Supplied

Like so many women that day, she took the little girl's hand and help her pick out the school supplies she'd need for the coming year. They carefully selected folders and notebooks, discussed whether skinny or fat markers would be best, and made thoughtful decisions at each of the different tables where we had set out supplies for free distribution to all kids who came.

Though scenes like this were repeated hundreds of times that afternoon, this one stood out. That's because of what had happened during the six weeks prior.

Each Sunday since the first of the "Back to School" fliers arrived, she came to church carrying a bag with a few school supplies to donate to the cause. And in the end she both gave and received about the same amount of materials.

But she didn't know how much she would receive when she stated to give. And though she really didn't have the money to both buy supplies for her own girl and to give supplies to the drive at the church, she had enough faith to be a part of the giving and humility to accept that which she received.

Her courage showed me how to take a solid Kingdom stance amid a "me first" world. And her simple acts of giving as blessed and receiving as blessing reminded me of the power and the possibility that comes when generosity is a two-way street.

May I live likewise.

Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

Chalk

The first warm and sunny Sunday after a cold bleak winter called us to have our kids activities outdoors. With hope in their hearts and chalk in their hands they tumbled out into the fresh air to decorate the sidewalk with the bright colors of spring.

The kids were already at work when I stepped out the front door. They took turns striking poses and tracing each other as they lay on the concrete.

Within minutes, the kids proclaimed that they were finished. I looked on horrified to see the unadorned chalk outlines of a dozen children lining the sidewalk of the church. Some police tape would have made the scene complete.

They were puzzled as to why my face was contorted and why I didn't think they were finished. Not wanting to point out that it looked like the remnants of a massacre, I made a declaration.

"LOOK at these children on the sidewalk. NONE of them are wearing any CLOTHES! I don't allow naked children in front of this church so put some clothes on them right now!"

For a moment they were shocked. Then embarrassment kicked in as they took the many colors of chalk and created the latest fashions within the outlines. They added some jewelry and other essential bling before going inside to wash their hands. The faces, both on the sidewalk and on the kids themselves, carried smiles.

When I've come out of the bleak winter seasons in my soul there's often little more than what feels like a chalk outline of myself left. And the start of a period of new growth can look more like a crime scene than a glorious new season.

But as I find my robes of righteousness, don my helmet of salvation, buckle my belt of truth, walk around in my shoes of peace, and add the essential bling of a polished shield of faith, I move from a remnant of the past season to joy-filled life in Him.

Because when Spring arrives in the soul again, it's time to get out and revel in the fresh Air.

Lord, you are the restorer of my soul.

Toxins

Our eyes filled with tears.

I'd like to say that it was because we'd gotten emotional over a movement in the Spirit, but that would not be accurate.

It was the fumes.

I don't remember the exact cause, but somehow the church was filled with gas from the sewer. It wasn't just a bad smell; the stinging toxins caused us all to react physically. We were quite certain that if someone had caused a spark the whole thing would have exploded.

Turning on the exhaust fans didn't help. Opening all the doors and windows didn't help. Stepping out of the building and breathing deeply ---- that helped.

Of course, this problem didn't exist at all on Saturday evening. I guess that's OK as we wouldn't have been able to pay the emergency fees to get someone out on the weekend to fix it anyway.

So we scoped out our options, gathered some old folding chairs, took them to the nearby park, and set them up under the shade of a tree. We found some batteries for a boom box and pulled out some CDs to play. We posted a kid a the front door and had him point the gathering parishioners to our new location.

Someone had thrown one of those big orange traffic barrels (the kind with the flashing light on it that road crews use in construction zones) into the park. It's flasher was not longer working so I set my Bible on it and used it as the day's pulpit.

Since we were just rolling with the punches, those who came planning to be indoors just rolled with things, too. Expectations for the day went down as everyone fumbled around a little bit, but in the end things turned out OK. We even had a couple of people who were in the park stop by to see what we were doing.

We called in the pros the first of the week and got the problem solved.

Since that time I've become a little more sensitive to toxic fumes inside the church.

Interpersonal conflicts, programming debates, inflated egos, people not meeting each others' expectations, theological disagreements ---- the list goes on. These fumes can build up overnight in a church and have us all on the verge of tears.

And it seems like one spark will cause the whole thing to explode.

When this happens it's critical that we get some fresh Air. Open the windows and doors. Turn on the fans. And when that's not enough, we need to get someplace --- physically, spiritually, emotionally --- where our expectations of each other can be relaxed and where we can let the Spirit breathe.

For it's in those places where we can let our flashpoints dim and replace them with steady light from the Word.

Once we're breathing again we need to be humble enough to ask for help from others. Hoping the fumes will just dissipate on their own will just keep us in the same crisis.

And though not all the sources of toxins in a church can be repaired with one service call, we know through the cross that the price has been paid and that restoration is already on its way.

Breathe on me breath of God.

Picked

High school football was the topic of discussion. Many schools in the inner city don't field teams. Some of the ones that do have limited resources, both in finance and skill, to do things as well as their suburban counterparts.

The school many of our kids attend does have a team. So with several of our boys quite eager to play pick-up games each weekend in the park, I asked why they didn't join their school's team.

They all laughed.

"Pastor, the kids on our school's team are, you know, it's like in gym when you're making teams and they look like the ones that don't ever get picked."

I must confess that when I look over our little inner-city congregation it sometimes seems like I could accurately describe us that way, too.

Many of our folks have spent their whole lives not getting picked for the team.

Any team.

So it's easy when I see the abundant skill and financial resources of the Willow Creeks and Saddlebacks of the world, much less the glitz and allure of the secular world's ways, to get depressed over how we can hardly suit up and therefore should plan for defeat.

But then I remember Gideon. And David. And Moses, Peter, James and John. Rahab. Ruth. The list goes on.

Who would have picked them, at least at the beginning of the story?

And I see the strength and courage and passion of our folks who dare to dream of the Kingdom. They're painfully aware of their resource restrictions but are just crazy enough to think they will impact this world for His glory.

It's true that the world might never pick us. On my better days I'm OK with that. I'll just keep on trying to keep us all in training and ready to run onto the field each time He calls our names.

Here am I, send me.

Bill

The gas & electric bill came late in the day on Thursday. It was the first power bill we received since the expansion of our building so we were anticipating a big jump in how much we would owe. We had, in fact, budgeted for a ten-fold increase.

Even with that preparation I was still more than a little surprised. The bill was 40X (yes, forty times) the previous month's bill. In fact, this power bill was higher than our typical monthly offering receipts.

Dilemma.

This bill was too big for any specific prayer I knew. "Well, what are You going to do about THIS?" was about all I could offer.

I then started looking for His answer in all the typical places.

I called folks who had supervisory capacity over the ministry. They agreed it was a problem and told me to solve it.

The next day I called the power company to find out payment options. Their option was to pay it or have the gas and electric turned off.

I then did the math to see how much I could make at a part time job. That's when I realized that even if I worked full time as a cashier at Target I would not make half as much as the power company wanted each month.

What to do?

You can call it denial. You can call it faith. You can call it shock. You can call it whatever you want, but the fact of the matter was that the problem was just way too big for me to do anything about that day. Since I didn't see Him doing anything in particular, I decided to get a good night's sleep and continue with the things I had scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

When I got home from Saturday afternoon's meetings I found an envelope in the mail from an acquaintance in another city. We hadn't corresponded in a very long time and I found it odd that, since they'd never been to the church, the envelope bore its address.

Inside was a note saying they'd been thinking of our congregation this week and felt led to help in some way. The check was twice the amount of the power bill.

Wow.

The money and the hope that came with it carried us for a couple of months, at which point we discovered that the power company hadn't read our gas and electric meters; they had simply estimated what they thought we would use.

When they came out and actually read the meters they adjusted our balance accordingly.

Our bill read $0000.00 for the next four months.

I liked His solution just fine.

Show yourself strong, Lord, in my life and in the world around me.

Even

He'd listened to the message attentively enough to have a question for me afterward. That always does my heart some good.

His question?

"Do you mean that even I can get baptized?"

Yes. That was the heart of the message. God loves all of us, offers forgiveness to all of us, and invites us all to the waters of baptism in sacramental relationship with Him. Through it he could fully become a member of the church.

That was a question that my middle-class self had never really pondered.

Even I?

I come from a world where opportunity abounds. I come from a world where inclusion is expected to the point of it being my right to belong. In my world I expect to have a variety of choices of groups who all would (or should) want me to be a member.

And in my world sin seems to have limitations. We describe our sinful state with terms like "issues" or "things I struggle with" or "personal weaknesses." Our past behaviors are referred to "youthful indiscretions" or "lapses in judgment." If many people like me are enmeshed in a particular sin, ranging from racism to "fudging" on our taxes, we say something like "that's just how things are" or "that's what everyone does."

My middle class world also has the resources to cover up or deal with our oft unnamed sin. We have financial resources that pay for rehab or cut a child support check each month. We have educational and emotional and family resources that help us navigate through sin-induced crises. We have social resources with polite company that help keep skeletons safely in our closets.

But he didn't have any of these things. His sin, both by nature and actions, had been lived out publicly. They had cost him dearly. There was no glossing over them and no one to pick up the pieces. He bore the scars and carried the stigma of his sin.

Plus, his was not a world full of opportunity. It was a world where exclusion was the norm and any hopes of inclusion had been dead so long that he didn't really remember that that even existed. He never felt that any group had ever wanted him to be a member.

So to be invited, to be welcome, to be included was radical. The hope of forgiveness was true liberation.

This makes me wonder how even I could have been baptized. With my privileged birthright and social safety net, with help in the waiting for my next crisis and my (if I were willing to admit them) skeletons in my closet, could I have even begun to grasp the magnitude of this sacrament?

Even I?

If I were attentive to my own and my social class's sinfulness, might I be more able to fully engage in the radical liberation of the Christ?

That would really do my heart some good.

Lord, free me from the things that keep me captive.