Radical Living in a Comfortable World - A Blog by Seth Barnes

Shields hung up on the wall

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

If life is largely sedentary for us in modern society, it may often feel like a battle. We may have never tasted the violence of war, but we can feel the everyday attack on our spirit and the sense of needing something to defend ourselves. Ephesians 6 tells us that faith will protect us. We have a spiritual enemy and we contend with him using spiritual armor. God himself will defend us, but we need faith to believe that he will.

Faith helps us not to go self-protective under attack, but allows God to show up. The symbol the Bible uses to communicate this principle is that of a shield, the shield of faith.

Shields have many purposes, but they were never intended to be decorative. Shields were made for battle. Faith should be used, not just talked about.

Solomon made 600 ornately decorated shields and gold and hung them on the wall of his palace (1 Kings 10:16-17). They were a symbol of his riches and power.

But faith is nothing if not active. It manifests itself in risky situations where pain is a distinct possibility. Being vulnerable with someone who has hurt you exposes you to the possibility of their sarcastic remark, for example. Only faith enables you to take the chance. There is nothing decorative and inert about faith. Yet how many of our churches look, in a metaphorical way, like Solomon's temple, shields up on the wall?

Life and love are messy. We suffer wounding every week. We need the faith and encouragement of our brothers and sisters. That's one of the primary reasons God established the church. We've got to stop going to temples with shields hanging on walls for sentimental reasons or out of habit.

Change This: A manifesto for misfits

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We started Wrecked three years ago. I got my protege, Jeff Goins, to edit it.

With all of the stories, articles, and discussions that this website has elicited, we still felt like we had something more to say.

So, Jeff wrote a manifesto and got it published by the secular online site Change This, where it has zoomed up to the top spot - most popular among all the manifestos it publishes (some from luminaries like Tom Peters). Jeff did an excellent job - I'm proud of the way he's absorbed our message and made it accessible to so many beyond our normal networks. It's provoking new discussions, ideas, and questions.

Here's an excerpt:

Something is missing. Something important. Something necessary to making a difference in the world. And most are afraid to find out what it is.

This is a manifesto about the discovery process of finding what's missing. It's not as glamorous as a get-rich-quick scheme or as mystical as New Age spirituality. It doesn't shine with the veneer of a car salesman's suit or catch your eye like a pretty girl.

No, it more likely grabs your attention like a week-old bag of garbage sitting in the corner or piques your interest like nails on a chalkboard. Yes, it's hard, but it can't be denied.

Let me encourage you to read the manifesto here: Wrecked for the Ordinary - A manifesto for misftits

Got an idea to spread? Try writing a manifesto for ChangeThis or a similar organization. Jeff shares more about this here.

Going on a journey of the heart

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

God asks us to take journeys at various times. They may be actual physical trips and they may just be journeys of the heart. And sometimes they are both.

When their daughter Sarah died 11 months ago (read the blog about it here), Dwight and Peggy Buller began a journey of the heart that has landed them at the site of their daughter's car accident in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. To go back there is hard - it's a trip into the unknown; one that has the potential to be poignant, heart-wrenching, and ultimately redemptive.

They are meeting people who knew and loved Sarah. They're seeing the land that she embraced. And they're going to a place in their own hearts of great and holy grief.

Of course it took courage. A journey of the heart always does. It took courage not to hide in their grief or let it congeal into bitterness. It took courage to ask God how he still wanted to use Sarah even though he had already asked them to pay the greatest price parents can pay. And it took courage to, along with Rachel, their daughter, get on that plane and travel to the place where she was taken from their lives.

Ultimately all of us are on a journey through life and at some point have to trust God as we travel to a place we never wanted to go. Jesus told Peter that before he left earth.* And of course, he himself showed us how to go on a journey that terrified him as he traveled to Golgotha - the place of his own horrific execution.

I pray that when my time and when your time comes, that we will have the courage that Dwight and Peggy are showing on a lonely and painful road in Port Elizabeth. I pray that our journey will be no less redemptive than theirs. I pray that God shows up in the midst of what may be anguish for you. And I pray that you pray, "though he slay me, yet will I trust him."

You can do this thing. The Bullers are showing us that it is possible. If you'd like to pass on a message of encouragement, please do so below.

You can read more about the Buller's travels on their Facebook page.

*John 21:19 "But when you are old, someone will lead you where you do not want to go."

Please pray for a church in Haiti

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Pastor Miracus Destine has 70 people in his church and 7000 in his community. They've been devastated by the earthquake. Some need to grieve. Many have lost loved ones. Some are homeless. They're praying that their children can go back to school. I'd love to give you more details about their situation. Some need tents or food, but we're starting with prayer - everyone needs your prayers.

We've got a database with hundreds of pastors and their communities in them like pastor Destine. We've told them that American Christians want to help. We want to connect you and your church in America with a pastor and his church in Haiti. I'm asking God for at least 20 of you to begin personally and then to try to further involve your church. Because God's Spirit is being poured out in Haiti, your connection to it has the potential to change your life. Eventually, we'll need hundreds of you.

Please look at this video below and consider joining with us. It's not complicated and doesn't require much. We want to make it easy for you to try it out. Here's what you do:

Put your name and relevant info in the comment section below or email me at this link to sign up.
We'll send you the name of a pastor and some info about his church and community. They may write back.
You don't have to do anything more than pray initially. Ask God, "How shall I respond over the next 3 weeks?"
Let us know what he says and how you're responding and we'll communicate that to the pastor in Haiti.

An AIM rep will call or email you after a month. If you'd like to continue the relationship, we'll talk about where it can go after that.

Is it faith or just desperation?

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The children of Israel are fleeing Egypt when Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues them. We've seen this in the Cecil B. DeMille film - they're backed up against the Red Sea on the one hand with the Egyptians bearing down on them on the other hand.

They're in a desperate situation - if they don't do something, they're going to die anyway. And what's intriguing is, though they're desperate, God writes them up in Hebrews 11:29 as having faith, "By faith, the people passed through the Red Sea."

God is gracious, he'll allow us to get in impossible situations where he is our only recourse. He'll let us get to the place where we're pressed up against the sea, where if we go backward, we'll die. And when we get to that place, will it be faith or sheer desperation that causes us to act?

It's a tough call - it's the tough situation that causes us to depend on God and exercise faith. But God understands our frame and he knows when don't do that naturally. He wants to help us and he allows pain so that we'll depend on him.

I wouldn't have started AIM unless God had allowed events to back me up against a personal Red Sea. You might write me up as having great faith, but if you had been there, you'd know that it was really my desperate situation that sent me in that direction.

What desperate straits do you find yourself in? You may think God has abandoned you to gut it out on your own when the reality is he's getting ready to write you up as having faith. I hope you hang in there in your time of testing.

Astounding growth in the church worldwide

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

As I said in an earlier blog, the world is getting brighter, not darker. Haiti was an example. What we thought was just a horrific event has been transformed into a catalytic moment in the life of the nation. And it represents a God who is on the move around the world.

We Americans tend to confuse our personal and national circumstances with that of the church around the world. We may be struggling, but God's work is not. Things are moving rapidly across the globe. More people are coming to Christ now than at any other time in the history of the world. Consider these facts as presented in a recent article by J. Lee Grady:

There are now about 600 million Christians in Africa. Protestant Christianity grew 600 percent in Vietnam in the last decade. In China, where a 50,000-member megachurch was raided in Shanxi province a few weeks ago, there are now an estimated 130 million churchgoers.

"We have no reason to fear the future. Whatever challenges loom ahead, the same God who carried us through this past decade will give us success in the next one."

Astounding church growth has occurred in Guatemala, Brazil, India and Ethiopia. In Nepal, which had no Christians in 1960, there are now a half-million believers. The Christian population of Indonesia has mushroomed from 1.3 million to 11 million in 40 years.

Smug scholars in Europe and the United States love to cite Islam as the world's fastest-growing religion, but observers know the facts: Christianity, while waning especially in Europe, is growing faster than ever in the Southern hemisphere. Philip Jenkins, who wrote The Next Christendom in 2002, declared: "The center of gravity has moved to the global south. So if we're looking for the religion that is going to affect the largest number of lives in the 21st century, it is almost certainly going to be Christianity."

We need to be encouraged with what God is doing in the earth. If you've been a witness to this move of God, what have you seen lately?

The balance between intimacy and urgency

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Intimacy cannot be done quickly. It requires that we take the wristwatch off. Glance at the clock when you're trying to connect and you put a lid on what happens next. You can't expect someone, whether a friend or God himself, to open his spirit to you when you've prioritized other things above him.

Intimacy and urgency can coexist, but rarely in proximity to one another. To find intimacy with another, you must slow time down, at least enough to communicate, "You're valuable to me; I value you enough to go at your pace, not mine. Take all the time you need."

Urgency - the tapping foot, the drumming of fingers - says, "This task has a time frame attached to it and needs to get done. Relationships are secondary."

Jesus perpetually balanced intimacy with the Father with the urgency of meeting human needs. In one scene, after healing many people the night before, Jesus spent the early morning hours in solitude. By the time the needy mass of people found him, his sense of urgency had returned. "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also," he declared. (Luke 4:42-44)

We Americans struggle mightily with this issue. Our work week has lengthened to 50+ hours while our debt has risen to unsupportable levels. We feel urgency all the time while our souls whither for lack of intimacy. We find ourselves losing the ability to calibrate. And our neediness gives us the hard edges that drive people away, sending us into an exile from one another and from ourselves (insofar as we better understand ourselves as we find intimacy).

Ultimately, you'll not be fulfilled if all you feel is urgency. Productivity is not enough. We need to connect with one another and God. We are social beings, connection and intimacy add color to our gray lives.

I once prayed with a man who felt estranged from God. When at last God spoke to him, he wept. "What did God say?" I asked.

He replied, "God said, 'I missed you.'"

Listen to the hunger inside you; it's the still, small voice of God calling you deeper. Some of you have been away too long. We need you in our lives.

Racers pray & dead boy comes to life

Tue, 2 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Do you believe that when Jesus told his disciples, "As you go...heal the sick, raise the dead," he was serious?

We do. When we send out World Racers, we instruct them as Jesus instructed his disciples in Matt. 10 before he sent them out.

From Jinja, Uganda yesterday, comes the report a situation where it actually happened. Marissa Villa shares the story:

As Matt and Dan rode towards the town of Jinja on the back of the boda bodas, they saw a man surrounded by a group of people, laying on the ground to the left of the road. As the bodas slowed, the man, who was covered in blood, came to his feet. He'd obviously been hit by a car or thrown off of a boda, but seemed OK. The drivers kept moving.

As the boda bodas came around a slight bend in the road, Matt and Dan noticed a motorcycle laying there. Its pieces were strewn across the road. As the bodas slowed, a young girl of about 7 years old came into view. She was wearing a pink dress and her face and arms were covered in blood, but she at least was standing.

But just past her, a group of about 15 people were surrounding something else on the road. The boda bodas stopped in front of the group and a small boy, also about 7 years old, came into view. His body was laying in the middle of the road.

He was lifeless.

"He's dead," they thought.

A man shaked the boy, trying to bring him back to life, but he lay limp.

Dan and Matt pushed through the crowd to get to the boy who had a four inch bleeding bulge on his forehead. His mouth and ear was spilling blood.

Matt prayed as Dan looked around for a ride to get the boy to the hospital.

It was then that Austin arrived on another boda boda that was coming from the other direction. Austin jumped off of the motorcycle and immediately ran to the boy.

"The kid's dead," Dan told him.

Dan told Austin that someone in the crowd was willing to take the boy to the hospital. The two of them and another man carried the lifeless boy's body to the car.

"Do you feel a pulse or see him breathing?" Dan asked Austin.

Austin stopped his prayer mid-sentence, looked up, and simply responded, "No."

As they lay the boy in the backseat of the car, Austin pulled his sweatshirt off and put it under the boy's head. As he did this, the boy's chest started to rise and fall.

He was breathing.

Afterward, Matt said, "Once we pulled up I was scared, shocked, and felt useless. I was looking at a lifeless child. A million things started to create a wall in my mind. Then God busted through all of the feelings and said, 'hold on, I'm bigger than that... pray.' So, I did."

Read about it here. And in the follow-up blog.

How to manage your inner critic

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Below is the summary of an article by Susan David, of the Harvard Business School in the Harvard Business Review

Do you spend hours worrying that you aren't good enough to succeed? That you're just not capable or that you aren't smart enough? You're not alone.

A client - I'll call her Sonya - is typical of many top-level executives who struggle with an over-eager inner critic. Despite numerous accomplishments, including a graduate degree from a prestigious business school and a partnership at a leading accounting firm, Sonya always feels like an underachiever. Every day she sees herself as a new graduate - tongue-tied, fumbling, and trying to prove herself for the very first time. Sonya is convinced that soon someone will find out the awful truth - that her incompetence will become clear and that she'll lose her responsibilities, her partnership, and eventually her job. Even though Sonya has never received a negative performance appraisal, she feels stressed, unhappy, and unfulfilled. Sonya is successful - and completely miserable.

Sonya suffers from the "impostor phenomenon," a psychological syndrome identified in the late 1970s by Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes and expanded upon by Manfred Kets de Vries in a 2005 HBR article. It describes frequent feelings of incompetence despite all of the evidence to the contrary.

The imposter syndrome is common - and it can be hard to overcome. Quieting your inner critic takes a series of specific steps.

First, it is important to recognize that the most commonly used strategy - trying to ignore or suppress your inner critic - simply doesn't work. In fact, ignoring unpleasant thoughts and emotions leads to a rebound effect, increasing their intensity and frequency.

Rather than suppress your emotions, acknowledge that they are real, whether justifiable or not. Wrong or right, Sonya really does feel unworthy, ashamed, and anxious. When she tries to push these feelings away or rationalize them (by saying, "I shouldn't be feeling this way") they only get amplified. It is this response to her emotions that gets her into trouble. Psychologists call this response a "meta-emotion." When we worry about being worried, we're creating a whole new problem.

I asked Sonya how long she'd been dealing with her inner critic. "Ten years," she said. I then asked how long she'd been trying to ignore her unreasonable self-criticisms. "Ten years." I pointed out that her standard strategy didn't seem to be working. It didn't take long for her to realize that anxiously trying to avoid or ignore her emotions was actually contributing to the problem.

The trick to dealing with your inner critic is to develop a balanced relationship with it: to not ignore or avoid it and the emotions it raises, but to also not allow yourself to be bullied by it.

Easier said than done? Try the following steps:

Examine your inner critic. Ask it: "Where do you come from?" This might feel awkward at first, but speaking internally with your critic is a valid psychological technique that encourages you to think objectively. In Sonya's case, we traced her inner critic back to her childhood, to parents who were harsh and difficult to please. But not all inner critics come from our childhoods. We're influenced by many factors, including competition with our peers, the media, our relationships with our spouses, and our own attitudes about winning and losing. Once you understand the places your inner critic comes from, you'll be able to recognize when it's telling the truth and when to disregard what it says.

Understand that your inner critic can actually help you. Your inner critic has evolved to help you set and meet high expectations. If you're open to it (which is not the same as believing everything it tells you) then you can learn from it. Like a good coach, your inner critic reminds you that knowledge and capability are important. Ask it: "How will you help me achieve success in the task ahead?"

Act in spite of your inner critic. You can learn from your inner critic, but be careful to not give it too much power. Find and maintain the right distance - keep it close enough to be useful, but not so close that it gets in your way. As soon as you hear your inner critic complaining, acknowledge the information - but always ask: is my inner critic helping me or hurting me? If what it's telling you saps your confidence, then ask it to step aside and continue on your way.

Sonya used to feel tongue-tied in important meetings, worried that other people might think her comments inane. Now, instead of surrendering to anxious, negative thoughts, she thanks her inner critic for its opinion and speaks up anyway. By taking action that's consistent with her goal of becoming a better leader she manages to dispel her anxiety and add wisdom to the conversation.

In the end, it's helpful to remember that as loud as your inner critic can be, it's just a part of you and not the whole. Don't let it stop you from continuing to learn and grow.

Please don't live your life like this

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I love this short video - it's the theme of my blog.

How do you respond? How are you doing at living the life of faith that God wants? I've had to deal with failure. So many I know cope with fear and rejection. Chan has had to contend with the death of his parents - what issues make it hard for you?

The mask

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This got forwarded on to me - the author is Charles Finn. So many people I know struggle with this.

Don't be fooled by me. Don't be fooled by the face I wear; for I wear a mask-a thousand masks; masks that I'm afraid to take off, and none of them are really me. Pretending is an art that's second nature to me, but don't be fooled.

I give you the impression that I'm secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without. Confidence is my name and coolness is my game. I am in command. I need no one. But don't believe me-please. My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, my ever-changing and ever-concealing mask. Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness. But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.

I panic at the thought of my fear and weakness being exposed. That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant, sophisticated facade-to help me pretend; to shield me.

Acceptance, followed by love is what I need. It is one thing that will assure me that I'm really worth something. But I don't tell you this. I don't dare. I'm afraid to. I'm afraid that you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.

My life becomes a front. I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you everything that's really nothing, and nothing of what's everything. So when I'm going through my routine, do not be fooled by what I'm saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying, what I'd like to be able to say, but what I'm afraid to say.

I dislike the superficial game I'm playing-the superficial, phony game. I'd really like to be genuine and spontaneous and me. But that fear-that wall of fear...it stops me every time. My survival depends on breaking through that wall. It depends on me...fighting my fear, shedding my mask and showing myself to you. But I am scared. I'm afraid that deep down I'm nothing-that I'm just no good, and that you'll see this and reject me.

So, I play my game, my desperate, pretending game, with a facade of assurance without, and a trembling child within, and so begins the parade of masks.*

Do you resonate with this? Do you have a place to take off the mask?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

*If you'd like help in getting to a place of authenticity, let me suggest this link for women.

12 Secrets of a better life

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Mark Oestreicher posted this list from clyde s. kilby, a professor of English, who taught at Wheaton for 46 years. Great wisdom here.

1. at least once a day i shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that i, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with everlastingly mysterious things above and about me.

2. instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary movement to which i can neither add nor subtract, i shall suppose the universe guided by an intelligence which (as aristotle said of greek drama) requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. i think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by bertrand russell before his death, when he said: "there is darkness without, and when i die there will be darkness within. there is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing."

3. i shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique opportunity filled, if i so wish, with worthy potentialities.

4. i shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely, ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

5. i shall not turn my life into a thin straight line, which prefers abstractions to reality. i shall know what i am doing when i abstract, which of course i shall often have to do.

6. i shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. i shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories i might belong to. mostly i shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

7. i shall open my eyes and ears. once every day i shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. i shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. i shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.

8. i shall sometimes look back at the freshness of the vision i had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of lewis carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."

9. i shall follow darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

10. i shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as charles williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." i shall try to keep truly alive now just because the only time that exists is now.

11. if for nothing more than the sake of a change of view, i shall assume my ancestry to be from the heavens rather than from the caves.

12. even if i turn out to be wrong, i shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course i shall understand, with joy, as a stroke made my the architect who calls himself alpha and omega.

God's big picture and your role

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

There's a great battle underway around the world and it's not the war on terrorism. It's a titanic struggle in the invisible realm.

We may not like conflict, but we can't escape the reality that there's a king getting up from his throne to fight and reclaim his kingdom and that he's asking us to fight for him. We may struggle like his original followers did to understand how or where to engage, but the fight is real. Great multitudes of people are trapped by a dark lord. They live in prisons of hopelessness and despair. Our king's mission, if we choose to accept it, is that we liberate them.

You know it's true. So many of our most popular movies speak of this reality: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Avatar. They tell the age-old story from Genesis of a king fighting for his kingdom. The first thing Jesus said about his role on the earth, quoting Isaiah, was that he had come to set the captives free. And now that he's freed us, we need to join him in his quest.

Some of us have made the decision to do just that. But too often we think the issue is where and how we can fight. We spend years just discovering our identities as citizens of the kingdom. Slowly, (through experiences like the World Race), we become viscerally aware of the fact that there are vast numbers of people in captivity. And we become aware of our role as liberators. But then we sit wondering, "How do I enter the fray? Will I be in the right place? Am I adequate?"

These are good questions, but they miss the point. The point is you are a liberator and you need to get in motion and begin. Don't worry about the how and where so much. Instead, pay attention to the question, "Who?"

If God has put someone in your life with some experience as a liberator, someone who is somewhat successful, someone who understands your heart, come alongside them. It won't be perfect and you'll probably get wounded along the way, but they can do two things for you. They can help you see the field and they can help you learn how to fight. They can help you walk in your new role as a liberator.

Yes, it won't be perfect, but it will be a start.

Talk to any of us who have been at it for a while. Did we get wounded? Did people let us down? Did it hurt? Absolutely! But that is how we got going and began to learn. Gradually we began to see the field and understand what was going on. As we persevered, we became stronger. We began to dream God's dreams.

Life is too short to sit on the sidelines. Find someone you trust and get going!

How to work with different generations

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We're In A Boat Together is Camille Bishop's a fictionalized account about four individuals who work together in a company that is experiencing a change in leadership. What's interesting is Bishop's analysis concerning the different generations in the workplace.*

There are four generations in the workplace today, the Silent, Boomer, Gen Xer, and Millennial generations. The story follows four individuals from four generations who embark on a leadership building rafting trip, and illustrates how each group sees and interacts with the world.

The generations represented in the work force are:

    The Silent Generation (1925 - 1942) grew up between two World Wars and are distinguished by morality, duty, self-denial, hard work, and integrity. Their work is their life and they are as loyal to their organization as they are to their families.
    Baby Boomers (1943-1960) - grew up in a period of unparalleled American achievement and progress but are actually broken into two categories. Early Boomers are high achievers who seize opportunity and expect the best rewards as a result. Late Boomers, affected the breakdown of the social status quo in the sixties, are strong, responsible and individualistic.
    Gen Xers (1961-1981) - grew up in the midst of technological advancements. The high freedom they were given from social changes like two career parents and broken homes resulted in loneliness and desire for community. This affected their relationship with leadership as they desire collaboration in the workplace and give respect to leadership only when earned.
    Millennials (1982-2002) - grew up with computers and internet as commonalities. They were sheltered by protective parents and now come to see the world as dangerous and unpredictable. They rely on technology to give them an edge on it. They demand instant gratification and high results from little work.

There are different best practices she recommends for working with individuals in each generation:

Best practices for the Silent Generation:
    Their leadership style was shaped by military service. Therefore, respect for authority is their highest priority.
    If they are leaders, be cautious and gentle in questioning their decisions.
    Demand clear vision on the future and decisiveness.
    They respect integrity, faithfulness, self-control and foresight.

Best practices for the Boomers:
    Late Boomers want to be included in decisions and be free to disagree.
    Late Boomers want relationship oriented leaders.
    Be transparent, caring, empowering, genuine, and hands off.
    Respect credibility.

Best practices for the Gen Xers:
    Be willing to collaborate.
    Foster a organizational community.
    They want leaders who care about them personally and are willing to compromise for their sake.
    May be uncomfortable about taking up leadership. Give them responsibility gradually and expect opposition to long term commitment.
    Respect caring concern, encouragement, love, humility, servanthood, teachability, and integrity.

Best practices for the Millennials:
    As with Gen Xers, they want leaders who care about them personally and are willing to compromise for their sake.
    Give continuous feedback.

Respect dedication and personal care.

*Thanks to Joe Bunting in helping write this blog.

Dad, this isn't real is it?

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Sydney was raking the leaves with Clint. She looked up at him and asked a question.

"Dad, this isn't real is it?"

"What's not real, Syd?"

"This whole thing. Me. You. This rake - none of it's real."

"What do you mean?"

"We're all just characters in a story, a story that he's writing."

Sydney has it exactly right. We're spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. We have to become like children to enter the kingdom of heaven. We see it with spiritual eyes.

The writer of Hebrews says, "They only saw things from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth."*

Too many of us live our lives focusing on the rake, missing the bigger story that God is writing. We focus on providing for ourselves when Jesus said, "do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than that."

It's a good day to rededicate yourself to pursuing that which you can't see. Ask God to show you where you fit in the story he's writing.

*Hebrews 11:13

Summary of AIM's plan in Haiti so far

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

To sum up: For the last month I've been focused on responding to the situation in Haiti. If it's seemed obsessive as a blog topic, there are three reasons why:

1. It's the greatest natural disaster of our time - God's people need to rise up.

2. God has spoken to me about it personally and to those in AIM's ministry corporately.

3. The spiritual awakening underway is unprecedented in my experience.

AIM will focus on partnering American churches with Haitian churches. We have large networks of both and the staff to serve them well. Let me encourage you, you have a lot to gain by being involved. We Americans and our churches need to experience the spillover of the Spirit currently flowing through Haiti. Please read the blog about this if you haven't yet.

AIM Haiti already has about 10 staff members, have run several relief projects and set up several venues for future mission projects. We've bought and delivered tens of thousands of dollars worth of foods and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medicines. We've adopted a couple of tent communities and many churches.

Within the next few months, we should have four times that number of staff, a large number of volunteers, a base, and we're hoping for hundreds of church-to-church partnerships (you can see staff members Geftay and Obed inputting pastors in the database). We need people who will go for any length of time - a week to six months to coordinate relief efforts, pastoral relationships, community development, and mission projects.

We want to serve the Haitian church as it follows God's leading in the years to come. We are preparing to make a long-term investment. We want to assist in developing new communities and in growing the body of Christ in Haiti, especially through discipleship ministries. We expect to see hundreds of new churches planted as the revival gains momentum.

God will build his church there and doesn't need us, but he is offering us the chance to partner with him in something that may be one of the spiritual highlights of our lives. I'm going to reach out to my personal friends and supporters and try to pull together a team of them to go with me this spring. Consider doing that with some of your friends or with your church.

A number of you have already responded. Let me invite you to write me if you're asking God, "what should I do?" Or talk to an AIM staff person about one of our trips. Our team will try to help plug you in somewhere.

Video: Thousands praying in Haiti

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This video helps you understand the scope of what God is doing in Haiti. As impressive as the vast numbers of people was the passion we saw as they prayed. They have been devastated and are crying out to God. Would that we all might do likewise.

Haiti - a few videos

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This thing in Haiti has rocked my world. I've never seen anything like it. I'm going to write a summary about it tomorrow morning, and then the blog will shift back to whatever "normal" is.

Let me just say, if you're stagnant in your spiritual life, you need to go. If you're struggling to hear God, you need to go. If you want to experience an open heaven, you need to go.

Don't go for the spectacle, though that will shake you up. Go to experience how God is taking something horrific and using it to reshape a country's character. Go to experience his shaking and a re-formation in your life. Here's where to start.

And here are a few videos.

Earthquake or spiritual shift?

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Here's a little known fact: Three months ago (November, '09) the pastors of Haiti had a national meeting. They prayed for revival. They prayed that God would shake their land. They prayed that he would tear down the strongholds in government - the evil forces in the judicial system, the presidency, and the corrupt politicians.

They believe that something was transacted in the spiritual realm.

When the earthquake happened, the pastors believe that it was the physical manifestation of a pre-existing spiritual reality. They believe that it was a direct answer to prayer.

In downtown Port-au-Prince today the presidential palace lies in ruins. The supreme court is a pile of rubble, and thousands of corrupt politicians were removed from power as their buildings fell around them.

The spiritual atmosphere of the country is completely different now. Voodoo priests by the hundreds have given their lives to Christ. But the pastors of the country believe it didn't happen because of the earthquake, the earthquake was in some way a physical reverberation of a spiritual transaction that took place in November.

It's a remarkable, paradigm-shifting thought for those of us in America who are locked in a paradigm of linear sequential, cause-effect reality. It made me think of Jesus' last moments on earth as described in Matthew 27:51. After he gave up his spirit, "The earth shook and the rocks split." In other words, an earthquake.

When we read that passage, we have no trouble seeing that the spiritual reality resulted in a physical reverberation. Why should Haiti be any different? We're not human beings having a temporary spiritual experience, we're spiritual beings having a temporary human experience.

A paradigm shift is always hard to grasp. A fish can't see that he's breathing water. Consider the possibility that the Haitian pastors have grasped reality and that our western worldview is what's really broken.

How do we respond to Haiti?

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

There is an open heaven in Haiti and we who follow Jesus need to respond. I, for one am overwhelmed and trying to figure out how I'll respond.

As I fought between feeling inadequate and proceeding with faith this morning, I got up at 4:30 to pray. Here is what he shared with me from Hebrews 10:32-39.

Stand your ground even in the face of opposition.
Don't throw away your confidence.
Persevere and do the will of God.
Don't shrink back.
Have faith.

How will you respond?

Feeling inadequate for your dream

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Back in the U.S. now and I'm already doing a gut check.

Before we flew to Haiti, I felt God giving me a dream: Call the pastors together as representatives of their communities. Encourage them to unite and to begin leading their communities. Connect them to churches in America that would pray for them and their people and help them get back on their feet.

I've found that when you have crazy dreams like that, a lot of them die before they get off the ground. The odd dream may begin to take off, but even then it will hit a point early on where you realize just how improbable the dream is. And at that point the pull to give up on it becomes so strong that most dreams die a stillborn death.

Here's how that dynamic played out in Haiti: The first thing we saw when we arrived in Port-au-Prince was evidence that maybe the dream wasn't so crazy after all. When we pulled our van into a church, there were 40 pastors waiting for us. We quickly saw that they were desperate. Our meeting started and I asked them to share some of their stories.

One had lost his wife. Another had been saved by an angel. After the particularly heart-rending stories, the pastors prayed for each other. Before leaving, we gave them some of the survival packs that some of you made. And I thought, "You know, this thing could really work. We could pair each of these guys up with a church from our network and they could really begin to get some hope!"

As the days went by, the dream seemed to gain more momentum. A spiritual awakening is underway in Haiti and even the secular NGOs seem to recognize that the pastors are the key in getting communities back on their feet.

By our last day, we were exhausted, but had one more meeting. It was on the other side of town and the traffic getting there was terrible. We had called a meeting of the top pastors in the country - we were going to share the dream with them. We thought that perhaps 50 would show up.

We took Isaiah 58 as our theme. It says that we are to repair broken walls and restore streets with dwellings. We felt like the church needs to lead the way in doing so.

When our group arrived, the response astonished us - pastors representing over 1000 churches had showed up. All of them with congregations in dire need, all of them hoping for help. Our director on the ground, Lanny Richardson, led the meeting. But what to tell them? "We'll be back with truckloads full of food," or, "tell us what you need and we'll connect you to a church"?

The harsh reality is, we don't have the supplies. We're going completely on faith here.

Lanny did a great job, but we couldn't help but raise their hopes. And unless God moves to meet their need, we're going to fail. I guess that's the definition of faith.

So I arrived back home tonight and I'm still reeling - I'm wondering how it's going to turn out. It's a great dream, but how in the world will we find the U.S. churches that will help make it come true? If you've got any thoughts, I'm wide open. Haiti is already moved off the front pages - people are moving on.

Maybe you've got a dream and you're in a crisis of faith. My advice - hang on to it. Don't let go. This is when we get to see God show up.

18 year-old a mother to 45 orphans

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

When the earth shook with violence in Leogane, an orphanage of 46 girls erupted in screams. A house mom threw her body across the three nearest girls as the walls and ceiling collapsed on her, taking her life, but saving the girls.

Two of them escaped, but one named Mange remained stuck in the rubble next to the house mom who had sacrificed her life.

Trapped in the rubble, Mange cried out: "Please don't leave me here to die! I don't want to die this way!"

Two young boys from the church heard her cries and began digging. The structure looked like a concrete pancake, but they dug and cleared a hole through. Mange was saved.

All 46 orphans gathered together, but now they had no house mom. Eighteen-year-old Geesula sprang into action. Not only was she the oldest of the group, but she had been around longer than all but one of the other orphans. Geesula now became the protector of orphans. The surrounding community came in and stole all their remaining food, but Geesula saw to it that the girls were safe.

A month later, Geesula continues to be housemom for her 45 orphan sisters. She knows what the girls need each day.

Before the quake, the orphanage was part of a foundation that included a bakery, guest house and medical clinic. All of those collapsed and their vehicle was demolished.

This orphanage needs your help. They have lost everything and aren't supported by any big church or organization.

There has been enough death in Haiti. Now is the time for life. God is giving us an opportunity. While orphans live in tents and we still live in houses, God invites us to do more. Like those young boys who dug out Mange from the rubble, lives are saved when we hear the cries of the poor and hurting and respond.

Right now, living conditions are very primitive - tents and no electricity. Rainy season arrives next month, so there is no time to waste. The time for Haiti is now and the time for Haiti's orphans is today.

Please earmark your gifts "Haiti orphans."

A community rises from the rubble

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Imagine a natural disaster hitting your neighborhood. A tornado or an earthquake wipes out all the homes and cars up and down your streets. Grateful to escape with your life, you comb through the wreckage and salvage a few bed sheets and photo albums. Together with your neighbors, you gather your children and walk a few miles to an open field and erect a lean-to, a camp.

There are camps like that all over Port-au-Prince. Little tattered villages in the dirt. As our team drove through the city, we stopped at a tent camp that was unregistered and unnoticed - no water source, no food. Everything they owned was buried in the rubble - they were instant refugees.

They call their tent city "Marassa 14." 2500 people with nothing left in life. Together they pooled the few resources they had left to buy some bread.

We'd promised them we'd return today and pray for them. We brought them some food as well. We arrived at 8:45 on a Monday morning. You could hear the sounds of a full-blown church service already underway. Praise songs eminated from a makeshift tent. A guy was playing a small keyboard while three other guys wailed on a drumset.

Before long the place was up for grabs - people dancing and spinning and clapping. Grown men, little kids and old ladies dancing shuffle steps, throwing elbows back and forth, raising their arms, shouting "Hallelujah!" The smell of sweat and joy began to fill the space.

Pretty soon they stopped long enough to turn the microphone over to Jeremy and Rhett. Jeremy said, "While you continue to worship, we'd like to station ourselves around the tent to pray for you."

For the next hour, the crowds overwhelmed us. Each interpreter translated for two of us simultaneously. A Haitian would step up, tell us about his or her issue through the interpreter, and then, once that person had begun praying, the interpreter would turn to begin translating for the other person.

We left exhausted - thankful that we'd been able to share their burdens and wondering what's next for them.

What's next will take a coordinated long-term effort with a number of partners:

A water filtration business or NGO

A micro-enterprise ministry

A church or churches

A home construction business or ministry

A short-term ministry to bring teams & resources

A clinic

A school

A leadership training ministry

If my neighborhood were destroyed, I'd hope for that kind of help. When everything has been wiped out, you need divine intervention, but with skin on it. You need a hand up. And if you're one of those trying to help, you want to avoid the dependency trap. You just want to join God in what he's doing.

As we left, I asked one of our translators, Obed, if he would work with the local committee to help put together a plan to rebuild Marassa 14 and its sister community. Obed is sharp. He's an engineer who thinks planning and building. He's a strong follower of Jesus. Working with Marassa 14 and a number of partners, I think the healing process can continue.

We're committed to come back and to make a long-term difference. We're committed to seeing the kingdom come in Marassa 14. In the months ahead, we'll be sending church teams to come alongside Obed and the local committees. Let me ask you to consider joining God in what he's doing.

The Spirit is going viral in Haiti

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

So many things have been crushed in Haiti, people, homes, and government buildings. You'd think that hope would be one of them. Today we saw where a building had tumbled down on a man, snuffing his life out, leaving his blood and his shoes behind in the rubble. You'd think hope was lost in the rubble too.

But what we're seeing has defied all our expectations.

So many of us have been praying that the kingdom would come for much of our lives. After all Jesus told us to pray that way. Frankly, I didn't used to have much of an idea what that even meant. As much as Jesus talked about it, it remained an obscure concept.

But here in Haiti, I'm seeing the kingdom come. The Spirit is not just falling, he's going viral and spilling out into every street corner.

We drove to meet a pastor and found the road blocked. Ahead in the middle of the street a band was playing and hundreds of people were dancing. We stopped and our gang piled out of the van. It wasn't any one church - it was just a bunch of people celebrating the kingdom coming to Haiti through their dance.

Our youth pastors dove in and joined with them - twirling and singing with the masses.

Coming back they raved, "Wow - that was awesome! It was a moment of pure spiritual joy."

We drove through the city streets and came to a complete halt as a huge parade of people blocked our way. They were carrying signs, "Jesus for Haiti. Haiti for Jesus." They were singing. They were chanting. They were marching and dancing. A truck loaded with speakers blared out praises.

We stopped at a tent city with 2500 people living in it. A committee was taking applications. "What have you been able to do for your people?" I asked.

"We got a well put in here for our people and now we have water," one of the leaders said.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"We need food - we're hungry. We want to get some land to build homes. And our people are still hurting, we need to have our hearts healed."

"Do you have a church who can help you?"

"No. Could you help bring one here?"

"Yes, we will do that. And could we come back tomorrow morning and pray for your hearts to be healed?" I asked.

"Yes, come and pray for us. Our people are carrying grief in their hearts. We see God fulfilling Matthew 24 in our midst. We need your help."

We gave them a bunch of water and some bread and the promise that we'd return tomorrow to pray. We'll be back at 9 a.m. and see what God wants to do. We tweeted the interaction and asked Anderson Cooper to come and bring help tomorrow. And in less than an hour, it's been re-tweeted hundreds of times.

And I'm wondering, "Is this in the news? It should be. Do people out there see what's going on here?" I've heard it referred to by Americans as a "national day of mourning." But that's not what's happening. On the heels of the greatest natural disaster of our time comes the greatest outpouring of God's Spirit that I've ever seen. I'm still trying to absorb it.

All you intercessors out there crying out for God's presence, all you seminary students learning how how to put people in touch with him, all you desperate people who feel abandoned by God, I have a suggestion: You need to get on a plane and come to Haiti.

You can go a lifetime and never see anything like this. We can sing "Rend the heavens and come down," but God already did - it's happening here in Port-au-Prince.

Don't let worries about security disuade you. We've not seen or heard of any threats. All we've seen is a massive outpouring of joy and praises.

So many people traveled to Lakeland, FL, Toronto, or Brownsville, seeking God. If God is what you want, get on a plane and come here. The kingdom is coming here in Haiti. You can go your whole lifetime and not see this. What's happening is the stuff of dreams.

Click here home great videos & other blogs...

Driving to Port-au-Prince

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We're in Port-au-Prince tonight. Safely behind the walls of a missions compound. Our team of ten is mostly youth pastors - bloggers telling the folks back home about this trip to Haiti. Clint and I are leading it.

We woke at five to try and beat the Santo Domingo traffic. The sugarcane field-lined roads looked good for the first few hours of our trip into Haiti today. But as we began to wind our way through assorted small towns, we found ourselves having to navigate myriad speed bumps, potholes and assorted obstacles.

We entered the border town of Jimani and pulled into a field hospital set up under a tent. And at that point we were thrust into the confusion and pain that is post-earthquake Haiti.

Rudy was lucky to live when the building fell on top of him. He escaped with a broken leg. The nurse said, "He learned to speak English by watching the TV. Ask him to sing for you."

When I asked him, Rudy jumped right into a soulful rendition of "Redemption Song."* And when we were ready to leave, he offered to pray for us.

In Fond Parisien, we met Pastor Prophete and toured the hospital where our medical team has been bandaging the wounded. We stopped to talk with a woman who had been trapped in the rubble for two days. She spoke in hushed tones.

"When our house first begin to shake, I ran for my two baby boys. I grabbed them in my arms and tried to protect them. But then the walls fell and the cynder blocks crashed against them. Both of my boys were killed.

I couldn't move in the rubble and my husband thought I was dead. He ran off somewhere out of his mind. But some man heard me calling out to Jesus and eventually they dug me out and brought me here."

Her husband sat behind her stoically. I asked if we could pray for them both. It took a while, but the Spirit came and began to overwhelm him. He began to moan and then wail in grief as we prayed.

And everywhere we've gone, we've seen that piercing grief bubbling just beneath the surface. We ended the day talking to a group of about 40 pastors. I asked if they would share some of their stories with us.

The first man began to share about seeing his young wife die.

The stories continued. One of the last pastors shared that he saw God miraculously rescue his wife, carrying her through the air away from a crashing wall.

Why did one die and the other live? I don't have answers, but we'll keep offering our consolation and prayers.

Tomorrow we'll spend the day helping the survivors in Port-au-Prince. Life goes on.

An amazing, historic day in Haiti

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We didn't expect this. We expected the devastation, the crumbled buildings, the tent cities. But we didn't expect the hope.

We arrived in time to witness something I've never seen before - the pastors of Haiti called for three days of prayer and fasting and the people responded.

Everywhere we went this morning, under tents, under trees, in the squares, in the rubble, were gatherings of people praying and singing.

We drove to a gathering our translator estimated to be 6,000 people. A man was at the front talking. As he stopped and as the people began to sing and to wave their hands, we could feel the Spirit of God blow over the crowd and through our hearts. You talk to any one of them and they have lost someone. Maybe a wife, maybe a father or a sister. But here they were, worshipping.

As I walked through the crowd a man said something to me in Creole. Not understanding, I kept walking. He said it again - I could tell he wanted an answer. I looked at my translator and he said, "He's asking you, why aren't you clapping?" It was true. Me, the American, the outsider, the reporter, watching. It wasn't appropriate. The people were there to respond to what God is doing in their land. God is pouring out his Spirit and the appropriate response is clapping for starters.

In every church that hadn't fallen down, in almost every open area, people were gathered in crowds that spilled out into streets, praising God, singing and praying. And it demanded a response - engagement. I suppose it's like heaven in that way. If the angels are praising God, we'll be compelled to join them.

Later we walked by the front of the now-collapsed Presidential Palace where hundreds of thousands gathered to worship. The crowd was beginning to disband. And at Pastor Christian's church, an estimated 9,000 sat on the ground under drooping blue tarps. Somebody saw me in the back clapping to the music and asked, "Why aren't you dancing?"

Back in the van, we drove through the city center, overwhelmed by the devastation. Tent cities were everywhere. Some highly organized in new, white half-cylinders from the UN or USAID. Others, ramshackle, made of rags, sheets and scraps of plastic. A large train terminal, impressive for its colonial architecture, sat at a cockeyed angle - leaning precariously. Some of the buildings had collapsed forward into the street, poised like barges being launched from docks.

We passed people in shoving, angry lines waiting for large white bags of flour. Everywhere, people here are on the move, trying to find a way to survive - negotiating a world turned upside-down. But the crowds who came to pray, the Haitians who by the hundreds of thousands spread out from every still-standing church and meeting tent on what seemed every other street corner testified to another reality.

Something spiritually historic is underway. The cry of a desperate people is rising up to the heavens - calling out for mercy, crying out for God, shouting out for the arrival of the soon-coming king. And, today at least, God responded. His Spirit blew through the tents in ways that sent you to your knees in response. In 30 years of missions, I've never seen anything like it. It's the thing you read about it books. It's the thing you hope for but sometimes grow cynical about ever seeing. And it's happening here, now.

Haiti is arising - a month after the greatest natural disaster of our time, a new and hope-filled day is dawning.

Follow more from this trip on Facebook (you don't need to have an account to read the different reports). Below is a video report from me (for more of these videos from the team, visit Clint's blog.) You can also sign up for prayer updates from Haiti.

A miracle in the midst of terror

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We're here in Haiti. Earlier, our team brought hot chocolate to the families and the victims. One man, Francois, caught their attention. Next to him was a young kid and an older man, perhaps the father. They both had broken arms. Pain was everywhere.

Francois asked what our team was doing there. He expressed his thanks to the many people who had flown in from the outside out of the goodness of their hearts to love and comfort his people. One of our staff members, Steph Tyrna, asked him about his story and he shared it.*

Just two weeks earlier, Francois was in his house in Port-au-Prince. He and his wife, Elina, lived in a five-story building near the center of town. As he was working on the bottom floor, the earth began to shake and suddenly, the building collapsed. Five floors came crashing down on top of him.

Elina was nine months pregnant. She been in their home on the fifth floor and fell straight through the floor. Concrete came crumbling down in a roar that drowned out the screams of people falling. Incredibly, his wife landed just a few feet from where Francois. Instinctively, he leapt across the moving floor and covered his wife with his body. It was the only thing that he could do. Thirty seconds later, the ground stopped and chaos ensued all around them.

Francois checked himself, he saw that he could move amidst the rubble. He could hear people desperately searching for their families. He looked down at his Elina. "Are you OK?"

She seemed unhurt, but shocked. "Francois, the labor pains have started - I'm contracting."

Fortunately, after some time, the pains stopped. Francois knew they had to leave the chaos and get to a hospital. For the next five days, Elina was in great pain as they fled for the border town of Jimani. "How was she going to survive?" he thought to himself. "Who will help us?"

Arriving at the border, Francois began asking questions. Medical teams attended the mobs of people streaming to the Dominican border. When they saw Elina, her contractions had started again.

Francois knew Elina couldn't handle much more. He sat praying and asking the Lord for mercy.

Then came the news that Elina had given birth to a baby girl whom they would call Francelina. Overcome with joy, the only thing Francois could say was "God saved my family". Only a divine creator concerned with the intimate details of his children could provide a solution to something so seemingly impossible.

When our team met Francois and his family, Francelina was only ten days old. Their "home" was a tent with a mattress and a backpack that was sitting in the corner. This was their life as of that moment. It was all just so surreal to comprehend that each of their lives have forever been changed within a matter of seconds. And this is where they are now...

At this church/hospital, the clinic was understaffed, there were language barriers, and there was a shortage of medical supplies. One of these was baby milk/formula. Three other families had newborn babies at this clinic but the milk had run out that morning and it was now 10pm. The need was great considering the babies had not eaten since that morning. His wife could not feed their child because she was unable to produce milk.

Our team went on a search around town. And although most of of the pharmacies in Jimani were out of milk, Steph was able to find both formula and bottles. When they returned to the hospital, the only thing Francois could do was thank us and thank God for saving his family.

Below is a video of Steph's experience.

*Thanks to Steph Tyrna for putting this story together and being Jesus' hands in Jimani.

Crossing over into a tragic land

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Today we fly to the Dominican Republic, and the next day we drive over the mountains, across the border, by the lake, and into Haiti, a land where the smell of death hangs in the air like a morning mist.

And I'm trying to take it in. How am I to feel?

I suppose I might feel like I did in the winter of 1980 as we prepared to cross the Thai border into Cambodia. A great human tragedy was unfolding in real time. Two million Cambodians had died or were in the process of dying. We put 225 live, clucking chickens into a pickup truck and crossed over to give them food. They were the survivors, the lucky ones.

Driving across the border into Haiti, my heart will probably beat as it did as a 22 year-old. But what will I see and what will I feel? Families without homes or tents are huddled under sheets. A million orphans, refugees and amputees are reeling, still in shock. Disease is springing up in the fetid camps.

Will I notice? Will I notice:

The young girl whose mother, father, and siblings are gone?

The school-turned-graveyard that collapsed on the students?

The mother whose three-year-old's leg was amputated at the hip?

The soldier whose uniform is all he has left?

Just how many details in plain sight will I miss as I navigate through a world in chaos? Me just trying to get from one place to another, trying to find the interpreter who is late, buying supplies, wondering if the pastors will show up? Will I slow down enough to feel the ache welling up from the ground, will I sense the emotional tectonic plates shifting in the air? Will I sense God's heart, still breaking for a people so inured to tragedy that even this cataclysm goes un-mourned?

I received an email that said, "There is a desperate need for crayons, paper and things for the children to be able to express themselves in the midst of all of this mess." Crayons, people! For the love of God, there is a desperate need for crayons!? What do you feel in a land like that? Where does your soul retreat for oxygen?

The same email said, to bring "masks for all of the volunteers because of the dust and the smell of dead bodies." And I wonder what it will do to me and what I will do in response. What will I feel?

When we first prayed for Haiti the Sunday after the earthquake, I felt nothing. Haiti is a nation I've studiously avoided over the years. Its bureaucratic impossibilities frustrate me. Its intractable poverty is a thumb in the eye of a kingdom predicated on a theology of abundance. And for me, January 12, 2010 was another national catastrophe on the heels of Katrina, the Tsunami, and Swaziland. I was emotionally cool as we commenced praying.

But on that Sunday as we prayed, God gave me a gift I didn't want - he showed me how to feel. As my spirit reached up to connect with God, his feelings began to flow down, into, and through me. First in a trickle, a tear, something not from inside, but from him that began to cascade down and rip at my soul. And soon, it was an out-of-control surprise for me, a non-feeler, the stalwart in the crowd.

I don't even know any Haitians! I've only been there once, and I had no intentions of going back. But on that Sunday, he began to empty his heart, his great, breaking heart, for that tragic land and its people into me. Then, sobs began to rack my body. I gasped for breath. It wouldn't let loose. It convulsed me. I was beyond embarrassment or saving face. And I was laid bare by his divine, molten love for the people of Haiti,

Thankfully, nobody made a big deal about this man crumpled on the floor, heaving with unnamed grief as the prayers continued. Eventually a measure of control returned. Blowing my nose, I welcomed the return of my senses. But for minutes after, his heart seemed to convulse inside me like aftershocks.

It's not a place I want to return to. It's not a place you'd naturally love. And I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow. But for one day at least, I understood something of what God feels about Haiti and its suffering people.

Haiti tomorrow

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I'm getting ready for our trip to Haiti tomorrow. My life is on fast-forward. God is doing something there and we're colliding with it, but I'm not ready. Too much going on in my life here. I need to slow down and feel what God feels about this place where a couple of million lives were changed in half a minute.

Going there with nine other Americans who are blogging about it. Anne Jackson is one of them. Her blog showed up yesterday on Don Miller's blog as a guest blogger.

I turn thirty next Friday, and the last decade has been filled with a million lifetimes. I sobered up. Moved around and now live in Nashville. I got married. Lost and found my faith a few times. Became a self-employed author with state-provided health care and no stock options. I traveled to Uganda. Then the Dominican. Then India.

And because of the beautiful people I've met along the way, I've made a promise to tell the stories of people living with nothing to people living with everything.

These two contrasting worlds need to collide. Because oftentimes, we confuse what having nothing and having everything look like.

Ten years later, here I am. And I'm taking a trip for my thirtieth birthday.

But instead of some idyllic European destination, I'm headed to Haiti.

Following the recent earthquake, I felt numb. It had been a long time since I had been angry at God, and do I dare even say doubt his sovereignty, but that's where my heart teetered for the first week.

It seemed hopeless.

Sometimes, it still seems hopeless.

A few weeks ago, I was invited to help out in Haiti with an organization called Adventures in Missions. They've been on the island of Hispaniola for years and have been working through local churches there long before the earthquake.

Without a doubt, I knew I needed to go. Every obstacle in my way divinely disappeared, and I have to believe God's been preparing me for this for a long time.

I said yes. And so I'll be in Haiti until February 17th - just two days before my thirtieth birthday.

I realize it's an honor to be able to serve in such a unique way, but there are bits and pieces of me that want nothing more than to stay home.

Quite honestly, I'm terrified.

If I think about it too long, or watch too much CNN, it just paralyzes me.

However, I've vowed that when fear, or comfort, or some other little obstacle contrary to the Kingdom pops in my head the correct response is to do the exact opposite.

Fear says, "Haiti is dangerous. You have to take those malaria pills that make your stomach hurt and what if there's another earthquake while you're there? What if you get shot at? " and Comfort says, "You won't have your choice of firm or soft pillows and it's gonna smell like the rotting stench of death. You will see dead bodies. And you've never seen a real dead body before."

The people of Haiti didn't plan to have their lives destroyed a few weeks ago.

This is a whole new part of their story.

As I spoke to my friend a couple of days ago when we were working on some of the details of the trip, we realized Haiti is never going to be restored.

Haiti is going to be reborn.

It has to be.

And we all get to be a part of that story - whether it's by donating money or supplies or by getting on a plane at some point to help out using whatever skills you have.

I'm grateful that it's not only Haiti's story, and it's not only yours and mine, either.

I have to believe that this is a story of a sovereign God who has a plan and purpose beyond anything we can imagine. And I'm grateful his breath is woven through each and every letter of each and every word of this new story as it is being written.

How to rescue an addict

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Life as an addict is terrible - you're estranged from family and friends, and worst of all, you're estranged from yourself. You're in a prison of hopelessness and you need rescuing. The ministry of rescuing an addict is a very relationship-intensive one; it requires you walk a demanding tightrope, placing yourself at risk in order to build the trust necessary to help those who are typically paranoid, who struggle to trust. The odds are you will fail. And while I present a set of ten steps below, it is anything but a linear process.

Dave Hain was the best I've ever seen at it. He pulled a couple of hundred addicts off the streets of Philadelphia during his time there. The addicts looked at him as their pastor. Walking with him through the crack houses was always interesting. These are some of his secrets.

1. Relationship Initiation: Establish a one-on-one relationships by sharing God's love (rather than the judgment that those on the streets are accustomed to feeling).

2. Relationship Development: Develop these relationships through individual and group counseling, conversation, prayer, sharing a cup of coffee or a meal, Bible study, and contacting relatives with information. During this phase of the process, try to earn trust by performing small favors - buying food or conveying messages to and from probation officers, police officers, lawyers, and estranged relatives and friends.

3. Trust Deepening: One day at a time over the course of months and sometimes years of these meetings, trust, hope and a sincere desire to change their own lives begin to form. Until this process has progressed to the point where a critical mass of trust exists, it is very difficult to take an addict any further in the process.

4. Hope-based Counseling: At this point the counseling begins to focus on opportunities for detox, short-term rehab and then long-term Christian rehab. Many addicts have heard, "once an addict, always an addict." They need hope. Typically addicts will make a commitment to getting off the street well in advance of the day when they finally do take action.

5. Intermediation: When someone is ready to take action, you can serve as his or her advocate and place the necessary telephone calls to obtain a detox bed. This often requires assisting the addict to regain some identification papers to replace those lost on the streets. Frequently he or she will need to be placed in interim housing over a weekend while these arrangements are finalized. Maintain relationships with top detox and rehab centers and take time to earn their trust. Work with a number of detox centers. It will take time and communication. Always do what you promise you'll do. There may be only a few who will work closely with you to allow visits and have more relaxed entry requirements. Key in our working with anyone to get them a detox bed is that "the doctors and nurses can begin to treat the patient."

6. Detox & Advocacy: While in detox we speak to the caseworker to advocate a short-term resident rehab.

7. Short-Term Rehab: During the time in rehab, place the phone calls to obtain a phone interview for admission into a four- to twelve-month Christian program.

8. Transition: When the individuals you are assisting are ready to make the jump to a long-term rehabilitation center, help them with the logistical details and costs. Maintain strong relationships with multiple rehabs.

9. Long-Term Care: Our primary behavioral goal during the rehab center stay is that each person face the truth of the bad decisions they made which contributed to his or her addiction. He or she need to begin making godly decisions to avoid relapse. The success rates of Christian rehabs as published by Teen Challenge and others are over 70%. With this in mind, some men and women in secular rehabs where we teach Bible studies seek a Christian rehab after their secular program is finished.

10. After Care: After completion of a Christian rehab, we work with the men and women who enter an after care phase, which requires months of one-on-one counseling with a pastor followed by efforts to repair broken relationships and reintegration into society.

For more information, contact Dave Hain or read about his ministry here.