The Illumination Dilemma: July 2008

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Saturday, July 26, 2008

a few weeks ago at reunion, hank (the lead pastor) was speaking on valuing kids. he made the following statement based on Jesus' comments about children found in the gospels (Matt 19:13-14, Mark 9:36-37): "You will never fully understand the Kingdom if you don't hang out with kids."

i found this statement, and the whole sermon for that matter, to be both compelling and extremely relevant to my job at the moment. i am not one who loves working with kids; i don't consider it to be a strength, passion, or desire. nonetheless, i spend nearly ten hours a day with 11-15 boys between the ages of 10 and 12. many of these boys come from broken families, difficult socio-economic realities, and bad schools. they bring a lot of baggage with them to camp, and therefore can be very difficult to work with.

case in point: yesterday, while at nantasket beach, two boys got into a fairly nasty fight (over 4-square rules, of all things). before i could get on the scene to break it up some awful words and names were exchanged and a few blows landed. it is painful and sad to see 11 year old boys acting like hardened thugs.

counter-point: later in the afternoon i rewarded three boys with ice cream for having had a great week. it was fun to treat them to soft-serve and "jimmies" (bostonian for sprinkles) and to watch their reactions. tariq and eddie are both pretty low-key and they said "thank you" and quietly went about the business of eating their treats out of cups. joao, a loquacious cape verdean who has been very difficult himself at times, and i made the mistake of ordering ours in cones. i wish i had my camera because words cannot capture the mess joao made trying to get his cone into his mouth. but he ate the whole thing with a huge smile on his face, his nonstop banter both hindering his progress and making the moment even more enjoyable for us onlookers.

there was ugliness and beauty yesterday at the beach. the highs and the lows of working with kids experienced within hours (and often seconds) of each other. if nothing else i think this summer is providing a context for hank's comments that i shared earlier. yesterday i saw the kingdom in a kid who dropped his facade for a minute and let his joy in the moment radiate through his soft-serve and jimmie stained smile.

Friday, July 18, 2008

13459

- thoughts on church...

...so, for those of you who don't know i am a pastor's son, a seminary graduate, an intervarsity alumnus, and i just finished a two+ year church planting experience. on top of that i've read (probably) way too many books about church. so i bring along some baggage when i go to a new church. it is difficult to take the critic hat off and fully enter into the experience. for these reasons, and many others, the church transition has been, perhaps, the one i've been most nervous about...

...all that being said it seems like we're settling in with Reunion Christian Church. reunion is a new non-denominational church in boston (they are associated with the big idea, for the church model nerds out there). this weekend amy and i are going camping with some folks from reunion's sister ministry Sojourn. check the links if you want to know more about them. pray that we'd have a good weekend and that we'd start some new friendships.

peace

Saturday, July 12, 2008

13359

- thoughts on work...

my job as a unit leader with bird street's summer day getaway program is three weeks old at this point (and has finally produced income...woohoo!). this job is a nine week position helping run bird street's summer day camp. i am in charge of a unit of two junior counselors (high school seniors) and 13-15 eleven and twelve year old boys. every day we bus these kids out to hale reservation, a cool spot about forty-five minutes out of town in the woods. mostly i just supervise, take care of paper work, and make sure the group gets to their various activities on time.

my group has turned out to be one of the biggest which means i have more direct interaction with the campers (ideally the group would have ten campers, five with each of the jr counselors and i would be doing supervision and leading the jc's). also, i've discovered this job to be pretty physically demanding...lots of walking, throwing kids in the water, lifting coolers, carrying a first aid bag and my backpack in humid and hot weather). by the end of the day i am pretty beat...but, i am getting toned and tanned =)

i'm also learning the lingo a bit. probably the most important word here is "mad." this can be used in a variety of situations to describe both amounts and qualities. for example: "mr. steve there are mad bugs at this camp." (i.e. there are a lot of bugs) or, "mr. steve it's mad hot today." (i.e. it's very hot today) to clarify, if you are acutally mad (i.e. angry) at someone you wouldn't say "I'm mad mad at you," you'd say "i'm so heated with you." so there's your slang lesson for the day.

peace