Power in The Powder

I’m having to turn over an old, new leaf…get it? An old, new…never mind. I used to be a youth pastor. I now consider myself a Youthasauros. Living in the cauldron of extinction. I was a serious youth pastor…I used to say about one of my groups that it would take “naked women and fireworks to make them happy.” I was kidding on the outside but screaming for help on the inside. We continually meet with the few who gather here on Sunday nights as we have done for a couple of years or so. Waiting for something to break out. And better yet, there are many days when I am at the church and I watch the crowd gather outside the door when Beaufort High lets out. Amazing.

This week we’ve been in sort of an experiment. I challenged our church family to show up between 2 and 4 this week to witness the possibilities that we have when students hang out right outside the door everyday. Sometimes, they peek in while I am studying or staring back through the tinted glass. “Go away kid! I’m studying for Sunday. You can’t just come in here, it’s a church now. I’ve got to study!” Something a lot like Jesus, I’m sure.

This week has been especially cold in Beaufort. Doggone cold everywhere, but especially for Beaufort. So the experiment was with hot chocolate. Went to Food Lion and bought some. Made a couple simply said signs and Tuesday, we said, “How about some free hot chocolate?” And 28 of them came inside. Wednesday, 22 came in. Today is Thursday. We ran out of the kind with marshmallows, but they didn’t care. We talked a lot. We kept filling up the pump pots with hot water and we talked some more. I learned about lives lived and lives hoped for. I learned about lives where they made the best of what they had. And I’ve heard a few dreams and uncovered talents their best friends were unaware of. I’m learning about hot chocolate’s magic power. So far this week anyway. How about this? “There’s power in the powder.” At least enough power for me and a few of my friends to say, “How about a free cup of hot chocolate?” Today, 69 came in.

I have started in the last couple months to - I should just say I’ve renewed some things… I have began to process how I am going to react when their generation begins to turn to Jesus and take over the ministry world…when they confuse me with their faith without boundaries…when they totally ruin my earlier opinions of them being trouble makers and just plain ole’ punks…

I hope I will facilitate them instead of fighting them. I know they will laugh at my innovation and call me traditional. I hope I will do my best to learn from them. I’m not “Yoda-like.” I need their input in my life. I’m not going to be the old guy who tells them they can’t do what God says they can and SHOULD DO, so I hope I will do my best to encourage them. Hot chocolate.

So, what do I do now?

Right.

I’m headed back to Food Lion and I’m only buying the kind with mini marshmallows. I hope it stays cold a while.

out of Africa

I've just left Africa, the Sudan to be exact. Southern Sudan if you're looking for details and Africa is dark. I felt darkness. Perhaps the sun is so bright we squint our eyes shut. Can't see with your eyes shut. I know I felt darkness. Africa is a wonderland and a wander land. The keepers of this great land have secrets centuries old. And new things to tell that we'd hardly believe.

Africa shows how to be determined and how to pass on tradition. And how to hold out a hand and hope so hard for help. Yes, it is dark. And there are new things to make it darker...The clothes of the young man who had just been shot was darker than just a few seconds before. The look of the villager's eyes turned darker, they're tired of this. And the more of this kind of behavior they have to wade through, the darker they will become.

I have to believe though, this is not about darkness. It's not about its grip on the patient, or the impatient. The passive or the violent. And even though there are hints of darkness in every testimony of the past, the light is on the horizon and it just may begin to change everything while we're watching. It is about an eternal fight over the souls who call the Dark Continent their homeland. There are so many armies in Africa and so many are gathering. So now, I'm aligning myself with one of the armies. Not one of darkness, but of light. I'm aligning with another Kingdom. Not one that will impress and hold captive with rhetoric and explanation, but a Kingdom whose power is unlimited love, grace and mercy. The only Kingdom whose offering of friendship includes an unstoppable future of peace.

A Kingdom of healing.

A Kingdom of deliverance.

A Kingdom whose King promotes Himself and with good reason. He has been our only hope and He will be theirs. He dispels our darkness and He can dispel theirs.

And He's gathering a volunteer army, not a compulsory one. Free agents. Bond-slaves and torch bearers who make it their business to shine light into every spot that harbors cowards and cockroaches. An army whose power and demonstration promotes nothing short of The Holy Spirit.

And, as promised, "...of this kingdom, there shall be no end."

It is dark, for now.