Joy In The Margins

For the past seven summers Diane and I have had the privilege of  hosting college students in our home and/or neighborhood for the Greensboro Urban Project. For the first five editions of GUPY, I was working full-time for InterVarsity, and that meant that when my summer work kicked in, my campus-related work typically lay dormant. Then as GUPY ended, campus work picked up again, and it made for a nice rhythm.

But for the past two years, I’ve been employed full-time by my church and only part-time by InterVarsity, and so when GUPY begins, my “regular” job with the church doesn’t lay dormant. The church goes on meeting each week, and the areas that I am responsible for continue to operate. Vision for ministry and ongoing responsibilities and relationships continue. While I don’t feel pressure from my supervisors at church to continue my same church pace during GUPY, I do realize that this work and this community that I am devoting much of my life to is still going even during the summer. I also have friendships that I feel get put on “pause” during GUPY.

For some reason it seems like this whole balancing act is made more difficult because GUPY takes place in my home town. Everything is pretty much the same in Greensboro as it was before June 23rd, and the people that I love and am invested in are still here. But I am not available in the same way during these six weeks; the whole dynamic of my life is altered by GUPY. It feels sometimes like it would be easier to just take a group to Africa for six weeks, even though that would mean giving up the comforts of home, because I could be totally focused on one thing instead of feeling pulled in many directions.

All this is not to complain. I really do count it a privilege to lead GUPY and to know the students that God is bringing. It’s just to say that navigating this state of “everything around me being the same but my availability being entirely different” is still very hard.

GUPY starts with a bang –students have a lot to learn, everything is new, and we typically are headed to Glenwood Camp within three days of hte GUPYs’ arrival. GUPY typically ends with a flurry – we head out of the country for a week, have a wrap up time with kids from the neighborhood and say goodbye as a team.

But I think that middle weeks, the “meh” times where it doesn’t seem very exciting and where it’s hard to tell what, if anything, is happening, are some of the most useful times for the GUPYs.

As the program has developed, we have become less and less structured, giving students lots of “white space” in the schedule to build relationships and figure out how to form relationships without them being produced by a program. That’s not easy. The typical college student on a missions trip feels the need to be productive. Sitting on the front porch with the neighbors and their kids does not feel like Kingdom work. Sitting in the park wondering how to meet new kids and families does not feel like a good use of time.

Yet life is more often “meh” than spectacular. The work of Kingdom building is slow and steady, often unseen and beneath the surface. Relationships happen over time and they require trust to be built. The work of prayer and waiting seems like not doing work at all, yet it is deeply important.

The GUPYs are in the “meh” week. Next week they help lead Vacation Bible School, and the next will be their last full week in the neighborhood before Costa Rica. Time will fly and they will feel more useful. But today they are in the school of faithfulness and waiting. I hope that they are taking in the lessons.

A vase full of buckeyes. Fourth of July fireworks and the 1812 overture. An elderly man in a stiff Atlanta Braves hat. Fresh tears on my cheeks as I realize that I still really miss my grandaddy, three years gone.

While I believe that UNCG expansion can be a good thing for Glenwood, there is the sad reality that the house that we have worked on for 9 years may be a casualty of this expansion. Diane and I have been married for 10 years this summer, and almost all of those years have been at 828 Silver Ave in our creaky, 102-year-0ld home. The house that made us cry, literally, on our first night in it (because it was so ugly inside and we wondered if we just signed our life away to an ancient mistake), now makes Diane cry when she thinks of losing it. It’s the home that our kids have come home from the hospital to, and we weren’t planning on leaving for a bigger house.

There are about 12 other homeowners in our same position, and for us the expansion just stinks in every way. We don’t benefit from the increase in property values that will come with UNCG expansion. We lose homes that we have poured time and money into. And the best that our neighbors who live south of Haywood (the line of demarcation) can give us is a sad smile, wishing that we weren’t caught in the crossfire and at the same time relieved that they are not in our position (which I totally understand).

I know that the right answer, the one to put my hope in, is that my homes is not a white house on Silver Avenue. My hope is not in property values or equity. My purpose is greater than a quiet fenced-in yard. And on my best days, those thoughts are a great comfort. And on other days, I’m bummed and wish UNCG would just leave us alone.

Four years ago I wrote a post about UNCG coming to Glenwood. Now it looks like that post is going to finally become a reality, and in the midst of sadness about our home (which falls right in the proposed expansion area), comes the questions of what is really best for my neighborhood? If my home were not on the chopping block, what would I think of this proposed plan? (Our home would be on the bottom right corner of green space on page 11 of 18 in the linked document, a proposed park).

Change seems inevitable for our neighborhood – it’s too close to UNCG and property values are priced right for quick buy-ups. Right now our neighborhood is already zoned for apartments/mixed use/multifamily buildings to be put up in the area that UNCG is thinking of using. If UNCG does not develop this, what we will likely get is a hodge-podge of development that will not serve the neighborhood in any way, and the neighborhood will not have any say in how things are built. With UNCG, we have the chance to have a voice in how things go. I think that it will beautify a part of the neighborhood that needs work (in much of the proposed area). I also think that will draw more home-owners into Glenwood, which would be a good thing.

The down side is that the poor who live in this area (and in the areas within a few blocks of the development) will no longer be able to afford to live there, as property values will shoot up. I don’t know if there is time/energy available to secure a number of properties which will be affordable and available to the poor. I hope that UNCG will be persuaded to care about those members of its University community who are often unseen, yet essential, the men and women who work in the physical plant and in the cafeteria. For them to be able to live in a neighborhood like Glenwood, connected to the university, would be wonderful, and it would be a credit to UNCG to think proactively about how to make this happen.

Once upon a time there was a group of workers. Some workers worked 8 hours, some worked 6, and some worked only one. But they all got paid the same amount at the end of the day, which seemed grossly unfair to the ones who had worked the most. (Matthew 20:1-16, more or less)

This parable drives me crazy sometimes because it runs so contrary to my inward sense of right and wrong. People should get what they deserve, what they earn. If one person worked 8 hours, they should make more than the person who only worked one – it’s only fair. And yet Jesus said that God’s Kingdom works like this, that people are given blessings not according to merit but according to the goodness of the Father. Our standard is merit, and God’s standard is generosity.

I really get off track with the Lord when I believe that I deserve anything from Him at all. When I begin to think that my rule-keeping or faithfulness earns me more favor with God, I am leaning on my own righteousness. But the Gospel is clear that righteousness is always a gift, and anything we do is merely a response to that gift. My life should not be about counting the hours that I’ve worked compare to others, wondering why those who do less than me get more than me. Instead, my life should be spent with my eyes focused on the Lord, seeing Him as my reward, not any “stuff” that comes from His hands.

I preached this past Sunday on Mark’s account of Jesus feeding the 5,000. So this week I've been spending time reading John 6, which contains John's account of the feeding of the 5,000, followed by Jesus' teaching on how He is the bread of life. In John 6:28, the people ask God, "What must we do to do the works that God requires?" And you would think that Jesus would answer with a list of things like, "Read your Bible, go to church, be a nice person, follow the 10 Commandments." But He doesn't. He says, "The work of God is this: to believe in the One that He has sent." And when we get down to it, that is so true. Most of my struggles with the life of faith, at their core, stem from a lack of belief in Jesus. Sometimes I don't believe that He really is the bread of life and that I need to be fed by Him every day. Sometimes I don't believe that God really loves me at all times, but instead that He loves me only when I am acting right. Sometimes I don't believe that God really is at work building His Kingdom and I am called to be a part of that. It takes work to believe, work to remember the hope and life of Christ in the midst life's responsibilities and brokenness. It  takes work to let God's promises and the truth of His word inform our circumstances instead of letting our circumstances shape our view of God.

My struggles with fear continue, and a few weeks ago the weight of fear was more than I could lift. While the thing I was fearing was, by and large, irrational, I couldn’t escape worrying about it. I lost sleep and it dominated my prayer life (and by dominated I mean it squelched it).

The weight of fear is loss of trust in God. When I live in fear, I lose focus on the Lord, and I hedge my bets in trusting His character and His promises. Instead of putting my hope in God’s Word being true, I let my experiences and the experiences of others lead me in mistrust.

The weight of fear is isolation. When I live in fear, I am ashamed because the things I worry about seem so silly if I say them aloud, but to my heart they are real and dangerous. And so I don’t let others in, trying to slug it out on my own instead of asking for help.

The weight of fear is control. When I live in fear I try to control my life, either by worry (which gives the illusion of control) or by ordering my life to be as safe as possible. That is exhausting.

The weight of fear is not from Jesus. He promised that His yoke is easy, that His burden is light. There is a freedom that comes from trusting God even in the face of real (and imagined) dangers.

The world is not a safe place – the brokenness of the fall permeates every corner, and we do not have the luxury of numbering our own days. But God’s love and character and Kingdom supersede the worries and fears and brokenness. Our hope is not here. Our hope is in heaven, and I think that God continues to allow the enemy to attack me with fear to train my eyes to look up, to remember the hope of Heaven, and to trust God, not my circumstances.

Our society today is far from Jesus’ agrarian-based culture. If we want tomatoes any time of year, we go to the store and buy them. We don’t have to wait for fruit to be in season because it gets shipped to us from places that are always warm. Our thankfulness for food is limited to being thankful that we had money to buy it, but we really don’t give thanks for the process by which it was grown.

But I’ve been gardening for the past three summers, and I have discovered that fruit doesn’t come immediately like it does at the store – it takes a lot longer. And I have learned that I am not a very hopeful gardener. I plant fearfully, praying every year, “Lord, please make something grow from this.” And every year that fruit comes, I know that it’s not because I have a green thumb. Somehow when the seeds are released from the confines of their packet, when the dirt covers them and the water hits and the sun warms, they grow, and they sprout, and fruit comes. And it always amazes me because I was not sure anything was going to happen.

Not only am I not a hopeful gardener, I’m also an impatient gardener. For me gardening is not about the process, it’s about the fruit. I plant tomato plants because I want tomatoes. I plant cucumbers because I want to eat cucumbers. And so I get really impatient with my garden. I wonder why the plants aren’t growing faster, why there aren’t flowers on them yet, if they are growing at all because they don’t look any taller than they did the day before. Did I plant them right? Am I giving them enough water? Have I messed up this time?

And summer after summer it happens. Over time, the plants grow. Flowers come. And fruit follows. I can take no credit for it, and I cannot speed up the process one bit.

Recently as I was fretting over my garden and wondering if this was the year that my lack of ability was going to doom all my plants, the Lord spoke to me about my impatience. He said, “Son, you do this same thing with the people that you minister to. You think that your job is to make them grow, and you think that if you just find the right verse or if you push them more, they are going to show fruit faster. You are an impatient spiritual gardener with misplaced hope.”

When I am an impatient gardener, my hope is in me and my ability to make things grow. But John 15:1 tells us that there is already a spiritual gardener, God the Father. Jesus said, “ I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener.”

This is why Jesus uses gardening so much in talking about the kingdom of God - He is teaching us about hope. We sow seed in people’s lives and then we entrust it to God’s hand because only God makes it grow. Beneath the surface, where we can’t see, God is at work, whether we are awake or asleep. And our trust and hope is in the Father, who is growing His kingdom and wants to see fruit even more than I do, yet who also delights in the growth process.

My work as a disciple is learning to be a patient, hopeful gardener, enjoying the growth process and knowing more fully the One who brings fruit.

It’s been hitting me lately that my job is not to run ministry projects or make “ministry happen.” My job is not to make sure that every Sunday there is a place called Grace Community Church for people to come to. My job is not to be the person that you can bring your belligerent non-Christian friend to and I will have all the right answers. My direct influence on the world outside the walls of Grace is very limited.

Yet there are hundreds of ministers who come to Grace every Sunday, who spend less than 3 hours each week at our church. They don’t get their paycheck from a non-profit. They are not leading Bible studies all day or preaching from a pulpit. But they are the hands and feet of Jesus all over  Greensboro. They are teachers and business owner, nurses and landscapers. They are moms and siblings, neighbors and friends. And they have been called by God to honor Jesus in each relationship and each moment of the day, whether that is filling out an expense report, fixing an after-school snack, or mopping a floor.

My role as a pastor is to point these ministers to Jesus, to help them know His love and presence in their lives. My role is to equip them to know His voice and to act on what He speaks. To teach them how to study the Scripture and how to give a good reason for the hope that they have. To remind them that they are Christ’s ambassadors from the cul-de-sac to the boardroom. It’s easy to forget that God is present in the mundane things of life and that their coworkers are more than their coworkers – they are people whom God loves very much and to whom the ministers of my church are being sent every day from 9-5.

As a pastor, I am an arrow pointed to heaven, reminding my co-laborers in the gospel to look up and remember the One that loves us, the One we serve at all times.

She came to our church in need of financial assistance for rent. Unfortunately the best we could do was to refer her to a couple of local agencies that had fund to help. As she sat in the hall with her four year old, my heart went out to her. I didn’t know how she got in the situation she was in, but I knew that it must be a scary and difficult place; maybe it was her first time in need, maybe this was all too familiar. I was on my way out the door, but God prompted me to stop and pray with her, and His heart for her beautiful. It was to bless and encourage, to speak life into dark places, to remind her of hope. And when we were finished, tears were trickling down her cheeks.

This happens fairly often when I get to pray with people coming in for assistance (though I am not led to pray with every person who comes), and I have wondered at their tears since many of them are not actively pursuing a relationship with God, not involved in a church. Yet when we pray, something in them is reminded that they are not alone. Something at their core resonates with a God who loves and cares for them even more deeply than their physical needs, though He does care for those needs as well. Moments of crisis in life tend to open our spiritual ears and eyes and remind us of our need for God.

What is curious to me is that most times, those who are so moved in God’s presence during prayer don’t actively follow up on knowing that presence more deeply. We certainly offer ways for that to happen, things like Sunday worship and small groups for women, especially for those who we have relationship with through one of our ministries at church. But usually we are not taken up on those offers. I wonder if they don’t feel worthy to know the Lord intimately on their own, or if they perceive that they might not be well-received by a “rich white church.” Or, like many of us, their moments of spiritual clarity are quickly swallowed up by the cares of this world, the worries of life, and the desire for other things (Mark 4:1-20).

I hope this woman pays attention to her tears, pays attention to her longing for love and for the Lord, and that she will follow through to know Him more. He certainly knows and loves her.

I’ve been spending time lately with a number of people who are eager to know truth but reluctant to go “all in” with Christ as that truth. I can see how sincerely they want to know what is really right and good, and yet questions gnaw at them about where Jesus is that rightness and goodness. For some of them, this results in simply being blown to and fro by their emotions and desires. For others it results in confusion about life and purpose. But for all, there is no anchor or compass that is a steady point in the midst of all the changes of life.

And it seems that all the “answers” that come to mind when I think of the things that they are facing are contingent upon faith. The answers that I find to life’s questions, the hope that I have in the midst of pain or confusion, are all based on faith that what God says in the Bible is true. I’ve found that other answers, either based on people or on my own abilities, always fall short, and they tend to shift and fade depending on my mood or circumstances.

As I have thought about my friends, who I really love and care about, it makes me sad to see them without an anchor in the midst of inevitable storms. And it makes me thankful for the hope that I have in Christ. Sometimes I take the truth of God for granted, thinking that truth is good for truth’s sake and forgetting that truth is good for our sake as well.