It’s been a while since I’ve blogged. Summer has hit us hard in all areas in the Wahe family. Some good and some not so good. In a little while the clock will strike midnight and I will enter the 40 club. I’ve really had a hard time with this birthday. I’ve had a couple of people say that 40 is the new 27 or even the new 30. I’d enjoy being 27 or 30 again. I was a much thinner dude and my ears didn’t hurt as much. I feel like all I do now is turn down my radio or yell at the kids to turn the volume down on whatever they’re doing to hurt my ears. I think the most difficult part of turning 40 is that when you’re at the store or at a place like Starbuucks, the person helping you often will say, “Sir, can I help you with anything else?” Sir? It was just yesterday that I was skate boarding down Hollywood Blvd. as a kid and sneaking into the Pacific Theater in Hollywood. It was just yesterday that my buddies and I were pool hopping in tiny run down motels around Hollywood in the early 80’s. And It was also just yesterday that I can remember sitting in my seventh grade auditorium in Hollywood waiting for the school counselor to dismiss us to our first seventh grade class of the year.

Today my family and I went to worship with some wonderful friends at a church that we truly love. There were two individuals that I got to see that I haven’t seen for a long time. Clark and Dorothy. Clark is what I refer to many folks around our home church as a surrogate parent. I had the privilege of being with Clark this past Friday for a whole day. Clark is around 83 years old. It seems like yesterday that Clark was running around town, driving a church bus picking up kids around the neighborhood to take them to church.

Clark and I spent a whole lot of time talking about old times at our home church. He asked me questions about my family as a kid. He was out of the loop for a while and there were things he had known and things he hadn’t known. we also got to see Dorothy and her family. Dorothy and I joked for years that I was her little brother. That’s awesome as a kid to hear when the family you have is holding on by a thread. Today, it means so much more when you think of what both Clark and his daughter actually did for me and so many other kids in the church. Clark later on when I “unofficially” finished high school invited me to come and live in a spare room he had, so that I could go to community college. Although, it took me around eleven years to finally finish, Clark knew that he’d be planting some seeds of faith, hoping that I might go as far as I could. If it weren’t for that opportunity and Clark and his hospitality, I would not have finsihed my undergraduate degree and I would not complete my seminary education at Princeton Seminary to become an ordained Presbyterian minister. Clark along with his family had a huge impact on my life for merely one reason. They understood the concept of loving people as Jesus loved people.

I’m convinced that when one looks at ministry in the context of a city like I was raised in, that loving the people of God as Jesus loved the people of God is how ministry is accomplished in the smallest of churches and the largest of churches. Whether you’re stuck in the desert or in the middle of the city, Jesus calls us to love one another first and foremost. In loving the people of God, the words of Jesus promised gift of rest, “Come to me all who are tired, for I will give you rest”  are magnified loudest in the way one is received into the church via the relationships that are built at the ground level. For me it was through the way Clark and so many others who loved me as a kid that I take these words of hope and apply them in the context of how I live and model Christ’ love within the church I pastor.

Who needs church growth models, large programs with large church budgets that are way understaffed and are doomed for the filing cabinet when you can take a simple model of loving others as Jesus loved and apply it to the way you do ministry in whatever context you serve? As I sat in the place I worshipped for so many years it hit me that this invitation of rest via the people of God is what the kingdom of God here on earth should look like given the current state of the larger church today. The success of the larger churches stuck in the city and the smaller churches stuck in the middle of Joshua trees will be; when those within the church rise up and testify to those who were influential to their finding Jesus promised gift of rest for their souls through the mere fact that they were loved, accepted, prayed for, and confronted with the one who comforts.

As I write this with sleepy eyes, I’ve turned forty. Today, I’m grateful for the gift of rest given to me so many years ago by people like Clark and Dorothy. My prayer today is that the people of God will rise up and proclaim God’s gift of rest as many are faced with their “stuff.”

More birthday reflections later on. Praise God for forty years of rest and praising God for the next forty years to come.

A cool ad idea that our friend Pastor Jim had at Cornerstone. Now we pray it helps attract some kiddoes for VBS.

Over a month ago a member of the church came to me and said he had something he wanted to talk with me about. He was talking with some folks and he had an idea that would be another way of reaching the local youth of the community in Littlerock. It would be a concert for the youth of the neighborhood that would be held out of his back yard. He’s invited several other church youth groups and some other bands  who will be coming to play. The persons heart is awesome and his passion for Christ and the kids in the town is obviously from the Lord. How do you say no? You can’t say no. You don’t say no. And because of this persons desire to do something to reach the kids for Christ, the Littlerock Christian Youth Fest is now taking place on Saturday, June 7th from 12pm - 5pm. The music will be loud and will hurt my ears, but it’s not for me or any of the other adults in the church. It’s for the kids and to share Christ’s love with them. The two bands that will be helping us in helping kids become followers of Jesus are farfromfamous and dead theory. Now when you listen to these guys, trust me when I say it’s loud and its loud. And music again has come full circle. So, turn down your speakers and say a little prayer for our church and the other churches who will be bringing kids to this event. And when someone comes to you with that sparkle in their eyes and has passion that’s overflowing and contagious? You might want to just listen and you might want to just yes and ask, “how can I help?” And if you are one of the cool folks from cpclr we’d love your prayers and support. We’re still needing support in the areas of food, outhouses, and other items for the day. And if any of you have a connection in getting some Bibles? Let us know.

Spent the whole day with a couple of nice folks today. It wasn’t over coffee or a meal. It was sitting with them in a court house waiting for a close relative of theirs to be arraigned. What was interesting about my experience was that it felt like another side of the call to serve in ministry that isn’t talked about a whole lot in seminary. Another side that is definetly like serving as a chaplain in a hospital.

Ministry to those facing the possibilty of a long term prison sentence in some ways is like spending time with folks in the hospital. Same feelings in some ways are expoused. If you’ve been a chaplain you understand what I am talking about. I wished I could of been able to do something. I had written a character refernce for this person. I met the attorney. I spent time with the family. I even just sat for a while waiting. Just being present. Being still.

When I arrived back to the court house after lunch, I was able to see this relative who’d we been waiting for all day. Of course from a distance and with several inches of glass in between us and the courtroom. I couldn’t help but catch this persons glance. The eyes of this person spoke volumes to what they were experiencing sitting on the other side of the glass. The tears being held back and the need to be strong as preparation for the journey this person was about to face is nothing I ever want to face. Nothing any one should have to ever face.

I quietly put both of my hands together gesturing that I’d be praying for this person. The person caught my gesture and did the same. That was about it. All I could do. As we left the couthouse again all I could was share with these couple of folks that I’d be there for them if they needed something and to keep me in the loop about their relative. I’d try to visit this relative of theirs when I was able. The imprint of today will be with me for a long time.

Again, I learned something today that I didn’t learn in seminary.

Can’t fix everything.

                                Just listen.

                                             And be still.

 Of couse as I left the court house, two cats in navy blue clothing given to them as gifts by the court, who were being released from prison, walked through the front doors of the courthouse and into the beautiful heat freedom filled day. Both threw their arms into the air and shook each others hands and walked off into the sunset with a smile. Freedom does have that ability to make us smile.

Had to smile for them. 

What a day.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3p_sYIS6C0]

A recent bowling trip with the youth at our church…