Missions = Christian Crack Cocaine?

Missions, "Christian Crack Cocaine," may seem a little to X-treme, but is it really?

Oh, what am I but dust and yet You care about me, the wretched man that I am!

In 1998 I went on my first ever mission trip - Honduras... It was eye opening, challenging, mind boggling experience of a lifetime a memory that will linger forever in my heart and mind. I still can not comprehend the significance of this trip in my life, but since then I've been on mission trips every summer and have even launched a ministry - The Net's Mission Baltimore - that's entire purpose is to recruit, host and connect mission teams with local urban churches, ministries, and community organizations. Before - I served the citizens of Baltimore as a Police Officer and Now - I'm a missionary and pastor. So you could definitely say that this first mission trip changed my life's trajectory.

I remember coming home from Honduras and flying into Nashville, Kentucky. I spent some time at the Grand Ole Opry, even went into the huge outlet mall next door. The sights, sounds, and lavishness of American living overwhelmed me, my heart sunk low and tears slowly rolled down my cheeks. Weeks later I was in New York City, I spied the extravagance of Time Square and once again, I found myself overtaken by sadness. I stood peering up at the mega screens, the billions of light bulbs, giant marques and thought how much money have we spent on these things and the electricity it costs to power them? What about the poor, homeless and hungry how do we care for them?

I am a wretched man! Oh, how desperately I need God's GRACE...

Mission Baltimore...The last summer mission team left Baltimore for home yesterday. It often seems as though missions, like Starbucks is Christian crack, just a high, an experience to put under our belts; add to our lengthy list of works; a feel good drug that's all about the infamous "me" doing what I'm suppose to do as a good Christian.

Do I grasp the reality of peoples desperate need to be loved and the reality of the power of God's love to change the lives of my neighbors? Missions, a word you won't find in the Bible, God's Word, but is implicit through out. Passages like Acts 1:8, "...you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Or my sons favorite verse, Mark 16:15, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." Or these words that Jesus also spoke from Matthew 28:19, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations..."

Missions must be born out of a TRUE burden the burden of our Father to bring the Gospel of healing and hope to our lost and lonely neighbor, this Gospel of LOVE... Yet truly caring is hard for we only glimpse very briefly into the lives of our neighbor carrying a message of hope through food, prayers, giving away Bibles, Vacation Bible Schools, Sports Camps, Medical Clinics, Clean Up Projects, Building Projects, Clean Water Projects, Evangelistic Crusades, etc... We are In and Out!

Are we only selling a product or giving it away with no concern for our neighbor, no real love? Do we even see their faces, gaze deeply into their eyes, truly feel the burdens that their hearts bare? Do we enter into their experience and see as God sees? Has missions become a task on the Christian "Works" To Do List without connecting or even risking heart to heart connection with our neighbor for fear that it may cost us more than we are willing to pay?

Most Christians, including myself are involved in missions at some level. We support missionaries or mission organizations through donations of: food, Bibles, money, clothes, volunteering a week or two of vacation time to serve. We have the professional missionary, of which I am one, who loves our neighbors for us so we don't have to. The real cost of missions, giving your heart to another, is to high a price for most of us to pay. We often reduce loving your neighbor to a heartless task that appears on our "Works" To Do List.

Even when we do go on a mission trip once we get home to our A/C, nice clothes, cars, I-Pods, Sports, Wide Screen - Flat Panel - Digital - Surround Sound - Home Theaters, Computers, Cell Phones, DVD Collections, CD Collections, Get Anything You want Shopping Malls we forget the lost, the lonely, the penny less, the hungry, the starving, the disease ridden, the helpless, hopeless and heart broken neighbor we met or hopefully served on the mission field.

Is this just another high adventure experience to add to our Christian "Works" Been There Done That - list?

Are we really loving our neighbor or just playing another nice Christian game of Make Believe called "Love Thy Neighbor?"

My prayer is that this wretched man that I am will see in each and every face, whether serving on a mission trip or walking down the sidewalk at home, the suffering Christ in the eyes of each of my NEIGHBORS and that I will be overcome with the burden of my Father's heart to connect compassionately, heart to heart with my brother or sister and live out Christ's example of loving at all cost, because love which costs me nothing is NOT love at all!"

A Poetic Tribute "The Bride"

Journal Entry: February 19, 2007


Abba, this idea, this model, this living, breathing organism, this bride, this body; made up of many human bodies, Your Church is truly a beautiful living, breathing being…

Through your Spirit she has endured persecutions both from insiders and outsiders; she has endured splits, division-schisms and been brought to life through revival; she survives and out lives doctrinal differences; perverts and perversions; she survives and thrives in spite of my own personal wickedness; in spite of the self-righteous, legalistic Pharisees.

How? How? How?

She has a supernatural Father; and Bridegroom, Jesus. She is powered by the very power that creates something from NOTHING, and breaths life into that which was once dead! God-the Holy Spirit!

She cannot be destroyed; she cannot be contained; she cannot be maintained. She is living and breathing. Your church, body, bride has and will endure all treachery. She thrives in what seems like death to man; she continues through the ages, no man can stop her, nor can any power!

She is the Church Powered by God Almighty!

She is beautiful, majestic, and mysterious…
She is gentle, kind, patient and loving…
She is a refuge, a place of rest and safety…
She is a place where the lost and the broken find redemption, resurrection and new life…
She is strong, powerful and advancing…
She is the Bride of Christ, the Church of God, a hospital to the sick, a family to the lonely, She trains up and sends out… She is Your Church…

May you fall in love with the one... The Father... He who prepares the beautiful Bride for her Bridegroom.

May you become a lover of His Son...

Mans Most Challenging Pursuit

As we've stepped out into Matt's House, a recently launched young adult church in the Baltimore area, I've found myself wrestling with my inadequacy for the task ahead. I am ill equipped for the task of planting and growing this new church. If it is to be, and it is, God will have to do it! So the challenge then is to Pursue Him!

One thing I know, through the reading of God's Word, the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, is that God most often uses a remnant, a small band of brothers, that are wholly sold out and set-apart to do His bidding. This small band is always out numbered, ill equipped, and eclectic, as Brennan Manning likes to put it, they are usually the ragamuffins of our society-the outcasts. These ragamuffins are well aware that left to themselves our world will never change for the better. They know that they can do NOTHING without God's helping them to Do It or as the ragamuffins would say, without "God Doing It!" Their success is His Success, Their Glory is His Glory, Their Lives are His... They NO longer have ownership of their lives, these ragamuffins are all, fully HIS... They pursue often wanting to know the details and the future, but discover they are the ones being pursued by the LOVER of their souls.

I myself have wondered about this pursuit of God. This never ending longing that posses my soul. This daunting desire to know... to experience... to touch... to see... to smell... to feel... and to hear God seems to haunt me. Could it be Him, God I mean, wanting to know me... to touch me... to see me... to smell me...? Are we, man that is, pursuing God to be with God or are we continually pursuing Him for what He can give us: stuff, insight, power, position things that might calm my fears and doubts... things that might give me an advantage or provide me with a false sense of security?

Whether seeking Understanding-Knowledge-Revelation-Answers or;
Comfort-Acceptance-Peace-Hope and/or Love from God this pursuit possesses me and all of mankind, whether we acknowledge God or not, the creature created in His image, yes the image of God, desires to know Him!

This most challenging of pursuits, one that man has engaged in since the beginning of time, from ancient civilizations until today we all want to experience God. In mans pursuit of God he is at times humble, but mostly arrogant and self serving! The pursuit has brought out the best and the worst in man: consider the crusades, heresy trials and subsequent carrying out of death sentences, 9/11, the division between the sacred and the secular, the pitting of one man against another, etc. We've killed one another quiet literally... We've killed in our thoughts... We've killed in our words... We've killed in our deeds any and all who might oppose our pursuit and it's purposes. We've also comforted those who oppose us... are different than us... whether they believe or not we've shared a kind word, served by way of a good deed, encouraged by a gentle, uplifting glance. This latter expression, comfort not kill those who oppose us, is of God it is "agape," a Greek word depicting God's unconditional love! A love that is not a conditional statement..."If you_____, then I will ______ ." God demonstrates His love without any conditions toward All man kind even those who oppose Him in their unbelief and/or those who want only to use Him for selfish gain.

• Is "agape" physically killing another?
• Is "agape" killing another in word?
• Is "agape" killing another in thought?

NO! Absolutely NOT!

My Prayer... As I pursue You Abba Father, Daddy, God help me to rest in Your love for me and to love others as you first loved-agaped me...whether they kill me or they comfort me might I love as You love.

As I conclude this post, fellow Sojourner, know that I pray the above prayer with a heightened sense of fear and anxiety concerning the UNKNOWN! The faces and questions that seem to oppose what God is doing frequently race through my mind as I contemplate this NEW endeavor...this NEW adventure...this NEW church..."Matt's House." I find myself wanting to know all the answers: What's going to happen? How will it happen? Who will support and comfort? Who will oppose and attempt to destroy? I'm pursuing and wanting to know God out of a need for security bound up in understanding and knowledge!

So I asked God?

His answer and a profound TRUTH was, "KNOW this... EXPERIENCE this, "The LORD Himself goes before you and will be with you..."

KNOW THIS TRUTH Sojourner...
Believe it and Step out into the ADVENTURE you were born to LIVE! No Fear! No Doubt! No Questions! Just Him, God, with you...THIS IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Extravagant Love=Surpassing Peace

It’s a rough, trying, tiring battle! Grasping God’s love… I can’t help but feel forlorn, helpless, weak as I contemplate my life and circumstances: marriage, fatherhood, spiritual fatherhood and brotherhood. It seems all so overwhelming: Larry’s stroke and impending rehabilitation; completion of my education; my relationship with Allison (wife); my relationship with Faith and Jesse (children); my relationships with those I walk beside in ministry and the kids they walk with daily; my family and its struggles, difficulties and challenges.
I realize I can do nothing, but respond to what God is already doing.
My Prayer... Help me to respond to you Abba!

Remember The plague...Doubt

Why these seeds of doubt? Doubt disguised as fear really...

• A rational justification maybe...
• A lie or pack of lies...

A dark plague lurking beneath the surface, revealing a lack of...

• Faith...In God and what He is doing.
• Hope...In God and what He is doing.
• Love...For God and what He is doing.

Ultimately, this all boils down to a lack of my knowing His Extravagant Love for me. Believing His uncontainable Grace for and towards me.

My prayer for you dear friends...is that you find a yearning within the deepest recesses of your heart to respond to His, Abba’s, Daddy’s Extravagant Love… This is a place, His love, of sanctuary, of rest, of peace even though life seems to be raging out of control around you, OVERWHELMING you.