My Life the Sitcom

It really should not be a surprise that my life is a sitcom. I am a distant relative of Lucille Ball, one of the greatest sit com stars of all time. So the distant cousin of Lucy, should not be shocked when his life turns into a a sitcom. But I am always amazed when my day starts out in a sitcom way.

The other day, I was rushing around to get out the door to work. All of the elements of a sitcom breakfast and kids off to school scene were in play. Kids not wanting to get up, check. The phrase, “five more minutes (of sleep) Dad” was uttered many times. Mind you that is really intended as the snooze button on the Daddy clock radio, not an actual request for 5 minutes more sleep, but as long as the Daddy snooze button works. Then again, Daddy hit the real snooze button so many times, he missed his morning workout.

Lame excuses and bad faking of illnesses, check. It’s a good thing they’ve not read any of the books like the “Hot Zone”, etc to learn about Ebola or they would have had that. Grumpy parents not wanting to deal with it any more, check. I believe something like “if you don’t get out the door now, I’m feeding your Nintendo DS’s to a wood chipper” may have slipped out of my mouth.

Crazy pet causing last minute chaos, check. Abby, our Lab mix, pound puppy was in rare form. She knocked things over. She pulled me down the stairs, heading down the drive way with the kids to their car pool pickup, causing me to have to jump from the third step from the bottom. Thankfully, I stuck the landing.

Cranky, overworked, spouse being sent off to work, check. In a rare development, Cheri had to run out the door without her morning ritual of prayer and centering. Usually, I’m the cranky spouse running out the door for work, but this day, Cheri got to play that role. But I was hurrying out the door behind her.

Then, the last element, the over the top slap stick event. I had packed my lunch, packed my backpack I use as a brief case, put it on my back and turned to leave the kitchen. As I took a few steps, there was a loud crashing, followed by the sound of objects rolling on the floor. Never a good sound, especially for someone to hear as they are now rushing out the door.

My backpack has a cord on it to pull tight a side compartment, and it had snagged the recently filled to the top, multi-level, metal and wicker fruit basket. It flew from the counter and crashed into the floor. The apples, pears, oranges and diet bars were now scattered all over the kitchen and I dare not leave it as the dog would eat it all up.

There were only two possible reactions, according to the model created by cousin Lucy. There was the over the top crying (RICKEEYYYY), or the over the top laughter. Thankfully, somewhere, the laughter won out. I laughed hysterically and then something unexpected happened, gratitude. I actually was thankful.

Thankful that I have a wonderful wife who could be cranky with me; thankful that we have produced two miniature versions of us, complete with not being morning people; thankful to have a pet who is well and energetic; Thankful for a job to be late for, for being my own boss so I would not face the wrath of a boss; thankful for a beautiful house and food; and even thankful that the prior occupant of the house, my niece, was not a great housekeeper and our kitchen floor was not pristine and going to show a scratch from this disaster.

Let me assure you, there are plenty of other times the reaction is Ricky, or in this case CHERI, but once in a while, it’s nice to get the laughter and thankful reaction. Thank you God for this sitcom called life.

Launch Control to Villagers

Ok, no, this is not a blog article about a new David Bowie knock off of “Ground Control to Major Tom”. It is about the process of putting the rubber to the road of starting our new faith community. We’re, all of you along for the ride, in the process of starting our community. This is called Launch in church planting circles. That is the launching of our worship service.

In these church planting circles, the analogy of launching a rocket is the way this process is explained. As a lifelong space exploration nut, I have to tell you could not have been happier to hear this analogy being used. I was born 17 months before Apollo 11, and swear I can remember it. I grew up watching Apollo, Skylab, and the Shuttle as closely as many follow baseball. I could, before law school and parenthood took away the memory space, tell you the names of each of the Apollo ships (Apollo 11's Command Module was Columbia, and Lunar Module was Eagle), etc. And it is not just the space geek in me that loves this analogy. The analogy works.

In launching a rocket, you have to design the rocket, get the funding from Congress, build the parts, assemble it, prep the launch pad, transport it to the launch pad, fuel it with enough fuel (too little = boom), and launch the ship. That’s what we need to do with our new faith community.

The good ship Village was dreamed of and designed by our chief dreamer, Cheri with the Holy Spirit very much there beside her. Mind you, the Spirit and I need to have a few words about the middle of the nigh wake up calls for design meetings over the last few years. And, yes, the Village design process has been a lengthy process. I can tell you that indirectly this project (a church for progressives who have given up on traditional church, and want to change the world because of their faith) has been on the design table for a decade plus now.

The next step was getting Congress to fund this little ship. The Village is a little bit more like the International Space Station, in that it is not just the project of one nation. We are a plant of the United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ. So, you may ask why? Because together, the two offer resources that one single denomination could not offer.

The parts assembly process has been over the last several years. People and skills needed for this project have been coming together for years. The assembly process for NASA happens in a really large building, one of the largest in the world, called creatively the Vehicle Assembly Building. It’s the large white one in the picture above. Well, there’s no building that size in Toledo, so we’ve had to use a bunch of smaller ones - Kurt & Cheri’s house, The Parklane Hotel, every coffee house in greater Toledo, The Church of St. Andrew UMC , Park Congregational Church, Panera on Glendale, the Main Branch Library, the Northwest Ohio Food Bank, etc.

Now we are ready to prep the pad, move the ship there, fuel it properly and launch. With NASA, that is handled by the launch team in Launch Control at the Kennedy Space Center. They handle the assembly process, the roll out to the launch pad, the fueling, and the launch. When the rocket clears the tower at the launch pad , their responsibility ends and Mission Control in Houston takes over. That’s why you hear them say on every lift off, “3, 2, 1 Lift Off, Lift Off and the Shuttle has cleared the tower”. It’s the end of the launch team’s job and the beginning of Mission Control’s job.

To pull of our launch , we need our own Launch team. We need people who are willing to give their time and talents to help us do this. To add to our paid servants (the staff of Cheri, Jessica and Joe) we need to add a group of unpaid servants (aka Volunteers). We need people to help us get our new facility (more about that when it is officially selected) prepped. We need to come up with a marketing plan and execute it. We need to get our children’s ministries fully staffed and running; our connection groups (small groups for study, etc), our service projects continuing and expanding, financial and administrative processes started, a plan to make new members feel welcome and brought into our church family and then WE LAUNCH WORSHIP, first for us in September and for the public in October.

If we do this right, well then an amazing adventure beings. If we do this wrong, well follow this link and watch some launches go wrong and see what happens http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13qeX98tAS8&feature=fvw. Want to help launch the Village? You don’t need to commit to forever. When the Village has cleared the tower (begun weekly worship in October), some of us will go on to other projects. Others, like myself, will transfer over to Mission Control and keep this ship on it’s path.

Want to join in on the fun? Contact Cheri or I and we’ll be happy to talk to you some more and get you placed as a member of this team.

Radical Hospitality In Action

Those who write about the life of a church have coined a phrase I love called “Radical Hospitality”. It’s about a church reaching out to those who need a community and bringing them in with a radical welcome. It’s something Jesus and his followers did. Jesus, while he was creating his ministry reached out to people on the margins of his society, women, gentiles, outcasts, etc. Then his followers did it too. Imagine yourself as a person being oppressed and then having the courage to listen to a call from God to help a man, now blind, who has been killing and torturing your fellow followers of Jesus. A man did; and that oppressor Saul, became Paul. His story is one of the reasons you’re reading this blog today.

Yesterday, I got to see some of that radical hospitality in action with our fledgling faith community and I am still glowing about it. We reached out to the folks of the Old West End via the Old West End Festival. To advertise our efforts we put flyers up on telephone polls in the Neighborhood and it brought us two unlikely groups to show radical hospitality. First, in the morning, as we gathered to march in a parade, about 8 or so neighborhood kids showed up at our house. They had read the flyers and heard we were going to march in the parade and have other activities and they wanted to help. Without blinking, Jessica Lucero, our children’s leader, and the members of our community present, got these kids doughnuts and Village T-Shirts and we added to our 17 or so marchers another group of people.

The night before, a team of four of us had put those flyers up in the neighborhood. Two days later my thumb still hurts from operating the high power stapler to put those up. But, it took a group of young girls only minutes yesterday afternoon to take out about a third of those flyers. They went up and down the parade route and took down over 50 of the flyers and brought it to our location as if it was funny. Despite my wanting to do something to them, not of the Christian variety, they were shown hospitality that you can not imagine. They were welcomed to our location, given free water and a re-useable water bottle, toys, and shown a little bit of Christian love.

Throughout the day, we exceeded the welcome expected by our visitors. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters and friends, the Village ran the Village Free Store during the festival. For those who have not come, the Old West End Festival has hundreds of garage sales going on. You have to experience it to understand the depth and the breadth of things that are for sale. But offering something for free, well you get strange reactions. That’s what we did.
We gave away hundreds of things.

Sure enough, the reactions were unreal. A woman drove up, as we were still setting up and asked what the Barbie Princess table cost. She cried when she heard she could just have it for her step daughter. “My husband doesn’t like it when I spend money on these kids, but I want to make their lives so special” she said. A group of tired and thirsty kids came up and could not understand why anyone would give them a bottle of free water when others were selling it down the street. Still others would not accept things for free and would insist on giving some token amount for things the rest us could not use. Another man who talked to me was almost angry we were giving things away. “In times like these, how can you give this stuff away”. I responded how could we not give away things we didn’t need in times like these. He walked off confused, and carrying two books he liked. My favorite thing we did was with the kids.

A friend of ours owns a business making funny political and social activism buttons. He loves puns and his business, Top Pun.Com, is filled with very “puny” social justice buttons. He rented us his button maker and created these small, blank, circular pieces of paper, ringed with our community’s name and website address. The kids then were able to draw, color, write or do what ever to the white space on them. For free, we then made those into buttons, a present for them, advertising for us. Dozens of kids made these things and walked off with the only thing they could afford at Festival. Some asked to make several for Mom or others and beamed with pride, even the cynical pre-teens, with their new creation for Mom, Auntie or Gram.

At 5 PM, we tore down the Free Store, cleaned out of toys and having given away hundreds, but not enough books, and turned our attention to providing some additional hospitality at the end of a long day. Joe Woods, our music leader had recruited a band and were to provide a free concert. Music is everywhere in festival. Bands of all kinds played in the parade from the Glassmen Marching Band to a rock band on a trailer behind us in the parade. People have bands set up in their back yards, front yards and we had our band on our porch. Joe and company played for two plus hours and as I sat in my chair in my living room, exhausted, I loved Joe’s reaction, “I loved that crowd. When I play in bars, they just sit there or go about their business. This crowd clapped, they danced, they sang along”. I know he’s right about that. I was exhausted at that point but found myself up and dancing despite shin splints, etc. I can’t wait to do that in worship this fall.

Before the band played, we were at it again. Thanks to the efforts of our staff and a gaggle of volunteers, we served somewhere near, and this is a very rough count, 120 people, a meal of hot dogs, chips, and pop. Again, all for free, and again causing quite a stir. People were skeptical beyond all measure. They still could not believe anyone would do anything remotely like this.

Now, will we get members out of this? Who knows. I think we will. I know we will strengthen our members commitment to our community by it, as a member of our launch team came to almost tears talking about this being what she has always dreamed church would be like. I know I awake, having worked for 15 hours (for my day job and the Village Friday) and about 14 hours for the Village Saturday, and find myself not spent, but ready to go again. And finally, I know that a couple of hundred other people’s lives got brighter for one day for our efforts. That’s what radical hospitality is all about.

Wanna come be part of this kind of fun? Our next month or so bits of radical hospitality are June 20th , July 4th and July 26th. On Saturday June 20th, we will be helping the Food for Thought folks hand out food to the homeless at the Main Branch Library. Meet us at 10 AM at the corner of Adams & Michigan. It takes about an hour or so to feed several hundred folks in need.

On July 4th, right out the front door of where our offices are currently hosted (graciously by Park UCC), the Walbridge Park Board hosts a two hour festival for kids in the area. Kids ride in a bike parade, are then given prizes for playing games, and are generally shown some love and attention. Afterwards, we and our hosts Park Church, will be having a picnic together to say thanks for their radical hospitality for the last year in hosting our offices and small groups. Then on July 26th, we will be joining St Mark’s Episcopal Church serving a meal people in need from the Old West End. This is our first outing with them, but I am sure, given the folks at St Mark’s and their leadership, we’ll have a blast.

We would love to see you at any of these events. Or if you can’t make it, join our email lists, Facebook group, etc and find out what fun it is to, show the world the radical love of Jesus.

How can this be?

I just read a yahoo article about a homeless couple that had a storybook wedding, thanks to a caring congregation in Washington DC. (See the story here: http://tiny.cc/gBnMy.) I give thanks for their story of love, even while living on the streets. I applaud the generousity of a congregation that gifted them with a wedding. But I have to ask: How can a boy be thrown out of his mother's home at age 14, and be homeless in Washington DC for the next 14 years? Dante White, age 28, just got married. Dante and his bride, Nhiahni Chestnut, are still homeless. How can this be?
We live in the United States of America. The economy has tanked, and yet I am sure we are still the richest nation on the planet. Why can't we do better for our people?

I am outraged. I am ashamed.
God weeps.
And we go shopping.

How can this be?

Manna & Tamiflu

I remember as a kid learning the Bible story of the Israelites wandering the desert and thinking it was a pretty lame story. So, they got cranky, who doesn’t. I remember thinking it was pretty mean of God to make them wander so long. Forty years in the desert is pretty tough, then again, they were pretty whinny, and a golden idol to another god, after what God had done for them? Good thing I am not God, now that I think about it, I might have been a little more vengeful.

I also remember the whole Manna part of the story and thinking it was a weird story, bread from heaven, none on the Sabbath, but extra on the day before? Wow, “what’s that all about?” is what I used to think about it. But, now, I think I get it. It took way too long for me to get why this story was that important, but today I get it.

For those who know the story, skip this paragraph, for those who don’t, let me explain. The ancient Israelites, God’s chosen people, were slaves in Egypt. God sent Moses to free them. They kinda got a little scared, and tried to go back, building a Golden Calf idol as a “sorry” present to the Egyptians and their gods. God, sent the Israelites on a little 40 year road trip in the desert. To say the Israelites were into whining is an understatement. You name it, they whined about it. They got scared about starving and God said, no problem, we’ll take care of that. For meat, I’ll send you birds each day to eat. For bread, God sent a white powder, easily turned into bread, called Manna. Now, they were not supposed to work on The Sabbath (think Sunday), but God sent them extra on the day before (think Saturday). Mind you, they were not to hoard any extra left over but instead to share. Any hoarded Manna went bad, yucky, horror movie bad. Ok, you’ve gotten your Sunday School Lesson, now you’re in with the in crowd. We can rejoin the rest.

The Israelites were scared. They were in a dangerous situation. They needed something and didn’t think they could rely on God to get it for them. They had to have it. They needed to hoard it. You can’t rely on God to keep giving that to us. Bad things may happen. Sound familiar? Think Flu treatment meds, enough money to pay the bills, or possibly at some point food.

Sadly, it took a fellow Christian not getting the point of this story, for me to get it. I was talking to a friend, a fellow attorney & believer. He and I both have the stress filled job of representing the working poor & middle class during the economic collapse of our lifetimes, and were venting (No, say it ain’t so, Kurt venting). However, his frustrations weren’t about the injustices we were both seeing done to our clients. Don’t get me wrong, he was frustrated by that too. No, his frustration was against the President allowing the tax rate for the upper 5% of the country to go from 36% to 39%. Mind you, even we, two very skilled lawyers, don’t qualify for that. Also, he was mad at the media for blasting people of means from getting the Tamiflu treatment from doctors, before being sick. “So, they’re just supposed to wait until there is no more of it, when they can afford it now”, he railed, expecting me to join him.

That’s when I truly got it: Why the story (of the gift from God of Manna and the silly point about hoarding, and that which you hoard going bad) had to be in the Bible. Because we’re all basically scared about not having enough. We all think we won’t have the money for what we need when the time comes. That we won’t have the medicine when the time comes. We can’t rely on God to provide. We’ve all said it, thought it and/or lived it. Believe me, and my wife Cheri can vouch, I’m the king of “Knowing About Bad Scenarios” (I watch all of the cable shows on doomsday scenarios, check out the “End Day” for my favorite).

But, when the chips have been down in my life; When it was about keeping what I wanted, but about what I truly needed, God has been there. It has been since college that I have missed a paycheck. Oh, sure, I’ve taken pay cuts, not had enough to pay bills, faced layoff, gotten a pink slip, etc. It’s not like I’ve been without worries. I’ve even been the boss to layoff 25% of a workforce during the holidays. But, as to survival, God has provided. Believe me, I am not the “trust in God and everything will be fine” type. But even I am there. I am even there about really bad things like the Swine Flu (it helps the CDC has doses of treatments for Millions of us ready to roll), Asteroid strikes, etc.

Well, my family and I sat down, thanks to Cheri’s leadership (sounds better than prodding) and looked at our lives. We discovered we’ve got quite a bit of extra Manna, and there is no sense hoarding it. My children have toys, games and books they don’t need. My wife and I have been blessed by many books that we’ve read and have not passed on. So, we decided to do something about it.

On Saturday, June 6th we’re are going to host a “free store” out of our front yard. That’s the Saturday of the Old West End Festival. For those of you have not experienced it, something like 30,000 to 50,000 people will descend on our neighborhood for Victorian/Edwardian/Arts and Crafts home tours, an art fair, and hundreds of garage sales.

But that day, we’re not going to be selling anything. We’re going to stay home and share our, and any of the Village folks or friends, Manna in the form of books and toys. No costs, no proving you need. Just giving folks what they need or want as a gift of God’s love. A little hospitality in a scary world. Also, at the end of the days events, The Village’s Music Team is going to play a free concert and we’ll be giving away food.

Wanna share some Manna too? Or maybe just help give some away? If so, call me at 419-215-9550 or email at kmy@kmylaw.com and we’ll get you signed up to help, figure out a time to let you drop off your toys or books or sign up to volunteer that day. Also, if you wanna be part of starting a church that thinks like this, we could use a little manna too in the form of your prayers, your presence, or a small amount of that extra money. Even the equivalent of a couple of beers or a Starbucks latte’ or two a month, could help change the world for the better.

Easter Blessings

One of my favorite songs is Rachel Lampa's Blessed. When I want to reflect about how blessed I am, or when I'm discouraged and I need to find a way to pull myself out of that hole, her gentle song of blessing brings joy to my heart.

Tonight, my heart is full once again.

The Village Church has been a dream, that God has been working on in my heart for several years now. The journey to become the "church planter" of The Village was arduous at times. I understand, now, why the apostle Paul would sometimes give thanks for the physical pains and the tribulations of his life. You see, the obstacles I faced, as I tried to make a way to plant The Village Church, just helped deepen my sense of call. The perseverance made the project all the more holy to me.

Tonight, my heart is full, because yesterday we celebrated Easter joy as The Village Church. We gathered in the shelterhouse at Walbridge Park in South Toledo; through the windows we could see the beauty of God's creation, including the Maumee River. During the months that God was showing me the vision for The Village, I took many prayer walks in Walbridge Park. The place became one of those holy places where I felt the presence of God, as I struggled and listened and discovered the call God was making upon my life.

Yesterday our celebration included amazing music from a six piece band that was playing together for the first time. A visual artist, with a passion for helping others express joy and creativity, painted her expression of joy while we were watching and celebrating. We shared a meal of delightful food; then we shared the common meal of Holy Communion, and experienced a bond with followers of Jesus all over the world. We read the Easter story from John's Gospel and celebrated the amazing grace of God's love revealed in Jesus. We remembered that when Jesus returned to see his friends, (we wondered why he was not angry with them), that Jesus just kept loving them, encourging them to cast their nets again, and then he fixed breakfast for them. Jesus never failed to love them; and he never fails to love us.

Yesterday as the pastor of The Village Church, I was blessed to see faces of those who have been with me since we first gathered in my living room in October of 2007, to dream about what The Village Church might look like. Yesterday I was also blessed to see faces of those whom I had never met before.

We were blessed to be a group of 62 persons gathering for this worship celebration, young and old, black and white, financially wealthy and those who are struggling to pay the bills. Our common bond was our willingness to be open to the mystery of God, and the desire to come together with other people to celebrate the gift of God's love in Jesus.

I feel so blessed tonight. I am blessed to be a follower of Jesus with the privilege of being a pastor. I am blessed to have the wonderful challenge of working with a group of people to create a new faith community for a new day. I am blessed to have a husband and two children who are as excited about The Village as I am (well, at least Kurt and Becca are -- Jamie is only six so he comes along for the ride.) I am blessed to have two young staff partners to work with: Jessica Lucero, our Children's Leader and Joe Woods, our new Band Leader. I am blessed to have friends and colleagues all across the country and beyond who are praying for me and for The Village Church, who encourage me when I get discouraged, and who kick me in the butt when I need that too. I am blessed to be doing the work that I believe God put me on this earth to do.

I pray that with The Village we can be God's instruments -- and that all of us who follow the way of Jesus might have the gift of living out God's desire for our lives. Tonight, I am simply thankful for my many blessings. If you want to hear a good song, go find Rachel Lampa's Blessed, and give thanks to God for your blessings too.

Time of My Life

I am truly in the “Time of My Life”, for the David Cook generation or “Your Life is Now” for the John Cougar generation. For those who are close to me, I didn't just lose my mind. Yes, I remember what I've got going bad in my life.

Personally things are crazy. My mother's health is sinking slowly but surely and her financial future is like everyone else who was trying to retire. I have had a series of potentially serious, but thankfully fluke, health things myself that have included an otherwise healthy forty-something having had two multi day admissions to hospitals in the last five years. Cheri suffered a serious head injury almost two months ago and is not yet completely well. Thanks to the break up of my past business, I have been sued three times in the last decade. My Mother In Law is in remission, but has battled cancer in the last few years. We have had to say good bye to a church family we loved for almost a decade. And, all of that has had all kinds of effects on the kids.

Professionally things are equally rocky. I'm a small business owner trying to keep two single mom's, a pregnant mother with a new house & two other kids, and a soon to retire man with jobs. All of this, with no ability to get credit, and a shrinking, often unstable cash flow. Meanwhile my clients, who are the bottom rung of the economic ladder, are being crushed by this collapsing economy. They are the “canaries in the coal mine” and this started happening to them a few years ago and will continue to do so for awhile after the rest of us are back on our feet as we value their CEO’s bottom lines more than them.

But as I drove to my Mom's house a few weeks ago with nothing in the tank, mine or the cars, I came to a realization. This is the “time of my life” or “my time is now”. This is what all of the wonderful things in my life have been leading to. This is the time where the talents, the gifts, the blessings, the advantages all come together and I am supposed to fulfill that promise.

It’s not just a line from a superhero movie (actually movies Spiderman 1 & 2), it’s scripture. With great power comes great responsibility, with greater power greater responsibility. God has blessed me in so many ways. Again, yes, I get the list above. But, I have been given so many talents, so many friends, a loving family, more than enough (not by our culture’s standards) money, and the ability to make a difference in some many lives.

There was a time where I thought that meant I needed to hold a title like Mayor or Governor or President to do that. Bringing all the trappings of power, of part of or the whole of the most powerful nation on Earth, to bear on a problem. But, now, I get it. We all have that power. We can all change the world. But Right Now (and I’m feeling very musical today, that’s from a Van Halen song that is very on point too), is when we have to do this.

The Village Church is how I am going to help change the world. By creating a place where other followers of Jesus, those who have been turned off of church by other “Christians”, can find that they too are God’s beloved child; That God has given them all that they need to change the world for good; That there is a need or needs out there they can help fix; That there are others who will stand up with them and guide, comfort and support them while they change the world.

Come, join us this Easter Sunday at 9:45 in Walbridge Park’s Shelter House as we celebrate God’s love overcoming the darkness, the fear the hopelessness of two thousand years ago. Maybe you’ll find out that your time (life) is now too and help us change the world one person at a time. If not then, come join us Monday Night or Friday night this week as we share a little food and a little love with the homeless families of Family Promise (Interfaith Hospitality Network). Call me at 419-215-9550 if you want to know more.