Looking into the future

Staring into the face of a six year old is just like looking into the future. This six year old was a strong, and confident boy, as he would throw the football across the fence dividing yards. He would shout out insults if the ball was dropped. His confidence shown through when he challenged the adults to play stating, "I could beat all of you at once." As my new friends and I grilled out I was invited into a scene that caused me to really think.

My new friends have decided to live their lives a bit differently. Instead of joining most of the people in exiting the city they have decided to become part of it. They have used what is probably one of the biggest decisions that we make, that is where to live, to move to a place that may be off limits to some of us. Do we think that God wants to be a part of our life decisions? Does this include the place that we may live?

As we talked about the family across the street a sad story was told. The parents of the kids are not there much. The only time that my friends heard the voices of the parents was to yell at the kids. Ruby Payne has done studies about this. Children in poverty rarely receive affirming words of encouragement. Those children that grow up with wealthy parents receive five forms of encouragement for every one prohibition. As my friends told stories about the parents it made me think of this. Shifting the blame to the parents is not what we are after. We should be after a way to bless this whole family. What better way then by simply being good neighbors to their kids?

Before I left for the evening, my friend stepped in from outside closing the door behind him. He had a mixed looked on his face. Mixed between joy and a bit of sadness. He said, "He told me that I was the nicest man he had ever met, he said he wants us to live here until he is a man." Would our neighbors kids say the same of us? What if we simply started blessing our neighbors again? Loving them not to convert them, just because that's what we should do. Let's spend time thinking about how we can bring some light into our neighborhoods. Even better let's spend some time finding where the light is already shining, even in the face of a six year old boy.

Spiritual Battle

I looked around and saw new faces everywhere. The speakers were faith leaders and city leaders. The people gathered to pray against the violence in a city. They were cries saying, "together, we're better," and "if you see it, say it." The homicide rate in North Omaha has caused many to come together. The answers of only one group are not strong enough. I saw city leaders coming together with Church leaders. Police officers gathering with the people they serve. Day 1 in Omaha and I could already see that God was at work all over the place.

This group was a result of many different groups coming together. One of those groups is called First Responders. This group gathered several years ago to commit to praying at the scene of every murder in the city. They go to each of these scenes and offer to pray with neighbors and families, that have just experienced tragedy. Instead of combating violence with violence they acknowledge that prayer is a weapon against the powerful forces of violence.

After the prayer rally the people gathered for a celebration together. They went to a block party with 400 of their friends and neighbors. What an experience to start my first week of working with Christ for the City.

How'd we get here?

Who would have thought that asking the question, "Why not have an Urban Plunge in Sioux Falls," would have started a relationship that moved us to the city of Omaha? I had been on Urban Plunge in Omaha when we went with our church, The Ransom. It was an awesome experience. We visited several ministry groups in Omaha, that were engaged in helping many different people. These people struggled with issues that many of us in our group had never dealt with. Because of this trip, I had the privilege of being a part of a major life change that took place in a friend of mine. As we visited an Omaha ministry group, that had moved into a very high crime area, we saw what a group of dedicated people could do. My friend saw that he could use his gifts in wood working to really make a difference in the world. As followers of Christ we were grappling with the issue that God wants to use everything that we have for good in this world.

When we came back to Sioux Falls, we were excited to see what God was asking us to do in our own city. I was privileged to be a part of a group that wanted to raise awareness about issues of poverty in Sioux Falls. By asking, "why not start an Urban Plunge in our own city," we would become closer to the leaders of this ministry. This would lead us to Omaha to work for Christ for the City International. Through this work we hope to work closely with the churches in Omaha. As a believer in Jesus I know that He is asking us to look more like himself in this world. This means that we should be concerned for the cities that we live in. Just as Jesus himself wept over Jerusalem what could he be asking us to do in our own cities? We are looking forward to being in Omaha and working for an organization that is involved in working for the good of cities around the globe.