My Blog Has Moved

My last post on this Blog was in November, 2009. At that time I incorporated my blog into a new website for Communitas that we launched. For those looking for my blog, apologies that I did not get the word out.

You can find the link to the my blog on the home page of Communitas- www.communitasnyc.org.

Craig

Second Thanksgiving in NYC

We are approaching our second Thanksgiving in NYC as a family, and as a young church. Honestly, in the past, most Thanksgivings have meant food and football, family, and a break from work. I haven't done a great job of using this season to take inventory of my life and be thankful. This year is different. A year ago I was going through major adjustment to our new life in the city. I was grieving all I had lost and left behind in Michigan, wondering how life was going to go here in NYC, uncertain about what our church would look like, and even if it would take off. It was a pretty difficult time, and looking back, I was pretty self-absorbed. Not too much room for Thankfulness. This year is a different matter.

This past weekend was such a great time of friendship and ministry. I realized that a lot has happened in a year. On Saturday, Communitas served at the New York City Rescue Mission, putting together care packages to be given to needy families Thanksgiving week. Over 2 dozen friends from Communitas came together. As we sorted and stuffed bags, I was overwhelmed with the community God has brought into my life. It was serious joy! I realized how much I love these friends and how they have enriched my life. We have all been through a great deal together. We have struggled, wondered, doubted, and rejoiced as well. It occurred to me that while we still have much to learn about genuine community, we are becoming "Communitas", a community forged in the furnace of struggle, risk, and challenge.

Today, Danny and Amy Cox were with us. I was so excited to have Danny lead our band and to lead us in worship. The years we worked together at Kensington, leading New Community, will stand out as some of the most formative and joyful years of my life. We helped each other to learn to hear God's voice more clearly, to love Jesus more, and to grow in our love for his bride, the Church. I have missed him so much. So as he lead us today, I looked around at the people that God has gathered to us in our first year here, and felt deep gratitude in my heart. God has been good. He is good.

For those who follow my blog, I am "moving it" to Communitas' new website (check it out- www.communitasnyc.org). You'll see the tab for my blog on the home page.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Road Trip

Yesterday I headed west out of NYC on I-80, with my 17 year old son Caleb, driving the empty Communitas 16 foot truck to the Detroit area. We are going to leave the truck in Michigan until after Thanksgiving, and then drive it back to Manhattan with a full load... front to back, top to bottom. Full of what, you ask?

Last winter members of Communitas were part of an initiative called “Don’t Walk By? Each Saturday night in January we joined hundreds of other volunteers and hit the streets of Manhattan, covering a different section each week, walking block by block, going down into subway stations and other public spaces, looking for members of the homeless population of NYC. Our goal was to invite them to come for a hot meal, and then to connect them with different opportunities available to get them off the street for good. A different church hosted the event each week, and the men and women who accepted the invitation to come for the meal also had a chance to receive clothing.

By the end of January we had covered all the blocks of Manhattan, I believe from 60^th Street to Battery Park. Thousands of contacts were made, many came for the meal, some got into programs to help change their lives, and some received clothing. But for every 1 person who came for the meal, I would guess 20 said “no thanks”. That means that they preferred to stay on the streets on a cold January night. I recall one particular evening in the Wall Street area, asking a man who was wrapped up in cardboard on the sidewalk in the shelter of a store entrance that was closed, if he wanted some help. He said he was “fine”. Fine? That night it was 12 degrees out, and even dressed for the occasion, after a couple of hours on the streets I was chilled to the bone.

Since that time, I have become more aware of the magnitude of the challenge with the homeless. Many will not go to shelters for a variety of reasons. Many are mentally ill. Some are drug addicts who cannot abide by the rules set up by shelters. Bottom line, in spite of the considerable safety net for the homeless in NYC, many will continue to try to survive on their own. That means that this winter, thousands will be living outside.

How many homeless are there in NYC? A friend of mine who has run a shelter in the city for almost 20 years believes that a conservative estimate would be 70,000. 70,000 homeless people! He actually thinks it could be as high as 100,000.

The problem seems beyond remedy. Maybe it is. But that does not mean that nothing can be done. When Mother Teresa was once told that her work in Calacutta, while admirable, was only a drop of water in the ocean, she replied that if she did not do it, then the ocean would have one less drop, And so, she said, we begin with one, and then one more, and then one more, and so on.

Here is the drop in the ocean for Communitas. Can we help some of the homeless fight off the cold? Yes. Easily done. Many of us have extra winter coats in our closets which haven’t been worn for years. And some of us can respond to one of the many Christmas sales and buy a coat at half price. We can add many drops in the ocean of NYC this winter.

So why is the truck in Michigan? Working with Kensington Community Church, we are having a winter coat drive for the homeless of both Detroit and New York City. I hope to drive the truck out of Kensington's parking lot on Monday, November 30 with the truck weighed down with hundreds of coats- men’s, women’s and children’s. All five of the campuses will be challenged to bring coats for the Thanksgiving Services on Wednesday, Nov 25.

If you happen to live in Michigan, come by the Troy Campus and look for the large white truck with “CommunitasNYC written on the side, and imagine it full of love and warmth sent from Michigan to the needy of NYC. (We are also looking for sleeping bags. A few weeks ago our small group brought some food to about a dozen homeless men who live about 5 blocks from my apartment. I had one sleeping bag with me and as I gave it to a man, the others came immediately to see if I had more. I’d love to help all of them!)

Can I ask those of you who read my blog to spread the word? Pass this blog along to others in the Detroit area. Help me fill all 16 feet of the truck. We can't solve the homeless problem, but we can warm things up a bit for people who are of unsurpassable worth to God.

The Mind of Christ, Part 2

What do you see? How are you hearing this conversation? How are you thinking about this? What do these circumstances mean to you? With these kinds of questions asked of Jesus, I tried to interrupt the normal, conditioned responses I make to my environment.

Here is what I have learned so far. First, I could not always get past my own thoughts to his- maybe sometimes I did not want to. Second, even when I sensed clearly what his mind was about a given circumstance, I did not always line up my behavior with his thoughts. Third, there were times when I was not sure that the thoughts were his, or mine. Having acknowledged those failures and shortcomings, I will say that trying to tap into the mind of Christ has been a pretty amazing experience.

Sometimes I think I am a bit ADD- my thoughts wander a lot and I don’t stay easily focused. So it was surprising that I have been able to remember throughout the day that I am trying to access the mind of Christ. Perhaps it is because I began everyday before my feet hit the floor asking God to help me have the mind of Christ today. I think he helped me remember- whether I was on a bus or subway, studying in Starbucks, or watching the Yankees slug their way into the World Series (hey- I have to cheer for the Yankees- Paul said he became all things to all people so that by all means he might win some- so I am just doing my part…, see what I mean by ADD?). Here are a few of my experiences so far- some fairly unimportant, others more critical.

Smoking in the Park: I went to spend a couple of hours in one of my favorite parks in Manhattan- Madison Square Park. I brought my Bible, journal, i-pod, and spent a couple of hours in “solitude” as hundreds of people walked by. It was a beautiful fall day. I was enjoying being outside, enjoying God, enjoying sitting. Then a man sat down near me and began to smoke a large, smelly cigar. The wind was blowing the smoke right into my face. I became irritated, and began to think some nasty thoughts about this inconsiderate man. Wait- the mind of Christ. I redirected my thoughts. “Craig, you don’t know this man, but I do. He is of infinite value to me. Forget the cigar smoke. He is so much more than that. Your thoughts of him are not my thoughts. What if he could read your mind? Would your thoughts attract him to me?” Then I began to look at all the people walking around and playing with their dogs, and sitting in the park. And I think I saw what Jesus was seeing- so many people, all of infinite value to him, and most unaware of God’s love, and lost. As Jesus said, like sheep without a shepherd. And I began to weep, right there on that public bench. I felt like my heart was going to burst. A pretty big shift in thinking from negative thoughts about Mr. Cigar Smoke in My Face to compassion for the people of NYC!

Trash- I was walking down the street in my neighborhood and noticed all the trash. I don’t like trash on my sidewalks. The guy in front of me couldn’t make it another 45 seconds to the trash cans that are on every street corner in the city. “Someone needs to pick up this trash”, I thought. The mind of Christ. “You are the someone. This is your city, your neighborhood. Invest in it by helping to clean it up.” So on the way to the subway, I picked up trash and deposited it the trash can on the corner. I don’t know if this is going to become a regular thing.

Conflict- I walked into a situation where someone was had just finished being fairly rude to another person. I knew both of these people, and knew enough to know that “Jeff” was out of line. Jeff left the scene of the crime quickly, and after talking to the other party, I went on my way. For awhile, I was processing the situation and what needed to be done without consciously remembering that I have the mind of Christ. Since this was someone I know and care about, I was planning an appropriate “confrontation”. When I finally got around to redirecting my experience to the mind of Christ, and asked him what he thought of the conversation, I saw things very differently, and more importantly, I felt inclined to do something very differently than my initial thoughts about what to do. And I felt a gentle “rebuke” myself from Jesus that my thoughts had been overly harsh and critical.

Hospital Waiting Room- My friend Dave broke his hand on a fall down slippery subway stairs. He had to have some pins put into his hands. As he was recovering from surgery, I waited with his wife Michelle late into the evening in the waiting room. As we waited and waited and watched the clock, Others were there waiting as well. One young man had just stepped out into the hallway and spoken as well to someone I assumed was a surgeon. When he returned, he was pacing and seemed agitated. I was tired and sat eating my candy corn (I love vegetables). As I watched this man, I remembered the mind of Christ. “What do you see?” I knew he saw a man who was there alone and was going through a difficult time. So I asked him who he was waiting for. That resulted in a conversation about his wife’s 12 hour surgery to her face that involved taking a bone from her leg and using it to replace part of her jaw bone. The tumor had been discovered in her jaw while she was pregnant with their first child, and they could not treat it until the child was born. So it grew and grew, and now they were facing a serious situation. Mattingly was born a few months back and now they are facing this ordeal. When he finally left for home, another couple who had been waiting shared their story of a loved one having an emergency appendectomy. The mind of Christ shoed me that in a hospital waiting room, there are no strangers.

There was so much more that has happened as I have been more conscious that I have the mind of Christ. I know there is still much that I miss- and as I said, some that I ignore or resist. But it has been and hopefully will continue to be a helpful way of learning to live in the presence of Jesus. He may be with me always, but I am not always with him.

The Mind of Christ, Part 1

When you think about it, what an amazing promise and an amazing gift…the mind of Christ! I have been reading through the gospels over and over for the last 12 years, and I so much want to be like Jesus. I want his compassion and his love and his wisdom. And I know how far away I am from being like him. But then, Paul writes to the Corinthians that we, that I, have his mind!

A few years ago there was a lot of attention given to the question “What would Jesus Do?” Of course, often it is not clear what he would do because he lived 2000 years ago when the world was very different. I recall seeing a article in the paper during the WWJD phenomenon entitled “What Would Jesus Drive?” I don’t see the issue of the kind of car Jesus would drive addressed in the gospels: compact, environmentally friendly car…a rugged SUV… American made or Japanese? Jesus didn’t live in our time when we face these kinds of questions, and many, more important ones. And yet, he is living in these times, in his followers, and we have his mind!

I admit to wearing a WWJD bracelet back then. I discovered that not only was it not always clear what he would do, but there where times when I knew exactly what he would do and I decided to do something different. Knowing what Jesus would do, and then actually doing it are not the same thing.

We have the mind of Christ. The mind directs the body (recall the Church is called the Body of Christ- he is the head). As I continued to reflect on this, I began to picture his mind being totally available to me, 24/7. And I wondered, what if I set about to intentionally direct all of my sensory data and experiences to his mind? Everything of course would come first to my mind, but in a split-second I could raise the question, what about your mind, Jesus? How are you experiencing and seeing this situation. In a sense, I would attempt to unplug my sensory input from my mind and plug it into to his mind. (By the way, I know this is probably not the theologically correct to understand what is meant by the mind of Christ, but my theological correctness has not consistently produced the Christ-likeness I desire).

So here is the experiment. I would wake up each day and begin by remembering that I have the mind of Christ, and I would thank God for this. I would attempt to keep that thought close by all day. And then, as I experienced my day, I would consciously re-direct my sensory data to his mind. For example, as I would see things, I would ask Jesus, “what are you seeing?” As I would hear things, I would ask Jesus, “what are you hearing?”

As I write these words, I am not entirely sure how they are different from the WWJD question. But they feel different to me. I am not reaching back 2000 years ago to someone I respect and asking the theoretical question of what he would do. He is with me- his mind is present and accessible to me in the here and now circumstances. I am not accessing the body of teaching of Jesus recorded for us by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I am in conversation with Jesus himself, fully present now- the mind of Christ.

Just to be clear (and probably redundant), the process is to live remembering that I have his mind. Then, as I experience life, I consciously direct my experience to his mind. Then I listen. Then I act.

In the first few days of this experiment, I happened to be invited to a talk given in Harlem by former pastor and author Ed Dobson. His book “The Year of Living Like Jesus” had just been published. If I was looking for God to confirm that I was on the right track, I got it that morning.

Ed began his talk with the words: Christians are into what you believe more than how you live. Guilty. The test of faith for me has always been more about belief than behavior, which is such an unbiblical idea (think Matt 25- I never knew you.). It’s not either or. The two cannot be separated.

In the introduction to his book, Dobson writes:

“One of the desires of a disciple is the desire to be just like the rabbi. The disciple wants to walk like the rabbi, talk like the rabbi, live like the rabbi, move like the rabbi, respond like the rabbi…I want to be like Jesus. I too want to walk like him, talk like him, live like him, move like him, respond like him.”

I have his mind. Should not my body then be able to follow him, and to be like him?

I have probably now exceeded the attention span of anyone who has read this far, so I am going to report on what actually happened as I attempted to live by the mind of Christ in my next blog entry. Plus, I want to give it a bit more time.

The Mind of Craig

Tuesday mornings begin early for me as I hook up with about 8 guys at 7 AM at a Starbucks on NYU’s campus in Greenwich Village. They say that New York is the city that never sleeps- not quite true. New Yorkers stay up late- and consequently, the morning rush doesn’t begin until at about 8 AM. So a 7 AM meeting can be challenging for New Yorkers.

My commute begins at 6:30 with a 1/3 mile walk, followed by a subway ride, and then another 1/3 mile walk. Still adjusting to life without a car. They are just unlocking the doors to the Starbucks when I arrive. Most of us stayed up too late the night before. One of my friends told me that he often sits down to dinner around 11:00 PM. So coffee is indispensible as we sit around the table and dive into our discussion of 1 Corinthians.

We have only been at this for a month, but it has been very enriching. We take a passage every week, all commit to reading it each day and taking some time to reflect on it We are also all reading the same commentary. By the time we get together, there is a lot to share. I realize that in many respects, learning the Bible in this way is so much more powerful and potentially life-changing than listening to someone give a message, no matter how great the teacher is. The ability to interact about a portion of Scripture as we have each wrestled with it personally, struggled to personalize and apply it, and placed ourselves in a position each day to be taught by God’s Spirit creates a dynamic learning environment. So far each week, when I listen to my friends describe their encounter with the text and with God, I learn things that I did not see in my own study. It’s definitely been worth getting up “early”.

This past week, a phrase at the end of 1 Corinthians 2 really penetrated my heart deeply. After contrasting worldly wisdom and wisdom that comes from God, Paul makes the assertion that “we have the mind of Christ”. What does it mean for me to have the mind of Christ? Here are some of my thoughts so far in answer to that question.

I know the mind of Craig. That mind directs what I do. I experience the world through my senses, evaluate what I experience, and filter it all through my values and beliefs. My mind has been formed by thousands of life experiences as well- good and bad. And then there’s the reality of my fallen condition. The Bible is clear that there still exists in my forgiven and redeemed person a thing called my “flesh”. All of these things are somehow mysteriously involved as my mind directs how I respond. Evil forces are also at work, exerting an influence on my mind. So…in any given moment, my behavior, my attitudes, my emotions are the product of all these things processed through my mind. This helps explain why I, like Paul (see 1 Cor 7have the repeated experience of doing the things I do not want to do, and not doing the things I do want to do. Sounds schizophrenic. Is there a way out? Paul’s answer to that questions is…Jesus.

What about the mind of Christ? Can my sensory experiences and thoughts be filtered through his mind, thus directing a different set of behaviors? I may have the mind of Christ, but knowing that as a fact hasn’t eliminated the mind of Craig from influencing and directing a whole lot of bad thoughts and behaviors. How do I access Christ’s mind?

As I thought about this, I came up with a little experiment. I am in the midst of trying it out, and so will wrap this up for now. In my next blog I will write about my experience as I attempt to not just have, but to access or utilize the mind of Christ.

This Sunday we eased into our new digs for our Sunday gathering. I say eased because even though the venue was different, and we had a band for the first time (yeah!), so much of the day felt the same as it has each Sunday for the past year. I realized that God has graciously allowed us to build a community of friends and friendship, with Jesus as our center.

We started at 8:00 AM at the school, hauling equipment up from the basement. Then tech and non tech people alike worked side by side and assembled the stuff necessary to make a joyful noise. Another group worked diligently to provide a welcoming environment, which of course included coffee and bagels. It was a beehive of activity leading up to the 10:30 start.

When 10:30 came, there was no one in the auditorium- ok- maybe a couple of people. It wasn't that no one came- they were out in the lobby and on the sidewalk enjoying conversation and enjoying being together...catching up with each other and meeting some new people. Just like it has been every week- we had to herd them into the meeting place.

When the gathering was over, people did not head for the doors- they stayed and hung out. In fact- after all the stuff was put away, we finally had to ask people to leave so the custodian could do his work and go home.

I share all this rather than the specific aspects of what went on in our time together because it is the most important thing to celebrate...the building of community. Last week a few of my friends e-mailed or texted me about the "launch" that was happening on Oct 4. I had to remind them that we launched the church in the Summer of 2008 when 18 people moved here from Michigan and began to meet and serve and love in Jesus' name. Oct 4 is simply one expression of how Jesus is growing his work among us.

In the past year we have served in over 100 serving projects, and Communitas people have spontaneously served in this city thousands of times. Each week 40-50 people meet in one kind of small group or another to learn together what it means to live as a follower of Jesus. All of this did not start Oct 4. In fact, we see our gathering time on Sunday as a time for us who have the been the church scattered all over NYC all week long to come together to celebrate the presence and work of Jesus in our lives and our community.

Having said that, Sunday was great! I have missed the chance to be lead in worship by people gifted by God to do so. Throughout the morning I looked at faces of people that I did not know a year ago whom God has touched this year in a significant way through Communitas. It really was a celebration of what God has already done.

If you'd like to hear the message from Sunday, we have attempted to put it on our website (www.communitasnyc.org). We are having a few technical bugs- so if this week's message is not available, or clear, tune in again as we straighten things out.