More Favor From The Township!

On Wednesday of this week I met with Tom from the Township, the Leasing Manager (Jeanne) at the North Brunswick Senior Housing building, the Leasing Agent and the head maintenance guy to discuss the Day of Service we are performing on July 25th. Jeanne had not yet heard about the Day of Service happening in her building in exactly 2 weeks! We probably should have approached her first! For this reason our first order of business was to sell Jeanne on the idea.

At the beginning of the meeting Jeanne was showing an unfavorable-ness to what we were proposing. She mentioned a conflict of schedule with that date, was of the opinion that most residents, because they do not know us, “would not be up for having people in their apartments”, and overall seemed distrusting of our efforts. As I sat there I knew we did not have rapport with her yet and were up for a tough sell.

Noticing this aura of distrust exuding from Jeanne as the meeting pressed on, Tom chimed in with some powerful words that truly changed the course of the conversation. He said (paraphrasing here),

“Now I want you to know that the Brunswick Church of Christ has been an exceptional church in this town. We are not talking about allowing someone into the building whom we do not know. Carl the previous Pastor and now Shaun the current Pastor, and I hope you do not mind me bragging on the church a little Shaun, they have done a great deal for this town. The Oak Leaf Village Apartment complex is the eye sore of our town and for that reason many churches have stayed clear of it. But these guys have intentionally been there week in and week out holding Bible studies, getting to know the residents and baptizing people. What they are wanting to do here could have a ripple effect in that other churches might want to serve the residents here as well. For this reason I am of the opinion that we should give Shaun and the Brunswick Church of Christ our full support in this. I would like to see you guys promoting it to residents in the next 2 weeks to ensure that it is a success. It would be a shame to me if only a few residents took advantage of this Day of Service.”

I was taken back by Tom’s words and flattered for sure.

What happened next was transformational. All of a sudden in the next few minutes the skepticism went away. Jeanne made known her faith and involvement in the Presbyterian church and her church’s involvement with Habitat for Humanity. She began to throw out ideas on how to make this day a big deal for the residents. At one point Jeanne even said with excitement, “I got it; why don’t we call it “A Day of Faith” instead of “A Day of Service”? That’s what it is right; a day of sharing our faith through service?” Jeanne offered to print all the fliers on extra large-colored paper for us, distribute them under each person’s door on Friday, gave us her word that she and her staff would be strong promoters of the Day of Service from now till then and even rescheduled the fire inspections that were supposed to happen in the building that day.

What happened last was perhaps the greatest part of the meeting. As we finished up and were about to depart the room with our specific to do lists I asked, “Would you guys mind if we prayed about this opportunity together?” They agreed without hesitation. So there we were, the Leasing Manager, Leasing Agent, Township zoning authority, head of maintenance at NBSH and myself uniting in prayer about the many senior residents we were planning to serve in Jesus name.

Wow. I felt so taken back as we departed the meeting that I whispered to the Lord while chuckling to myself, “Lord, what just happened in there?” I felt so blessed by God! He had given me and His church so much favor. I believe God is teaching me, through incidents like these, that one of the keys to building Christ’s church in today’s day and time is each congregation’s long-term commitment to the physical and spiritual well-being of their community. It requires building rapport with community leaders over time such that people learn to trust you who once looked down on you with skepticism.

“Thank you Lord for Your continued favor upon us in North Brunswick!”

"Daddy, We Should Pray"

This past week I attended a week-long intensive class at Liberty University. Three years ago when I went down for a class the dormitories were open for visiting online students. This time, however, I had to go the hotel route. Since I needed a hotel anyway Marci and I thought it wise to make it a family trip where I would attend class all week and Marci and the kids would use the pool at the hotel, relax and otherwise peruse Lynchburg all day until I was finished in the evenings.

When we arrived at our hotel on Sunday evening at 11:30pm we had trouble finding the hotel. The GPS said we had reached our destination but all we could see was what our headlights illuminated- everything else was dark. Then I said to Marci, “Is that a building down there?” We took the entranceway down to our right and sure enough there was our hotel. The reason we could not see the hotel initially was because they were without power- along with 70% of the rest of Lynchburg we came to discover. Apparently recent storms had cause widespread outages.

We spoke to the attendant at the hotel who was sitting outside in the dark who informed us that they could not take any reservations even though we already had one; we were on our own. So at the top of the exit-way on what seemed like an abandoned road we stopped and talked about what to do. Marci scanned the GPS for nearby hotels within 10-20 miles and started calling. Every hotel that had power was completely booked. Turns out Lynchburg residents were taking up residence in local hotels until their power came back on. And I don’t blame them; no power is bad enough but no power with a heat index of 105˚ is a different story.

Perplexed by our unexpected turn of events and beginning to contemplate throwing in the towel and driving back home (7hrs mind you) my 6 year old son Mason peeps up to say, “Daddy, we should pray”. Thinking that was a brilliant idea I said, “You are right Mason; we should pray”, and we did.

One of the last hotels Marci called after we prayed was kind enough to inform us that the Thomas Road Baptist Church (Liberty University’s College Church) was providing a relief effort to any in need due to the power outages. So with no other options we headed on over to Thomas Road. When we arrived it became obvious that this congregation was doing a great deal to serve their community in a time of need. They warmly welcomed us at midnight, provided us drinks and food if we wanted to eat and then escorted the 5 of us to their gymnasium which was packed with families. They gave us blankets and mats and we fell asleep around 2:30am in a cool gymnasium with about 200 other people.

I got an early shower (about 5am) and a time to pray and ponder what the week might look like given our situation. We all walked to the church cafeteria at 7:30am where they served us a nice breakfast. As we finished our prayer together at the breakfast table thanking God for His provision overnight, a kind lady from the church approached our table and said, “I know you don’t know me from Adam and you may think this is kind of weird, but we heard you were Liberty students and we have power at our house. We live about 5 minutes from here. We have 2 extra bedrooms and a pool and you all are welcome to stay with us this week.” Wow. Wow was I thankful for this angelic messenger! I was most thankful because as I sat in the gymnasium the night before I could not help but say to myself over and over again, “How can I go to class tomorrow for 8 hours in an air conditioned room while my wife and children roam Lynchburg with no place to call home base? I can’t leave them to hang out in a gymnasium all day long when they don’t even know anyone.”

But now, by the grace of God through a Christ-like servant my concerns were relieved. We had a home, a pool, home-cooked meals and genuine spiritual conversation the rest of the week.

Praise God for His timely care for His children. Praise God that He gives us exactly what we need exactly when we need it. And praise God for my little boy Mason who knows an important part of what it means to build life around Jesus; “Daddy, we should pray”.

Looking More and More Like Community Everyday!

Our vision at BCC is to see a whole community united to build life around Jesus. Not united around our careers. Not united around our families. Not united around our hobbies. United to build life around Jesus.

As I discussed in our 5 part video series, community in America has been lost. Not overnight for sure but over time, and it is the challenge of the modern-day church to build community again- around Jesus.

It is my strong belief that the Holy Spirit is so often hindered from working among us today because of the way we live as Christians. We have adopted the American way of life just as much as anyone. We live isolated. We live exclusively independently not interdependently. We live out our Christian lives, but not together. We are individuals who inhabit buildings on Sundays, but we are generally not community. We are rarely community in the sense that the early church was community and we are rarely community in the same way the early Americans were community.

When we do not live communally the fruits of the Spirit have trouble growing. If I do not have a close body of people I can express love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control to- regularly- my fruit (good works) lose their power to impact others and the world around. That's the importance of a becoming a "city on a hill" not a "person on a hill" (see related blog post)

To rebuild community once it has been lost is difficult, but it is happening!

This past Sunday a woman approached me at church about whether I thought giving a monetary donation to a certain individual would be a good use of her money. She wanted to know if this person had been stewarding well what little he did have.

I assured her that I had confidence that he was stewarding well his finances. She proceeded to write a check to the church on behalf of this member and asked me if I could work out getting the money to him. I said "surely".

That evening after church as I was getting ready for bed I pulled out the check she had given me and about fell over. $1,000!

What awesome news I got to deliver on Monday morning to this struggling member. I think he almost had a heart attack when I told him how much another member of the church gave to him. He could not find the words to express his gratefulness to his anonymous giver.

Praise the Lord when the church acts like the church of Christ! Praise the Lord when the church fights to become community again! Though I see many ways in which BCC can grow to become more of what Christ intends us to be, I do believe we are looking more and more like genuine community everyday.

I believe the Holy Spirit worked on Sunday night and Monday and I am almost certain word has spread since then.

You can build Christ's Christian community again too. In fact if you are a Christian then that is your commission. Christ builds His church (Mt.16:16) but He has enlisted us to help. Building Christ's church starts by having the right vision for His church. If our vision for Christ's church is an exciting Sunday gathering then an exciting Sunday gathering is all it may become. But if our vision for Christ's church is the vision of the church we read about in the New Testament, then we will become more and more like that church even in the midst of all of our technological advances.

So first get the proper vision. Then team with other Christians of like mind to begin living out that vision incarnationally.

A New Church Forming At The Motel?

I think I have mentioned what is happening at the Farrington Inn in nearly every eNews I have sent in the past 6 months. But I must speak about it again; cool things are happening there!

This past week Reneh, Bruce, Joann and I sat in a circle, Bruce and Joann on the door step facing the street, Reneh and I in chairs on the sidewalk. We began our time together by asking what was new with everyone. “How’s the job search going? How are you feeling? How’s your family doing?” Our time is at ease. No rush. No time limit I have to be gone by, generally. We sit. We talk. We then get to the chosen passage for the day. Last week it was John 8- Jesus with the adulterous woman.

Great conversation ensued from here: “Where’s the adulterous guy in all of this?!” “Do you think she ever returned to her adultery after she met Jesus?” “What’s the best way to respond to grace?” “Are you anything like this woman…the Pharisees?” It was a great conversation.

Then came the off topic questions which can be expected from beginners to the Bible. I try to handle them briefly. I try not to dive into new topics quickly. Their questions are good and they inform me of what is really going on inside of them. But I have learned that it does no good to talk much about Avenue Q until you have driven on Avenues A-P first. “I heard the Bible says women are unclean when they have their period. It’s not their fault. What’s up with that?” “Whoa!” I said to myself, another day, another time! You can imagine how confusing that conversation might be if I tried to answer it. It was humorous!

But then came the best part of the day. Our discussion was through. Our hearts were lifted with thoughts of Jesus and I asked what we could pray about together. Reneh shared. Bruce shared. Joann shared. I even shared. Then as Joann was sharing her struggles Bruce offered comfort. Reneh offered understanding. I listened. Voicing the difficultly of having absolutely no family around Bruce replied to Joann, “Well you got us”. Joann leaned her head toward Bruce and innocently kissed his shoulder as if to say, “Thank you, I know”. Then we prayed.

I left there last Thursday thinking, “Once they decide to marry Jesus in baptism we have a new church at the motel! Praise the Lord. It’s a church that shares together, prays together, cries together, reads God’s Word together and together watches the Lord move among them and reach others.”

I am learning that this group at the motel may never attend BCC’s Sunday gatherings (although I desire they do, and keep inviting!). But they can still be the church together, where they are, under proper shepherding and move on from their temporary residences to build life around Jesus with other Christians.

Please continue to pray for this small group of people residing in a motel. May they choose Jesus soon.

Shaun

Are We Better At Brotherly Love Than Drinking Buddies?

This past weekend I attended the funeral of an uncle of mine in NH. Funerals are always sad but this funeral was particularly sad because of the age of my uncle; he was 56.

Performing the funeral gave me opportunity to visit with various family members and friends the day before the service. It was really enjoyable to sit with people and listen to their stories of my late uncle. The most enlightening conversation I had was with a friend of my uncle’s whom I will call Steve. Steve knew my uncle for most of his life. They grew up together. They would hang out every weekend. In the last year of my uncle’s life they lived within walking distance of one another and saw each other nearly every day. As we stood in Steve’s garage reminiscing about the past Steve said of my uncle, “He was the only man outside of my family whom I loved.” It reminded me of what Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.

My uncle had 3 friends in particular who were as close to him as brothers. Most of their time, I must admit, was spent drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, but they were by no means always drunk when together. Drinking and smoking was simply what they did to pass the time away. But ever since the funeral I have wondered how many Christians have the depth of friendship together that I learned my uncle had with his 3 drinking buddies? While it is true that people should look at the relationships of a Christian and say, “I want what he has”, the reality is that many Christians today would look at the friendships my uncle had and say, “I want what he had”. My uncle had a connection with his friends I rarely see today, especially among Christian men.

With the presence of the Holy Spirit inside of us Christians ought to be able to take brotherly love to a whole new dimension. We ought to have a level of love flowing among ourselves that finds no secular counterpart. Imagine the depth of friendship my uncle could have had with his friends if the Holy Spirit were present. Imagine how much further brotherly love could have gone if each friend was personally committed to imitating Jesus Christ in their lives. I believe the level of love possible when Christ is at the center of relationships is to a degree most of us are unaware- especially today.

What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall when Jesus sat down to commune with His disciples on the night he was betrayed by Judas. What level of love would I have seen? What display of brotherly love would I have been privy to? During their supper John asked Jesus a personal question. The Scriptures say, “Then, leaning back on Jesus’ breast, he said to Him, “Lord, who is it?” (Jn.13:25). “Leaning back on Jesus’ breast”? What was going on here? We can be assured nothing of an impure nature was taking place in this scene. Instead, the depth of brotherly love between Jesus and His disciples was such that embracing each other was natural. For most Christians today brotherly love to this degree is not natural, would you agree?

The sad thing is that it was probably more natural for my uncle to embrace his friends in this manner, with a beer and a cigarette in hand, than for Christian brothers to embrace one another with a Bible in hand today. But why?

Well very simply we do not give the Holy Spirit opportunity to grow such love among us. We are not involved in each other’s lives daily as my uncle was with his friends. Our Christian brothers and sisters are not the people we live out our Christian lives with; they are acquaintances; people we see once a week; people we have 5 minute conversations with; people we know of not about. My uncle’s friends, on the other hand, were people who could come over unannounced and feel like they could stay forever. You really miss those kind of friends when they’re gone.

I come back from a sad funeral convicted that if we want the Holy Spirit to be alive in our churches we had better allow Him to grow brotherly love among us. This cannot happen at “church”; it must happen at every other time and be brought into the “church”. I want to be a part of a congregation where the Holy Spirit radiates out of our community like static on a child’s head down the slide (there’ s a visual for you). And so in an effort to build this type of church I will

• Make time for people
• Come over ‘just because’
• Invite you over ‘just because’
• Buy you coffee
• Paint your deck with you
• Call you just to say hi
• Laugh with you
• Cry with you
• Let you borrow my car and not demand gas money
• See you more face-to-face than on facebook
• In short I will consider my Christian brother better than myself

So what will you do?

A City on a Hill not a Person on a Hill

John Winthrop, the first Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, gave a sermon to his congregation of settlers aboard the ship Arbella in AD 1630 from the shores of England. His “City on a Hill” sermon has been quoted by Presidential candidates and called the greatest sermon of the past 1,000 years. In that sermon Winthrop spoke a great deal about the need for a fervent application of brotherly love. He said things like this:

“That which most in their churches maintain as truth in profession only, we must bring into familiar and constant practice; as in this duty of love, we must love brotherly without dissimulation, we must love one another with a pure heart fervently. We must bear one another burdens. We must not look only on our own things, but also on the things of our brethren”.

He spoke of avoiding shipwreck by following the council of Micah “to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God…to be knit together as one man…to delight in each other”.

On and on Winthrop went with the call to brotherly love, self-denial, making other’s conditions our own conditions. This was perhaps the most needed message for these settlers because they were about to spend 3 months together on a ship in terribly claustrophobic conditions. No showers. No private suites. No cry rooms. Probably only a personal bucket for a bathroom which they would then toss overboard and store away for later. If they made it through this claustrophobic journey alive they would live together 24/7- helping one another build homes, clear the land, hunt for game, plant crops, fight off Indians, birth babies, bury dead and in every way worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

It goes without saying that if the church in this context would not put their faith fully into practice by loving their neighbors completely as they love themselves, their community would have dissolved into discord. And many such communities did.

Brotherly love for this Massachusetts Bay Colony, and many others like it, was not just a nice thing to have…it was an essential ingredient to survival. Without it the whole experiment would have been shipwrecked. Brotherly love would also be the very element necessary to make their colony a “city on a hill” to the rest of the world and certainly the reason Winthrop emphasized it so.

When we read Matthew 5:14-16 today I fear we read it differently than Jesus intended it. When I have read it in the past I imagined Jesus saying, "Shaun you are a light to the world." "Shaun you are a city on a hill." "Shaun you are a candle on a stick that people put up high to give light to others." Although there is a sense in which Jesus' words apply to me individually, the fact is Jesus' words are best understood communally.

The church is supposed to be a "city on a hill" not a person on a hill. A city on a hill is made up of individuals for sure, but if I am on that hill alone by myself I am no light to the world. If we are all up there together fervently applying brotherly love, however, then we shall shine!

I extend my appreciation again to the Brunswick Church of Christ for being the best "city on a hill" I have ever been a part of. Praise God. I will continue to challenge us to become so more and more.

What I Hear Christians Saying

My wife had two friends over tonight for some genuine conversation and crafting. I carted the kids around with me to karate and then to meet briefly with another brother in Christ. The kids and I arrived home around 7:30pm and I had them pretty well settled in bed by 8:30. While upstairs I heard bits and pieces of the conversation happening downstairs amongst the ladies. The conversation, I must say, sounded all too familiar: "I don't feel connected there". "I just want some genuine friends for myself and my kids". "We go there but we do not really know anybody". They were speaking of their individual churches.

So many Christians, I have found, are involved in churches but have no genuine friends within them. So many people go to church, appear to leave filled, but do not experience any semblance of genuine Christian community in their lives. Our churches preach the "correct doctrine"; we give people positive next-steps for individual spiritual growth; we even offer a plethora of support groups and Bible study groups for seekers, new believers and the aged. But the utopian ideals of the old Puritan, New England small-town, the ideals so prominent in the first churches of Christ we see in the NT, are so far removed from our experience.

I am hearing Christians say they want to live within a genuine Christian community. They want to know people and to be known. They want their children to grow up with life-long friends. They want to live in the times when everyone harvested their crops and brought them to the center of town where the elders of the church divided up the food to each as had need. But the reality is that the way we currently live will never accomplish what we say we want to experience. We must make changes in the very pattern of our lives if genuine Christian community will ever surface for us.

Christians today are facing the same challenges Christians in America have faced for centuries. They are trying to live between two opposing worlds. Page Smith, an author and professor of  Emeritus at the University of California, wrote,

"Here again we have tried to trace what was to be, in many ways, the most profound and enduring split in the collective American psyche: equality (the single-minded pursuit of happiness-money), which also called itself by other names such as individualism, free enterprise, and so on; and community, which denigrated materialism and struggled valiantly to establish or reestablish true communities. In a sense, there could be no genuine reconciliation between those two American dreams" (Smith, 1980, p.48).

Smith said that Americans have tried, vainly, to reconcile individualism (equality, free-enterprise, etc.) with true community. American history has shown that as our wealth increases our experience of community decreases. The less we have the more we need each other and the more we have the less need we have of each other. The same can be said of our faith; The more we have the less we think we need Jesus and the less we have the more aware we are of our need for Jesus.

I want to know...is there a way to live in prosperity but not grow spiritually and relationally impoverished? I am hearing Christians say they want to. They say they want both. But history has proved it unachievable. The solution then? According to Smith (1980) the solution has been to "give money away". "Americans", said Smith, "were almost as ingenious in discovering new ways of giving money away as they were in making it...In time Americans became better at doing that than any other people in the world" (p.46).

I want to propose today that if we really want to experience genuine Christian community and not just 'go to church' we have got to become expert philanthropists. We have got to let go of the money the Lord has given us so that others in the church can live thereby. We have got to choose to live communally such that what the Lord has given me I loose for the sake of others. We must live by this truth: The Lord gave to me so that I can give to others. This was how the earliest church lived. They lived communally. "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had" (Acts 4:32).

To the praise of God I am happy to say that over the past 8 years at BCC I have seen members of our congregation live communally. I have been blessed to be able to walk beside people who made a decision to build their lives around Jesus Christ. These people decided that what the Lord had given them was equally mine if I needed it. I am hearing Christians say they want to live in genuine Christian community- to do this, however, requires us to stop chasing the other, bankrupt, American dream- properity, wealth, money. We cannot have both.