Detour
Worship winds me up and sometimes even the droning NASCAR race can’t send me off for a Sunday snooze.
Such was the case yesterday so I saddled up the bicycle for a light ride and some fresh air as the sun was shining and the pre spring air was crisp and tasty. I cruised out past the church, breathing in that unique indescribable scent of melting snow buoyed on the breeze. I hypnotized myself as I gazed down at my front tire tracking the white line of the road mile after mile.
It was a completely joyous release of the spirit!
I have to wait until my spirit returns to tell me where it’s been!
Warming down after 25 miles I decided to swing by the current hang out of our skaters/riders at the vacant grocery store. Sure enough as I neared the large parking lot I was greeted over the huge snow banks by, “It’s Randall!” and that made me grin as I don’t get tired of their energy. We talked and laughed as I checked out their new bikes for the season and refereed a spontaneous snowball fight.
But the time came for me to head home and I said my farewells.
I wheeled out of the lot, around the nearby library and was rolling away when I heard them again, “Hey Randall!” I did a quick u-turn as they were jumping curbs and flying my way on their bicycles. Suddenly we were a parade of about 10 bikes progressing through town and heading for the skatepark which was on my way home.
Have you ever been to a parade and have a race break out? Mercy these guys are WAY faster than they should be on 20” bicycles and by the time we hit the park I was toast!
The winner of the race depends on who you ask.
I watched them ride in the small area of the skatepark they have shoveled off and as the sun was dipping down I offered my good byes yet again, “Guys, I have to roll or my wife is going to think I have taken a major detour!”
One of the young men who says almost nothing – ever – fixed me with a very interesting gaze and said mater-of- factly, “Isn’t that what you did?”
That rhetorical question has stuck in my mind since it reached my ear!
I don’t ever want these guys to think they are a detour in my life – something I think about after the “ride of the day” is over or that they are some pet project outside my “serious” work at the church. The tone of his inquiry wasn’t accusatorial and rang of someone who has probably pedaled home late with some explaining to do himself but the word “detour” still hangs in my mind this morning.
I can’t let this group ever think they are a “detour”.
Our church can’t ever let these young people think they are a “detour”.
We need to meet them in the empty parking lots.
We need to referee their spontaneous conflicts.
We need to do u-turns to meet them.
We need to be in parades with them.
We need to race with them.
We need to let our spirit go for a while and ride with their spirits and when our spirit comes back it will tell us what a joy these people have in their hearts and what a burden they carry too!
And maybe when their spirits return to them it will say, “Hey, there is something to this Jesus thing because it’s real, loving, sincere and honest!”
So my wonderful friends! Let’s keep riding right down Main Street with these wild ones like we have been!
No detours!
Servant of Christ
Randall
GTP Supporters!
Sometimes we wear a few hats at once – this was to be my message last Sunday but God had other plans – so you get Randall’s Notes and a GTP Update all in one.
I’ll let you all decide if that is a good thing!
God Bless!!
Do we speak Jesus?
“Hey! It’s Randall!” one of the youth shouts as he runs towards me. I gently arc my snowball in his general direction as he sprints over with his sister. I should have known school was getting out because my quiet corner of Hastings suddenly begins to look like the Lower East Side of Manhattan each weekday as parents all hustle cars into position from every point on the Michigan compass to pick up their children from the nearby elementary school.
Mere moments before, the air was filled with snowballs as I walked up to an intersection three blocks from my house so I figured if I was going to be collateral damage I would go down fighting. Fortunately, younger eyes being a bit sharper than mine, I was identified as friend not foe before I could see who was actually doing battle. “What’s up guys? Good to see you! (closer up) ” I responded amidst a hug and a high five. It was a pair of our good youth from the skatepark. “How have you been?”
“We’re good. I’m getting all B’s. Where are you going?” They inquire as the brother shoulders his backpack that is big enough to assault Everest.
“Hey, B’s are good,” I encourage, “I’m hoofing over to the library to help some of the skaters write a paper that might help us get some money for the skatepark.” Young people today probably would have understood “grant proposal” because they are sharp and these two are particularly clever youngsters but just in case… We fell into an easy stride and swapped stories about the winter and talked about sledding and it communicated to me a joy of youth I used to revel in back before snow was just some inconvenience to shovel or scrape off my car.
“How do you like my holey jeans? I am wearing them to church tonight! Get it, HOLEY jeans!?” They both laughed sharing that age old pun with me and I laughed too which was an honest result of that infection of youthful joy they were responsible for. I was also pleased they are continuing with a program our Wesleyan brothers and sisters continue each Wednesday night where they pick up local youth in a big super ugly school bus to participate in a very beautiful outreach.
We kept walking and talking but I had to say goodbye to my young friends as their house is on the way to the library and as I continued, I began to think about how we communicate with each other and contemplated what it must have been like when we all spoke the same language (Genesis 11:1-9). If you don’t know the story about the Tower of Babel – go check it out because it has a lot of good “learning material” in it but let me concentrate on this portion:
But when God came down to see the city and the tower mankind was making, he said, "Look! If they are able to accomplish all this when they have just begun to exploit their linguistic and political unity, just think of what they will do later! Nothing will be unattainable for them! TLB Gen 11:5-6
OK a calamity of verbal confusion befell these people because they used their unity for self promotion not to raise a unified voice of praise and worship to God but think about this: What happens when we have a unified voice and that voice sounds like the call of Christ to everyone we meet? What happens if the faith community, the Church Universal, starts to go out into the streets with the joyful voice of Jesus?
“That is some good thinking!” I encourage my teen protégé as we scratch out the grant proposal and I jot down his thoughts at the library. He has a poet’s heart if you could imagine Walt Whitman jacked up on Red Bull and nicotine in a mellow sort of way.
Suddenly, over our shoulder we hear the sounds of verbal disharmony…
“What are YOU doing here?” The angry voice of the “adult” volunteer imposes an abrasive vocal sneer on a quiet group of four youth sitting in the window seat of the library’s teen area. “If you are not here on OFFICIAL library business you have to leave!”
“We’re just sitting here looking at my iPod.” The young man replies politely, “There isn’t any rule against that.”
“Well there is a rule against talking back!” The woman screams quietly.
It just escalated downhill from there until she managed to herd them out into the snow. It was the most calloused, heartless, careless, God-absent, and un-Jesus attempt at communication I have seen in a long time! I wanted to explode!*
One day as he [Jesus] was walking along the beach beside the Lake of Galilee, he saw two brothers - Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew - out in a boat fishing with a net, for they were commercial fishermen.
Jesus called out, "Come along with me and I will show you how to fish for the souls of men!" And they left their nets at once and went with him.
TLB Matt 4:18-20
How cool is our Jesus!!! The God Man selling the call to service in a “language” his audience understands!
“What are YOU doing here?” The gentle voice of Christ carries across the water.
“We are just fishing. There isn’t any rule against that, Teacher!” Peter might say grinning.
Jesus called out, "Come along with me and I will show you how to fish for the souls of men!"
And they left their nets at once and went with him.
What language do we speak?
Is it fluent “Jesus” or some confusing new dialect filled with our own desire to build some edifice to ourselves while we herd others out into the snow?
Closing Thought
On my walk home through the biting wind I saw my young friends standing on the corner waiting for the Wesleyan bus. The brother and sister were joined by their little brother who has a toothless grin always surrounded by remnants of his latest snack he just ate smudged on his cheeks. He is often in a state of perpetual laughter and that evening was no exception.
“We’re waiting for the church bus!” The older brother states excitedly as he saunters over to me.
“That’s really great. I am glad you guys are going to that program! Hey, small man you better watch those shoe laces or you might take a tumble.” I advise the little brother as we all look down at his untied laces.
“Just stuff’em in your shoe!” his big brother recommends off-handedly.
Realizing we probably were not going to get the safest desired result, I kneel down in the slush and tie the tiny boy’s shoe. He stares wide-eyed at me and exhales, “You can tie shoes?”
I laugh really hard but then I begin to think…
Can we tie shoes?
Can we wash feet?
Can we all speak “Jesus” together to this world in a language it understands and get incredible things done in unity?
I think we can!!!
Servant of Christ
Randall
*Following our writing of the grant proposal I had time to calm down and met with the head librarian to voice my concerns over what I had just witnessed. She agreed that some of her volunteers were a bit edgy and something needed to be done.
The city had recommended I contact her a few weeks back which I did by phone but I guess God’s timing let me see first hand all the challenges that evening so I told her I would be happy to meet with her volunteers as a group – not to impart any sage advice – but to hear them and share what I have learned about these beautiful (but admittedly - not always saintly) young people.
Please keep that whole circumstance in your prayers.
Pray also for Friday Night’s Party at Woodgrove where we will be “speaking Jesus” to these young people through music (thanks David), video (thanks Lyle), and food (Thanks Kay and your crew)! You are all invited if you can speak Jesus!
GTP Supporters!
It has been awhile and I hope this winter finds you snug and warm somewhere somehow! If you are around for the party you of course are invited! Just drop me a line so I can reserve a spot for you!
When in doubt…Party!!
Each year when the embers die and the sticky film of Mountain Dew has been washed off our cooler, we wonder how we will stay in touch with our friends from the skatepark over the long Michigan winter. We pray for some avenue to be opened by God for us to maintain that fellowship earned over the last three years of “Grill the Pastor.” This autumn we enjoyed a touch of that prayer answered with our Community Thanksgiving Dinner and the response we had from our skaters/riders in attendance but yet again this winter we haven’t had a way of keeping them in front of us except in our daily prayers.
Well…Two weeks ago I got a call from John, the Hastings City Community Coordinator who has been responsible for working with us on improvements at the park. He mentioned that some of our skaters/riders were now hanging out at the City Library after school and had been, in moments of high energy, “using the library furniture as projectiles” and wondered if I could chat with the powers that be at the library to offer some advice on reaching out to these rambunctious youth.
I also received at this same time a call from the leaders of the “Active Youth Movement” which was founded by the initiators of our “Day of Defiance” to see if I could lend a fresh perspective on their fund raising efforts for new skatepark equipment.
Isn’t it curious how doors open like that when we keep things in our prayers? Through it all I dropped by the library earlier in the week and put the Active Youth Movement meeting on my schedule for last night and if you were unfortunate enough to have spent any time with me in the last week you probably heard my epic rant about, “Well, I tried to tell them (AYM) it’s all about the youth taking part and if I had more time and if they had listened and…”
So at last night’s meeting I came armed with a full arsenal of “wisdom” and after a brief roundtable of greetings and welcomes the question was put to me,
“OK, we have done (a number of really good efforts were then recounted) and seem to have hit a roadblock. What should we do?”
Ah! I puffed up with pride and with all eyes fixed upon me I paused for a fair amount of time so they would know I was scaling the heights of my vast experience and then descending into the valley of deep theological pondering to excavate a course of action so meaningful that a place of deep awe would be forever etched in their memories of this night. Music played in the background, cigarette smoke swirled around the table and just as the pause reached the pinnacle between just right and too long, I blurted out…
“I think you need to have a party!”
I almost had to laugh at myself because I really had a world class repertoire of “do this and do that” so I braced myself for the earned onslaught of, “Whose idea was it to call this joker back into our process? He’s been away for two months while we’ve been beating the bushes for cash and all he comes up with is ‘Let’s party’?”
I started to reach for my coat but to my great surprise the stunned looks I confused for “You must be kidding!” were actually more like, “Why didn’t we think of that?”
Our Lord does indeed move in mysterious ways!!
They immediately started to talk about funding for the food and I got to cut them off, “Guys, I have funds. This will be our gift from the church to your efforts.”
“Well, we’ll need to pay for the food,” they rejoined.
Then I got to enjoy real honest pride, “No, I have a fund at the church called the, ‘Grill the Pastor’ fund (big smiles all around) and it is made up of generous people who have donated to the Wednesday night thing. They know you from an email newsletter I send out about the skatepark and they love you guys. We can cover pizza and pop for the party because whether I buy dogs or pizza – it’s all the same!”
I could see, “What’s the catch?” turning in their heads but apparently it was defeated by my exuberance and the positive experience some of them there had enjoyed at our Thanksgiving Dinner.
Now, what about location??? A place big enough for potentially 100 people with a big screen to show the DVD of “Day of Defiance” again (by their request) with some other Extreme Sport video and maybe have space for some live musical performance(s)…
Long story a bit longer…Guess what Woodgrove Brethren Christian Parish?
We are hosting a party!!!
Details will follow (sorry you had to hear about it like this Kay – we’ll talk later!) and this will be another step closer into the hearts of these great young people with our wonderful Woodgrove Fellowship! So gear up, dust off your party duds (or just wear’em again after Jim’s Music Night on the 20th) and get ready to welcome back those rambunctious souls who fly through the air and reach out to touch God on their bikes and boards!!
Hopefully they won’t use our furniture as projectiles!!
Servant of Christ
Randall
BTW – This will be at the end of this month either the 26th or 27th and yes I know that we have some “festive gatherings” planned during the Lenten Season – but if Christ healed on the Sabbath I don’t think he’s going to look poorly on the celebration of our faith in this outreach! Tombs empty my friends, let’s prove it!!
“Operation Put Back” may be getting off to a rousing start!!
Packers…Jets…Vikings….
Sometimes when you keep winning it is hard to tell when to retire but then there are those times when the end becomes obvious – or at least the end of the season becomes obvious. Last night was one of those times when it became pretty clear that GTP is wrapped up for 2009. Even the fire was reluctant and when it did manage to crawl its way into life it did so with a final, “Ok, but if you are going to wake me up, you best be ready for me when my feet hit the floor!”
Whoosh!!
Incinerated hot dogs!! Fortunately, of the few guys who were there they were of the, “We like’em crispy!” camp and in that regard we certainly did not disappoint!
One young lady commented, “I need one for my mom because she said if we are going to be eating down here she won’t have to fix dinner!” I’m good with that so I tried to send one off that wasn’t charred and crispy on the outside…and charred and crispy on the inside!
My parents dropped by the house as we were preparing to head over to the park and donated cider and doughnuts. The skaters may now actually install bronze sculptures of my folks down at the skatepark! “You brought cider and doughnuts!? Guy, I could be falling in love with you!” I heard this when the gift was revealed. Agathe doesn’t have to worry as this came from one of our supporting riders who gets plenty of attention from the young ladies…He and I both laughed. Then again my wife received a similar comment but it was from an eight year old boy, so neither of us crossed any professional boundaries that called our sacred vows of matrimony into question!
I have become an honorary peer (to a few) and have had things shared with me in the course of “normal” conversation down at the park that indicates a high level of trust but I wonder if that is always a good thing – “being one of the (old) guys”? Do they know I have an ace up my sleeve called GOD that could help them out of so many of their difficult quandaries? We walk a fine line in practical faith ministries and I keep praying for that gift of God-inspired immediate discernment to have the right word at the right time…I have so much to learn!!!
Last week a young lady said good naturedly but rather seriously, “That’s right, you’re a Bible Thumper!”
I laughed out loud and said, “Hey, I haven’t had to ‘thump’ anyone down here in three years!”
She fixed me with a sly gaze and said, “Yeah, but I bet you’ve wanted to!”
She’s not entirely wrong as we both knew there have been some less than “spiritually inspiring” events over the last year down there but at least I think they know what cards I’m holding and if they ever want to see my hand they’ll ask…
Last night as we were leaving, a half dozen riders/skaters sat at the end of the park waiting to make a few runs at some tricks so I walked up and announced that tonight was the finally of 2009 (albeit a rather tame one) to which I got a few nods of acceptance which could have been nods of appreciation too – hard to tell. I think Mother Nature is tired, they are tired, we are tired, but it is a satisfied fatigue.
I brought printed invites to our Community Thanksgiving Dinner and just put them on the table under a stone and didn’t “hard sell” it. Agathe mentioned on the way home that a few youth picked them up unsolicited. We would have a good time together if a few show up for that. I still can’t tell if they are fired up or feeling “coerced into church”.
Keep praying for these children of God!
THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PRAYERS AND SUPPORT!!
God Bless!!
Servant of Christ
Randall
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