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Queen Esther & Human Trafficking

At the church where I serve as Youth and families pastor we have a contemporary service each Sunday at 9am. My wife and I lead worship almost every Sunday and once in a while I get the opportunity to speak. We are using “The Story Series” as our base for that service which is designed to walk us through the entire Bible in 31 weeks. This week was about the book of Esther, a woman of beauty and courage. I wanted to share my notes from yesterday’s message because I think this story needs to be shared over and over again.

Esther one of the few women in the Bible that gets her own book. Esther holds a very important place in Israelis history, a history that could have ended if it were not for this brave girl. But the story isn’t an easy one, there are some pretty messy things that happen in the story of Esther. Like many old testament stories we might be tempted to think simply of the kid version of the story where the king hand picks Esther the most beautiful woman in all the land, she saves her people from an evil man named Hamen and they live happily ever after.

If the story of Esther was not in the bible I’m sure it would be a Disney princess movie. From rags to riches, from being a foreigner to being the queen of all the land. But it might not meet the PG standards.

But lets look at the story, deep into the story and find what God’s plan in all this was.

Our story begins today with another woman on the throne, well not exactly on the throne because the king, king Xerxes was on the throne but his wife Vashti was queen.

King Xerxes loved to be extravagant and to party, who wouldn’t be when you are the ruler of 127 providences. To show off his wealth and extravagance Xerxes had a 180 day fair, like a worlds fair of sorts to display his kingdom to his VIP guests and to top it off he gave a grand banquet to all his guests that lasted 7 days. At this banquet was an open bar and all the wine anyone wished to drink.

So in other words it was a drunken mess, like a tailgate party that has gone on for way to long.

At the climax of drunken party Xerxes has this bright idea of inviting his wife to come parading her beauty before him and his All male guests.

But Vashti would not have any part of it. She would not come to the king’s request and entertain the watching lustful eyes of the drunken men. She would not do it. She would not disgrace herself.

That choice that Vashti made was a courageous one. To refuse the king could equal death. But she would not allow her self to simply be an item, a possession for the king to do with as he pleased.

She stood strong and because of her stand she was banished.

So with Vashti banished the King was in need of a new queen, and this for Xerxes was not something to be taken lightly. He sent men through out his 127 providences to bring to him young girls that might be suitable to be queen.

These girls had no choice in the matter they would be taken from their homes and brought to the palace to be placed under the care of a eunuch. They would be given spa treatments for months.

When I read this in Esther this past week it struck me that these girls in away were trafficked away from their families, their homes and forced and trained in the ways of pleasing the king.

IMG_4547 In the past few years I have been made aware and learned a lot about human trafficking. Human trafficking, is modern day slavery. Repackaged and reformed to be as much out of the publics eye as possible, people are entrapped, enslaved, forced to do unspeakable things with little to no freedom or hope.

In third world countries the poor become indebted to the rich and can never repay, families are forced to sell their children as workers in factories or sending them to other countries because they are promised a new life and wealth but when they arrive they are tricked and coerced into sex slavery, prostitution and drug smuggling. They are stripped of their human rights, dignity and told they mean nothing to anyone.

This is a sad truth. Slavery didn’t end in 1865, it might have slowed down when the Civil War ended but it didn’t stop. And it’s not just in other countries across the sea it’s happening here in our own back yard. When I lived in Kansas I learned that Dodge City, which was 45 min away from my school, was a hot bed for Human trafficking, the stock yards were a prime spot for prostitution and drugs. The highway to dodge went right by my college… those people passed right by us and we didn’t even see them.

Even here in North Carolina human trafficking happens, my wife and I attended an event last Saturday to raise awareness for human trafficking and a girl at the event shared a little of her story, she grew up right here in Greensboro, NC, she wound up a victim of trafficking.IMG_4490

Human trafficking is as real and it happens, it even happened here in the story of Esther.

Esther was taken by Xerxes men to the palace to be beautifully prepared to meet the king. Their one job now was to please the king…

When I read this story I find this to be the lowest point in Esther’s life. She had been through a lot, from the lose of both her parents, to be raised by her uncle, to now being take from the only family she has and forced to compete to be queen.

Before Esther was taken her uncle Mordecai advised her to tell no one that she was a jew.

In a fairy tale sorta way Esther is chosen by the king to be his next wife, we don’t know really if Esther really wanted to be queen, but we do know she didn’t have a choice. The king thought she was beautiful so she became is queen.

Fortunately for her, her uncle Mordecai lived in the same city and so she didn’t lose all connection with him. In the story Mordecai find out about a plot to kill the king and saves the king. In response to Mordecai’s saving his life the king has his second in command Haman honor Mordecai. Haman happens however to hate Mordecai and so plots to kill Mordecai but thats not enough Haman wants to kill all the jews so he tricks the king into making a decree to have all the jews killed on a certain day.

But the king nor Haman knows that the new Queen is a jew.

In Esther 4 Mordecai makes Esther aware of whats going to happen to the jews and pleads with her to help them.

Esther 4

When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.
So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”
When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions.

I love Mordecai’s reply to Esther, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

For such a time as this. In the book of Esther God is not mentioned once but the evidence of God’s plan is blatantly present. Here in these first moments of Esther’s queenship she is faced with a great challenge, Haman has doomed all jews, but Mordecai sees something different, he sees hope, he sees the position that Esther is in was meant to help save the jews.

Esther new that there was a chance the king would not want to see her, that he could just as easily banish her as he had Vashti but she was willing to take the risk, she was willing to have courage and stand for her people who couldn’t stand for themselves.
we know from the rest of the story that the king does grant her life and he attends her little banquet twice, we learn that Esther has the courage and guts to tell the king what is troubling her and how Haman has set out to bring an end to her people. She has the courage to speak for those who could not.

Sadly the king couldn’t reverse the decree but he does allow the jews to defend themselves and on the day set out to be the destruction of the jews turns into a victory against their enemies.

What do we take away from this story?

How does this story of Esther effect our lives today?
When I read this story I see a young girl who stands up with courage and turns the worst possible thing into the best possible thing. Who doesn’t lose heart even though she went through one of the worst possibly life experiences ever, I see a girl that stands up and fights for those who cannot fight for themselves, literally.

So us?

What are we going to do?

I told you earlier about Human trafficking. I’ve told you about people that cannot speak for themselves, that are not free, that each day are figIMG_4555hting for their lives. But does that break your heart, because it does mine, it hurts to hear about children how are forced to work, kidnaped, sold and mistreated.

We have a choice, just like Esther had a choice, you are placed her in this time and in this place just for this. To stand up for others, to fight for freedom, it’s going to take courage, it may cost us much, maybe everything but is human life not worth that, is not each human being in need of love, worth giving love to simply because they are created by God.

My Heart breaks for humanity, for the broken and the captive.

If we are going to call ourselves followers of Jesus we have to carry on what he started… at the beginning of Jesus earthly ministry he read from Isaiah and it’s our challenge today.

Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

If we don’t know what to do find someone who does? If anything we need to speak for those who can’t.

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So Thankful…

So, I know it’s not common to start a new paragraph with the word “SO”, however, I thought that it should be done so thats what I did. So, as I went for a walk this morning with my wife I thought that today would be a great day to make a blog post, a post very much overdue. So, here I am writing this post not out of regret for not writing in a long time, but rather, writing out of a thankful heart. That’s what I want to focus on today, the things that I am thankful for. I could just make a list of the things, but that lacks meaning and I can imagine myself getting bored reading someone else’s list of the things they are thankful for… So to infuse more meaning into this post I want to explain why I am thankful for these things.

1. My Wife, Megan. I’m so thankful for her. Her personality is an artful conception, there is such meaning and beauty in her IMG_1871just being herself. The other day she told me she sees and hears things in colors and shapes. It’s as if she sees the world in a painted form that she sometimes gives me a little glimpse into. She is funny and doesn’t hesitate to remind me so. She is crafty and artistic. She is beautiful and thoughtful. We have been married a few months over a year now and it’s been just a small sample of what forever together is going to be like. I’m thankful I get to spend forever with her.

2. Family, I don’t live near my family right now and, well, somedays that sucks. But really I am thankful everyday for them. For the memories we made growing up and our relationships. Having four sisters was interesting to say the least but I wouldn’t trade any of them for a brother. Love was aways in the house and the house was always packed… Not literally, but my family – even though they can drive me nuts – always has shown me love, even when I move far away and I’m not around much. I’m thankful that family is family no matter how far away.

3. Laughter, I really enjoy laughing. I think this probably comes from growing up in a full house and always having something or someone to laugh at, or with. Laughter is an overflow of Joy. If life doesn’t seem to to have any joy just find something that’s funny! Laugh a little. There was one week this year that I laughed harder than I had in a long time, I was laughing so hard I cried. It feels so good to laugh. Also, I will never look at scrambled eggs again without laughing… But that’s a different story for another day… ,Abe.

IMG_15484. Experiences. So thats kind of a broad thing to be thankful for, but thats what I am thankful for. Experiences. This summer, Megan and I got to go out to Oregon to a friends wedding. It was my first time ever going to Oregon and it was amazing looking out and seeing the mountains rise out of the desert-like land of central Oregon. We stayed in a house with the other members of the wedding party and had a blast getting to know new people. It’s always a blessing getting to celebrate a new chapter in our friends lives. Megan and I also got to travel to Haiti this fall and be a part of a medical missions team there. It was an eye-opening experience and hard to put into words. There was so much we learned and saw on that trip. I am thankful that God has given us opportunities to serve everywhere we go.

5. Challenges, I’m thankful for all the challenges that have come with being a youth pastor, with learning to be a husband, with living in a state that is not my home, and navigating the adventure of life. These challenges haven’t always been fun or easy, but they are shaping me and the more I stop and think about life, the more I am thankful for them.

DSC008446. Interruptions. Let me explain. Yesterday, my friend Thomas came and spoke at our contemporary service and one point he made was about how God wants to interrupt our routine, our cycle of how we do our lives. Thomas explained how Jesus was a beautiful interruption. Jesus wasn’t the Messiah that the Jewish leaders were expecting. He wasn’t a normal Rabbi either. He was an interruption, God’s divine interruption. I’m thankful for Jesus interrupting my life. For knocking me out of my routine.

My hope this Thanksgiving is that we can let Jesus be that beautiful interruption in our routine. That in the midst of the turkey, too much food and football we might stop and really be thankful. Not just a passing quick ‘thanks’ either. A real genuine, “SO, let me tell you why I am thankful.”

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Memory, Mind and Moving Forward

 

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”- Colossians 3:2

 

Memory: (noun) “the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms”

 

Over the past few years I have acquired a growing fascination with the human brain. The thought that we think sometimes blows my mind. There is such complexity and mystery to the brain that anytime that I spend any amount of time at all contemplating it, I am blown away and in awe of how it all works, of course this leads me back to the very creator and engineer of this complexity.

As a group of friends and I were sitting in a house in Mebane, NC last night discussing some of the things that we were going through someone made the comment that “the fact that we can remember, or have the capacity for memory is an awesome blessing that God has given us.” In the context of our conversation we were discussing experiencing God and how often times, that is what our heart desires but we get discouraged because we go through times where we don’t feel him. And that is where memory comes in, in those times where we can’t seem to feel him, God has given us the memory of when we did.

Just yesterday I was looking back through some of my earlier blog posts and I found one that I wrote while still in college out in Kansas. In that blog I quoted Donnie Hinshaw who was the pastor of the church that I attended out there,

 

To hope in something means the state of life you are in is a state of discontent”

 

In that sermon I remember him talking about living with a Holy Discontent. A discontent that says where I am is not where I always want to be, a “holy” discontent is when that discontent is focused on experiencing God and being in a relationship with him. Right now I would have to say I have a pretty holy discontent. Not because where I am at is a horrible place but for the fact that I want to know, experience and feel God more, then what I do right now. I can remember those time where God really moved in my life. Those times where what I was doing and how I was living was intentionally geared toward pursuing a relationship with him. Those moments moved me forward, allowed me to take risk and strengthened my trust in God.

I think sometimes we get these ideas that the life of a christian should be full of these mountain top experiences and everyday is going to be full of miracles. However, that is not how it works, granted we may have those mountain top moments where God blows our minds, but in reality God wants to be with us in every moment. God takes the mundane and fills it with meaning. Just look at the life of Jesus, the majority of his life was spent living with twelve men. He traveled around taking the daily things of life and teaching them with those things. He did miracles but there were days where he didn’t. He blew the disciples minds but there where times where they were confused because he wasn’t the Messiah that everyone was expecting. Jesus spent three years helping the disciples experience him and fill their minds with memories of his life with them, so that when he was gone they could share those memories with the rest of the world.

One of the things that really stands out to me about the early church is that they were in each others homes, they were building community, they were eating together so that they could share together in the memory of Jesus. At the last supper Jesus said “Remember me when you take this cup and eat this bread.” He didn’t just say this because he was going to the cross the next day he said this so that this moment would be written in the minds of his disciples, that they would remember all the moments they had with him and that memory would move them forward.

Moving forward. What I mean by this is that our minds have the capacity for an endless amount of memories. Jesus doesn’t just tell them to remember, but rather to go and make new memories, to go and make disciples. To go and live life with people just like he had lived life with them. The disciples could have just settled into the mundane. They could have just kept the memories to themselves and let those three years be the only memories they had with Christ. The apostle Peter even tried this by going back to being a fisherman after Jesus died, but Jesus showed up and reminded Peter of what he had taught him and asked him to do (John 21:15-25).

So what does this have to do with us. I think sometimes we settle for simply living off the memories of old rather then making new ones. In the context of the church I think this is why so many churches around america are on the verge of dying. They have stopped living, they have settled for the mundane, they say this is what we use to do and this is what we will always do and we can’t change. Those churches like to talk about the glory days, they like to talk about when all the pews were full and about all the things they use to do. They speak of these experiences like war stories, there is this feeling of it being a long, long time ago in totally different situation. What breaks my heart about this is that it leaves a feeling that there is no future, there is no hope, and any discontent there may be is a discontent for what once was rather then what could be.

DSC03193_2We as human’s have this ability to get overwhelmed with what the world around us is doing. We focus so much on the crazy messed up world that we forget God, we forget we have experienced him, we forget he loved us, we forget he saved us, we forget how to be in relationship with him, we forget that church isn’t about the program, numbers or methods but about the people being in relationship with God and each other. We forget that we have the opportunity to experience him everyday. We forget we have hope. I believe churches will close their doors and they will figuratively dye because they refuse to move forward. A whole generation may wonder in the desert like the Israelites because they have a great fear of moving forward, a fear that experiencing God in a new way may challenge everything they know, a fear that everything might change, a fear that the new memory may be painful, hard and risky.

The memory of Jesus will moved forward not by the organized established church but by the people that are willing to say “the memories I have with God are not enough, I want more”. The people that are willing to move forward, pick up the cross and move toward Christ with the holy discontent, that where they are isn’t where God wants them to stay. I can say that is is a challenge for myself as well, I realized recently that I had been riding off of my memories of past experiences with Jesus and others rather then making new ones. I realized that I had settled with just being content with who I was and what I was doing, but when my wife pointed out something to me the other day that I need to change it challenged me to really look deep into my own heart and ask myself what I’m doing.

As I have thought about this I have tried to put this into a context of where I am at in life right now. Just this year I got married to a beautiful young woman that I love very much, it took a lot of risk on both of our parts to trust that this what we wanted for our lives. It forced us to change, it daily challenges us in the way that we live and how we see the world. I can’t live the same way I was living before I had a wife, I had been living alone, eating frozen pizzas and hamburgers, watching what I wanted to watch and doing whatever I wanted to do. Having a wife has made me realize how selfish that way of life is and providing for her and myself isn’t ever going to be easy but it’s totally worth it.

Another thing that I have realized recently is I can’t continue the relationship simply off of old memories. Where we are living is a whole new place from where we started dating, in almost every way. To strengthen our marriage we have to be intentional about creating new memories and doing the same things that we were doing while dating doesn’t always mean that much. We have to do new things, take new risks and say “what I know about you isn’t enough, I want to know you more.” Sometimes that is scary because that means we have to open up, be honest and move forward.

I have a holy discontent for life because I want to make new memories with God and those around me that I love. It starts with setting my mind on Christ. Setting my mind intentionally on pursuing a relationship and being willing to move forward. Right before the Colossians 3:2 passage Paul reminds the church at Colosse that they had been raised with Christ and Christ was seated at the right hand of God. In this he is reminding them that Jesus had already concurred death, he had already forgiven them, he had already saved them, and that setting their minds on things above was to set their minds on Jesus.

Going on from there Paul says in verse 3-4, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life, appears, then you will appear with him in glory”…

 

And in Verse 5… “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature”

 

Then he lists all these things that aren’t what we need as followers of Christ for we wont find him in those things and in contrast he writes in Verse 12-17… “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievance you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

 

Paul reminds the church that Jesus is their life and then he reminds them of what that looks like to live as if Christ really was their life. He encouraged them to continue in the future to live this way, to continue to experience what it means to be God’s chosen people. The memories we have with God should move us forward toward more. We have to ask the question is Jesus just a memory or a story I read about or is he alive, seated on the throne and is he my life?

 

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the Life.

 

I am discontent with anything short of Jesus being my life.

 

-Caleb Hunter

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Restore My Joy… Enable Me To Go

“Yet I will Rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of the deer, he enables me to go on the heights.”-  Habakkuk 3:18-19

In October of 2012 I moved from Indiana south east to North Carolina, I left my family and a great group of friends behind. I didn’t fully realize how much those friends really meant to me until I found myself battling loneliness in my little apartment. I missed the deep philosophical conversations about competition that my friend Bobby and I would have over a game of cards. I missed the late night runs to Stake N’ Shake and our off key renditions of the Avett Brother’s song “Shame, which I’m sure we sang a thousand times. I missed the random weekly get togethers at someone’s house. You can’t really recreate that atmosphere of joyful community we had. That longing to just be together with others went with me when I left.  Ever sense those first few weeks here I have been praying for a community of people that I could just worship with and be myself. People who were more interested in being the church rather then doing church.

Over the months I started to get more discouraged and more lonely. I was discouraged by the fact that even in the church that I work at as youth pastor, there wasn’t that community. The doing of Church was all there, but the level of community and openness that I have had before was not. I found that it is much harder to lead when you feel like your running on empty. I am such a people person it hurts when I have to be alone. I think this probably has to do with the fact that I was raised in a house with four sisters and parents who always welcomed in our friends. When you are around people so much like I was growing up sharing life is just part of living and so when I am in a place where I am less able to share life with others it feels like I start to die. It’s as if my souls is fragile and weak outside the context of community.

Slowly, I started to make a few friends through some retreats that I attended as a leader and started to see hope again of community. Hope is a powerful thing, when hope takes root the world starts to seem like such a brighter place than before. So as I got to know these people a little more I started to hang out with a guy also named Caleb, which I find ironic. That was the start of God answering my prayers. I had not given up, but my hope had been fading.

IMG_2740Two weeks ago Caleb ask me if I want to go to a house concert in Greensboro where a local band was playing. I didn’t know the band but that didn’t bother me because concerts are one of my favorite things. So we went to the concert in someones living room where we knew no one. There was maybe 30 people crammed in the front room of the house. The small intimate space made for an awesome setting and the music started playing and I felt my soul coming back to life. Every word of the each song sounded like sweet worship to my ears.

After the show we were leaving and ran into the lead singer in the street. We started talking and just out of the blue he invited me to a monday night worship gathering that he and some friends have every week. I was stunned and excited because in my heart I knew thats what I wanted, really what I needed. A rough week went by and I sorta forgot about it. But then monday hit and I remembered the invite and looked him up and asked him where the gathering would be. He told me but said he wouldn’t be there. I thought about not going because I made the excuse I wouldn’t know anyone but I felt God kept saying you need to go, just do it and trust me. So I went, I drove up the greensboro to a neighborhood I had never been to, to a house I had never seen to hang out with people I have never met and it was exactly what I needed.

When I showed up I knocked on the front door but no body answered, after making sure my directions were right, I knocked again and realized the door was unlocked and cracked a little. I would’t recommend this but I let myself in. I heard some people talking in the back so I yelled hello and walked in. There were two guys there who welcomed me as if I was suppose to be there and just like I was a friend.

Others started showing up about 20 of us were there and we all shared a meal and talked. It felt like home to me. I didn’t know anyone when the night started but I felt like I was suppose to be there. After we ate we all moved into the living room and two of the guys started leading worship. There wasn’t sheet music or hymnals, they just picked a key and started singing and everyone joined in. As we sang I was reminded of my time in High school where we use to have a time of worship every wednesday night, where we would just sing worship songs together, no set order of songs or set time. We would all pray for those who needed prayer and just share together.

As the the group sang “Restore the Joy of my salvation God, be my hope oh Lord”, I was filled with Joy again. Joy that i could just be with people that just wanted to be together and sing praises to the Lord. People who just wanted to share a meal and conversation for no other reason than to be in community. It says in Acts that the early church met together, broke bread, prayed, worshiped and just were the church. The church was the people the community. I realize my faith is much stronger in the context of community. When in a place where I can be myself and just sing with all my heart for the Lord. Where life is shared in open honest community.

As the night closed the group shared praises and prayer requests.  There was both joy and sorrow shared with no hesitation. I told the group that I had been praying for a place, a community where I could just worship with others my age and felt like God had lead me there that night. It’s one of those God things. You look at it after the fact and say wow, I didn’t see that coming but I sure am glad it happened. As I drove away I felt God restoring the joy of my salvation.

When I woke up the next morning, I turned on my Bible app on my phone and read Habakkuk 3:17-19 “Though the fig three does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stall YET I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights”

The Lord has restored my Joy and he is my strength, out of the loneliness and times when nothing seemed to be going right God was still working. He is faithful to restore, even when it doesn’t seem like it in the midst of the drought. He will enable us to God where he leads. I hope to go back again to be with this group of people, to be in community and to go where God leads.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

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Day 22 “A Year of Thoughts”: You want others to be passionate but are You?

Some one asked me the other day about helping them brainstorm about how to make the college more passionate (for Christ that is). To be honest I was surprised they asked me from what little interaction that I have had with them, but I also haven’t really tried to figure out why they asked me. But since that moment of them asking, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about questions that might be raised as to why they want the campus to be more passionate and how that might happen, or what might change.

 

Why they want it? Whatever it is to happen comes from the core of the longing we have as a part of humanity to have real intimate, passionate community with others, in this case the longing for passionate community with other believers on campus.

 

I believe everyone can be passionate to an extent, but getting people to live that out is another thing. They have to be intentional about life, sometimes when people talk about living with passion or being passionate they are really talking about living life, living life to the fullest. It means being intentional on how you use your time, how you invest your energy into useful things, how you challenge yourself and how you live your life. Being passionate is finding ways to live your life to the fullest. That might mean turning off the draining time wasting video games or movies and spending quality time building relationships, or reading a book, or challenging yourself to be creative.

 

If you want to be passionate start looking for people that are passionate. What do they have? How are they intentional? How are they creative? What is holding you back from letting go of everything that keeps you from living life.

 

Find distance and space to grow.

 

This might be a challenge but if you really want to be passionate you have to be willing to be challenged.

 

They Go together.

 

Make a list…

 

Brainstorm…

 

But don’t settle for less

 

Even if that means challenge, change and a little creativity.

 

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

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Day 10 “A Year of Thoughts”: What is your focus? Let Us Heal Together

What you focus on here on earth will be your focus in heaven”

 

 

I went to dinner alone tonight because my girl friend was gone and most of my friends had already eaten, so I scanned the tables for someone to talk to. As I did I found an elderly man that that I knew use to live in town and had been a part of this community for a long time. Being a part of this college community in small town Kansas for three years now I had learned his name, but really didn’t know much about him at all. So I chose to go and sit at his table hoping that I might learn something from him.

 

I’ve found that almost all older men have a story to tell and often are waiting for someone to share it with.

 

In this case it held true.

 

Tonight I began to learn the story of Robin Johnston and the focus of his life.

 

There are just some people that you can look at them and you can see the kindness, passion, and love that they have tried to pour out for years. Robin’s smile and passionate kind eyes seem to say that as he reaches out his hand to introduce himself. There is nothing shy about him, he spoke to me as if he had known me for quite some time and as we talked we realized our lives had more connections than we thought.

 

Robin went to school here at Barclay College back in the days before it was changed to Barclay college. He told me about how after graduating he wanted to get more experience in ministry so he pastored out in Berkley, California. He said it wasn’t always easy because many of the people were quakers and christians by name only, however, he said that the four years that he had there were some of the best years of his life. From there he and his wife moved to Chicago, where he went on to get his master’s degree at Wheaten College. Another great learning experience that he said helped him to grow.

 

Eventually, Robin found himself back at Barclay this time as a professor. As we talked I learned that he had taught my mentor Paul Romoser, when Paul was a student here. It was cool to see Robin’s reaction to know that someone he had taught had in turn taught me. Some of the leadership and youth ministry ideas that he had passed on were still being passed on. I learned that much of Robin’s focus in life had been teaching others how to live life and do ministry.

 

He spent years investing in people in the United States and around the world. When I find people that have spent their whole lives striving to do what they believe God called them to do I’m honored to even know them, nonetheless, to carry on a conversation with them. Even in his old age Robin expressed his worries and his heart for the this generation and the next.

 

Over the course of our conversation, I tried to explain my vision of “love helps” and how I wanted to make the focus of my life about training leaders and helping people life life to the fullest. I believe often times in ministry or just any occupation, or way of life we can make our focus about doing things rather than trying to focus on what really matters. I don’t want my life to be about doing things but rather loving people. As we learn to love people then we will learn to do things. We can change the world.

 

In chapel today Derek Brown, was talking about how the world is full of tribes. Tribes that stand for different things, they have different purposes, different banners they carry, and different ways to live. Likewise the church is one of those tribes, but sadly the church has become an ineffective tribe.

 

See the early church was a tribe that understood that Jesus teachings and may of life were meant to be applied. They did apply them and the world was forever changed but why are we ineffective today?

 

 

Well because we have lost our identity and our community.

 

 

The early church did everything together. They ate together, they lived together, they shared life together. Derek made the point, “that the disconnected church today would call that a cult.” As followers of Christ our identity is in the suffering and love of what Christ did on the cross for us. That is what has really changed our lives and freed us to live, yet we have forgotten. We have forgotten our focus. We have forgotten how to live in community?

 

One of the thoughts that I have been going over for a while in my head is that Jesus and the early church never separated themselves from the broken hurting people of the world.

 

They were living with, eating with, sharing life with the broken and finding HEALING TOGETHER.

We have a lot of broken hurting people in this and the next generation. Yet they are longing for identity, a place to fit in a community and they long for healing. But the communities that should be called forth to love them and walk with them through the healing of those hurts and wounds are often to busy doing things to love them.

 

In Matthew 16:19 Jesus says, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what ever you loosen on earth will be loosen in heaven.”

 

Binding and loosing is a matter of what we are focusing on. Where is our focus, because those things that are our focus, well they matter in the end. Is our focusing on loving people, sharing life, and living the way that Jesus did?

 

Are we finding the broken and hurting and finding healing in Jesus together.

 

Jesus was never disconnected from his world.

 

He knew the hurts, he knew people’s stories not just because he was God but because he spent quality time with them. He slowed down enough to listen and to care.

 

The church, we the church, we the people that claim to follow Christ and represent him as a tribe that stands under the banner of love has often been guilty of divorcing ourselves from the world that needs us the most. We stopped being an honest, real, open and raw community that wants to heal with the world.

 

We spend a lot of time and energy telling, teaching and educating the world about what we believe but do we show them with our lives. Do we invite the world to see our wounds and hurts and show them our healer? For many years the church has been so scared of Hell and made staying out of it there focus rather then facing their fears, asking questions, and exploring the world that God has placed them to love in, share in, and live in.

 

Where is our focus?

 

Is our focus on freeing and loosing the world around us so that we might allow them to see our savior in heaven or is our focus on condemning the world, divorcing ourselves from them and caring little about people that God created.

 

After talking to Robin Johnston today at dinner I believe his focus is still about learning to know God more, to love people, and to invest in their lives. It may mean just coming to the college to have a meal once or twice a month and talking to students. He doesn’t do a lot of the stuff that he use to. He doesn’t get up in front of a class and teach like he did when he was a college professor, but if he were to read this I would want him to know that he is effective in what he is doing now. Why? Because his focus.

 

In the span of a thirty minute dinner he ate with me, shared life with me and told me his story.

 

That is church.

 

Encouraged by his words to chase my dreams of learning to love and help the hurting heal I feel my focus is in the right place.

 

What is your focus?

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

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