my name is not "those people"

a poem written by homeless advocate julia dinsmore read by danny glover

TransFORM network

TransFORM: Missional Community Formation from TransFORM on Vimeo.

bikes in africa- pedaling together

This is Nenason Msola, an evangelist in Tanzania. Yesterday some missional friends from MN bought him a new bike on behalf of River of Joy. Click here to read more. Thanks Don and Karen!

michael frost on the missional church (part 2)

michael frost on the missional church (part 1)

reconnecting at home

I just read a story in the Pioneer Press that reported that returning servicemen from Iraq and Afghanistan bring aggressive, self-preserving driving habits home with them when they return to the states. A quarter of those surveyed indicated that they had run through a stop sign or driven down the middle of the road without regard to oncoming traffic; not polite (or legal) driving practices in the states but necessary in a war zone.

Haiti is a war zone in God’s war on hunger, poverty and despair. After spending less than a week on this battleground island only an hour and a half south of Miami, I can appreciate the behavior of our returning servicemen and women. The worlds of peace and war do not easily mesh.

It is hard to believe that an hour and a half flight can separates these two radically disparate realities. It truly cannot be understood without stepping foot in both worlds while dragging one’s eyes, heart, and soul along for the ride. The return to the states brings with it changed eyes and a transformed heart with holdover behaviors that follow their lead.

The shock of returning home is often found in the simplest of things. I was not prepared for the sensory overload when I entered the grocery store on Saturday morning. All of the food displayed with its color, smells, and abundance experienced in the shadow of travels among God’s starving children blew me away. Our ready and available access to just about any food we can imagine is something that I hope I will never again take for granted.

Saying table grace has new meaning. Portion size suddenly matters. Food has become the holy gift that it has always been. The spoils of this war are a valuable treasure- a return home with a renewed heart for neighbors near and far.

blessed to be a blessing lived out loud

We took a two hour journey up into the mountains yesterday and visited a children’s rescue center called Real Hope for Haiti. This center focuses on providing crisis nutritional care for young children. We met a two year old girl (in the picture above being held) who came to the center the previous day. At age two she weighs only 14 pounds.

The name does this clinic well. There is a perseverance and hopefulness in the staff that is infectious. The children seemed to have been infected by this hopefulness bug as well. Their smiles are wide and welcoming and their eyes twinkle and charm you as they meet yours.

There is real hope in Haiti. The director of the program was asked about the sharing of the gospel in this area and specifically through the clinic. She said that they indeed share the gospel but rarely preach it in words. You see, most of these children are brought to the witch doctor when they become sick because it is thought that they have a spell or a curse upon them. As they continue to get sicker and unable to eat, they are finally brought to the rescue center. When the cildren become well through the work of the people who serve at the clinic, the power of Christ is known to all and many of the families of the children become practicing Christians by virtue of the power of healing.

These children are not cursed. They are blessed to meet the power of God through the hands, feet, and hearts of those who do the front line work in the mountains and those who support them from back home in the states. The blessing that is bestowed on them comes through the work of the Spirit that opens checkbooks to provide necessary funding to keep these children alive. Praise to the spirit of Christ who makes us one and calls to action in a world where many feel they are cursed.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” Genesis 12:2

hope in the eyes of children

Yesterday we visited three orphanages. The hardship with which life is lived in Haiti is hard to comprehend unless you see it. Yet there is hope in the eyes of children and teens who dream of being doctors and lawyers and making this island a better place. One moment I find myself thinking that there is no future for this island as I see the squalor and poverty and the next I meet a person who is certain to overcome this circumstance and change it for the next generation.

impossible without you

I spent the first half of my employed life working for a big brown delivery company. The challenge of getting boxes from here to there in the most efficient and economical way was amazingly energizing for me. Today we saw God’s fleet of delivery vehicles and met his delivery drivers. Unlike what we are accustomed to seeing, the vehicles aren’t standardized, and neither are the drivers. And the energy of the enterprise could power up all the lights on the strip in Vegas.

The vehicles are all unique and have great character. They are rugged and worn, banged up but beautifully getting the job done. And the drivers? Much the same. Unique. With great character. Banged up and getting the job done in truly inspired fashion.

We spent the morning with these missionaries and heads of orphanages as they came to pick up their monthly supply of FMSC food. The stories were as varied and vibrant as their vehicles. But to the person, every one said that they could not do the work that they do without this food. “ Impossible without it” they said. Impossible without the people in the states to pack it, pay for it, and pray over it. Impossible without you.

In God’s economy, we know that the impossible becomes reality. Challenges of economics and efficiency that we see as insurmountable obstacles mean nothing to a God who desires His people to live and be fed. These hurdles become nothing more than testaments to God’s power and expansive love.

Later in the afternoon we took food to a nearby village where hundreds of people were awaiting our arrival. (They wait very patiently down here). Each person standing in line represented a family of 6-10 people that would be fed for the next month by the box of food that they received.

“Merci.” “Merci.”

sorrow, stories, and songs

Before I left MSP I stopped at a cash machine and withdrew $300 for travel expenses during the trip. As we left the airport in Port Au Prince traveling in a steel mesh enclosed truck the level of poverty that the people of this country wrestle with every day became all too evident. The $300 dollars I had stashed in my luggage and in my wallet is nearly equal to a year’s wages for the average Haitian. With an 80% unemployment rate, the story of this island seems bleak and bleaker.

There is garbage strewn everywhere and the best road in Haiti makes the worst road during Minnesota pothole season look like a freshly paved highway. On the side of the road there are people gathering what wood they can find for cooking and the hills are barren and nearly treeless. The collective story is one of many many people on an island with fewer and fewer resources.

The frustration of the social climate is quickly laid to rest though as you meet the children at the Love a Child orphanage. For sure they share the collective story of poverty that inflicts this half of the island, but their personal stories and the way God has interceded through the work of the missionaries here shouts over the top of the island’s darkest days. As I sit here writing, the children are filling the air with songs of joy and praise lifting an alleluia that beckons to the surrounding mountains. Children who lost their mothers during childbirth sing. Children live who were so malnourished that at nine months one weighed only nine pounds. Children who were literally in the grasp of death now find themselves joyfully held in the palm of God’s hand as He writes a different story for their lives.

waiting patiently for a new song

Waiting. Patiently. Not a strong suit for many of us. I just spent three hours waiting in a plane parked at a departure gate for the repair of a radio. Would have been easier to wait if the captain had not told us that the radio that they needed to fix was for international use (we were on a domestic flight) but it needed to be fixed per FAA regulations nonetheless.

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

U2
40
from (you guessed it) Psalm 40

Yes sometimes our waiting bears fruit. Sometimes it causes us to sing a new song. Earlier in the day as I was waiting in the airport to hook up with the other 7 people heading to Haiti with Feed My Starving Children, I leaned against a pole beside an adjacent departure gate. What turned out to be the members of our flight crew were standing at the gate conversing as they waited for the plane to arrive so we could board the flight. My ears perked up as I heard the flight attendant raving about a recent trip to Feed My Starving Children with her eight year old son. She was going on and on about the amazing work that FMSC does and how fulfilled she felt every time she packed food. I wondered how long I should wait before interrupting her and telling them I was on my way to visit the children she had been packing food for.


Just as the flight attendant started telling the story of baby Moses that is included in the FMSC orientation video, Mark Crea, the executive director of FMSC walked up to greet me. We said hello to each other and I promptly interrupted the flight crew’s conversation to introduce Mark and share in a moment of serendipitous divine interuption. The crew was blown away. We spent the next few minutes in one of those high energy I can’t believe what just happened conversations. It was a whirlwind of spirit that needed no interpretation as to its meaning. (The flight attendant even took a picture to capture the moment!)

Sometimes, while we are waiting, we see that we are an integral part of something that is way bigger than we can imagine. Sometimes, while we are waiting, we can see God’s mission clearly and know that we belong to that mission in a very important way. And sometimes, after this period of waiting, God intercedes mightily and we begin to sing a new song.

A song that is filled with passion and purpose and harmonies of our connectedness. A song that is hidden deep within all of us longing to be sung.

A song that gives us life. A song that gives the world life.

A song that brings our waiting to a quiet end.

theology- public, private, shared, done

It has been an interesting week. A week ago, we gathered in a park with some friends from neighboring faith communities to raise awareness (and money) around the issue of hunger in our local and global community. We did it because Jesus asks us to care for those who are hungry. We did it because to do so gave us life and connected us to something much larger than ourselves. Last Wednesday, we visited our friends at Redeemer in north Minneapolis for their annual block party and shared music, food, and rockin’ 'Jesus is king hip hop' in the empty lot behind the church with a few hundred new friends. The folks at Redeemer engaged their entire neighborhood (and us) because Jesus asks them to welcome strangers. It connected them (and us) to something bigger, brighter, and more alive.

This week was also marked by the church wide assembly of the ELCA and deliberation around issues related to human sexuality and the ordination of clergy. Without going into the details of the decisions that were reached, (you can click here to visit the ELCA website for results and social statements adopted) the assembly voted and adopted statements related to theological opinion around a number of issues. The assembly was marked by great debate (most of which was quite civil), prayer and thoughtful deliberation, joy for some and sadness for others. Even with such a heated topic, people behaved like, well, like Lutherans.

Such public declaration of theological position is what we would probably imagine if someone asked us the question ‘what is public theology?” Yes it is a geeky pastor type question I know. But an important one. We might imagine that public theology is what happens when we stand and say a creed during worship, or what a pastor does when he/she preaches a sermon. Within such a framework, public theology is an exercise in reasoning about God and proclaiming our beliefs publicly, either as an individual or collectively.

And here is where I am stuck. See I am not sure about this thinking and speaking framework for defining public theology. I am coming to believe that such a framework largely misses the point. Thinking is overrated and talk is cheap.

Over the last few years I have come to understand that public theology is not wholly about what we think or what we say but is rather about what we do. Not because our doing saves us or makes us better than anyone else, but rather because our doing extends and gives life and motion to our theology.

We do theology. Publicly. Everyday.

I am leaving later today to do theology as an extension of a community of public theology doers. I invite you to travel along for the next few days as I extend our doing into one of the poorest countries in the world. Do pray for me this week as I go. And know that your hands are extended in life giving doing this week.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being stained by the world.” James 1:27

*eternal truth in an eternal prayer

I look out the window
The birds are composing
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place
I look at the meadow
And stare at the flowers
Better dressed than any girl
On her wedding day

So why do I worry?
Why do I freak out?
God knows what I need
You know what I need



Our God in heaven
Hallowed be
Thy name above all names
Your kingdom come
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us wicked sinners
Lead us far away from our vices
And deliver us from these prisons

Let it be so in our lives. Now and forever.

finding our place in God's story

The story continues and invites all who hear into it's life-giving movement and rhythm...

*every story whispers his name

Lloyd-Jones and Jago have team up to bring a truly inspired gift to the world in this amazing children's Bible. Every story they share through word and art indeed whispers the name of Christ.



An excerpt:

"God looked at everything he had made. "Perfect!" he said. and it was.

But all the stars and the mountains and oceans and galaxies and everything were nothing compared to how much God loved his children. He would move heaven and earth to b near them. Always. Whatever happened, whatever it cost him, he would always love them.

And so it was that this wonderful love story began..."

And understanding that this story is for us and about us is where truth and life begins for each of us.

*belonging to the mission of God

Somtimes we can get lost and think that the mission of God somehow belongs to us as Christians and to us as the church. It is comforting to know that the opposite is actually true. We as Christians, and collectively as the church, belong to the mission of God.

We belong to it. It is not ours. We are its.

In this truth we should find peace and hope beyond measure.

do you know where your soul is?

"I AM in Midtown Manhattan, where drivers still play their car horns as if they were musical instruments and shouting in restaurants is sport.

"I am a long way from the warm breeze of voices I heard a week ago on Easter Sunday.
“Glorify your name,” the island women sang, as they swayed in a cut sandstone church. I was overwhelmed by a riot of color, an emotional swell that carried me to sea..."

Click here to continue reading this OP ed piece from the NY times by U2's Bono. His use of imagery is worth the read.

*oh me of little faith (but a little is enough)

easter as a season

I was on Facebook today and a friend noted that Easter is not a single festival day but a season of new life and re-creation in Christ. It made me think of the quote below and the gift we have been given- to participate in this season of newness and life that has been passed down from sinner/saint hybrids through the ages. Resurrection living was here before we were born and will move forward after we are gone. What will we do with it in the meantime that we call our life?



Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

*saints and sinners- Palm Sunday and the approaching King

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Jesus and his rag tag band of misfit soldiers are laying seige to Jerusalem. Within a few days, they will betray, desert, and deny their commander leaving one casuality...an apparent defeat...then VICTORY.