Shalom: a caring, sharing community where there is none to fear.

The words that serve as a title to this post are from Walter Brueggemann, early in his book entitled "Peace".  

It's no small irony that I walked into my home carrying this book tonight.  As I left my car I passed a young african american man who was cutting through the empty lot next to my house.  He walked through the grass, stopped next to the trailer parked in front of the house with the words "Sunshine Gospel Ministries" on it, bent over, placed a metal object on the tire that clanked as it hit the wheel well, and moved on without saying anything to me. 

I knew what it was.  I knew he'd stashed a gun.  

I went in the house, let Jessie, our dog, into the yard, and grabbed a glove.  I recovered the gun and called the cops.  

Soon, another young man (not the first one) came and looked. Seeing me on my porch he said "I just dropped my wallet here. . . .did you see it?"

"No", I said.  Caleb had come out and joined me on the porch.  He saw the gun, retrieved his camera and took a couple photos.  

Shortly later, both the guys came back, looking carefully under the wheel well, this time no without pretense. "Hey, you know what we are looking for. . . let me get my stuff back".   

"look, I'm a pastor"  (the nuance of ministry leader vs. pastor seemed inane to describe at the moment). . . "I can't do it".    "Be safe. . . " they said, and walked away.  

Caleb had gone in the house and come back.  I gave him my phone, told him to call the police again and tell them to get here quickly.  

5 mins later (30 mins gone by from the 911 call, no police) the second guy returned.  

"look, can I talk to you?"  I approached the fence.  

"hey, this is a grown man. . . just like you are a grown man. . . and he needs his gun" #2 says to me.  "well, I'm a pastor" I said, repeating my well intentioned partial obfuscation, "I can't" . 

"there's no need to get the police involved. .. and you don't have to give it to me. .  just put it back where you found it . . . and there doesn't have to be any trouble. . . "

"Look, I am a minister, and there is too much violence out here. .  I just can't. I can tell you about Jesus, but I can't give you the gun back.  The police are on the way."  He tried one more time. .. . "Look, there is no reason for you to remember me or me to remember you.  I just don't want anyone to get hurt. .  just put it back where you found it. . . "

I told him no again and he left.  About 3 or 4 mins later the TAC team arrived (cops in unmarked cars).  The retrieved the 380 out of the flower pot where I had put it.  I'd met these guys before at the site of a shooting a block from here.  "we know you" they told me. . . and then after shining their flashlights on my front door (the 100+ year old glass one) the coughed with some disgust. . . "still haven't changed out that door huh?!"  They took basic descriptions and headed out, the gun in tow.  

I returned to my book. "where there is no one to fear". . . I prayed.  

Our Father, who art in heaven. . . thy kingdom come. . . on earth as it is in heaven. . . where there is no one to fear.  

Exploring urban entrepreneurialism

As Christians we must hold to fundamental economic principles.  Work is good, we were made for it.  Freedom is crucial, it allows us our ability to conduct the work we were intended to do.  Creativity is a must. . . it is an essential part of our expression of the "imago Dei" stored within us from the creation.  

As an urban ministry we've begun looking carefully at what it means to support, encourage and teach entrepreneurialism and the creation of free, creative work as an element of what it means to bring renewal. . . shalom. . . well-being. . . redemption. . .  to the urban environment. 

Today I had the privilege of listening in as one of our students, Brittany Fisher, competed in a semi-finals business plan competition.  It was great.  Brittany did a classy job of writing and presenting a plan to start her own resume consulting business.  We were and are really proud of her. 

As an organization we are considering plans for a coffee shop, a T-shirt production company, and 3 other businesses.  So this meant that hearing the plans thought through was actually really encouraging.  I mean, what types of businesses would thrive here?  What sort of work in the city would express freedom and creativity?

We got to hear some other ideas as urban kids expressed their visions for businesses.  One was an online music magazine fusing R&B and Funk.  Another was an organic coffee shop.  Then there was the urban clothing line for pregnant teens. . . and the company that creates organic pouches that fit into "any standard sized bra" for those who prefer not to carry a purse.  

These were some true urban perspectives~!

Why we need Caris Pregnancy Centers.

I had a chance to listen to a presentation by the Executive Director of Caris Pregnancy Centers today.  As someone who is strongly pro-life, yet feel like my view of pro-life has widened beyond the normal view held within the evangelical community, I was wondering how I would react.  

My personal tension has been in hearing the discussion about the subject of abortion become one in which a sense of panicked yelling about unborn children is the primary means of communicating about it.  The woman doing the presentation started by saying that our normal discourse in the past few decades has been "if you love the woman your are pro-choice, and if you love the child you are pro-life."  Perhaps an oversimplification yet it did ring true to me.

So she suggested that we start by realizing the God loves them both and so should we.   Our rhetoric, our discourse and our demeanor has often not communicated this in the Christian community public discourse.  (Remember the standard Paul sets up for an elder?  that he is viewed as respectable in the eyes of unbelievers? I think this is an apt comparison for considering how we are viewed as believers on the whole as we interact on this issue.  Does the pregnant teen think we love her, while she is considering ending her pregnancy?)  

She suggested that they worked with about 2500 women last year and 2/3 of them carried their children to term.  There were about 20,000 abortions in cook county last year.    She also indicated that as the economy worsens, abortions tick upward. Their vision is to work with 10,000 women annually by 2011.

Most women who find Caris do so through the internet . . .  people search the internet in response to traumatic news such as unplanned pregnancy.  So normal things like billboards don't really work.  Yet among the highest rates of abortion are lower income communities and they have the least access to technology.  (I suggested they optimize their internet pages for mobile searches).  They indicated they are increasingly counseling via text messages!

Planned parenthood reports that the reasons given for abortion are most often a lack of emotional/social support and lack of practical resources. . . this happens to be exactly what Caris focuses on.  

Their 3 core mission aspects are: Commitment to the woman and her child, Counseling, and Connection to resources.  

One of the most amazing things she said was that virtually every women at some point says "I'd like to keep the child if. . . . ".  that presents great hope for working with women, supporting them and their children. 

Only 1% consider adoption nationally so while we like to talk about that, the reality is that it is almost a non-starter for women considering abortion.  Most women consider abortion in the 8-10 week window, most women opting for adoption don't consider it seriously until the 3rd trimester.  

She framed this as a justice issue which really resonated for me.  Justice for the child, but also for the mother.  I would add that we must frame it as a grace issue.  If we as believers don't love and fully understand the grace of God in our lives we will not be able to tolerate all that it takes to actually love women by providing them the emotional support and practical resources they need.  It is far easier to rant on facebook about our government policies than it is to provide all of the emotional support and practical resources needed to an actual woman and child.

I think we have an interesting crisis of conscience when we agonize over the number of abortions yet have no sense of concern for the mothers.  And that concern means loving sexually promiscuous mothers who are sometimes irresponsible, have other children, have had other abortions and such. In other words grace to the mother is very messy business that I fear we don't want to get caught up with.  

Here is the interesting thing:  the church thinks that Caris needs the churches money to go out and reach out to girls and women of all ages who are in crisis (remember when they were called crisis pregnancy clinics?).  As I listened I couldn't help thinking that it is we the church who need Caris!  We need them to teach us to love the unlovely, the broken and those whose unrighteousness is just like ours. . . except theirs is exposed. (What would I look like if my sin hung on my like a 9 month pregnancy?)

I think we have no business suggesting that we love the child and must speak up on their behalf if we can't love the mother. 

The Rice and Wine (understanding urban ministry)

Twitter and Facebook

Well I just updated to actually use twitter. . . we will see how that works. . . 

or should I say:  wl c how tht wrks. . . ?

I have to learn this new language.  I also began looking at how we use facebook at an organizational level for both Sunshine and Bridge Builders.  I sense that short (twitterish) messages via facebook will be a good way to connect for missions teams as youth leaders are in that next generational communication trend.  

you can follow me (that sounds weird but maybe that makes me old?!) www.twitter.com/joeladamsh

Peace. 

Homeschoolers, Hitler and Obama

We are a homeschool family.  We've had at least one of our kids in homeschool for the past decade.  We are not a die-hard homeschool family, but we do see and have experienced the benefits.  We've tried to overcome some of the obvious short-comings and argued with those who sometimes suggest that homeschooler are inherently socially inept, short-changed and culturally unawares.  These criticisms are normally overblown hyperbole from folks who have either been exposed to a few extremists, or are not plugged into the homeschool community and speak from prejudicial ignorance.  

So I've been a homeschool defender, until now.  I'm shaken.  

This week I was at a speech and debate regional tournament in which my wife and I had several experiences listening to a line of reasoning that says we as a nation, having fallen in love with a Hitlerish figure who has no substance but is a seductive soothsayer full of promises of a brighter future and willfully lulled an apathetic nation under his spell.  Just as the apathy of the Germans allowed them to blindly fall in love with and under the spell of a charismatic leader only to suffer the consequences, so too the United states is headed for a genocidal future. 

The assumption here, which is uniquely white, republican (and includes almost all self described evangelicals) is that the election of President Obama signals God's abandonment of our country into moral decline and debauchery.  Of course this was the same thing people felt about the election of JFK and Clinton and in the intervening years Reagan and the Bushes amounted to a reversing of courses.  

There is a clear association for many of my fellow-evangelicals of defacto equality between Christian virtue and Republican ethics. Yet literally 90% of our fellow members of the body of Christ around the world, and a similar % of our non-white brothers and sisters in the US, do NOT see it this way.  They spoke out almost universally against the war against Iraq, they developed deep distrust of our last President and welcomed with tears of Joy the present administration.

So the general view of US evangelicals rejects the outlook of the body of Christ around the world.  Now, within one of the most culturally isolated (yep, I said it) sub-cultures of US evangelicalism a new line of reasoning, a new line of rhetoric, a new line of hysteria, is developing as Obama is directly identified as a 21st century Hitler.  

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I was recently at the National Association of Black Evangelicals annual conference.  Let me just say for the record that these folks did not vote in lock-step for Obama, but these fellow believers would likely consider this race-baiting dialogue that I witnessed as a return to overt, explicit racism.  You can disagree with him but do it in substance on issues rather than in racially based fear-mongering.  To do that is to foment racist overtones to supplement the already ubiquitous "racialization".  

I have personally both admired and been dismayed by our new President.  My goal is is not to argue for his public virtue, but as I said a year ago, the current election cycle and administration is virtually guaranteed to create further, deeper divisions within the body of Christ. . . that for Christians should be a paramount concern.  

My question is:  Is this a homeschool (white-republican-evangelical) phenomena?  Or is this a larger Evangelical theme building upon the "socialist" labels being applied to the administration?

Mobile blogging from my blackberry?

Mobile Blogging from the NBEA

I've been blessed to attend the National Conference for the National Black Evangelical Association here in Chicago (Oak Lawn) yesterday and today.  

The conference is the beginning of rejuvenating a movement within the black church. I've been really blown away by the sessions I've attended so far and really blessed to be introduced to some new teachers/thinkers as well as reacquainted with some folks I've already been familiar with.  

Carl Ellis is an amazing thinker and teacher.  He's the author of Free at Last (highly recommended) which helps enormously to understand the story of the descendants of Africans within the US who have trusted Christ.  He taught yesterday through a cultural analysis of the black community and its subcultures as well as the role of the black church in this time period.  (the role of the black church in the Age of Obama). . .  he team taught it with theologian/teacher  Mr. Potter.  Very powerful.  Both of these guys are in the PCA which adds a layer of interest for me!

I was also really blessed by the workshop that Dr. Trulear presented yesterday on prison ministry.  He has worked with the Annie E. Casey foundation to develop a program that includes churches engaging before and after those that have been incarcerated return from prison.  It was a really enlightening thought process in which the church is encouraged to consider this type of ministry beyond what is normally just an evangelistic service.  They've developed a set of materials, available for free, that can empower literally ANY church to be involved in this highly important work.  Click here for information on working with children whose parents are incarcerated as well as a larger prisoner outreach ministry.  well researched, great, great info!