Steadfast

She approached the throne with a nervousness that had escalated to deep physical stress.  She was scared.  No one had ever approached the king without being summoned and lived to tell about.  And even as the queen she knew it was risky.  But she remembered her words to her uncle.  She remembered she said, "Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
With this heart, Esther approached King Xerxes knowing that she was going on behalf of her people.  So that they might have justice.  And she found favor with the king and eventually won justice for her people.
Fasting is living with a steadfastness in order to invoke God's closeness and power.  When we search scripture we see fasting that causes kings to change their mind, God to respond, and justice to prevail.  In the old testament, whenever there is a severe problem, God's people usually engage the discipline of fasting.  Going without food or drink, or both, for a certain period of time.
But it is not the discipline of fasting that causes change.  When fasting, it has to be sincere, it has to be from a contrite heart, it should come from a life that pursues Jesus-centered justice(not just want it).  Isaiah(58) warns about fasting with a insincere heart.

“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
    and exploit all your workers.
⁴ Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
    and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
    and expect your voice to be heard on high.

 In InterVarsity at SPC, we don't claim to be experts on fasting but we do know that it is an ancient discipline that we have seen used as novelty.  We want to find the righteous center between the tension of fasting because of tradition and fasting as novelty.  And so we invite you to fast and pray for the next 2 weeks for Jesus to move on our campus.  

Our King is one whose throne we can approach boldly and freely.  We approach like Esther, accept the threat of death is not our greatest hinderance, it is often the idols in our lives, anything that we give more time to God.  And so fast from one thing that gets more attention than God and use the extra time to pray that God would move on campus and in our lives.  Pray that we are able to reach every campus and every corner of campus with the Gospel of Jesus.  Pray and expect God to honor our steadfastness with his steadfast love.

The Wages of Surrender

The wages of sin is death.  The payment for sin is death.  Meaning if you work for sin you will get payed death.  The alternative is to work for righteousness and get payed life.
These are simple interpretations but what does working for the reward of death look like?
This is only one perspective but I've recently learned that usually your job is a small one.  Entry level.  Barely noticeable.  You are the janitor for Enron.  You aren't the bad person.  You can't be.  This is just entry level evil.
This is verbal abuse, received or given.
This is hatred, expressed and internalized.
This is the abuse of a small amount of power.
This is selfishness with a little.
This is ignoring your children just a little.
This is taking small advantage of those who you lead.
This is watching soft porn for only a little while.

This is only entry level stuff.

But before you know it you are appreciating promotions.  Getting away with more.  In less control.  You are climbing the ladder of evil's empire and you don't notice the small parts of you dying.

Until you sit.  Quiet.  And ask God...where is evil in me and will you cleanse me?

This initiates soul wrenching transformation.

Then you realize the alternative to working for sin is not working for righteousness but it is instead a gift of eternal life.  A life where you are able to be free from evil.  Not only free but a destroyer of evil.  Internally and externally.
This is recieving healing from abuse and offering healing words.
This is love expressed and internalized.
This is the giving away of power whether large or small.
This is selflessness with a little or a lot.
This is loving your child and discipling her in Jesus.
This is honoring those you lead.
This is standing up for justice while alone or when injustice is eminent.

This is eternal level stuff.

The wages of surrender to Jesus is life.  A free gift from Him to us.

Thank you, Jesus.


 

Prayer. Life. Learning.

In my life, prayer has always been a rare commodity.  In my best thinking, it is valued beyond measure but in practice it's hard to come by.  The discipline of prayer is tough for someone like me who wants to work hard, finish tasks and do whatever is necessary to get things done for the sake of the Kingdom.  And in some dysfunctional way, prayer doesn't always fit into this.  What does prayer accomplish?  What ministry task requires prayer?  Does prayer help my paperwork get done, does it make a discipleship curriculum, does prayer give a 30 minute talk?  You see, rarely have I prayed and the perfect talk just miraculously appeared.  Rarely have I prayed and I felt a burst of energy to do administrative work.  I am not saying that it's bad to pray about these things or that prayer can't give you the perfect talk.  But what I've learned is that prayer is not necessarily meant to complete an earthly task.  How narrow minded of me.  Our prayers do the work we cannot do.  Our prayers complete spiritual tasks that we cannot complete.  You see, I cannot produce love in someone's heart, I cannot create Jesus-infused courage, I cannot speak sacrifice into existence in someone's life...but what if my prayers could?   I believe they do.  Not the prayers themselves but what comes with them.  When we pray we admit that, under our own strength, we are powerless to do what is necessary to bring about change.  Our prayers for God's intervention is an admission that our efforts are not enough.  Our prayers are a cry for God to come quickly.
But when we don't pray, what are we communicating?  As we see some success without prayer, how are our souls deceived?  I feel like the worst offender.  I complete task after task and yet I pay less and less attention to my prayer life.
Over the past couple months I've been working to correct this deficiency.  The most recent occurrence in this was with the InterVarsity leaders at SPC where we've been going through Psalm 23 and engaging both prayer and meditation.  We've learned that Jesus is so much smarter than us!  We looked at Jesus' call for us to pray in Luke 18 and Matthew 6, and we also looked at James' thoughts on prayer in James 5 and we've been convicted to pray more often and more consistently.  Knowing that what we want to see at SPC cannot be done through completing a bunch of tasks but only by the power of God, we pray.  Our prayers are our admission that we need Jesus.  Our prayers are are our hopes whispered into the ears of the Holy Spirit.  We pray because we cannot.  We pray because God can.
And the more we pray, the more we realize we need to pray...and so we pray.

What Does it Mean to be Part of the InterVarsity Family?

Definitions to know:
Inner reconciliation:  the pursuit of restoring our identity by allowing God to shape who we are.
World changer:  someone who establishes the kingdom of God where ever they go and who teaches others to do the same.  A world changers is salt and light no matter what career or life pursuit God calls them into.

Have you ever wondered what it means to "be part of" InterVarsity.  It has to be more than just showing up to events, right?  We all are part of families but being part of a family doesn't mean we just show up to dinner every night.  It is more than that.  So what does it mean to be part of InterVarsity in St. Pete.  This short explanation is meant to help us answer that question.  If you are new, this will be helpful to know what you are getting into.  And trust me, its a good thing to get into.  If you are a core member this can help us explain to others what kind of community they are joining allowing them to see what type of community we are.  We are not a sports group or a youth group.  Jesus asks His disciples to leave everything and become fishers of men.  He is up front with what he is calling these young followers to and I believe it a wise thing to follow His example.  So what does it mean to be part of InterVarsity?   The heuristic below is a great way to explain this. 

 

Figure 1.  Yes!  We are on a boat!

Being part of InterVarsity means that you will engage and learn scripture study, prayer, coorperate worship, evangelism, intentional discipleship, and so much more.  What does this produce? A community of surrender, reconciliation and sacrificial living.

Surrender
We are first a community that is Surrendered to Jesus.  Without surrender you go nowhere or our direction is not God’s direction.  Surrender allows God to direct our lives.  Being part of InterVarsity means you allow God to direct the sail of your boat.

Reconciliation
Next, being with us on the boat means we you are pursuing reconciliation with others and inner reconciliation.  If we try to follow Jesus without pursuing reconciliation with others and inner reconciliation we will sink or it means that you will feel left out and not on board.  Though we are reconciled to God we must learn what that fully means and so there is a repeated cycle of exposing our weaknesses, repentance by turning to Jesus, and relentless restoration back to God and community.

Sacrificial Life
Surrender and reconciliation is done within the context of a sacrificial life like that of Jesus.  As you learn to live a sacrificial life there will be constant resistance (academics, peer pressure, life tragedies, etc.).  Being part of InterVarsity means that you have staff and students who have gone before you and who will walk with you in this and we believe the end result will be a sacrificial life that grows you into a world changer where you will find that, in Jesus, we were made to sail through resistance and hardship.

We are those who surrender totally to Jesus, pursue reconciliation with others and inner healing, and who do it within the context of a sacrificial life that we are both learning and pursuing.

“A ship in a harbour is safe, but this is not what a ship is built for.”  –John A. Shedd

Studying Scripture in With Fresh Eyes

After we studied Mark during our Common Ground core meeting it lead me to reminisce about my journey in studying scripture(still in progress).  I've found that the most dangerous thing to do when studying the Bible is to allow it to always affirm or reinforce my values.  The problem with this is that if I believe that the Bible is the living, inspired word of God then these words, with the help of the Holy Spirit, should lead me to know more about Him every time I read them because God is always speaking.  But, if my own thoughts are never challenged can I say with integrity that God is speaking?
In my few years of studying the Bible I've learned that reinforcement and affirmation are often the outer disguise of pride and immaturity.  Pride because if every time I read the Bible I ONLY discover what I already thought about the Bible, it implies that God really just speaks the same thing every time and I already know most of it.  Immaturity because if everything I read is just a reinforcement of what I previously knew then I gain nothing knew and my mind, heart and soul are never challenged to grow.  I am pretty sure this ain't how God operates.
What does this look like?  At a very young age, I remember learning "Jesus loves me" from John 3:16.  As a young disciple I needed to know that, I needed to know God himself gave his son for me and saved me from my sin and the sin condition of the world.  I needed this to be instilled in my heart and never forget it.  It was good.  
This verse became toxic in college, where I believed that God loved me and other Christians and everyone else needed to get on board or burn.  I never told anyone this or acted on it but it was a pseudo-truth that resided in my heart.  It was in an InterVarsity Bible study that I learned how to look at the Bible with fresh eyes.  This meant looking at the Bible expecting to learn something new every time.  In doing this I finally realized that a key part of John 3:16 is that "God loved the world".  He loved the WORLD!  I learned that Jesus loves the world and calls me to this same love.  How immature and prideful of me to think "everyone else", i.e. the world, needed to just jump on board, excluding myself from the love of Jesus they needed to encounter.  I came to realize that not only did Jesus love me, but wants me to follow his example in loving the world exactly like He did.  And this left me knowing that I had a lot to learn because loving people who have different values, different beliefs and different ways of living is hard.
This is what scripture study leads us to.  It leads us to more awe, more curiosity, more pathways of maturity and ultimately how to love more.  Studying the word of God will show us how big he is by showing us how much we don't know.  But trust me, you will be eternally grateful for the little you learn.
So the next time you study scripture, confess to God that you don't know everything about him and then ask him to to show you something new.

Why George Didn't Give Trayvon a Ride Home

There is a kingdom that is yet to come and I believe when national tragedy occurs we all feel it.  Even if for a short moment, we feel the need for something better than what we currently have.  After listening to a riveting sermon on Revelation 18(will be posted soon) and reading a few perspectives on the Trayvon/Zimmerman case I was especially drawn to this quote from Sean Watkins' blog:

"As one pastor said, ”How cool would it be to live in a world where Zimmerman offers Trayvon a ride home to get him out of the rain that night?”"

 How cool would that be?! This is the kind of stories I long to hear.  This is the type of America most of us dream and try desperately to convince ourselves we are in, but we are not there yet.  There is an obvious confusion that we are somehow in a post-racial America but the confusion is there because we are trying to live with a mindset that is post-racial but our present society is clearly not a post-racial society.  
 Why did George not give Trayvon a ride?  Among many reasons...simply put: Because America is broken.  Through out history, black people have cried out for, advocated for, and used their privilege to establish justice.  To build a country where race is not just tolerated or accepted but valued.  My greatest hope for our country is that we not only accept each other but that we pursue diversity and deep reconciliation because we see the truth: that a fully reconciled society is better than what we have now.  
I've seen Christian college students who truly believe this and they know that for this kind of beauty to replace the evil they live in Jesus is needed.  They believe "One(Jesus) died for all" and that we live for "him who died for us and was raised again" and this dependence on Jesus causes them to live in the belief that they have been given the ministry of reconciliation by Jesus himself.  Do you believe this?  Because reconciliation is hard.  In our context it requires us, together, to look at the facts and deal with them.  We have to look at the fact that:

• 6.5% white lawyers think there is ‘very much’ racial bias in the judicial system vs. 52.4% of black lawyers.  (Feb. 1999; sample size: 1,002 ABA and NBA members)
• Among men, blacks (28.5%) are about six times more likely than whites (4.4%) to be admitted to prison during their life.  (U.S. Department of Justice)

There are many other statistics like this that highlight the injustices we live in.  But I've seen college students look at these facts and then look at each other and choose to live differently.  They argue, yell, repent, study scripture, apply it, experience life together, debrief, pray, uncover each other's differences and their ignorance and choose to love each other through them while valuing those who are marginalized and always remembering those who do not benefit from the lost-ness of the society around them.  These students have shed tears with each other and defended each other.  They have stood on the side of justice whether it be on campus in the face of ridicule or with their families in the middle of racist/prejudice jokes.  They fight against false relationships and choose deeply reconciled living.  And they know what it means to carry each others burden...they are building heaven on earth.  They are building what I hope our country to be. 

But this takes work.  And it has always been the time to work.  It is what the Church should be prepared to do.  Moments like this remind us.

When "the verdict" was made known to me, I did not find myself instantly enraged.  After processing why, I realized that there was a righteous anger that I've always carried with me.  My life requires me to live with a righteous anger.  As I strive to see more and more through God's eyes I see both great pain and great joy.  The pain is the product of evil and is the source of my anger. The joy is the product of Jesus' saving and reconciling work which is the source of my hope.  And striving for this hope takes work.  Are you willing to work?

Then consider this:

My white friends and anyone who is confused/resistant to the black community's reaction, especially you who I consider friends. Read Matt Stauffer's blog post and heed his call for you to listen.  This case is at the forefront right now but it goes along with the same issues that came up during the levy break in Louisiana, during the election of Obama, during the earthquake in Haiti, and in the way we've treat (what we call)illegal aliens.  They all bring forward that which is right under the false skin of post-racial thinking...the need for reconciliation.  They also provide a chance to listen and observe where we truly are so that you can form deeper bonds with those who don't look like you.  You will never know the deepness of the pain but you can choose to be with us in it.  The best way to do this is to listen and invite those who look like you to listen.  

My people of color who are grieved and angry.  Read Sean Watkins' blog.  Soak this moment in.  Let the powerlessness, rage and injustice of it all sink into your soul.  We should be angry and impassioned to act.  We must act with our whole lives.  Be angry but don't sin.  Don't let your friends of another race off the hook.  Have loving but challenging conversations.  Be authentic and maybe even yell a bit but don't break relationship.  Our ethic is Jesus.  His way is love.  And love sometimes comes in the form of washing feet and sometimes in the form of flipping money tables.  We have to be willing to walk with Jesus and others through it all.

Fear and ignorance were major components in Zimmerman's actions.  We cannot imitate this.  We must draw close to each other.  Those who suffer, tell your stories.  Those who do not, you must be willing to allow yourself to hear until those who suffer are heard and you who suffer not...begin to suffer with.  When we do this, we begin to build the kingdom of God...a place where a black boy wearing a hoody is offered a ride, and that black boy can accept that ride and be safe.


Here are the blogs mentioned:
Tony Gaetwood: http://blackandwhiteobservations.blogspot.com/2013/07/373-words-verdict-and-appeal.html
Sean Watkins:  http://smwatkins.com
Matt Stauffer: http://blog.mattstauffer.org/165/an-opportunity-for-grace-and-compassion

Limited Scope. Unlimited Resources

I talked to Dakota Pippin about life as an InterVarsity director and about life as a father.
There were two highlights for me among the treasure of knowledge and wisdom he gave me.  He advised me to know the weight of my words as a leader and be prepared to face challenges in leadership style as you encounter people different than you.  He also told me to make sure that communication between me and my wife transitions and matures as life does.
It was great advice and he gave me a new confidence in the leadership shifts in my life as an InterVarsity staff.  Additionally I felt that I could be myself.  While a change in position requires a change in skill set and thinking, it does not mean a change in personality.  In fact, your character and attitude is probably a big factor in your leadership position and transitions.
The greatest gift that Dakota gave me was a wake up call.  Speaking to him made me realize that had misused a network that was always available to me.  There are fathers, mothers, directors, teachers, mentors, learners, brothers, sisters, wives and husbands who have gone before me and some who are in similar stages in life as me.  This InterVarsity network is a gift to every staff worker.  There is a unique creativity I possess that God will use but there is a collective creativity and wisdom from others that would be borderline neglectful if it wasn't used in humility.
As a maturing InterVarsity staff I am encouraged to know that there is a cloud of witnesses who have battled and bled and kept going and who have creativity, knowledge and a way of delivering it that is a gift to my limited knowledge and scope.  I am excited to be called further into this network.  My hope is that I might be able to share in the collective wisdom and follow Jesus in a way that reflects inspirational leaders like Dakota.  Thanks, Dakota.  Your encouragement will go further than you know.

BCMSC13 Response::Great Writing and Black Thought

In his book Great Leadership, Antony Bell stresses the fact that great leaders are great writers. Whether this is an absolut fact is of no concern but what makes this statement of significant importance is the fact that every leader I've admired has been a great writer.  This considered, I use the term "great writer" to refer to the act of using the tool of writing in a great way.  For instance, as a group of staff engaged in a discussion with someone who has served as a prophet and teacher for the BCM movement, in rushes a staff with a paper and pen who quickly sits down and begins taking notes.  That is great writing.  Great writing is writing down moments, ideas, stories, memorable quotes, reminders, and notes that will lead to transformation.  Novelists, poets, article writers and the like are artistically and technically great writers and there are a certain few who fit in this group.  But "great writing"?  Anyone can do this.  All of us can write moments.
While on a mission trip in the Dominican Republic, where we played basketball with locals and presented the gospel, the team I played on was invited to play against a university team.  The game was intense and went to the last seconds.  Amazingly we won.  After all the celebration was over I ran to my journal and wrote a 3 line description of what had just transpired.  As I finished, I wiped some sweat from my forehead and smeared a few of the the words I had just wrote with it.  This was not a ploy to be weird or off putting, it was rather a way to put the moment on paper.  Now, every time I look at that journal entry I remember the excitement and energy of the moment and it reminds me of the personal transformation that resulted in that trip.  
After BCMSC13 I am excited to contribute to the black thinking of BCM.  I want to cultivate and develop black thought and ideas through great writing.  There are many ideas that are brewing in my mind and I am excited to write.  This blog will serve as a logging of thoughts, ideas, concepts and learning experiences from my perspective as a black staff as I journey to establish a strong InterVarsity presence in Pinellas County of Florida.