Category: Uncategorized

We’d been dating for quite a while, and the topic of marriage had come up. She looked at me with tears in her eyes, not sure how to say it. “What if I feel God calling us to move to Africa?” I assured her, if God was calling us, we’d follow that call together. Here we stand, in our 10^th year of marriage, and we believe God is issuing a call.

But it is not a call for us to go to Africa.

We believe it is a call for us to make room in our home and family for Africa. More specifically, we believe God is moving us toward an international adoption. To offer our home and family to a child who would not otherwise know they are loved and precious in the sight of God. Not simply to offer them the last name “Anderson”, but to offer them and our own children an identity much larger and foundational – child of God.

Ever since getting married, and especially after having children, we’ve prayed about how to “orient” our family around something larger than ourselves. To craft a story we can tell by living it out with our children and grandchildren – one that joins in the story God has been telling for millenia. A story of outward-going love. Love that goes beyond what is expected. Love that is invitational. Love that is striving to beat in rhythm with the very heart of God.

I don’t have to quote scripture here, but just in case you’re unfamiliar with a few of the many verses that reveal the Spirit’s time signature: James 1:27, Romans 8:15, Matthew 19:14, Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 58:10, and plenty more where that came from. Of course, there are many different ways God desires His people to move and accomplish His healing and “new creation” work in the cosmos. Every family and home must discover what rhythms God is inviting them to move in – this is one that has surfaced throughout our journey of orienting our family around Christ.

As we move forward, there are many unknowns. How will we possibly afford this? (one dollar at a time) How long will this take? (one to several years) Where will our daughter/son come from? (possibly Central Africa, possibly somewhere we’ve not yet considered) How can others get involved? (prayer, fasting, donations as we begin our fund-raising efforts)

Our girls are very excited about the possibility that we may fill the empty seat in our mini-van with another sister. We’ve invited them to be praying with mommy and daddy now, toward whatever God may have in store for us. Our plan is to continue giving you updates, and we will add an “Adoption Journey” tab to www.differentparent.com so that you can follow along and pray with us.

Thank you for joining us in prayer, and for your friendship and support as we move forward – wanting to be used by God. As I’ve said, there are many unknowns at this stage – which makes us depend quite a bit on practicing dependence on God. That’s probably a good place to be. 🙂

It is not uncommon to ask a pastor where they have lived in the past 10 years, and have 2 or more states listed off.  There are as many reasons for this occurrence as there are pastors.  One reason may be wanting to follow Christ in some understanding of “the son of man has nowhere to rest his head” (Matt 8:20).  Pastors follow the call of God to stay move-able.  Some may even think the putting down of roots to be making oneself unavailable to the future calls of God.

But what if in remaining move-able, we pastors have also missed out on leading God’s people in the important work of “place-making”?  Walter Brueggemann says this of what he calls our problem of “placelessness”:

“That promise concerned human persons who could lead detached, unrooted lives of endless choice and no commitment.  It was glamorized around the virtues of mobility and anonymity that seemed so full of promise for freedom and self-actualization.  But it has failed….It is now clear that a sense of place is a human hunger that urban promise has not met….it is rootlessness and not meaninglessness that characterizes the current crisis.  There are no meanings apart from roots.” – Brueggemann, The Land

With unemployment rates rising, we see huge benefits to websites offering to match jobs from the east with workers from the west.  To the availability and affordability of u-hauls, light-weight furniture, and new employment that includes paid moving expenses.  But what it also does is keep the “greener grass” mentality forever before us.  “Yes, I will live here and raise my family here.” is spoken with “..until something better is found, or my needs force me to look elsewhere.” being said under our breath.

I obviously has very little ground to stand on here.  I’m 30, and have changed addresses at least 6 times since turning 18.  But I think it’s important for us to recapture “place-making” as an important part of our faithfulness to God.  Ever since humanity was “displaced” from the Garden because of sin, God and His people have been working toward a return to implacement together.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that “home-making” is more of an important theological act than we’ve ever really given credit to.  It means figuring out how to stay in one place, and transforming that place by our extended presence and life with God may be more important than moving to where the gold rush of “success” is being promised.  That living this way may actually limit us, and force us to live more simply than if we were free to move based on whatever greener grass we thought would be inherently good for us and our great-grandchildren.  Caring for the structures of our aging homes, tending to the plant and animal life in our yard, and building long-term community with the people around us – have eternal value as these things are by nature done as liturgy, the “work of the people.”

Is it bad to move?  No.  There are plenty of good reasons to make the decision to follow God’s call to another place of residence.  But most of us don’t live in a culture where that’s the question being asked.

May that encourage us this week as we pull another weed, repaint the bedroom, mow our yard, feed our squirrels, hang new curtains, talk to our neighbors, and fix that board that keeps coming loose…

 

The story of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee who both went to pray, is found in Luke 18.  The Pharisee thanks God that he’s not wicked like other people.  The tax collector won’t even look up, beats his breast, and prays for mercy – confessing his sinful and undeserving state.  Jesus tells his listeners that the tax collector goes home “justified” here.

Usually when we hear this story, it’s a reminder that we need to approach God with more humility, recognizing our need for His mercy, etc.  It’s true, even in our daily walk, those of us who have grown up in Church-life automatically “look down” on others bound by certain sins – usually without even realizing it.

There is even more to this story than a call to humility, however.  I think those of us familiar with this story, may sometimes be experiencing lukewarm prayer-lives.  Wanting to model ourselves after the tax collector, we approach God with all the appropriate humility, and like the tax collector – “not even look up to heaven”.  These words seem to speak of expectation.We pray, but who are we to ask something of God?  He’ll choose whether or not to do it, and “your Will be done” is our “get out of expectation free” card.

But this story is open-ended.  We don’t hear of the tax collector getting hit by a donkey cart on his way home.  He’s not dead.  He went home justified.  Different.  The next time he approaches God in prayer, it is as a new person.  Not that he becomes like the Pharisee, but perhaps next time he will actually “look up” in expectation.  Still humbled before God, aware of his sinful estate, but also knowing He has been justified and stands in the presence of a God who invites His prayers.  Maybe that’s a big “perhaps”.  (I recognize that Jesus’ story was not actually an illustration regarding prayer.)

But still…I believe, and have been reminded that God desires his people to be “of prayer”.  Not in a way that brags “I prayed for ___ hours this past week.”…but in a way that honestly says “Praying is like breathing or eating to me…it’s necessary for my life.”  For us to pray with expectation that we speak in the presence of a God who hears and is with us.  A God who’s nature and will is New Life and transformation.

For us to be silent, with the expectation that the presence we are silent with, will respond where we give room.  May he continue to reveal how we should pray…and may we respond as people who are receiving His nature…

..after all, our kids are becoming homo orans, or “beings who pray”, right along with us.