Missing Zambia...and Why I Think Everyone Needs to GO...

Today is an interesting day for me...I woke up this morning thinking about a team of folks from my former school who were spending their first day in Zambia...this is the first trip that Wheaton Academy is taking where I'm not leading the trip, and it is the first year I won't be visiting sub-Saharan Africa since 2004...don't get me wrong, I am way, way thrilled that they are still going without me...in fact, that is the whole point, isn't it as a leader? But there is a real sadness that I'm not there with them, seeing old friends, playing soccer on dirt fields as the WORLD CUP goes on a couple countries below, and being moved again by the mixture of great need and great Kingdom work present in a nation and communities I've strangely fallen in love with...

A couple weeks ago I already started working on setting up dates to take students from my new campus environment back to Zambia and all that Africa has to offer...I can't imagine not going back, and I still deeply feel called to expose students and co-workers to life and the church and reality in this other part of the world...there are already plans in the works here at Cornerstone to host a big soccer event to help raise funds to purchase bednets that we can distribute next summer as we fight and help to prevent the deadly impact of malaria on families and children...and I've been left to wonder why I am still so consumed with taking people to meet others and see things that I know has great potential to make messy their lives that might be rather together and tidy in their current states...

Below is an excerpt from Palmer Chinchen's new book True Religion that speaks to the power of being deeply bothered when we experience things that produce real conflict in our lives are turned loose...it's a great summary piece of why I long to and will continue to take people to places different than their own worlds...to be disturbed and moved to response and in the process to become spiritually transformed...

"Welcome to hell," the European doctor greeted our medical team snidely at the entrance to the Lilongwe Hospital. Hell is what it was.

I had first visited hell a few years earlier when Boyd, a young man I knew in Lilongwe, was struck by a car while crossing the road at dusk.

Boyd's father showed up at my house in the dark and asked anxiously if! would drive him and his family to the hospital to find his son.

The stench was nauseating. Every part of the hospital was in some state of disrepair. Nothing appeared to have been painted in years. I watched the staff mop floors that remained curiously grimy.

We found Boyd on a dingy gurney in the hallway leading to the ER. He had a compound fracture; the bone protruded through the skin. His leg, his pants, and the gurney were all drenched in blood. He was still bleeding.

"Has he seen a doctor?" I asked.

An ER attendant spoke. "No, we are waiting for the doctor."

I walked into the ER to try to find help. There were no doctors, so I rounded up two interns and convinced them to bring Boyd into the ER to get the bleeding stopped and clean the puncture wound in his leg. They agreed, rolled him into the ER, and promised to look after him until the doctor arrived. I felt good about being helpful and headed home.

That was Friday night. Late Monday evening, Boyd's father was back at my door. "Boyd is in a lot of pain. Could you help me with some money for some pain medication?"

"Pain medication?" I was surprised. "Once a fracture is set, there should be no pain."

"The leg has not been set yet," his father replied.

What? Boyd lay there in the hospital for three days with a compound fracture, and no one had set it! I knew the orthopedic surgeon would not be in at night, so I waited until the morning and headed back to "hell" with several of my Malawian college students. We hunted the halls for an hour looking for the one orthopedic surgeon in the country and finally found him in an operating theater, teaching a class. He waved me in, and I told him about Boyd. He was unaware of the case and graciously told me to bring him.

We found Boyd, but none of the nurses could find a gurney to roll him to the operating room. So we picked up his bed, each taking a corner, and we carried him to the operating theater.

His leg had rotted. It took almost six months to heal. If there's a place in this world where people lie for days with gaping wounds—that's a place of hell on earth.

Bothered
I'll be honest. I write all of this with the intention of bothering you. I hope you will no longer be willing to ignore people who hurt.

Oppression, injustice, poverty, bigotry and abuse are real and present. But it doesn't have to be this way. God put you and me here to make this world a better place, a more beautiful place. When Jesus left, He asked that you and I continue to change and love the world. The mission and purpose of the local church was never intended to end at the edge of our community.

King Solomon writes about the heart of God: "Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help. If you say, 'Hey, that's none of my business,' will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know–Someone not impressed with weak excuses."

So whatever the cost, go in the name of Jesus and love people who hurt. Tell them and show them that God has a better way, a more beautiful war, a life-giving way.

Conflict
Educators have discovered an interesting phenomenon: We learn best and comprehend more when our minds are disturbed. In other words, the more people are bothered by what they are being taught—because it is new or radically different and they disagree—then the more likely the information will change the way they think and live. The process of wrestling with difficult concepts makes them better thinkers and ultimately deeper people. The process even has a name—cognitive conflict (or disequilibration).

Jesus was brilliant at this. He masterfully used parables or illustrations to disturb those He taught.

Being disturbed is not just a good way to learn—it's necessary for transformation.

Jesus would always propose equilibration to people’s thinking by offering a better way to live, a more beautiful way to live, a more godly way to live. But He let them choose.

Diamonds
Spiritual transformation often happens in the moments of life that stun us. When we experience, watch or hear of something disturbing, it creates this cognitive conflict that can change the way we think and live.

You may already know how diamonds are formed. Carbon, which is just black dirt, is compressed by millions of pounds of pressure by the earth's weight. This extreme pressure and heat from the earth's core transform the carbon into something pure and beautiful. The greater the heat and pressure, the more pure (or clear) the diamond forms.

In much the same way, I'm convinced we are transformed through moments of spiritual conflict. Under the pressure of going globally and giving our lives away, we open ourselves to the possibility of God crafting something beautiful in our souls. He uses the pressure of the experience and the heat of the moment—sometimes literally—to transform us spiritually and make our lives a bit more beautiful.

We have two options. We can choose to stay and ignore. Or we can choose to go and see and be disturbed. One choice leads to a kind of death; the other leads to life and change and hope.

20 Years and Counting...

Tomorrow afternoon some of my best friends in the world make their first visit to Grand Rapids after traveling from all over the country and the world...there will be six of us spending a long weekend together catching up, listening to a lecture on faith and sports, watching NBA Finals and World Cup matches at the local Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, cooking out on my deck, playing a round of golf, hitting the west MI beaches, and doing a lot of laughing, eating, playing, praying, and writing another chapter in a friendship story that began over 20 years ago as soccer teammates at Bethel College (MN) in the late 80's...

We've been looking forward to this reunion for several months and the emails we've shared have been filled with comments about each other's sports teams, questions about what we should do, memories from college road trips, and genuine enthusiasm to simply be together again...and the time will definitely go way too fast over the next three days before they all head back home...

As I've reflected on our history as friends in looking forward to seeing these guys again I am filled with gratitude, memories, and to be honest, a bit of a strange wonder...for the relationship we share together seems from my perspective to be rather unique...over the last 20 years of ministry since I graduated from college and physically left this crew of friends I've had easily hundreds of young guys express their frustration with their lack of true friends and inability to find guys who love Jesus and love the things they are interested in when it comes to life...many of these guys have been athletes that I've had the chance to coach and mentor over the last 2 decades...they've actually sometimes thought about quitting sports or giving up hope of finding the elusive relationships they long for and were created to enjoy...

I've had lots of people including family members comment about how lucky I am to have been blessed with a crew of friends that has had such impact and positive influence in my life...I do feel exceptionally blessed and know that we have a community that others would enjoy having in their lives...but I've also often felt the need to share our experience so that other guys can have hope and be encouraged to pursue similar types of relationships...

This group of soccer guys made me believe that following Christ was something you could do as a quality college athlete...it made me believe that young men can talk about their struggles, their questions, their loves in authentic and open ways because of a share trust and commitment to loving one another because He first loved us...it made me believe that there are guys out there who I can have a crazy and fun time without compromising any of my core convictions or hurting other people around us...and it made me beleive that in order to follow Christ well for a lifetime I desperately need the partnership of friends to walk the journey of faith alongside me...

As has been the case often in my life, the sport called the beautiful game by most of the world brought us randomly together...as we practiced and traveled and played together, we fell in love with the game and with each other...athletics was the conduit for bigger and better things beyond just a pretty goal or a last second win...I don't think it is coincidence that a highlight of our weekend will be watching what is perhaps the most anticipated soccer game in US soccer history against mighty England Saturday afternoon...

This weekend I'll show my college friends the university world I work in every day at Cornerstone...we'll kick the ball around on our soccer field and look at the pictures of college students hanging in my office...and as they enter the world God has called me in the past year to enter here in Grand Rapids they represent what I long for the students and athletes in my current sphere of influence to experience at CU...I get to share my story with them as I can tell them that there is a way to become friends as guys that will meet their desires and longings for love and fun and connection...that they can create lifetime memories without generating regrets...and that there is great joy in following Jesus together with brothers who love the games, the passions, AND the Savior in similar ways...

Gotta go get some sleep now...there won't be time for much sleep the next three nights in west MI for a group of former Bethel soccer players...

PROVERBS 18:24...There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.