Waste My Time

One of the sixth graders veers off course just a little when he sees us sitting on the library couches, slipping his arm over my shoulder in the half pat that is a school version of a side hug, each of us snaking one limb out and giving an almost squeeze.

"Yes," he nods to no one - or to anyone who happens to be within hearing, "I'll waste my time for this."

Every few days we cross paths between classes. And, every time, every time he spots us. Veers off course. Decides on a new way to get to his class. Strikes out on his own for a moment.

"Stay there."
"I'll be late for this."
"Yes!"

His words remind me that we are doing so much more here than teaching math and science and history. That test scores will never define children. That their response to one teacher will not be their response to every teacher.

That there is a deep desire in these little lives to know that they are loved.

Worthy. Seen. Remembered. Enough.

The same things that draw us to the Kingdom are the most important things that we can communicate at school.

 Because, there is this echo in all of us. This quiet voice that murmurs that we were not meant to be alone. That we were created for more than this. That there is a Love and a Mercy bigger than the heavens that desires to be known by us. That designed us to be known.

 And, they hear it. Feel it. See it. Taste it.

 They know, with the guarded and yet vulnerable eyes of middle schoolers who know all too well what the world is but are not yet resigned to the reality of it.

 They know what it is that they are looking for. Know what it is that they need to see.

 The power of the everyday Holy.

 The Holy that interrupts the constant cycles of our lives, the hurrying from one place to the next, the constantly growing piles of tasks and accomplishments. Not loudly. Not with any fan fare.

 Just shows up in the midst of the everyday. Asks us to notice. To pay attention. Be always on the lookout. To deviate from the course for just a moment.

 To waste our time for connection.

 For the Kingdom.

 And, I wonder how often I miss it. The quiet, powerful love of a God who guards like a mother. Like an eagle.

 Do I waste my time to notice stars? Clouds? Moments of peace and silence?

Or, am I too busy keeping my head down and getting on with life to spend time on these most important of lessons?

 Because, people may be quirky, frustrating, hard to understand. But, they are beloved by the Creator. Carefully formed to be worthy, seen, remembered, enough. Imperfect, but designed in the image of perfection.

 Loved so deeply that the Holy, Perfect, Timeless Son of God handed himself over to suffer on their account.

 This is a story, the Story, of Holy Love.

 And, it is is worth wasting time for.

The -Ness of Being Human

"It seems like," one of the high school girls marks it in brown ink on the edge of the verse that we are using for a corporate meditation, "living in the flesh goes from a state of action and a state of mind to more of a -ness."

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Crucified with Christ. The way that the thieves on the crosses were crucified with Him. Crucified with a God-man who gave Himself - betrayed Himself - for me.

Living. Still in this body. But in such a very different way.

Four simple letters of explanation. The blueness of the sky. The flesh-ness of being human.

This idea that our flesh-ness is simply another attribute. Another Adjective. My eyes have brownness. My heart courageousness. My body slenderness. My soul timelessness.

None of these things are the entirety of who I am, even the entirety of that aspect of my being. My eyes are also white and black. Flecked with shades of color. Nearsighted. Contact wearing. They squint up when I laugh or smile. Skim quickly over pages of text.

My eyes have brownness. But, they are so much more than brownness.

Nerves and cells, rods and cones, a hundred little intricacies of DNA and genetics that come together to produce this -ness.

And, yet, this -ness will never be all that I am.

This flesh-ness is an attribute rather than an identity.

And, there is Grace in that.

Curl up close. Scream to the stars. Dance in the foyer, Grace. Because, if I am more than the sum total of my parts, then so are you. So are we all.

A muddle of attributes. Fears. Joys. Quirky ways of dealing with emotion. Silent languages. Favorite foods. Proud moments and regrets.

The -ness that resides along with Christ in us.

Sometimes fallenness. Sometimes holiness. Always human.

And, it makes space for the everyday Holy, the mundane that whispers, "Holy." Doesn't shout it. Doesn't sing it the way that we will someday. Someday, when the -ness is transformed and we suddenly look like Jesus.

Instead, it whispers.

Through elementary school hallways filled with costumed kiddos and middle schoolers who want to serve, want to play, want to be.

Through carmel apples in the church kitchen and forgetting to care who's winning the game. Youth group schedules that we make up on the fly and running hunched over through mazes designed for much smaller people.

Half formed conversations. Unexplained tears.

Rain and sunshine and brilliant gaps in the clouds. Fog and wind and imaginations that can take us to places that we have never been, send us on grand adventures across the globe and remind us that stairs can be made for running up.

This is Holy.

This is the -ness of being human.

Fearless

Sunday morning comes in windy, our very desert sort of announcement that, yes, fall is here.

We settle into rows for music and story, the two groups of fifth grade girls piled together. Too many bodies in too few chairs. But perfectly content to stay that way, because, well, yes.

Because it was windy. Because they are tired. Because the need to be together is stronger that the need to actually have your entire backside safely on a plastic surface.

Because, this. This is courage. Or, this is stubborn. This self aware wildness inside of them. This dig in your heels, find a different way, relentless grit that will make them such a force to be reckoned with.

This is what their brave looks like.

It looks like a thirteen year old who finds me standing in a hallway during the fall frenzy and decides to dub himself the hall monitor's assistant. Weaving through rooms with me to find candy baskets that need to be filled - and learning the art of the candy tax. Reading the class projects that are posted to dozens of different bulletin boards. Running through mazes and putting stacks of chairs and desks back to where they belong. Posting a selfie from my phone and grabbing a friend to play catch with a leftover pumpkin.

 It looks like an eighth grader who carves out a space beside me during Sunday morning music, when he wanders back in. Thinks to ask for the definition of a "cornerstone" while we stand there. Sits in the front for the first time since elementary school. Chooses to listen. To think ahead, around, and vaguely connected.

 Like girls who gather around to talk about winter camp. About Noah staffs and fabric markers and wads of deodorant. Marshmallow wars and the world's shortest cabin times.

 Fifth graders who hop around with me like crazies in the hallway to learn the books of the Bible and repeat the verse a dozen times as we work together to scribble it across a page. Drop a can of food into the donation bin with overdramatic ceremony and fold hearts and pig faces from flat sheets of paper.

 Juniors who pop up to move the TV stand out of the way. Do whatever needs to be done. Simply because the youth pastor isn't here, and someone ought to do it. Sit in circles to break apart a John Piper talk. Listen and watch and do their best to buy in. Even when their bodies are tired from Homecoming and their hearts are a little wigged out by this week's differences.

But, always together.

 Because the bravest thing that a Gryffindor can do is allow some one else to come alongside. Expose a little of their mess and walk through it in community. Pick up the slack. Let someone else guard your back. Brave.

 My Ravenclaws are bravest when they wrestle with ideas and concepts. My Slytherins when they actively work to change their world.

 When they are scared, they isolate. They lose their curiosity. They become passive.

 Fear makes them the opposite of what they truly are.

 And, yes. That means that their defining factors are the very things that require the most fearlessness. But, I think that that is way it works in the Kingdom. Here, in the Holiness of the Presence, peace becomes the plumb line. Courage becomes standard. And, the things that our flesh finds difficult become the new normal.

 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

 This is the One who makes us fearless.

Stories and Purpose

Fall comes, busy and consistent in a way that my summers are not. This steady tumble of hours upon days, days upon weeks. And, I remind myself of the beauty that is here. Remind myself of the need to rest.

Because, once again, there are pieces of my life scattered across my floor. Once again, I need to slow down and find the stories here.

Part of my fabric stash sits in the middle of the room, jumbled and spread around by playful kittens, and a dark green scrap catches my eye, white letters still brilliant against the background. A twice worn shirt from an 11th grade trip to Atotonilco Los Altos, Mexico.

A trip where I began to form my ideas of how I would someday lead a team. The value of music and conversation on starlit rooftops. Of time taken from the task to be with, play with, hear stories. Of the power of roadside food and unwashed fruit to lock a place deep into your bloodstream, to make it home.

I learned the value of simple rules and the natural balance of late nights and early mornings. The divisive power of a grumpy leader and the feel of a team curling in on itself for protection, not from our hosts, but from each other.

The power of water to soothe and to process and to heal, and the homecoming that sometimes begins long before the plane ride home.

So many of the things that have been Haiti, I learned in Mexico.

Off to the side, half buried under Bible study notes on the life of Moses, the flip flops that were Provision right before middle school camp, a narrative that stretched through our week when one of them was left behind -- somewhere in a bush, near the edge of a field, in the dark and adrenaline of a night game.

A night game that we still reference when we talk about camp, when the kids gather around and we repeat the stories that make them feel real. When we talk about trust and leadership and the Body of Christ. When we remind them of a time that they were Brave.

When they were kind enough to lend an extra pair of flip flops to a shoeless leader. Clever enough to find it along the side of the trail where I could not. United enough to know of a need that had never been spoken directly to them.

A little more worn, lightly chewed by my parents' cat, a silent reminder.

The jackets that indicate a change of season, socks that mean a school year of tennis shoes and walks during gym class. 

Things that aren't. Shorts that are tucked carefully away in drawers until the weather changes again. A sweatshirt still with the 7th grader who borrowed it at camp.

Echoes of Kenya everywhere, of Haiti; of cluster, Sundays, camps and school. That always tension of being ready to leave and yet thoroughly grounded to this place. The quiet whisper of a three years ago conversation with God, a promise to stay "until."

That word that stretched out into the future and echoed through countless conversations with the Divine. "Are you sure, God?"

"Yes. Stay until..."

Until. Until a seemingly arbitrary event that might be soon, could have come any time, might not be for years or seasons.

Until.

Until three weeks from now.

But, not.

Not that I am getting on a plane three weeks from now, or three weeks after that. 

Simply that the "go" that I have been waiting for from God, the fleece, the Macedonian call, the "stay here until..." came two and a half weeks ago. Becomes reality in three more. Simply that I can see the pieces gradually falling into place.

That something has changed to the feel of it all, something that has nothing to do with the physical changes that are happening all around me. No longer a staying until. But, a staying in order to.

And, I find myself acutely aware of this choice to stay. To be present with and for these kids one more day, one more week, one more hour at a time. To be faithful to a bigger calling that has nothing to do with my timing or my specifics and everything to do with the overarching plan of a God who is Great, Gracious, Glorious, and Good.

Because, in this season, the first step of "go" involves not leaving.

Transition - Peace and Fearlessness

We're going through transition with the high schoolers. Dead center of that space between when the youth pastor announced that he was leaving for a different job at a different campus of the church and when he actually leaves.

Muddling our way through this place. Looking forward. Planning for the future. But, not too far forward. Because no one knows what, who, comes next.

The leaders have done this before, walked through these transitions, these fuzzy gray areas between one youth pastor and the next. Five during my student years. Two more not long after. And, then this long space.

By some miracle, these kids have never faced a transition that wasn't precipitated by a change in grade. Since sixth grade, they have known the same middle school pastor, the same high school pastor.

A sameness that has shaped their view of church, themselves, of God.

And, I'm not certain how to write about it, because every week, every day, is a little bit different. Rife with the uncertain endings that make me so hesitant to put things down in black and white. Moments that come like the uneven rise of the tide. Pulled and buffeted by forces that we cannot see.

Nature's reminder that our small bay is a part of a bigger ocean.

That knowing the details is an attribute of the past, not the future. That it would be just as foolish to attribute everything that these kids are walking through to this transition as it would be to give it no credit for what is going on in their lives. That this is little more than a heartbeat in the scope of eternity.

So, I'll lay out the moments as they pass, memorial stones on the beach to mark where we've been, where we're going.

The first few awkward days where some people knew, but not everyone, not yet. And, we spent cluster fumbling through half conversations and knowing looks with student leadership girls who had had their rug yanked out from under them. While the rest of the group continued on as normal.

Holding those ones back at the end, and having a quiet, shell shocked conversation.

Excited for the youth pastor who is moving on to something that he loves. Sorting through what will change (as little as possible for now) and what will stay the same. Visibly relaxing at the news that a woman who they love and trust will be at the head of the transition.

Waiting. Sitting on this silent knowing.

The Sunday where he tells the rest of the kids. The student leaders tense all evening, waiting for this blank space in the schedule, carved out but unnamed.

A Haiti kid settling next to me on the floor. Another conversation that is half formed words and loaded glances. That checking in that makes things better, easier to face when you are not alone. Nerves that are 30% the youth pastor and 70% the rest of us. The moment where it ceases to be a secret.

A clump of kids in the front of the room. A clump of leaders talking it through in the back. Always coming around to that all important question, "How are the kids doing with it?"

The kids are fine. The kids are a mess. Every kid is different in every moment. Heedless of the change at one breath. Flipping out at the next. Grieving long before they have figured out what it is that they are grieving. Long before they have begun to put words or thoughts to these feelings roiling up inside them.

Determined to stick it out. Wanting to run from all of it. Hurting. Uncertain. Moving on with the resilience that is humanity.

Normality for a week or two. Unnamed undercurrents as processing continues.

Leaders' meeting. Strategy. Questions.

Cluster with beautiful girls who watched this video a few weeks ago and now arm themselves with paper and markers to dissect a verse. Delve into the tenses and the translations of Greek words. Cross references. Personal application. The agency of Divine sacrifice.

We're going through a "Fearless" series as a church. Exploring the concept of peace as a cluster. A God who will be glorified in all things.

Trust. Community. Honesty. Peace.

Memorial stones on the shore, even when the unknown comes in like the tide.

Colored Grace

"Colorful."

We're talking about characteristics of God in large group, and one of my fifth graders starts with the suddenness of having an answer. 

"God is colorful because He loves everything and everyone."

"Earthquake" doesn't make much sense, even when I try to whisper explain the story mid song. She knows what jail is like. Dad is in jail for a long time, and it isn't anything like that. Better not be anything like that.

The presenter keeps asking "easy" questions like "Could you trust your father to keep your money for you?" where the expected answer is "yes." Even though, clearly, it should be a "no." Dad is not a man who should be trusted, not like that, anyways.

But, she knows this.

Knows that God is colorful and God is Love.

My mind flashes to the "adventures" I/we've been going on on Tuesday nights with a group of kids, the imaginary trips around the world. Pink lakes in Australia. Rainbow mountains in China. Beautiful places that couldn't be real. Shouldn't be real. But, are.

Yes, God is Colorful. Yes, God is Love.

How could the Creator of color not be?

We go outside and half freeze, half thrill in the sunshine, knowing that this won't be an option much longer. Smile and brush her off when she rolls down the hill and comes up soaked and grass covered. Curl up into our space under the stairs. Donate candy to the community outreach bins. Play with markers and cardboard and take ourselves far less than seriously.

Because, she's only been with my group once before, but she already knows that this is how we do Sundays.

Grace and Love and patterns in the midst of the unpredictable.

Patterns that we fall back onto so easily around here. The pictures that my eighth graders take on my phone, knowing that I will post them later. 

Even though my Inst*gram feed tells me that it's been twenty-three weeks since they've last done this, this particular group of them. Since they've used the camera on my phone as proof of reality, connection.

The way that they scramble into line for a game that we don't actually end up playing. Content to let one of the boys throw away the needed game piece (okay, it was a tissue) so long as we're circled up here, together.

To sit tucked between the gaga pit and the wall before service while they talk about next year, about high school and dances and no longer all going to the same private school.

To rip sticky tags into more pieces than ought to be possible during the talk and fidget like we're making them sit on hot coals during this lesson on suffering, but silently hand them over when I begin to pile the trash on my phone, add to the pile themselves when they find more.

And, Grace washes over us like salt waves.

A hand beside me slips up during music. They remember what we've said about breakouts and take us at our word. Connections are voiced between suffering and what they've learned about mourning at school.

It's not perfect. There are missteps and moments that I would go back to change. Other kids that I would have pulled into our dance if I had enough hands to hold them all. But, there is Grace. There is laughter and there is honest conversation.

Because God is Colorful and God is Love.

Mess and Ministry

Fall 7:11.

It takes a few extra minutes to get my station set up, because, well, it's hard to use an inflatable that has deflated while you weren't looking.

But, none of the kids seem to mind, brother and sister who slipped out of the holding room with me gladly flipping switches and running circles to help get things up and running again.

And, it takes a little longer because this is the kind of mess that I operate in most frequently. This, "Yes, I really do sort of know what I'm doing -- if by 'know what I'm doing' you mean 'know the names and faces of these kids,'" where I open my eyes wide and find beauty in the chaos of the moment.

And, oh, are they ever beautiful.

Running, jumping, racing, bouncing, yelling, chasing, hiding, flirting, more active than a pack of puppies on Red B*ll, beautiful.

Beautiful and here to connect.

 I stand in the check in sea before we get fully started. Talking with kids while my inflatable slowly deflates on the other side of the church.

With the one who caws my name like a bird call. The one who's waiting for her friends to show up. The one who goes to my school and will use Monday afternoon to talk about church in the cafeteria line. Right now he's uncertain, a little off kilter in the absence of my one with the broken collar bone. But, come Monday, we'll be talking about church at school.

 They don't have to be talking to a leader right now. Just in this room, there are a dozen different games that they could play.

 But, these are middle schoolers, and they are built for connection.

So, we stand here behind the check in tables and create an island, a safe place to land in the midst of a sea of moving bodies.

 G*b* and his bird call almost come with me to set up. That confident assurance that, if I need to be with Jessica, Jessica will let me come.

 I almost let him. Make sure he knows where I am going to be. But, don't tell him he can come. Because, it might be good for G*b*. But, it would break the carefully set parameters that S*th holds in his mind. Which, in turn, would be bad for G*b*.

While S*th would be willing to do that for a friend, he shouldn't have to.

 So, the boys stay, and brother and sister leave with me instead.

But, it doesn't take long for these community wired kids to find where I'm camped outside with an inflatable obstacle course.

Doesn't take too long before we've agreed upon a new set of rules and expectations. Before we're using the inflatable as so much more than a race track.

The tag playing ones are inside and on top and back behind, squeezing down the center to disappear into dim lighting and a constantly moving swarm of bodies.

The conversationalists are perched at the top of the slide and along the many edges, talking and jostling and happy as littles in a blanket fort.

And, the in betweens are being raced through, jumped on, flipped over. As if the entire thing were there purely to be their kingdom.

"Don't sit at the bottom of the slide" and "If you are causing a problem for anyone, you have to move." We keep the rules simple, and, somehow, even with middle schoolers swarming like ants, they manage to follow them. Manage to be respectful of dozens of different needs all at once.

Manage to make this a safe, wild, ridiculous sort of a space.

"Jessica!"
"Jessica, watch!"
"Did you see me?"

They preen and show off and pop back out to check in with me. To earn an arm over a shoulder or looped gently around in a hold that only keeps them still because they want it to.

By the time the next leaders rotate through this spot, things will look completely different. Cleared out. Orderly. Calm.

Unique set of kids.

Because, the way that we run our stations are a microcosm of how we do ministry. Accidentally but intentionally designed to have the flavor of individual leaders. Individual groups of students.

And, this is how I do.

Dozens of kids at once. Extended time. Moving. Talking. Building stories.

Watching. Encourage. Correcting. Connecting.

Flurries of kids and conversations so constant that I can't begin to trap them down in type without the words lapping over each other in dizzying jitters.

But, somehow drowning in Love and Mercy and Grace. Honest and unassuming in our mess and wildness.

Because, there is stillness in the midst of this. Staying put. Carving out a space near a leader and remaining seen and heard. Creating safety and rest in the midst of movement.

Precious seconds where the clocks stop and everything that we are in Christ is enough.

So, I'll watch M*tt** and J*sh flip and fly and body slam into the inflatable. Laugh with G*b* and S*th. Let the 6th grade girls be brave enough to race through the crazy. Lend J*n*h my name tag and pull K*d*n from places that he isn't supposed to be.

Because, this is presence and this is grace and this is faithful consistency from a specific leader to a specific group of kids.

It would drive anyone else nuts. But, for tonight, this is my mess and this is my ministry.