This past Saturday we were able to knock out good portion of a privacy fence that has been on the ‘to-do’ list. The weather was sticky for sure as the heat and humidity in East Alabama has been quite stifling for the past few weeks and the ground was not forgiving in the slightest as we dug holes for the fence posts. But the team pressed through and worked together and accomplished more in 3.5 hours than I thought we would.

I’m thankful for the Big House and their burden to minister to foster families. I’m thankful that God has placed on the hearts of Blake and Micah Melnick a desire to be rebuilders and restorers and bringers of hope, not of places but of hearts and minds. And I’m thankful for the willingness of believers who will give up a few hours on a Saturday to unite for the same purpose.

Another killer sunrise. Hard to beat watching that come up over Lake Victoria. The team had the opportunity this morning to go and see Bethany Village. Bethany is an orphanage/school that has been around for around 11 years now. Bethany is a true testament to the transformational power of Christ. Even having been once already it was great to see and hear again the story that is being written there.

As a basic rundown, there are 11 homes with 15 children each. Each home is run by a mother and the children live as brothers and sisters learning how to cook, clean, grow food and live in community.

On a side note, most of team was jacked to be able to ride across Lake Victoria and then (drum roll) ride the boda boda’s up to the village.

Part the Second—Buloba

As tradition has set, one of the first things we do in Buloba is to walk down to the old well and carry water back up to the hill. It’s about a ¾ to 1 mile journey (and as one team member described it, “up a 4000 foot mountain”). It’s always a real eye opener to see what is normal in Uganda and how it contrasts with our life in the States, and it can sometimes be a little overwhelming.

We also began working today by tossing bricks from the ‘baking pile’ over into position where they will be placed over the next few days as we finish bricking up the church building.

The most encouraging part of this trip is to watch this team interact with the church members here. Its amazing to see how people who have never met form immediate bonds with one another because of the same Spirit that is in each of us and then fellowship and communicate as if they were long lost friends. This is why we are partnered with this church, to join together to advance the kingdom. And these relationships that are being built are a demonstration of that.

Part the Third—The ride home

I’m now an official Uganda driver. That’s right, I moved from boda boda’s to the van…on a main road in Kampala. (It wasn’t pretty, but we’re all alive and no vehicle damage was sustained…perhaps some psychological….)

Check out Lee’s day here.

Basically my opinion…I don’t see it (enough in the American body of Believers anyway).

We come to a building, we call it church, and we go home. We make an effort at “community” groups, but they often tend to be little more than what we do on a Sunday morning, just in a smaller building we call a house.

But what happened to, they shared everything and not one of them had need among them. That’s actually in the Bible. Its scandalous. Its sketchy. Its beautiful. Its extremely difficult to pull off. Its something that Kristen and I have attempted to a small degree over the past year and half or so (though more specifically in the last few months) as we’ve been in community with a small group of people. We try to cook with people as opposed to “bringing a dish.” We invite people to hang out for an entire day as opposed to a couple of hours. We go to the store together to get our needs for the evening and split it. When the AC’s out, we call friends (and invite ourselves over to watch the race). When our house is being shown by the realtor and we have to drive around for a little while we call friends to see if we can pee in their bathroom. We go to restaurants where friends cook and have community meals as opposed to individual meals and split the entire bill. We go to soccer games where our friend coaches. We serve together. I want to go further.

One guy I know does. He might get mad that I’m even putting this on here, but Franklin Baxter is the man at giving himself to help other people. I’ve seen it from leading a team at a local elementary school for a work day, to coming over after Camp Cornerstone (VBS) one night to repair my washing machine (which by the way, we can now leave the lid open and watch the clothes wash…not that we would…but still). I don’t have much to offer in the way Franklin does, but he’s one of the examples I follow in how to live in servanthood to other people.

This is what I want to get to more of. I want to share my life with people. I want people to come to my house when their AC breaks. I want to share my spare bedroom with people. I want to share the food in my refrigerator with people. I want to go do the things they like to do. I want to share with the community of people around me so that none of us is ever in need. I want to quit getting together and forcing a Bible study because “we should” and just talk about how God is moving in my life as it comes naturally. I want real community like those Believers had in Acts who had no insurance, no guaranteed freedoms, very little knowledge about how all this “should work,” but had each other.

Above all, I want to like it, no, I want to love it!

So June is filled with my parents coming into town, which will certainly be a highlight. As well as a plethora of new events at Cornerstone. Much production is currently being accomplished toward the upcoming series. But, the one event that trumps everything that will consume most of our time over the coming weeks is planning the One Prayer event that will happen June 27th. This is a one day event where churches from across Auburn will come together with a focus of impacting our community and living out Jesus’ pray in John 17 that believers would be unified.

Don’t misunderstand my angst for lack of excitement. This will be one of the biggest events for us this year and one that hopefully will turn in to a long term partnership, which clearly holds more excitement than the one day event (that is, it would be clear if you were reading from my angle and I was giving you more details than you are currently receiving).

What is most encouraging to me in these days that threaten to divide the time I have with my wife is that we are being intentional about what we do and when we do things. Our focus is on each other and healthy communication and commitment. And while there is much to do, I don’t feel too pressed as I have a beautiful bride walking through everything with me.

Furthermore, I see God using the people that make up Cornerstone Church to do some incredible things for advancing the kingdom. There is a beautiful momentum that is pressing us toward a common goal of leading people to know and serve Jesus. There are moments where nervousness kicks in and the questions surface of, “will all of this be accomplished, will it be excellent?” But I’m confident in the days ahead and I’m looking forward to some great next steps.

There, I hope that was vague enough for everyone. I don’t really like doing “here’s what’s happening right now in my life” posts, they seem to be kind of boring to me after I finish writing them. But, they may help alleviate some of your concerns when you call me and I don’t answer. But, that is all affecting and being affected by what’s happening in my head right now. Hopefully tomorrow or later today I’ll get the head/heart stuff out there. I love the times where He is shaping and forming so much that you don’t know how to keep up or what to do next because everything seems to be moving so fast. But hopefully this is longer than a 38 second roller coaster ride that leads to somewhere greater than the place where you started out.

Until last night, I’m not sure I had ever sat long enough to really think or understand what that must have been like for her and to tell you the truth it is a very difficult thing to do to imagine yourself with no ability to communicate, and yet someone is trying to communicate concepts to you. Her teacher could not tell her. This is water. Nor could she show her what water is. She just had to pour water over her hand and spell it out over and over and over again until finally something clicked in the child’s head. Put yourself there for a minute. No ability to communicate, this is so and so, it is a basic element of life. Words really don’t even make sense. How do you figure out how to tell someone what that is when they don’t even get the concept of “that has a name.”

Crazy to think about.

So then I started thinking about the church. I wondered if the church is a lot like Helen Keller in her early years, deaf and blind, and no understanding of the concepts being communicated to her. The world is saying, this is what we feel, and we won’t hope, and through some decision, our ears are closed and our eyes are shut to their cries for help. They are saying, we struggle with “this” and the response they hear from the church is “we don’t know what ‘this’ is, we can’t help.” Except instead of having a disease that caused our blindness and deafness, we created it (or maybe it is a disease).

I don’t know. I’m not sure its the best analogy, and I haven’t completely fleshed it out yet, but that was my thought process last night.

May 4, 2009

A~~~ is the brother of one of the believers here. He came to church on Sunday. After church, I asked A~~~ if he had any questions about what he heard. He wanted to talk. D~~~ and I and another believer went inside to talk with him. After sharing Creation to Christ and answering some other questions, he asked, “How are the people in my village going to hear this? Tomorrow I will go visit some people in K~~~. How are they going to hear?” I read Matthew 28:19-20 to him from my W~~~~ Bible. Before I got to the end of the verse he quoted the remainder of it. We gave him a Bible a few months ago and he has been reading it consistently. Please pray for A~~~ that he will be the one whose heart is set on fire to take the Gospel to his people.

Please pray for a discipleship event we are having on May 16^th to teach the believers how to share their faith.

I’m lasering my focus in on relationships both vertical and horizontal, meaning I want stuff that deals with my relationship upward and His relationship downward as well as my relationship outward, and everyone else’s relationship inward toward me.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on relationships as it applies to either of the above?

What are your biggest questions/struggles on relationships as it applies to either of the above?

What’s the best material you’ve got or that’s out there on relationships as it applies to the either of the above?

Go…

What’s that?…You say you didn’t know there was a Catalyst East?

What’s that?…You say you don’t even know what Catalyst is?

Follow Scott Fillmer for the next couple of days and you’ll find out. Scott’s our IT/Camera guy and Catalyst recognized the talent. So he’s out in Cali photographing the whole thing. Have fun watching the updates. I know I will.

If I have 30 sheep and I call out and set apart 15 sheep to go feed in another pasture. They still look like sheep. They’re just in another pasture.

I think about Jesus. When He was here, walking the earth looking like we do and being tempted just as we have been tempted, he didn’t sit in a corner balled up and weeping over the ‘sinners.’ He didn’t hide Himself from all temptation so that He would sin. He went straight out to where the parties were and hung out with those people. He went to where the broken were and He hung out with those people. He was called a drunkard and a glutton because He hung out with those people. I would argue that by immediate appearances He didn’t look much different (but that was to church people).

To the people in whom Jesus took genuine interest, they saw a difference. I don’t think He was high and mighty while He walked among them. I think that they looked at Him and saw hope. They probably said, “Jesus, you are teaching some of the same things that those teachers of the law but it makes sense to us, and really it is deeper than what they are saying. But, You have love and Your words are filled with hope (even though I don’t completely get it).

What’s been mulling over in my mind is that the only way we should really look ‘different’ is that we offer genuine love and hope. The words that we say and the life that we live should overflow with these two aspects of God’s character.

Now don’t take that too far. I’m not suggesting that we be out there partaking in craziness. We have to remember that Jesus didn’t lower His character when He was around those who were godless, they raised their character to His. He wasn’t shaped by the culture He was in, He shaped the culture He was in.

I don’t really know where all this is going yet for me completely, but what is solid in me is that when the church people looked at Jesus, when the religious people looked at the very Son of God and saw Him in His some of His normal elements, He didn’t “look different than the world.” But to those who were in the world looking back the other way, the seekers who needed hope, the seekers who needed something they could connect with, the seeking people that needed someone to come meet them where they were, He looked completely different.

anybody……?