A sister church of Grace Hill just put out a brand new CD entitled, Forever/Home. In a word, it is excellent. According to the producers, they said it is a CD that the whole family can enjoy and will want listen to it over and over again. Seeing this is now the third time I’ve listened to it today, they are right on the money. Here is the link to listen to their bandcamp page where you can listen to the album in its entirety for free. http://crossingsongs.com/album/forever-home

I was stirred by an article I read this morning on the essential-ness of anger from Paul David Tripp, a wonderful author and pastor in Philadelphia.  I confess I have not always known what to do with anger.  I generally have taken a pragmatic view towards anger believing that there isn’t much that anger can accomplish except for bad things.  But that’s not the Bible’s position on anger and nor is it Tripp’s position.  He writes:

In a fallen world, people of character and conscience will always be angry. Perhaps our problem regarding anger is not just that we are often angry for the wrong reasons, but that we are not angry often enough for the right reasons. Perhaps our problem is that the things that should make us angry and thereby move us to action just don’t make us angry anymore. So we get used to political corruption. We get used to homelessness. We get used to the perverse morals of the entertainment industry. We get used to how many broken families are around us. We get used to the daily reports of suffering and disease that infect every continent on the globe. We get used to the fact that the church is often a place of compromise and division. We get used to our own complacency and hypocrisy. We get used to marital stresses and childhood rebellion. We get used to a world that has been broken by sin. Even pastors get lulled to sleep. Even with lives committed to ministry, we are all too easily satisfied. Things that should distress, concern, and upset us become the things we either no longer see or that we’ve become used to.

I made a presentation to our Presbytery yesterday about Grace Hill Church and some of the things that we are learning.  One of the things that we have learned about our city in the time that we have been in Springfield is that while we are a church-rich city, we are also a grace-poor city as well.  It’s a condition that Time Keller refers to in his book, Generous Justice, as being “middle class in spirit.”  He writes, “What if, however, you aren’t poor in spirit?  That would mean you don’t believe you are so sinful, morally bankrupt, and lost that only free grace can possibly save you.  You may find the classic Christian doctrines about humanity’s deep sin and lostness to be too harsh.  On the contrary, you believe that God owes you some things–he ought to answer your prayers and to bless you for the many good things you’ve done.  Even though the Bible doesn’t use the term, by inference we can say that you are “middle-class in spirit.”  You feel that you’ve earned a certain standing with God through your hard work.”  Jesus says in his Sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5:3)  He’s saying that the spiritually poor, those who know that the only thing they bring to God is their need for him, are the only ones who can be part of the kingdom of God.  Only those who know their profound brokenness and spiritual neediness can understand and accept the salvation that God offers through Jesus Christ.  Are you poor in spirit or are you middle class in spirit?  Are you trusting in your own goodness before God?  If so, then join me in repenting of that goodness and run to Christ.

While attending a mission conference at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Marshall, TX this past weekend, I heard about one woman’s work with the local ARC (mentally handicapped) chapter.  At the end of her presentation she had 4 of her students who had been with her anywhere from 5 to 40 years stand up and share a couple of sentences about their experience with ARC.  I was struck by their innocence and inhibition as one young woman moved the podium out of the way (though it was taller than she was) so she could put the microphone right up to her mouth even though it was not needed.  As I listened I thought about a book I had read in seminary by the late Henri Nouwen.  The book was entitled, In The Name of Jesus and while it was a short book at 80 pages, it was deep in its content.  I thought I would give you a taste of what I saw at the mission conference and what Henri Nouwen experienced when he first moved to Toronto to begin working with a mentally handicapped community called L’Arche.

The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then.  Since nobody could read my books, the books could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction.  My considerable ecumenical experience proved even less valuable.  When I offered some meat to one of the assistants during dinner, one of the handicapped men said to me, “Don’t give him meat. He doesn’t eat meat.  He’s Presbyterian.”

Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety.  I was suddenly faced with my naked, self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment.  In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again.  Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted on.

This experience was and, in many ways, is still the most important experience of my new life, because it forced me to rediscover my true identity.  These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self – the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things – and forced me to reclaim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.

I am telling you all this because I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. (pp.29-30)

This is just so good, I couldn’t possibly keep from sharing this.  Let me start by saying finances for a new start-up church like ours are always tight, but particularly as we near the end of the three-year period for which we tried to raise funds for before coming to Springfield.  I knew going in that the possibility of not getting full paychecks were there, though I prayed that wouldn’t happen.  This past Monday I knew that I was not going to get a paycheck for September until sometime late in October and not a full one at that.  So I prayed that God might put a desire in one of our many supporter’s hearts to give a $1,000 gift to the church…nothing really special about that number as it wouldn’t have alleviated that burden but it would definitely reduce it.  To my disappointment, no checks came.  Return trips on Tuesday and Wednesday to the mailbox yielded similar results.  I wasn’t at the church on Thursday or Friday and so I wasn’t able to check the mail until this morning.  I saw an envelope addressed to Grace Hill with handwriting that was very familiar to me.  I got excited.  As I opened it I wondered if God had answered my prayer after all.  I’m overjoyed to tell you that there was in fact a check for $1,000 and what’s more, the envelope was postmarked…wait for it…Monday!  Turns out I had forgotten about a conversation that I had recently with a dear friend and former co-worker a couple weeks back.  One of the things he had asked was, “if there’s anything we can do to help, let us know.”  I simply responded that we did have some financial needs coming up.  With that, I didn’t hear anything else from him and had forgotten about that conversation…but he didn’t.  God used him to answer our prayers in a profound way.  Isn’t it great to know that God uses us and sends us to be answers to other people’s prayers!  Whether it’s being a friend to someone who had been praying for a friend, or counseling someone who had been praying for counsel, it is thrilling to know that everything we do is ordained by God and is somehow accomplishing His will for your life and the lives of those around you.