Obama and me: a common journey
[Official White House Photo: Pete Souza]
Yesterday morning, I tuned in to watch the National Prayer Breakfast online. I managed to catch the end of author Eric Metaxas' keynote, and then the President's address. I've always resonated with President Obama's expressions of his faith, even from when he was a Senator, and before he ran for president--from his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention to the passages in Dreams from my Father. Yesterday, he drew upon several verses that form the foundation of my own engagement in politics, advocacy, and public life:
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
"To those whom much is given, much will be required."
"Speak up for those who cannot speak up for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute."
He continued:
Treating others as you want to be treated. Requiring much from those who have been given so much. Living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper. Caring for the poor and those in need. These values are old. They can be found in many denominations and many faiths, among many believers and among many non-believers. And they are values that have always made this country great -- when we live up to them; when we don’t just give lip service to them; when we don’t just talk about them one day a year. And they’re the ones that have defined my own faith journey.
They're the ones that have defined my faith journey as well, which I shared when I graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary. I got to be one of the speakers at Commencement, and shared a little bit of my own journey:
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Meanwhile, over at the Sojourners blog, Wes Granberg-Michaelson, former General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America, shares his thoughts in a great response. Notably:
Money controls who gets elected and controls how laws and policies are made, I think, in utterly dangerous ways. More than ever, for those who gathered in prayer Thursday morning, money is power. And it’s the power of money in politics today that must be confronted — by people of faith — as a moral issue.
So I wondered (and prayed), where is the William Wilberforce of today, a leader who will take the message of the Bible to heart, rise up to confront the ways in which money enslaves our modern political life, lead a movement to end it, and then, one day, be celebrated for his or her courage and faithfulness to the gospel at a future prayer breakfast?
Even as we celebrate a common faith and shared values, we need to continue working to see these worked out in the world we inhabit.
I’m on Aslan’s side
This Sunday, I'll be preaching from Daniel 3. I'm always challenged by the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in response to Nebuchadnezzar's threat of death by blazing furnace, because they demonstrate the kind of trust and faith I aspire toward:
If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up. (vv.17-18)
C.S. Lewis, through the character of Puddleglum in The Silver Chair (book six in the Chronicles of Narnia series), draws this out yet further:
Suppose we have only dreamed or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four [or more] babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia … Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say.
God at work: $100,000
This past year, I've had a front row seat--indeed, I've been fortunate to be in the thick of the action--as God's been at work: in my life, in the lives of those around me, and in The District Church. Here are some examples:
- God's been at work through prayer in my small group, where we've prayed for jobs for four guys (including myself)--each of them is now employed; and we've prayed for housing for four more (including myself)--each of them now has a place to live.
- God's been at work in my small group period, where today we commissioned three new small groups out of the one I'd been leading. I felt blessed to have so many servant leaders in my group, and am so excited to see all of them stepping into what God has for them.
- God's been at work in our church, growing our small community until we're now stretching the space we've been meeting in. We wanted to find a larger space but none of those options worked out, so starting on September 25, we'll begin having two services on Sunday morning! This is such an exciting time and we believe this is a time God is calling us, to use an analogy from 2 Kings 3, to build ditches in preparation for the rain.
And most exciting of all ...
Last Sunday, we commemorated the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at our church, and in his message, Aaron spoke about how "True Awakening Leads to Reform" (we're currently doing a sermon series drawn from Habakkuk and Acts, entitled "Awaken"). He expanded on the op-ed he'd written in the Washington Post to mark the occasion, in which he'd written to the Muslim community to apologize for the ways that we as Christians had allowed our pride and prejudices to cloud our witness. And so on Sunday, as a small act of reconciliation, we took up an offering for our Muslim brothers and sisters who are suffering from the famine in the Horn of Africa--Somalia, hardest hit, is 99% Muslim. Through various other movements of the Holy Spirit, we had offers to match whatever we raised by up to 7 times. Still, we were conscious of our size--we're only about 150--and so we were ready to be thrilled regardless of the amount raised.
I suppose I should have left this email untitled to maintain the surprise. But when all was said and done, we as a church raised almost $15,000, and with the matching donations, we were able to raise $100,000 for famine relief efforts.
This was such humbling and spine-tinglingly exciting news, such an encouragement for me as a leader of a community of such amazingly generous people, and such a reminder that God is at work, doing great things even in the face of great suffering and tragedy.
May we all (continue to) see God at work in all things.
What a difference a year makes
Recently, I was flipping through some photos, and noticed these gems from one year ago. These were taken in Aaron & Amy’s living room, back when the church was newborn and still meeting in the Grahams’ house. I don’t even remember whether we’d settled on The District Church as our name, at that point—my inclination is that we hadn’t yet. We were just a bunch of friends who felt called to plant a church in Columbia Heights, and were trying to figure out what that might look like, where and how God might be leading.
Here, in these pictures, you can see what I like to call “Post-It Sunday,” the day when we articulated the things that were necessary to church as well as the things that we could do without and still be church. These post-its eventually developed into some of our core values—including worship, community, and justice.
Twelve months later, we’re still trying to figure out what it looks like to be a church in our neighborhood; we’re still trying to be attentive to each other and to the movement of the Spirit—some things will never change. But much has changed: for the last nine months, we’ve been meeting in a school; we’ve grown more than tenfold from a dozen people to almost a hundred and fifty; we’ve gone from just one small group to five; we’ve gone from being a disparate group of people from around the Columbia Heights neighborhood toward a fuller expression of Christ’s love in our area—through ministering in local high schools, serving at neighborhood events, putting on kids’ festivals and educational movie screenings and more.
What a year it’s been. And, based on the testimony and evidence of the last year, what a year—indeed, what years!—we have to come. I’m simultaneously both completely clueless as to what God’s going to do in and with and through our church in the coming months and years … and so unbelievably excited.