It Begins

A friend of mine just asked me if I would like to help coach his son's soccer team. I don't know if I will. I keep saying this, because it keeps being true: I am very busy. So coaching, as fun as it may be, might be out of the question. Plus, I only have room for so much disappointment in my life; if this isn't a very good team I would have to try harder to find success in other areas. That's not likely unless I find time for video games. So I'm right back where I started.

As I said, I was at a peace demonstration this weekend. I also went to the Los Angeles Dream Center. Oh- and I sold out too. I had a full Saturday.

Let's begin at the Dream Center. There were some parallel streams developing in our congregation that culminated in our discovering it was necessary to serve people that live in small clusters of neglect in Glendora.

Glendora is a very affluent suburb of Pasadena (which I suppose is itself a suburb of Los Angeles). It rests at the foothills that make up the Northern wall of the San Gabriel valley. There are a lot of SUV's here (you'd probably only see as many Hummers in a 50 Cent video). Bush-Cheney stickers, yellow ribbons, and Mormons are also regularly sighted. What we don't have a lot of are open spaces (I don't count the undeveloped foothills as open spaces- they don't seem to exist for public use; access to them is only a priority when someone wants to build bigger and more ostentatious mansions), down town life, or liquor stores. The few liquor stores we do have are primarily concentrated, with a couple of bars thrown in for good measure, along a 1.5 mile strip of Route 66 that also has an inordinate amount of trailer parks, long stay hotels, and apartments. These places caught my attention because of how distinct they are and how well hidden. They are disguised by ivy-covered or stuccoed walls, hidden from street view by strip malls, or situated among businesses so that if you're not looking you don't realize you just drove by people's homes. At least I didn't realize I was driving by people's homes.

We have a mission, of sorts, in our congregation. We talk about reaching the 600 or so homes surrounding our facility and we do little "outreach" things to invite them to church or let them know we exist, but within walking distance of our building- literally right around the corner is one of these hidden residences. I know everyone has needs, but some people want to keep them hidden. That's kind of the point of suburbs: hiding need and displaying success. We do that as individuals and it looks like Glendora does it as a town.

Anyway, the converging streams- so I'm wondering why we're not serving them, someone else is wondering why we're not preaching good news to the poor, someone else is looking for a way to bring what they've learned on short term missions trips home, another is praying for ways to "stretch their faith," so I took my pastor and associate pastor on a field trip to these places to see what we might be able to do. And it turns out this is where our streams meet. We're just going to bite the Dream Center's rhymes. They have what they call their "Adopt-a-Block" program. I did something like it in college and I guess I'm going to do something like it again. We wanted to see a model of it and get a feel for how we might translate it to what we're looking to do.

If you've read a couple of my posts, you may have gotten the sense that I am a bit cynical, but I am genuinely excited about this. I was deeply moved and troubled by my experience with the Dream Center kids I went about with. I was moved by how easy it was to pray with strangers and how quickly some people will acknowledge their desperate need for God's intervention when sin is so clearly around them. I was troubled by how that need is so easily denied by what we've come to think is normal and how real and subtle our idols are.

Then I went to the downtown peace march coinciding with the march on the White House. Logical cohesion and good grammar were rare but I will share more of this later.

I will tell you now though how I sold out. I got a cell phone. The only other time I had one was when I was briefly "homeless" in college. I thought I would be able to fight off cell phone ownership until I died, but even as I type I have one in my pocket. Drag.

Evening Playlist:
Classical Homework Medley