the art of listening

• What are my city’s particular needs?
• What are my neighbor’s uncelebrated strengths?
• What are other folks (churches or not) doing well?

These are three very important questions that the Lord is highlighting for us right now. Another very important one that Justin McRoberts highlights here is "What is God already up to that I should join Him in?" 

When we engage our friends and neighbors around us in the Stockbridge neighborhood and at the Love Feast dinners on Wednesday nights, these are some of the big questions we are asking ourselves. 

Here is another challenging bit to chew. He writes:

"Not only do the poor need us, we need the poor to remind us what being human is about. In the same way that the poor learn to identify themselves with their lack, the wealthy likewise learn to identify themselves with their wealth. It is in the meeting of the two that we can recognize ourselves and one another as human." 

One of the theological distinctives that the Lord has helped us to understand and walk in over the years of doing work in this neighborhood on the West Side is that because we are all made in the image of God, we are all valuable and have the DNA of our Father in us. We love to go looking for the treasure of that Father-likeness in people we might not expect to find it in with our common expectations. What a joy it is to be able to see that in people who might not see it themselves, call it out, encourage and cultivate it so that it can grow.

I saw it in Dominic this last week as he confided with me in his grief over the potential of not being able to see his son anymore due to some relational tension with his mother. Dominic has asked for prayer for his son every single week for at least the last two years. After all this praying for Dominic's son, I found out while talking over dinner at the Love Feast that it is not his blood son, but a boy who he's adopted into his heart so much so that he loves him like a true son. I had no idea that this was the case because I had seen how strong this father-love in him for this boy is. What an incredible display of the Father's heart of adoption I see in Dominic!

Of course we rely so much upon prayer and the Holy Spirit in this process calling out those Kingdom traits and cultivating them, because we know that the joyful surrender of every area of our lives to Jesus and His beautiful Kingdom is the only way that those inherent Dad-like traits are going to have a chance to mature into what they were intended to be. 

Lord help us to see with Your eyes. Help us discover what You're up to and where You are already present. Help us to see how you have marked us with your own DNA. Let us surrender ourselves to You, Jesus, so that we can become who you've made us to be on this earth--and glorify you in it!

:: tim :: 

sending

Last night we had the privilege of gathering around two young women in the center of the room, laying our hands on them both, and praying to send them off to a distance land to partner with God in spreading the Gospel and growing His Kingdom. 

Michelle (right), Vision Course intern, and Casey (left), the Boiler Room house parent enjoying a moment on the front porch together.

Friends and family gathered to see pictures of the Zambian culture that Sarah has experienced several times before, enjoy some delicious dessert together, and this prayer sending as the climax of the evening.

Michelle had made plans to go to Zambia two years ago, which ended up not being what the Lord had for her then. It was a difficult and disappointing experience to not be able to hop onto a plane headed toward where she felt her heart was leading her that summer. But she submitted herself to the Holy Spirit's leading and trusted Him with her heart. This year as Michelle has been plodding along faithfully in the vision course, it was lain on her heart once again that a journey to Zambia to come alongside our friends at Love's Door might be where He was leading for her final Vision Course mission assignment. As she and other leaders of the Vision Course, Love's Door, and Crossroads Bible Church prayed, talked, listened and waited, it felt confirmed that this was the way He was leading. 

After most of the plans were in place, there was one large factor that needed to align--financial provision. Michelle began seeking support while embracing the truth that her Father always provides when He calls us to something. She found herself practicing a ruthless kind of trust as she took on several baby-sitting gigs and invited folks to partner with her in this. A few weeks ago, she and Sarah reported, both through some pretty miraculous giving, that they had each met the support goals that they needed for the trip--and then some! And so we just had to celebrate with them. 

Michelle is a Gatherer of Children, with a true gift of being able to connect with young ones she might not even know through play and her youthful spirit. We prayed for this gift to be utilized during her time in Zambia, as well as for the Kingdom to come through many other unsuspecting moments and people that the Lord divinely brings across her path. 

Sarah is God's Journalist. She is a storyteller with the visual arts and has a mission assignment for this trip to use her video camera and interviewing skills to draw out and creatively tell the stories of what God is up to in this particular part of the world. 

Please join us in praying for Sarah and Michelle on their journey over the next month. 

We prayed this over them during our church gathering last night: 

May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ go with you : Wherever He may send you; 

may He guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm; 

may He bring you home rejoicing: at the wonders he has shown you; 

may He bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

:: tim ::

tent of meeting [on commons lawn]

I turn onto the wide walkway's of the Commons Lawn at Calvin College and make my way toward it's center in the same minivan I used to drop off a full load of prayer room supplies just a week before. The 24-7 Tent in the center of Calvin's campus has been in commission this entire week with every prayer slot in the online sign-up filled by the second or third day running. As I approach the tent at about 10pm to pick up the prayer supplies, technically hours after it is supposed to have been over and done with, I see that it still looks very lively from a distance--and when I arrive I realize that there are still students using it. Not only are there still students using it, there are multiple groups of students praying both inside and out!

Ana and the team she's been coordinating meet me there and realize they are going to have to kick the students out of the tent while we tear down, but end up just redirecting them outside with some blankets to sit on as they continue to pray in huddles. We begin packing up the supplies and I overhear snippets of pray ministry going on around us:

--One group is huddled around a young woman and declaring the Truth over her that she is a daughter of the Father, first and foremost, and that the enemy can't bring a charge against her identity.

--Another girl pops in earnestly seeking a copy of the "Who I am in Christ" sheets to use to minister to a young man sporting a backpack and chucks who had just shown up asking for prayer.

--As we are loading up the van with bean bag chairs, christmas lights, and totes full of art supplies, one member of the team shares with me several stories of Jesus encounters during the week, including a young man who showed up one morning in the middle of the week saying that he had planned to commit suicide that day, but for some reason ended up there at the prayer tent and did not know why. He was able to receive prayer from those present, be encouraged to hope in The Lord, and seek help in his struggles.

As yet another student helping tear down shares with me his heart and desire to see food more evenly distributed and not gone to waste right here in this city and is beginning a practical food-waste reduction program in conjunction with his campus dining hall, I am amazed at the ways Jesus is meeting these students right where they are in prayer--His Spirit addressing hearts, comforting, restoring hope, spurring them to be agents of change for His Kingdom. He is drawing them to worship Him with their whole lives, and find their true identity and purpose IN Him. 

Thank You, Jesus for these students, for this tent of meeting--and for meeting your children here this week. 

:: tim :: 

It's back....

The prayer tent is back on Calvin College campus. 

Calvin College will be hosting a week of 24/7 prayer starting Monday, May 5th and ending Saturday, May 10th. There will be a large tent on the Commons Lawn during this time for "drop in" prayer and/or to take a "prayer shift" during the 24/7 week. The aim of Calvin 24/7 prayer is to engage God as community through prayer, to intercede for Calvin College and to advance the Kingdom of God. We invite you to sign up for an hour of prayer here: http://www.24-7prayer.com/signup/0a1a9c to join with what God is doing on Calvin's campus!

C'mon!

life

"An intercessor is one who is in such vital contact with God and with his fellow man that he is like a live wire closing the gap between the saving power of God and the sinful men who have been cut off from that power. An intercessor is the connecting link between the source of power (the life of the Lord Jesus Christ) and the objects needing that power and life. - Hannah Hurnard "

As a follower of Jesus, I often need to be reminded that "I have been raised with Christ {to a new life..}" (Colossians 3:1, AMP). I try to actively live a life aware of Jesus, meanwhile his life is at work in me. Redeeming and changing my heart.

In the place of prayer is where we can become more aware of just the kind of life and power Jesus is working in us, for us and through us. As we approach our upcoming week of 24-7 prayer at LIFE International, I am eager to see the ways that Jesus will speak about this abundant life he offers us. Many of the prayer stations in the prayer space focus on this very theme and how we have been made "In His Image" and carry the redeeming life that Jesus offers to a world that often dwells on death and darkness.

Come join us in praying this week (sign up for a slot here). Come pray, listen, sing, dance, draw and write.

Come ask Jesus about this life he offers. 

::Casey::