveling out to be with M’s family a time or two each month—mainly providing spiritual support and coaching for this simple faith community in formation.  I interpreted this new, Christ-centered recovery group as perhaps a next step development in the life of the growing church—I listened to M talk of this and encouraged him and prayed for he and his companions.  I had some contact with the others, but mainly focused my attention on M and his family.   

Anyway…the months passed without M and his new group actually having a monthly outreach Experiencia.  Every month they were studying and working on it…but they never felt “prepared” enough to have it.  “Maybe next month” they would say.  One of M’s friends, F had taken a leading role in this new group.  F has a Pastor friend from a local Christian church.  They just were not prepared enough yet to do the outreaches F believed.  The group followed his lead.   

I could tell M was concerned about this.  He didn’t understand why the group didn’t feel “prepared” enough to go ahead and experiment with the events.  But he kept submitting to the group decision.  I had a bad feeling about the new recovery group’s failure to not involve themselves in the “mission” that had been so key to their recovery.  I voiced that to M.  He agreed but the months continued to pass.   

In June, M began to show signs of unhealthiness.  He had further conflict with one of the key members of the group.  Soon he drank.   

As I reflect on this, I am struck by the relationship between our involvement in “mission” and our ongoing spiritual well-being.  Helping others is key for our “recovery.”  If we stop telling our story and helping others enter into the story then the story tends to get fuzzy and we forget…and we stop living it.   

I’m also struck by a common lie of the Enemy:  You aren’t quite ready to help others.  You aren’t prepared enough.  Take another class.  Read another book.  Get another degree.  Then you’ll know enough to help others.   

One of the main ways we prepare to help others is by helping others…learning as we go.  Noticing what we are learning…trying to do it better next time.   

I guess this is what I’m trying to do here!  

Acompañar

This past May 25-27, we spent a great weekend with Hugo and Sandra Monroy. Originally from Columbia, this couple now lives and ministers in New York City. Out of their experience and ministry to trauma victims—refugees, victims of disasters, war zones, abuse, etc.—they have developed an equipping ministry for leaders and workers who are also ministering among those who have experienced high levels of trauma and brokenness.

The time was great for a small group of 25 or so of us—Mexican leaders and missionaries from Guadalajara, La Piedad and Mexico City! It was a great time of fellowship and equipping—hopefully an important time to be drawn more deeply into mission among hurting people.

Hugo and Sandra kept using the word acompañar—to accompany, to join, to walk along with. I like the reminder of my calling as a follower of Jesus—a follower of the One who became flesh and joins us on our journey…even when the journey is very difficult, lonely, confusing…

I like the reminder that I am not expected to fix everyone’s problems. I’m not expected to provide all the solutions, the explanations, the answers. Acompañar.

We just need someone to walk along with us. At least it’s a starting place…until the One who is the Answer points the way.