I'm writing this as I get ready to head out for a week at the beach with my extended family.  I am grateful to have a family to go and be with, a beach to lie on, and little people to boogie board with in the waves.  It is a gift. I really do know this.  But I can't fake it; I'm also daunted.  Everyone there--and there will be 35 plus folks--over the age of 18 will come with his or her spouse/partner, except me.  Every other female adult my age or younger (there are 8 of us in that category) will have--within the last year--gotten married, gotten pregnant or had a baby, the one exception being one sister-in-law whose first child is college bound.  Whether or not you are a woman, if you have ever been single longer than you thought, or been in situations where you can't escape that "odd man out" sensation, I think you might understand why ... this scenario gives me a rather large internal wave!Read more

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend my cousin’s wedding this weekend. It was a gorgeous (and very humid) ceremony in New Orleans. Let’s just say that New Orleans in late July might be the closest place to the sun on earth. Heat aside, what a joyful time it was for the family and friends of these two. Along with my family, I was so proud of this cousin, where he’s been, where he’s come, and where he’s going. He will be a great husband to this lovely woman of God as they grow in new ways, and they have the support of loving families. That said, there is no doubt my cousin has had a mischievous past, and no one at the rehearsal dinner would relent on the colorful, hilarious stories.
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Two weeks ago, we were on our way out the door to go to a small group meeting. With four kids, the process of getting out of the door and loading up the car always seems to be a little more difficult than it should be. I asked the kids to put our dog in her kennel. They went outside and started yelling for Zoe to come in to the house. Unfortunately Zoe did not respond. Maybe she was upstairs in one of the kids rooms. We split up and started looking for her, but she was nowhere to be found. After about ten minutes, we made a sobering discovery. There was a hole in the back gate. It wasn't a very big hole, but Zoe is a small Boston Terrier. She did not need a very large hole to in order to make an escape. Unfortunately, our back gate opens onto a busy street. I was scared for our dog, but the kids were approaching panic. Small group would have to wait. We had to find Zoe, before she got hurt. 

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Holidays can be rough for graduate students who live a thousand miles from home. One family decided that at Easter no one in the body of Christ should be alone. I had never met this family before arriving for lunch—they had just extended the invitation to anyone who didn't have anywhere to go. After being cooped up in a residence hall all semester, entering their house was like being set free. A bookshelf spread across one wall, inviting guests to spot a volume and then use is it as a conversation starter. The deviled eggs and Romanian sweet bread far outdid the campus cafeteria. But it was the afternoon of sharing our hearts for ministry, ideas, family, and community that made the trip worth it. For me, their home that day became a temporary shelter from the things that burdened me.

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The older I get the more I realize how valuable my relationships are.  I just wrote a senior letter for my brother who is graduating from high school.  There is a 20 year difference in age between us and, honestly, we are not very close.  I moved away from home when he was about 1 year old and now we are about 11 hours away from each other.  We only see each other at family events, which are usually not good for quality hang time.  I don't really know him as a friend.  His graduating has stirred my heart for community and friendship.Read more

For the first time in over fifteen years I'm living in the dorm. It's true. Well, I can qualify that--it is graduate student housing with private rooms and no communal showers. Still, it is a residence hall just the same.

But, strange to say, it's been a good experience so far.

In fact, living smack dab in the middle of a Christian academic community has been anything but a downer. Now, lunches include discussions with a professor researching how the British are embracing the neo-paganism of Druid groups. The dining hall becomes a place where Canadians, South Africans, and Americans can compare the use of the words washroom and bathroom. Early Friday mornings are about dragging hall mates out of bed in order to put in an hour and a half of hoops. Afternoons may mean carrying a hurt buddy off the soccer field--and then running to get him dinner. A trip in the car can turn into advice from a brother who knows first-hand the plight of the inner city. And any evening can be a time of assembling for prayer.

Some say that many of us regard college as one of the best times of our lives because of its resemblance to real community. The question that comes to mind is: "How can we practice this way of living once we are out in the 'real world' living life?" How can we keep this sense of community?Read more

I sat in a chair opposite Jim, the director of our counseling program, in his office one hot and sultry August day.  A year into the program, I felt myself being deconstructed painfully, dealing with demons that I didn’t even know existed and whose presence now caused my soul great fear.  I was being unraveled, my sinful patterns of relating exposed as the marks of a charlatan.  “Light overcame the darkness” and in my nakedness and vulnerability, I wondered if I would ever be whole again.

Jim had seen both my gifts, as well as my patterns of darkness and he longed for me to live my life in a way that was more inviting, a way that would invite others to know me, to get close to me, to do life with me (even if messy).  And the words that came out of his mouth that day hung in the air and still remain fixed in my heart today: “Scott, you are talented enough that you could do life alone but that is precisely my fear.  My hope for you is that you will never choose to do life alone.”Read more

Update: This is Part 1 of a series on community by Corey Widmer.

For Part 2 click (here).

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Our story began when a group of friends at the University of Virginia were introduced to the vision of the Christian Community Development Association (www.ccda.org), founded by John Perkins. As we took trips together down to Jackson, MS to see Perkins’ original CCDA experiment, we were drawn to his vision for urban renewal that was grounded in the theology of the incarnation. Perkins’ conviction was that the blighted inner city would be renewed most effectively not by churches lofting in money and mission trips from the suburbs, but by Christians relocating into urban communities to be good neighbors and share in the plight of the poor as their own. A group of us committed to pray and explore whether we might one day do this together.

 Six years later, we saw our dream materialize in a part of inner city Richmond, VA called Church Hill. We moved into the neighborhood with three other married couples from UVA, all of whom now live within five blocks of each other. My wife Sarah and I were the last to arrive in the summer of ’05, and because we had not yet found a house we moved into the home of our friends Danny and Mary Kay Avula, comfortably settling into their spare room. But Sarah was seven and a half months pregnant, and D-Day was coming closer by the day. By early August we had not found a house, and we realized it was not going to work for us to be living in this small room with a new-born baby.Read more

A couple of things this past week got me thinking about what church life is supposed to be about.  I had some email correspondence with two friends on the subject of what the ratio of church staff to active members should be.  My friend in Nashville said he and his wife had been talking about how their church seemed staff-heavy.  My friend in San Antonio responded by saying that many churches spend far too much time building a "come and see" program schedule at the expense of fostering the use of spiritual gifts out there among the people (both members and unbelievers).

A day or so later, I ran across a video on YouTube by a church in New Orleans that I had visited and had provided some financial support.  The video was well-done and gave a glimpse into the incarnational ministry the church members sought to practice in one of the city's poorest neighborhood.  They believed that Christ offered new life that affected the whole person: spiritually and physically.  This was something that would spill over into the community so as to bring about transformation.  Programs did not figure into this philosophy.  Instead, eating together, playing to together, and mentoring each other in small groups gathered in homes formed the backbone of their church.  The pastor summed up the life of their church by stating, "Relationships work better than programs."Read more

My husband and I attended a wedding rehearsal dinner last Friday night. There was so much we could have said, but as the creative, props-in-hand roasters paid tribute, we realized that momentum would wind down before we got our scattered selves together. And... somehow it seemed too small a crowd to share with anyway. A person who connects across state, gender, educational and philosophical lines really needs a bigger ‘room’ for those festivities. By now, the new couple, Glenn and Stephanie Lucke, should be baking on a honeymoon beach. Back home, I’d like to spread the tent pegs and invite you to join me in continuing the comments.

For my part, I met Glenn almost 22 years ago. He had just finished his freshman year at Dartmouth and cautiously followed a high school friend to her Bible Study where I was teaching "Don’t put God in a box." He had been sincerely redeemed from his cynical before-Christ self, but his faith was not yet a year new and somehow I could sense that fact. He was an arms-crossed 6'6" physical and intellectual tower of intimidation. My 98 lb. self was eager to finish and get the heck out of there. I thought I was free of him, as no one with that look on his face would dare come back around. Nope, that very week he showed up at my work, po boy sandwich in hand and full of questions. He’s been picking my brain and challenging my thoughts ever since - always to my betterment. No doubt many of you first encountered ‘investigator Glenn’ also.Read more