(Continued from Part 1.)

Salvation visited me in the person of a homeless runaway who forced me to confront my tendency, even as a youth pastor, to live for myself instead of those around me. My tendency to gravitate to people, places, and partners that could add value to my ministry. To pursue relationships for what I could get rather than what I could give. The most marginalized and vulnerable among us, like smelly teenagers who act out or hide out or check out, are easiest to overlook. But they are also the very ones God most desires us to love.

“You Must Be Born Again”?

I realized later that it wasn’t the first time salvation had visited me like that. I’m a PK, a preacher’s kid, and grew up in a Bible-believing home and church. After two years of dodging the inevitable, my pastor parents finally drafted me at the age of 18 to start the youth ministry at our storefront church plant. Besides an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy, my biggest struggle was overcoming the criticism from neighborhood street kids that I couldn’t relate to their experiences because I’d been “born with a Bible in my hands.”

To a degree they were right. Unlike most of them, I had two happily married parents. We were financially stable despite my entrepreneurial father’s occasional business busts. Though our church plant was surrounded by poverty, our family commuted to church from a middle-class neighborhood. My private school education created options for college that chronically under-performing public schools couldn’t provide. Indeed I was living the college dream while the teens in my youth group were avoiding high school drug dealers and middle-school mayhem.

But all was not well with my soul. A crisis of faith had gripped me. Despite being a tried-and-true evangelical from a Pentecostal tradition, I couldn’t tell you when I “got saved.” If “born again” happened in an instant, during a moment of decision—as I’d heard and preached myself for years—then was I really born again if I couldn’t tell you exactly when that moment occurred?

The truth is I couldn’t remember ever not loving Jesus. But neither could I describe for anyone a specific moment when I decided to follow him. There were possibilities, to be sure: The dozens of youth group, concert, conference, retreat, chapel, revival, and Sunday school invitations to which I had responded over the years; the hundreds of times I prayed with my parents before bed; even the occasional campfire worship-fest. I finally narrowed down the options to three: A summer camp altar call, a Sunday School prayer, and a devotional with mom and dad before watching Dan Marino lose the Super Bowl. But which one was “the” one remained a mystery. My theology couldn’t account for such ambiguity. How could I know for sure I was even saved?

The Irony

Even as I agonized about when I got saved, I espoused a life verse that should have offered me hope.

The gospel Jesus preached was, “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). In one of his descriptions about who would inherit that kingdom, Jesus told a story about sheep and goats (Matthew 25:31-46). The sheep, his followers, are those who see him hungry and give him something to eat; thirsty, and give him drink; naked, and clothe him; sick, and comfort him; imprisoned, and visit him; as a stranger, and invite him in (v. 35-36).

When do they see Jesus sick, hungry, or imprisoned? When they have eyes to see the marginalized and needy, and the heart to love them well. Jesus concludes, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least brothers of mine, you have done it unto me” (v. 40). Their promise: “Come, inherit the kingdom” (v. 34).

By contrast, the goats in Jesus’ story stubbornly ignore the vulnerable while they busy themselves with being religious. Their consequence: eternal banishment from Christ’s kingdom (v. 45-46).

The Awakening

Throughout my 20s, a misguided Messianic complex anticipated my 30th birthday, because age 30 is when Jesus began what we regard as his earthly ministry. But shortly after turning 30, it seemed that everything I’d built was rocked to its core.

Instead of a portal to ministry success, age 30 brought testing like I’d never known before, and my personal salvation dilemma reached a crescendo. Was God trying to get my attention? Was he sending a message that I was too blind to see? Too tone-deaf to hear? Whatever God’s agenda, I’d been slow to track it. Finally, the awakening: When had I felt closest to God? When did I sell out for him? When did I first love him well, with everything I had to give?

I was a boy, only nine or ten. My parents had just started Abounding Grace as an outreach ministry. Motivated by a literal interpretation of Romans 5:20—“Where sin abounds, grace abounds more”—they asked the police where the worst drug spots were in New York, figuring that if they found an abundance of drugs, they would find great sin, and by extension, experience abounding grace. My first ministry experience confirmed their theory. A drug deal went bad about 30 yards from where we were situated, and a man got stabbed. I was hooked. I was also only eight years old.

For the next two-plus years, my dad worked full-time to support three missionaries who would take an old truck, outfitted with a sound system and covered stage, throughout New York’s “worst” neighborhoods for evangelism. In the summers, rather than swim in our luxury pool or play in the watershed land just beyond our yard, I chose to accompany the truck so I could play in Johnny pump sprinklers and vacant lots in between burned-out tenements.

Summers with Jesus

Those summers I fell in love with the children of the Lower East Side (LES), the neighborhood to which the NYPD had directed my grace-seeking parents. The LES was also vastly different than my own. As a college student, and later a twenty-something youth pastor, I could never really explain why I felt more at home in the LES than in any other community where I’d lived; why I spent more time in the LES than in any place I ever slept; why I felt a closeness to kids with whom I had so little in common.

My affection for the LES and the youth who live there—those whom society describes as the most “at-risk,” the poorest of the poor, the least likely to succeed—originated because I’d come to know Jesus by loving them. They had given Jesus a face, a voice, flesh, and blood. They made Jesus real for me. And Jesus made the invitation to love him with my whole heart, mind, soul, and strength—and my neighbor as myself—tangible through them. Learning how to love them sincerely, without expecting anything in return, taught me how to love Jesus.

I went with the truck to evangelize, and instead, Jesus found me. He saved me through them. A decade or so later, when I had grown complacent in my faith and comfortable in my ministry, Jesus reminded me what salvation looks like through a teenage runaway. And a decade after that, when I’d regressed back to pride, Jesus reminded me what really matters.

Why Love the Least of These?

Why does Jesus require us to love the “least of these”? Is it because he needs us to save them? Or is it because we need them to save us?

During my thirty-something crisis, I rediscovered that when all else fails, Jesus can be found within arms reach. Not only does he live among inner-city kids, but also he similarly identifies with the ADHD student that interrupts a youth pastor’s sermon. He sleeps beside the homeless teenager and burned-out stoner. The latchkey kid is Christ’s constant companion. He’s sitting next to the loner who attends youth group because mom makes her, but she hasn’t said more than two words to the youth worker, ever. Jesus weeps for the thug teen’s heartache. His broken body, which hung naked and exposed, can be seen among the disabled. His visage reflects in the Goth kid’s mirror. He accompanies the bicurious and the “out loud and proud.”

The good kids, the pretty ones, the smart and talented ones, the cool ones—we’re told that they bring the most bang for our youth ministry buck. They’re the influencers, the ones with the greatest perceived potential. So why not invest a disproportionate amount of our time and energy in them?

For the same reason that Jesus hung out with prostitutes and sinners, the racially despised and socially outcast, the broken in body and spirit: Christ’s kingdom belongs to such as these. If young people have been labeled, rejected, disrespected, or otherwise demeaned by those around them, God chooses to reveal himself through them.

The Kingdom’s Agenda

As we learn from them how to love God and others well, God’s kingdom advances.

There’s no formula for how to love well, no three steps to make it easy. Being kind demands sacrifice. Being available demands inconvenience. Extending grace, mercy, and forgiveness is painful sometimes. Pursuing justice for others may require paying for it ourselves. Being among them necessitates forsaking what’s comfortable.

Salvation brings with it a cross.

Taking up that cross requires, first, the humility to repent. Repent for ignoring those God most loves, for over-spiritualizing service, and for self-righteously justifying sin. Sometimes repenting to God requires apologizing to smelly teens you passed off to others. Next, cultivate a willingness to act. Faith without works is dead; so, too, is love. If you’re unsure what active love looks like, review 1 Corinthians 13, Romans 12, and Philippians 2. Then create space to love courageously.

If you’ve been too busy being religious to notice the Kingdom at work among us, ask Jesus to impart eyes that see and ears that hear. I was, and Jesus did—and he resurrected me in the process.

Dean Borgman is a  professor of youth ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is also founder and general editor of the online Center of Youth Studies. He was involved inYoung Life’s first urban work on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Young Life’s Urban Training Institute in New York. His teaching now is primarily located in Roxbury, MA at CUME, the Center for Urban Ministerial Education.

Is an urban youth worker a theologian? Consider how demeaning a question like this is—when Martin Luther said every Christian is a theologian. So the question should be, “How serious is an urban youth worker about his or her theology?”

Those working with youth at the grass roots, in the trenches, on the streets, often feel unsupported and unappreciated, stretched to their limits and tending toward burnout. Caring about young people who have suffered and are oppressed by a neglectful and even oppressive society is the heart of our work, but it can’t be its foundation!

A recent book, The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry  by Andrew Root and Kenda Creasy Dean (2011), describes the foundation of our ministry to be theological. Some urban preaching suggests a theology of escape from the streets and spiritual triumph away from the world. Although not a book about urban ministry and theology, The Theological Turn rather encourages engagement in the world and our neighbors’ suffering.

Such practical theology examines what God cares about and what God is doing around us—and in youth today. It’s about the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who He is and how He would be relating to kids who are hurting. It’s a theology that sees God suffering on the Cross.

The suffering of young people and society’s unconcern is serious, but it cannot be the foundation of our work, or we will burn out. Our foundation involves our theological understanding of what God has done about youth’s suffering—especially in the Cross.

Urban youth workers see the impact of fatherlessness, of neighborhoods where drug pushers or pimps are leading role models and gangs are avenues to status and protection. As we strive, in this context, for God’s Kingdom to come and will to be done in our neighborhood, we often see little tangible change. Our hopes and efforts for community transformation, for educational, economic and long-term political change, are usually frustrated. In seemingly hopeless situations Christ’s final triumph gives hope. Theologians call that our eschatological (final or end times) hope. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. “He may not come when we want Him to come, but He comes on time.” That hope and reality keeps us going—even in defeat. But such eschatological hope for Christ’s Kingdom can only be grounded in Christ’s suffering on the Cross. Our present hope is grounded in Christ’s suffering as it affects the suffering we confront.

The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry is one of the most important youth ministry books published in 2011, and perhaps in several years. Squarely facing the crises of our times, it addresses theological questions: “What has God done—and how? What is God doing—and how… in your relationships with youth and in the contexts of their lives? The suffering in young lives and the anxiety and despair all feel at times are answered in a theology of the Cross. Having admitted it is not specifically an “urban youth ministry book, we recommend The Theological Turn as addressing critical crises in the lives of those you love and serve. You can find a further review of thisbook in the Encyclopedia of Youth Studies.  Please don’t stop here. Take time to discussing this blog and further review, and the book itself, in your learning group or team to prevent depression or burnout, and the deepening of your ministry.

The knots in my stomach tightened. As the distance between us grew, I could feel the color leave my face. You hypocrite, I thought. So busy with ministry that you pretend not to notice?

Truthfully I had noticed. In fact I saw her so vividly that I crossed the street so she wouldn’t see me ignoring her. Not that it would’ve really made a difference. She didn’t know me from the thousands of others who ignore her every day, and we’d never even seen each other previous to that moment, as far as I knew.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that I felt guilty, and I didn’t want her judging me like I was judging her. It was shameful, especially since we’d been praying for her for weeks. Not her specifically, but for teens like her with matted, green hair, body piercings, and unshaven armpits.

It was July 1996, and I was one of 13 inner-city young people (ages 14-22) who had joined forces to open a youth center called Generation Xcel in one of the country’s oldest housing projects in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. At 21 I was the unqualified youth pastor and the oldest cofounder involved in our day-to-day activities. Like the rest of the neighborhood, we were mostly Latino, with two white girls and a black guy thrown in for good measure.

But that summer a change had come to the neighborhood. Suddenly there were lots of white kids hanging around, and not just the Range Rover teens and college students who liked to party at night and leave before the sun rose. Homeless and dirty, this wave of newcomers did strange things to their hair and wore funny clothes. They slept in parks and banded together for protection.

Spiritualizing the Solution

A couple of our youth leaders asked why none of the green-haired kids came to our youth center. Good question. I suggested that we should pray for them and maybe then they’d come. So as a group, that’s what we did.

Now I found myself walking away from one of the people our youth ministry was praying for. Even worse, I was walking away from the chance be an answer to those very prayers.

There she was, one of those girls, panhandling on a stoop across the street from the entrance to the park. And I was too busy for her. Worse, I was a phony, pretending not to notice.

Self-Righteousness

I tried to justify my actions internally: I’ve got things to do, places to go. The youth center. The interns. The kids we’re already serving.

It didn’t work, so I tried excuses: Too late now. I already passed her. It wouldn’t make sense to waste more time and go backward.

Not good enough. As an aspiring attorney, I even appealed to precedent: I’ve ignored homeless people before without feeling like this. Surely she’ll survive just as the others did.

The jury was close to reaching a verdict. And then the kicker came: You Levite. You Pharisee. Where’s the Samaritan in you?

Repentance

Conviction fell, so reluctantly I went back, wondering as I walked: What am I going to say? “I’m sorry for ignoring you?” How weird is that?

Weird, maybe, but appropriate. A couple of false starts later, I finally walked over. “God, help me,” I muttered under my breath.

I squatted beside her, introduced myself, and awkwardly apologized for being a hypocritical youth pastor. She looked hungry, so I invited her to breakfast. She told me she hadn’t eaten in several days because her last meal — scraps from someone else’s garbage — had made her sick. She was just starting to feel better.

We went to a diner a few doors down from where she’d been sitting. She ordered French toast, as I recall, and saved half the portion for “her” stray dog that hadn’t eaten either. I prayed over the meal and for her. She ate. We talked.

She had run away from family problems at home and hitchhiked to the city. She said she was waiting for some friends to take her to California. She claimed to have just made an appearance on an episode of The Montel Williams Show about teenage runaways.

How much of her story was true, I don’t know. But for an hour that morning, I did everything I could to make her feel important. Like she mattered. Nothing special, really; I just tried to treat her with the dignity that God our Father gave her. Like I’d want someone else to treat my sister.

I told her about the youth center a few blocks away that we’d started “by youth for youth,” and about our church, Abounding Grace. If she or her friends ever needed anything, I promised they could visit any time. She was grateful but said she didn’t think she’d stick around the city long enough to take me up on the offer.

Before we said goodbye, I prayed for her again. That was the only time we ever met, but periodically God reminds me to pray for her some more.

Salvation

I often wondered why God sent me back, why God valued the delay on my walk to work. What really happened that day? Did anything change for her?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But something changed for me. That day God saved me from myself, and in the process reacquainted me with God’s kingdom. Hopefully, she experienced it, too.

… Part 2 coming Wednesday, 2/1

“Going Global” has become the coined phrase used to describe the moment when one has achieved a level of influence that has the potential to affect the world. Going global has been used in athletics, literature, entertainment, even in the financial realm. When you have gone global, you have finally reached a place of influence that has the potential to create great waves of impact no matter what your chosen field.

As believers, we are called to go global.  One of the most influential pastors of our time, John Stott once said, “We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.” The mission of every youth ministry must have a global perspective.  It is our greatest commission, after all. Matthew 28:19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. 

But what does it mean to go global?  So many people hear that term and immediately begin to imagine the foreign mission field.  But global means so much more than that.

Global Defined: embracing the whole of something; encompassing the entirety of a situation or place.

Let me give you some foundational points on how to have a youth ministry with a global perspective.

1. Going Global is reaching outside the four walls of the church with the influence we have been given.

The concept of going global understands that the mission field is all around us. Whether it is sweeping streets, handing out food, rebuilding a roof, or simply taking the time to listen, you are using your influence to make a global change for Christ.

1. Going Global can be local, state, national or international.

The concept of going global is not limited to the international realm.  Read again the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19, “…make disciples of all nations.” Sometimes going global is extending your influence into your own back yard and meeting the needs of the community around you. Matthew Barnett of the Los Angeles Dream Center once said, “Church must not become obsessed with the quantity of worship services within the walls…but of community service outside them.”

1. Going Global is the success of changing lives for Christ.

The success of going global is achieved when others are likewise inspired to make their own mark on the world.  As youth ministers, when you sell your teenagers on the vision of going global, when you have motivated them to make their own mark on the world, you have gone global.

Going global is the success of showing others Jesus Christ, no matter where you are. As Matthew Barnett said, “The world is not impressed by how many people come to hear us teach but by the people we serve who can give us nothing in return.”

In part two of this article, I will show you some practical things that we have done to go global.  Stay tuned.

Today’s post from Jeremy Del Rio is republished from his 20/20 Vision for Schools blog post.  Urban Youth Workers Institute is praying with the churches, pastors and congregations of New York City in their struggle to keep access to their church meeting spaces.

MEDIA ADVISORY
January 12, 2012
Contact: Jeremy Del Rio
(347) 921-4426

20/20 Vision for Schools stands in solidarity with the sixty-eight congregations scheduled for eviction from New York City public schools a month from today, February 12, 2012.

We join our voice with theirs to urge Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, and the City of New York to reverse a short-sighted policy that excludes congregations alone from renting school space for community activities outside of regular school hours. This policy, rooted in the misguided idea that New Yorkers cannot tell the difference between a congregation renting space on weekends and the school that otherwise meets in the building Monday – Friday, disproportionately affects low income New Yorkers in gentrifying neighborhoods where affordable space is scarce.

We also urge those sixty-eight churches and those who stand with them to elevate the conversation from solely aprotest about space to a long-term strategy to partner with the City of New York and invest in the sustainable reform of our City’s schools. What might happen if the congregations currently threatened with eviction, PLUS those who stand in solidarity with them, shift their perception of public schools from solely a space to hold services, to a place to lead service? Meaningful service. Transformational service. Monday through Friday, not just on Sunday.

When only 25% of the graduates of NYC public schools graduate college or career ready, as they did in 2011, our city has a crisis far beyond where sixty-eight congregations worship on weekends. When the City can decide in the same year to evict congregations from underperforming schools, it’s at least partly because the city does not perceive in them any value beyond a rent check.

The best educators are life-long students, ever learning, ever curious about the world and people around them. Schools and congregations alike are places of learning, where people come to grow as individuals and in community. We invite the City of New York, the Department of Education, and New York City’s various faith communities to embrace this controversy as a uniquely teachable moment.  Let us model for 1.1 million New York City public school students how neighbors who share many, if not most, interests in common can achieve understanding and peace rather than hostility and resentment.

In an effort to unite the City, rather than perpetuate policies of division, let us mobilize congregations for the unique leverage they alone can provide in the fight for educational equity. At any given worship service, regardless of tradition, 70%-90% of the people in the pews are directly or indirectly connected to a school, positioned for impact if only their leaders would activate them for service.

Loving neighbors, pursuing justice, educating children – these are universal religious imperatives. When community and spiritual leaders nurture this motivation, exponential change is possible.

Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Walcott, faith leaders: the fight for students and schools requires us to see beyond parochial interests and forge partnerships on behalf of our students.  Now is the time. Lead us.

This is Part 3 in a series by Maina Mwaura.  Read Part 1 and Part 2.

 “Ask me and I will tell you some remarkable secrets about what is going to happen.”  Jeremiah 33:3 NLT+

If you’re like me, every year you start off with a list of goals you’re going planning on accomplishing and every year you look back and realize that those goals were never accomplished. What if this year you looked at your goals as God’s list of demands?  I believe there are four steps we can take in accomplishing the goals that God has for us.

1.  You have to ask!   Are you asking God to do the impossible things?   When we ask for the impossible great things begin to happen.

      For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. “ They are plans for good and not for disaster to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

2.  Are you an open leader or a resistant one?  Are you open to God walking into your life and maybe interrupting your plans for His?

3.  Plan for short term and long term wins.

     “Goals… are dreams with deadlines.”  Brian Tracy

4.  Who will miss out if you fail to achieve your goals?

• Knowing who will miss out if you don’t achieve your goals is the best way of knowing if God has truly called you to it.
• I believe that dreams and goals may start with us but they should always end up helping others.

I believe if you look at your list of goals and dreams as a mandate from God, you will at the end of the year fulfill what God has called you to do.

I recently had a conversation with a great friend who called me in an effort to inundate me with his list of ALL the things he desires to accomplish in 2012. It was a great conversation but the truth of the matter is that I hung the phone up and found myself perplexed about whether to be excited for him or cry on his behalf out of my concern for him NOT being able to accomplish ALL he is setting out to accomplish. If I am totally honest, the latter resonated with me far more than the former. My fear is that he will be on fire for 60 to 90 days, fall back into the reality that “Life Really Does Happen” and find himself in the same position this time next year. Based upon our history together, my prediction is that he may NOT fulfill everything he is setting out to because he has yet to adopt the philosophy that “Simple Is Better!”

Those who know me well know that I am a huge fan of having goals, objectives, game plans, etc. However, those same people know me also as a huge fan of EXECUTION! My philosophy is “what good is it to have a bunch of fluff and magical plans if you are not going to actually deliver on them?” Friend, don’t TALK about it…BE about it!

Though a controversial figure, Steve Jobs will go down in history as one of the most brilliant leaders to ever walk this planet. There are a number of things that people will remember about him but his incredible discipline to walk the path of simplicity might be the trait that absolutely, positively set him apart (along with the Apple brand) from many others who were in similar positions to revolutionize entire industries as he did. From music, to movies, to wireless communications to computers, Steve Jobs mastered the propensity to say NO to good in order to say YES to great!

My hope and prayer for you is that 2012 will not be a year where you allow an entourage of good things to keep showing up in your life, silently pull you off track and rob you of your capacity to achieve greatness in your personal, family, career, church and community life (for you theses 3 c’s might coincide). Keep in mind that SIMPLE REALLY IS BETTER and as you are developing your “New Year’s Resolution(s),” I recommend you look at the five aforementioned categories and do the following:

1)   List 3 Big Ideas for Each. (i.e. Family, Church, etc).

2)   Define the Big Idea by Writing a Description and Purpose for Each

3)   Set Hard Deadlines and/or Dates of Completion

4)   Review Your List Monthly with an Identified Life Partner

5)   Have Fun!!! Don’t Create List that Makes You a Slave to It

Best Wishes in 2012  and by the way…don’t forget “Simple Is Better!”

This is Part 2 in a series by Maina Mwaura.  Read Part 1 here.

“One of the greatest moments in anybody’s developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is.” ~ Norman Vincent Peale

In looking at the discipline of Reflection there are five steps that one must look at within themselves if they truly want to take and respect the gift that God has given to us:

1.  All worthy Reflection must begin with God at the center.   Reflect on what God has done for you this past year. Write out a list or journal your thoughts on God’s power.

2.  Move out the noise and clutter around you.  Find a place that will allow you to not be disturbed or distracted.

3.  Take Note of what God is saying.  Listen, and even write it down to help you reflect on it.

4.  Do not be afraid.  Do not be afraid of what God is saying or asking you to do.

5.  Rejoice.   Thank God for speaking to you during this time.

Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Read Part 3 here

Christmas, New Years Day, holiday parties, travel, and all kinds of activities seem to  run together during this time of the year. If we’re not careful we can forget to stop and Reflect before the New Year begins.  I would like for us to Reflect on what God has done this year and reflect on what God is asking us to do.  In part one of this series we will take a look at what reflection is about and what is required of us.

Webster dictionary defines Reflection as:  ”Mental concentration; careful consideration.”   I truly believe that Webster took this right from the pages of scripture. I think Reflection truly is a mental concentration. Before we can think or does anything else when it comes to goal setting me truly believe that we have to mentally stop and concentrate.

If one is truly called to the disciple of Reflection, yes I believe that it truly is a discipline. Let’s take a look at four scripture verses that God calls us to in examining the steps of Reflection.

1.     We have to stop and wait.

Philippians 4:13 - But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

2.     True Reflection involves seeking God’s agenda and not our own.

Isaiah 40:31 - But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

3.     Reflection, involves seeking God’s word to back up what we believe the spirit is telling us.

Matthew 6:33  Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

4.     Reflection involves Trusting in God and not our own limitation or lack thereof.

Ephesians 6:10-18   Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

See Part 2

Christmas card by Ben Bell

When we were kids, people called us little devils. So when we grew up, we called ourselves Satan’s Sinners. - Cochise, founder and president of Satan’s Sinners gang; incarcerated since December 1993; incarnated since January 1994

It was a typically hot and humid July afternoon in New York, but about to get hotter. Several dozen members of a Manhattan storefront church were gathered in a housing project courtyard when two men passed, hissing and mocking and gyrating in front of the preacher. On their backs, gang colors proclaimed “Satan’s Sinners.”

Abounding Grace Ministries had just begun its annual Jesus Loves You New York outreach, so the next morning, Pastor Rick Del Rio (my father) asked the volunteers to pray for the gang throughout the week. Specifically, we prayed that we would meet the Sinners again and that they would encounter Christ within our community.

Days later, dad sang a Spanish corito at another street meeting. Translated into English, the chorus said: “Send your fire, oh Lord.” Before the song finished, wisps of smoke could be seen rising above the buildings from around the corner.

I ran to see what was happening and found a shanty in a vacant lot engulfed in flames, with a dozen or so Satan’s Sinners out front watching the blaze consume their clubhouse.

The church gave an offering that weekend to help the Sinners rebuild, and over the next several months, my father became friends with Jose “Cochise” Quiles. Cochise, the gang’s founder and president, was one of the mockers we first encountered that sultry afternoon and prayed for all week. Now he invited dad to present the offering to the rest of the gang, and asked him to pray a blessing for them. He would frequently drop by the office unannounced to ask my father to interpret his dreams.

Cochise had previously served two prison terms, and both times experienced jailhouse conversions and vowed a life of ministry. Dad looked him the eyes one day and promised: “You’ll either serve Him inside our outside prison, but you will serve Jesus.” Then he disappeared for a few months, until a collect call on New Year’s Day.

He was calling from Riker’s Island. Cops had stormed his apartment, leaving him just enough time to grab a handful of papers from his bureau. One of them had dad’s home number. Cochise told of his arrest and the two attempted murder charges he faced. He wept freely and said he wanted to serve Jesus, even though he’d have to do it behind bars.

He pled guilty and received a 12-25 year sentence. (A three-time violent felon, parole has been denied twice, but Cochise is slated for release in early 2012.) Thus began Cochise’s service as a missionary to various maximum security state prisons for the last twelve years. A Satan’s Sinner on the outside, Cochise now reflects Christ on the inside, a transition that began when Christ moved into his neighborhood in the person of Rick Del Rio.

The Christmas story we celebrate this month tells the story of the “firstborn among many brethren,” (among whom are we) yet we sanitize the tale (for the sake of the kids, or us?) by focusing on the angelic visitations and cuddly sheep.

At its core, however, Christ’s birth was unseemly (single mothers were capital criminals); unsanitary (born in a barn, surrounded by farm animals, stench, and bugs); controversial (astrologers were the first to perceive it, by reading the stars); lowly (shepherds got it, innkeepers did not); dangerous (it provoked the ire of a villainous king); deadly (the king slaughtered innocents in response); not to mention politically radioactive (Jesus was “king” of an occupied people) and religiously scandalous (“Messiah”).

The oft overlooked Christmas narrative of John 1 puts it this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” What could be more scandalous than the divine becoming human?

Two thousand years later, the Word again became flesh for Cochise when Pastor Rick moved his family into the neighborhood; refused to be intimidated by taunts or horrified by a “Sinner’s” reality; pursued him with kindness; gave sacrificially; made himself available and was willing to be stretched.

For the inmates upstate, the Word became flesh when the seed that was conceived in Cochise in July gave birth on New Year’s Day in a frigid jail, a (barn)yard of a different sort.

Merry Christmas to all, especially urban youth workers pursuing gang affected Cochise-types.  My prayer is for a messy, incarnational reality that loves a few more Satan’s sinners into the Kingdom in 2012.