Andy's Blog: A Personal Word

July 2007 Archive

July 18, 2007

Jul. 18, 2007

Just a snapshot of a week of ministry here at Trinity:
• Last week was Trinity’s turn to host temporarily homeless families as part of the Birmingham Hospitality Network, an organization we have been a part of since it came to Birmingham ten years ago.

• Early Friday morning, a Volunteers in Mission team left for Bolivia where they will be working with missionary Kay Twilley, leading a Vacation Bible School and helping with a construction project.

• On Sunday morning, 35 youth and adults left for a week at SOS in Memphis. This team will spend the week doing home repairs for the low income and elderly families as a part of this Christian ministry in that city.

• On Friday, I stopped by the lot where the Trinity Habitat House is being built. Ground was broken just a week ago, but already there was a Trinity crew there framing the house. I met the family who will live in the house, Dannan Ellis and her two daughters. I can’t tell you how excited they are about their new home, and how thankful they are to those working to make it possible.

• On Monday morning, we had 300 children ages 3 years through 3rd grade arrive for Vacation Bible School – a new record! Wesley Hall was packed to the rafters with
smiling faces.

All of these ministries are touching and changing lives. None of them would be possible without you. All of these ministries are staffed almost exclusively by lay people living out their baptism in acts of ministry. Literally hundreds of people are involved.

Recently, I have read reviews of a couple of books that attack religion in general – Christianity, in particular, as being the source of most of what is wrong with the world. From where I sit, I see just the opposite. I see a faith in a living Christ who is at work making things right in the world.

July 11, 2007

Jul. 11, 2007

Tom Peters has written, “The challenge is to regain our childhood curiosity and thirst for learning. We were really interesting by age 4, pretty interesting at age 7 and phenomenally boring at age 35…let alone at age 51…”

Life has a way of wearing us down. We get jaded with the “been there done that attitude.” We are bored with life. Along with age often comes cynicism, the belief that nothing new or truly good can happen. Or, if not cynicism, we grow lethargic – unwilling to push ourselves to venture beyond what we think we already know.  The church in the middle ages labeled lethargy as one of the seven deadly sins.  It can kill the spirit.

Jesus said it before Tom Peters, to enter the kingdom we must become like children. Jesus is not talking about being naive. I think what he is talking about is this spirit of openness, expectancy, curiosity. Too often in life we live with a sense of the “if only” of regret. Children live with a sense of “what if” of possibility. There is a difference!

If indeed we believe in a risen Lord, ours is a faith that dares to believe “what if.” We look at the problems of our lives and of the world, and instead of throwing up our hands in despair – we dare to imagine “what if.” Jesus was never boring!

On Sunday, we broke ground for a Habitat House that Trinity is building in the Rosedale community. Habitat began when one person looked at the seemingly overwhelming problem of homelessness in our world, and instead of throwing up his hands in despair, he imagined “what if.” Today, Habitat for Humanity has built more than 200,000 houses, sheltering more than 1,000,000 people in more than 3,000 communities worldwide. And as an aside, the United Methodist Church has built more Habitat Houses than any other other denomination.

One of the great things about Trinity is that this is a “what if” congregation, open to God’s leading. Thanks for not being boring.

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