It's Time.



Time for the first installment.



Quick note:

Lew and Judy are looking for a new house. Aaron (9) and Seth (2) are almost always in the van for the ride. Judy's parents, Johannes and Clazina, are coming to live with us, so we need something with the right first floor and parking arrangement...



Johannes and Clazina are in their 70's and in adequate but declining health. C. has 4th stage renal cell cancer and J. is diabetic and high blood pressure... Stuff like that...



They are retired missionaries to the Philippines. J. (John to most americans,they're dutch), anyway, john started a whole mess of churches from absolutely nothing by showing the Jesus film and teaching leaders... he's a true pioneer. Stubborn as a mule in the past, softening with age...



So we're all moving into some mammoth house with a big heating bill where we hope to do life in an old way, with Jesus...

And we want to adopt some kids.



'djya ever notice... (andy rooney)

...that the whole world would be transformed if just a small percentage of the people who could would... if those who thought about it and had no compelling reason not to--adopted someone? I'm just talking about the church people, whose lives are said to be all about giving and leaving the world behind...



seriously, imagine if just half of those who professed to follow the guy who showed us the path in a gift-life of suffering and sacrifice, really opened their lives as a gift, and sacrificed their status and stuff on love's altar...



ok, maybe half's too many. way too many! just 1 of 10 wealthy christian families who could pay the 15,000 dollars for an adoption...



you get my point... it's not that i think you're always wrong if you're not adopting right now, it's just that when i became a follower of jesus, i thought that the community of believers would be a radically different place... a place where love and justice met and kissed.



we're all wrong, and loving and doing radical right things, banded as brothers and sisters in a family, taking care of each other, is what Jesus modeled to us and taught us as christians... and Jesus remains the only one who is right! Let's follow him...



you know?



yesterday we found what could be the place for us. an old funeral home so big you could fit three families of four in it...



and i think of David, a friend of my friend John. He's on the streets of Cincinnati. He has a terrible skin disease on his legs. He says he got it in Vietnam... He gets beat up and is constantly drunk... This month he got hit by a car, so he's constantly stiff...



The other day we were on our way into Chipotle and JP just starts lovin' and talkin to this guy and emptying his pockets into david's hands... and i'm thinkin... no i'm feeling... this is right, and couldn't we give D. a safe place for a night and a shower and my friend the doctor could look at his legs... and a new set of clothes?



just to get clean? and a fresh pair of jeans? and maybe much more! maybe David will decide that he wants to serve Jesus instead of the heartbreak that made him crazy... maybe D. will have a holy spirit encounter and get really healed...



we're moving down there... and we're gonna be there... (right now we live pretty far outside cinci...)



and we'll see what's shaking when we get there...



forget adoption... think what if the christians just started to love, really find out what love means and do it, to the homeless and the stranger. yeah, they'd victimize us sometimes, maybe a lot, but probably not. and some of us might get hurt, or die.

and that'd look a lot like Jesus...



and some of them would discover the true meaning of Christmas! maybe a lot. like ten or twenty or a hundred... but forget about them! What about us? what would we discover that's been lying like treasure in a field?



Forget all the church growth and modern/postmodern stuff... we need to be a people of deep love.



But this'll force us to rely on the supernatural experience of the holy spirit. We'll need comfort and teaching and strength to die well in the thing...



imagine the relief to the government if Christians just took seriously the call to minister to the guys who got waylaid on the road--good samaritan stuff... loving our neighbor... what?



what? is that too radical? too complicated?



nobody needs to forsake their church or denomination! nobody needs to get a new culture or stop listening to secular music... just let's love each other really well and love the poor and hurting stranger who's out in the cold tonight...



forget solving the problem of poverty and homelessness and insanity and orphanages... let's just let our lives be spent on loving this one guy this one time, this one kid today, this wife, this brother or sister...



forget being relevant to the world and the culture. let's just be relevant to the one guy who matters--jesus! and love someone dammit!



you know this already. nothing new here. just the same old commandment.



bro.Lew for today...