You've Got a Friend in Me

I shared lunch with a great friends this week (as I do most weeks).  It made me thankful for the friendships I enjoy.  

I am blessed with an amazing group of people with whom I get to do life.  When I stop and think about it, I am spoiled to have so many friends who I would consider close, with whom I am confortable to share my life whether they are living in my house with me (shout out to my wonderful roommate!), down the road, in a different state, or a different time zone.

I find myself appreciating the relationships around me most when I approach them with intentionality. If I plan to have lunch with a friend and make sure that we don't just shoot the breeze and talk about the weather but really talk about what is going on in our lives and how we're struggling or what successes we've enjoyed, it makes our time together seem so much sweeter.  I feel like I have invested in our relationship instead of just having someone come over to eat.  I could have people who are just "lunch buddies" all day long.  But when I care enough to share my heart or ask them about theirs, real relationship happens.  And that's what it's all about. 

I'm a big proponent of discipleship.  And I think that largely means intentional relationship.  I have a friend who is older than me and further along in life than me with whom I meet every week (with few exceptions, we've been doing this for six years and some change).  We usually drink coffee and sit in her living room (or on her porch now that the weather's nice!) and share about our lives.  We often do a Bible study together or go through a book together, but mostly we just talk.  We talk about what challenges we're facing or what wins we've experienced.  I've learned from her as she's married and a mom and in a different stage of life than me.  We take time out of our lives to meet every week. To be intentional.  And it's worth it.  

So, I try to do the same thing with people who are  younger than me, who are in a different stage of life than me, but in the opposite way.  Maybe they're still in school or living with their parents or brand new to loving Jesus.  Maybe they can learn from me, but I've found that often I'm still the one learning.  

All this to say, I'm learning more and more how life is made so much sweeter when you share it with other people on purpose.  In fact, I'm meeting a new friend for coffee this afternoon.  Then catching up with some old ones later tonight.  I am one friend-blessed girl!

Just a handful of the wonderful people I get to call friends.  Love them.

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Home Again

So, good news.  May is more than half over.  When did that happen?  

April was an extremely busy, travel-filled month for me that it just flew by without me hardly noticing!  I may have been away more than I was home.  

Just to give you a glimpse into my craziness:

It was a colorful month of driving, flying, and making wonderful memories with people who are so special to me, and I wouldn't trade the living-out-of-a-suitcase feeling I had for four weeks for anything.  BUT.  I'm super glad to be home.  To have slept in my own bed for a whole week straight.  To not have any travels on the docket for a solid month.  

Though I'm sure by the time my next outings roll around, I'll be more than ready to tackle some new adventures....

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Spoiled Rotten

I. love. surprises.

I'm not really sure why, but something about being caught off guard with something that someone has planned for me just warms my heart in a special way.

Lately, I've enjoyed several wonderful surprises.  My heart has been so full.  It was my birthday last weekend, and there were a few planned festivities - a birthday dinner with my friends, a trip to Florida to see my family.  My birthday would not be without celebration!  

But in addition to the celebrations I knew were coming, my week was peppered with wonderful surprises!  The kids at my church sang to me and gave me birthday balloons.  My boss's family surprised me with cupcakes and gifts before I left for Florida.  My boyfriend sent me flowers at my parents' house since he is in Afghanistan and couldn't be there to celebrate with me in person.  My little brother drove down from Orlando to spend the weekend with us.  I got a box of delicious birthday cookies in the mail.  My dad took me on a shopping outing (He said it was to buy my birthday present, but I think it was more just to spend the afternoon with me.).

My not-so-little-anymore brother who for a surprise visit!

Balloons from my dad!

Birthday flowers from my boo!

I felt so spoiled.  There wasn't anything crazy extravagant involved, but I just felt so loved.  The little surprises and ways people made an effort to help me feel special on my birthday and the days surrounding it just blew me out of the water.  Maybe I'm just more nostalgic than usual these days, but I think this will be a birthday week I treasure for years to come.  

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A Passage of Prayer

For the last several weeks, my pastor has been preaching out of Ephesians 3.  Ephesians 3:14-21 is a beautiful passage of exhortation and Paul's prayer for the church at Ephesus.  

This particular set of verses has been standing out to me the past couple weeks, and each time I've read it, I think about it being  great to pray over my family.

Though I don't have a family of my own just yet, I am beginning to pray through these verses over the family I do have, my future family, and even over the people in my life who I love like family.    

Every family has been named from the Father, including my future one.  I pray that we will be strengthened by the power of the Spirit, that we will have Christ in our hearts through faith, that we will be grounded in love.   I pray that we will know the greatness of Christ's love that is beyond our comprehension.  I'm thankful that God has plans for my family beyond all I could ask or imagine.  I pray that my family will glorify the Lord for generations, from now into eternity.

Do you have a specific passage that is special for your family or for you?  Do you have verses you pray for yourself or others?    

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Conference Debrief

The last couple weeks have been a whirlwind at best with two back-to-back weekend conferences in Philadelphia, PA and Austin, TX.

I have mixed emotions about times like these.  I love the adventure of being a jet setter, but I hate the inconsistency of it.  I love the new experiences I get to have, but I hate missing out on my normal, wonderful routine.  I love meeting new people, but I hate not seeing my friends for so long.  You get the picture.

The good news is this:  I had a great time, I got to turn another state green on my travel map, and now I'm back home to catch up on life and try to create a new normal based on all I was exposed to over the last two weekends.

My primary purpose in attending these conferences is to share about the ministry of Living Bread with attendees.  But one of the perks is that I get to sit in on some of the sessions and have my own life challenged, too.  

Conference numero uno was The Justice Conference in Philly.  This conference is all about social justice, and the theme for 2013 (and since it was in Philadelphia) was "Justice and Liberty for All."  This is a very trendy topic in our culture right now, so the conference was attended by lots of people from lots of different backgrounds with lots of different stories but with a common goal - advancing justice around the world.  A couple quotations from Justice Conference founder Ken Wytsma that resonated with me were:

When you learn about justice, you're studying God.  When you're studying God, you learn about justice.

Just because we can't fix the world doesn't mean that we can't change it.

The second conference (the one from which I just returned) was Verge13 in Austin.  This one challenged me a little more than Justice because it focused on something that's a little bit closer to my heart: discipleship.  The theme was disciple making, and each speaker shared about some facet of this key element of Christ-following.  Because that's what Christ-following is: being a disciple of Christ.  

I have long been a proponent of discipleship - having intentional relationships with someone older (who can disciple you) and someone younger (who you can disciple) - but this weekend challenged my thinking on the topic as a whole and how I live it out day-by-day and week-by-week.  Here are a few quotes that stood out to me this weekend:

The consequences of casual, cultural Christianity are eternally tragic. - David Platt

We are all making disciples.  Are we making disciples of Christ? - Jeff Vanderstelt

The key to the health and sustainability of the church is not more evangelism but discipleship. - Alan Hirsch 

I'm still processing a lot of the information overload I experienced over the last several days, so I'm sure these will be topics of further discussion, but I just wanted to get an initial reaction down in writing.  I'm so thankful to live and work in an environment that is so conducive to being challenged and grown as a result. 

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Day Dreaming

I have managed to develop the reputation of a frequent napper among my friends.  And by frequent, I mean they think I take a nap about every day which is, unfortunately, not the case.   (It's even become a point of interest on this twitter account a friend set up to advertise some of my quirkiest ideas.)  

The bottom line is this:  I do love to take naps.  That much is true.  I just don't get to take them as often as I might like to.  

A couple years ago, I read this article about napping.  It was beautiful.  I could relate with so much of what this author says is so "delicious" about taking naps.  I have often thought of that article, so when my roommate mentioned a box of magazines that we needed to go through, I immediately went on a search for that wonderful article about napping!  I found it.  And tore it out of the magazine.  I'm considering framing it.  (Ok, not really.  But the thought did cross my mind.)  

I love sleeping in general, but in the day it's just better.  I love the dreams I have when I nap.  I love sleeping on the couch.  My favorite nap time is on a sunny afternoon.  Like Cathleen Schine says:

A nap is not a nap without light. This is what distinguishes it from a good night’s sleep. A nap is a stolen moment, not the natural culmination of the day. A nap is secret, illicit. It is sleeping during the day, and the day must be present and visible.

All that to say, there's not really a point to this.  It's pretty much a light-hearted, fluffy-pillowed, sun-shining-through-the-window kind of post.  But it's what I've been thinking about all day, so I thought I'd share.  

Oh yeah, and there's apparently scientific evidence for the awesomeness of naps.  Just saying.  

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Independency

Posts like this are a little out of my comfort zone because I feel a bit inadequate to discuss things like the theology of church planting or the most effective models for partnership.  However, it's through uncomfortable, stretching exercises that I am strengthened and challenged to grow and learn.  So, today I am being stretched and challenged. 

I work for Living Bread Ministries as their administrative coordinator, so I handle the donations, the newsletter, office stuff, and a bunch of the other nitty gritty things that are necessary for any kind of organization to function.  Though I am 100% on board with what we do, I'm not so much on the front lines of our church-planting efforts.  

I am continuously learning about best practices in Gospel ministry, and there is a wide variety of opinion when it comes to Western mission organizations working around the world in impoverished communities.  Books like Toxic Charity, When Helping Hurts, The Poor Will Be Glad, and  To Give or Not To Give all discuss pros and cons of distributing free goods and services to those in need and whether or not these are helpful and life-changing in the long run.  Many are highly opposed to Westerners giving resources, financial or otherwise, to nationals for ministry in fear that an unhealthy dependency will develop or any chance at a self-sustained local economy can flourish while others are hesitant to work with or trust nationals because of assumed lack of expertise or experience.  I haven't read through all these books (though I am working on a couple of them), so I'll refrain from discussing their ideas or suggested solutions further.  Rather, I want to focus on how Living Bread approaches this issue in our church-planting ministry.

At Living Bread, we hold to an interdependency model.  We don't step into a community, build a church, pay a pastor, pay for all the church's ministry, and let it run on it's own.  Neither do we step into a community, put our own pastor/missionary to work and call all the shots.  We work with nationals in a way that relies on the resources (monetary and otherwise) that both parties can bring to the table.  

As Americans, we can't jump into a ministry in a Brazilian or Thai slum in the same way a national Brazilian or Thai could.  Most of our church-planters have a background that isn't foreign to living in less-than-affluent circumstances, so they are well-equipped to relate to the poor and meet them where they are.  However, these men who have a heart for sharing the Gospel don't have the resources they need to serve in a full-time ministry capacity.  These communities struggle to sustain themselves, so supporting a pastor presents a significant challenge. Thus, we need each other.  We provide resources that would not be otherwise accessible, while they provide the hands and feet of the ministry.  

This interdependence also translates into the decision-making for the ministries of our church-plants.  We depend on our national leadership to determine how to best serve their communities and support their decisions without demanding specific requirements to be met. 

Living Bread's founder Patrick Hubbard says: 

This type of partnership is hard and risky.  It is often messy.  It requires a level of vulnerability that most are unwilling to accept. 

I am abundantly thankful for the opportunity I have to serve with Living Bread, and I especially appreciate this unique approach to the issue of charity, sustainability, and Kingdom work.  

To learn more about Living Bread, check us out on our website, Twitter, or Facebook.

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