On My Knees

Psalm 24:3-4

³ Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand in his holy place?

⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.

Tonight I was listening to a message at Passion City Church while caring for my daughter out in the lobby. She is enthralled with climbing stairs. With about four months of walking under her belt; she is just over a year old, we decided to let her climb away, with our help and guidance. Tonight, she decided that the crawling method was behind her and approached the ascent like any adult would – lifting her leg up while standing upright. Of course, that is about the same as me trying to climb a staircase with steps the height of dinning room tables. There she was with one foot up stretched up on the first step, a step nearly a third of her total height.

I kept a hand on her back, gently guiding her to her knees, she would steady herself with her hands on the steps above and crawl steadily up the stairs. Without my hand on her back she would stand, unable to make it up a single step without tumbling down the staircase.

My little climber was teaching me a lesson tonight. I am so much like her in my walk with Christ. Trying to ascend from pits I have dug. Trying to ascend to dreamy heights. I ask God to help me up and I race off to the stairs. With the first step, He gently pushes me to my knees. Unkind? I get frustrated, complain. Sometimes, I see others wiz by me and I figure that if God would just let me stand, then I would be able to race upward like “everybody else.” But, I am much more like Mercy in my ability to ascend than I would lie to admit. I am learning to have the determination and trust to crawl today. I have spent too much of my life stopping to curse and complain. I have been caught in a stubborn cycle of tumble down the first few steps.

One of the messy pits of my life is my career. How I want to walk right out of this hole. I am sure that my wife, parents and in-laws would like me to ascend a bit too. In twenty-five years of work history, I have managed to have more jobs than I can count. I have yet to stay full-time with a job for more than a few years – many job stints were for much less time. I have used an addiction to a professional musicianship, college, grad school, music school and short-term missions trips as excuses for my shoddy vocational commitment.

My current work is delivering pizzas in a strange little town north of Atlanta. Two things stand out about our little town. First there is a chicken processing plant spitting-distance to City Hall and the main square. Interesting city planning. Second, just adjacent to the city center is a hill (they call it mountains here and I guess considering that it peaks out slightly above the other hills it can be a mountain).

There is a house that sits on the peak, towering over the town like a castle. Yesterday, I had a delivery up the mountain. It is quite a house and an amazing view. After delivering the pizza, I humbly asked, “who are you all?” My intention was to communicate the utmost of respect, acknowledging that they live in “the house that overlooks the town.” The young guy who ordered the pizza told me that his dad had worked his butt off all his life and that he and his brothers hoped that they would continue with the same work ethic. Making some conversation, he asked how long I had been working for our pizza chain. I was ashamed to say.

What a kind smack toward the floor. The path to the house on the hill is not going to be one that I stroll up. I can’t even reach the first step. But, I’m also not content to live and raise my family in the budget apartment we have; an apartment with a wonderful view of the chicken processing plant. I get frustrated and complain. And I feel God hand on my back, pushing me to my knees. I want to find the determination and strength that Mercy showed today. Not for houses or prominence, but for commitment and faithfulness to God who has placed me on a path with steps bigger than I can manage, except on my knees. I have been standing at the bottom of the stairwell for much too long.

New Song Idea

Jaime and I were sitting around the other day... Mercy ran away with the iPhone. It was pretty cute.

SONG

The Christian Formation of Young People

Values

Love, Grace, Awe, Wonder

Discipleship, Spiritual Disciplines,

Family, Community, Incarnational Living

Goal

To set young people on a journey of wonder and awe at the immense love God has for them, with a sincere and deep hope that each student would be engaged in a loving relationship with Christ and the church, equipped for good works and empowered in the expression of their unique gifting and calling.

Summary

We desire to develop a holistic children and youth ministry that sets kids and youth on a journey towards wholeness, strength and the experience of God’s immense love expressed in and through Jesus Christ. Our specific philosophy of ministry is rooted in relationship - teaching students to love Christ and to live a life based out of that love. We believe that relationship with Christ is embedded within the loving relationships found within a body of Believers. Simply, we want to participate in connecting others in a loving relationship with Christ and community.

From age one to age eighteen, it is important for young people to experience relationship with Christ lived out in a gracious and loving community. For younger children, the church is fundamentally a place of warmth, love and felt care. For the maturing student, church is a sanctuary where they can voice their needs, both felt and real, and gain a Christ-centered worldview by which to anchor themselves as their lives take shape. For the more mature student, church is a place where mentoring and discipleship take place so that they can express and develop their gifts and calling.

The specific model of Christian Education would be one of discipleship based upon Galatians 5: 1-6 “It was for freedom that Christ set us free … For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness”. In using this verse as the underpinning of our ministry model, we recognize that we must be completely centered on Christ, rooted in grace and the leading of the Holy Spirit. This means that as well as developing a program engaging the youth, we are absolutely dependent upon and engaged with the activity of God. Every step of the journey from recruitment to training must rely on a God-centered, Spirit-lead, faith-filled ministry.

We place great importance on the children and youth ministry’s integration within the vision, mission and activity of the larger church community - inviting adults into the service as mentors, leaders, and connecting young people in ministry service to and alongside adults. By connecting kids to the larger church and connecting the larger church to the youth we seek to help each students connect within the community in meaningful and life-giving ways.

In addition to fostering connections to the church community, we are committed to families. Realizing that “family” takes many different forms – two parent, single parent homes, foster families, grandparents as the primary caretakers and divorced families - we value and seek to encourage and empower families in whatever expression is present. We desire to create safe spaces where youth can voice hopes, concerns, fears and dreams – even some they don’t feel comfortable broaching with their parents. And we also want to encourage families in their own inter-family communication, keeping as a core value the affirmation and equipping of families.

The goal of Christian Education would be to see graduating students be on a journey of wonder and awe at the immense love God has for them. It is our sincere and deep hope that each student would be engaged in a loving relationship with Christ and the church, equipped for good works and empowered in the expression of their unique gifting and calling. As well, we seek to lead students through a program whereby upon venturing into the adult world, they have resources from which to draw when facing adversity and making daily decisions. As well, we seek to plant a seed of God’s grace, love, peace, joy and faith rooted in Christ which will provide a solid bedrock for life.

Autumn Rain

A recent song idea...