In a previous post, I recounted the events of the tornado striking the St. Louis airport as we were sitting on our plate at the gate waiting for clearance to depart. Certainly, this was not how we envisioned our adoption adventure beginning. But since that event, I have not stopped reflecting on it.

That tornado struck, if you will remember, on Good Friday. The irony is not lost on me. Good Friday is the day of the church calendar that we set aside each year to reflect the extent to which God went to redeem us – the death on a cross of the Second Person of the Trinity. In some small way, the destruction we saw and experienced out of that day’s tornado, and my reflection on my willingness to endure anything and pay any cost (including experience a tornado take out the airport I was at), reminded me of Christ’s redeeming love. I “suffered” a tornado that destroyed the entire area around the airport (praise God, no casualties!). Christ, willing to endure anything and pay any cost, allowed himself to be crucified on that first Good Friday. Why? In order that God the Father might adopt us – me and you – as his sons.

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of God the Father” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus endured more than is possibly imaginable to make me his son. By the strength of his Spirit, I will now endure whatever I must in order to bring my child home.

PS> I know this post is a little late – the tornado was 1 week ago, but it was also 6 time zones, 4 flights, 3 continents and 8000+ miles ago, so cut me some slack!

Our Southern Kent campus is beginning a weekly prayer time next week. The elders, who will be leading the prayer time, are going to lead the congregation through a corporate praying of the Lord’s Prayer. At their request, I put together a phrase by phrase breakdown of how to pray the Lord’s prayer that I thought I would pass along to you. I hope you can use in your personal prayer time and will be blessed as you pray the prayer Jesus taught us…

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Our Father, who art in heaven

• Our Father – title used in Bible to refer to God
• Prayer point – Highlight corporate nature of our faith
• Who art in heaven – God is separate from us, above and beyond us
• Prayer point – reflect on God’s separatenes

Hallowed be thy name

• Hallow – means to honor
• Prayer point – prayer of honor and blessings to God

Thy kingdom come

• According to Rev 21, when Christ brings his kingdom to its fulfillment, there will be no more tears, no more pain, no more death and no more mourning
• Prayer point – pray for sick and hurting friends and family that they would experience the healing that will come in the fulfillment of the kingdom
• God’s kingdom is expanding throughout the earth – evangelism is a primary means by which the kingdom grows today
• Prayer point – pray for our family and friends that we want to come to know Christ

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven

• In heaven, God’s will is done perfectly – everything God wills is done completely, totally and perfectly
• One day, the same will be true here on earth
• Prayer point – pray that this world would grow in obedience to Christ and fulfill his will and purpose on the earth
• Aside – I know the Reformed position on the will of God – everything he wills is done perfectly – but this is where the different “wills” of God is relevant

Give us this day our daily bread

• God has not promised us everything we need – he is Jehovah Jireh, the God who Provides
• Prayer point – pray for God’s provision for our needs

Forgive us our sins (trespasses, debts)

• Prayer point – time of confession

As we forgive those who have sinned against us

• Other people have wronged us and we are called to forgive them
• Prayer point – ask God to give us forgiving hearts

Lead us not into temptation

• James 1 promises that “God is not tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone”
• We can hold to the promise the God does not want us to fall into sin
• Prayer point – thank God that he will not tempt us with sin and acknowledge that we are powerless to flee sin apart from God

But deliver us from evil

• Prayer point - Pray for strength and deliverance to stand up under temptation and to resist “the sin that so easily entangles”

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

• Prayer point – maybe just make this phrase the close of the night, almost like a benediction

I’ve written previously that I think that I believe that people, in their search for significance, ask three main questions.  Who am I?  Why am I?  Do I belong?  They are questions of identity, purpose and community.

Recently, I started watching the show Heroes.  It’s an awesome show.  But what I find most interesting is that, as the characters each discover their abilities, those three themes of identity, purpose and community continually resurface.

Identity – Here, in season 2 of Heroes, the Bennet family has gone into hiding.  Claire has, on numerous occasions, said to her father, “Why do I have to hide who I am?”  Interesting that she did not talk about hiding what she can do.  For Claire, it was not an ability at stake.  It was the very core of who she is – her identity.

Purpose – One word and one question continually resurface in the show.  The word: Special.  The question: “Why did God make me this way?“  Intriguing, huh?  The characters all know, somehow, that they are supposed to matter in this life.  The show really follows their journey of figuring how what it means to be special and the unique calling on their life that results from being special.  God made them with this abilities for exactly the purpose of being heroes.

Community – “We just kinda found each other.”   We were not meant to go through the challenges of life’s journey alone.  We were meant to do it together.  The characters found others with special abilities and they came together.  Their search for identity and purpose was to take place within community.  They found each other because they knew and understood what one another was going through.  Together, they were able to thrive when alone they would have failed.

These themes of identity, purpose and community go way deeper than any TV show.  But it is interesting that the top TV show on right now continually shows people asking these questions.  People want to know that they matter.  they long for meaning and to know that they have value and they are accepted and belong.  The challenge is, for us as believers, to figure out how to invite people into the identity, purpose and community that can only be found in Christ.

With less than 48 hours left in New Orleans, I’ve been reflecting on all that I’ve seen and experienced this summer.  I’m not even sure I have the words to describe the devastation this city has experienced.  We started working on the home of Matt yesterday and I spoke with him tonight.  He told me this is the best thing that has happened to him since the storm.  He is blown away by the service of God’s people.  That is so cool.  Probably nothing sums up this summer more than what has become our de facto theme song, “Mighty to Save.”  Read the lyrics…

Everyone needs compassion
A love that’s never failing
Let mercy fall on me
Everyone needs forgiveness
A kindness of a Savior
The hope of nations

My Savior
He can move the mountains
My God is Mighty to save
He is Mighty to save
Forever
Author of salvation
He rose and conquered the grave
Jesus conquered the grave

So take me as You find me
All my fears and failures
Fill my life again
I give my life to follow
Everything I believe in
Now I surrender

Shine your light and let the whole world see
We’re singing for the glory of the risen King…Jesus

Praise the Lord that the God we serve is mighty to save and that he has conquered the grave.  I’m overwhelmed that I should experience his grace and broken when I look around to see so many who never have experienced that grace.

There are many people here who are living on the second floor of their homes because they can’t afford to repair the first floor or people who are living in one room of their house because the rest has not yet been repaired.  There are beautiful, redone homes with houses that are still boarded up on either side.

Yet, in the midst of this devastation, the goodness of God is shining through.  While everyone else has moved one, the only people still coming to help is the Church.  It’s so amazing because the whole city knows it.  They know that the only help to be found is the church.  Our God is mighty to save!

This summer in New Orleans has been great, but it has also been very difficult.  Even emotionally draining.  I’ve felt lost that for all the work I do for God, why aren’t I experiencing the joy of Christ?  The answer was revealed to me by Donald Miller in his book, Blue Like Jazz.  This book has been the talk of the Christian community for the last couple of years and it is easy to see why.  The storytelling and demeanor are very unique and captivating.  But consider this quote…

Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder….I don’t think there is any better worship than wonder.

As I read this chapter on worship and wonder, I knew that this was the problem.  I had lost sight of the wonder of God and stopped living in awe of his goodness.  I immediately recalled Dangerous Wonder: The Adventures of Childlike Faith by Mike Yaconelli.  In it, Yaconelli describes the “wide eyed wonder” with which infants live.  That illustration is powerful.  Little babies are often staring at something so deeply and intently it looks like their eyes are going to pop out.  We can take a quick glance and notice all the details of our surroundings.  But not babies.  Everything is so new that they soak it every last detail.

Since reading that, I have spent these last few days trying to recapture the awe and wonder of my Lord.  His goodness and mercy surrounds me each day and I pray that I will always live in wide-eyed wonder of his love.

Last week I wrote, concerning community, “People are always looking, always searching, in the hopes of finding a place where they are welcomed, accepted and liked. People long to belong.” I wrote that as I was on a plane flying from Orlando to Philly. On the way back, I flipped through this the US Aiways Magazine when I came across an article entitled, Welcome to the Social.

Now, I’ve already written that people are living more and more of their lives online and that, in particular, the internet is becoming the place where they search for community. But, in that article, the stakes got raised raised again. Consider this quote…

If you don’t belong to some kind of social network, you soon may not belong anywhere.

Now, that is a pretty serious claim, but to the extent that it is true, is already a serious challenge to the church on two fronts. First, it means that we that the church, the community of God, whose very call and purpose is to invite those around us (and around the world), into fellowship with Christ and his people, is failing. Once upon a time, the church was the center of community in the church. It was the gathering place for the town social life. Not anymore. The challenge for the church is to recapture our God-given responsibility and status as a place of true community. The second challenge for the church, in light of online social networks replacing “traditional” real life socials, means that the church needs to find a way to foster community online.
I know I’ve mentioned it before, but this article raised the stakes again for me. It is our mandate as the church to engage people, meaningfully, in relationships. How can we use the internet to do so?