Newsletter April 08

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing this to the sounds of helicopters flying around. They began early this morning, waking us up, again. This time it wasn’t the police, but rather the news helicopters. A major fire nearby destroyed some homes and abandoned factories.
I was out walking with each of the girls yesterday and Emma began commenting on how she liked the quiet of the country. We were walking under the “el” (elevated train line) along a busy shopping district, and it was loud. A day before Melanie had commented on how she liked Spring, the greening on the land, though I thought about how little green there is in the city.

It all brings to mind how you have to look just a little bit harder to see what is growing, and listen more intently to hear the beautiful sounds. And that is my job, in many ways, to listen and to look. I love what I do. I am convinced that it is the greatest job on the planet right now (I am having a good week). Listening and looking. So here is what I am seeing….

I am seeing churches grow, reaching unreached people. I don’t like bragging about what I do, but I know you want to hear that the people you support are actually doing something. One thing I am doing is helping churches to grow. In my “looking” I saw that churches were passionate and trying. In my “listening” I heard that they needed help. I was able to convince the Mustard Seed foundation to come and meet with a hand picked group of 10 churches, 7 of whom now have funding to reach more people. We expect to see around a quarter million dollars come through for this project. None of it comes to us, one of the reasons we are effective, no conflict of interest.

In “listening” we have heard a lot of talk about church planting. You could say it is a hot topic in Philadelphia right now with lots of enthusiasm. What I also heard was a lot of the same things being discussed, such as how to equip and train church planters, how to asses them, how to support them. What we saw was that there was not a lot of talk amongst the different groups. So we helped launch a meeting, a conversation with church planting groups. There are now 10 at the table; all discussing what things we can do better together, than apart. Those groups include the Christian Reformed Church, Southern Baptist, Acts29, Presbyterian Church of America, Simple Church Network, Calvary Chapel, and others. My role is a small one, to show where we may be able to work together, what the advantages are, and where some of the greatest needs in the city lie.

I have a few other places I go to “listen” and to “look”. I sit on the Executive Committee of the Harvest Crusade. We expect over 50,000 people to come out in October for the event. Now I am not a “crusade” kind of person, and I think the time for such large meetings may be dwindling, but in listening I heard a man with a passion and now over 250 pastors have become involved.

I am also acting President of the board of a health clinic in Camden, NJ that provides health care for the Homeless. I took the role as a short term favour for a good friend, as Camden is outside my community. Joyce has replaced me on the board of Esperanza Health Center and is doing very well in her role.

Of course these are the bigger things, the things that jump out to people. Most of my “listening” and “looking” is on a much smaller scale. It is hearing from a pastor that he needs a building to house his growing congregation, and connecting him with another church in his community that is struggling to fill the pews and pay the bills. It is hearing from many the struggles to gain an accredited degree and facilitating the startup of a graduate study program in the city under Bakke Graduate University (very self serving this one, as I am a student in the program). It is teaching a class to full-time and lay church leaders on how to understand your community, how it functions, why it functions after seeing that not many churches really understand the changing face of their communities, or when they do, how to adapt.

Sometimes I feel like Google (without the massive share growth). People call me to find out how to contact others, how to get invited to a certain meeting, to be introduced to certain people. I receive calls about events and happenings and questions about where to find certain things. This has always been a part of what I do. Way back in another time and place, I marveled at the questions people from the community would call the church to ask, ones such as, who to call for garbage collection, where to get a loan, how to buy a house. The questions have changed a little, but the undertone is the same. They flow from trust. After 15 years here the biggest asset Joyce and I bring is trust. I may not be any better at what I do, but I am trusted. In some circles I am probably not even liked very much, but I am trusted. People know that I will give an honest answer and that I will help them as best I can. They also know that I won’t give up and leave them in a moment.

So, that is what ministry looks like for us. Listening and Looking. God is doing amazing things through amazing people all across the city. My role is to let them know that others are out there, and encourage them to work together. Yes, besides the listening and looking I do some “speaking”. But my speaking flows out of the listening and looking. It is in response to what I see and hear that I speak.

The helicopters have now moved on to some other scene of tragedy. It is quiet, for the city. In the midst of the noise, you have to listen hard to hear, but when you do, you will hear that Philadelphia is growing and lives are changing. It is gray outside, though the few trees are starting to green a little. You have to look hard to see natural beauty in the city. But, when you do look, you will see a place of beauty, beauty in the people. God’s hand is here, shaping things, and it is beautiful.

Yes, I do have the greatest job in the world, looking and listening to what God is doing, and then telling others about it. If you have a moment to read 1 Corinthians 12 you will see why we do this, our belief that we are One Body, Many Parts. My job is to help people see that they cannot do this alone, that no church can do this alone, but that they need each other, need the rest of the Body. It is no coincidence, in my opinion, that our community has more than one church. They are there to work together, to pray for each other, to send people back and forth, and to send money to each other, as the needs arise. Churches in the same community rarely work together and as such are no where near as effective as they could be. So read 1 Corinthians 12, if you have time, and think about it. Then read the next chapter, 13, because it is beautiful.

The family is well. We are expecting our baby boy around August 4. Joyce is having some issues with very painful varicose veins. This pregnancy has been much harder than the two before and it is hard watching her in pain. The girls are all doing well in school. Melanie has taken up dog training as her weekly activity, Saiyeh and Mel were in gymnastics, and Emma needs to be in something soon as she is a bundle of energy. I am continuing my studies towards a Masters and am thankful that all the work fits in so well to my daily ministry.

Our support picked up around Christmas and has dropped a little since then. CityNet has been gracious not to charge us the usual ministry service fee, but that may soon be ending with some structural changes at CityNet. This means about $5000 a year we need to pay towards payroll and receipting expenses (fairly standard for mission’s agencies). We would also like to raise enough so we do not have to pay ministry expenses out of our personal account, and one day to have some retirement benefits. In dollar amounts, currently we are projecting to raise $45,000 this year. We would like to raise that up to $70,000, keeping our actual pay the same, the rest going to direct ministry expenses (office, travel, admin etc) and to benefits. If you would like to contribute to this, we would be grateful. Most of all I would encourage you to begin Listening and Looking and then to share what you see and what you hear. Tell others about the great things going on in your communities, so that together we will be more than we are apart.