I have been mildly depressed for the last couple of days because I have a young friend who seems to have joined the local gang. He is a young leader and my influence is only one of the voices in his life. I am angry inside because I know too many people that have died from the violence, or the drugs, or are locked up in prison. What many of my friends lacked was a world large enough for their dreams. Street level friendship was their only comfort. Please pray for us...
I had a friend who helped save me from a lifetime of self destructiveness. He allowed me into his life. Showed me a world I never knew before and got me to desire to learn. He provided a model for part of what I do now.
What does it mean for the church to carve out paths of hope for people? Lost and disconnected is a human condition that I run into both in and out of the church... and sometimes it is me too.
Reconciliation to God without reconciliation to one another creates a distortion in the Christian message that kills the soul. (I John1)
Some kids are not "safe" but need to belong somewhere. The gang says yes you can belong to us... The Church isn't quite sure what to do about embracing the "sinner"... And that in some way is all of us...
Mercy... I have a gift of Mercy and it gets in the way of church planting because I often want to bring into groups people who do not know how to conform to those groups...
There is a reason that Jesus and our neighborhood gangs take public space seriously. Jesus showed up and demonstrated the truths he was talking about...
show and tell...
The Gangs do the same thing when they mentor others... What is at stake is not just how we think, but how we live... And Public space is where the you and I becomes Us.
There are limits to understanding certain Biblical truths... if we avoid the context they are meant to be understood in... Private Prayer... and Public actions.
An Acts 2 quality of life had a whole lot of people talking about life... Are we going to wake up in our generation??? "When the Son of Man returns will he find faith on the earth???"
Like I said I am feeling somewhat blue and angry today... I hope my rumblings are redemptive...
It is sad when the next thing one is waiting for and longing for is a Fictional movie... "The Return of The King"... at least we will get a fictional taste of heroic sacrifice for the sake of the good of all. Then we will go on and...??? Wake Up Neo the Matrix has you... Follow the???
Soren Kierkagaard warned us about a time and a future society in which the greatest desire of most men would be to have more money. Many will live and die thinking if only I had enough money I could have really lived the "good life" or a life of significance.
Mother Theresa Just sought to love one person at a time... at least she loved!!!
Do not underestimate the value of love burning in your heart.
Be angry and don't sin because of your anger. Don't let the sun go down and stay stuck in your anger... it helps me to bleed a little on this page... thanks for listening.
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