What does white privilege look like in my life?

With the horrible events going on in our country, problems such as racism and white privilege are coming to the forefront of many conversations.  I was at an educational conference (#edcampstl) last week, and we even had a discussion session based around racial tensions in our city/country and how we react to them as educators.  The discussion was moving and hopeful, although several of my fellow educators who were African-American also mentioned being rather frustrated.

Why were they frustrated?  Some of the European-American educators shared coming to understand the rampant racism in society a few years ago, and while it is good that we were all on a journey to self- and societal-understanding of how we view one another, I had to agree with the frustration of folks who have struggled with overt and covert racism their entire lives, for generations, and here you have some white educators who are just now beginning to think that slavery might still have a bearing on today's modern society.

That is one example of white privilege.  Being able to think about racism as something theoretical and choosing when you want to engage in thinking about it - that's a white privilege.  African-American folks might not have that privilege.  One of the members of the discussion shared that African-American students might come to school and be reacting to the shootings of black men by police and not even be conscious that's the reason they're acting out.  When she shared this, I thought, "Wow, that's a great point.  And yet, I know that several of the European-American students in the classroom might not have any idea that yet another child of color lost his father."

This discussion got me thinking, then: What does white privilege look like in my life?  As a definition, white privilege means those areas where life goes more easily for someone with paler skin than it might normally go for someone with more melanin-rich skin tones.  What follows is a list of practical ways I see white privilege in my life.  Then, I'll share just a few insights about how we can continue to build a better and more God-glorifying society.  (All of these are glimpses of white privilege I have either experienced or observed first hand.)

White privilege may be at work if you are:

• Walking into a classroom and noticing everyone assume you will be a "smart" student.
• Visiting a bank and getting the feeling that no one, not even the security guard, is worried about you robbing the place.
• Walking down the street and having people smile at you casually.  Actually, people frequently stop and talk with me.
• Being asked for money by panhandlers, presumably because you have the right skin color in the right neighborhood (even though you don't have a single dollar to give at the moment).
• Opening almost any history book and finding, oddly enough, that almost every major player in almost every recorded event for almost all of history looks like he could be your ancestor.  Wow, this makes one feel rather important and like one could truly improve the world.  Imagine if it went the opposite way for you, how you might feel.
• Shopping at stores where the magazines at the check out aisle have beautiful people on the cover that could possibly all be your relatives because they all have the same hue of skin as you do.  Again, this helps one to feel rather important and accepted by society.  Again, imagine the converse.
• Able to walk into almost any gathering and not have to look too hard to find someone who looks very similar to yourself, who then becomes a safe connection point of acceptance in the larger group.
• Displaying anger in a large (or small) group without having to read the other people's faces, lest they show fear of you being angry.
• Watching the news and being able to say, if you so choose, "Oh, they're at it again," because most of the criminals look differently from you.
• Having the culture of your child's school look so much like your own home culture that you naturally feel welcome at the school, like it's a place where you can just be yourself.
• Being mistaken for a manager at retail stores where you are shopping.
• Being able to honestly and sincerely believe that success is truly built on your effort and that people who "don't make it" must not have tried as hard as you did.
• Desiring to reward someone for coming to a classroom already having all of the required skills more than someone who came to the classroom and mastered all of the same skills that year.
• Assuming that there is a right culture in the world, and - shockingly - it is your own.  
• Living life being statistically much less likely to be suspended at school, enrolled in special education, and convicted of a felony.
• Not having anyone in your family be worried about your life when/if you get pulled over by police officers for a traffic violation.
• Being able to run or drive down the streets of any affluent neighborhood without the fear of police officers pulling you over.

I am sure that there are more and even more stinging examples of white privilege out there, and there are more that are supported via statistical research.  These are just examples I have seen or have lived.  To be honest, many of them are likely tied to male-privilege and social-class privileges.  My goal is not to be exhaustive or an authoritative source on this topic.  I'm speaking merely as a European-American male reflecting on experience.

My goal here is to help white people begin to think about their privilege and their culture.  Now, we can react to white privilege in a variety of ways, but here are just a few healthy ways.

• Acknowledge that you come from A culture, not THE culture.  Personally, I come from white, poor, southern Missouri culture.  This impacts how I think, the language I use when I get excited, and frequently how I view the world.  It impacts me, but it doesn't own me.  Our lives are impacted by our starting points, but God might grow us well beyond those starting points and also within those cultures.
• Acknowledge that all cultures contain beauty and brokenness.  We are all created in God's image, but we are also completely broken.  God's beauty is in us and in our cultures, but it is marred by our sin and brokenness.  Thus, in every culture, there are elements that are beautiful because they reflect God, and there are elements that need to be sanctified by God because they are broken.  As created beings, we must appreciate the beauty in every culture and speak and serve the Gospel into those broken areas as we can.
• Listen to fellow Image-Bearers of God as they talk about their cultures, not to judge them, but to sincerely learn from them.  There are many youtube videos out now about language and culture that are very helpful in understanding the subtleties of the beauty of cultures and also then how subtle oppression can be in language.  I particularly like this one.
• Be open to supporting fellow Image-Bearers of God who are not from the majority culture.  Let's be clear: white people do not have all the answers, nor will we be the ones saving anybody from anything.  To be honest, it is because of the avarice of our ancestors that we even have a Black Lives Matter movement today.  When I look in the mirror, I see the stunning reflection of what past oppressors looked like.  No, we don't have the answers.  Jesus does, though, and He has given us a voice, especially with fellow white folks.  Thus, we can speak up and explain aspects of culture that are more nuanced than stereotypes portray.  We can argue against the "Them Vs. Us" mentality so prevalent in our media experiences.  As we listen and learn, we can then share with people along the journey what we've learned and become advocates for those voices who haven't really had much of an audience throughout history.  
• Own the reality of white privilege but avoid acting out of "white guilt".  Yes, it's true that your educational opportunities might have been given to you because of more than just your hard-earned effort.  It might be because the color of your skin allowed your parents to move into a better neighborhood with better schools.  Let us mourn these injustices.  Let us weep over the brokenness of society.  Let us avoid, however, seeking to make a token restitution for over 300 years of oppression that our ancestors wielded.  If we love those around us as fellow Image-Bearers of God, then let us serve them and do so well.  If we feel guilty, though, let us come before our Holy God and repent.  Nehemiah's prayer in the first chapter of his book can be a good guide for such repentance.  As we repent, we also must become aware that equality might be painful for those of us who have benefited from the quiet oppression.  Those of us whom God has led to see the oppression we have passively supported must lead the way to make room for true equality.  We must live this out in our local experiences, and we must be open to being advocates for equality in the global society.

Our country seems to be rather divided over which Lives matter more, Blue or Black.  On the surface, this division is superficial and ridiculous.  We all matter.  Black lives, however, have historically mattered extremely significantly less, though, and so we must remember that Black Lives do Matter.  We must celebrate this, and we must declare this.  White lives matter, too, but that hasn't historically been an issue.  If anything, white lives have mattered at the expense of other colors of lives way too often.  Unfortunately, this is not just a historical reality but also a present, dangerous, and often unseen one.  Jesus has pigmented our skin as He saw fit, though, and so we can use our ancestral heritage for the glory of God.  May we His people lead the way in acknowledging one another of all pigments and hues as precious Image Bearers of our common Father.

Feel free to engage me in conversation about white privilege and/or any other thoughts that come to mind.  I'm writing simply as one missionary to another in our city, and I pray that these musings are helpful to some.

Bringing the Gospel to Racial Tensions in St. Louis

Here's a post I found saved on my PC from a few years ago.  I still see similar subtleties of racism in my heart, even though my scenery for work has changed quite a bit.  I invite you to enter this reflection and ask the Lord Jesus to peer into your heart, too, showing you what's under the surface.

May He cause His glory to break in to our hearts and make us One in Him, that the world might know we are His.

Racial Tensions and the Gospel

I was confronted with my own subtle racism this past week as I read through an education article.  (See below for the bibliographic information.)  The author said that there was a good deal of research evidence showing that white teachers often expect lower performance and poorer behavior from black students than their other students (p.355).  Even more than that, white teachers are more likely to treat black students less positively in the classroom (p.356).  I teach social studies in a school that has a very high majority of black students, and I came to love each student that I had this year.  As I read this article, though, I thought, “Wow.  I do that.”  I do hold lower expectations for my black students as a whole than I do for students of other schools.  It was like a punch in my gut that took my breath away.  In some small ways, I still react to false black stereotypes.

This subtle and yet powerful racial tension is not just in my heart, but it’s also in our city.  Let me invite you to take an observational drive North up Kingshighway sometime.  When you cross over highway 64-40, you will see some nice construction, and then you’ll notice a very nice hospital, park, and some very fancy hotels and other various buildings.  It’s a nice part of town.  You’ll notice, too, that there are few African-Americans amongst the doctors, college students, and other professionals that often walk or run along the streets there.  If you keep driving further North, though, you will begin to see some buildings that look dramatically simpler and much less maintained.  You will soon cross over Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, which is a notorious street in St. Louis for homicides.  You will also notice that most of the citizens in this area are African-American.  It is amazing to me that fifty years after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., marched throughout Alabama to end segregation in our laws, we still see it in our city.  It’s not in the laws, but it is in the streets.

So, there’s a problem in my heart and in our city.  What do we do about it?  Well, we quit dancing around it.  We talk about why black people and white people have disproportionate levels of people in jails today.  We talk about why we as individuals are more inclined to treat some people one way and other people another way.  I talk about the expectations that I hold for my black students, honestly, and what I should expect from them.  That’s a start.

But that’s not enough, because we still have to deal with the root of racism, which is sin.  Racism is not mainly an institutional, legal problem, but it’s a problem that rises out of each individual – white and black and every other people group – that spills over into society.  We are broken people, and we need someone to heal us.  We are a broken city, and we need a Savior to put us back together.  What if Jesus really got a hold of the churches in St. Louis and started to build a city that really showed the “people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” that Jesus has purchased with His blood (Rev. 5:9-10)?  We are a multi-ethnic church in Bevo, and we’re praying that Jesus strikes down our racisms.  I say “racisms” because it’s not just white and black, either.  Every people group has their own “lesser-group,” so there’s a lot of racism to strike down.  Praise our Lord that He’s big enough to tackle it all.  Trusting the one who died for our sin and helps us live free from it will not immediately solve the problem of racism, but He will free us up to talk about it and to explore practical solutions together.  Let’s pray.  Let’s love.  Let’s be open to and yearning for Jesus’ healing of our city.  Let’s rejoice together as He continues to work to build His truly multi-ethnic, truly united church to His glory.

Works Cited:

Stevenson, Howard C. “Fluttering Around the Racial Tension of Trust: Proximal Approaches to Suspended Black Student-Teacher Relationships.” School Psychology Review, 2008, Vol. 37 (3), pp.354-358.

Praise Jesus, our garage door doesn't work right...

When the church we're with first started, we knew that we wanted to be serving people. We wanted to reach out to the broken, the left out, the looked over, and the left behind. That's what Jesus did, and so that's what we wanted to do. We had a saying, and it went something like this: "You know, the world will tell you to buy a nice house, have a good car, enjoy your family, close the garage after work and let the world go to hell in a hand-basket around you; but Jesus didn't call us to that." In short, the mission Jesus was sending us on was generally opposed to the American culture in which we found ourselves.

After an especially long day sometime last week, I was thinking about this saying, about closing the garage door, building my own little kingdom in our house, and enjoying life -forgetting about the beautiful and broken city all around us.

As I watched our garage door close, and then re-open of its own accord (because it's a little jacked up, nothing really miraculous going on, really...we actually did this dance about three times before I got it to close), I realized that the garage door of my heart doesn't work right, either. I can set up boundaries and tell people "no," and I must, because I'm a creature, not the Creator. I'm a messenger of the Gospel, not its Messiah. But it's hard for me to close the door of my heart to the hurting.

I began to praise God that it's hard for me to put up those fences. It's hard to look at the faces of the people around me that are hurting and ignore them. It's hard not to weep for Shirley, who stands on the corner of my exit off the highway most every day, trying to get enough food and money to live while she waits for her disability to come through. It's hard not to get angry at the implicit (and sometimes explicit) racism I see and hear in my streets. It's hard not to love the kids across the street, who are so sweet, and who apparently have no fear of cars when crossing our street.

I have to close the garage door some nights so I can live the gospel with the family the Lord has appointed me to take care of; but we're a light to this city. When our garage door closes, it's not without remembering the beautiful and broken city that Jesus loves and that Jesus is coming to rebuild someday soon. It's not without praying for our city with my beautiful daughter and gorgeous wife.

As missionaries, we must put our families above the ministry to the city, lest we show the world a cheap and thin Gospel. After all, what does it mean to be adopted in to God's family if the "family" we have is superficial and filled with glossed-over hurt and disappointment? So, we must close our garage doors for a time and focus on those who live within our homes.

However, we must take our families on mission to minister and serve those around us. Our garage doors need to be going up to make room for block parties, to open up so that we can pray and walk our streets, to make way for cars that will taxi folks who don't have a ride otherwise, to open up so that we can bless people with the blessings the Lord has given us.

Thank you, Lord, for our-up garage door. May our hearts similarly close difficultly, lest we forget your Mission. Drive us to love as you loved, to serve as you served, and to trust Your Power all the while, King of Kings.

Living on mission with the King is messy and wonderful - encouraging and exhausting. Live in His power, ye His saints, and rest in His grace.

Jesus: The Only Hope for Zombie Invasion

I'm not one much for horror movies, mainly because they give my wife and I terrible dreams, but I really enjoy movies where things blow up. The Resident Evil series is more full of action than horror, so it was one of the few zombie movies that I actually enjoyed. For about three weeks after watching one of them (the first or the second, I can't remember), I dreamed about victims of the T-virus (that is, zombies, for those who don't know the series) invading and infecting our city. First, one would break into my house, and in my family's desperate attempt to escape, we'd climb out onto the roof, only to realize that they were coming at our house from every corner, and that our house was the last one left. Most of the dreams resulted in me realizing that we didn't have any hope, and that we were just waiting to get eaten. Yeah, told you that I get bad dreams.

In the last dream, I was on my own. I had been trying for three weeks now (in my other dreams) to envision some plan of escape, some way that we make it out of the situation alive without becoming a flesh-eating zombie. My wife and daughter had already been either eaten or turned into zombies; I guess I didn't stick around to find out which.

I ran out into a larger intersection near our house. The crowd of zombies were pressing in on me, and I only had about 20 feet until I was eaten alive. A few zombies were driving cars and trying to hit me, too, which was weird. When the first zombie reached me (he wearing a blue shirt), I had one thought: Jesus is the only hope for this city. I reached out and touched the flesh eater, saying, "Be healed in Jesus' name." A shock wave went out through the city, and before me stood a perfectly healed person. So I touched another zombie, saying the same thing, and he/she was healed. I went through the crowd touching and praying, and I realized that no matter how long I did this, I couldn't do it alone. So I called back, "Jesus has to heal them," and the ex-zombies now-healers began doing the same thing. The dream ended as Jesus was saving the city through us, and as the point of view pulled back, I could see that there were other focal points in the city where people were calling on Jesus' name and healing was coming.

This dream may or may not be from the Holy Spirit. This I know: God the Holy Spirit still speaks through dreams, and He has the freedom to use dreams about zombies if He wishes. While I'm not really ready to commit that it is directly from Jesus, I am ready to say that the dream has become a great source of encouragement to me in hard times. Jesus really, truly is the only hope for our city, and we need an army of people laying down their lives to see Jesus' healing come to our neighbors. The people we live next to don't eat human flesh (at least, I'm pretty sure about that), but they are sure controlled by their "flesh" - what the Bible calls our in-born desire to seek things on our own terms, in our own way, and to implicitly and even explicitly rebel against the One who made us and commands us to worship Him.

Peter said it this way, "He himself [i.e. Jesus] bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2:24-25).

Peter was saying to his readers that they had left their Master and were following their own way, but Jesus came and took that rebellion and the punishment for it on Himself at the cross. Jesus' death makes us die to sin (the desire and act to rebel against our Creator) and makes us live to righteousness (live in the presence of God, knowing Him, His love, and His joy in a good and living relationship). It is by Jesus' wounds that our deepest need has been fulfilled, and all of our other needs are met thereby; we need God, and Jesus brings us to Him through Himself. He is the One who watches over us, takes care of us, meets our needs, lifts us up when we fall, soothes and heals our wounds when we fail...He is our Shepherd and Overseer. In Him we find life, joy, safety, hope, peace...in all of our seeking as lost sheep, we thought we knew what we were looking for, but we were deceived. He is what we need, and He is the end of our pursuit for our heart's desire.

Jesus is the only hope for St. Louis. Jesus is the only hope for Sarajevo, Bosnia. Jesus is the only hope for Shanghai, China. He is the only hope for Jerusalem, London, Mexico City, and every city in between.

The people around us are dead to righteousness because they're still rebelling against their Creator and Shepherd. They are infected with a disease called sin that distorts and destroys everything about them. Jesus is still healing; it is by His wounds that we are healed. May the Lord raise up an army of humble servants, sons and daughters proclaiming the message that the King has come - and He brought not a sword, but healing. He didn't conquer the world, but He brought a new one. He didn't bring punishment for sinners, but He took it for them.

May Jesus work through His people, in our city and in every other, to declare His message that the Kingdom has come, the King has come, and He is bringing His people - all who will come - to Himself. There is hope in your darkest time, and His name is Jesus. Come to Him and cry out to Him. Return to the Shepherd of your soul.

Come, Lord Jesus!

"Sinner Sensitive" Churches

You might remember a church fad a few years back called "seeker-sensitive churches." These churches would pay special attention to the needs and desires of people who were seeking Jesus. Many of them grew very quickly and grew very large. (Willow Creek in Chicago seems to be the "poster-child" church for this movement...) Whatever your opinion of this movement (personally, I see both pro's and con's, although I wouldn't put myself in this group), that's not my point.

It was just a jumping off thought for me as I thought about what churches SHOULD be sensitive towards. Then I had the realization that the one common denominator among all of the people we serve (and me, and you, and our families, and all people) is that we are sinners. All of us have a certain set of needs, and the church needs to be sensitive to these needs.

Now, before you begin to freak out and are tempted to either stop reading or suddenly leave me nasty comments (although nasty is better than nothing, I suppose...), please hear me out. Here are some of the needs I see of sinners:

- we don't know reality. We live in a little world where we are at the center, where we are okay, in control, and the rest of the world is crazy. We need to be told that there is a Creator who is in charge. We need to hear that there is a Judge who decides what's right (and we're not Him). We need to hear that this Righteous One is also the God of Steadfast Love who never leaves us or forsakes us, but came and gave His Life so we could be with Him.

- we don't know ourselves. We really, truly, think we're okay on some level. Sure, there might be things we want to change (out there in the world), but often, we are content to keep chasing the death-bringing things we love and hate and love. We need to be shown ourselves for what we are. We need illustrations of truth - not just lectures - that bring the words of God into our souls through the windows of stories that put us in the middle of the truth. Jesus would suck His audience in with an engaging story and then hang them on the hooks of their own judgement (see Luke 15 for a great instance of this). We need engaging truth from Scripture that breaks into our worlds.

- we are all broken, and there is one Judge who is also the Justifier. We can't be preaching just hellfire and damnation. We can't be preaching just "Kum-bay-yah," either. Sinners need to hear good news of life. We need to hear the truth about the coming judgement and why our lives are so broken. We need to hear the hope about the Savior who is coming to fix it all and has died and risen to make us new, to make us God's. We need to hold these truths out to a broken city, beggars-now-sons holding out His grace to other beggars who don't even know for what they're searching. We can't turn anyone away at the door, but we can't let our neighbors wallow in their self-destructive sin, either. As we build relationships, we engage with grace and truth as Jesus leads us.

- even pastors are sinners who must follow Jesus. The only rock star in church is the Savior who's the center of all our praise. Praise Jesus, not the preacher; the preacher/pastor/counselor/prayer counselor/children's ministry leader/small group leader/(you get the point?) is just a tool in Jesus' hands. Jesus is working the masterpiece. He's building the body and making it grow. All of us must be dependent on Him. We all need to be open about our sin, quick to confess and repent as the Lord convicts; quick to forgive each other and give grace; and quick to love the hurting and broken, comforting as we've been comforted.

That's just a beginning, and there isn't any set order in the list above. But I'm hoping that we can keep mulling over these ideas and that the core idea of a "gospel-centered church" might take on new meaning and that the good news of Jesus (and Jesus Himself) might truly be the center of all that we do.

Keep me honest; call me out on errors you see.

Grace to you in our Lord and by His Spirit.
Press on to know Him more and to make Him known.
Amen.

The Living Lord means a Charging Church

When our daughter was born, our lives changed. My wife lost significant amounts of sleep. I lost the ability to eat a peaceful meal. When she started walking, I lost almost all autonomy or any time to call my own, except when she was sleeping. Then I usually took a nap, too. When someone is born, things change. When someone rises from the dead, things should change, too.

This is Easter, the day we celebrate when our Lord Jesus the Christ "was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead" Rom. 1:4.

What does it mean for followers of Jesus that He is Risen? Besides one day a year, what does it mean for us? Well, if our Lord is Alive and has defeated death, that should mean that we are a people who do something.

James says that our faith is dead unless it is accompanied by action (James 2:14-26).

Paul calls the entire group of the followers of Jesus a body, and he says that we should be growing.

"And [Jesus] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ....speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." Ephesians 4: 11-2,15-16

The strange thing about a body that is alive is that it is always moving. Even when we sleep, we move. We twitch. We fall out of our beds sometimes. We breathe. Being still really isn't an option for something that's alive; even if the movement isn't visible to the eyes, it's still there (like growth over time). Dead things, they rest all the time. In fact, they never move on their own.

But our Lord didn't stay dead. He rose from the grave. Then, He went for a walk with some of His followers and opened the Scriptures to them (Luke 24:13-35). He also went to visit His apostles and ate some fish with them (Luke 24:36-43). Then He tells His followers, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." (Luke 24:46-47)

Jesus lived a life of constant and consistent prayer. He alone had perfect beliefs and spotless orthodoxy. But He didn't stay on His knees or stay in Scripture study; He walked out of the grave. He calls us, His followers, to be alive and active, breathing in His Word, breathing out repentance, receiving His Gospel, and giving it freely to all who will listen. He calls us to sell all that we have and follow Him (Luke 18:22). He calls us to go throughout the world (including next door) and make disciples (Matt. 28:19-20).

What is He calling you, specifically, to do? Because we can't leave it to the "professional pastors;" it's not just fingers that move, it's an entire body. Even if you don't know which part you are, you know you're a part if you follow Him. And each part must be working properly if we're going to grow up into Christ, the Head (see Eph. 4:15-16 again).

Here's the scene: It's the Championship game, and all of history has been waiting for this moment. Jesus takes on sin, death, and the world (joined just after the bracket was made) for the Title - King of All. It's Jesus 1, Hell (the monicker they took) is still at zero, and there are just seconds on the clock. Jesus holds the ball in the air and looks at the stands. Everyone is rushing the field....can we really keep our butts in the bleachers?

Monday - Sunday Missionaries

We're all familiar with the "Great Commission" Jesus gave His disciples, right? It's found in Matthew 28:18-20, and Jesus says:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

There's a ton of great things to pull out of this passage that directly relate to our lives and how we follow Jesus. One is that the entire command is based upon and rests with Jesus' complete authority over all things (mentioned before and after the command to go and make disciples). Another is that making disciples is the goal, and part of that is teaching people to observe all of Jesus' commands and baptizing them. Those could be sermons and/or blog posts all on their own.

What really has been hitting me is that there isn't a time-clock attached to going and making disciples. When I'm worshiping with my church family on Sunday mornings, I get to pray with, for, and receive prayer from Christ's people and thus work to make disciples. On Monday mornings, when I go to work, I get to interact with my co-workers, showing them the grace and love of Jesus, and letting my good work shine so that they see my Father in heaven's glory (see Matt. 5:16). Every night, how I serve my community, how I rest with my family, how I play with my kid, how I date my wife......all of this is tied to making disciples. It never stops.

How can this be done? Wouldn't it be exhausting? Well, yeah, if the Gospel was something in addition to my life. What I want is for my life, moment by moment, to be lived trusting Jesus, the One who died to bring me completely before God and in His perfect love. If my life is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Gal. 2:20), then He should flow out of me into every area of life.

The problem comes when I buy the lie that my life should be about something else. When I dream the dreams I hear on the Point (local radio station), about having a good time, finding some kind of happiness (even if it's only for a night), about finding satisfaction in sex...then, yeah, living out Jesus' Gospel is exhausting. It's like I can't seek those things and obey Jesus at the same time. It's like I can't follow my dreams and Jesus' mission simultaneously. It's like Jesus will not be satisfied until I'm completely His....it's like He really is King of my life, like He really is the One true Goal and God of my life. Yeah, it's just like that.

Lord Jesus, take away from us our idols, those things we put in place of you, those things we seek for joy and life instead of, or in addition to, you. May You truly be the one living through us. May Your command to make disciples become sweet and beautiful to us as You make Your authority over all things more real in our lives. Thank You for the blessing to get to work on Your mission; send us out, Lord, and move in us and through us to Your glory.