EnterMission - Rob Wegner

The Sodfather

So, the Parks Department had told Glenn they would deliver some field dirt today to the baseball field.  Glenn wasn't surprised today when no dirt was delivered. 

I hoped online to try to find a supplier of field dirt.  The only supplier I found was in Dallas, Texas.  So, I called, told them our story, and the guy said, "We've been trying to supply the guys at Comiskey Park with our dirt, but they are buying from a local vender. Why don't you call Roger, the groundskeeper for the White Sox.

Roger is one of the finest groundskeepers in America.  He's known as the "Sodfather."  The Smithsonian magazine just did a feature article on him.

Glenn has a friend in the front office of the Sox.  He called and asked, "What are the chances of us talking to Roger?"  She said, "There's a game today. So, he'll be on the field all day.  But I can plug you through to his office."

We called.  Guess who picked up on the first ring?  The Sodfather himself.

Glenn told him our story.  We're pulling an extreme makeover on a field that has been abandoned by the city.

He said, "Here's the cell phone number for the guy we source our dirt from.  Tell him I gave you the number and I said to call."

We call the dirt guy and he says, "No problem.  How about a semi-full?  Will that get the job done?"

So tomorrow at 8:00am, a entire SEMI of professional grade infield dirt will be brought to Lowe Park in Englewood.  Glenn's boys will be playing on the same grade dirt as the White Sox.

Is that beautiful or what?

If you want to see God in action, move toward the poor. 

 

Mercy to the needy is a loan to God, and God pays back those loans in full.                                  Proverbs 19:17

From Cassopolis to Chicago

It's been a looong day. 

Started the morning teaching at Penn Friends Community Church in Cassopolis, Michigan.  Over the past ten years, Bill Brunea has transitioned this 165 year old church from a tradition-bound church of about 20 people, who were all basically related to one another, to a growing Purpose Driven congregation of over 200 people.  When you consider that the entire population of the town is 1700, it's down right amazing.   Read the whole story here.

PFCC is growing in their passion for the great nation of India.  They have begun the process of training pastors and church planters.  In addition, they have adopted 14 orphans, and help three families start small businesses.  They are sending their first official team over for the next wave of PD training. 

So, they were looking for someone to stir up some passion for the Great Commission, the local church on mission, and the Kingdom party in India. Somehow, Bill got my number.

We experienced what may have been a straight up miracle this morning.  Come back later this week to read that story.  That one deserves a post all it's own. 

After preaching the services, I hoped in the car with the family to join up with the Oasis Chicago Mission Team. 

Johnnie Kiem is running point on all the mission efforts of the youth ministry.  Under his leadership, John has been aligning the youth ministry teams with the mission focus of the entire church. 

That way every team and effort, whether its youth or adults, is adding to the same long term, cumulative impact.  Most churches miss out on this kind of cooperation with every sub-ministry splintering off in their own direction.

We are hanging out with our family at Good Seeds Ministries, a church plant we've walked with from day one.  This year has seen a sharp increase in violence in the community, with three shootings within the two blocks of the church.  One of those shootings took the life of a twelve year old boy.

One of the initiatives the church has launched to pull kids into the life of Jesus and out of the streets is the sponsorship of a little league baseball team.  It's a whole lot more than baseball.  Glenn Bone, the pastor of Good Seed, is the coach, and the entire church embraces the boys and their families, providing after school tutoring, mentoring, financial literacy training for the families, outings for the kids, meals, travel costs, and a whole lot more.

They are literally saving these kids lives.  

However, because these kids live in the wrong neighborhood, the city won't fix up or maintain the baseball field in the park.  

The middle school students of GCC are going to make it right.  The folks of Good Seed can maintain the field.  But, our students are going to overhaul the field.  Makes me so proud of our kids I want to shout!

As they say, 'If you build it they will come."

To put it lightly, the field is in BAD shape.   Today the kids, busted it, pulling about ten million weeds, picking up garbage, and then removing what was entitled the "Lake of Englewood," which happened to be right between third and home. 

I can handle a pretty mean broom...

DC literally dug a drainage channel to get the water out to the street and our job was the pull the water over.

Here's some of the kids and leaders cleaning up after the mudfest.

We'll be back at it tomorrow.  Pray that it dries!  We're bringing in new dirt.  If you want a bigger picture of what the team is doing you can follow along at DC's blog...who, in my opinion, is the greatest student leader ever.

If you've you got a few more minutes, you've got to read this story about Glenn. He is one of my heroes.

UPDATE:  Official team blog here.

Birthday at the Dunes

We spent my birthday at the Warren Dunes.  Highpoints of the day:

1. My wife is gorgeous!

2. We discovered a little creek lined with clay and decided to go primitive.

You may notice Belle is missing.  Our little fish never left the water the entire time.

It was a perfect day.  I was so happy at one point I thought, "Yeah, this is as good as life gets until the Kingdom fully comes."

If you were one of the gang who called, texted, twitted, or facebooked me, I felt overwhelmed by kindness.  Thanks!

Time, then Wall Street

God wants the story of church-centered mission told. 

Last week, I spend an hour and half on the phone with the lead religion writer from Time, David Van Beama.  He's working on an article about local churches in the Purpose Driven movement who are implementing P.E.A.C.E. 

Yesterday, a religion reporter from the Wall Street Journal called.  She's writing a piece on the local church and social action.  In particular, she's looking for the stories of ordinary man and woman who have experienced a short term mission trip and came back with their worldwide and lifestyle altered.  She wants to meet  people who came back and began engaging the poor and margenalized on a regular basis in their own community. 

As as a pastor, it made my heart happy to brag on some of the faithful men and woman who are major kingdom-bringers at GCC.  AS I told their stories, she said, "This is perfect!"  So, she'll be interview those folks for herself. She said she'll be coming our way to watch them in action, doing their ministry.

At one point, I told her, "We summarize our vision in a short mantra.  We are bringing "up there" down here.  We are orthodox evangelical Christians.  We believe in eternal realities.  But, billions live in Hell on earth, right now.  Jesus has called us not just to a home in Heaven some day. He has called us to bring the life of Heaven into life here on Earth.  When the "good news" of Jesus comes to a community, every level of human existence is elevated. We hear the story of Church atrocities quite often.  We should.  Priests who molest children need to be brought to justice and put in jail.  The church should never ever forget the crusades and so forth.  Simultaneously, the "other story" of the Church is not often told.  If all the good work being done in the name of Jesus were to stop, in a few short weeks untold millions would die."

She said, "Wow. I've never heard anything like that before."

I'm not sure if she was trying to butter me up. I imagine that's probably a part of the business and getting your job done as a reporter.  But, I know she's be talking to four of our people over the next twenty hours.  I hope the "other story" genuinely marks her.  I praying for the "viral effect."

A Question I Need Your Help With

What to help me get ready for Innovate this Fall?   (By the way, the new countdown to innovate podcast is available here.)

I've got a question I need your help answering.  So, before we get to that question, let me start with another one.

What was the good news that Jesus taught? What was Jesus gospel?

In Jesus day, the word “gospel” was a loaded term. I want to unpack two dimensions to it.

In Israel, when people thought about the Gospel, they recalled verses in the Old Testament like,

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, (that’s “gospel”) … who proclaim salvation, who say to Israel, “Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7)

That is Jesus scriptural context for the “good news” or “gospel”: Our God Reigns.

The reign of God is an all encompassing, expansive rule over all things. How did Jesus interpret this message of God’s rule and reign? What would this salvation look like?

The soteriological seat of Jesus’ gospel was, “Let they Kingdom come, let thy will be done ON EARTH as it is in Heaven.”

So, in Jesus’ day, God’s people fully expected it would come when the Messiah appeared and the Romans would be overthrown, the temple’s glory fully restored, and the oppressors would be defeated. It would come with an act of military strength and power. That was the good news they were waiting for.

The word Gospel was filled with these thoughts and imagines for the average Jew..

The proclamation of the gospel was the news that God reign is coming, right here, right now.

But, there is an additional cultural context.

“Gospel” was also a loaded word in the Roman world. Tom Wright has written about this:

Evangelion the word for “gospel” or “good news,” is a regular, technical term referring to the announcement of a great military victory and/or the birth of or accession of an Emperor, a new ruler who is going to bring strength and good news to the Roman world.

The following is actually an inscription found on a building in the year 9 BC. It’s about Caesar Augustus. Look closely at the language they used in the Roman world to describe Caesar:

The providence which has ordered the whole of our lives, showing concern and zeal, has ordained it the most perfect consummation for human life by giving to it Augustus, by filling him with virtue for doing the work of a benefactor among men and by sending in him, as it were, a savior for us and those who come after us to make war to cease, to create order everywhere, the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning for the world of the Good News which have come to men through him.

Augustus definitely didn’t struggle with self-esteem issues, eh?

In the Roman world, at the time of Jesus, the word “gospel” or “good news” is synonymous with “Caesar is lord.” They used that language.

So, Jesus steps into the fray, fully knowing both contexts, scriptural and cultural, and says, “I have good news.”

Think of how his audience would have heard those words.

He was talking about His Lordship and His Kingdom. He was saying, “There is a new Caesar and a new Kingdom that can be found in me.”

But this is going to be different than what most people in Israel thought it would be and different than what most people in the Roman Empire thought it was going to be. Maybe a lot different than I thought it was going to be.

After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)

Now consider, “What does the average Christian in the average church in America think if when they hear the word gospel?”

What are your thoughts?

125 Photos From Camp Adventure: Part Three

Check out the whole album here.

125 Photos From Camp Adventure: Part Two

Check out the whole album here.

125 Photos From Camp Adventure: Part One

UPDATE: If only a few photos seem to show up, you can see the whole album here.

If you went to Camp, I guarantee you are in here somewhere! 

If you put the cursor over the bottom right corner of the show, you can pause on the picture, go forward, or back.  Click the "view all images" link to download the one you want.  This will take a little while to load.  If you don't have high speed Internet, you may want to go get some coffee. :)

I've been at Camp sixteen years, this was the BEST YEAR EVER! 

I tried to put all the shows in one past, but it seem to freeze the first one up on just a few photos.  So, I'm breaking this into three posts.

Finding Myself in Acts 4

Acts 4:31 (AMP)
³¹ And when they had prayed, the place in which they were assembled was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they continued to speak the Word of God with freedom and boldness and courage.

That pretty much describes the service last night at Camp Adventure.  The presence of God was palpable.  So much so, I thought my heart was going to explode. 

In my sixteen years at GCC, there have been a handful times when God's Spirit overwhelmed me with such power that I was basically laid out. 

Some folks would read that last sentence and feel sorry for me.  Typically, these people get a "fresh word of prophecy" from God every day and say that God's Spirit is causing electrical charges to come from their finger tips.  (I knew a woman who said God's Spirit had created a portal in her house to the heavenly realm.  I accidentally fell in it. It was really embarrassing when Jesus had to send me back. Just joking.) 

Others would read it and think I've gone of the deep end. 

All I know is that in retrospect, each one of those experiences prepared me for the next season of ministry. 

God's power comes with a purpose.

Acts 1:8 (AMP)
⁸ But you shall receive power (ability, efficiency, and might) when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends (the very bounds) of the earth.

God's power comes so we might advance the Kingdom and proclaim the message of the Gospel. 

I can't explain it. I wasn't even asking for it last night.  But, last night I found myself in Acts 4:31.  Right now, I'm physically spent, but my spirit is filled to overflowing.

I think God's getting us ready for Chapter 2.

See Jesus...in Person

We're headed out to the blob today.  DC and Johnnie are going to be launching campers.  One of the campers asked DC, "How high do you think you can blob me?" 

DC's response?

"Let's just say you'll get to see Jesus...in person."

Imagine this guy flying about twice as high as he is the second photo.  It's all about lift, baby!  That's what camp is all about: Lifting up Jesus and each other.

Tonight is Commitment Night.  Mark is asking each student to find a stone and bring it with them.  Each of us carries the weight of sin, pain, hurts, and habits. 

Some of the weight is forever lifted away by amazing grace.  God wants to set us free.

Some of the weight we are meant to carry through the power of amazing grace.  God wants to make us strong.

Pray that the campers will know and experience the difference tonight.  Pray for God to anoint our Senior Pastor with His Power and Wisdom.  Pray for the Counselors that they will be Jesus "with skin on" for their kids.

We're going to run to Jesus.