Anniversary Showing

Two years ago we were rolling out plastic flooring in a church gym for the first showing of SOLD, not sure if it would ever go any farther or even if people would show up.

Today we can pull into the local community college with almost a dozen seasoned volunteers on our "travel team" list, people who can come together to lead this thing in any city where we could think to send them.

We can laugh at the quirks of it all, the memories of where that green bubble wrap came from or why we do it this way now instead of that way. Go slow and deliberate and still set it up or tear it down in two and a half hours instead of the once upon a three or four. Tease each other and laugh about the days when we used to walk on egg shells, uncertain of what we were getting ourselves into.

And, it's good.

Good to be able to step back far enough to see which site volunteers can take on more responsibility. Good to be able to hand them a procedure notebook and a pile of bins and set them loose on the decorating. Because, yes, we have procedure notebooks now. Careful lists and pictures to document every step of the process.

Good to stand around in the trailer and talk about the future that is coming faster than any of us could have ever anticipated.

An East Coast/ Mid West college tour with the Live Love Movement that will take us farther than we we've ever been before. A month of sending teams back and forth across the country to set this thing up and tear it down as many times as we can get away with.

A partnership with Hope Outfitters and their brand new t-shirt design for the months of May and June.

A constant stream of emails and cost estimates and purchase orders.

Because, it's not just my baby anymore. Not just a random collection of sketches in the back of a notebook. Not just an innocent question to my dad of, "Can we build this? Will it stand up?"

And, it seems so strange to think of the post-Haiti conversations that led us here. The quiet moments on a back porch with the youth pastor's wife, sipping from glasses of kombucha while she processed through a response to the things that we had seen and heard. The offhand challenge just before a meeting with the outreach pastor of, "We should see if there is some kind of an anti-trafficking exhibit we could bring in."

The long internet searches and the impossibly small budget that we set to build one ourselves. Piles of lumber in a borrowed barn and friends and family huddled around to examine donated blueprints in the biting cold.

The moving walls and moving walls and moving walls again. Countless volunteer hours and vacation days. Until somehow we have gotten here. Here where it isn't mine anymore and hasn't been for a long time. Here where this thing has taken on a life of its own.

Challenge, Comfort, and Trying Again

Third time's the charm for my seventh graders.

Third week of trying to get back into the storage room. Third week of trying to sit together in this loose clump of familiar bodies.

They cluster together even before I sit down, and it feels like I might have done something right back in their 4th and 5th grade years, when getting to know each other was first priority of every giant small group. Scatter for a game and then form back up.

Whisper questions and comments and stray thoughts as the eighth grade leaders farewell a class of kids. Sit with toilet paper rolls over their ears and my phone in their hands. Play with rubber bracelets that have the church focus inscribed in bold, red lettering.

LOVE: as I have loved you

And, this is love. Not that we loved Him, but that He first loved us.

Loved us when we were a mess. Taught us to heal and comfort and challenge. To sit in both the presence of our own brokenness and His glory. To love small and to love extravagantly. To live in the tension of the Kingdom.

"I get down." The lyrics to the song burst from 4th and 5th grade lips around me, light in their eyes as we squat to the ground like frogs, just waiting to spring up as high as we possibly can, to take flight for just a millisecond. "He lifts me up. I get down. He lifts me up."

They burst in the doors this morning with a cry of, "Jessica!" Only four of them, but five for now, because we've picked up a little 4th grade tag along.

"Can I sit with you?" He eyes the name tags that the girls have stuck to the front of my shirt, the flip flops that have come off my feet, the name badge that they pass between each other, and the yellow lightsaber that dangles from it. A rainbow loom creation that one of the girls presented me with this morning.

"Sure." I nod and we make space for a squirmy boy in amongst my squirmy girls. This kiddo who sits on my flip flops like a wiggle disk and presses his own name tag onto my knee as we both sit cross legged in this tight little mass of humanity.

We break out to our space under the stairs to talk about 1st and 2nd Peter and watch goofy YouT*be videos. Pass out Bible study pages and silver star stickers. Color and draw and just generally enjoy one another as we talk about next year and the transitions that are coming.

Switch over into second hour and the middle schoolers who are ready to try again.

"Can you take us? Just for five minutes?"

He pops into a lull in conversation, already poised to take off, as if I couldn't help but answer him yes. Yes, I'll go with you. Yes, you can have five minutes of my time. Yes, you still have the right to ask. Yes, I see you. Yes, you matter.

"Yes." I glance at the clock and take off after his lengthening legs, marveling a little at this growing up that he has done, these new words and new actions. No longer quite the little boy who used to come in with wild eyed looks and dance through chaos until I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight. Steady in the trust that there is always next week, always another chance.

We go up and come back, and he almost walks past me when it is time to sit for the lesson. Almost, but not quite.

Instead, I reach out a hand to grab his foot as he walks past, this growing one who still speaks in the bumps and collisions of middle school boys, and he nudges my arm in response, trying to jump back before I can tag him. Trying, but not too hard. Because this dozen times back and forth is talking. Because the words not spoken could fill a book. Because this is invitation given and accepted, and he settles into the clump of bodies without appearing to give it a second thought.

"Yahweh, Yahweh," voices echo across the polished concrete floors at the end of the hour, "we love to shout your name, oh Lord!" and M*dd** laughs when I mention that the song always makes me think of one of the missing boys, smiling as she nods and gestures to the place in front of me, as if she can picture my hands settling on his shoulders as he throws back his head and yells.

Because, three weeks missing is made smaller against four years of presence. And, this might just be the smallness and the consistency of extravagant, Jesus style love.

For these hours, on this day, in this place, this is a tiny part of what it means to be the Church. A Church that shows up and messes up and come back to try again. A Church that trusts that, in Him, we have the power to do this right.

Log Removal

We jog through the nearly empty sanctuary between services, and an older gentleman I've never met stops them just in front of me with a chiding glance.
"This is a church. Be respectful."

Walk. He means. Don't run. Don't jog. Don't disturb the peace.

And, I bite back the theological snark that wants to spring to my lips.

'No, sir.' I want to pull the boys beside me and quietly explain. 'This is a building. These are the church. You are the church.'

'Seven days a week, the church that is in these boys runs and jumps and shouts, the way that you did when you were ten and thirteen. These are the church. Honor them the way that they are trying too honor you.'

Because, I know these boys. See them differently than a stranger ever would. I know the speed that they could be moving and the screams that could be coming from their throats. I hear their silence and see the smooth jog through empty spaces where there is no one to be disturbed. And, I see the way that they are making decisions right now. Decisions about you and the Jesus that you represent.

Because, I am hoping and praying that, even as we slow to a walk, they understand.

Understand that these halls are theirs as much as they are yours. That they have a place here and a right to be seen. A right to be honored just as they have a right to honor.

Hoping for an understanding and a response that is beyond their years.

That they will be humble and responsive, and all of the things that children are meant to be to adults, but that their hearts will whisper truth despite it. That they have seen church done, been a part of community enough times, to know what to do.

Hoping that I will know what to do.

"But wisdom that comes from above is first of all peaceable, gentle, willing to yield."

One of the verses that I sent home with my fifth graders echoes through my head as we slip through a shortcut, grab what we came for, and head back.

And, I can't judge him too much, this gentleman who probably came to church this morning planning to love Jesus Style but didn't quite get it right.

Didn't get it quite right, like my boys who walk halfway through the sanctuary on the way back and then burst into a jog that is part respect for my time and part defiant snark.

Like me, when the boys leave something out of place, and, rather than pick it up for them or with them, I call them out and back up the request with a threat that I never intend to keep. Or, when one of them complies, and I respond to the other with biting sarcasm.

Because, there is this log in my own eye that I need to clear before I can begin to complain about the speck in his. This lie that says that I can will them into acting "right." Bully them into being less afraid. Shame them into living like they know they are loved.

"If you can't be responsible," my words press down on all of the vulnerable spots of this kid who is only trying to use me as a safety net, "then we won't be able to do this again."

And, it sounds like a natural consequence, but it isn't. I'm not retracting a privilege. I'm retracting my presence.

Doing this so not like Jesus that it is nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

They are thirteen. Not thirty. Learning. Not perfect. Messy. Anxious. Swamped in the uncertainty of middle school. Fighting to trust.

We're here because something feels off kilter in their worlds. Because, since they were tiny little kindergarteners, we have operated under the assumption that their behaviors meant something. That they didn't just wake up this morning with a devious plan to drag me along as they gave a random stranger conniption fits.

We're here because they woke up this morning needing five extra minutes of my time.

Here because I needed Light to shine into my own soul and expose the dark, messy spaces. Needed to walk down these quiet steps, reach into my own eye, and yank.

 "The eye is the lamp of the body. You draw light into your body through your eyes, and light shines out to the world through your eyes. So if your eye is well and shows you what is true, then your whole body will be filled with light."
Matthew 6:22

Second Chances and Precious Time

It's gorgeous outside this morning, and we do our best to take advantage of it. Bright orange yarn that we pass back and forth between us, each criss cross another recitation of the verse, until the web is strong enough to support a Bible. Three of them, actually.

Build pyramids and run slalom through long rows of trees. Laugh and encourage and pull faces for the camera.

Tuck back into our space under the stairs and talk about Hebrews and James. Practice going through the Bible study sheets, and watch their faces light up at the idea that the book of Hebrews could have been "written by a girl."

For the first time all year, they annotate the front of our books of the Bible posters, making their careful note in silver pen.

Fifth grade has never been a time when I present theories or go into the complications of Biblical cannon, but this is important to them. Important for my little Ravenclaw girls to know that someone who shared their anatomy may have done more than starred in a rare Old Testament story or been a part of the New Testament church. Someone like them may have taught, may have led (did teach, did lead), may have known things, may have written things down.

May have shaped the Church, and, through that, may have shaped history.

The knowledge sends lightening through their bodies, and I can see them, just for this moment, taking a new ownership of this thing that we call Scripture.

"Hey," M*t** greets me with a gentle foot between my shoulder blades while I am still sitting circled up with the girls and then dances out of reach, "do you have gum?"

Today is a do over, a reset, a once again chance to prove that we understand one another.

"Yes." The cluster of smaller hands that follow his feel like proof that we are doing something right: the remainder of my girls; a ten year old, his face bright with star stickers from my box, who is the fourth sibling in his family to know me as a leader and whose sister leads this same small group second hour; the oldest son of a man who probably taught one of the first lessons on missions that I ever heard.

These stories that twist back around each other, criss crossed and overlapped like the string that we played with earlier, until they are strong enough to hold us up. Strong enough to bear the weight of all our mess and triumph.

He is light and goofy and close, and I know without asking that we will be going to the storage room today. That we'll be making good on last week's promise.

There are other conversations in between. 6th graders. 7th graders. 8th graders. 9th graders. This mix of boys and girls. High schoolers and middle schoolers. Adults and kids. Leaders' meetings that fluctuate wildly between the serious and the absurd.

"Can you take us now?" He slips into a quiet moment between a sixth grade new/old arrival and seventh grade conversations, and we go. One barefoot. One stocking footed. One still in shoes. Through the building that we know like the familiarity of our own homes.

Go to cover old stories and make new memories.

Skid back into the Gallery just as the leaders are being called up to the stage for breakout groups where he slips off to join a clump of his friends and I am swarmed by half a dozen sixth and seventh grade girls while we talk about the "one anothers."

Play a game, take some selfies on my phone, and head for home.

Made it to the storage room. Didn't quite make it to sitting together. And, I'm sure that he's already plotting for next week and another chance to try again.

I don't have much to offer them in the physical. A stick of gum. A promise that their selfies will end up on Inst*gram before the end of the day. A solid body to act as an anchor for these few minutes on Sunday morning.

But, we can create memories. Memories like the donut fight that still brings a smile to the face of the eighth grader who comes in between services to pick up his fifth grade little sister. Ridiculous moments that, even three years later, still make them feel "claimed." Make them feel like a few short weeks were long enough to belong.

For this hour and a half, I can give them my time. Time that might make it a little easier to believe me when I talk about this Jesus and a massive Love that wants to sweep us away.

May the 4th Be With You

It's May the 4th,  and we do Star Wars all day just because we can. Because the sun is out in fits and starts. Because summer is almost here but not quite, and the kids aren't really sure if they want to speed up the clock or slow it down. Because there are lightsabers, and why would we not?

My fifth graders are a squiggling mass of energy that bursts in the doors to tackle me with hugs and words and noise and wild energy. The cut outs on their notebooking pages are all jagged edges and hasty streaks of glue, a crooked pile of papers that I'll sort out another day - some time when there aren't children to hold on to.

When my hands don't need to be constantly busy, landing on shoulders, curling over fingers that want to poke their friends, gesturing to turn front or keep their eyes on the speaker. When this one isn't leaned against my knee and that one isn't drawing a flower onto my skin. When I'm not sliding one across the floor so that he's sitting with our group or looking at the half dozen things that they have found in their Bibles.

When my lips don't need to whisper quiet explanations during story or murmur "later" when they ask for stickers or gum or whether or not we're going to play a game.

Because, these kids are more important than the papers will ever be. These ones who slip into our spot under the stairs to talk about two new-to-us books of the Bible and try to beat my score at Flappy Bird. Who want to know "where we're going today." Who are almost in sixth grade but not quite.

Today. Today we're going out to the grass with a bag full of lightsabers, K*d*n hopping along on one foot as he tries to preserve his good socks while still finishing the decorations on the bottom of his shoe. Today, K*yl* will scrape her foot on the sidewalk but jump back into the game anyways. J*yd*h will prove herself fierce with a lightsaber, and they will have a giant battle until they are breathless.

Five lightsabers and seven kids means that they drop their weapon anytime that they are hit and read me off the memory verse before they are allowed back into the rotation. "A new command I give you," H**l*y and H*yl** race each other to finish first, to get to the blue and silver plastic that was just thrown onto the grass, "love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." 

*n*k*'s voice layers over theirs as they finish, and, when we finally go inside, K*r*ss* beelines for the memory booth, suddenly confident enough to recite.

"By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

"LOVE:" the band from middle school is wide and obvious around my wrist, red letters dark against the gray, "As I Have Loved You," and I have to wonder at the half way sassy response from one of the kids, "But, I like being alive."

If Jesus loved us enough to die for us, the simple logic turns behind their eyes, then does #JesusStyle love mean dying too? Or does it mean this? Does it mean carefully placing stars on a waiting forehead, blue, gold, and green bright above sparkling fourth grade eyes? Or, passing out the gum that one of my seventh graders has taught them to ask for?

"Will you take me and D*n**l to the storage room today?" He steps into place beside me, this thirteen year old man/boy who carries around a piece of my heart with the same easy confidence of so many of my kids.

He knows that I'll say yes. Just as clearly as he knows that he could get there without me. Because we both know that he's done it on his own a dozen dozens of times. That the question and the answer aren't about a place but about a state of being. About a chance to simply be.

And, here is where the narrative falls apart a little, where we're still trying to sort out this ever changing dance that is middle school: D*n**l doesn't come this week. The trip doesn't happen. Instead, we talk a little in the precious quiet before a leaders' meeting, and then, he glues himself to one of the high school guys, always just within eye sight as they roll on the floor like puppies - if puppies were to put each other in head locks.

He loves it, loves being roughhoused with and held onto, but I can also watch him, see him still trapped inside his own head. This is good, but it isn't quite what he thought he wanted, so we sort of muddle our way through making the pieces fit. Dance a little bit off beat, off step, and syncopated, the way that the boys like to clap on the in between of the rhythm during music.

Lightsabers and spagetti noodles in the grass. Selfies on my phone and kiddos who are tucked in so tight that we're nearly sitting on the same piece of floor.

My hands are busy again, flicking shoulders and curling over fingers that want to poke at their friends, tapping my temples and pointing forwards in a years old reminder to focus on the music. There are lightsaber battles after Sunday school and whispered explanations during the lesson. Conversations and laughter and never enough time. Slowly growing up, but still a thousand times my kids. 

It might be messy, rough around the edges and held together with jagged streaks of glue, but this is how we love. This is how we try to prove that grace is enough.

This is #JesusStyle.