Back From Joplin

We arrived back home in Boston yesterday after a rich week of hard work in Joplin, MO. I loved the week for a number of reasons, but I am most pleased with our students who are excited to be back in the city and to continue to tell good stories with their time in school.

Our mantra for the week was “Happy hearts, Run with the horses.” Our students did exactly that. No complaining, no lateness or dragging of feet…they jumped into the experience with both feet, strove for excellence, and did it with joy.

We ended the week talking about how great these trips are for at least five reasons…but with each great aspect comes a dark side, so I gave them five things to shoot for and then challenged them to pick one to focus on:

  1. These trips are great because they allow us to break from the norm and re-imagine what our lives could look like…the danger: escapism…the challenge: ongoing engagement back home (don’t run away!).
  2. These trips are great because they expand our world view…the danger: it only lasts while we are in the experience, then it’s right back to tunnel vision…the challenge: keep perspective.
  3. These trips are great because they create a deep sense of community through shared moments and memories…the danger: we continually try to recreate or run back to this group or experience…the challenge: extend that community to others through invitation and hospitality.
  4. These trips are great because they have a clearly defined, meaningful activity (life is not as ambiguous as at home)…the danger: we give up because it’s too messy or we only see trips as the time we can really serve…the challenge: ongoing, faithful service (even when it is hard).
  5. These trips are great because they allow us to take risks and get out of our comfort zones…the danger: we go right back to playing it safe…the challenge: go take a risk.

It was beautiful to hear our students process through their weeks, hone in on one of these areas, and commit to engagement, perspective, invitation, service, or risk.

A couple of other highlights. Between the two groups we sent down we were able to complete  subflooring, framing, roofing, and siding for a home for a young, single mom named Amy. Her apartment and all her stuff was completely destroyed/lost in the tornado. She’s been living in a fema trailer for 9 months. She will be moving in to this Habitat home (sponsored by one of our supporting churches) in a few weeks when the rest of the work is completed. At the end of our week we were able to present Amy with gifts for her two kids (who have been struggling in the wake of the storm), and $3500 in Sears cards to help furnish her new home. It was a powerful moment.

Finally, it was awesome to lead this trip with my wife, who was our only female staff/leader. She did a great job and I am super proud of her courage. And it was a privilege to lead alongside Nathan Griffith, our Director of Neighborhood Initiatives and a Joplin native. He did an amazing job!

Enjoy the pics!

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Joplin Bound

On Sunday morning we are heading down to Joplin with 10 students for our 2012 Spring Break Trip. We’ve already had one team down there this week and they’ve had a great time and even made the news! (Sojourn in Joplin) I’m excited for our week, excited to see students stretch and grow. These trips are always great for the experience itself, but also (and more importantly) for the space it provides to re-imagine what life could look like here in Boston. I’m sure we will come back with some great stories!

No blogging next week, but I’ll pick it back up when we return.

Prayer, Boundaries, and The Center

This is a long one today, but this stuff from Richard Rohr’s book Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer is really, really good.

Those who rush to artificially manufacture their own identity often end up with hardened and overly defended edges. They are easily offended and are always ready to create a new identity when the current one lets them down…living only in reaction to someone or something else.

Many give up their boundaries before they have them, always seeking their identity in another group, experience, possession, or person. Beliefs like, “she will make me happy,” or “he will take away my loneliness,” or “this group will make feel like I belong” become a substitute for doing the hard work of growing up. It is much easier to belong to a group than it is to know that you belong to God.

The gift that true contemplatives offer to themselves and society is that they know themselves as a part of a much larger story. Their security and identity are founded in God, not in being right, being paid by a church, or affirmed in the eyes of others. People who have learned to live from their center in God know which boundaries are worth maintaining and which can be surrendered…which, ironically, requires an “obedience,” to listen to a Voice beyond their own.

By contrast non-centered people have boundaries that must be defended, negotiated, or worshipped: their reputation, their needs, their nation, their security, their religion, even their ball team. You can tell if you have placed a lot of your eggs in these flimsy baskets if you are hurt or offended a lot. They are a hurt waiting to happen…in fact, they will create tragedies to make themselves feel alive.

I believe that we have no real access to who we really are except in God. Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less than we are. Only when we live and see through God can “everything belong.”

Some Thoughts on Generosity

I taught this weekend at [REUNION] Back Bay on Luke 16. Which is, like, one of the easiest passages in scripture to preach on. Just kidding. This section of the Good News According to Luke includes: the parable of the shrewd manager (is Jesus telling us to use money to buy friends?), some statements about faithfulness/self-justification/forcing ones way in to the Kingdom/the law never passing away/divorce, and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (with its interesting view of the afterlife). Light stuff.

The big idea, as best I can make out, is this: use everything at your disposal (including your financial resources) to invest in things that last.

Which gave me an opportunity to share one of my favorite stories: the story of the house I grew up in. The short version goes like this: my parents move the fam to Salinas to plant a church…a contractor friend tells them to find a piece of land and he will build a house on it…they find some land…he builds the house!

The pinnacle moment of the story takes place on May 4th, 1985 when 70+ people wearing bright yellow “Boutry’s Barn Raising” t-shirts come pouring out of a bus to frame, roof, and side the entire house in one day.

It’s a great story. This is what it looks like to leverage your time, talents, resources, money, skills, networks, etc for the Kingdom.

But it’s an even better story when you (I) think about this: for the last 27 years my parents have always treated their home as a gift. They call it the “house that friends built.” And they have hosted thousands of people for every imaginable reason: community groups, newcomer desserts and lunches, discipleship, helping people in need, family gatherings, wedding rehearsal dinner parties, my college friends, missionaries, and the list could go on and on and on.

I think this is what Jesus is getting at in Luke 16 (albeit in an interesting way). And so, the story of my parents house, alongside Luke 16, is an inspiration, but also a challenge: am I using everything I’ve been entrusted with for the Kingdom?

Baptisms

[REUNION] held a baptism celebration this week, and it was awesome to watch 5 students get dunked! I always love these moments, but I found each of the stories to be especially moving this time. One of my favorite stories culminated in watching Eric baptize one of our BU students. Eric got connected to REUNION/Sojourn through mutual friends from California (the Derricos) who has become a community group leader with his wife. So great to watch all of that work together for a great Kingdom story!

Thank You Eugene (Living at Our Best)

No writer has shaped my thinking and helped me on this journey with Jesus more than Eugene Peterson. This cannot come as any surprise to readers of the “ill dil”. Yesterday, Peterson presented, for what many presume to be the last time, at Q Practices. In honor of that, hear some good words from Eugene:

“Exile (being where we don’t want to be with people we don’t want to be with) forces a decision: Will I focus my attention on what is wrong with the world and feel sorry for myself? Or will I focus my energies on how I can live at my best in this place I find myself? It is always easier to complain about problems than to engage in careers of virtue.'”

and this:

“Daily we face decisions on how we will respond to these exile conditions. We can say: ‘I don’t like it; I want to be where I was ten years ago. How can you expect me to throw myself into something I don’t like–that would be sheer hypocrisy. What sense is there in taking risks and tiring myself out among people I don’t even like in a place where I have no future.'”

and finally, this:

“Or we can say: ‘I will do my best with what is here. Far more important than the climate of this place, the neighbors in this place, is the God of this place, God is here with me. What I am experiencing right now is on ground that was created by him and with people whom he loves. It is just as possible to live out the will of God here as any place else.”

Amen.

Some Things I Learned From My Wife Who Is a Physical Therapist

My amazing wife is a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Her work world is very different from mine in some ways and, yet, eerily similar in others. I learn a lot of things from her. Like this:

Most people, when given the option between a 12 week PT plan of exercises and a surgical procedure, will take the surgical procedure.

Now, I am not anti-surgery…there are wonderful things that can only be done by a surgeon, and certain diseases/situations can only be combated on the surgeon’s table.

What I am talking about here are issues that can be solved either way. And in most cases the PT program actually has higher success rates and is a better predictor of future health. Plus, surgery, even minor surgery, is always risky!

But, PT involves 12 weeks of work. Hard work. And it involves changing some life patterns, like diet, for example. It does not, however, involve anesthesia or having your body cut open.

Again and again, though, people will choose surgery.

A quick fix. Don’t make me give up my dunkin donuts!

There are a million applications to the “spiritual life” here, but I won’t go in to all of them (I’ll save them for an illustration later!).

It’s a fascinating study in human nature…A Long Obedience never seems to be the most compelling option.

Any thoughts?

Nailed It!

We introduced a new award last month to our leadership community: The Golden Hammer. The golden hammer will go, each month, to the team that “nails it” when it comes to living out our values. For January, Northeastern won for the work they have been doing, tutoring kids in turnaround schools with a program through Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI is a great organization that one of our staffers, Nathan, serves with on their board of directors).

For February, the hammer was passed on to our UMASS-Boston team for their work with the Kinect for a Cause event that we did to raise money for our Spring Break Trip to Joplin. So proud of these guys! They continue to embody what it means to be in proximity with all different kinds of people who on their journey back to God. Well done!