Someone once told me that ministry was building bridges to help people get from where they are to where God wants them to be.   Being a hack carpenter- building decks for my house that may not be the most sturdy or level, I know how inadequate I would be at building a bridge of any scope.  Bridges come in all shapes and sizes and accomplish things as simple as providing a way for a person to walk over a shallow creek (like the cool little suspension bridge on the back side of the island at New Life Ranch).  They can also be massive in scope and require unbelievable vision, resources, and energy to produce.

The other thing that is interesting about bridges is that in order for them to fulfill their purpose, people need to take responsibility to move across them.  The bridge doesn’t take people, or cars, or whatever, and move them from one side to the other.  It provides a way for the person to engage, to move forward under their own power, to get to the other side.  The bridge makes it possible- and yet the “bridge crosser” is responsible.  This is a beautiful thing in that a given in this equation is the ability and strength of the bridge crosser to make it over.  It’s the bridge builder’s responsibility to create a way across.

Bridges require people to give input at various levels in order to be constructed, right?  I can be the project manager, builder, purchaser, quality control officer, and HR dude when I make a bridge across a ditch in my back yard.  And a fine bridge it will be!

However- the bigger the bridge that I am involved in building- the less I am involved in the entire operation.  I am best operating in a specific role and trusting others to fulfill their own specific role.  Some valleys, or rivers, or spans require big time vision- and big time operation.  Might this be your bridge?

Or maybe this is the one that looks more like you:

What I know now is this:  getting in on doing ministry is a beautiful thing.  It is worth being thankful for.  And, there can come times where your purpose is  to build new bridges.

CQ Missional, and our educational projects the CML and GPS Tulsa are bridges.  They are designed to help people who are in a specific stage of life, with specific needs- move from where they are, to where God wants them to be.  Students in Tulsa looking for life direction, for a vocation, for some purpose, for some people to share this search with- get the opportunity to walk across the bridge of GPS Tulsa together.  We get the privilege of creating the context for this discovery.  By the way- this will be a blast to get going!  People who are young adults but a little farther along, perhaps they have graduated college, or have been working a job for a few years, get the opportunity to walk across the bridge of the CML together- serving a community, creating new life in neighborhoods, and taking a chance on their own vocation shift.

Right now we are putting together what looks like a foot bridge, the kind you can wear sandals while walking across, or even go barefoot in the process!  However- the span between where 1000s of 20 somethings are, and where they could be is huge.  I pray for wisdom and community to join in building the right bridge to help you adults figure out their purpose in life.  This is a Golden Gate type of need.

Whats next in the bridge?  Raise more scholarship money, raise awareness of how we can serve young adults, make more friends and offer real support to help our clients make courageous decisions.  In other words, keep moving forward.

I am thankful today to be a bridge builder.  What does your bridge look like today?  Are you walking across one?  Are you in the middle of building one?  What does Ministry look like to you?

ck

There are two voices I hear in my head.  They are similar to the ones described by Henri Nouwen in his book Spiritual Direction (and others.)

One voice says, “Make sure people are ok with you.  Be pleasing, impressive, and set yourself up to be loved and respected.”  Listening to this voice can set a person up to be a “hyphenated” person.  I’m a teacher-counselor.  I am a pastor-outdoor leader. I’m a worship leader musician- leader of a non profit. I’m a Christian-person of the world.  I am not of this world- very much a part of this world.

If you don’t like a part of me that is a big part of me, I usually have another part of me that should be ok with you.  This position in life can curtail the deepest fears that I may not be acceptable, lovable, worthy of relationship.

There is another voice I hear, and I hear it at times when I know it will be loud and clear.  These times include times where I listen, times where I engage the Bible, times in the wilderness, times when I observe the beauty of those I love, times when prayer isn’t asking for things- but is more about listening and loving.  Here’s what the voice says- “Whatever you do, stay close to the heart of God.”  This voice that calls me the son of God, the child of the loving Christ, the target of the Spirit’s support…. it resonates and informs the things I do, whether “hyphenated” or not.

I can work at our new canopy tour in the Buffalo River Valley in the context of staying close.  I can listen and counsel all the while I am staying close.  I am a father, a husband, a musician- who makes his choices staying close to the heart of God.

Friends- as we work together in exciting new projects like GPS Tulsa, ask me what voice I am listening to.  What about you?  Is there a voice that resonates with you as an image bearer of God?  Does this voice affirm your ability to create, to contribute? Or, is there a voice that keeps you on edge to “conform to the pattern of this world” by goading you to continually please, impress, or position yourself for success.  What do you do about that?

The late artist Rich Mullins brought me back to my original inspiration for a life based on being an image bearer of God as I browsed his biography last week.  He said- “We were created to create.”  I remembered seeing him play his music, with his friends who called themselves “The Ragimuffin Band”.  Their music was folksy, loud, emotive, and more meaningful than much of anything I had experienced in my life at age 24.  He sang of communion in a literal and figurative sense, he expressed to God that he was “shaking like a leaf” and never really had it together, and he thanked God for the color Green.

He sings: “And the wrens have returned and they’re nesting
In the hollow of that oak where his heart once had been
And he lifts up his arms in a blessing for being born again
And the streams are all swollen with winter
Winter unfrozen and free to run away now
And I’m amazed when I remember
Who it was that built this house
And with the rocks I cry out

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green, the fills these fields with praise.”

Rich was created to create, and God’s creation always reflects its creator.

What were you created to create today- or maybe, this year?  May we help each other live in this knowledge and encourage the courage required to be a creator, and not just a consumer.

ck

Have you taken the time lately to consider what your role is in someone else’s story?  What kind of “role player” do you make?  What kind of character are you when you’re a supporting actor?  What words get used when its the same situation, but you’re not the star?

I’m spending with week with about 85 young adults on staff of a summer camp and we’re asking this question.  What do you think?

We just had some of the CQ Missional Team over for some good eating and home made ice cream and we were talking about what it is we do.  We say we help people discover their unique role in making the world a better place.  I believe we do that in several ways, and thats good.  We believe that everyone has, as a created child of God, something unique and valuable to offer.  We believe in the people we serve- and we help them believe that they play a role unlike anyone else in history- and that is a beautiful thing.

The question that comes up, though, is huge.  Can people in their searching to discover “their thing” forget about what we would call in church “God’s general will” for people?  Is it possible that people miss the boat in their search and “journey” and forget that there is a way of living out of gratitude for what God has done- that is characterized by a life of thankfulness, taking responsibility, and integrity?

Tony Campolo was speaking to students and faculty at John Brown University when I was doing some adjunct work there and he asked students to fill in the sentence they would hear from time to time from mom or dad.  It went like this:  ”I care more about you than about what you do for a a living.  I just want you to be ______________.”

Whats the answer?  The crowd in unison shouted back:  ”HAPPY!”

True.  This is what we tell our kids, and what many of us have been hearing from those who love us most.

Tony, on the other hand, heard a different word from his mother, and in fact many of his classmates heard the same word.  It went like this:  ”I just want you to be __________.”

Whats the answer?  Students didn’t know.  His answer was:  ”GOOD.”

“I just want you to be good.”

Good people are humble, they know there is a God (and they aren’t Him), they look out for others, they stay married, they stay engaged in their faith community, they are nice, and they make a habit of telling the truth- even when its hard.  Not that they don’t mess up, or even do bad things… because good people are just, well, people.  But for them, goodness is a little more important than happiness, and contentment and joy flow from pursuing what is good.

Terry Ewing told me (among others) that people who seek after their own happiness first and foremost are the most miserable people he has met.  He knows- his counseling practice has been full of people who are hurting, and have sought happiness above all else.

So my question is, since we are in the business of helping people find “their thing”; Can people find their thing, their unique role and ignore general ways to live that have been prescribed for all men?  Can people really find their true identity, and not be true to an identity made for humanity,  first?

I have some ideas- but I’m curious what yours are…

ck

As we prepare to meet new students signing up for GPS Tulsa, and as this journey is taking me into conversations with new people and new friendships.  I am reminded of how much I enjoy getting to know people.  Each person (including you, Mr/Miss Blog Reader!) has such value and every story is interesting.  You are the only one of you, ever.  On a deeper level, as relational beings- we each long to be known.  So while I love enjoying new relationships, there are a few that have deepened over time in which I where I know my friend, and they know me.  I hear a song during the day, and I can text the title of the song to my friend.  My friend knows what I’m thinking and shoots back.  They get my jokes, and know my failures.  They accept me and enjoy me.    There are a few friends like this in my life who remind me through their love that I am known and that I am loved.  With their help, they have helped move me to a deeper truth where (in the words of Brennan Manning) I have accepted the fact that I am accepted.  As image bearers, we long to be known and when we’re not sure this is true, we live lost.

I want to remind you today that you are known, and you are not alone.  You are, in fact, completely known and people can give us a “dim reflection” of this beautiful truth that is much bigger than you or I.  Don Chaffer writes some straight forward words about his experience in the ground breaking solo work “You were at the time for love.”

And I used to bathe in tears at night

Cause I felt like I was on my own

I used to think I would never be

Completely known

I used to hold on tightly

To the sorrows that I owned

But they were all I knew

They had run me through

And they had left me

All alone

I used to pray every day

That God would mend what’s torn

Now I see the only way is to die…

To die…

And be reborn

I have finally found a way to live

In the presence of the Lord

- Don Chaffer “Completely Known”

Being known by another human being is a gift, its rare these days, more rare in our culture, and it resonates with our deepest image bearing self.

What do you think?

4×6 cqmissional As we talk with new prospective students for our next Certificate in Missional Leadership program coming this fall, as well as the exciting news of connecting with local community college students looking towards their next stage of life, I’m reminded of what it means to move.

Our work is about helping people engage the adventure of change, and helping them grow and have courage- entering into vocation and ways of being that are unique to them.  I believe these ways have been created by God and reserved for each person.  It is our responsibility to move into places where new vocation and new ways of being are possible.  It’s called getting out of your comfort zone.  Henri Nouwen calls it voluntary displacement.

He says in his book, Spiritual Direction: “Following Jesus involves leaving the comfortable place and going to a place that is outside our comfort zone.  Spiritual displacement is what is called for.  The dictionary says that to displace is to move or to shift from the ordinary or proper place.  As a ship at sea displaces water, so are we displaced when something grater than ourselves moves us in a new direction or state of being.  For displacement to be a real discipline, it has to be voluntary.  Voluntary displacement prevents us from being caught in the net of the ordinary and proper   It is the discipline essential to remembering who we really are and remaining in touch with our greatest gifts of gratitude and compassion.”

For some of us this means making a real move into a new life.  For others, it means letting go of some life we may have fantasized about but does not lead to life for us and others.  For some the displacement is involuntary and our responsibility is coming to grips with what God hopes for us right now, and what our view is of our circumstance.

This year, please join us as we help people move.  Join us in considering yourself  what voluntary displacement could be for you and get outside your comfort zone.  This will create community, and you will not be able to help but see yourself as a part of a much bigger story.  Lets engage that adventure!

We have 2 unique opportunities that will help people and help CQM move forward.  We looking for:

A tenant to share small office space at the Quaker 4 plex where our Certificate students are living.  It is zoned for dual use, and one unit in particular will work well for small business space for someone who needs a quiet space in a very cool location.

Also- we have a space for new residents in a unit that can help offset the cost of officing there for CQM.  Its a chance for folks in their 20s who want to live in community, not expensive, and have access to great places to serve.

Folks in the Quaker House don’t have to be in our program- they just live as renters in this very cool place. This will allow us to house students, and access some good meeting space for 20s to gather, hang out, talk life direction.

No strings- just wanting good folks to be renters.

Its in an awesome spot- about 200 yards from Jason’s Deli right by 15th and Peoria (Cherry St). The owners want to support CQ Missional by being generous in offering their place up to us to fill it up with young people who love God, love people, and want to make the world a better place.   Its got a little pool and great deck in the back, close to Cherry St, Downtown, and River Activities- as well as beautiful opportunities to serve (the church 2 doors down serves free meals to the tulsa urban population every Friday).
Units are 2 bedroom (small) and there are washer/dryer hookups.

CQM people there as well as the owner of the property have a hospitable heart and will welcome new renters or residents.   This should be a great place to be this year. the address is 1430 S Quaker, Tulsa.

If you’re needing office space- it will be a good quite space to share with our leaders, making phone calls, working online, and having the occasional meeting.  If you need living space, this is a place where CQ Missional will gather in their 20s, and it will be a safe and warm place to live.

Let me know if you’re interested, and please shoot this to any friends who may benefit.   We hope to rent (and help the owners) space as soon as possible, and start basing operations here.

Questions?  Call Chris at 918-557-6128.

Dear Jesus, as I call on you today I realise that I often come asking for favours.
Today I’d like just to be in your presence.
Let my heart respond to Your Love.

This was part of my morning devo from Sacred Space today.  It informed my morning of finishing up a new double zipline for Camp Luther in Northern Wisconsin, and in my afternoon buying of souvenirs for the fam  in nearby Eagle River.

What did it mean to “be in your presence” today?  Well for me, it had to do with understanding my context regardless of my location.  A discussion we’re having about Honeyrock, a camp where CQ is doing training next week, is the idea of Honeyrock being a place, or an experience that can happen in many places.  Well, the answer not withstanding, to be in God’s presence is an experience that happens” all the time, everywhere.” (from Most Amazing Grace in the World, off the Whitebread Album)

This morning, in a beautiful northwoods pine forest on a sunny 60 degree day, I knew I was not alone.  I am never alone.  In fact, I am always a part of a conversation going on between myself and my creator.  Sometimes I listen, sometimes I speak, sometimes (usually) I am unaware of what is actually going on and I ignore the voice of the one who loves me most.

Since I’ve been traveling lately, my conversations with home have been interesting, and sometimes mundane- but last night Kristin and I hit on an idea that has big implications for me and for you, and if we don’t tend to it- we’ll miss it.

I said- “I just miss being around for the normal stuff.”  We agreed that its the everyday with the people who mean most to you that defines our relationships.  Just going to ballgames, and watching band concerts and the Biggest Loser together.  Eating food we made a home, and tending to the new (somewhat) garden, and shooting hoops in the driveway- this is what I miss when I’m gone.  And…this is what I forget about when I’m home.

May we remember what it means to live in one’s presence, and to connect that idea on a supernatural level to understanding our place in the context of God’s presence.

Lord, let me live in your presence today.  Friends, let me be present when I am with you- may I be a listener- and be thankful for the existence of the best relationships.  God, may we see you and hear you today- in the northwoods, in Broken Arrow, at New Life Ranch, and in East Tulsa or in Uganda.

We are in His presence- do you listen to His words?  What does He say?  Is it in the Bible, the creation around you that you hear Him best?  Is it through People,  or a challenging circumstance?  What is the conversation like when you choose to be “in the house?”  What do you imagine it is when you are “out of it”?

Feedback!!!??  Cmon friends- shoot me some thoughts!!

Keep reading and look for our new certificate programs coming this next fall…

ck