How do you define your faith?

Is it by what you say? Is it by what you think? Is it by what you don't think? Is it by what you do? Is it by what you don't do? 

It's really an interesting question. One that I never asked myself really before this last week. I was given the opportunity to teach a bible study on the passage James 2. James 2 has a relatively famous passage in it that says rather bluntly "faith without deeds is dead" (2:17, 20). In the process of teaching this passage, I asked the question "What do you do to make people know that you're a Christian?" This question seemed relatively straightforward and somewhat easy to answer. The answers I got were rather interesting. I got such answers as "I don't curse", "I don't have sex", "I don't drink or do drugs", or " I don't gossip with my friends". Don't get me wrong, all of these things are good and are very important while being a Christian. However, that's not what this passage was getting at.

If you think of pretty much any character in the Bible and why they were known in their time, about 99% of the time it's because of what they did. Not because of what they didn't do. This is what James was talking about when he wrote this Chapter of his letter to the new church. He knew that they would stand out already because of what they didn't do. He knew that there would be temptation to be complacent at where they are by just not doing stuff. 

In high school, this is what I let define me and who I was as a person. I was the one "that didn't drink" or that "didn't cuss". This has been something that I've been living by until this last year. I've realized that reading the Bible and learning about God is a huge part in your relationship with Christ. However, if you don't take everything that you're learning in your life and apply it to your life somehow then what's the point? James went as far as to say that you're wasting your time if you're doing that. Hmm... convicting, isn't it? 

So what does this have to do with my summer? For one, I'm learning a TON about God and about the plans that He has for my future. This next year, God's entrusting me with a much larger flock than he has in previous years. This means that a lot more people are going to be looking to me to model what a relationship with Christ looks like. James 2:17 is one of the main things that I'm going to have to keep in mind while doing this so that everyone I'm being a witness to doesn't just think that being a Christian is a list of things that you shouldn't do but it's something that you need to be active in and something to strive after. 

When Jesus was on this earth, he didn't just not do things. He acted upon every opportunity that he had in his years on this broken planet. He cared for the tax collectors, he loved the prostitutes, he fed the hungry, he humbled the proud, and he healed the sick. The name Christian literally means "to be like Christ." The people in Jesus' time knew him by what he did, not by what he didn't do. So let's be like him. Let us act on the faith that we have in God in every situation possible. Whether that be talking to the person next to you in line while waiting for lunch about their day or being able to pack up and move if that's what you believe His will is. In Paul's letter to the Hebrews he defines faith as "being sure of what we hope and being certain of what we do not see." We need to take actions out of faith whether or not we know what is going to happen. If we don't, it shows our uncertainty in God. If we're uncertain about God, then we have no faith.

God in a box

Lord, 

You are the God of this city. You have shown me that many times in this last month. You are moving through so many people in this community to make this place more like how You intended. You have a plan for everyone and everything. You've proven that many times. God, I haven't trusted you the way that I should. I haven't been as faithful following you through those hard times and praising you in those tough times. God, I need to be able to listen to your voice and act upon what I've hear. The level of urgency that you call for your people to have isn't there in me. I've been very relaxed in these last couple weeks. I know that I don't have much time with these students to speak truth into their lives. But I've just been sitting back watching you work. I ask, Heavenly Father, that you use me for the reason that I'm here, and that reason is to speak truth into these students' lives. God, You are in control here. Not me. Please help me realize that and help me do your work humbly as this summer progresses. Please give me the energy that I need to finish what you sent me here to do. Please instill in me a level of urgency that I need to have to get Your will done. You are in charge. You are the reason I'm here.  

Amen.

The trip this last week was a team from Memphis. This team isn't your "normal mission trip team"... Let's just put it this way; they got kicked out of the church we're staying in temporarily because a guy that works here thought they were random kids from the neighborhood. They were 6 African American students from the not so nice parts of Memphis. What I learned from this trip was that God can connect with anyone. He can do something for anyone in this world to help them see him. So often we put God in a box. We say "This is the way that I see God and this is the only way that He is." That couldn't be farther from the truth. 

God is big. People say that all the time. We sing worship songs about the power that He has and how big He is. But do we really see how big He is? Do we see the power that He is? Do we even look? I know I don't very often. I'm guilty of it. I leave God in my little box. I've started seeing God work in ways that I never thought possible. God turning people to Him through community, miracles, relationships, conversations, family troubles, and through praise. The most thought provoking way that God works through is community. 

God created us to be with each other. He didn't create us to be isolated. Not just through our church, not just in our circle of nice little Christian friends, but getting people that don't believe Jesus is Savior. That's the crucial part that most people don't realize. They just look at their church and are comfortable with their relationships that they have there. That's the way that I used to see things. I'm guilty. Comfort is so overrated though. Do you think that Moses was comfortable leading Israel out of Egypt into the Promise Land? No. Do you think that Peter was comfortable being the rock of the Christian church? No. Do you think that Paul was comfortable being called to be one of the most persecuted against Christians of all time? No. All of these people from the Bible took off their skirts and did what they knew God was calling them to do. I'm pretty sure that anyone would agree that any of the above tasks are more difficult than building a community involving everyone. 

When we, as a Christian church, start to love people as who they are and not who the world sees them as, that's when we start to see God in different ways. That's when God reveals Himself to us. How have you seen God today? 

Habakkuk 1:5

Wow. It's only been three weeks in Chicago and so much has happened. To everyone out there, I'm sorry I won't be able to fill you in on everything that has happened. However, I will fill you in on the most important events in the last two trips and what God is doing in my life as an individual.

Trip 1
Church: Faithbridge Methodist from Houston, TX
Location: La Villita Community Church, Little Village, Chicago, IL

This being the first trip of the summer, I thought that I was going to get eased into the summer and into what God is doing in Chicago. Key word there is thought. Our work project for these two weeks was to put up dry wall in a church across the street from La Villita. Dry wall sounds like such an easy project in theory, but when you're working on a building that was built in 1891, and has been remodeled and had amateur hands working on it all throughout the years of the building, it's far from easy. There were a lot of obstacles that had to be overcome in the process of taking down old drywall, cutting the new pieces, and putting those up. The kicker is that the students had to navigate all of those obstacles pretty much by themselves with the supervision of all of the adults on the trip and myself. The students found ways to get through all of the problems that they encountered throughout the whole two weeks and made those two rooms very pretty.

The work project isn't what made this trip so special. On this trip, the students genuinely cared about each other. They wanted to know each other's stories, their struggles, and celebrate with each other! It was fun for me to be a part of such a tight knit community and seeing such a cool environment for Christ to flourish. Being able to step back from the group and look at how people were being transformed was one of my favorite parts of the trip for me. There were a number of people of the team that were rather quiet at the beginning of the trip. I heard stories over and over of these students "not talking at Bible study" or comments something along the lines of "I've never heard you talk before..." So often we get caught up in what's going on and we're so into the moment here and now. We spend so much time looking and gawking at what's going on that we forget about God. We look at the situation that we're going through and we just see it as something that's happening, not "This is God." That's what I had the opportunity to see this trip. I saw the Holy Spirit just doing work in these students. Some people say that it's so hard to see the Holy Spirit working. After this week, I think that it's the most noticeable of the Holy Trinity. He can convict people on what they're doing or how their acting, they can open them up to possibilities in their lives, or even give them strength to do what they never saw possible. All of these things I saw or even experienced myself during this trip. God is moving.

Coming into this summer, I had a few things in mind that God was going to show me: how I can better serve the poverty in Milwaukee this coming year, what I should do with school and how I can use that to better the Kingdom, how more effectively share the Gospel and how it has effected my life, and how to handle a large amount of responsibility. During this trip I had the opportunity to get to know our missionary partners at La Villita: Victor, Greater Zion Missionary Baptist Church (the church we did work in): "the Charles-es", and Young Men Educational Network (YMEN): Marcus. I was informed of the neighborhood and how God is moving within Little Village. I was privileged enough to hear a few testimonies from the people that I was so blessed to meet during these two weeks. What was really cool about all of these stories is that most of them had something in common: trusting God. So far in my walk with Christ, I have struggled quite a bit with that. I'm just starting to learn that God is bigger than me. There's no possible way that I'm going to overcome God's plan for me with my puny self. I'm starting to understand that God wants me with Him and on His side and the only way that I will get away from that plan is... well... I can't get away from His plan. No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, God is going to pull me in. So why is it so hard for me to trust Him and go with Him willingly?

I would say that I can relate to Saul right now. After he's blinded on the road to Damascus, he spends 3 days in Damascus praying. Just saying to God, "Dude, what're you doing with me?! I've persecuted you so much and turned against you every chance I had! Why me?" This is the mentality that I'm having right now. I don't know what God is doing in my life right now. I don't know what He's preparing me for. I don't know why I'm going through all of this challenge and struggle this summer. But all I need to do is stay faithful through it all, and God will provide and everything will turn out. I mean, just look at Saul. After his conversion, he ended up writing most of the new testament. God will have His way with me. I will be a weapon on the side of God. I just pray that I will take the easy route. Not the route to Damascus.

Quick Recap of Trip 2:

Church: Emmanuel Lutheran, Dayton, OH

Location: Brickyard Bible Church, Chicago, IL

Sadly, I don't have time to go into as much detail as I did on the last trip but I'll try to give you a quick rundown:

This small church on the Northwest side of Chicago has a member that came to the church a couple years ago. The reason that she came to the church was to die. She was pregnant with her 5th kid and she had a fatal case of cancer. She came to the church to get her relationship with God right. The members of the congregation then prayed over her for pretty much a day straight. Then, she went home after that for a couple days. She went into the doctor then to get a check up on the progress of the cancer and a miracle had occurred. The cancer was gone. SAY WHAT??!?! Yeah. God did that. He just said "No, I'm not done with you yet," and snatched that cancer out of her body. She then proceeded to have her 5th child with a husband addicted to drugs. Soon after the baby was born, the father decided to go to rehab and give his life to Christ as well. Insane in the membrane. 

Even though the family is now apart of the church, they still don't have the funds to fix the house that they have had pretty much their entire lives. Words seriously can't describe the massive amounts of work in this house. Literally, everywhere you look there is something that needs to be worked on. They have been praying for the energy, manpower, and resources to make this work happen around their house for years. A couple days before this team from Dayton comes in, Ryan, the trip leader, called the church we were staying at and asked the pastor if they had any families in the congregation that needed any work done around the house. Obviously, he thought of this family first. Prayers were answered. God is awesome. Energy, manpower, and resources were brought to the house on Monday, June 27th, 2011. 

Oh, I forgot to tell you that they were about to go into foreclosure. If they didn't have four main things done in that house, then they wouldn't be able to live there anymore. Those four things included fixing concrete stairs in for the front porch and putting in new wooden ones, tearing out flooring in the bathroom and putting brand new flooring in, putting water seal on the back porch steps, and putting a new ceiling up in the basement of the house. Wow. That's a lot of work to have to have done in any house and for this house, it was just the beginning. The hardworking team from Dayton did work on this house during the 5 days that they worked there. They either finished or nearly finished all of the four projects that they had to to bring them out of foreclosure. Talk about God providing. 

Another thing that was cool about this trip was that this church helped plant a LeaderTreks site in Dayton. This summer LeaderTreks had 3 weeks in the Dayton area. Emmanuel Lutheran saw the need that was in Dayton at the time and they acted on it. The only thing that I've heard about the Dayton site thus far is that it's awesome. God is moving in Dayton so much from what I heard from the team that was here and what I've heard from the group that was in Dayton. The Dayton site has been SO successful that they want to expand the trip next year from 3 weeks to 10 weeks. God is moving. 

Prayers

The first third of trips, I've learned so much about God and who He is. He's been teaching me so much through the students, the community I'm submerged in, and the stories that I've heard. He's been making me think through why I'm here also. I had a conversation about community and what it is with a person recently. That one conversation flipped my perception of serving upside down. We were talking about the concept of intentional community. The idea of living submerged in the areas that need serving. He said that the people in those areas don't want to feel like a charity case (who does?). While trying to piece what I'm going to be doing in Milwaukee this next year together and hearing this life changing stuff, I realized that that's what I'm supposed to do in Milwaukee. Live life with the poverty. Make the homeless feel like they're needed. Help the broken hearted gain hope again. But this isn't just by going to a soup kitchen once a week or once a month, but it's by living with them. What does that look like though? That's the question that I need to look to God for now. 

As the summer goes on, and the trips begin to mesh together a little bit, my energy will begin to diminish. I'm starting to get worn out. Physically and spiritually. I can't do this alone. If I want to make the biggest impact here in Chicago then I'm going to have to be ready to fight in battle. I need help. As this summer goes on, please continue to pray for me that I can have as much energy needed to fulfill God's plan for me this summer. Also, please pray for patience for me this summer. We have four weeks where we are moving around Chicago from church to church. This is extremely tiring. I have less free time than I thought that I would and expending more energy during the weekends than I would like. During these next 3 weeks please be praying for patience because I'm already annoyed with all of this moving around. Doing it 3 more times is going to be even more frustrating. 

Also, if you want to be apart of God moving in Chicago this week, and want to partner with me financially still, there's still time! Up to the end of July you can help support me by sending a check made out to LeaderTreks to:

LeaderTreks

Attn:Donnie Bogle

25W560 Geneva Rd. Suite 30

Carol Stream, IL 60188

Or if you have a PayPal account then you can help that way by clicking the following link:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=WC5DYEAEHS87Y&lc=US&item_name=LeaderTreks&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted