Creativity

         One of my favorite shows of all time was "Whose Line is it Anyway?"  For those poor souls who have no idea what I'm talking about, "Whose Line" was a half hour of improv comedy that began in Britain before migrating to America.  It featured four talented actors, one host, a studio audience and no script.  The goal of the actors was to use their creativity and wits to make the audience laugh without any preparation.  One of my favorite games on the show was called "Props."  The teams created as many funny scenes as they could based around a traffic cone or a horned hat or some other random piece of debris.  I was always fascinated by how the actors saw potential in items that looked like garbage.

     One of the key components of skateboarding is creativity.  I look at our skatepark and see ramps and rails, lumber and plywood.  Our skaters enter the facility and see jumps and flips and combos...new tricks to master and original ways to skate our elements.  You can always tell when something new has happened in the skate park.  The others skaters and observers let out a roar and bang on the ramps in approval; a buzz fills Joel's Place as everyone tries to figure out what just happened and how to do it themselves.

     There is something in us that responds to the new, the creative, the original.  Something that gets excited at the sight of crossing barriers and doing things that were previously never considered...or even considered impossible.  Our skateboarders and bikers are not just kids who are bored and need to run off some energy.  They are kinetic innovators who use their bodies and rides to be creative and express their originality...while flying through the air and skidding across the ground.

     When I stand on a skateboard in the middle of the park, I do not have their creativity.  I mostly just think about not falling too violently.  However, when I stand in the middle of the skate park without the board...my mind races.  I find myself dreaming about what we could do with our building.  Who we could host.  What we could do.  How we could utilize our space more consistently in order to fund our programs for these kids.  Already we have a couple of girl scout troops who meet here throughout the week as well as a band practice, numerous shows and an NA group.  I am in discussions to soon begin local school field trips, credited college skating courses and UAF rec nights.  We will have regular group overnighters, church youth groups and worship times.  We will be able to host birthday parties, skate lessons and meetings.  Our outdoor area will be fenced in when the snow melts and enable us to host a variety of outdoor activities from concerts to basketball/volleyball tournaments to bonfires and camps...perhaps even a VBS or two.  I don't want anything to get in the way of our primary focus: at-risk youth.  But if it is a viable option to utilize the resources that we already have and bring in more revenue for programs and facilities that will help those youth, I think we should explore every option.  Consider it...Programatic Creativity.  I don't know if that is listed in any management books, but it should be.

     If you have any ideas about using Joel's Place, feel free to let me know and we will see what ideas arise.

James

Money Miracles

     Have you ever noticed that the only time that people or organizations talk about money is when they are in desperate need?    I want to talk about money today without that kind of urgency or desperation.  Desperation makes it hard to be a cheerful giver and even harder to be a thankful receiver.  Today's entry is all about gratitude and wonder.

     We are in an okay place with money right now.  There are some large debts out there that we are consistently working on, but everyone else is paid and we have a little money in the bank.  I just stopped by the front desk to ask Leah if we had anything good come in.  She replied that we got $645 from Pick.Click.Give (a way that people can donate to charities from their Alaska Permanent Fund).  I was glad we had some money come in, but I had been hoping for much more than that.  She showed me the envelope and I just laughed.  It was like $645, but with an extra 0 at the end.  We just received $6,450 from the generosity of dozens of Alaskans who want to support this work that we do here.  I am so grateful to all of you who chose to give part of your PFD to us.  May God pour blessings upon you as you have poured them upon us.

     It got me thinking about other times I received unexpected money:

• After High School I joined a musical missions group that toured the southern United States before singing in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.  All 20 of us had to raise $5,000 each to fund our trip.  Our final day in the US arrived with our team still lacking $15,000, meaning that 4 members were going to have to remain behind.  That night a woman stopped our director after our service and asked how much we still needed to be funded.  As he was replying, she pulled out her checkbook and wrote a check for the entire amount.
• This past summer Mike, Linda and I were meeting with some young businessmen who had been Joel's Place kids long ago.  We described the financial crunch we were in and listened to how God had been moving in their lives.  As we were leaving, one of them slipped a check to Mike.  He just chuckled and shook his head as he showed me the $30,000 amount.  It allowed us to pay our staff who were 3 checks behind and come up to date on our bills.
• I went to a small liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Washington.  It was outstanding, but it also left me with $60,000 in school loans.  Here was the dilemma:  I felt called to go into ministry with InterVarsity in Alaska which would pay about $700/month and yet I was going to have to pay around $900/month for 10 years.  That was going to be hard to balance.  Then a crazy thing happened.  My dad had bought stocks for all his kids during my senior year of High School.  For 5 years, mine had not moved; in fact it had even dropped a bit.  Yet during the grace year after graduation it began to rise, and rise, and rise and then soar.  Within a year and a half, I sold off most of that stock and paid off all my student loans, being freed up to go into full-time ministry.  From that day on, that stock lost money.

     When I visit churches I tell them I do not need their money.  All that I need is for them to be obedient to what God is inviting them into.  If He is calling them to give, fabulous.  If He is not, that is just fine.  God is not short of money.  He is not wringing His hands, looking over spreadsheets, trying to figure out if he can cut a few corners to find enough money for Joel's Place.  He will provide the resources for what He wants done, often through unexpected ways.  It is often through the generosity of others, through gifts large and small.  Sometimes it is through the manipulation of the stock market.  Sometimes a fish has money in its mouth. He uses it all.

     I don't need to pressure you into giving money.  There are still lots of things to do and debts to pay around here, but I can say with complete peace and assurance that God will bring in the money from somewhere.  My encouragement for you is that you ask the question of whether you should give and then be obedient to the answer, whether a yes or no.  There is a freedom and joy that I want for all of you through that obedience.

     Thank you all for your support.  May you see God's miraculous provision in your lives even greater than I have seen it in mine.

Pure, Dumb Time

     One of the greatest lessons I ever learned about ministry, and especially ministry to young men, was presented to me in my early college years.  I was attending a leadership conference with InterVarsity and the Regional Director was talking about how to lead a Bible Study.  We had discussed how to pick a passage and prep a passage and group dynamics and inductive methods and servant leadership and integrity and incarnational ministry and numerous other details surrounding successful scripture application.  I was soaking it up, trying to figure out how to most efficiently use my time to become the best bible study leader ever.  Then the speaker began talking about relationships, and how to build them with college students.  His strategy?  Pure, dumb time.
   
     Before people are willing to mine the depths of scripture with you, before they are willing to accept your leadership, before they are real with how their spirits are being worked over...they must have some relationship with you.  There must be some trust established.  If they do not trust you with the mundane events of their day-to-day lives then how will they trust you with the life-changing details of their spiritual journey?  You can try to buy that trust through amazing them with credentials, achievements, success, money, books, degrees, medals, titles or charisma.  Depending on the individual, that sometimes works.  However, the most reliable method of earning the trust of young people is time.  Pure, dumb time.

     Pure, dumb time looks like listening to stories, playing games, eating, studying, just hanging out and spending time together.   Time is a choice, an investment.  It communicates to the other person that out of everything you could be doing, out of everyone you could be with...you chose them.  You valued them.  There is tremendous affirmation in who you spend time with, even if the time itself seems fairly unproductive.  When I choose to play or read with my kids instead of including them in my multi-tasking, it is an affirmation to them that I think they are the greatest  people in the world.  Very few things communicate as loudly as attention.

     You know who have mastered the art of pure, dumb time?  My Joel's Place staff.  Leah makes arts and crafts with the kids.  She sits at the front desk and just talks and draws and looks at pictures and listens to music.  Jon is the self-proclaimed "Master of the Ping-Pong table."  He is constantly playing games and repairing skate boards and skating in the park.  Kelli always has her door open to talk or listen.  She knows every kids' name, their family, their school and what they did over the summer.  On the surface, this does not look like very serious work.   "Seriously, they get paid for playing?"  Well, yes.  And they get paid for the important conversations they have after they playing.  The same kid who comes to Jon to help with a broken skateboard will also come to him for help with a broken home.  The kids who share their favorite music with Leah also share their hopes and dreams and ask for her input.  The homeless youth who knows that Kelli cares about his summer job also knows that she cares about where he will be sleeping tonight.

     You do not get to the heart of young people, especially young men, without investing in the superficial pieces of their lives.

     We are in the process of hiring a cafe manager...which means that we have been without one for about 2 months now.  For the past two weeks I have been running the cafe, shopping and cooking the meals.  It has been frustrating knowing that there are lots of pieces of my normal duties that I cannot get to because of this additional role.  It has been frustrating having kids come in, complain about the food (which has been quite good I might add), sit and ignore me and then leave without a word.  There are other things that I need to be doing.

     And then I remember pure, dumb time.  I remember that it is through the mundane that we build trust.  I remember that relational stability is not a given in their lives, that new people arrive with the expectation of abandonment and disappointment.  I remember that they are watching, whether they hide it or not.  I remember that many of them have not eaten all day and they scarf the food down even though it is not a donut.  I remember that this is foundational work that I am doing.  The depth will come later.  There will be a window of opportunity to speak into their lives.  There will be laughter and tears and hope.  But for tonight, we're having tacos.

Promises

     The Wellspring Revival Ministry Program Directors are looking at Nehemiah together.  I wrote last week about the opening of the book; the parallels between the people of Jerusalem who had no wall to defend them and the at-risk youth who fall through the cracks of our social systems.  I continue to be struck by how relevant this study feels for where we are at right now.
     After learning of the plight of his people, Nehemiah enters a time of mourning and prayer.  We catch a glimpse in the latter half of the first chapter.  There are three main components that we read about:

• He repents for his people and their sinfulness.
• He recalls God's promises.
• He prays for favor as he moves into action.

     I am sure there is a mighty 3-point sermon to be extracted out of this prayer, but that will not happen here.  Instead I invite you to think with me about promises.  God's promises to be exact.  Nehemiah quotes scripture concerning God scattering the Israelites throughout the world if they were unfaithful and also scripture that promises a restoration if the people will turn their hearts back to their Lord.  I think Nehemiah recalls these promises to remind both himself and God that the current circumstances were not insurmountable.  Change would not come because of a regime change or penance or a grassroots movement or money and power.  Change would come because God intervened on behalf of his children.  Nothing else.  Nehemiah's first, best strategy was to reconcile himself and his people to the Creator and cling to the promises he heard many years before.

     What are the promises that God has for us?  I am thinking of this question specifically as it applies to myself and Joel's Place, but it is a question we could all ask.  I do not see God promising wealth or peace as I read scripture.  I see a promise of His presence.  I see a promise that everything will work for good...eventually.  I see a promise of forgiveness in repentance.  There is nothing in there about a well-intentioned, service-oriented mission organization being free of financial stress.  I looked.  A lot.

     What do we cling to then?  What promises sustain us through bumpy roads, when the weight of our calling feels unbearable?  That is a question worth asking, and worth asking God.  There are promises that God has made me over the years:  He called me into being a Nehemiah figure for Alaska.  He said that I would be a gift to the nations and help bring freedom to a people.  One of the most traumatic elements of leaving the mission of InterVarsity was wondering if I was leaving those callings and promises as well.  Sears did not seem like it was advancing those avenues at all.  Now that I am at Joel's Place, it seems that God is reaffirming those calls.  I am not willing to call them promises yet, but they are worth investigating in prayer.  Also worth investigating?  God's promises for Joel's Place.  Does He have anything to say about this place and this ministry?  If we remain faithful, is there something that He pledges to do?

I am eager to find out.