When the Body of Christ Works Together...

 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, 

but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.

 For we were all baptized by one Spirit 

so as to form one body

— whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—

and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

I Corinthians 12:12-14

Several months ago, while perusing Pinterest, I had a crazy idea. It's pure lunacy, really. So much room for error and/or failure. But, and this is unlike me, I decided to do it anyway.

I felt led to do a service project with the youth but something that would really require work of them. I know that 30 Hour Famines are popular, and the old raking the leaves thing is good, and canned food drives are always useful but in my personal experience, not much is really required of the kids. They don't do that much. And in a society where we're doing less and less, I wanted something that required work, effort, thought, and maybe even getting coaxed out of a comfort zone.

So I came up with a Santa Shop idea where we would make the gifts and sell them. Then, in a flash of divine intervention I changed it to Three Kings Gift Shop. After all, Santa's great but he wasn't at the manger (well, neither were the wisemen really but that's a whole other issue...). I suppose we could've gone St. Nicholas but I'm just now realizing that so oh, well! Anyway, I digress...

I spent hours combing Pinterest, reading directions, and carefully selecting gift ideas that fit a couple important criteria.
1) It had to be something people would actually want.
2) It had to be something we could make at minimal cost so I could keep our prices low.
3) It had to be something simple enough for even non-crafty people to make.

I found ten things which met those criteria. I put together a little catalogue and order forms. I ordered some literature from Samaritan's Purse and talked to the teens about raising money to purchase items that would go to people in third world countries. Items like goats, donkeys, honeybees, and fishing boats. Items that would profoundly change their lives, not just their day or week. Their lives. 

Then, I prayed. I prayed for moderate success because I was afraid of failure. Oh, ye of little faith. What if Peter or Paul had prayed for moderate success just in case they couldn't really lead all those people? What if Moses had only wanted moderate success? What if Abraham? Joshua? Gideon? Deborah?

And I think the teens only expected moderate success. They set a low goal for themselves of only $200. And for a minute there, it looked like that was going to be it. But then....

God didn't answer my prayer. He had His own agenda He was pushing and my potential for failure was not a deciding factor for Him. It never is.

The project exploded. We had over-whelming success. We raised $870, more than quadrupling our goal. I was humbled, the teens surprised, and the church family energized. God is good.

Then, I had to figure out how to make over 350 items. Egads. But this wasn't really my job. God had a plan. He'd had it worked out from the very beginning. All the way back to when He first planted this crazy idea in my brain and in my heart.

He planned on using this project to bring our church family together. You see, we've been hurting. It's a long story and quite ugly and this post is about celebration so I won't elaborate. It suffices to say, we've been hurting. We've been in need of something to make all of us feel connected and alive again. But I never imagined it would be this and that I would be part of it.

Last night 28 people, 14 adults and 14 kids (an all time high for youth attendance, actually) came together at house to make crafts. And it was busier than Santa's workshop. After several runs to houses for extra olive oil, after re-making several items because my measurements were off, after figuring out the best way to roll a square piece of paper into a cone, after deciding the perfect way to make a scarf for a snowman and turn a book into a tree...we had completed 5 projects and made well over 250 items. In just three hours. With no complaining and with lots of laughter.

And I noticed something. Everyone naturally found their place. Leaders took charge. Crafters used their experience and artistry to help others in this new area. People tried new things. Everyone pitched in. This is the Body of Christ in motion. Working as one. Glorifying God with our actions. So this is what Paul meant, this is what James wrote about. Faith in action, the Body together.

One boy collected a fistful of money to buy pizzas and breadsticks. A teenage girl prayed, one of my teens that always steps up to pray when everyone else feels tongue tied. She prayed for us, for our gifts, for the people we've loved and missed being able to come back and join us. She forgot to pray for the food, but ti didn't matter. God was there, He knew our thankfulness for His blessings. And this was the true breaking of bread...true communion, even if it was pizza and not a holy wafer.

I had set out to find a project that would bless other people, show the kids that they can make a difference, and help teach our youth how to work together with joyful spirits. But God had other plans. These things still happened but His plan was greater than mine, loftier than mine. He will bless the money we raised and the people whose lives it will help. But He blessed my life through this project and He blessed our humble, faithful church. He is truly the God who sees us, and He's been watching over us the whole time. And last night, He reached out and healed us. He was with us in the mess of olive oil on the counters, hot cocoa on the floor, and hot glue stuck on fingers. And that's what happens when the Body of Christ works together.

As the body without the spirit is dead, 

so faith without deeds is dead.

James 2:26

The Only Legacy Worth Leaving

The first time I heard this song I was twenty years old, sorting out the facts of my life, and trying to figure out how to really walk with God, rather than just believe in Him. It was one song on a compilation album I bought at a used CD place in town. That cd set became the soundtrack for my early twenties along with a couple of others. But this song found a special place in my heart, it resonated with me. It will be one I will carry with me for the rest of my life not only because it inspires me but because it reminds me of people I love. Or better yet, people that have loved me.

I want to leave a legacy. How will they remember me?

Did I choose to love?
Did I point to you enough to make a mark on things?

I want to leave an offering.

Child of mercy and grace who blessed your name unapologetically.

 I want to leave a legacy.

My grandparents will leave a legacy when their time on this old Earth is over. They have chosen to live for Christ so much so that they have come to embody and symbolize love itself. If God is love, and we are being made into Christ everyday through the power of the Spirit, then we are becoming love. I believe this to be true not because its a pretty idea but because I see two old souls becoming more and more like love everyday.

I've been irregularly blessed. I not only have my grandparents legacy to look to and draw from, but the legacies of others just like them. Today we laid to rest our dear friend and neighbor, Lester Pierce, a man who in just two short years became a source of inspiration and wisdom for Curtis and I. At the funeral I listened to person after person stand up and tell about the impact he had on their lives and I realized that somewhere I'd heard this before. And I realized it was everything I've said about my grandparents. And as I looked around the church I saw others that have lived in and will leave a similar legacy. These are the folks you don't necessarily notice as they teach Sunday school, organize funeral dinners, work with the youth, clean the church, drive the bus, plan activities for VBS, or get down on their knees everyday to do their best work in prayer. These people blend into the background sometimes with humility, meekness, and love being their defining characteristics. My grandmother gets down right flustered when people make a fuss over her contributions. She, like Lester, didn't do the work for the recognition--they did the work for the Lord. They did it out of love, first for Christ then for others because He loves them.

I've come to the conclusion that the best legacy that can be left is one of love. True love. Not The Princess Bride or The Notebook kind of true love.  We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.--1 John 3:16 This is true love. Love that sacrifices sleep, me-time, and self to serve the Lord, to help one another, to lend a hand, to say a prayer. When we give up our lives to help and serve with love in our hearts that is true love. And that is something sorely needed in the world today.

One by one these saints travel to heaven and we who have been so blessed to know them are left with their legacy in our care. I want to do right by them, and what I've learned is that the only way to do that is to do right by God. By keeping my eyes on the Cross and my feeted pointed toward Calvary and my heart broken for Him, I may just be counted among those who loved truly.

Connection & Community

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work; If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.-- Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

Connection. We all need it. God Himself said that it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). The Bible gives important information on how to be a friend and why we need community. Real connection, real community. They didn't have Facebook in Bible times but I'm pretty sure that's not the type of relationship they were talking about. They meant the real old-fashioned face-to-face friendship. The stuff of 'Happy Days' and 'I Love Lucy'.

Community. In my experience that's been a word far over-used in the church. Like fellowship. Community should be about people coming together, sharing friendship, sharing faith, sharing trouble as well as joys. In my experience, that hasn't always been the case. But perhaps that's what makes finding a real community, or creating one, so amazing.

Connection and community, two things I've shied away from for the past few years. Shied? Okay, slight (major) under-exaggeration. I ran away from it full speed ahead, do no pass go, do not collect $200. Trusting people can lead to hurt, and being part of a community can lead to over-exposure and gossip. Can. Doesn't mean 'will' or 'always' or 'has to'. It means there is a possibility for it. Then again, there's a possibility that as I type this a 747 will drop the sky and kill me. Or little purple fairies will come out of the cd-rom drive and deafen me with their banshee scream. Both are unlikely but both could happen. Maybe. Not too sure about the plane.

Over the last year I've started to open my heart again. I realized that if I was ever going to have friends, real friendships, real connections with anyone outside of my family, I would have to take some risks. I'd have to do the reaching out. I found out that reaching out doesn't have to be a big production; it's a joke, a word of encouragement, it can be a moment of commiserating (isn't it so good to know we're not alone in our frustrations sometimes?). And those moments can build into friendships. Friendship doesn't mean hanging out together every weekend and going to dinner every Friday night. It can. Sometimes that's how it materializes. But sometimes friendship simply looks like people laughing, people looking forward to seeing each other (even if it is at work), people connecting.

Every now and then I am thunderstruck to discover I have a community. True, the people in it don't necessarily know each other. And if they met the might not necessarily like each other's opinions or beliefs. But they don't have to. It's my community, my circle of friends. I connect with each one of them. I may never 'hang out' with some of them beyond work stuff, but don't we all need work friends? Those people that keep us from going crazy, or maybe go crazy right along with us?

It's been my experience that friends aren't friends forever (even if the Lord is Lord of them, thank you very much Michael W. Smith...) The only talking I do with people from m high school are through Facebook. I have one or two college friends I see once or twice a year. But that's me. I know other people who still have friends from grade school--my brother and his best friend have been buds since they were 5 years old. The friends Curtis and I have had the longest are, in fact, our brothers (and now their lovely wives).  Sometimes friendships blow up but more often they just dissolve, time and geography and change gets in the way. Sometimes friendships can be rekindled; it's my deepest hope to have some of my old friendships take some form of what they used to be as God does His thing. I have no way of knowing how long the friendships I have now will last. I hope for a very long time. But I don't worry about it. I'm grateful for them. For every shared laugh, every late night, every impromptu dinner, every favor, every prayer.

I'm thankful to have that connection again. And while part of me believed I'd never say it, I'm thankful for community. God is right (whoda thunk it?), real connection and friendship is a beautiful thing. And I've been blessed to have some friends, in my past and right now in my present, that are gifts from God.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”~~ C.S. Lewis