Review of “What Difference do it Make?” by Ron Hall, Denver Moore & Lynn Vincent

This sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Same Kind of Different as Me, tells of the huge impact this book has had on the lives of many of its readers.  There is story after story of how God used Same Kind of Different as Me to take people outside of their comfort zones and change their lives and their attitude toward homelessness.  It also tells of the continuing relationship of Ron Hall, a wealthy fine-art dealer and Denver Moore who through the impact of Ron’s late wife, Deborah, is now formerly illiterate and formerly homeless and speaks with Ron all around the country.

I had not read Same Kind of Different as Me before I picked up What Difference Do it Make?, but I was able to jump right in and follow their unique story without any difficulty.  I absolutely love the realness of these two men.  Nothing was really glossed over or candy-coated.  They honestly shared their story with grace and a good bit of wit.

Denver’s down-to-earth wisdom shines through a quote like this:

“… there’s a difference between helpin and blessin — that blessin means you give a person a little gift to show ‘em you think they matters on this earth, and helpin is when you stoop down with a person and stay there till they can climb on your shoulders to get up.”

And Ron’s story of the ultimate restoration of his relationship with his father is worth the price of the book.

This really is a good read that will challenge you in a practical way about how you view homelessness, and how we as the community of faith can do something about it.

City of Immigrants

My wife, Laurie, is the granddaughter of an Armenian immigrant who landed at Ellis Island as a 14 year old searching for a dream.  Laurie now touches the lives of the refugee and immigrant community in Memphis day in and day out. Tonight, we have one of her “kids” staying with us who is sick and lives in a somewhat dysfunctional family who were not able to care for her.  It is part of our ministry.  It is a normal part of our lifestyle.  We would not have it any other way.

Lately, we have read much about the plight of immigrants in our country and some perspectives on the U.S. response to the issue of illegal immigrants.  I ran across this video today where Steve Earle sings of New York — the city of Laurie’s grandfather’s landing — this city of immigrants.  It reminds us that “we are all immigrants’.

“Livin’ in a city of immigrants
I don’t need to go travelin’
Open my door and the world walks in
Livin’ in a city of immigrant”

These words from this song, “City of Immigrants” reminded me of the motto of Laurie’s ministry Multi-National Ministries ——- “Reaching out to the world… Right here in Memphis!”

Enjoy this video of Steve Earle on Letterman

Hope Hosting Gustav Evacuees

We are having flashbacks around here to hurricane Katrina.  Thousands of people fled to Memphis after Katrina hit in 2005. Hope looked more like a Wal-Mart than a church as we had tables of clothes and essentials lining the halls.  For the Gustav evacuees we are not so much a department store but more of a hotel.  We are sheltering up to 150 people here and feeding them and trying to make their displacement as comfortable as possible.

Last night I was talking with a family who survived Katrina and had just got things back to normal around their rebuilt house and then Gustav comes knocking at their door.  They had come to Memphis in 2005 and knew that they had to come back to Hope for some help and hospitality.

Our volunteers are awesome working around the clock to serve and support.

Here is a video from the Commercial Appeal describing what is going on around here.

Mentors in Marriage – Warfield & McQuilken

I just read a moving post from Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds on B. B. Warfield, a theological giant and former Principal of Princeton Theological Seminary (1887-1902).

Justin had just read comments on the life of Dr. Warfield from Kim Riddlebarger. Specifically, he was touched by Warfield’s commitment to his wife in the midst of her long term illness. Here are some of the highlights:

Soon after marrying Annie Pearce Kinkead, who was also from noble stock, the newlyweds journeyed to Leipzig. . . .
During their stay in Europe an event occurred that would forever change the Warfield’s lives. While walking together in the Harz mountains, Mr. and Mrs. Warfield were caught in a violent thunderstorm. Annie Warfield suffered a severe trauma to her nervous system from which she never fully recovered. She was so severely traumatized that she would spend the rest of her life as an invalid of sorts, becoming increasingly more incapacitated as the years went by. Her husband was to spend the rest of their lives together giving her “his constant attention and care” until her death in 1915 (Allis, “Personal Impressions of Dr Warfield,” 10). B. B. Warfield could not have foreseen just how constant and difficult a demand this was to become, and how, in the providence of God, this would impact his entire career.
. . . Warfield’s remarkable literary output is, no doubt, in large measure due to the frail condition of his wife and his amazing devotion to her. With the pen he was a formidable foe, but as O. T. Allis recalls, “I used to see them walking together and the gentleness of his manner was striking proof of the loving care with which he surrounded her. They had no children. During the years spent at Princeton, he rarely if ever was absent for any length of time” (Allis, “Personal Impressions of Dr Warfield,” 10). Machen recalled that Mrs. Warfield was a brilliant woman and that Dr. Warfield would read to her several hours each day. Machen dimly recalled seeing Mrs. Warfield in her yard a number of years earlier during his own student days, but notes that she had been long since bed-ridden (Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen, 220). Read the rest of this post here.

In reading this testimony of love and commitment, my mind went back to the early 90’s, and I remembered reading an article in Christianity Today by the President of Colombia Bible College (now Columbia International University) Robertson McQuilken. McQuilken had resigned from Colombia to care for his wife who was in the throws of Alzheimer’s. Her is an excerpt from his resignation speech:

Murial McQuilken died in 2003. Her husband cared for her to the very end.

Read the article I read in 1990 from CT —- “Living by Vows” —- along with these follow-up articles — “Murial’s Blessing” & “The Gradual Grief of Alzheimer’s” (Interview shortly after her death)

Failure & Imagination at Harvard

I hate sitting through commencements but I love to read or watch some of the unique and insightful words from commencements speakers who address these excited and talented graduates.  I ran across one today that captured my attention.

J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivered the Commencement Address at Harvard entitled “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,”

With wit and candor she encouraged these new graduates to make a difference in the world amid times of failure and to harness their imaginations to help the hurting and oppressed in the world. 

Here are a few quotes that stood out to me:

On the Benefits of Failure – “So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

On the Power of the Imagination – Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

On Helping the Voiceless & Powerless – If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

Click here to listen or read this address.

Volunteers —- Show Me The Money!!

I just read this from Leadership Network:

“In 2007, volunteers from churches in Leadership Network’s Externally Focused Churches Leadership Community gave more than 1.8 million hours to kingdom-building service—from tutoring school children to supporting single parents to feeding hungry neighbors to innumerable other acts of charity.

The real value of this volunteer labor becomes clear when you crunch the numbers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average value of a volunteer hour in 2007 was approximately $19.00. That means these externally focused churches donated $34,416,923 worth of volunteer labor in 2007 alone.”

Externally Focused Church Webinar

Listened to a great webinar the other day from Leadership Network.  It was entitled “Breaking into the Kingdom w/ Rick McKinley”  Rick McKinley the pastor of Imago Dei in Portland talked about Four Paradigm Shifts a Church must make to become Missional.  Check out a good summary of this webinar at Robert Grisham’s blog – …this remarkable new opportunity.

Or if you want to listen to the teaching click on the following link:  www.leadnet.org/webinar-externallyfocusedkingdom

Good Stuff!

Giving Christmas Away

Christmas will be here before you know it. Our communications folks at Hope have been in “Christmas Mode” since the middle of Summer. The Christmas Eve services are a huge outreach for us, and it is even bigger since we will have these services in our new sanctuary. What a blast that will be!! I’ll write more about that as the time gets closer.

What brought Christmas to mind was a post I saw at a cool site called The Work of the People – Films for Sacred Spaces. Here is what I read about a movement called Advent Conspiracy:

“Advent Conspiracy is an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by substituting compassion for consumption. Christ tends to get overlooked at Christmas. Let’s be honest. December comes and you think, “Ok, this is the year.” This time you’ll swear you’ll slow down and take it all in. Make the most with family. Help the needy. Zero in on what it really means to be a Christ follower during this holy season. What if you could inspire your church, your family and yourself to avoid being consumed by commercialism this Christmas?”

What a great concept. Look at the video below and contemplate your Christmas this year.

Check out their web site —- Advent Conspiracy

A Tough Serve

Sometimes we are put in places to serve when it is essential to serve but difficult.  I put a couple of my friends in that position last night.

I received a call a couple of days ago from an old friend Joe (not his name) who was on the edge with multiple addictions and painful life issues that were beating him down.  I met him for dinner and pointed him toward Pat our Recovery Pastor here at Hope.  Pat pulled in one of our key recovery leaders, Skip, to meet with Joe yesterday.  When Joe arrived it was obvious that he was in trouble.  Since we had met, he had stopped all drug and alcohol use and was try to detox himself.  They called me and got me on speaker phone so that we could convince him that he needed to go to the hospital NOW!!!

Joe agreed and Pat and Skip spent the evening with him last night in the hospital as they pumped him with meds to get his blood pressure under control.  Joe is at home now and the three of us have been taking shifts in going and hanging out with him.  This is day 3 of his detox, and they say that is the toughest day.  He is feeling it.  Aches and pains, tremors, nightmares, physical and psychological cravings, confusion, crazy talk …..  the whole gambit.

Joe is hopefully back on the road to recovery and I am so proud to call Pat and Skip my friends.  I have learned so much from just observing their calm, assertive strength in this tough situation.

One funny story —  As I was sitting with Joe, he would move in and out of reality as he talked.  He would say something totally logically but then the next sentence would be way off the wall.  He would say something about his family and then make an obscure and nonsensical reference to the movie “Apocalypse Now”.

Well, we were talking and I asked him about his favorite baseball team the Texas Rangers.  He said that they were awful this year (which is very true) but they had won a game yesterday by the score of 30 to 3.  I thought, “Okay, the detox has just spoken!”  I clarified that we were talking about baseball and not football.  He adamantly insisted that he knew what he was talking about — (Yeah Right!)  He kept insisting and looking for a newspaper for proof.  I thought that I would look it up on my phone to settle him down to the realization that he was just not thinking clearly — professional baseball scores do not run into the 20s much less the 30s.

Here is what I found online:

Sorry Joe!  Sounds like you might be coming out of it.  Maybe I can drive you to your first meeting.  May your victory over your addictions be as overwhelming as the Rangers’ victory over Baltimore.