2009

The fullness of heart as 2010 advents compels, even obligates me to express the deepest gratitude accompanying my thoughts of 2009 and of the many who have and continue to be shining examples of God in the darkest places of our community.

Gratitude for Family

First as a friend of God, provided through Jesus Christ, I remain happily enslaved to His will, His purpose and His intention. Crystal, as the prime earth bound constant is without equal in her love towards me and her followership of God. My sons, daughters and grandchildren continue to make me glad for being on this planet.

Gratitude for Cherry Street Mission Ministries

The Board of Directors:
From Jamey Schmitz our Board Chair to all who serve in this vital position of leadership your kindness for the community is realized each day we serve the hundreds of men, women and families arriving at one of our doors.

The Staff:
With nearly 70 men and women on staff at Cherry Street I am grateful for each one. Here are a few who stand the gap in amazing ways. Liz, who assists me with the smallest and largest of detail, serves without hesitation. Rodney who tirelessly serves to communicate the message to our donors and volunteers. Cheryl who keeps the lights on and helps us live to serve another day. Charles who loves our men, Angie who loves our women, Cindy who loves to educate, Renee who feeds the multitude, Bob who keeps our facilities in working order, Amy who is devoted to integrity of message, Roz who loves our volunteers. The list of staff, their accolades and their epic feats of service could go on for ever - like Kim, Evangeline, Matt, Molly, Jacob, Jenny and so many more ... thank you.

Gratitude for the Social Fabric Partnership:

1Matters, Food For Thought, LifeLine, The Pharmacy Counter, Mercy Health, Promedica, UT, BGSU, Joshua Generation, TLCHB, TAAEH, Reentry Coalition, Toledo Area Ministries, WLMB TV 40, WPOS, YMCA/JCC, New Life, New Harvest, Vision, CedarCreek, 1st Alliance, Westgate, 1st Church, Truth at Work, Hylant, Andersons, Toledo Community Foundation, LaSalle Cleaners, BrandEd ... this list is only the beginning of a rather exhaustive body of work - thank you.

Gratitude for the Friendships of Service:

Dennis, Martha, Ken, Don, Tana, Calvin, Christine, Warwick, Roz, Charles, Doug, Linda, Stephanie, George, Sarah, Jim, Lee, Gary, Mike, Keith, Dave, Steve, Randy, Deb, Chris, Tricia, Pete, Larry, Brand, Kevin, Scott, Jerry, John ... too, too many more, all great in the sight of man and God - thank you.

Gratitude for our Guests:

The many men, women and families who are served each day through the ministries of Cherry Street are the vital rebuilders of ruined places and are the mighty Oaks of God's planting so that generations to come will testify of His love for humanity - that none should perish.

Happy New Year All!

Dan
A Runner

Inefficient

Last night Crystal and I stopped across the street at a friends house who has a monthly community dinner for friends and neighbors. While we didn't stop by out of some undisciplined sense of obligation, we could only stay for a minute and without even taking our coats off wished all well and we were off.

The season of 'the rush' once again, is upon us.

You want to talk about the ultimate in schizophrenia, I'm the guy who teaches; 'you must be efficient with stuff, so you have time to be inefficient with people'. Relationships, the great ones anyway, need a tremendous amount of what can only be defined as ... inefficient.

In order to connect with people, you must invest unbelievable amounts of time doing seemingly nothing, like sitting for hours on end talking, laughing, drinking coffee and making merry - oh that reminds me, Merry Christmas before I forget and rush out of this conversation ....

The marketers are on to us. They have officially synthesized a word complete with a definition and an accompanying list of behaviors which frame like a set of bookends a neat little package so we can, I suppose, feel better about not being better - which is what a good definition and solid list of behavioral traits accomplishes.

Polychron: An ultra busy person experiencing chronic busyness.

Chronic busyness results in high expectations for convenience and the need for control and choices. While there are three specific behavioral traits associated with polychronism, let me give you the most important ... a polychron will frequently shut down emotionally.

Shut down emotionally.

Ironic isn't it? The one time of year where emotions are likely to run the highest; joy, exuberance of visiting friends and family, love, peace and an abiding sense of God's embrace ... is also the time of year we're the most likely to disconnect.

Here's today's question; 'In what way will you (and me obviously) intentionally commit lavish inefficiency's upon those around you?

The powerful Dickens tale of 'The Scrooge' hopefully reminds us today; it's not too late to be inefficient. For many of us, we've had our visits from the memories of seasons past, are reminded of our seasons present and perhaps concerned for seasons yet to come ... now what?

The good news is - we know what the what is!

For each of us it will be different. Each of us already know the relational intersections we're blowing through. Our speed is so fast through these intersections, there's no cautionary slow down nor is there even a looking both ways manner.

Eventually of course, we'll cause an accident, some of us will leave the scene acting as though we weren't culpable - others of us will mourn the loss and some will remember for seasons to come, the time when we ....

You know what the what is, because the Who lives within you. Go ahead, give the greatest gift this year - the one God gives every day through Jesus Christ; lavish inefficiency.

For me? I've got some friends across the street who need to see me with my coat off.

Dan
A Runner

Humanity Intersects

At Cherry Street, our largest volunteer day of the year by far is Thanksgiving. On a single day more than 500 of our fellow citizens will arrive at one of our ministry sites to serve.

As a side note, this year we're doing something a bit different. Instead of only having a single service site where the community can come for a delicious Thanksgiving meal, more than 300 volunteers will be delivering nearly 500 family Thanksgiving boxes so families can stay in their homes. We're doing this to rally support for the sanctity of the home and to encourage the family meal whenever possible.

This is the time of year service to others becomes most visible. But what causes our community to show up during this season, like at no other time of the year?

There are two intersecting realities at play; it's getting colder and it's the holiday season. The cold reminds us there are those who are not warm and the holidays remind us there are those who are not happy.

Thankfully - these end of the year human intersections are fantastically attractive to the community. Social profit organizations like Cherry Street, look forward to the last twelve weeks of the year. We can historically count on the community to show up in ways that makes the first 40 weeks of the year look like a blur.

News and media outlets are on hand to both promote and report on community involvement.

For those of us who by calling and vocation serve in the human intersection all year long - we are both grateful and humbled by the generosity of the loving communities of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.

For the listening and generous heart it may go without saying - but let me say it anyway; 'The need for humanity to intersect is a year long responsibility.'

Here's today's question: 'In what way will you purpose a human intersect?'

The reality is, none of us were conceived in a relational petri dish experiment. No - all of us are where we are ... all of us ... because someone engaged and intersected with us. Someone in your past shared a substantive experience that became part of you - there was a powerfully molecular exchange that changed you, set your course and gave you compass.

God from the beginning wrapped Himself on earth in vessels made of flesh - humanity ... you and me. Given the reality that God is completely invisible He designed the relationship we have with Him to depend on our visibility.

Consider this:
A warm, nutritious and seasonally appropriate Thanksgiving meal will stabilize hunger but only God can settle old accounts.
A warm coat, gloves, hat and scarf will stabilize against the cold, but only Jesus can redeem a history.
A warm human experience can stabilize the fragile, but only the Holy Spirit can breath new dimensions of hope.

The capacity of life transformation only God can bring, is dependent on the infrastructure of life stabilization that only we can bring.

Of the many things that can transpire within human intersections my prayer is that God, through the gift of His son will find a way from you to someone else or from someone else to you - ensuring that the greatest of all human intersections may see the light of day.

Humanity Intersects!

Dan
A Runner

Complex

I was in New York City recently. We stayed in the theater district in mid-town Manhattan at a conference discussing the success of the Harlem Children's Zone and the impact this organization has had in Harlem over the past two decades.

My traveling companions, along with my wife Crystal, were Dave and Kelly Kaiser. Dave has been to the city many times and for the rest of us was an excellent host. In just four days, in addition to a rather intensive conference schedule, we took a boat tour of Manhattan which included the Statue of Liberty, a bus tour that took us to Brooklyn and back to Manhattan, went to the observation deck of the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Wall Street, Times Square, Ground Zero of the World Trade Center, Battery Park, rode the famous NYC sub way, prayed with about 2,000 fellow laborers at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, and oh yes, ate without shame or hesitation some NYC pizza - whatta ya gonna do?!

All cities are a complex maze, but in NYC I found this to be overwhelmingly true. It is so vast and complex a place, that all you truly can have confidence in is your ability to put one foot in front of the other and see where it takes you.

For the first time in my life and career of working and serving the human condition, I finally have an appropriate metaphor for humans.

All of us are very New York City synonymous!

For example, NYC is as deep as it is tall. The Empire State Building stands at 1250 feet while there are water main pipes that are 1000 feet below the sidewalk. There are some buildings with names in which are visited frequently and many more buildings with no names that are walked by each day without as much as a passing glance. Some buildings are dressed in bright colors attracting all to their doors and some buildings that are non-descript and uninviting.

You get the point.

Here's today's question: How does someone minister within the context of complexity?

The person in whom you will encounter today will need you to appreciate how exhaustingly complex their vertical issues are. As it is for all of us our issues are both in the 'all can see' places and especially below the surface in the 'out of sight, but not out of mind' places.

Serving one another is not too terribly complicated, but serving the human condition is extremely complex. You and I will need a one foot in front of the other approach ... step lightly will you please?

The sidewalk conversation you're involved in right now towers over you with quiet anticipation and rumbles beneath you with disquieted confusion.

Are you prepared? Are you confused over your own vertical issues? What will you do with those pesky moments you know God is going to give you today that involves another person?

Can I encourage you to receive a new dimension of the Holy Spirit? If Jesus needed it before starting His service to humans, then I can imagine a followership of His example on this one to be quite a non-negotiable.

Here is the answer to today's questions: 'Get a new dimension of the Holy Spirit's leading'. Ask Him, seriously ask ... what do you have to lose? I'll tell you the alternative to trying to keep up with the complex in you and around you all by yourself will leave you less than satisified.

In contrast, when you receive a new dimension of the Holy Spirit, you'll be empowered, those in whom you intersect will be served and God will get a chance to redeem a past and renew a future.

Dan
A Runner

Ligaments

Intact bridges are great.

Bridges are constructed from one land mass to another. When a bridge is in place, there is no end to possibility of traffic, given the bridges health and capacity. Bridges make commerce of goods, transportation and wealth possible.

Nothing like a good bridge!

Bridges work as a good metaphor for relationships as well. Bridges in and for relationships connect one point of view to another, allow for traffic of ideas, and enables commerce of relationship to continue. So a bridge is a good relationship metaphor in that it allows us to visualize possibility through the use of a common everyday structure we can relate to.

But there is a limit to this metaphor when it comes to people ... humans.

Bridges are completely dependent on land masses that are stable and solid. A bridge fastened to the solid and stable may have some flexibility for environmental irregularities, but is also rigid enough to be reliable.

So a metaphorical bridge within relationships is also dependent upon stable and solid. Both parties building a relational bridge must be solid, healthy and able to sustain the bridge being built. If not, then whatever is being built will collapse.

Humans are not land masses

The problem is, we keep trying to build bridges to others who are not capable of withstanding the structural burden of the 'bridge' then wonder why there is failure in relationship. This may be a shock to some of you but potentially, humans are an unstable lot.

Ligaments; A unifying bond

I think we just need some vocabulary updates. If your goal is to relationally connect solid and stable to solid and stable, then please use the bridge metaphor when building connecting points between you and the other human.

But if you want to connect with the potentially unstable humans in your life and across your path, then you'll need something molecular, something fleshy, something that shares DNA ... you'll need to attach ligaments.

Here's today's question: 'Am I willing to connect a unifying bond from the fleshy side of me to the fleshy side of another?'

It's a scary proposition. In order to connect ligaments between you and another human, both of you will have to endure exposure. Something in both of you will have to undergo some kind of invasive surgical procedure in order for the ligament between you to be attached. Now, there's a metaphor.

Perhaps we've stumbled upon why so few humans are connecting to other humans ... its messy. There's a lot of blood and the pain sharing can be quite excruciating when we undergo the surgical procedure necessary to attach a unifying bond to someone else.

It would be difficult, if not entirely impossible to have these attachments if we didn't already have a New Testament that was full of (thankfully not an inclusive list) Jesus, Paul, Luke, Peter and Priscilla being fantastic examples of humans undergoing a relational surgical procedure in an effort to attach a unifying bond to other humans.

Here's the good news. You cannot be the bridge any more than you can be the ligament. Please remember all of us humans have one common denominator, one great equalizer and the only connection that can be or needs to be built or be the unifying bond ... God. He is the tie that binds.

But He, not you or I, has chosen from the days of the desert to the earth known Jesus, to wrap Himself in flesh. His choice is you ... the human. Our only discovery today is to decide whether or not we will be human enough for the God who creates to be connected to His creation.

Personal Note:
For those of us who knew Pastor Dan, the Youth Pastor at New Harvest, his death on Friday is a sad moment indeed. To Dan's wife, children, family, Pastor Mike, the Pastoral staff and our friends at New Harvest you have our prayers our love and our support.

Dan
A Runner

The In-Between Places

Junior Highers are probably the most volatile of all age demographics. Not volatile like they're the most dangerous, but that they are in that too young and too old place in life. Junior Highers, at least for the most part, are hilariously funny and entirely too serious - all at the same time.

When you think about it, there are quite a few folks out here whose lives play out a lot like the behavioral realities of a Junior Higher. Some people are, while at the same time are not - like inmates in prison for example. They are fathers and mothers, but are not fathering or mothering at the time of incarceration.

Some people have heard yes, but not yet - like for example a man or women waiting for housing. They're capable of living on their own and taking care of their bills, but a house in an approved neighborhood is not yet open to them.

The reality is, there are In-Between Places of life.

For most of us, we can survive the reality of living between problem and solution - for a while. But for most, particularly those who have regular or constant exposure to this reality, living in the In-Between places can be confusing, even on a good day.

The problem of course is that confusion is at the top end of the Cycle of Disconnect - confusion leads to frustration, frustration leads to fatigue and fatigue leads to disconnect. If you think about how many people you know who are in some state of disconnect and track their migration backward, you'll find confusion at the source.

Here's today's question: 'What responsibility do we have to others who are living in the In-Between Places?'

Some of you reading today may be thinking; 'I'm living right now this reality, there's no way I can handle any responsibility for anyone else.'

Trust me, I understand. Life is hard and harried enough when things are going reasonably well. God help us when we crisis on some point or worse yet, have to be told waiting will be needed for something that shouldn't need to be waited for - I get it.

May I ask you to consider something?

Realize at your lowest point, you will still be at a higher point than someone at their lowest point. It's like the old hymnal; There's room at the cross'. Jesus' lowest point as a human, was still higher than my lowest point - He knew that, still does.

No matter what your condition, or state of being, there is always an opportunity to reach out to a fellow brother or sister.

By the way, Tent City is celebrating our 20th year as a community conducting 'Homeless Awareness Projects'. It all starts on Friday evening and goes through breakfast on Sunday - It's a great place to serve ... in the In-Between Place.

Dan
A Runner

We got next!

The national poverty rankings were released a few days ago.

There are two things to remember when looking at the numbers;
1. The poverty line is $21,834.00 for a family consisting of two adults and two children below the age of 18 (a family of four).

2. The national report released, ranked the 75 cities in America with a population exceeding 250,000 residents. This is important because there are more people living in urban settings today than at any other time in history. People are moving to cities.

Let's talk Ohio

Ohio has the dubious distinction of being the only state with more than one large city in the top ten; #2 Cleveland (30.5%), #7 Cincinnati (25.1%) and #8 Toledo (24.75). With Columbus (20.1%) taking the #22 slot, the report puts all four major Ohio cities in the top 33% of the nations poorest cities.

Detroit (33.3%) is ranked in the report as being the #1 poorest city in our nation, which precariously perches Toledo at #8 between the number one and two cities of Detroit and Cleveland.

Our city planners over the last 12 to 15 years while trying to hide the Detroitification effect have been at the same time touting the Cleveland Plan as a model to follow when looking at revitalization.

However, when doing a side by side comparison of Cleveland vs. Detroit plans I'm not sure we should be enamored by either. Both Detroit and Cleveland have new stadiums, new arenas and new venues. Cleveland has developed The Flats, and along with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is now considered by most to be a better destination place than Detroit for outsiders to visit ... to visit.

OK - while you visit please keep the larger picture in mind when wondering why Toledo can't have this kind of revitalization. This kind of revitalization only benefits small areas when compared to the larger region. Both Detroit and Cleveland are losing their populations. The school systems of both Detroit and Cleveland still have worse classifications and scores than does Toledo - which isn't saying much.

Consider also this; Cleveland, along with Detroit have the greatest number of children experiencing poverty at 42 and 46 percent respectively. That's 42 and 46 percent of every child under the age of 18 living in these two cities, is in poverty. Toledo doesn't fair much better with 36.5% of our children living in poverty.

Here's today's question; 'Is it any wonder, giving our regions unhealthy followership of our nearest major cities' growth plans, that we also follow their poverty realities?'

We got next!

That's the familiar call from the person or team who 'calls it' on any court or field of play. It's tantamount to yelling 'shot gun' when heading to the car so you get front seat.

Peter Drucker, who passed away several years ago, said shortly before his death; The church is the only institution capable of recivilizing urban environments, but sadly the church is also the most fragmented institution in those same environments.

It's time for the church to 'call it'! To yell 'shot gun' and declare 'we got next'!

By now we should be tired of the view from the back seat. What are we waiting for? The church, despite it's self loathing, often narcissistic views, is still the most powerful certainty on this planet ... including, but not limited to Detroit, Toledo and Cleveland.


A few weeks ago in a recent post; 'The Behavioral Citizen' I asked if you were ready to be the leader your neighborhood and city need? Like the individual responsibility, the church has to regain its intended and Biblical identity and be the leader our cities desperately need.

Our poverty ranking and realities are only the wake up call to the systemic and rooted ranking and realities stimulating the poverty. Instead of shaking our heads about our #1, #2 and #8 ranking on the way to the stadium ... instead of bowing our heads to offer a prayer for our region on our way to church ... instead of blaming our elected officials on our way to the voting booth, maybe we should take a long look in the mirror.

Take a long look. While you're looking at the person staring back at you, remember what Peter Drucker said and try to remember that you, not the building you worship in, are the church - you are the church. You and thousands more like you are the only ones capable of recivilizing our urban environments.

Now, go get another church member and the two of you stand and look in the mirror - take a long look. As a matter of fact, what would it be like if at the front of every sanctuary there was a long and tall mirror, so we could all take a long look together?

We're it!

God has wisely put His branch offices (the church) on every corner. If we answer the fragmented question, then the powerful realities of agreement and unity can be released ... finally, and just in time.

Dan
A Runner

Access

I think I was 22 when standing on the porch of the house my wife and I were renting, wondered how I was going to get in given the fact I had no key. Crystal had left on an errand and I had been working on our car in the garage and apparently she thought ... and I thought ... and you know how it goes, you get locked out.

And so, I did what any respectable young man would do [by the way this was before cell phones] I found an unlocked window and crawled in. The funny thing was, that try as I might the key to the house could not be found. Frustrated I put my hands on my hips only to feel the key ring hanging out of my back pocket.

I had the key with me the whole time. But busyness, frustration and hurriedness caused momentary loss of memory.

Once, not too long ago, I locked my keys in the car. Ever notice when someone locks their keys in the car, they press their face against the glass looking at the keys on the seat or hanging in the ignition? Its as if we're saying; 'so close, but yet so far away.'

"The key will be under the mat". Ever plan on going to see an apartment or a building you want to rent and being told how to gain access, you arrive only to realize the key holder had not left a key ... access denied.

There are people all around you everyday who live lives represented in these examples.

People who have the key already with them, but have forgotten where it is. People who once had the key but are unable to immediately retrieve it. And people who have been told where the key is only to find its not there.

People are locked out!

Most people don't immediately ask for help when things start going wrong. We wait. Try to figure it out on our own. It's admirable right up until the minute you realize you're better off inviting and receiving assistance.

There are two things you and I can do this week:
1. Ask for help.
We all lose our way from time to time. It's Godly to invite assistance. The good you will do in others by letting them help you, will far out way the help they offer.

2. Be on the look out for the locked out.
People all around you need you. They've lost their keys, or worse yet have them but have let the hurriedness of life cause loss of memory.

Being a Christ follower is about access.

You who have experienced the inside warmth of access, please don't forget there are others with their faces pressed against the glass. Some have the key, some can see the key and others wouldn't know the key if you hit them with it.

Here's today's question: 'In what ways will I experience access this week?'

Dan
A Runner

The Behavioral Citizen

Across the country, early November is soon upon us. The time to vote. The time to participate 'community' like at no other time of the year.

I'm sure where you live is similar to what we face here in the Toledo region; a tough economy, mortgage failure, foreclosure increases, families in trouble like never before ... and the list goes on.

All of this, mind you, on top of what has been a steady disintegration of hope and trust within our community emotion regarding most sectors including church and government.

And so, during this time of year as early November approaches and the voting booths fire up, all manner of men and women clamor for our attention; 'elect me' 'I'm the answer' 'I'm the leader you're looking for' ... most of us are tired before we get tired. A particular fatigue comes on us in the daily grind and exposure to the cry for our vote from someone we've never heard of.

Everyone knows, whether we use the exact language or not, that most towns, cities and regions are experiencing on various levels a leadership vacuum. The pull of that vacuum is intense. So intense that it can, and will, pull anyone into it - and I mean anyone.

At no other time in our history is there more impetus and opportunity for a people who live in a country where the statement 'for the people, by the people' can be capitalized on. We seem to have distilled that statement to participation in government ... which it certainly is. But what about the behavior of 'for the people, by the people'?

There is, at least in our town, a serious leadership vacuum at many levels of government. So, you may certainly view yourself as someone who may participate in filling that vacuum with yourself as a candidate or as a voter of a candidate.

But what about you, the behavioral citizen in your neighborhood, community, workplace and family? Where does the behavior of for the people, by the people behave in your spheres of influence apart from government? Is there a tangible responsibility you've discovered for yourself in filling the leadership vacuum around you?

While a belief in being governed by proper leadership from people we respect and honor is critical, a for the people by the people mindset stimulates a certain behavior of ownership.

Here's today's question; Are you the leader that fills the leadership vacuum around you?

Early November will come and go. Perhaps the citizenry will establish in government through this round of elections the kind of leaders we can be proud of and serve. Perhaps the citizenry will elect leaders that will continue taking our communities down the wrong path.

Either way, you and I living in a for the people by the people and as a behavioral citizen will continue to stand ... and filling the vacuum establish for ourselves and on behalf of others the healthy and whole of God

Dan
A Runner

Time

My last entry entitled 'Speed' ended with this statement:

Whatever you're facing today that can be under the heading of crisis - slow down. There is something in the landscape of your crisis that God sees as vastly more interesting and important than the crisis itself.


Hopefully you're thinking more dynamically about the trouble you may be in or the crisis you may be facing. Hopefully you've not contacted the prayer line to get you out of the crisis, but for God to show Himself strong in the crisis. By now hopefully you've contacted your pastor as an FYI to what God is revealing, rather than sending an SOS signaling to him or her they had better get involved quickly.


Congratulations ... you've begun to 'think God'!

Recently our family took a vacation which included a major theme park. It's one of those places where the park has come up with a convenience called 'fast pass'. When the park is really full, fast pass works very well. With fast pass you basically reserve your place in line for a later time which is usually 60 to 90 minutes later.


This allows you two things; time to go see other attractions and upon your return an immediate jump to the front of the line. Of course fast pass is dependent on two unspoken rules; your familiarity with the park and fairly decent planning on your part. So if you're not that familiar or not a good planner, potentially you could miss your reserved place in line and if you miss it well ... you've missed it.


However, and this is a big however, when the park is not full or busy, as on the day we were there, I overheard interesting revelations. People taking the fast pass option realized after awhile, they didn't really need it. With the average wait time being only 15 minutes, you could actually see more attractions by consistently waiting in line rather than bouncing back and forth from one reservation to the next.

Here's today's point: Time is a fluid concept.

Time behaves like its creator. Not that God is a concept but God is indeed fluid. Like an ever changing river God is constant in that He's always there, but He is never there the same way ... He's never there the same way ... never.

As a matter of note, because we seem to have an endless penchant for the static we end up being the only one in the picture not moving. Too many times we end up looking like the boulder in the middle of God's flow, unmoving and marking time. Like the boulder in the river, the flow of God moves all around us, steadily eroding the outer edges and making us so smooth He seems to flow around us effortlessly.

Here's today's question: 'When you received Jesus as the way to God, did you see your self ending up like the boulder?'

Perhaps the single most schizophrenic part of following God, for me personally, has been in regards to time. I believe in and receive the timeless [the fluid] nature of God and behave in return like the boulder, marking time and looking at my watch.

I know God doesn't wear a watch - I know this. And yet my behavior would suggest otherwise; constantly marking time and looking for a 'fast pass' solution in an effort to reserve my place in line while trotting off to other attractions.

There are bright days for all of us. The best day in my followership of Him is when I'm consumed by Him rather than consuming Him with the marking of time. When instead of flowing around me we flow together. Seamless and invisible is our flow like when a glass of water is poured into a river ... still there but seen no more.

This requires taking the watch off though.

Here may be some things for you to ponder:
Do I believe and receive the timeless [fluid] nature of God?
Do I freely and habitually give to others timeless relationship?
When was the last time I cut myself a break as big as the one God cut for me?
Am I the boulder?
What would happen if I flowed, truly flowed with God?

Now that you're learning to slow down, learn how to take time out of the conversation you're having with God, yourself and with others. We'll be amazed together what the combination of slow and timeless will accomplish.

Dan
A Runner

Speed

In a church conference several years ago, like a galaxy far away ago, I kept thinking the whole time this particular presenter was speaking; 'what makes me uneasy about what this cat is talking about?' What he was saying was familiar, so that's OK. What he was talking about at least in concert with the way humanity moves, was even logical.

He was talking about how Christians drag their feet, and God has to often wait for us to catch up to Him all the time and how we needed to move faster to keep pace with the dynamic move of God.

So what was my problem?

I started getting edgy, fidgety .. restless. I was having a hard time reconciling my internal ledger about the presenters assertion regarding speed, it wasn't sitting well in the place where the word of God sits in you - for some reason I was having a negative reaction. I should insert here, it's during these times when the familiar voice of my wife internally recorded in my memory bank - and honestly for good reason - will say; 'Dan you don't always have to be you'.

Rightly interpreted, this means I should keep my unrest to my self until further notice or at least until there is more substantiated reason for concern. So, that day I stayed in my seat and took mental note of my disagreement.

By your own experience you know the presenter got it wrong. The tendencies of our humanity, the result of having free will and the way we are wired - by God - is for speed. To move fast. Even the people you judge as moving too slow are moving fast - their just moving in the opposite direction of you.

Please observe:
God moves at a much slower speed than us.
He sees at a much slower speed than us.
He responds at a much slower speed than us.

We would do well to learn and practice at least two vital components to be successful in our followership of God: We must slow our own shutter speed down and we must realize that the significant issues of our lives cannot be solved at the same speed by which they were created.

Slowing the shutter speed down, like in a camera allows you to significantly take in more light, which gives you greater exposure in truly capturing what you're looking at. Slowing the shutter speed down gives you the visual 'speed bump' to take in more of the panorama of what God is really doing in your moments.

Crisis happens like a rogue wave; fast and sudden. The real, I mean the real and true problem with any crisis is not the crisis itself but the speed by which it happens and equally more disastrous the speed by which we attempt to respond to it or worse yet try to solve it.

God is a slow/fast God. Undisciplined followership of Him is fast/slow.

Whatever your facing today that can be under the heading of crisis - slow down. There is something in the landscape of your crisis that God sees as vastly more interesting and important than the crisis itself.

Dan
A Runner

Being Too ...

He was perturbed.

More than upset, which can be an easily gained or lost emotion, on this day something deeper inside him was rumbling … perturbing, making his senses and sensibilities uneasy and hard to reconcile.

His friends became uneasy as well. Not because they knew what was eating at him and not because he was saying much. There is a transference of that kind of perturb from one person to the next without a word spoken … you’ve been there, having walked into a room and knew there was tension.

He became resolute in what must be done and began to ready himself for the task. A few of his friends tried talking him out of it and some of them remained silent because they had never seen this side of him. In either case, his friends who had long been accustomed to ‘this is just the way it is’ kind of living and thinking, weren’t yet qualified to understand the deep side of his trouble.

And so with every movement of his hands he became more perturbed, concentrating now on the task at hand he was past the point of reasonable reason and past the point of what was sensible. On that crisp morning, his sensibilities no longer in tact, the distance between his steps now widening and his heart racing with intention – tables were being flung everywhere, people were screaming in disbelief, running for safety and the money was scattered on the floor of the temple portico.


When it was all over, he stood there like a man stands when he has made a point, and dared anyone to challenge the new status quo.

Jesus was being too ….
… too radical
… too insistent on things holy
… too zealous
… too quick to make a judgment
… too violent
… too perturbed
… too unreasonable
… too Jesus.

We live in the same ‘this is just the way it is’ world Jesus’ disciples were living in. That kind of living, which is the old status quo, puts a think into people’s minds like a heavy wool veil covers a face; its heavy, hard to see through and suffocating.

Before the veil was ripped in the temple on the day of His great sacrifice, He took away the heavy wool veil covering His disciples faces that day in the temple. From that day forward none of them, save one, would ever be the same.

All because Jesus was being too …

Here's today’s question: ‘Could we be accused of being too …?’

Perhaps the smaller questions may be; 'Are our faces yet veiled with the old status quo of 'this is just the way it is'? 'Is it getting hard to see through the heaviness'? 'Are the plans, purposes and intentions of God in us suffocating'?


Find yourself being too ...


Dan
A Runner

Still the Most Powerful Certainty

I'm sitting on my front porch this morning. It's a large expansive porch attached to my wife's house. This particular porch is the reason I chose to live in the Old West End. I often tease Crystal that we bought the porch and the rest of the house came with it.

The porch faces a great neighborhood filled with real interesting people. Just four doors down a fellow minister and good friend Steve North and his wife Jan have a house. These are just a few reasons why this is a great spot for me to reflect, think, plan and blog. In just a few minutes the morning bells from Glenwood Lutheran will start playing old hymns ... calling neighbors to gather as it has done for years in this part of the city.

Even though I'm fully dressed for church this morning, which for my family is New Life Church of God in Christ on Oakwood where Bishop E.T. Cook is the Pastor [I think I've got the lingo down], there's a part of me that would just as soon stay home.

I know I'll not meet God in church this morning much more than I've already met Him on this very porch already today .. so to go to church to receive something isn't very motivational.

So - why go?

My wife Crystal has this great teaching - one I've used more than once - on the difference between journey and migration. The basic premise of her presentation is that a journey with God, while good, is about what He's doing in you. A migration on the other hand is what He's doing through you, because of you and yes ... in spite of you.

If you've hung around me for more than a minute you'll hear me say; 'The Church is The Most Powerful Certainty on This Planet'! The church, just to make sure we're talking about the same thing, is not the place I'm going to this morning - or the place you're going to. The Church, the one God has established through Jesus Christ, is people.

God's people are the most powerful certainty on this planet. YOU are the most powerful certainty on this planet. That's migration.

So - I'm off to New Life in a moment. Off I go, not with obligation. Not with compulsion. Not with a set of expectations or rules.

I go for reasons I don't expect. I go because the mysteries of following God make me curious. I go, hopefully for the same reason you go - I'm on a migration. I believe down to my socks that what God is doing in me will impact the world around me, so if I remain on this porch and enjoy the bountiful pleasure of His provision ... I've kept it to myself. I've become the sum of me, when I could become the exponential of Him.

Gotta go.

Dan
A Runner

A Very Necessary Shout Out!!

What are you going to say to 40 youth and a dozen adult chaperone's who take their summer vacation and serve 15 hours a day for four days straight?

Thank you Westgate Chapel Youth!

Thank you is the most uncomplicated yet complex utterance known to man. In just two simple words gratitude is known by all and the depth of its meaning makes one curious.

Friday morning I stopped by our Bancroft house which is being prepared to open for much needed transitional housing for women at the Sparrow's Nest. The love and dedication of these fine examples of God at work is astounding. All .. I mean All, of them were working. Not one was complaining about the heat or about the amount of work. As a matter of fact, I observed the exact opposite - they were All smiling, laughing and enjoying their service.

The group I saw at the Bancroft house was only a portion of their group. The other half were equally hard at service at our Madison Street facility preparing, cooking and serving meals - well over 2000 in just four days.

It gets better. Westgate also raised their own money to purchase the food they would serve.

What can you say to such a complex love and service?

Thank you!

On another note, the Bancroft facility will open this month .. by the grace of God and will be officially named Abigail's House.

My final Thank you at least for today, goes to Luann whose love of others and dedication to the ideals of Cherry Street have in great part contributed to Abigail's House and it's opening.

Dan
A Runner

He's Still On Fire!

Exodus chapter 3 and 4.


I've always loved the behavior God exhibits in these two chapters. The rhythm of His watchful eye in chapter 3 verse 4 as well as the cadence and manner of His speech toward Moses give us attention to how loving and persistent He is.


As God was burning in the days of Moses, He burns yet today. It was the trouble of people He loved that caused Him to draw Moses' attention away from his daily routine. His people were in bondage, enslaved as a result of past generations, beaten, tormented and far from any hope or better future.


Sound familiar?


It should - this sounds like most people who are within arms distance from us any day of the week .. maybe even twice on Sunday.


Here's today's question: 'Where is God on fire in your life?'


As sure as you're breathing today, God is burning somewhere on your horizon. You know He's burning because there are people He loves who are yet enslaved, broken, beaten, forgotten, prisoners of their past - you remember, because you and I used to be one of them.


His burning will challenge your routine, just like it challenged Moses' routine that day.

Are you available?
Will you turn your feet in God's direction?
Will you be the one who takes one step forward?
Will you be the one 'out of line?'

I think you will.


Dan
A Runner

The Barking Dog

You've had this happen to you, seen it happen or heard of it happening.

The dog in the front yard waiting ... waiting ... waiting - and he's off. Running and barking like his life depended on catching the car speeding by his yard. It's an interesting sight really. A case to be studied for sure.

This dog displays amazing agility. He has impeccable timing. Remarkable Stamina. Disciplined patience. Unflinching resolve. Determined focus. Nerves of steel. Uncompromising in his agenda. He is in fact .. Relentless.

He's the barking dog.


Unfortunately for the dog his focus, patience, stamina and timing don't seem to be connected to a specific outcome. Was this his intended fate? Or is endlessly chasing automobiles what he has been reduced to? Designed to companion in the great out doors, like an animal at the zoo without the cage, he is now confined by his experience and limited by his environment.

I must confess - from time to time I've behaved a lot like the barking dog. With great precision, agility, stamina, determination, focus and unflinching resolve I've chased issues that shouldn't have been chased - needn't have been chased. At least not by me.

To be candid, there are one or two 'cars' I'm chasing right now.


If a measurable impact through social innovation is the goal - and it is. Then I've decided it would be much better to walk quietly if that's what it takes, than to run loudly for the sake of motion or noise. It is in fact the product of purposeful intent to experience the kind of freedom not confined by experience nor limited by environment.


Take the quick barking dog test:

1. Does your today seem a lot like yesterday?
2. Do you believe or behave your experience to date disqualifies you in some way?
3. Do you believe or behave that your present surroundings has confined or limited you in any way?

If you answered yes - you have barking dog syndrome.

Here's the antidote. Stop it! Stop it now! Seriously ... stop!


The behavior of the car told you a long time ago it didn't care you were chasing it. With not so much as a mechanical yawn it just keeps driving by. Unaffected by your diligence, uncaring for your pursuit and untouched by your focus the issue you've been chasing remains unchanged and perfectly intact.


It dawns on me the only lasting impact of the barking dog is the rut left behind from constant chasing and endless pursuit. Here's the lesson. You and I possessing perfect skill, tireless ethic and unwavering focus may still wind up in a rut.

May I suggest the wrong thing is being chased. Instead, let's turn to the open road ourselves - that's where God is waiting. He waits for us to join Him far and away from the familiar motion of things. Clearly His desire is for us to run alright, but be the kind of runner that attains, strengthens, solves and leaves behind better.

Here's today's question: 'What is the internal adjustment you need God to make inside you?'


Dan
A Runner

No Pastel Thinking Allowed!

Pastel; any of various pale or light colors

As I said last week, because we live in a platitude accepting drive-by-conversating world, you and I will have to say something different, and be willing to do something different just to be the one person in the 'row' of lined up public opinion who dares to take one step forward.


Stepping away from the crowd of commonly held opinion is awkward and away from the order of things.

I do like order though, and the positive outcomes of well thought out and executed chain of command. I like the progress and power of agreement and the fruitfulness of unity. I love the 'getting on the same page' moments shared with people in my life. The Bible speaks about agreement and unity repeatedly in an effort that we may understand the depth of greatness acquired when we are together - truly together.

There are times though, when the majority of opinion is not right. There are times when you will be the one who breaks rank to find yourself alone on a topic. Don't be afraid. Remember there's a difference between lonely and being alone. Taking a stand may be a lonely place, but you're never alone. There are those all around you who wait for leadership - they wait for you.

One of the great aspects of Cherry Street Mission Ministries, and certainly one of the many reasons I love serving here, is that we live in a platitude free environment. Here, the phrases of 'kind of'' and 'sort of' have no meaning because they are not resistant to the acidic nature of serving in the river of the human condition.

Lives weighing in the balance of heaven and hell don't respond well to direction that is unclear nor love that has no sharp contrast against the backdrop of trouble.

That's the problem with pastel colors - you're never really sure what the color really is. So we're forced to describe the color as pastel [pale] yellow or pastel blue.

It's also the problem with pastel thinking or pastel leadership - you're never quite sure what the decision really is. 'Not really sure [pastel] thinking' works well when you're looking at a menu or trying to decide what you really want at the ice cream stand.

But - when people are placed into the equation, that's a whole different matter. People in the equation will require decisiveness. These are decisions that stand in stark contrast to the problems of life and decisions that will most often stand in stark contrast to the opinions of those around you - no pastel here.

Decisions of stark contrast are made at Cherry Street Mission Ministries [and I hope where you serve] every day. Whether a meal, a conversation, a prayer or a moment of kindness - all stand in sharp contrast to the 'pastel colors' of life.

Here's today's challenge: Make a decision that stands in stark contrast to____________ (you fill in the blank).

Dan

Moving Parts

I like to golf.

The thing I like the most about golf is how completely uncomplicated swinging a club appears while in the same time and space how incredibly complex it is to actually accomplish a swing that actually hits the ball where you actually intentioned it to go. The golf swing has a lot of moving parts, and if you miss just one ... just one. Well, you get the idea.

There are a lot of moving parts to the golf swing.

Whenever possible, I like encouraging people to find their voice. Finding your voice, like the golf swing, is easier said than done. To have voice is dependent on many elements coming together. Many considerations are in play for someone to speak up - even in a room where there will be certain agreement.

To have voice means you've settled the small things in your life such as confidence, articulation and mental acuity. You've also developed certain disciplines. You've learned how to research in an effort to be clear, you've gained in personal management in an effort to be heard and you've become a great listener in an effort to be respected. Not to mention you've overcome possible historical barriers that can range from family to socio-economic realities, to race and or gender limitations.

There are a lot of moving parts to finding your voice.

Like the golf swing and the personal discovery of finding your voice - there are a lot of moving parts wrapped up in the simple statement; I would rather teach a person to fish rather than give them a fish.

This statement is a metaphor often used to describe the effective work in serving others, as well as an encouragement to those who are on the 'receiving' end of relationships.

Here are a few accompanying metaphorical questions:

• Who owns the water where the fish are?
• Are there barriers around the water?
• Who will be responsible to removing those barriers?
• Is this the right water?
• Does the water have the right fish?
• Is there a license requirement?
• Can anyone fish?
• How much fish can be taken at one time?
• Is equipment available?
• Who owns the equipment?
• Are their conditions to use the equipment?
• Is training available for cleaning the fish?
• Is there adequate facilities to cook the fish?
• How will the remaining fish be refrigerated?

There are a lot of moving parts when teaching someone to 'fish'.

We live in a platitude accepted, drive-by-conversating world. You and I will have to say something different, and be willing to do something different just to be the one in the 'row' of lined up public opinion who takes one step forward - awkward comes to mind.

Here's today's question: Are you willing to break cadence with the rest of the lock step world around you?

Dan
A Runner

The Unheard

For those who have followed this blog, you already know how I feel about the unhealthy and disadvantageous behavior exhibited when people when referencing other people, seem to prefer the adjective over the noun. Like when we talk about the homeless.

Homeless - clearly an adjective only describing a condition, the term lacks the depth needed to describe a person - which is the actual noun of our descriptional intent.

Many of us who work and serve within the human condition, who are experiencing homelessness, often refer to these our fellow citizens, as the unhomed. It's a feeble attempt, albeit a sincere attempt, to move the conversational descriptions and the need to describe people, closer to the person rather than the condition of the person.

In any case here's today's question: What would be worse, to be unhomed or to be unheard?

I can think of a multitude of people who are clearly homed, living each day in the comfort of the homed and yet are in relationships in which they are not heard.

They're frustrated.

It's not that they're not talking, not allowing their frustrations to engineer new ways to communicate - you may be one of them, you know what I'm talking about. You try to date the problem, sex the problem, talk the problem, yell at the problem, ignore the problem - all in an effort to be heard.

Yet for all of your good intentions and splendid efforts, you remain unheard.

Now imagine you are unhomed and unheard - what then?

What is your frustration level like?
Do you have a low-grade irritation all the time?
What is your attitude like?
What is your appearance like?
Are you approachable?
Are you skeptical?
Will you take advantage of others?

Voice!

Do you want to be effective in today's ever dynamic and fluid environment of service?

Then listen! It's a great place to start.

Dan
A Runner

HPRP Funding

Capacity; the ability to hold, receive or absorb.
Infrastructure; the basic structure or features of a system or organization.

The Federal Government through the Housing of Urban Development [HUD] is ready to distribute portions of the stimulus package aimed at restarting the American economy and providing support funding as well for critical issues - like homelessness.

A part of this stimulus focus is going for what is called HPRP funding. HPRP is a condensed acronym meaning Homeless Prevention Rapid-Rehousing Program. The City of Toledo is scheduled to receive 3.2 million dollars to distribute among agencies the City identifies as capable of this level of distribution.

The program is a good idea, and communities who are ready with the level of capacity and infrastructure to identify those persons and/or families who are near homeless and have the same structure to identify those persons and/or families who could be rapidly re-housed will do well to receive this funding.

There is a bit of a catch though, the money has to be spent quickly. By quickly HUD mandates the money must be spent within 18 months. Now, you wouldn't think this would be a problem because there is so much need - right?

Wrong.

The fact is the Government is on to a good thing here - but haste still makes waste. The need is in fact so great, there is a chance that without the right capacity and infrastructure in place unfortunate and rather unintended consequences are likely to occur.

Let me list just one problem related to how rapidly the money must be spent:

1. Without the dollars to sustain the housing, through what could be a need longer than 18 months, the people including families who have been helped, will find themselves once again facing difficult choices and balancing precariously on the edge of homelessness.

There is workforce development money within the HPRP funding. But without job creation there won't be jobs for those who are being trained to go to.

Like many leaders of Rescue Missions around the country I support, and Cherry Street participates in, the Continuum of Care [COC] within our community. The COC is designed to identify the organizations who are serving as well as identify the gaps within the service continuum.

Despite what you may hear, the COC in Toledo is not comprehensive enough in its capacity and infrastructure to adequetly distribute the HPRP funding. My concern, and I'm not alone, is that the funding could potentially create ultimately more problems than it solves.

What the availability of these funds should be telling us [City of Toledo] is that we don't have enough of the community at the table to make our COC comprehensive. These funds should be telling us we need to get our house in order so that when funds are available we're ready for them.

I'll hasten to add however, that if our COC house was in order there more than likely wouldn't be as a great a need for the funding as there is.

Here's today's question; 'Are you ready to activate within our community in ways you've never been active in order to have what you've never had or seen?'

Let me know: danrogers@cherrystreetmission.org

Dan Rogers
A Runner

Humanity Groans

For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
Romans 8:22 (NKJV)

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Romans 8:22-25 (Message Bible)

I believe we live in a very pregnant time - societally speaking.

It's not that society is pregnant with potential, or even pregnant with possibility - just pregnant. Pregnancy is about expectation and as the above verse in Romans states, waiting is a part of the expectation.

My daughter in law and son just delivered their second son not more than a week ago [our fourth grandchild]. It's been fun watching these pregnancies over the last few years from a grandparent's view. Far removed from the discomfort and the travail of pregnancy, the vantage point has been in the comparison of the very pregnant mother and society's pregnancy.

The above verse talks about the whole of creation groans and labors with the pain of birth.

I was in a program staff members office recently when she had an unexpected visit from one of our program guests. The guest was visibly irritated about something and without excusing himself into our conversation just began to interrupt. We stopped his interruption long enough to instruct in polite behavior. While he hesitantly complied with the instruction and followed a more polite pattern of behavior, it was difficult for him because he had something inside that needed to get out - he, for that moment was pregnant.

So many of us groan under the pain and labor of birth - something deep inside us that is waiting to experience the freedom of birth. That's what I mean - societally speaking we're living in a very pregnant time.

We're waiting and the more we wait the more what's inside grows and the more it grows the more expectation stirs and the more expectation the more groan and pain we experience.

Here's today's question: 'Do you groan'?

Dan
A Runner

The Behavior of Salt

Salt is an interesting way to describe what God is looking for in you and me. Salt is good. But salt by itself or too much salt is not so good. Salt has this wonderful preservative interaction with whatever it touches.

The covenant of salt referred to in the Book of Leviticus talks not only to this preserving agent, but also the perpetuality of salt - so the salt covenant spoke of the perpetual, ongoing covenant being made by God through the sacrifice being offered by man.

Cultures of old rolled an infant in salt. While the salt had real benefits to the skin of a newborn in rough climates - there was also the parent saying of the child; my covenant to you is perpetual.

I like the word perpetual when it comes to describing this ongoing relationship I have with God. Perpetual lives beyond time and space. Perpetual exceeds the limited horizon of the next failure or success. Perpetual challenges the boundaries of the possible and explores the vast reaches of the probable.

For someone who should have been released long ago from the covenant I made with God on the grassy stadium floor on a cool summer's night in 1975 - I'm grateful from the depth of me for this word perpetual regarding the covenant made on that day.

God has truly been faithful to His word.

"You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
Matthew 5:13

Here's today's question: Are you salt or a salt shaker?

From time to time, people have referred to me as a 'mover and shaker'. To be honest, it sounds good. The whole idea of living in such a way that would have this kind of recognition was appealing. It was appealing right up until I realized the disappointment associated with the disconnect of not being His intended representation in any conversation.

The shaker was not my place [you'll have to decide whether it's yours] for many reasons, but only one that truly mattered - God didn't say I was the place of salt, or the movement of salt, or the holder of salt, he simply said I was the salt.

Would I represent His perpetual nature, through close contact and deep penetration toward those around me - like salt behaves.

God is the Mover and Shaker and as He said, I'm the salt freely dispensed and used at His will for His purpose to represent His perpetual covenant.

When it comes to the complex problems of our city and region I don't think we'll survive one more person standing up as a self proclaimed 'shaker'. We've had enough - or we should have by now.

Recently, I've been wondering how many days we [Soma; The Body of Christ] have between now and the day we truly become salt to the tasteless around us. How many days yet remain between our today decisions and the better decision to become the perpetual of God?

I hope not many. Humanity groans all around us - waiting.

Dan
A Runner

What would you do?

• A few weeks ago on an early Saturday morning, I was approached by a man in his early twenties in a Rite Aid parking lot. His appearance was rough, his eyes not well, his clothes had paint splattered all over, he was tall, thin and approaching a stranger in a parking lot - he needed money.

• A man about my age sat on my front porch not too long ago. His wife had just left him, his countenance was calm, almost matter of fact but his eyes were swollen with the pain of many bad decisions, his adult children were confused, one of them was on drugs and he was contemplating the complexities before him - he needed help.

• A friend arrived at my door several years ago with a friend of his whom I had not met. His friend was in his late fifties, proud, excellent eye contact, strong handshake and earning 6 figures as a business man. My friend brought him to my doorstep because this man was addicted to pornography and he didn't know what to do with him any more - he needed freedom.

Here's today's question: In either one of these situations, would you know what to do?

The Biblical Rescue Intensive is designed with you in mind. Among many other vital techniques, you will learn how to 'slow the shutter speed of life down' If you will succeed where God leads you, vital knowledge is needed to realize that you cannot solve problems at the same speed in which they were created.

The Church is the most powerful certainty on this planet - by the way, that's you not the building you go to on Sunday. YOU are the most powerful certainty in any situation because Jesus is the head of you, the Holy Spirit leads from inside you and God the Father covers you.

All you need now is to be equipped in order to do the work of Rescue.

Join me and others as the Biblical Rescue Intensive is kindly being hosted by Pastor Josh and Pastor King of The Dwelling Place and Westside Community Church. The Intensive will start this Thursday evening [May14-16] at 6:00 at The Dwelling Place on the corner of Angola Road and Eber and will conclude on Saturday at 4:00 pm.

I'll also be presenting a new Rescue construct [May 17-19] called; The Five Core Behavioral Elements of Drunkenness on Sunday morning and Sunday evening [11-1 and 6-8] Monday and Tuesday evening [6-8] at New Life Church of God in Christ on Oakwood off Detroit.

For additional information on either of these opportunities and to register email Ashley Shaffer at ashaffer@cherrystreetmission.org or by calling Ashley at 419-242-5141. You may also drop me a line, if you have questions at danrogers@cherrystreetmission.org.

A Runner not a walker be,

Dan

The Runner's Attitude

Bloggers note: This is the fourth installment of 'The Runner'

The Philip Project is based upon a very unseen, but very certain horizon. This, as mentioned in the last posting, is the Runner's Horizon. The Runner is running not to race, nor to compete - but to win. To be a Philip kind of Runner, the win doesn't go to the swift, but to the one who understands the unseen and unverified horizon.

The Philip Runner understands the horizon without permission. He runs free of collective consensus and she puts one foot in front of the other without hesitation.

Many people may see the need of humanity all around them. The need to house the unhoused, the need to feed the hungry, the need to answer the rising crisis among our youth - all of this can easily be seen. But the behavior and outcome of our work betrays us. We do not have a fix on the proper horizon because of our lack of understanding of it, and therefore possess not the proper attitude.

The Runners Horizon cannot be satisfied within the confines of a cause. On that horizon homelessness and poverty are reducing, low birth weights are rising, our young men are staying in school instead of populating our places of imprisonment, our young women are off the streets and in places of commerce, our veterans, ravaged by the sounds of war are living out their days in peace, our elderly are in safe places of housing, parents are once again honored by all sectors of society and the family is once again whole.

The horizon I'm talking about is where the river of humanity that once flowed with the grief of many generations – now blessed by God’s mercy runs through the tributaries of our communities as a life giving flow once more – my brothers and sisters, that’s what I'm talking about!

The Runner has attitude - can that be your attitude?

One of my favorite vocabulary words [at least lately] is prescient; the ability to perceive the significance of events before they occur. To me, this is the word that describes best the ability to see and to understand.

Prescient is the proper vocabulary when describing Philip in Acts 8 or the Chieftains of the Sons of Issachar in 1st Chronicles 12;32

The reality is you cannot change the world around you, nor be the change you want to be, by just seeing the world differently - with the seeing, must come the understanding that presents in you the proper Runners Attitude.

The topography between the Runner and the horizon is perilous indeed. Cavernous valleys, mountainous expanses and vast open terrains await the Runner. This topography does not elicit many takers. To be a Philip kind of Runner is to often be alone.

Here's today's question; Do you still want to lace up?

Dan - A Runner

The Runner's Horizon

This, now growing, series on 'The Runner' has been yielding some interesting reactions from readers. On FaceBook I've read comments ranging from; 'I'm lacing up my running shoes', to 'I'm ready to join the marathon', all in response to this series.

I admire sprinters in track and field events. With a tremendous blast of speed they're out of the starting block and down the track in a matter of seconds. But sprinters are not runners. While they too have a horizon, it is within eye sight and their goal quickly reached. Sprinters train to be sprinters - they do not train to be runners.

Those who run in marathons, or cross country have my respect as well. These runners do not do well in the sprint - they did not train for the blast of great speed and quick finish. They train more in the endurance of running - how to stay in it to the end. But as is for sprinters, marathon racers have a finish line, it is simply reached a bit later than the sprinter reaches hers.

To be the kind of Runner I've been writing about - Philip kind of Runners - is dependent on two specific functions; horizon and training to the horizon. Philip Runners have already seen what cannot be seen and by default pursue a different horizon than most.

Running in the Biblical context is not about finishing and it’s certainly not about competing with other runners – but it is about winning. At the end of his days, after 20 years of not hearing about Philip in the book of Acts we find him in his place of service now with four daughters all of whom were like their father - Runners. Philip ran with endurance. He possessed the ability to see and understand what he saw for his generation and passed his competency along to the next generation - he won!

For those of you who would be Runners of your generation, take note; you must train in such a way that focuses upon the horizon only. You must abandon the notions of competition and finish line. Neither exist.

The Philip Project is based upon a very certain but very unseen horizon.

Here's today's question; 'Are you ready to have a Runner's Horizon?'

Next? 'The Runner's Attitude'

Dan
A Runner

A Runner

I'm grateful for the many comments received from last week's posting; 'Are you the runner of your generation'. There are many of you who desire to be more and to have more from your followership of God.

You've come to that place, found in every relationship [whether its ever recognized or not]. That place where pursuits of absolute lead you to holy frustrations. You begin to say; 'There must be more.' You begin to dream big audacious dreams and you begin to see yourself as a solution to the corruption around you.

Can I encourage you, do not ignore, try to appease or calm the growing frustration in you. This is the place where greatness is conceived and the power of generational innovation is born.

In the Biblical Rescue Intensive I'm reminding attendees and would be Rescuers to 'slow the shutter speed down.' If you see too fast, you understand too little and your response is too shallow. You cannot solve the problems around you with the same speed in which those problems were created.

And so, if you will become a Runner in your generation you first need to slow yourself. Even expert marksmen will say; slow is smooth and smooth is fast. We see but don't understand because we see at the speed of life rather than the speed of God. Remember, He [God] ALWAYS moves slower than you and I.

For those of you paying attention and desire to be a Runner with understanding. This is lesson one; Slow the shutter speed down. Lesson two? Learn lesson one.

Please also get out your concordance, look up and read every reference in the New Testament on Philip. By doing so, you'll begin to understand why he could have been called upon by the Angel that day to run with understanding to the Ethiopian man.

Lastly, let me encourage you in this verse found in I Chronicles 12:32. It's one of my favorite verses on the topic of understanding.

"The sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command"

Did you read? They understood the times, they knew what to do and everyone else followed them. What else do you think God desires from you except to be the one in any situation who can be called upon to Run.

Dan
a runner

Are you the runner of your generation?

It's great imagery.

Philip, a disciple of Christ having received instruction from an Angel of the Lord ran to catch up to a man of Ethiopia traveling in a chariot, who was a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians.

This man had traveled to Jerusalem to worship and was returning to his country when Philip got the 'call' to run.

As Philip ran along side the chariot he observed the man reading Isaiah the prophet and said, 'Do you understand what you are reading?' The man's reply? 'How can I, unless someone guides me?' and he asked Philip to come up to his chariot and join him.

In the conversation, Philip preached Jesus to him which ended up in the man being baptized.

This example of a 'run along beside' ministry can be found in your Bible in the book of Acts, chapter 8.

We are living in a world where more and more people fit the description of the Ethiopian man. People who see but have no understanding.

Many people see the need to serve meals to the hungry,
Many people see that pregnancies are out of control among our youth,
Many people see there is a need to house the unhoused,
Many people see the importance of reaching parents,
Many people see the incarceration rates among African American men is astonishingly higher than any other demographic,
Many people see the recidivism rate of incarceration and addiction moves like a merry-go-round,
Many people see that the median age of the unhoused is getting younger each year,
Many people see the church is AWOL in areas of justice,
Many people see the church is still the most powerful certainty on this planet,
Many people see that unaccompanied youth in our society is a growing concern on our streets,
Many people see we need change at every level of all sectors of our communities.

Many people see - but not many people truly possess an understanding of what they're seeing.

It is this lack of understanding that is creating, and in many cases exasperating the already existing problems within our communities, homes and churches. For example, because we don't understand the fundamentals of poverty, we think just because we can see where poverty exists we know enough of what to do - but do we?

Here's today's example question; "Since the impoverished of our communities continue to receive the same treatment year after year which amounts to hand outs of everything from backpacks and school supplies in the fall to block parties in the spring and summer, what has changed?

Are the impoverished no longer impoverished, or are we instead seeing new generations of poverty; the sons and daughters of those we have 'served' year after year.

The outcome and perspective regarding the work and service being conducted in our communities should tell us that we see, but do not understand.

Are you the runner of your generation?

Can you be called upon to run?

It's runners we need - those who not only see, but understand.

Now, more than ever we need the development and release of the 'run along beside' function of following God. It's time to add to our seeing the ability and function of understanding.

This year, I'll be participating in and releasing along with other key leaders; 'The Philip Project'. Our attempt is to identify and recruit men and women of all ages who see, but desire more - they desire to run. I'll keep updating this initiative as it unfolds. If you desire to know more, drop me a line; danrogers@cherrystreetmission.org.

How will they understand if there is no one to guide them?

Dan
a runner

Reject Sameness!

There is an article in today's Toledo Blade [Sunday April 5] with the headline; 'Charity cuts ties to food distributor'. If you read the article you know the charity is Cherry Street Mission Ministries and the food distributor is the Toledo Northwest Ohio Food Bank [TNWFB].

The headline should have read; Food distributor cuts ties with Charity.

Cherry Street has had a very long relationship with the TNWFB - well relationship may be putting too fine a point on it; they sell food and we buy food. However, in the past two years the leadership of the food bank has engaged in direct mail marketing that is misleading to what the food bank actually does - sell food.

The direct mail campaigns they've conducted suggest that if you send them a certain amount of money, they will be able to provide families who are hungry, a certain amount of meals. This is a lot like a grocery store suggesting they serve meals.

Do they? Does a grocery store serve meals to families? NO!

Grocery stores do however provide the community a place to shop for food. The community then goes to their places of residence and makes meals from the food the grocery store sold them.

After numerous attempts to reach the leadership of TNWFB to discuss my concerns, and having received no return contact I instructed our Food Service to cease providing the numbers of meals we were serving.

On March 24th our Food Service department was told by TNWFB that we would no longer be able to purchase food from them until they received our meal counts. That being the proverbial straw, we officially severed ties to the food bank.

Even though there may be trouble for taking a stand, what trouble may come is dwarfed by the slow and steady erosion of hope summed up in; 'same old, same old. If we are to be a challenge to this darkness, then we will need to possess the virtue of indifference toward those who promote sameness in our community.

It's time to reject sameness!

Allow me to suggest, that if the world around you seems to be the same, day after day - you may be a candidate to take a stand for something. Rather than wait for the world to change, you change the world. Each of us have within us the ability to be nation and generation changers.

In a world where integrity is at a premium, right will often be at a premium as well.

Dan

30.8%

A point in time survey is like taking a picture of a demographic or specific population to determine aggregate numbers - which becomes a data picture.

In a recent point in time survey, a 'picture' was taken at intake, of Lucas County inmates in regional jails or prisons. The survey netted the following information:

Age at first arrest 16
Age at first conviction 19
Age of first violent offence arrest 19
Percentage of those on probation or parole at time of arrest 42.8%
Percentage of those surveyed who had a juvenile record 64.5%

The survey goes on to point out that 75.4% are single, 46.6% do not have a High School Diploma, 51.9% are unemployed, 15.0% experienced physical or sexual abuse as a child, 57.2% have received no substance abuse treatment, 29.4% were high on drugs, alcohol or both at the time of their arrest.

And for those of you who are interested, 58.7% of the inmates surveyed at intake, were African American and 87.0% were males.

For a few years now, I've been talking along with many esteemed and concerned people in our communities about the need to reach parents - above all else. Whether we like it or not, parents are the headwaters of the stream flowing through the tributaries of our neighborhoods.

This stream now flows red from the dashed hopes and futures of two generations.

Here's today's question: If you were a chopper, not a hacker [ 3.13.09] and your intended goal was to effect change in the above percentages or ages - where would you start?

By the way, the average age of the person surveyed at the time of intake was 32. When asked where they were living at the time of their arrest - 30.8% were at home living with their parents.

It's not complicated, it's just complex,

Dan

You're Invited!

Renewing Minds

This is our theme for the 2009 Banquet for Cherry Street Mission Ministries. If you haven't yet received your invitation in the mail, please accept my personal invitation to join the hundreds of folks around the area who will be in attendance this year.

This is Cherry Street's premier event of the year, where we celebrate the work of God in the hearts and lives of men, women and families of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan.

The Renewing Minds Banquet is underwritten by our generous sponsors so that we may invite you free of charge.

Here are the particulars:

Thursday, April 23rd

6:30 - 8:30

Gladieux Meadows

4480 Heatherdowns Blvd.

Toledo

You'll want to get your reservations in early, as this is an RSVP event by emailing Amy Ambrose at aambrose@cherrystreetmission.org or Ashley Shaffer at ashaffer@cherrystreetmission.org.

You may also call Amy or Ashley at 419-242-5141.

For you folks on Facebook, you can also respond by finding an invitation on our Facebook wall.

I'll look forward to seeing you there,
Dan

Food For Thought

Props to Don Schiewer and his team at Food For Thought for making a difference in the Greater Toledo Area.

Yesterday, Food For Thought was awarded $40,000 from a collaborative funding pool including United Way, Toledo Community Foundation and Lucas County.

The dollars will provide needed assistance to Food For Thought in its continuing collaborative work within the Care Team to make food available to citizens in various towns of Lucas County. Next month, for example, they will be in Holland.

Hats off to the fine folks of Food For Thought whom have, for nearly two years given tirelessly and sacrificially in extending friendship to people in our city and region through food.

If you would like to see Food For Thought in action, join them this Saturday and every Saturday downtown at the Toledo Public Library at 10:00 a.m. You'll be amazed - trust me.

Congratulations Don and Team - well done!

Dan

A Chopper not a Hacker Be!

Thanks to the many of you who commented in some way to my last entry; 'What if they're right?'

We live in a society of downstreamers. Downstreamers are those in our community who are content in staying at the waters edge of humanity. Without regard to where the flow originates, half of these folks are pulling one dead body out of the water at a time and the other half are commenting on how well [or not] the other half is doing.

The 'fun' begins when the workers and the commentators begin to argue about who is right, or who is better. Or worse yet which of them is more important in their chosen tasks [fields of expertise].

When will we learn; Downstream problems cannot be solved with downstream solutions. It absolutely amazes me that our civic leaders and sadly in too many cases, religious leaders, continue to behave in such a way that reveals their obvious belief, namely; fixing what has happened is more important than solving the cause of what has happened.

Let me give you a few downstream realities we keep trying to fix rather than solve:

• homelessness
• addictions of every kind
• teen pregnancies
• incarcerations
• divorce

And on the list goes - you get the picture.

Here's the problem - as a community we have demonstrated complete competency in fixing things. This is a problem, because fixing things rather than solving them is like a placebo. A wonderful little sugar pill that is as good as we imagine it to be.

Here are today's questions:
'When is enough - enough'?
'How much longer can we afford to exhaust our resources fixing things rather than solving them for a life time'?

'For every one thousand hacking at the branches of evil there is one chopping at the root'.

Thoreau

For those of you who read this today and are filled with a similar hope, I encourage you to pick up the 'ax' of your conscience and join me and others in being among the one who chops rather than hacks at the systemic, the rooted, the ugly and the dirty.

Let the dirt of our work be the badge of our honor as we embrace the virtue of indifference towards the mess and possess the virtue of attentiveness towards God's leanings.

With an Ax,
Dan

What if they're right?

In last Sunday's Blade [March 1, 2009], Roberta Deboer wrote a front page article on teen pregnancies in Lucas County. You may already know that Lucas County has had the highest teen pregnancy rates in all of Ohio 12 of the last 14 years.

As I read on though, the article wasn't so much about the pregnancy rates as much as it was about the reality of School Districts in Lucas County, unlike ANY of the School Districts in the counties surrounding Lucas County, have not allowed questions regarding sex to be asked.

The National Center for Disease and Prevention has a survey, administered locally across the United States called 'Youth Risk Behavior Survey'. While this survey asks a wide array of questions regarding risk behavior, for some reason the School Districts in Lucas County omit the section on sex among teens.

Now the tendency is to say; 'the School Districts have an ostrich in the sand policy'. You may be right. Every School District in Northwest Ohio seem to have no difficulty asking these questions.

Here are today's questions;

• 'Why would we want our School Districts to ask these or any questions?'
• 'If the School Districts are in possession of the answers [statistics] what do we expect them to do about it?'
• 'Among the many School Districts who have had this information, what have they done to address sexual behavior among our youth?'
• 'What if Lucas County School Districts are right?'
  

Once again we may be asking the School Districts to do more than they are designed for - clearly teen sexuality is not going away. For example, in Wood County [a county asking the sex questions] 31% of youth have had sex before they were 17 with a high percentage of those youth having multiple partners.

30 seconds is all it took me to google and find the Youth Risk Behavior Survey on line. I found the test and instructions on how to administer the test.

I think the organization in the community that is potentially the most qualified to do something with the results, is the only one that should be asking the questions. This may scare you - but the organization I'm referencing is the church.

Churches need to once again see themselves as the PRIMARY Delivery System toward and for, their communities. Imagine a world where churches as delivery systems administered the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in Lucas County - what would these same statistics look like 10 years from now? Would they be different? Potentially - yes! Because sexuality is a moral issue, not an educational issue.

Something to ponder,
Dan

Global Food Crisis?

A few weeks ago I was in Nashville attending a conference of broadcasters (long story) when in one of the symposiums a well known international organization that serves a wide variety of needs globally ran a video called; The Global Food Crisis.Of course, the video was quite compelling with sights and sounds of children and families, countries in famine, and the people globally trying to connect resource and need.

I was already to buy in.

But, as is my habit I researched the premise of whether we are in a global food crisis and asked a few questions along the way;
Are we truly in a global food crisis?
Is this a food shortage issue?
Is this a food transportation issue?
Is this a food distribution issue?

Interesting enough, here at home our national grain reserves are the lowest since the 1960's. Further research shows that low grain reserves are against the backdrop reality that millions of tons of grain are on the ground (literally) in the Midwest in states like Nebraska and Iowa - rotting.

The reasons for rotting grain seem to be as many as the grain itself, from lack of rail transportation and lack of distribution outlets to the price per ton itself.
However, when you research globally the food crisis equation, it’s not hard to question whether the crisis is in fact food.

In fact, a case can be made that we’re NOT in a global food crisis – not that such a crisis can’t exist or even that certain present realities couldn’t put the global community in a crisis of food – it’s just that I don’t think we’re in a food crisis just yet.

I do however think we’re in a Global Poverty Crisis. It’s not so much that there is not enough food, but that poverty can’t afford what food that is available.

Let me be quick to add that of the three components needed to stabilize a life, food is number one followed by clothing and shelter. To a starving person it hardly matters whether the source of their hunger is poverty or lack of food.

However the point in defining the right problem will determine whether the work we choose to do will bring daily solutions or build endurance into solutions that last a life time.

Dan

The Lines are Blurring

I've lived in urban settings most of my life and consider myself an urbanist or 'city planner'. While I've not held public office or have sought employment that is specifically oriented to city or town planning, I have taken where I live seriously - as have most of my acquaintances.

Most people I know, and this is probably true of you, have taken some kind of active role in their community or city in an effort to participate in its wellness. And so you've joined block watches, or attend council meetings or maybe even visit your kids school - all intentional activities that signal you are engaged and aware.

I think about our beloved City of Toledo, and it's surrounding communities a lot - I mean a lot. While Toledo is the most densely populated area in our region it is also an island in a sea of rural communities - as is most of the Midwest. As a matter of fact, one of the more distinctive desirables of our City is that you can be in 'the country' inside of 20 minutes from any location.

That being said, when you look at traditional urban vs. rural issues, or for that matter urban vs. suburban issues - is there really a difference any more? A careful search of statistics and percentages of statistics against population densities doesn't really yield that large of a swing in terms of contrast as it did, lets say even a decade ago.

For example, forcible rape, burglary, larceny and property crimes in Findlay are higher than the national average. Yes, and you've figured it out - the same is true of Toledo in the same categories.

Drop out rates, graduation rates and enrollment rates across Northwest Ohio when put in perspective of population densities don't really change from District to District and if they do, it's only by a few percentage points either way.

Here's today's question; "When considering strategies to bring about community wellness, can we afford to continue delineating solutions by specifying what is urban, suburban or rural?"

I don't think so.

Poverty, addictions of every kind, the break down of the family unit and the near obliteration of the value of parents have all contributed to blurring and in most cases have erased the lines of urban vs. rural.

The 263 men and women that slept in one of the beds at Cherry Street Mission Ministries last night did not all come from Toledo. As a matter of fact, nearly half of the men and women we serve on any given day were not raised in, or came from Toledo.

What we face as a community can no longer be defined by something so small as geography. What we participate in for the betterment of the whole is a people [person by person] schematic and must be addressed by the 'who' standard rather than the 'where' standard.

And so our planning as concerned and engaged citizens must be within the context of our present realities. We would do well not to surrender or limit our actions or intentions to the old model of urban vs. rural. Choosing instead to focus on the real and systemic issues of the human condition.

It's not complicated, it's just complex
Dan