“Adam, why are you always assuming that the cup is half empty?” 

Youth workers say this to me over coffee. Their lives are run wild with activities, planning, teaching, and meetings. Their ministries are full and something I’ve said has called that busyness into question.

My response, not trying to be trite, is “Oh no, I’m not saying the cup is half empty, I’m saying the cup is 95% empty.”

Again and again I’ve challenged folks to do the math for themselves. Most people can do it in their head. You don’t need a scientist to measure impact if you know basic facts about your community.

• How many students are in middle & high school in your community? How many students attend a youth ministry in your community? Divide. Probably less than 10% of the eligible population. (If you factor in students who attend youth group by choice… this number dramatically falls, doesn’t it?) 
• How many years has the current model of youth ministry been impacting your community? 20, 30, 40 years? How much have churches grown as a result? At best, church attendance has flatlined over the past 20 years, likely declined compared to 30 or 40 years ago. 
• You might be able to point to a couple of exceptional examples. (Communities of great impact or individuals greatly impacted) But for the amount of effort, amount of investment, in most communities the impact is pretty small.

My point is not to tear youth ministry down down. It’s to rebuild. We can’t think about the future until we can make a sober assessment of what our tribe has accomplished.

It’s not that the wrong people are in youth ministry, it’s not that they are uneducated, don’t care, are lazy, or even under-resourced. I actually think the frustration, the quitting, angst, and the burnout we see in youth ministry is because we have the RIGHT people working 24/7 [largely] on WRONG strategies. [More fairly, their current strategy is OK, just limited in impact.]

That’s not tearing down at all, is it?

My point is that the strategies we’ve used to date have a finite impact. We can look at 40 years of history and say “youth group” will impact less than 10% of any given student population. (How much more evidence do you need to see that this is true? 50 years? 100 years?)

The challenge to anyone who will listen is to think about the 95% of un-impacted adolescents in their community and ask themselves, “What are other strategies that might impact these students lives for the sake of the Gospel prevailing?”

That’s not being negative. It’s missiology 101.

Photo credit: Mykl Roventine via Flickr (Creative Commons)

He leaned across the table and told me a secret in a hushed tone. “This neighbor loving neighbors thing. It really works. It’s incredible!”

He then went on and talked about all the things that are going on in his neighborhood.

Over the past months I’ve had several conversations that essentially went the same way. I hang out with a former youth worker, a person like me, who left full-time ministry on some sort of a quest to find their first love, ministry. And that position they take when they lean across the table? I call that position HOPE. 

With excited hushed tones they start talking about what happened when they gave up the podium.

• They stopped talking and started listening.
• They stopped looking for their next illustration and started noticing what was going on.
• And they got involved. And it lead to more cool things. And now Good News is on fire on their block.

This life reorientation is disorienting at first. It causes them to lose their balance and go through a period of questioning, often times slipping into a period of depression.

And what they find in that dark place of self-reflection is that they live in a neighborhood. There are people, often just like them, living next door. And this newfound disequilibrium causes them to be open to something they never were before… listening to what God wants them to do… regardless of if their church is behind it or not.

That was funny to write. That people who have spent decades working at churches started to listen to what God wanted of them only after leaving their church work. And I’m sure that some may take offense at that. All I mean is that these folks feel free to listen to God’s voice in a different way, not through the filter of leadership, but with a more simple posture, “Lord, what will you have for me to do?”

And almost universally the answer to that question involves simply reorienting their life around serving the needs of their block. It’s not a program and it’s not a paycheck. But it’s the ministry they always wanted.

It Was There All Along

It’s kind of funny having these conversations. Each of them is unique. With each person finding a new kind of ministry that fits their neighborhood differently. Big smiles emerge as they share this secret they’ve discovered: It was there all along. 

Hope has a flavor to it. It’s having tasted the bitter root of despair, rejected popular fast-food cynicism, and popped out the other side with a big smile on your face. Hope is like taking an overcooked steak and decided to chop it up and put it on a salad. What was once not-quite-right is now the star of the meal.

Hope has derivatives. It’s contagious. As one neighbor ventures out of the front-door and meets others, others do likewise. Suddenly, hope spreads down the street. A person shares a garden. A guy cut a neighbors grass when they are sick. A block party pops up. And neighbors begin to slow down and enjoy where they live as opposed to just seeing it as a place to store their stuff and relax between activities. Kids start to play outside again. Kids start to be kids again. Crime goes down. On and on and on.

All because a family on the block decided to reorient their lives.

The Bible doesn’t lie. Each of us were created in Christ Jesus to do good works. (Ephesians 2:10) And when we lean into that the rewards are everywhere.

One day morning will dawn, your eyes will open, and you will awaken with the literal reality that the dream you had for yourself is over and it’s time to move on.

I can think to specific days in 2000, 2003, 2008, and most recently in summer 2011 when I rolled out of bed with the knowledge that I’d just crossed a line. The dreams I knew were gone. And I had to find new dreams.

In each case, those mornings felt like I’d just fallen from a place of positional power, security, and recognition. Even in going from one role to another– even if that new role was “better” than the one I’d left, it still felt like a fall.

Perhaps it is a guy thing? But much of who you are and how you think of yourself on a day-to-day basis is wrapped up in what you do, who you work with, and the people you do stuff with. When that’s gone– whether by choice or not– you experience this unmooring free fall feeling.

While other leaders have experienced ugly falls from grace I have never experienced that. Instead, in times where the things I knew are suddenly gone because I’ve moved on to something else… I’ve experienced something I can only describe as a fall to grace.

The free fall feeling of change always lands in the loving arms of a God who has nurtured and cared for me from the beginning. And those strong palms support my back as I try to get my bearings. God’s grace supports me, lifts me up, and the warmth of that palm reminds me that I’ll be fine.

To know Hope you must know Despair

Despair is not the enemy of hope. Frustration and anxiety may not be your friends but they are repeatedly wrestled on your way to hope. Over the years, plenty of people have called me overly hopeful– almost stupid hopeful. From my eyes I only know summits of hope because I have been in great depths of despair. In the darkness of that valley I’ve cried out to God, “What am I doing here! I can’t do this anymore. I hate every last step of this! AAAAHHHH!!!!” The echoes of those moments haunt me.

But when you’ve been there– when you’ve screamed in that valley and heard those cries echoed back empty? Then you discover that any step above that is a step towards hope.

But knowing hope, truly living a hope-filled, is a reflex against despair.

To know Faith you must know Doubt

It perplexes me that some have made doubt the enemy of faith. I would argue that you can’t know what faith is until you know what doubt is. Both are invisible. Both are real. And both are internal, silent motivators of our daily actions.

In putting both feet on either side of the faith/doubt teeter totter I desire balance while one always wins over the other. I’m either standing on faith or standing on doubt.

Falling into the arms of grace isn’t an action of doubt or faith. But the resolve that comes through pushing against doubts gravity to take action is a step of faith. That is what reassures me that grace truly will catch me.

To know Grace you must know Failure

One of my mentors, at each of these moments over the past decade, has asked me… “What are the things you are running away from by doing this and what are the things you are running to?” Even in roles where everyone has labeled me a success I know there were failures. I know there were expectations unmet. I know I expressed attitudes I shouldn’t have. There were many times when I worked on what I wanted to work on to the neglect of what others thought I should be working on.

Even on the road to success there are many failures you have to deal with. Being honest about that with myself and with others helps me discover what grace really means in my life.

Because of my failures I don’t deserve anything good. But good keeps coming my way. That’s not a reflection of my character or timing or anything else. But it is a reflection of the character of God.

Friends- I have no idea what is going on in your life. But I do know that we will all encounter times where we experience free fall. My encouragement? Fall into the receiving hands of grace.

• Lawsuit alleges sex abuse at Concord Church
• Former Danbury youth pastor accepts deal, to be sentenced November 2nd
• Youth Pastor suspected of preying on North Bay girl
• Former youth pastor arrest for theft
• Youth pastor sentenced for sexual assault

If you hang out in Churchland you’ll almost never hear of evil in the church. We cover it up with elder approved statements, letters, forced resignations, cheesy happy, clappy worship songs, smiling sermons, and a heavy dose of denial.

I didn’t have to search very hard for those headlines above. All I did was search the term “youth pastor” on Google News; these were on the first page of results.

Evil exists everywhere, of course. Just because people are Christians doesn’t mean they are absent of sin in their lives. But it boils my blood that the profession I love leads headlines with evil instead of the good that we do.

My point isn’t that youth pastors are evil. Far from it. My point is that we can’t live in denial that there is evil. 

People in your ministry deal with real evil every day. There is real evil in your life. There are people who are out to destroy you. There are forces at work through the tides of relationships that can elevate or destroy you. There are real temptations and moments of failure which can lead your life into horrible directions.

Life is full of temptresses and tempests.

And we need deliverance from this evil every day. And we need to lead people in a way that seeks deliverance from evil, real evil in their lives.

Because at the end of the day– living a happy, clappy, smiley, existence of denial may just be enabling evil. 

Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come. 
Thy will be done in earth, 
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us. 
And lead us not into temptation, 
But deliver us from evil. 
For thine is the kingdom,

The power, and the glory,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

My dear friends of Despair,

I know you are tired. Despair is an exhausting existence. As you know I was a resident there for many years.

I know that each day is much the same. You spend countless hours looking for nourishment, feeding on things of no nutritional value, then falling asleep with the horrifying hunger reality that the next day you’ll awaken just to look for food that food won’t fill you up. It’s a life of unsatisfying hunger which lead me to malnutrition of my body and soul.

There is nothing left for you there. It’s time to flee the life you know in Despair and join me here in a place named Hope.

The land of Hope only seems scary because Despair is so familiar. After a couple of days you’ll get used to it. It’s nice here. The air is clean. The beds are soft. You won’t be hungry over here, there’s plenty to feast on.

People are more friendly, too. Instead of gnawing on the food of the past they are eagerly building tomorrow. I love talking to the people of Hope. Sometimes, just in casual conversation with a Hopeful, my eyes will well of with tears of Joy.

It took leaving Despair behind to discover that the people over there are murderers. They fixate on happiness in order to steal your Joy. Then they feast on your joy, mocking its value while consuming it like a taste test at a Chinese buffet. All my life it felt like the people of Despair would finally turn around and their hunger would be satisfied. But they are like zombies, dead men walking.

If you moved to the land of Hope we could be neighbors. I know we’re friends now. But imagine how much closer we’d be if we lived in the same place? Heck, our kids could go to school together. Maybe they’d even call you aunt or uncle? I’d love that… but it’s just not practical with us living so far apart.

Join me in the land of Hope. Leave Despair behind.

Hopeful,

Adam

Recession? Here's the NASDAQ Index July 2, 2009 -July 2, 2011

Our culture loves despair. We ignore the facts and choose lamentation.

Listen to an hour of the news and you’ll hear how dangerous our country is. (Crime is down significantly over the past 30 years) You’ll hear how horrible the economy is. (The image above shows the NASDAQ Index the past two years.) Public school stink. (In fact, most major metropolitan school systems have seen test scores steadily increase over the past decade.)

Find a slow news and the media just goes back to the wheel of despair news stories that you love. Teen pregnancy, homelessness, violence in schools, date rape, sexting… you know the list. They go back to that wheel of despair because YOU LOVE THAT NEWS! Our culture is sick,  twisted, and upside down.

We love to point to examples of bad news and apply them to our entire culture. Gang violence up 2% in Chicago? People in Arizona will go buy a handgun, just in case it spreads. A school in the district is struggling? Pull financial support, start a private school, all the kids with means will go there.

We’re all going to hell in a handbasket and there’s nothing you can do about it. Armageddon is on the horizon, cope and deal baby!

That’s our culture of despair.

I reject despair for a posture of hope

I refuse to be defined, to think of myself, or to allow myself to be manipulated by an evil system which loves despair. Jesus did not die so I could live a life of despair. He subjected himself, even to death, so that I could live life to full. (John 10:10)

• My project is faced with impossible odds? I like my odds of winning.
• Life biggest challenges afoot? I smile at the opportunity.
• Less than 5% of our neighborhood attends a church? Let’s get to work loving our neighbors.
• One of my students lives in ruin because of bad decisions? Today can be the next chapter in an amazing story of redemption.
• 1.5 million people left homeless after the earthquake in Port-au-Prince? Well, let’s feed this 5,000. It’s a start.
• The church cut the budget, staff let go, initiatives put on ice? Time for some soft innovation.
• Everything that could have gone wrong today did? Tomorrow is a new day. Let’s learn from this and move forward.

I choose to fear God alone and allow Him to have dominion over what He’s asked me to do. He’s not surprised by my circumstance. He’s never let me down. And He takes great pleasure when I put my faith and trust in Him despite the odds.

The only story Americans like more than despair? A comeback. Your comeback can begin right here and right now. But you have to put on hope. You have to wear it like a jacket. You have to allow hope to define you.

Hope goes beyond and attitude and a forced smile.

It is a posture I choose to carry in all areas.

If you don’t like hope. You won’t like me.

Join me. Reject despair.

Assume a posture of hope.

Hope makes humanity unique.

No matter how bad things may look, you can always choose hope.

Hope is the reason a widow can smile at her spouses funeral. And hope is the reason a woman living in a tent can shock you with a smile and call out to God with thanksgiving when she is destitute.

Hope is the fire that brings warmth to your heart during your darkest hour.

The way I see it, hope is winning in the lives of many friends in youth ministry right now.

The last few years have rattled us to our core as two realities crushed our confidence:

1. We realized that the way/methods/modes we experienced youth group and even came into a relationship with Jesus weren’t effectively reaching the students in our lives in the ways or with the veracity we had grown used to.
2. The economic crisis changed, foundationally, the way our ministry was financed. Many of us lost our jobs or were forced (or given the opportunity) to take on additional responsibilities in the church.

While, from a humanist perspective, those crushing realities should have devastated youth ministry, I think it has made youth ministry better. When circumstances should have snuffed out the dreams of our heart, hope blew a steady, gentle breath onto the embers, igniting the flame once again.

From my perspective this last period of youth ministry has brought about two amazing things which I aim to demonstrate more vividly in the months to come:

1. Youth ministry was never truly about a model anyway. Youth workers have created fresh ways to share Jesus’ love with adolescents built on the best practices of “what we grew up on” and melded into the needs of individual communities we serve.
2. Youth ministry was always a calling as much as a vocation. When the money got cut back and even when people lost their jobs– they still chose to minister to adolescents because that is who they are more than what they were hired to do.

So, here we are! We have run the gauntlet and survived! Circumstances can not snuff out hope!

I am snubbing my nose at those who have declared youth ministry dead. Swooned? Maybe. Knocked down? Definitely. Humbled? You bet.

But giving up? Never.

Photo by Harsha K R via Flickr (Creative Commons)

I was listening to a message by Rob Bell a few years ago and someone posed the question to him, “Why do people drive for hours to be a part of Mars Hill.” His answer was profound and simple: “People will drive from miles around to see what’s on fire.”

Very true, isn’t it?

When I read the book of Acts I am sucked into the story of both the fire God started and the massive attention that fire drew wherever the Apostles traveled. Sure, there was spectacle on the day of Pentecost where God dropped tongues of fire on believers as they were indwelled with the Holy Spirit.

Yet they only grew by a few thousand that day.

By the end of Acts there were tens of thousands of believers. (Maybe more?) They had unleashed a virus of forgiveness of sins and restoration of relationship that the Roman army couldn’t stamp out. By Acts 28, what started as a small fire in Jerusalem was spreading. God had captured hearts whereas other gods and kingdoms tried to capture their bodies– and the Romans simply couldn’t shut down a virus that spread with love.

Because of the division between Luke-Acts we lose sight of the resolution of the story of Jesus’ ministry. While the credits roll and Easter is celebrated at the empty tomb, the story isn’t over!

The story is really just beginning.

It was a virus so strong that within three centuries it would topple the most powerful and dominant empire the world has ever seen.

The empty tomb is the climax. But the unleashing of God’s people by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are the resolution.

Why did Jesus come to earth? Surely, to seek and save the lost. Surely, to make a way for salvation of all who seek him. Of course those are reasons He came to earth.

But it was also to unleash a fire through his believers that can’t be stopped.

For 2,000+ years the fire has burned as the only hope of the planet spreads. While evil has appeared from every direction over millennia the fire has spread. Even as martyrs were literally burned at the stake they passed the flames on with their love. The fire is shared from father to son, neighbor to neighbor, classmate to classmate, and homeless man to executive.

A lot of people I know are disappointed in God today. A new year has dawned and they look at the resources they have available, they scratch their heads, they look at the agenda God has laid on their heart, and they cry silently– God, there is no way I can do this with the resources I have.

Unfortunately, too many of my friends in ministry woke up this morning wondering if God has still called them to a life in ministry.

To both, I have this simple reminder from Acts: Fire is free.

The great Hope of the world flows from the pores of our weakness. While we may be depressed by a lack of resources or even a lack of a job– be encouraged the your greatest calling spreads fastest through people with no resources, no stock piles, and nothing left but a flickering flame.

24 hours into my second trip to Haiti and I started crafting this phrase:

Theology and culture always co-mingle. You just hope that theology and culture never conspire against the goals of the church.

In America: Theology and culture conspire to destroy the church through our belief in the American Dream and pursuit of happiness.

In Haiti: Theology and culture conspire to over-spiritualize everything.

At least that’s my opinion after my second visit. The first go-round, I was doing my best to look past all of that so I could focus on evaluating the needs of the people. But this time, it became clear to me that the desire to blame everything on the spiritual world was seriously hampering rebuilding.

God may have been in the earthquake. But there were certainly human factors at play as well.

Walking around Carrefour, the epicenter of the January 12th quake, is like a scene out of a movie. Not the beginning and fun parts. And not even after the credits roll. It’s like that sense of curiosity you have when you watch a movie like I Am Legend. What would happen if people re-inhabited the set? That’s the feeling you get walking around the effected areas. You are on the set of a movie about the end of the world.

“The world has ended.” These are the words of some church leaders. Most Christians in Haiti seem to believe that January 12th was the beginning of the tribulation. And who can blame them? On a single day half the cities people became homeless. Almost 10% of the cities population was killed. Countless homes, business, churches, and government buildings either collapsed or were severely damaged. If this isn’t tribulation than the real tribulation is truly something unimagineable.

Last week I documented some signs of hope in Haiti. This time I wanted to be fair and share some signs of despair. (And evidence that you need to be involved!)

• Some rebuilding has begun. But with no building codes, horrible materials, and skilled labor lacking… people are just making the same mistakes that lead to so many deaths. It’s easy to blame God, but one major contributor was faulty construction practices.
• Billions of dollars in foreign aid will be distributed mostly to wealthy oppressors. Joel spoke with a Spaniard on his way out of Haiti. He had been in the country for 3 years and is leaving because he can’t handle the corruption anymore. “Want to know where all the aid is going? The Haitians the NGOs are hiring are selling it out of the back door.” Enough money has been given to Haiti to completely level and rebuild Port-au-Prince. Unless people intervene all of that money will be squandered away bit by bit. Sorry if that’s shocking to you.
• While there are thousands of NGOs on the ground, very few have camp managers like Sean Penn. Like it or lump it, each camp needs a foreigner who will go to the various NGOs and leverage social currency selflessly on behalf of people. Spiritual needs are great to meet. But there are still plenty of physical needs unmet too. A camp manager who checks in 1-2 times per week isn’t going to cut it. It takes people who make running the camp their life mission to make things happen.
• The earthquake shook the people, but a culture of dependency is hard to loosen. Americans have a “fix-it” mentality. It’s in our cultural DNA and we exhibit it everywhere we go in the world. As the recipient of generations of this, Haiti (and other places in the world like Haiti) have a “foreigners fix-it” mentality. Our cab driver in Ft. Lauderdale was the perfect example. His wife is a doctor in Haiti and he sends home money to support her. When I asked him when he would move back to his country he told me, “I will move back when I find a white man willing to partner with me on my water and ice business.” When I told him that, in my opinion, the only hope from Haiti was if the Haitian people lead themselves and stopped depending on outsiders… he just laughed. “I wish that same thing, but the Haitian people just like to buy and be given things by white people. It means it is a better gift or business than a Haitian can create.”
• The government of Haiti is dragging its feet. A major problem facing rebuilding efforts are the myriad of 18th century property laws that govern ownership. You need a permit to remove rubble. And if you are renting you need to get the owners permission. The owner might live in another country, and he may only have a share of the ownership with dozens of cousins. And, of course, to prove you own the land you need to go to a government building which collapsed. Round and round you go. Months go by and nothing gets done. Unless you pay a bribe, that is.

Is there hope for Haiti? Obviously. I believe to the core of my being that Jesus brings renewal of the soul and the land. While this is an incredible time of spiritual revival in Haiti it is also the greatest opportunity in our lifetime for Christians to get involved at the grassroots levels and help root out corruption and see the best interests of the people served.

If not you than who? Want to change the world? Think you are crazy enough?

Step one.

Saturday afternoon most of the team pealed off to go to do VBS and I just felt like I needed to make one more little trip to the Sons of God orphanage. I wasn’t sure why. It was just in me and I needed to do it.

So I did.

As we made our way through the series of dirt streets from Pastor David’s house to the orphanage I was just asking God… please, show me your forgotten child. I was praying for just a moment of connection with a child to let him know that Jesus is there for him. I didn’t have a clue how it’d work. But that was my prayer.

We opened the green heavy steel gate and wound our way through the Pastors house to the little courtyard the children hang out in. Of course, 3-4 visitors from America drop in and every kid just comes to hang out.

Within a few minutes I was carrying around a little two year old boy… the same one who attached himself to Kristen on her visits there. My heart melted as the warmth of our bodies created a silent bond of sweat. (Older kids, about 6 years old, put the younger ones on their shoulders to bring the babies to you to hold. It’s sweet and scary at the same time!)

As I held one boy, another would poke me in the back of the leg and go hide. He and I would lock eyes and he would run off to another place. And so, in this tiny little courtyard filled with children and carrying a two year old, I began to play a game of poke/chase with this older boy. (About five years old) It was cute to see his smile and the joy he got from being chased by a fat white man.

About 15 minutes of this go by. I’m laughing, he is laughing, the baby boy is laughing as I bounce him around, and my back is aching. Eventually I decide I can’t bear the pain of it any longer and sit on the steps leading into the main house.

The little boy who had alluded me while playing chase just sat down next to me and leaned against by big sweating body. He touched my head, bald and sweaty. He felt the hair on my arms. He kept leaning against me. It was a sweet moment. Then he took his t-shirt, filled with holes, and gently squeegeed off the sweat from my arms. It was tender and loving and I hoped a ball of sweat would land in my eye so I could release the tear building up.

As I rested and played with the antsy baby he and I just shared a moment where we were in one another’s presence. No words were shared… we just were together and silent among the swarm of activity.

Suddenly, he got up and went inside. We were sharing such a moment that I didn’t even think it was odd that he got up. He just got up. About a minute later he came back out of the house and sat right next to me… just like we were before. Except he had a picture.

When I saw the picture I lost it. Sure, I didn’t weep outwardly. But I wept inwardly and only allowed that one Cherokee tear to trickle out. I held those tears in for me. But maybe I also just held it together for him?

He reached out his arms and showed me a picture of his parents. It was worn and torn. It was faded. And whoever took the snapshot had somehow clipped off the top of his fathers face.

The photo was of his parents wedding day. The bride beaming, the husband standing proudly next to her, and the table before them filled with foods and a 3 tier wedding cake.

The boy made eye contact with me. Then pointed to his mom. Then made eye contact with me again. Then pointed to his dad. Then made eye contact with me again to make sure I was looking at his prized possession.

I understood. He understood. These were his parents. He was orphaned. His heart longed for a day when one of them would walk through the doors of the orphanage and take him home. And that day may never come.

And so, he and I sat, staring at the picture.

God answered my prayer in that moment. I don’t know why I felt like I needed to go to the orphanage that afternoon. But I did and this was why. As the little boy and I shared our presence he was able to know that he was not forgotten. Perhaps his parents had abandoned him or perhaps they had died… but he held onto hope.

The truth is that the orphanage scared me to my core. I never had it perfect as a kid but I always had a loving home to sleep in. My parents loved my brother and I. We never doubted it. And we both knew they would never abandon us. Through the toughest of times they took care of us before they took care of themselves. I never felt the way this boy felt. My empathetic pains were merely hypothetical. I couldn’t fathom his pain. But I could rest in the presence of sharing that moment with him.

One of the most biting things ever said about me was a pastor, early in my church experience, who said from the pulpit one morning, pointing right at me and asking me to stand up so he could use me as an illustration of his point, that he and the elders had labeled me a “spiritual orphan” in the church.

Those words punched me in the chest and I don’t know if I have ever recovered from that pain. I felt like I was part of that church community and they merely looked at me as an orphan. I knew those words didn’t reflect the words of Jesus… and yet I knew that I would never quite fit in again in that kind of church.

Perhaps, at the very core, that is the thing deep inside me that looks at the evangelical church and says… somewhere, deep at the core of who we are as a church… we need to reform?

You see, we are all spiritual orphans. We are all adopted by Christ.

Without the love of Jesus, we are all like that boy in the orphanage. We all are looking for a moment of presence. We are all holding on to an image of what a reconciled life will look like.

May we never let go.