Poverty on Poverty

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak at my friend Amanda's school. She teaches high school Spanish at Julian HS on the south side of Chicago. As you may guess from the fact that this is a Chicago Public School and it's on the south side, it is a struggling school. Most of her kids are what we would consider poor, many of them are in gangs, and even the advanced students are far behind average students in other school districts.

The purpose of my visit was to speak about the culture of Guatemala, where I visited in 2008. It was fun to share the similarities and differences of the Guatemalan culture and these student's culture. Overall, the students were engaged, respectful, and a lot of fun to spend my day with. What really stood out to me was our discussion on the poverty in Guatemala. I shared about the problems with air pollution, lack of drinkable water, and high crime. I'm not sure what I expected the students' reactions to be, but I was surprised that so many of them said, "If it's so bad there, why don't people just move?"

I think this is an easy question to ask about people living in poverty. I guess the reason I was surprised to hear it from these students is because when I host groups, we work in neighborhoods just like the one that all these kids live in. When we tell groups about the issues facing these neighborhoods, so many of them ask the same question- "If it's so bad, why don't they just move?"

Maybe poverty is more relative than we think. Maybe poverty needs to be measured by more than tax brackets and one's zip code. Maybe it goes beyond the obvious things that we see and has more to do with attitudes and perspective of ones' individual experience. I'm not trying to say that poverty is not a real and destructive thing, but I'm curious as to what this world would look like if those in power looked beyond the obvious conditions of poverty and more into the perspectives of those living in the situations that we only read about.

Is this where incarnational ministry begins?

Hitting the Breaks

As you've no doubt noticed, it's been quite awhile since my last post. I assure you this is not from lack of desire to blog. Instead, my absence has been result of complete immersion in my ministry- and as a result, total exhaustion and near burn out.

Here's what a typical day for me has looked like as of late:

Sunday: 8:30am-3pm- Project Nehemiah (transporting kids from the Ickes and Dearborn Homes and other areas on the Southside to and from church)

Monday: 11am-4pm- Cafe

Tuesday: 11am-4pm- Cafe (and soon teaching a class on sexuality in the evening)

Wednesday: 11am-4pm- Cafe.... 6:30pm-9:30pm Real Talk 678 small groups

Thursday: 10am-2pm- shopping for the Cafe... 6:30pm-9pm- Driven Youth Ministry

In addition, I was often hosting on the weekends. Even though my boss Kelly would urge me to take a day off, she would often have to force me to do this or I would work straight through.

I LOVE ministry. I adore serving God's people to the full extent. That said, this kind of schedule is ridiculous. It's not ok to never have time for dishes, laundry, the grocery store, calling home- activities otherwise known as LIFE.

This week God forced me to hit my breaking point. To be blunt, this week has been a pretty terrible one. It was one of my busiest weeks yet, and instead of being filled with amazing spiritual experiences, it has been riddled with incidents that have caused me to be bitter, irritable, and cross with many people who did not deserve it. I don't think I was a particularly pleasant individual to be around the past four days, and I apologize if I was rude to any one reading this blog.

God has once again reminded me that I have two choices- listen and be obedient, or go my own way and make things difficult. It seems like I really enjoy the latter of the two, despite the fact that things ALWAYS end up being way more difficult than is necessary! I'm discovering that it is possible to be disobedient in your ministry, if that ministry is taking precedence over God himself. After all, if the point of ministry is to glorify God, it does seem a bit contradictory to do so much ministry that you neglect to spend time in the Word and only pray in a corporate worship setting.

So that said, I'm working to revise my schedule. I'm going to have Wednesdays completely off from the cafe, so I will only be working at CSM doing some light office work and then having youth time in the evenings. I'm also experimenting with firming up my boundaries. From now on, my answer is no. There is no possible way that I can get involved with any more ministries and stay sane, or be a positive asset to the ministry. I'm going to spend the next three months learning how to limit myself.

It's time to actually discipline myself in the practice of rest.