Stephen's letter

Following is the letter my husband Stephen wrote to thank everyone who supported us as we raised money to bring a group of his boys to an amazing Christian sports camp called Citikidz. (If you want more of the back story on this, just shoot me an email!) But I think Stephen's letter does a pretty great job of explaining the importance if this camp and why he wanted to take these boys....Also, there's a pretty insightful challenge to all of us at the end. All in all my husband is pretty good with the words, so I thought I'd share. I'm married to a pretty special guy :)

Dear Sponsors (Friends & Family),

First and foremost, THANK YOU! Because of your generosity, seven kids were able to escape inner city DC for a week, travel to a remote summer camp in the woods of southwestern Pennsylvania, and not just hear the gospel of salvation and life to the full, but experience it daily through the love and care of their counselors, intense competitions, activities most had never done before, Bible studies, and evening programs. It costs Citikidz over $600 to bring a single camper to camp, but through the generous donations that individuals and organizations make to Citikidz, they are able to offer a one week camp experience for just $120 per camper. But even this significantly reduced price was too much for the families of the kids I wanted to bring to camp. So, trusting in your character and generosity, I was able to ask my campers’ parents to only pay $40, and hoped that I would be able to raise enough money to pay for the remaining tuition cost ($80 per camper), two rental vans, and gas (and borrow some sleeping bags). Through you, the Lord provided! So, thank you – not only for your donations, but especially your prayers!

It was so cool to be able to bring kids with whom I already have a relationship – four are former students of mine, one is a boy Blythe and I mentor, and two others are friends of the other boys. Each one of these boys comes from a broken home, and perhaps one of the hardest things about camp is bringing them home afterward. Only one of these boys has a consistent father figure, a few have immediate family members in prison, and one boy’s mother got out of a short stint in prison just two days before we left for camp. One boy has spent time in a homeless shelter, at least two live with a grandmother or other relative rather than a parent most of the time, at least two have a parent who is an addict, all of them are at least a year below grade level in reading or math, and all of them live below or very close to the poverty line. But God reminded me of something at Citikidz: if he is big enough to split an ocean in half – if he is big enough to make the lame walk and the blind see and the dead live, he ABSOLUTELY can overcome the tragedies, hardships, and mountains of opposition this fallen world has heaped up against these boys.
 

 

Luke 15:4-6 says “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’” I am able to say with great joy in my heart that not only did they hear the gospel at least twice a day, I watched almost all of my boys willingly stand up and talk (and cry) to a counselor about salvation and make the commitment to follow Christ at one of the evening programs. I sobbed as I felt so overwhelmed by both God’s willingness to use me in their lives, and God’s gift of knowing that the seed of the Gospel was firmly planted in their hearts. I now ask you to join me in praying that this seed finds good ground now that they are home.

 

What these boys need now is the Church. Big C. They do need a church – a community of believers digging into Scripture, holding each other accountable, doing good works, and making disciples. But unfortunately, most of these boys do not have a church to which they belong, and do not have parents who are willing to commit to a church every Sunday. And many of the churches they would typically attend are not biblically sound. So, they need the Church. And not just my seven boys, but youth in general – especially inner-city youth. They need Christians who are willing to step outside their comfort zones and build relationships with people who are very different from them. They need Christians who are willing to give up their time, energy, and comfort to do what Jesus COMMANDS us to do for “the least of these” in his very sobering parable of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25. They need Christians who will not make excuses of why they can’t help, but rather find any way possible to help and be involved in their lives. Mentorships, afterschool programs, volunteering in classrooms, coaching, leading youth groups, joining YoungLife or other Christian youth organizations, and bringing a group of inner-city youth to Citikidz are all great ways to live out the Gospel in the lives of kids. While giving financially is certainly needed and an important part of living out the Gospel, we need to be giving ourselves – our time, our comfort, our energy, and even our homes.

So thank you again for all you’ve already done for my boys, and I pray that this email and the testimony of what God has done in my boys’ lives – the way He has so clearly moved mountains and so clearly wants to continue to do so – will motivate you as it has me to continue to get outside our comfort zones and give of ourselves for the children God loves so dearly.

 

“In that same hour, [Jesus] rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.’” Luke 10:21

 

I don't LOVE social justice

As I sit once again, seeing and feeling Christ so clearly, I feel compelled to say something I've said before, but that I feel is important to remind myself and others of constantly. Especially in the city I live in:

People often comment on how I "love social justice" or that "social justice is my thing." But that's not true. I am not driven by social justice. I do not love social justice in itself.

I love Christ. So much. I love him so deeply, passionately, with that heart-starts-racing-when-you-think-of-Him kind of love. He is my dear friend, my Savior, my God. When I think of His reality, of the revolutionary life He lived and death He died for us - for our salvation and as a radical example - my heart quickens. Tears come to my eyes.

I have to remind myself often, with a little smile, that this God who walked the earth - shaming the proud and loving the most pitiful, who with one look could make injustice stop short, with one touch could heal the most broken - this same God is the One who I will walk with "in the cool of the evening" in the Garden, in His perfect Kingdom. I will get to see His glory, delight in His presence, kneel at His feet, celebrate His salvation around a marriage banquet table with brothers and sisters from every corner of the globe.

I have to remind myself (again with a little smile) as I walk down the street in the oh-so-ordinary moments of my daily routine, that one day this city will be perfect and all things will be made new. One day He will come with fire in His eyes and a voice like thunder and not just stop, but absolutely destroy, the evil we see around us - and I will get to be by His side. All the sci-fi books and movies out there will pale in comparison to the reality of what WILL happen one day. God is real and is Truth and will end the pain in the world, will finish what He started with Christ, and will restore His beauty and perfection and justice throughout the world.

Christ lived, and through his perfect live and holy death we can know true Life. Both eternal and in the here and now. We can worship at His feet forever, we can walk in the garden with Him again, we can live and breathe with Him in eternity.

And we can also know Him and worship Him and walk with Him now - which will bring us the most full lifel we will ever know. This feeling of joy and peace that helps me see Truth and Reality is what drives me to do all that I do. As Lucy sat at Aslan's feet and listened to his words of love and wisdom, I can sit at Christ's feet every day, listening and learning to be more like Him, learning to spread His revolutionary love in this world now.

It is the Gospel of Christ - the true life we can know in Him - that causes me to love others and love this world. It is the Gospel of Christ that causes me to love justice.

Love, true Love, lives and breathes today and through Him I live and move and have my being.

There are so many fiction books written about revolutions - about the brave young people defying the evil oppressors around them and standing up for something different. And there are so many real-life revolutions happening now. So many people dying, seeking something better. And there are so many others who seek social justice, who genuinely care about the people suffering under the many injustices that exist in our world and believe deep in their hearts that things should be different. The more I grow I understand why we care, why we desire something better and will work so hard to make it a reality:

At the core of our being, God created us to desire MORE. He created us to desire BEAUTY and LOVE and PERFECTION. He created us to know HIM. He created us to desire FREEDOM in Him, to live in His JUSTICE, to know His PEACE. And until we do, we will dream of revolutions where we can break out of the pain we see around us - or even just the mundane. We all dream of doing something big in the fight for social justice (I know I have). We will dream, and sometimes we will act on those dreams. We will always continue to seek something better, something more, because something More is what God created us for. But unless we know that He is the More, unless we see His vision for the world and understand what it is we are seeking, what it is we are created for, our dreams will not come to fruition. We will get tired, our passion and hope will fizzle. We will always be disappointed, people will be hurt, we will realize that injustice will never disappear completely.

But in Christ, we can hear His Spirit whisper "Not yet" onto the end of that last sentence. In the darkest of nights, when our hearts are breaking, we can feel His heartbeat. He will give us glimpses in the night of what WILL BE someday. Knowing the ground-shaking, sky-splitting love of Christ is what will help us see that our dreams ARE meant to come true. What we desire at our core and all seek in different ways is meant to happen. God DESIRES the world to be made right again - from every genocide, every injustice against a child, every broken relationship, every hurting person and abused animal. He desires all things to be made new. He desires to revolutionize the world. He did. And He is.

In Christ, He makes us new and gives us the answer to the deepest longings and stirrings of our hearts. As GK Chesterton wrote in Orthodoxy, "Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account...of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind...His 'how much more' [statements in Scripture] is piled one upon another like castle upon castle in the clouds."

Christ showed this world something they have never seen before, and that we have not seen since. He pushed and pulled and changed the world with His holy power. He challenged the status quo, peeling the blinds back from people's eyes and helping them understand the yearning of their hearts and what it is God has made us for. He shows us a different way to live, that He desires MORE from us and for us - which we can see in Scripture, as Chesterton pointed out, in Christ's "How much more,then..."

He taught this world MORE and asks His followers to do the same - to challenge the world as it is and then to give the answer for what can make it right. He desires us to join Him in spreading His revolutionary love, His beauty, His glory, in this world now. He asks us to prepare the way - to prepare hearts, to help people know Who they are longing for, and to live out His truth and justice and mercy in every area of our lives, spreading a little bit more of His Kingdom here on earth.

He asks us to join the TrueRevolution. In it we will finally LIVE and move and have our being.

THIS is what motivates me. I love others because He has first loved me. I love justice because our God is a God of justice. I seek justice in this world because it is what I am made to do. It is what we were ALL made to do. We were made for MORE, and therefore are called to live for more and seek MORE. We see this and learn this in the Gospel of Christ. In giving our lives to Christ, in submitting ourselves to Him and joining His vision, we find true FREEDOM. We find hope and peace and justice.

So no, social justice is not my "thing." And it is not the concept of social justice that I love. It is Christ. It always has been and always will be Christ. And from Him all else flows. I pray it is the same for you.

 

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

- Revelation 21:5

How do we cross the divide?

This is a blog I wrote for The Urban Gospel Mission. Read the original post here.


As a part of my job for The Expectations Project (and during a good portion of my free time as well…) I think a lot about ways people can advocate for the disenfranchised children in our country – most especially, how people of faith can build bridges with communities and schools that are often very different from their own to better be a voice and an advocate for these children. But a couple weeks ago a question popped up on The Expectations Project’s Facebook newsfeed that resonated with something I’ve been thinking the past few months (well really, the past few years):

Basically, this was the question: “If we aren’t even willing to be in church with those who are different from us, modeling to the world even inside our own church walls what it looks like to support those with different backgrounds, how can we do it in our schools?”

Wow. The Church should be leading the way in doing life with those who are different from us, showing the world what it looks like to be in relationship with those who are different from us in ethnicity, background, or socio-economic status – showing the world what it looks like to live in community as equals, loving and supporting each other. But our churches are often the most segregated places, and as I’ve personally sought to love those different from me the past couple years I’ve wrestled with this. It is hard for us Christians to get outside our comfort zones, to get outside that crowd that is similar to us, doing things we like to do, talking about God the way we like to talk about Him. It is hard to bring Him to groups and cultures that seem so different from us. We need to get outside ourselves. We need to bridge the divide.

But how?

BUILDING THE BRIDGE

Honestly, I‘m not sure. As much as I wish there was, I’ve realized there is no set recipe God gives us. But He has given us some pretty clear instructions in His Word for how He desires us to live, what He desires this world to look like, and what brings Him glory. We see that He clearly desires that we bridge divides – as Christ did throughout His whole ministry. It was to bridge the ultimate divide that led Him to give up His own life.

And we are called to follow His example in our lives. At least to try.

We are called to be discontent as long as there is injustice and inequality; as long as there are people who don’t know the love of Christ and don’t have a chance to live the life He created for them. He taught us to pray for His “kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.” We are created to long for the world as it should be – and use all that God has given us towards this reality, looking forward with hope to the day all things will finally be made new.
We are called to show the world a different way – in a way that shows the reality of Christ and foreshadows the Kingdom to come. How we do this will look different for everyone, but to truly live and love like Christ, we all must bridge divides.

For me, this means missing a night or two a week at home with my husband or out with friends so I can spend time with a 5^th son of a single-mom friend. It means going outside my comfort zone and hanging out with him for a while (even though 5^th graders are not an age I connect easily with!), forming a relationship with him and giving us time to become buddies – because now he lets me in, answers my personal questions, and asks me deeper things than even some of my closest friends.

Simply driving this 10 year old friend home from school once a week has opened my eyes to the brokenness of the world in which he has grown up and allowed me to feel pangs of the deep love our Father has for this young friend of mine.

And just by being there for him, God has allowed me to show some of that something different to him. One day he asked me (I’ll try to summarize a long and very heavy conversation into a few sentences here) if my husband and I would ever cheat on each other. “Why wouldn’t we, what would keep us from doing so, how could I really trust my husband and know he would never leave me, does love really mean you won’t cheat on someone….?”

As one intense question after another came from the mouth of someone much too young to know enough to ask such questions, my heart hurt a little more. But my heart was also encouraged at the same time – because just by being there for him every week for the 6 months leading up to this conversation, by letting him be himself with me, by singing along to the radio together and through him witnessing my relationship with my husband…. all these moments added up to the point one day where he subconsciously (or maybe consciously) decided that he trusted me enough to ask some very deep, probing question; questions that allowed me to speak truth about God’s intention for his life and his relationships.

THE SACRIFICE

Crossing divides for me has also meant giving up some time on my weekends to spend time with this boy’s mother. And what I once viewed as time away from a restful weekend has often resulted in some of the best conversations of my life with this woman, who I now consider a dear friend. She has asked me questions that remind me of the deep love of God and the reality of His mercy. The time I’ve spent with her has also included laughing till my stomach hurts at our differences –recognizing them and letting those differences deepen our friendship, not make it uncomfortable. This woman is now not just someone I support and help – she is one of my closest friends, someone I look to for comfort.

Crossing divides for my husband has meant working in a school that is 99% non-white, being the minority in an environment where his job is harder because of his skin color. It has meant teaching and volunteering countless extra hours of his time after school and on weekends with kids who say things he would never have known to say at their age. It means allowing himself to be yelled at, made fun of, and made heartbroken by the life so many of his kids lead and the true Life so many of them don’t know.

But through being present in his school, after school, in the summer when he takes some of his students to camp, he crosses divides. He proves he cares. He follows God’s call and shows up. And that is all God asks of him.
That is all He asks of all of us. To obediently cross the divide, using whatever path He has laid before us.

WE ALL CAN CROSS THE DIVIDE

In addition to my husband, there are countless other examples of people doing this all around us, showing us practically what it looks like to bring more of God’s Kingdom onto this earth:

Such as people who volunteer in a classroom once a week, people who drive the neighborhood kids to school so a single mom can get to work on time, people who hang out with that angry kid after school no matter how frustrating he is, and people who cook dinner for a lonely neighbor. It’s people who enter a church with an unfamiliar style of worship just so they can worship side by side with people of completely different backgrounds and people who give up that happy hour with friends to babysit foster kids whose foster parents are about to crack and could really use that date night.

Despite my best intentions to do more, all that God has called me – and all of us – to do is to love Him and then love others, in whatever unique way He has asked of us. He doesn’t ask us to save the whole world – He has already done that. He just asks us to follow Him across the divide.

Because when did Jesus not cross the divide?

He created a new social order, and He asks us as the Church to carry this social order into the world today. We are not to be content with the options the world offers us; we are to live out His example – a social order that seeks something better for this world, that looks outside of ourselves and our own personal interests, that gives up some of our own comforts and crosses all divides so all may know the love and justice of God.

THE RESPONSE

So I guess the right question to ask wouldn’t be how do we cross the divide, but are we crossing the divide? How will depend on the unique calling God has for each of us.

Imagine how powerful it would be if every follower of Christ, if the whole Church, was bridging the divide in some way in our lives? The world would look very different. We see throughout history how God is seen the most when the Church is united in His vision to love the least, the lost, the enemy. This is our calling.

Christ turned this world upside down with the life He lived. He talked to and touched and loved those who were so far across the divide it would have been impossible to reach but for a miracle. So He did a miracle. And He asks us as His Church to follow His example, living in the power of His Spirit, changing whatever needs to be changed about our lives so that we are in relationships with those who the world has forgotten. (or maybe those with whom we just feel really uncomfortable….)

He crossed the divide before His father in heaven so that we might know Him and spend eternity with Him. And He crossed the divide here on earth, breaking down cultural and racial and socioeconomic barriers with the Cross, so that all types and classes would be seen as equal before His eyes – and would all have a chance to hear of His Love that bridged the divide between us and the Father. We are called to follow His example, carrying His love across the divides – and in the process allowing God to change the lives not just of the “other,” but our own lives as well.