ministry

The Last Sunday

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There’s something a little sad about last things. Even if you know something better is coming, it doesn’t mean that you won’t be sad about the ending.

I got a little emotional singing the Doxology for the last time at The Church at Avenue South’s last service at 2510 8th Ave S. I know the new campus on 901 Acklen Ave will be so much better in so many ways, but it’s hard to deny 10 years of history.

As my pastor reminded us all, when we set out to plant a church in the Melrose/Berry Hill area of Nashville back in 2013, many “experts” said we’d never be able to find suitable property. Even if we did, we’d never be able as a church to compete with other bidders or afford space to accommodate our needs.

But God. That’s how all the best stories start. God showed up. A property opened up that was exactly what we needed at the time. The owner was the son of a pastor. His name was Gabriel. Does it get any more God-ordained than that?

Fast forward 8 or so years later and we’re looking for a permanent home. Again, those in the know said we’d never find it in the area we felt called to serve. But God stepped in again. A church half a mile away had relocated to Hermitage and wanted to sell the property to another church to keep the gospel presence intact in the neighborhood. They left money on the table to sell to us versus selling to a developer.

God’s fingerprints are all over the move, yet it’s still a goodbye. We’re saying goodbye to a building where so many God-moments have taken place. We’ve seen God show up time and time again. So many of us (including me) are different people than we were when we first walked into 2510 8th Ave S. We are more like Jesus.

There are not many left from those early days in 2014, but everyone who has been in the building for 10 years, 10 months, 10 days, or 1 day has a story to tell about how God met them in that place.

May there be many more stories to tell in the years to come at 901 Acklen Ave.

Last Room in the Inn of the Season

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I always get a little sad at the end of the Room in the Inn season. I know I will miss seeing all the people until we kick off the new season in November. More than anything, my head is still spinning from how fast these last five months have flown by.

This year I got to teach more in the Bible study. I saw more of the homeless men showing up to hear God’s word taught and really lean in to learning about God’s way of living. Plus, I love seeing the faithfulness of those core volunteers who have been with the ministry for such a long time.

I can’t remember exactly, but I think a friend named Brad Johnson told me about this ministry and invited me to check it out way back in 2012, give or take a year or two. I know it’s been a minute or two ago. That was when I really saw the impact of Room in the Inn to give people a warm place to spend the night and a good meal and a hot shower.

I’ve heard stories of God’s faithfulness in the lives of these men and how they still trust in Jesus in spite of all the hardships of being homeless. I’ve seen homeless men who know the Bible and can quote verses way better than I can.

I see homelessness less and less as a stigma and more of a “there but by the grace of God go I” kind of thing. For some it’s a choice, but for others it’s simply a bad financial break or the loss of a job or an unexpected medical expense.

I remember a book I read that basically said that in a sense we’re all homeless because this world we’re living in isn’t really home. We’re following Jesus as best we can on our way to our real forever home. Room in the Inn is a good reminder of that.

Living Out the Gospel

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“Everything in the world is about to be wrapped up, so take nothing for granted. Stay wide-awake in prayer. Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. Be quick to give a meal to the hungry, a bed to the homeless—cheerfully. Be generous with the different things God gave you, passing them around so all get in on it: if words, let it be God’s words; if help, let it be God’s hearty help. That way, God’s bright presence will be evident in everything through Jesus, and he’ll get all the credit as the One mighty in everything—encores to the end of time. Oh, yes!” (1 Peter 4:7-11, The Message)

The Message translation is hit-or-miss in my book. Sometimes, it misses the mark in capturing the original intent of the author and gets too loose with its paraphrasing. But when it’s on, it’s dead on. Like this passage form 1 Peter 4.

That’s the gist of the gospel right there, spelled out in black and white. Faith isn’t genuine unless it shows itself in good works. Love isn’t genuine unless it goes beyond mere words and takes hands and feet toward the less fortunate in very tangible ways.

It’s not just social justice without addressing the spiritual need for salvation, and it’s not just a call for repentance without meeting their physical needs. It’s both.

Most of all, it’s about loving people in the same way that God in Jesus loved you. Of course, that’s impossible by merely human standards. It only becomes possible when you serve out of the overflow of God’s love.

As my favorite pastor put it, when you receive God’s love, it’s like trying to contain the ocean in a thimble. When that love of God spills out onto those around you, that’s the basis on which you’re loving people with God’s love and serving them from the overflow and not from your own resources.

 

A Little Love Goes a Long Way

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“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It’s not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love” (Linus Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Christmas).

I keep thinking about Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Yes, I realize that it’s August and still unbearably hot outside. Yet, I can’t help thinking about that classic Christmas special that airs every year without fail.

It’s the scrawny little sapling that that round-headed kid picked out of a lot full of shiny aluminum trees, just barely a branch with a few twigs on it and even fewer needles. Most people wouldn’t give it a second glance and 9 times out of 10, it ends up in a trash can.

Yet all it needed was a little love to flourish and grow.

That same applies to lots of situations and people. A little love goes a long way with a lot of people and in a lot of places.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Just the act of acknowledging someone’s existence. of being a witness to their life, and simple words of encouragement can be the difference between despair and hope, death and life, damnation and salvation.

Even the smallest gesture has the power to turn around someone’s day (and possibly even someone’s life). You never know. I do know that the smallest act is still better than the grandest intentions never acted upon.

I’m also thinking about the kids at the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home, many of whom are starved for affection and attention. They need to know that they are valued and worth the effort of loving. Many of us are the same way.

There’s a saying from the Jewish Talmud that goes like this: “Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe.”

Saving a life always starts with a simple act of love.

 

 

Ten Years Later

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”

It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing” (Ephesians 2:1-10, The Message).

Recently, I ran into a former fellow Kairos greeter that I hadn’t seen in a while. It was great seeing a blast from the past. It also got me thinking.

This fall will mark ten years since I started greeting at Kairos. Outside of school, the only other activities that I’ve done consistently for at least ten years are breathing, eating, sleeping . . . you get the idea. Ten years is a long time.

I’m thankful for Kairos. I’m thankful for Mike Glenn who helped get it started way back when and for Chris Brooks who is carrying the torch onward.

I’m thankful that I am not who I was ten years ago due in large part to the ministry and teaching of Kairos.

I’m thankful for the many people who have crossed my path in that time and for the numerous little footprints they’ve left in my heart. I don’t see most of them anymore, but I remain grateful for each one of them. I am a composite of all the best parts of everyone I have ever met.

I’m thankful that God isn’t done with this ministry. I see that what might have looked like an ending was really only the beginning to another chapter with better things still yet to come.

Kairos is proof that all God needs is a place to start– even the most hesitant and reluctant of agreements– and He can transform anything and anyone for His glory. There really is no such thing as a lost cause in the economy of God’s grace and mercy. There is a place for anyone and everyone who wants to turn around and follow Jesus. It’s never too late for anyone to be who God in Jesus created them to be.

That’s still the story of Kairos. That’s still my story. That’s the story that I hope we will be telling for years and years to come.

 

 

Every Little Thing Matters

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“Lord, when I feel that what I’m doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it” (Brennan Manning, Souvenirs of Solitude: Finding Rest in Abba’s Embrace).

That’s it.

As Mother Teresa once said, there are no great acts, but rather only small acts done with great love.

To put it another way, when done out of the right spirit, out of a genuine and abiding love for Jesus, everything you do and say can become an act of worship. Even cleaning toilets or scrubbing floors. All those menial tasks that don’t have much inherent value can be living prayers if they’re done as an offering to Jesus.

That makes all the difference in drudgery and delight, between surviving and thriving.

Maybe you’re not exactly in the high-profile career you thought you’d be in by now. Maybe you’re not pulling down the big bucks.

Then again maybe your job is to make a difference in the lives of those people in your office. Maybe your best gift is to be quite possibly the only positive light to someone who otherwise only exists in darkness.

Maybe you don’t have to go to seminary and get ordained to have a ministry. Maybe your ministry is you showing up every single day and giving your absolute very best for eight hours.

Maybe if you’re faithful in the little things over time, God will entrust you with bigger things down the road.

Or maybe you’ll get to the end of your life and realize that all those little things done with great love really were the big things after all.

 

Get to Vs. Have to

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Something my pastor said today in his sermon at The Church at Avenue South made me think of something another pastor from Fellowship Bible Church said.

Most of us, including me, have from time to time looked on the different aspects of Christianity as a drudgery– as in I have to read my Bible, I have to pray, I have to share my faith with others.

That’s the wrong perspective.

Maybe instead you should see your life of faith as a delight– you get to read your Bible, you get to pray, you get to share your faith with others.

Those who serve best are the ones who love best, and the ones who love best are the ones who know more fully than anyone else that they are loved best.

Once you begin to grasp the infinite love of Abba Father for you (and it’s something that not even in eternity will you ever fully get to the bottom of), then what He asks of you is no longer a chore and a drudgery, but a blessing and a delight.

It’s not a time issue. You always make time for what you love. It’s a heart issue. What truly matters to you and where does God end up on that list?

I write from the perspective of someone who’s not nearly there yet. I also speak as someone who is daily being transformed into that kind of person who can fully live out of the knowledge of being the Beloved.

Fear is a poor motivator. Eventually, you get tired of being afraid. Love, however, is the fuel that never runs out. As much as you are loved, you can love others, and the more you love others, you find yourself receiving even more love in return.

Those who live loved will live to serve. Those who live blessed will live to look for opportunities to bless and be a blessing.

The end.

 

 

Getting Out of Yourself

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I overheard someone say that this time of year can be the most difficult and depressing time for a lot of people.

The holidays, Christmas and New Year’s, are over and the real world has started back up in earnest.

Maybe you’re one of those feeling blue. Maybe you feel like everyone else has gone back to their lives and forgotten about you. Or maybe you feel like no one has ever noticed you.

Maybe you’re fretting about where you are in life and wondering if you’ll always be stuck there.

You spend a lot of time, maybe too much time, thinking about yourself and your problems.

The solution? Is it to get over yourself?

I think not.

I think the solution is to get out of yourself. Go and serve others who are in a worse position than you.

I volunteer at Room in the Inn, a ministry that gives homeless men a place to sleep and a warm meal on bitterly cold nights.

I don’t say that because I’m so sanctimonious and holy. I say it because I’ve often been the one who needed an adjustment in my perspective.

Here are men who have way less than me, who are dealing with struggles and issues that I’ve never even dreamed of, yet many of whom have a way better outlook on life than I do (most of the time).

Often in serving, you seek to bless only to find yourself the one being blessed. You seek to minister and find that you are the one being ministered to instead.

Those who complain and who are bitter are usually the ones who aren’t serving. The ones who are serving find they have little time to spare for griping and cynicism. They also find that you can never outgive God or bless more than you are blessed, and that has a way of changing your outlook.

Also, sometimes depression can be more than just being discouraged. Sometimes, it’s a chemical imbalance issue. Never be ashamed to get help. Never be ashamed to confess what you’re going through to trusted friends.

Remember that God is with you in this to the very end. And beyond.

 

Saved People Serve People

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“Anyone God uses is always deeply wounded.  On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars” (Brennan Manning).

It’s that simple. If you’ve experienced the love of Jesus in a real and tangible way, you can’t help but share that love with those around you. Like Mike Glenn says, you can’t hold the ocean in a thimble, and one person can’t contain all the love Jesus pours out on him or her without some of it spilling out onto those he or she comes in contact with.

Tonight, my friend Michael Boggs spoke about the passage where Jesus took off His outer garments and washed his disciples’ feet. That was His demonstration of what real leadership looks like. He said that the one who wants to be greatest must be servant of all.

Michael said something that convicted me. He said that in the end, Jesus won’t look at you and see titles, treasures, or trophies. He will look to see how dirty your towel is. He will see where you ministered to the least of these got your hands dirty in the process, because real tangible love is often messy.

Jesus kept the wounds in His hands, feet, and side to show us that in the end we won’t be known by our vast wealth or network or influence but by our scars.

You don’t get scars from sitting in a comfortable chair living out your perfect suburban life with a perfect wife and perfect kids in a perfect setting forever. You get scars by stepping away from everything that’s familiar and comfortable and going to meet Jesus in His most distressing disguise as a refugee or a homeless person or any of the least of these that are often ignored and overlooked.

Shameless plug: if you’re looking for a safe place to serve in the Nashville area, consider being a greeter for Kairos at Brentwood Baptist Church. It’s a much-needed ministry and a great way to get your foot in the door, ministerially speaking.

Whatever you do, remember the example Jesus set when He washed His disciples’ feet. That’s what true leadership and service look like.

The end.

 

 

One Year Ago (Almost)

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It was a year ago that we officially launched The Church at Avenue South. Well, technically, it was a year ago tomorrow (if you want to be all nit-picky and exact). On September 7, 2015, a group of 115 stepped out in faith based on a vision they had of reaching those in the Berry Hill/Melrose area.

In some ways, it seems like only yesterday, yet at the same time, it seems much longer. So much has happened since then in the life of this growing congregation. We’ve seen both kids and adults give their lives to Christ. It’s been an amazing ride so far.

We’ve run into a good problem. We’re running out of space (again). It looks like at some point we may have to add a third service.

I don’t know why, but I’m still amazed at what God can do with mustard-sized faith. Even with the tiniest amount of consent, God can move those mountains of stone and turn those hearts of stone into hearts of flesh that beat in synchronicity with His own heartbeat.

Who knows what the next five years will bring? Or the next ten?

I’m grateful that I’ve been a part of it from the (almost) very beginning. I saw the building when it was a gutted shell. I look around now and I see a fully-functioning church building that serves the community and becomes a place where God takes on human hands and feet to serve those in need.

I keep thinking about what Jesus said in John 14. After all His ministry and miracles, He said that whoever believed in Him would not only do these works that He did but even greater ones. That seriously boggles my mind.

I’m not sure I completely understand what He meant by that, but I do know that we only limit ourselves by limiting God. God is more able to do incredible things than we are to believe that He can do these things.

I for one can’t wait to see what the next 12 months will bring to The Church at Avenue South.