Mission as a gift from God

So today was an interesting day. In my mentoring time I really began to struggle with thoughts about why I do what I do. More specifically, what is it that I have to offer? What are my gifts, talents, etc. that I bring to ministry/mission. This has been an on again off again struggle for me. The reality is that I need to be more focused on my identity in Christ, that is, not define myself by what I can do or what I bring to the table but what He has to say about me. Part of the struggle is that I can't find ministry that I am truly passionate about and I can't remember doing something that really brought me energy and made me alive. Sure I've done ministry that I've enjoyed, music mostly, but I know that there is more than that for me, something beyond what I've been doing. There is something that lays untapped, dormant in my soul. Maybe the key is in finding my true identity, my name in God.

But that's not why I'm writing this.

I'm still working on all that stuff, but in the midst of that struggle God has given me a gift. In His great love and mercy for me He allowed me to experience something amazing tonight.

Tuesday nights are our normal ministry nights with the Zim refugees. So, like normal, Jody, Manatsa and I went out to the camp. We normally just hang out for a while, waiting for some of the guys to get out of work and just generally visiting with people that we know. After a little while a few guys that we know and that occasionally come out to the bible study walked to the middle of the camp and started to sing in Shona. When I asked someone told me that they were singing "We are here to pray, come pray with us." I hadn't ever seen them do this before, so we went and joined in with them (yes, I do occasionally sing in Shona, though I have no idea what I'm saying). At one point the "leader" gave a signal then we all got on our knees to pray. It followed suit like this for a while, occasionally someone would start reading scripture and preaching. It was amazing. Then one of the guys came to me while they were singing and handed me a Bible, whispering to me "Can you give us a word?" How on earth can I turn that down?

Now, I have preached before, but I wouldn't label that as one of my top favourite things to do. It's also something that I really feel like I need to prepare for. I do believe that I have the gift of teaching, but not necessarily in that setting or with that little time. But they wanted me to do it. They wanted to hear the word of the Lord. So while they were singing and some others were sharing I did a quick thumb through this KJV New Testament and when it came time I stood up and I preached. Now one thing you should understand about African church culture, it's very much lively and loud. I don't care if it's a Baptist, Methodist, Assembly of God, pick your denomination, these people know how to preach. So, in the best lively way I could, I talked to them about how love goes beyond what we think is necessary, about loving your enemies, and about how when we don't love perfectly we are still connected to God because nothing can separate us from Him. I finished (much faster than my Shona speaking brothers) and we sang another couple of songs and then it was back down to our knees for everyone to pray.

In that moment I realized what had just happened. God had given me that moment as a gift. It was as if He was saying to me "Chris, I know you're having a hard time right now. I know you want to have it all figured out, to know what it is you're supposed to do, and soon you will. Until then, I give this moment in time to you. Treasure it. Let it drive you forward in your journey. I just wanted you to know that I'm still here and I care." It was all I could do to praise Him and give Him thanks. When I was struggling most with my calling and gifting He gave me an opportunity right in the middle of my ministry to do just that, to minister.

That feels like a lot of rambling, I'm still just really excited about it all (this happened about 2 hours ago). I guess what I'm really beginning to understand is that mission is more than just what we do for others. When we are doing what God has made us to do, what we were always meant to do, mission is a gift to us from God.

Thin places in the Kingdom...

At this moment I’m suddenly encouraged by thoughts of the kingdom.

That may seem like a weird statement (when I read it I think it is) but I’ve come to find that in my life I have these bizarre moments where my heart feels warm and I realize that I’m in one of those “thin places” where the kingdom of God is so near that I feel as if I could just reach through and step into it.

Maybe I’ve had too many cups of coffee, maybe it’s just a combination music, reading blogs, looking at pictures, and thinking about my own emotional state that just create this moment. I honestly don’t know. I do believe, however, that God is near. He is so very near, at every moment, and that there are just some moments that He knows we need Him to touch our hearts. It’s like when a significant other spontaneously says that thing you love to hear or just gently touches you at the right moment and you feel the love that you crave when you weren’t even expecting it. We’ve done nothing in that moment to deserve/ask for this love, but they freely give it because of their mysterious love for us (mysterious because I sometimes wonder why anyone would ever or could ever love me).

I’ve actually been experiencing love in a new way this week. I dove off a cliff (metaphorically speaking) into a new realm of community, laying bare my heart in scary, embarrassing, intimate ways. I sometimes still feel strange when I look around at people who now know my heart more than some ever will and feel extremely vulnerable. There are people who now have the knowledge and power to hurt me at the very core of who I am. They can throw salt into and rip open a wound that has been healing for years (and isn’t quite healed yet.

Their response, love.

They have loved me and continue to see me through this time. When you live in that tension of being able to be hurt by anyone by no one does it community reaches a whole new dimension. The question was asked, and is still being asked, what if this is what community always looked like?

I believe that this is what the kingdom looks like, a place where we experience it not just in serving and intentional times of seeking, but in the random (or not so random) moments when we feel unloved and abandoned, moments where we least expect to feel the touch of God. It’s in those moments, too, that the kingdom is near.

Shamari Wangu!

Hello all! It's been a while, I know. Things have been very busy here, but I decided that it was about time to let you all know what we've been up to here in beautiful Africa.

We've really fallen into the rhythm of apprenticeship at this point. We are in the Contending posture now. It's about fighting to see the kingdom of God present in the situations and lives around us. This has become very real in the situation myself and Jody find ourselves in working with Zimbabwe refugees. What does the reality of the present kingdom of God mean for them?

To brag a little bit on my friend Jody (he's the guy who got me involved with the refugees), he has made a real effort to not just work with the refugees at the camp but to find people even in our own backyard. One of the guys he met, Manatsa, became a regular part of our communities lives. He was living here in Pretoria North at a construction site that he was working at, which is common for anyone who can find work. As our community became more burdened for what was happening to the Zimbabwe people here and in their own country we started asking more questions of ourselves about what we could do now, besides just praying about it. We can't go in and overthrow the government, but how can we see the kingdom of God manifest for those around us? We decided that we should take Manatsa into our home. After a little bit of room hopping he has more permanently become my roommate. He is a great guy and a man of God. Recently we started a bible study with some of the people we know from the camp that we go to and Manatsa has been coming and helping us with it. It's been such an amazing experience doing this bible study. Jody and I have actually only led a couple. Some of the Christians at the camp got so excited about the way we do bible study that they started leading some themselves. It's been a great exercise in humility and openness to realize that it's not just me who has something to teach these people, but they have a lot to teach me!

This Manatsa teaching me how to cook pap, a traditional African food.

The language you see behind you on the white board is Shona, the major language of Zimbabwe. This is one of two lessons in which I found out that I'm not very good at learning languages...

Over all things are going really well here. It's very strange to look back at the person I was before I came on this trip. It's hard to explain it or put my finger on it, but things are just different. One thing that an apprentice from Scotland said to me while I was there that really confirmed that I wanted to do this apprenticeship was that he really saw himself becoming more like Jesus. Now, this may sound like an arrogant or just weird statement at first, but I really get what he was trying to say. I see it in myself. I'm starting to think differently, look at the world differently, even look at God differently. Now this doesn't make me feel any holier than I did yesterday. The reality is that the more you begin to know about God the less you actually know about him, the deeper the mystery becomes. It's like in a mystery story when what was thought to be the last clue was uncovered, only to find that the mystery was more complex than you could have ever imagined. The goal seems to be to become ok with that, to become ok with the mystery, the ambiguity. The other part is that the closer you seem to get to God, the more desperate you are for him. There is this idea I recently read about (How (Not) to Speak of God by Pete Rollins) that takes Pascal's idea of the "God-shaped hole" that we all have in us and turns it a bit on its head. The original thought with the God-shaped hole was that all mankind has this hole in them that we try to fill with all manner of things, but only God can truly satisfy or "fill" that need in us. Rollins says that maybe when our lives intersect with Gods, when our stories become intertwined, the wake of Gods movement through our lives creates a hole, almost like a black hole, that can never be satisfied. There is more of God than we can ever understand so this void in us never completely fills. We will never know enough or be close enough, there will always be more.

So with that I will sign off. I love you all and miss you like CRAZY! I know it's a little early to be thinking this but I can't wait to be home. I truly love Africa and I see traveling as a part of my short and long term future but I've never been this far and this long away from friends and family. You all have a special place in my heart and I can't wait to celebrate what God has done in my life and in Africa with you face to face. Until then I will soak up every moment and opportunity I can. So, until next time, cheers!