Taking the Time to Listen

I have always half-jokingly told people that I struggle with patience because I'm from Chicago. I hate going slow (especially in the car) in anything! Yet this lack of patience transcends the time I spend waiting in line at stores or sitting in parking lots known as our Chicago highways, it also effects my relationship with God. I struggle being still before Him. Listening to His voice. Waiting for His direction. Being in silence.

In Henri Nouwen's book, "In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership" he says, "God is a God of the present and reveals to those who are willing to listen carefully to the moment in which they live the steps they are to take toward the future." After reading this, I paused and asked myself, "What does God want to say to me that I'm not taking the time to listen to?" To be perfectly honest, this is a question that I'm still asking. With all the craziness of the Christmas season, I have yet to seriously entertain this question. I know that I need it, but keep filling my schedule with so much that I can't "schedule" Him in for more than our usual allotted time.

I don't know if this is true of where you are at, but it is for me. I so desperately long to be used by God to do something big for Him, yet too often forget that He is far more concerned about doing something big in me! I'm planning on breaking away this week to listen. I encourage you to do the same. To be still and let Him speak.

I'd really appreciate it if you'd ask me if I did break away to listen the next time you see me and post your own struggles/successes of how God is speaking to you during your "quiet" times.

The Face of the Church

Do you ever look back on things that you wrote a long time ago? I don't do this often enough, but whenever I do I can see how various thoughts, burdens, or struggles seem to resurface in my life. Just the other day I was talking to my good friend about ministry and was reminded of something I wrote in a journal many years ago. I brought it out and read to him the following, "Mike, you are to connect all ethnicities under the banner of Jesus Christ. Partner with them to stand TALL for Jesus. This will fulfill the 2nd greatest commandment and show the watching community that God is with us! Make Him real to those who do not know." The date on this is 12/31/03, when my wife and I lead a group of college students to the Urbana Missions Conference. It is amazing to see how this journal entry of nearly 6 years ago, has taken on a new life in the last two years. Not only have I had the pleasure of working next to Ramiro Cruz (our wonderfully gifted Pastor of Hispanic Ministries) and being on staff at The Bridge where one of our values is to look like the community that we live in, but I have also been recently shaped from reading a phenomenal book called "The Next Evangelicalism" by Soong-Chan Rah. Each of these factors have fanned the flame of desire to intentionally do church differently than what I have seen and mostly experienced in my life. "The Next Evangelicalism" vividly paints a compelling picture that whether we want to acknowledge it or not, the landscape of the Evangelical church is changing here in America. One of the biggest questions that it poses is how should the church respond to the nations moving next door in "OUR" neighborhoods (especially when quite a few of them are our brothers and sisters in Christ)? It convincingly concludes that any model that fails to recognize this shift as anything less than a divine opportunity for "their" church to look like the Church (i.e. the historic, redeemed, multi-ethnic people of God) must be quickly discarded. Preserving the status quo is nothing short of idolatry. So I am compelled to ask, "Are you willing to lay aside 'your' church to be the Church? If so (and I pray that is where we all land), what would this practically look like for "your" church? And most importantly what are you going to do about it?