During our missional communities time serving friends without homes alongside Food 4 Souls yesterday, we served a different route than we usually travel. Though we missed the friends we've made on our normal route, this change gave us the opportunity to meet Fred. Fred was travelling along with one of the outreach workers from Food 4 Souls.
Fred is a twenty-five-year veteran of life on the streets. Most recently, he spent 10 months living at a large camp on Davidson St. in Indianapolis that was cleared out by the city in August 2013. After that experience he decided to go it alone in another area of town while maintaining relationship with some of the people he had met at Davidson St. Fred is now getting ready to take a step back into life in the real world.
As Fred told his story, he said the key for him finally coming to a place that he could be ready to reenter society was when he began to be honest with himself about the causes of his homelessness. It was that honesty with himself that gave him the freedom to seek the help he needed to change his life. "If I had met you ten years ago," he said, " I would have given you all kinds of excuses of why I was homeless. When I got honest, I began to admit the problem was within me." That change in perspective helped him to realize he could hope for a better life as well.
As he continued to share his story, I couldn't help but think of how many people have yet to discover the freedom that comes from self-honesty. Whether we live under a bridge or in a nice house in the suburbs, our tendency is to try to pretend we have everything together. If something goes wrong, it must be someone else's fault. It is only when we give up hiding behind a facade and become honest with ourselves that we find true freedom to carve out a greater existence in our lives.
This is the nature of grace, too. It is when we come clean with our shortcomings that Jesus meets us there to offer us freedom to be different. So often we think we need to pretend to be perfect among the people we gather with in church or in the workplace. A healthy Christian community, though, offers space for everyone to be honest with themselves and each other recognizing that we all, in a sense, live as beggars on the street in desperate need of God's grace.
Those of us who live in suburbia are not that far removed from our friends without homes we see on the street each day. It does us well to listen to the wisdom we can learn from those that most of society would pass over.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Nurturing the Souls of Royalty
This past Sunday my friend and ministry coach, Troy Cady, visited our missional community to observe the work we do with friends without homes and to encourage our fledgling community in our work. As part of the evening he shared one of his Playfull Faith stories about creation (learn more here) and the special place humanity held as stewards of God's creation. He tied it to the mission of our community in restoring a piece of what God had created in our daily connections with people.
What stood out to me in this was the royal nature God placed in humanity as we relate to the rest of His creation. He is the Great King and He chooses to share a bit of His dominion with humanity, which was created in His image. In that sense, each person has a seed of royalty in them that few of us ever fully realize. It is the call of those who follow Jesus to encourage others in finding their authentic royal nature. As a leader it is also a challenge with each of the hats I wear to remember that good spiritual leadership includes being a good steward of the souls of royalty.
First off, as a husband and father, it affects the way I lead my family. I need to consider every decision with a focus on what it will do to encourage the fulfillment of God's royal purpose in my wife and each of my daughters. What can I do to help them realized the full potential of this royal nature in them? Am I encouraging them and creating the environment to live life to the fullest and not settle for the status quo society seeks to draw us all into?
Secondly, as the team leader of a fledgling missional community, how am I caring for the souls of those God has entrusted to our community? Am I helping them to discover the unique place in God's plan or simply using people to accomplish my goals and agendas? In my role as a pastoral leader, I need to keep these questions in front of me always.
As part of our community's mission we spend time serving friends without homes living in tent cities around our city. This is another area where we need to remember that we are ultimately caring for the souls of people created with the potential of a royal nature in them. Too often in philanthropy it's easy to begin to think of people as projects and loose sight of their humanity. It's important to remember that God's desire is that our friends discover their true nature as part of His royal family.
Finally, as a part-time computer teacher, how am I encouraging my students to exercise dominion over the world of technology and not simple be consumers of what others create for them? How can I design my projects to help bring this out of them? How do I encourage them to think of themselves in light of their royal potential?
We are each called to be part of God's royal family. What are we doing to live and lead that way?
What stood out to me in this was the royal nature God placed in humanity as we relate to the rest of His creation. He is the Great King and He chooses to share a bit of His dominion with humanity, which was created in His image. In that sense, each person has a seed of royalty in them that few of us ever fully realize. It is the call of those who follow Jesus to encourage others in finding their authentic royal nature. As a leader it is also a challenge with each of the hats I wear to remember that good spiritual leadership includes being a good steward of the souls of royalty.
First off, as a husband and father, it affects the way I lead my family. I need to consider every decision with a focus on what it will do to encourage the fulfillment of God's royal purpose in my wife and each of my daughters. What can I do to help them realized the full potential of this royal nature in them? Am I encouraging them and creating the environment to live life to the fullest and not settle for the status quo society seeks to draw us all into?
Secondly, as the team leader of a fledgling missional community, how am I caring for the souls of those God has entrusted to our community? Am I helping them to discover the unique place in God's plan or simply using people to accomplish my goals and agendas? In my role as a pastoral leader, I need to keep these questions in front of me always.
As part of our community's mission we spend time serving friends without homes living in tent cities around our city. This is another area where we need to remember that we are ultimately caring for the souls of people created with the potential of a royal nature in them. Too often in philanthropy it's easy to begin to think of people as projects and loose sight of their humanity. It's important to remember that God's desire is that our friends discover their true nature as part of His royal family.
Finally, as a part-time computer teacher, how am I encouraging my students to exercise dominion over the world of technology and not simple be consumers of what others create for them? How can I design my projects to help bring this out of them? How do I encourage them to think of themselves in light of their royal potential?
We are each called to be part of God's royal family. What are we doing to live and lead that way?
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