NOTE: This article was originally published on theOOZE.com

I dropped my kids off at school this morning and as I was walking back to my car, I overheard a mother sharing with another her worries about Christmas. With lay-offs and pay cuts abounding many families are growing anxious as the holidays approach. Rather than the sense of excitement and anticipation, the change of decor in storefront windows only reminds many of us of how little there is to go around this year.

The idea of gift-giving doesn’t seem to be central to Christmas any longer. Instead, it’s all about buying stuff and getting stuff. But during a time when so many of us are biting our nails with anxiety over the economic recession, buying and getting adds even more stress than usual. This is problematic for the Christian. We are called to be hospitable, generous people. Yet, these ideals don’t stem from economic security. They come from our story as God’s people. In the book of Exodus we read the story of manna falling from heaven, providing the sustenance that everyone needed to survive in the wilderness. There was one problem: no preservatives. It didn’t keep. You couldn’t save it for tomorrow or the next day. God provided just enough for everyone, every day. In the New Testament, when Jesus teaches his friends to pray he draws upon this story when he tells them to ask God to give them their daily bread. The concept is that God provides enough for everyone. Not enough for some to hoard, or have more than others, but enough for all of us to have what we need… not necessarily what we want, but what we need. This concept runs all the way through Scripture.

But here in our twenty first century Western culture, this is not a concept we are familiar with. We are taught to take all we can; to satiate all of our desires, never concerning ourselves with whether or not everyone else has their basic needs met. But maybe as many of us concern ourselves with how we will pay the bills this Christmas season, it’s a perfect time to step back and ask God if we can take this “enough for all” idea seriously.

I’m hopelessly practical. When I began to see this as a thread throughout Scripture, my wife and I decided to test it. We began to really watch and see if there was enough when so many don’t have their basic needs met. One evening, we walked out of the grocery store to see two store employees dumping boxes full of fruits and vegetables into the dumpster. “What’s wrong with that stuff?” I asked. They looked at me, a little perturbed–I was interrupting their chance to get a smoke before going back into the store. “Uh,” one of them grunted, “It’s not pretty anymore?”

Surprised, I responded, “Really, that’s it? You’re tossing it just ’cause it’s bruised fruit?” In his best Beavis and Butt-head impersonation, the other chuckled and said, “Yeah, dude. Pretty much.” “Well, can I have it then,” I asked as patiently as I could. With a devious grin and a quick wink he replied, “Not while we’re looking.” At which point they both turned their heads, taking long drags off their cigarettes. I couldn’t take it all. I could only fit about a third of what they had on their cart in my trunk, which ended up amounting to about 50 pounds of apples. The next day, we cleaned all of the apples and along with our friends made countless jars of apple sauce and apple butter. One big box of apples that would’ve been hauled off to the city dump became gifts for friends of ours all over the country–and for folks we don’t know as we supplied our friends with jars to give away.

The day after Thanksgiving, thousands of Americans head for the shopping malls for a ritual known as Black Friday, called such as it’s a day when many retailers move from the red (losses) into the black (gains).Who knows if this year will be like most others for retailers. But I’d challenge you to take this year off from Black Friday. Instead, celebrate Make Something Day. Inspired by Buy Nothing Day–which was pioneered by the creators of Adbusters magazine, more and more of us celebrate Make Something Day the day after Thanksgiving attempting re-use and recycle what we can to make our gifts rather than purchase them.

It’s not an earth-shattering idea. It won’t feed the world’s hungry. But maybe you’ll learn, like we did, that we are more than consumers. Rather, we are the creation of God, and we carry the same creative spirit within each of us. Maybe you’ll discover, like we did, that if we get creative there is more to go around than we thought.

I invite you to de-commodify your soul and join us on November 27 to buy nothing and make something.

Anyone interested in creative and pioneering expressions of church in San Diego – tune in: We are gathering tonight, 6 p.m. at LeStats. Here is tonight’s program and the Facebook page. Whether you are there or not you can follow on Twitter by searching #ec114.

Many others were not though. We often found Christians to find our music appalling and people in the underground music scene thought our Christian convictions were silly. I still remember playing a show in a cellar converted into concert hall, pipes running just above our heads, walls covered with graffiti and stickers, drenched in sweat and watching a Coke can fly through the air towards our bass player as he shared our convictions with the audience.

We were proud of who we were and what we saw as our mission. But it was awful lonely–never feeling that we quite fit in with anyone; Christians or scenesters.

The rejection and loneliness haunted us until we met Kurt Love. Kurt was a middle-aged man with tattoos, long hair and a big heart. He was a Christian and a punk. He held a Bible study for kids like us through a local Calvary Chapel. He also played drums in a local band. And Kurt started helping us get shows.

Eventually, we did experience some marginal success locally. And once we did, we instinctively started doing our best to help out other bands. We put out their tapes (yes, I’m that old), booked shows, printed t-shirts and stickers and hung out late into the night at cafes sipping coffee and sharing stories. We wanted to make sure that other young people–that were doing their best to follow Jesus in the midst of a culture that made just as much sense to them as Sunday church services–did not feel as alone as we had. Just like Kurt had done for us.

That ideal is something that I’ve sought to live by ever since then. Having been committed to doing grassroots, missional stuff on the margins I still know what it feels like to be “alone.” So, when Brooke and I established the Ecclesia Collective several years ago, we adopted a motto of “nurturing grassroots expressions of the Kingdom of God.” Our hope has never been to prop up our own project, but find ways to link up with others and say, “You’re not alone, we’re in this together.” In other words, through the Collective, we’ve tried to bring together those doing meaningful and important work that embodies God’s dream for this world here in San Diego, but just might not be valued by others in their congregations, denominations and other institutions they’re committed to.

The Hawthorn House may have been the faith community/intentional community to be the primary host and contributor to the Collective for several years. But the Collective has always been something else. And today, more than ever, it has an identity outside of those that comprise Hawthorn House. Today, the Collective is a network of individual Christians and Christian communities ranging from evangelical to mainline backgrounds and affiliation trying to work together in San Diego the way God called the Israelites to in Jeremiah 29–to pray and work for the shalom of our city. The Collective has simply been a conduit for all of us to work and learn together through. Not all of us are employed by churches, but some of us are. Some of us are considered clergy and some of us aren’t. We’ve become much like an artists collective (hence our name), bringing our different mediums and attempting to make something beautiful together.

We’re doing our best to hold forms and methods lightly, realizing this often just allows the few to control the agenda. So, we’re changing things up once again. Starting this month, we’re holding monthly gatherings that will be hosted by the different people that consider themselves part of the Collective. Tomorrow night we’re meeting at Lestat’s on Adams and will be hosted by Adams Ave. Crossing, a new missional community getting started in the Normal Heights neighborhood. The agenda? Mostly conversation. We want to hear what’s going in your community, in your neighborhood and in your work. We’ll talk about how the Collective can be owned by and serve each of us better. And we’ll see where that takes us. These gatherings will look a little different each time I assume. And we have yet to see what will come out of them. Check out the event info on Facebook and watch the video that our friend Geoff Hsu posted that explains the value of networks such as ours.

So, if you’re feeling alone, come join us.

Photo Credit: CCBImages

A day in the life

“Today is gone. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.” Dr. Seuss, One Fish, Two Fish …

My daughter’s day ends with Dr. Seuss. Her father is the one reveling in a magical life. The real driving stories for me are those of Jesus. A year and a half ago arrived a pivot point in my life. For reasons beyond my control I was without a church, and concurrently God was speaking as I saw Jesus in new ways. His life was a prescription for mine. Dine with sinners and tax collectors. Bless the poor. Lose your life. With a few friends we began doing life without a church, reading Jesus’ stories that fueled our activities entirely outside of a church building. It became abundantly clear that Jesus was alive in motion. We began seeing church not as a destination but a movement. This day was indicative of where the pivot point has brought me, a year-plus later.

Thursdays are now epic days. You could read through the blog for Adams Avenue Crossing – a missional-incarnational movement in Normal Heights – and find a dozen or more reflections written on Thursday night. Those entries, mostly about the rec center, are filled with what Seuss refers to as “funny things” – funny for lack of a better word. He might have meant noteworthy. Sublime. Ironic. The carnivalesque side of life is the side in which we live to the full. If we intentionally put ourselves into situations with strangers, real people doing real things – walking for groceries, sitting in the park under a shade tree, sitting in a cafe – and then string them together as we walk along a busy urban street … we are part not of a Seuss-like stroll through fantasy land but a Jesus-like journey through our one and only real life here on earth. And what would be better than living life like God incarnate. He chose to live a life strolling through the village, rubbing up against people of all backgrounds, engaging in conversations of the most meaningful nature.

In following a funny impulse over a year and a half I have unwittingly stumbled upon a holy grail of sorts. I never realized what might happen if I began hanging around a mid-city rec center on a regular basis. It’s in the hub of a well-traveled corridor for pedestrians, buses, bikers, cars, rich, poor, homeless, yuppie, you name it. These are my Thursday evenings. Over the past few weeks the landscape has grown even more colorful with the addition of a homeless walk in the morning – although it has evolved into something unpredictable, much more than a quest to find homeless people in need, rather a journey looking for anyone to strike a conversation with. Sure I am looking for people in need but then who am I really to discern need. I recognize more and more my own neediness, realizing an experience with a person who sleeps on the dirt is a blessing to me, like water to my thirsty soul. So now my Thursdays are bookended by a voyage through Normal Heights in the morning and an evening at the rec center.

My point is this: I used to think a life with Jesus revolved around singing hymns, studying the Bible, praying and hoping the people I cared about would get it. And then in studying that Bible I found that Jesus’ life was one of … walking. He moved around among the people and had conversation after conversation. And so my Thursday morning began at a park on one end of Normal Heights and progressed westward, a Seuss-like parade. After a journey homeward I returned at night for the rec center but found the real activity outside among the adults who happened to be along the street.

As you talk to people you find that each of them has a story. And whether they are deemed needy people, successful or whatever, theirs are stories worth hearing, and stories Jesus is listening to. I’m saying that this way of being a Christian leaves me intensely more connected to Jesus Christ than ever before. And I think being a church looks like this. Maybe it’s not for everyone, maybe he’s not calling you into this way. But we at Adams Ave have come to call this an apostolic way, a way of the sent ones, people sent by God out into the world on a mission, salting our conversations with purpose, bringing the kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world, rounding up the called ones and building a community of faith, hope and love.

Regardless the outcome I am just thankful for my Thursdays.

“Everyday from here to there. Funny things are everywhere.”

Afterward

After journaling the above, I went over to Facebook to see what had happened to my friend Bub. He was supposed to meet me at the park at 10 a.m. for the walk. Turns out he was not only without a car (hence no drive to the park) but also without a phone (hence no call). But all the while as I lived out my parade of funny things he was writing a song that couldn’t be more of a soundtrack for it. And here it is. More recently he posted a recording of the song, which is well worth singing, as a reflection of the experiences of anyone involved with Adams, Ecclesia Collective and similar movements.

Shiley Theater, University of San Diego campus

Friday, October 30^th, 2009, 7:30pm

A committed Christian, Dr. Miller has coauthored four high school and college biology textbooks and published numerous articles in leading scientific journals. In 2007, he received the Exploratorium’s Outstanding Educator Award and was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Reminiscent of the Scopes Monkey Trial, he was called to the witness stand in 2005 in Dover, PA where one of his textbooks had become the center of controversy when the local school board reacted against teaching the theory of evolution in favor of Intelligent Design. He is the best-selling author of Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution and Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America’s Soul.

Dr. Miller will address the theory of evolution, creationism, and intelligent design, and how the theory of evolution does not contradict religious faith.

Following the lecture, both of Dr. Miller’s books will be available for purchase at a discount rate for Dr. Miller to autograph.

$10 for general public, $5 for non-USD students with school ID. Tickets available online at www.sandiego.edu/cctc . For more info, please call 619-260-7936 or email cctc@sandiego.edu.

HATE CRIMES SUMMIT
“Even One is Too Many”

• Thursday, October 1st, 2009
• 5:00 – 6:00p.m.  Check-In
• 6:00 – 8:00p.m.  Program

RONALD REAGAN COMMUNITY CENTER
195 EAST DOUGLAS AVENUE
EL CAJON, CA 92020

Keynote Speaker James McElroy
Southern Poverty Law Center

There is no cost to attend this event or for parking.
Advanced registration is required.

For more information or to RSVP, please contact Crystal with the Center for
Social Advocacy at 619-444-5700 x310. Or email us at
UnitedForAHateFreeSanDiego@gmail.com

For more information about United for a Hate Free San Diego, please visit
the following website:http://www.hatefreesandiego.org/

• Tuesday, September 29, 2009 @ 7:00 pm (coffee at 6:30 pm)
  

Colt Forum: A collaborative effort with the Faculty Research Talks series of PLNU’s Margaret Stevenson Women’s Studies Center and the Brewed Awakening series of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation.

.  .  .  .  .

For more information, contact cjr@pointloma.edu .

Learn more about the Center for Justice and Reconciliation at www.pointloma.edu/cjr

For directions to the university, call 619.849.2200 or go to http://www.pointloma.edu/Directions

Instead of pan-handling, Cynthia creates original, one-of-a-kind bookmark-sized original works of art and sells them on the streets of Golden Hill to passers-by. She creates her art on found scraps of cardboard, packaging, gum-wrappers, paper… whatever she can find. Using paint, markers and pens, Cynthia’s style is whimsical and expressive, which seems to stand in sharp contrast to the harsh reality of spending her days on the street.

Since moving to Golden Hill in Fall ‘08, I would buy Cynthia’s bookmark-sized art whenever I saw her on the street. Her story, only part of which I’ve heard, is one of heart-break and battling the demons of addiction. But hers is also a story of hope.

Inspired by her upbeat attitude and use of her talent to try and generate a meager income, I decided to help her out and sell some of her work for her online. Her art is the perfect size for a bookmark. A practical, original piece of art that can be used in your current read. For six or seven bucks, it seems like a deal. The Incinders Etsy store is here. Shipping is included. 100% of the money (minus Paypal’s few cents) goes to Cynthia.

There’s so many things that are good about Cynthia’s story, it’s hard to know where to begin. Creating instead of just taking. Giving new life to discarded things. The love and pursuit of art. The idea of bringing separate realities together… life on the streets together with life of folks in my world. As inspired as I am, there’s also sobering reality. Cynthia isn’t out of the woods. She’s still on the street, fighting her demons, looking for hope and her next meal.

After posting a handful of her works on Etsy, they sold in one day. Inspired, she created over a hundred new pieces for me to post. I’ll posting a few new works every day or two, so stop buy and have a look.

— Jon

On October 8-9, 2009, leading experts confronting human trafficking will gather in Carlsbad, CA to discuss and strategize innovative techniques to address prevention, protection, and prosecution. This unique event will foster collaboration among government leaders, law enforcement, service providers, and nongovernmental organizations while examining topics such as constructing a regional task force, countering corruption, and undermining trafficking rings.

The Global Forum on Human Trafficking hosted by the Not For Sale Campaign is proud to announce renowned speakers such as:

• Luis de Baca, Former Chief Counsel, Human Trafficking Prosecutions Unit, US Department of Justice
• Tim Costello, CEO World Vision Australia
• Anuradha Koirala, Director Mati Nepal
• Ami Carpenter, Kroc Center for Peace Studies, University of San Diego
• Ben Perrin, Law Professor, Unv. of British Columbia and Founder of the Future Group
• David Batstone, President and Co-Founder of the Not For Sale Campaign

Check out Not For Sale’s site for more details.

During my period of praying that God would change Tim’s heart, I actually began researching adoption out of curiosity.  I stumbled upon some photolistings of orphans in Eastern Europe and I saw beautiful children that had no one to take care of them and that’s when my heart starting breaking for the “least of these”.  When I actually saw faces that gave humanity to this idea of adoption there was no turning back.  I immersed myself in adoption research and discovered blogs of families who had adopted and realized that this was in fact how I wanted to build our family.  So, for the next year, I pestered Tim about wanting to adopt showing him sweet little kids I had found on the photolists.  Luckily for me, Tim is the logical and practical one who is able to make decisions not based on emotions and he would tell me we had to wait until the right time for our family.  Well, the right time came around Christmas 2007 when Tim and I decided we were ready to start the adoption adventure.

Throughout our journey, I realized that God was continually breaking me of all my expectations and preconceptions of what I thought was best.  We initially started the process with Kazakhstan but quickly switched to Russia when Kazakhstan temporarily shut its borders to international adoption.  We switched to Russia because we knew a lot of people that had adopted from there and it seemed like an “easy” switch.  We waited about 7 months for a referral of a child and even traveled to Russia with Tim’s band during the wait.  We had thought for sure by this time we would be matched with a child and maybe even visiting him/her while we were out there.

It was about this time last year (right before our trip to Russia) that I stumbled upon some adoption blogs of families that had adopted from Ethiopia.  My curiosity was piqued when I began noticing that many of the families adopting from Ethiopia were closer to our age and some were even choosing to adopt rather than try for biological kids.  And then I began reading their stories….every single one of the stories was incredible.  In all of the blogs I read, the families had brought home children that bonded beautifully with them, they had fallen in love with the culture and the people, and desired to continuing helping with the orphan crisis in Ethiopia.

We came home from Russia and I felt very discouraged — it seemed like we should’ve met our child by now.  And that’s when I saw it — I saw the statistic on one woman’s blog: Over 4.5 million orphans right now living in Ethiopia.  And that’s when I knew that we needed to adopt from Ethiopia.  It was as clear as day and I was thrilled.

Luckily for us we were able to switch countries fairly quickly and easily and, two short months later, we received the referral of our son, Biruk… four months after that, we were picking him up and taking him home.

Our experience in Ethiopia was life-changing but, honestly, bringing Biruk into our family has been even more indescribable.  I truly believe that God has allowed us to have a glimpse of what His joy is like in this sweet little Ethiopian bundle.  I have watched a sad and scared baby go from trying to writher out of my arms on our first meeting to snuggling close and gazing into my eyes as I sing to him.  I have watched his panicked and labored breathing turn into giggles of pure happiness.  I have felt my heart being torn in two at the thought of losing him.  I believe God has given us a taste of true religion through Biruk’s adoption but I want the whole bowl!  Biruk’s adoption is just the beginning for us as we seek God’s direction for our life.  We know that our hearts’ desire is to help the orphan in his distress and we feel that it is a great PRIVILEGE to be able to partake in God’s Kingdom here on Earth.  I have given up trying to imagine what my family will look like but my hope is that it will be filled with the least of these.