devotional: where is their God?

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:10

“Where is their God?”

Do people say this in spite of your faith in God? With the seemingly innumerable accounts of suffering in the world – poverty, human trafficking, and violence of many kinds – even we Christians may ask ourselves, “Where is our God?”

When we see or experience despair, it’s easy to lose hope and faith in God. In those times, and as we solemnly journey to Easter, let’s remember that we know how the story ends. God didn’t forget about us – God sent us Jesus. The world tried to extinguish this Light, but the darkness could not overcome the Light. The tomb will be empty.

Further, Paul urges the Corinthians, “let us not accept the grace of God in vain.” The invitation is to team up with God and all people in the restoration and renewal of God’s creation.

Creator God, in the times of darkness when faith eludes us, please clear our vision so we can see the light of hope and empower us to live into your call on our lives. Amen.

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This is a brief Lenten devotional I wrote for Capitol Hill UMC. I thought I'd share it with the rest of the world as well!

my most important question: what am i doing here?

On June 22, I got the honor of sharing part of my call story and a question that I've wrestled with at The District Church. Every year, TDC has a sermon series called My Most Important Question where people from the congregation are invited to share a question that they have dealt with or continue to deal with. I love the spirit of this series - it gives people an opportunity to tell their stories, celebrating the fact that the faith journey is not an easy journey and that our questions, our messy experiences, and our intimate encounters with God and people are critical to that journey.

In the audio below, Pastor Justin gives an intro to the series, and then three of us share our stories in sequence. I'm the second speaker, between my friends Laurie and Bethany. My part starts around 17 min 45 sec and lasts about 10 minutes, but you're welcome to listen to the other two, who also had great things to say!

Laurie spoke about her struggle of seeking approval, especially from her mother, but not finding it. She asks, "Do they not notice me?" My talk hinges around my moment of consciousness, when I realized that getting my Ph.D. in engineering wasn't where I was called to be. In that moment, I asked "What am I doing here?" Bethany describes her tough years with a bad marriage and divorce, along with the additional fear of the stigma the church may put on divorced people, as she asks, "Where is joy in my trials?"

Take a listen, and I hope you are blessed!

a brief sketch of my journey so far

This article will appear at a later date in the General Board of Church and Society's Faith in Action Newsletter as part of a series of staff profiles. About a year ago was when I firmly decided it was time for a change in my situation, and now seems like an opportune time to revisit this here.

Update: a version of this article has been published in Faith in Action on July 11, 2014.

Photo credit: Wayne Rhodes

“You’re doing ok, but you still have a ways to go. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel yet.” This was not what I wanted to hear from my academic advisor as I neared the end of my sixth year in grad school. A Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at the time, I was growing weary of research and academia, and I longed for something more purposeful. Also growing at the time was my Christian faith, and throughout grad school, I struggled to connect faith, my aptitude for science and math, and an awareness of the brokenness in the world. While my advisor's comments really cut to the heart, it was his honest assessment of my progress and it was a talk that was long overdue. That conversation lead me to begin an earnest search for something new.

Through a series of connections, I landed on the US-2 Young Adult Missions Program of the UMC (now known as the Generation Transformation Global Mission Fellows Program). After an extremely thorough application and a couple interviews by online video chat, I was accepted into the program, trained, commissioned, and finally placed at the General Board of Church and Society with the UM Seminar Program.

It’s hard for me to imagine a more perfect placement. Since I spent ten years studying engineering, I only had some cursory exposure to social issues. Here, I am surrounded by experts in a variety of areas. Through the Seminar Program, we invite these and many other authorities to share their work with our groups, and I get to learn right alongside them. Teaching and tutoring have been longtime interests of mine, but haven’t felt the pull to formally study education. Being on staff at the UM Seminar Program gives me opportunities to hone my skills in facilitation, education, and curriculum design. Most importantly, this place gives me room to listen for and discern my calling with the support and guidance of a wonderful and wise staff.

Working with my Seminar Program groups is inspiring. Some of my seminar groups are full of knowledge. My first group, a youth group Morrow Memorial UMC in New Jersey, could name all eight Millennium Development Goals while most people have never even heard of them.  Some groups come with a wealth of experience. Groups of Habitat for Humanity AmeriCorps Volunteers brought frontline accounts of affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization. All groups, at least so far in my brief tenure here, have come with cups, ready to be filled with more knowledge and more experience, and be sent into the world. They are so much more than just vessels to be filled, though. These groups also come with a sense of adventure, ready to be challenged both intellectually and emotionally, truly engaging in topics that many have the choice and privilege to ignore.

The work challenges me to understand the current state of the world and how we move to the way God intends for us to live. How do we balance personal choice and free agency with social responsibility and the common good? How can providing immediate aid (mercy) and addressing root causes of societal problems (justice) work synergistically instead of one or the other having preference? What is the government’s role in these? What is the church’s role in these? What is my role in these? Many tough questions, no easy answers. Fortunately, I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.

After years of feeling vocationally disjointed, I’m now gifted to be abiding in a place of growth, purpose, and challenge. Where will God lead me next? Many people ask me if I will return to school and finish my Ph.D. At the moment, I don’t feel called to do so. I have a few other ideas, but I also have time to discern and decide.

reblogged: reversing the foster care waitlist in dc

I know what you're thinking. "Hold up - it's Tuesday, why is there a new post here?" I do what I want. And this is posted before Wednesday. And it's timely. And it's reblogging, which comes with it's own set of rules which I make up as I go.

Actually, before I reblog, I'm going to do a little writing, but feel free to skip my hot air and go straight to the links at the bottom.

I wanted to share a couple blog posts from an organization called DC127, a brainchild (maybe heartchild?) of some folks from The District Church, an awesome faith community in DC of which I'm a part.

The name DC127 is based on James 1:27 and the mission is uniting to reverse the foster care waitlist in Washington, DC. In other words, we want more families in line to care for a child than there are children waiting for a family.

As a sciency/mathy kind of guy, to me, the idea is as intriguing as it is joyful. It's like a chemical reaction. Reactants A (kids waiting for care) and B (families who are willing to provide care) combine to create Product AB (a full family). Right now, we have an excess of Reactant A, so we need to mix in more of Reactant B if we want to eliminate A and arrive at the desired product AB, hopefully with a stoichiometric excess of B.

With me?

Ok, maybe that brought back nightmares of high school chemistry for some of you. But trust me, it's a good idea.

My purpose for reblogging this is twofold.

One, I want to raise awareness of the issue. Kids need a stable place to grow up if they are going to recognize their true worth and have the best shot at all the good things that God has created and planned for us. 400,000 kids are in the US foster care system, and about 1,300 of those are in DC. That's a lot of people, but I'd say the DC127 mission is realistic. What do you think?

Two, DC127 is in a campaign to find 46 regular donors to support the work. Why 46? The average child waits 46.7 months, almost 4 of their most formative years, to find a family. If you feel called, I hope you'll reach out and see how you could support, even for $10 per month.

So take a peek at the following well-written articles and let me know what you think.

Exactly where we should be

The cost of doing nothing

a faithful response to the evolution debate

Resources:
Bill Nye: Bible doesn't tell the Earth's true history (Washington Post)
Science, faith not incompatible (Faith in Action)
Social Principles, ¶160
Psalm 19:1-4 

Newsletter!

Well, I missed a post last week. If you haven't caught on, I'm doing my best to drop a new post every Wednesday evening. My excuse? I was working on my first newsletter! Inside, you'll find a brief version of my call story, a little about my work and what I'm learning, and a pretty spiffy banner, if I may be so bold. Yes, the color scheme is a little spastic, and green doesn't always look great on computers - I'll work on that for next time.

I hope you enjoy it and find a new connection with God through my story. If you'd like to get on my mailing list, just grab my email address from my "about" page and drop me a line.

Happy Thanksgiving!

prayers for justice

Recently, I was thinking about the kinds of things I typically ask God for, or that I hear people ask God for. A lot of them boil down to something to the effect of reducing suffering now. For example, heal the ill friend, comfort the mourning family, or strengthen the weak will. Recently, I’ve also spent a lot of time thinking about mercy, or meeting immediate needs, versus justice, or final and permanent victory over sin, death, and suffering. I realized that I don’t often pray for justice, and I rarely use that term in my prayer life.

Many church ministries are based around mercy, but few, if any, around justice. For example, we may address hunger by preparing meals and donating to food banks, but we often don't work to end hunger once and for all (treat yourself to a thought experiment: how can we achieve a permanent end to hunger?).

So, from my humble perspective, it looks like the way we do ministry effects even our prayer life, or at least mine. I do work, and then that's how I pray. That's actually backwards. Talking with God should change who I am, and send me out to do things God's way. I'll never get to justice if I'm only praying for mercy.

I have to pause here: mercy is necessary and even required, and is no less important than justice. As a mentor of mine, Susan, says, conjunctions are important. Looking at Micah 6:8 and Matthew 23:23, does it say mercy or justice or faith? No, the conjunction is and! Balance is crucial.

From a recent sermon, I gleaned an interesting and unique point about prayers for justice. Jesus tells us that prayers for justice by God’s chosen ones will be answered, and quickly! When I learn something like that, I feel challenged to try it. It's like God is saying to me, "Go ahead, take me up on my promises. Try me."

Well, I sat back, and in a sense wondered how I should pray for justice! Wow, that sounds silly as I type it, but I landed there after thinking about this for a bit. I've certainly prayed for peace in war torn areas of the world and similar things, but, to me, that's so impersonal. I asked God to help me think about ways to pray for justice, and he answered that prayer right away. Well, that's too personal to share here, but just know and remember that God is faithful.

Will you take God up on this promise today? Pick a small thing, some small injustice that you've experienced, and place it in God's hands. Further, share the result with a brother or sister to the glory of God.

Prayer requests:

• God's truth about justice would be ever clearer to me
• I grow as a balanced agent for justice, mercy, and faith in Jesus' name

A matter of faith

I'm on the NY subway, wondering how I would ever get around this city without my smartphone. Ok, yeah, a map would do the trick; let's leave that aside for the moment. Living and spending time in the city and public transit has helped me to realize how useful the phone can be. It also helped me realize how much faith I put in it. Navigating the city underground, I trust that this tiny black box with its glowing screen is going to help me reach the goal. And it almost never fails!

Life is kind of like navigating a new city. So many directions to go, and so many different ways to get there. A guide sure would be helpful! Thank God for the Holy Spirit. The Spirit knows "the city" and helps us reach the goal and all the best stops along the way.

The challenge is to put even more faith in the Spirit than I do in my phone! How easy it is to trust a simple thing like a phone; how much riskier it is to do so with a God who has plans which might look different than what we want or what we're comfortable with. How much do I trust God? How much do you trust God? It's a matter of trust. It's a matter of faith.