Uffizi Mission Project

There is hope for the rebirth of the church in the children of the incarnation…

I am witnessing it at Pershing Park now, as some local pastors are bringing their high school and junior high students.  Last night there was a circle of young people around Gator as he entertained them with the guitar, jokes, and card tricks.  Gator is the central attraction of the park for sure, and now I hear his name in new circles throughout Santa Barbara.

 I am witnessing it as well as Westmont University wakes up to its missional potential as well, and students begin to come down to the West Side to do a regular prayer walk, staff the community center, and plan a spring break week down at the the Village apartments in 2009.

Perhaps the hope of the church is as much in the grass roots as the pulpit.  Since beginning this incarnational movement in Santa Barbara, I have rarely been invited to preach – for the most part the door to the congregations has been shut.  I am still hopeful for open doors, but my strategy has moved to facebook.

Facebook can become the agent for change, and for finding “cause.”  In many ways, it has taken the Uffizi Mission to its next level, because it exists under the pulpit, communicating on a mass scale an “Obamic” message of change.  The children of the incarnation are being born under a new paradigm, where we are not hindered by boards or waiting for masters of divinity.

I still press for partnership, meaning I still believe that God is at work in the church as it is, but our hierchachal structure has killed the potential of rapid, missional movement.

I once shared the message of change with a pastor, who told me that the Titanic could not be turned in a moment, but would take a few years.  (He chose the picture of the Titanic, not me!)  The children of the incarnation see no need to head straight into the iceberg.

The children of the incarnation will be there with preemptive love, helping our friends in culture before their ship sinks I believe.

Last night I had a disturbing conversation with a street kid.  A 15 year old girl who is hanging out with the wrong crowd with no idea of their real intentions.  A new friend of mine, a mom on the streets, was trying to convince her to find shelter and not head where she was going.  I don’t know how it will turn out.  She was on her way to her iceberg and crash.

While I am 44 years old, and am just learning what it is to be compassionate, street wise, and friendship oriented, the junior high students, high school students, and college students who are with us will be ahead of the game.  They will be at least 50/50 in the building and out of the building, and hopefully there will less of my friends on the streets crashing.

Last night, at Pershing Park, there were probably 100 friends from the streets, and I could feel the compassion God had upon them.  Last Saturday we carved 48 pumpkins with kids in the Village and God was with them.  And we have not even touched the cultures of Haley Street yet, or the 500 block of State Street with bars and clubs…

Pray for the children of the incarnation, who will flood the city with the love of God.  They will go to places we have been afraid to visit.

We have been meeting as Holy Chaos now for four weeks, and each week has been an education for us.  Our teachers have been our friends without houses.

 This week we received an up front explanation of how our friends without houses die.

One such explanation came from Michael.  He came for the first time, obviously agitated and could not remain silent.  His face was bruised.  As we passed the famous “sharing spoon,” he shared a bit of his story.

 (And I am sure there is more to this, but this much I believe is true)  He is trying to get off alcohol, but in the process of getting off alcohol, he experienced seizures.  These seizures hit and caused him to fall on the streets, bruising his body.  He was not sure whether he could get back into the program he needed.

At one point, he stood in the circle and addressed us all.  (This is the accepted “chaos” time!)  He told us of how he is a Christ follower, but he needs an advocate.   He told us that he did not think he could live without an advocate.  He said that all he had at this point was Jesus, but that he needed one of us.  Well praise God for Jack who has so far spent 10 hours with him this week, and helped him get into the needed program.  We are trying to figure out now how we help him upon release.

But that is not all, our “street angel” shared as well about how one of his friends died on the streets this past year.  He was on a bench for 8 hours before anyone knew he was dead.  The street angel himself passed by and didn’t even know – several times in fact.  Because of this, our new saintly friend hits the streets in the evening to feel pulses and make sure people on the street are alive.  If they are cold, he delivers blankets or gets them shelter.  He has a friend who drives a taxi and they pick them up and find shelter.

Let’s sober up ourselves.  Let’s sober up from greed and being entertained in church.  As we partner to help sobriety on the streets, there is a parallel sobriety needed for ourselves.

We are beginning to see it happening:

*One wonderful friend is taking pictures of Pershing Park, the Village, Holy Chaos – so can we advocate our message

*I just received an email from a Westmont revolutionary who wants to get his friends to the community center to be with kids

*A missional core of pastors is being united to steward the love and grace of God to our city

*Many of you are already involved, and are the mission yourselves – thank you!

But, we are still addicted ourselves to an unrealistic escapism of “who is my neighbor.”  We must continue to move outward, toward “the other” and embrace all who are marked with the beautiful image of God.  Choosing life over death, means following the movement of life as expressed in the gospels, illustrated by none other than Jesus Himself.

Comments?

Sorry revolutionaries, I am much older than you think.  I can remember pulling Pink Floyd from the sleeve, placing it on my turntable, and listening to the dark side of the moon.  In my room with my black light and lava lamp, it did seem like the moon eclipsed the sun.  My room became a different world.

 Since leaving on this journey, one son has been eclipsed by another.  My sense of who Jesus is, and what he wants to do, is much different.  I sense that I am walking with the same God, but He has revealed to me another face to see.

 This Friday morning, I took a time trip back to the time of Jesus.  I was still very much in the 21st century, but it was eclipsed by a sense of sandals, mud, pharisees, and a desperate woman.  You know the gospels are filled with the stories of women who get it more than men – and are far more honest and intimate.  I can think of a few – the woman who anointed Jesus with perfume, or the woman who touched the hem of his garment out of desperation… you probably have a favorite yourself.

 Friday, our mens’ group met at North Star.  We had a guest speaker who was going to share with us about “evangelism.”  But today, we had a woman with us.  I had not seen her before, but had a sense that something was going on with her, and that she was from the streets.  I also had this other gnawing idea – I was going to find out soon what it was…

We began with worship – and as we did so, she sang with us at the top of her lungs.  She moved around the coffee shop, sometimes standing, and ended up on her face moaning to God.  At the close of worship, she went into the bathroom, and began moaning in there.  The moaning changed to throwing up.

 Meanwhile, I moved toward the bathroom.  I had no idea what to do, but felt that I should move toward her at least. 

Where it gets bad, is that the man leading the converstion, motioned to me something like this – “Can you get her out of here when she gets out?”  I am not sure that it was this exactly, but I think that was the bottom line idea.  Meanwhile the conversation about “evangelism” continues…  I chime in something to the converstion about the fact that really what we are lacking is love, but I don’t know if anyone picked up the idea.

 I knocked on the door to see if she was ok, and she came out “hardened” and telling me all is well.  She walked around the room and began to ask the speaker questions.  I could tell that the group was trying to figure out what do here as well.  She was asking questions like this:

“What if you lead people to Jesus only to find them reject you?”

“What happens if you spend a year telling someone you love about Jesus, and they reject you?”

“What happens if someone says they believe in Jesus, but the next day they hit you in the face?”

Well, the answers were all given via the intellect.  And she was going to keep asking, I could tell.  The teacher finally gave her the idea that she needed to wait to ask questions.  I could tell that the group was not going to enter into it with her.  I was asking God the whole time, “what do I do?”  I felt Him tell me to go outside with her and listen.

I asked her to tell me more about what she was going through, and we went outside.  Someone else joined me as well, and we began to listen to her.  Her story was about betrayal, about someone she loved who betrayed her, or used her.  To be honest, I could not tell if she was schizophrenic, bipolar, tormented?  But we just listened. 

Finally I felt the leaning to talk to her about grace for herself.  Did she understand the grace of Christ for herself?  She said that “grace was both free and earned.”  I disagreed with the “earned” idea.  I asked if I could just pray for peace for her, not knowing what else to do.  She agreed.

As we prayed for her, she finally settled down.  In fact, she settled down so much that she fell to the street.  She was lying face down, flat on State Street, as we prayed for her.  Then she began to weep and cry out loudly to God.

“Why have I been abandoned?”

“Why has my family abandoned me?”

“Why do I have no friends?”

“I am tired of earth – I want to be in heaven.”

It was a mix of great anger, hurt, and pain.  Finally she got up and walked away down the street away from us.  My friend and I and a few others who came out later, talked about this experience for awhile.  I am still trying to figure it out. 

How loud must Jesus be in our friends on the streets, in the “ghetto” before we will drop our other agendas and listen.  How sad it is that we continue our discussions on evangelism, when we fail to embrace a holistic Jesus.

A holistic Jesus needs to eclipse our middle class four spiritual laws believism.  I continue to argue that the first step is our desire to be with the men and women Jesus loves – He doesn’t save people to put them on a shelf, but because He wants to be with them.  We have to embrace the love God again.

God have grace on me if I am ever homeless, or lose my mind.  Who will come and sit with me – will I be a waste of time?

So God uses moans, screams, wretching, lying on the sidewalk, questions to grab my attention.  Well Jesus, you have my attention.  Do you have a story to share, or a comment on this one?  (My description of the story does not do the experience justice)