If someone wanted to tell your story

Last week, a great literary hero of mine, David Halberstam, was killed in a car accident in the San Francisco area. He was being driven by a journalism student at the time and was on his way to deliver a speech to students. Undoubtedly in the car on the way over, he was already sharing wisdom, listening intently, and telling stories. Just things he was always famous for doing.

Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his work covering Vietnam, also had a passion for sports and chose to write about them later in his career. He wrote books about football, basketball, and also three of the finest baseball books ever written. His book The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship is one of my favorite books I have ever read, and I have had countless conversations about this book with friends, family, colleagues, and strangers. I stayed up until one in the morning one night watching a documentary about this book on ESPN Classic. I love discussing it's powerful story and the journey it takes the reader on and the humbleness with which it is written. Let me give you a brief and hopefully adequate explanation of the book.

It is October 2001, and, amidst everything that is going on in the country, old friends got in the car together to make a 1,300 mile trip to Florida to see their mutual friend who is slowly dying.

Dom Dimaggio, Bobby Doerr, Johnny Pesky, and Ted Williams were all teammates for 10 years on some great Boston Red Sox teams in the 1940's. In that time, they came to be the closest of friends, learning from each other and sharing with each other their thoughts on hitting, fishing, girls, the future, or anything else an old ballplayer talks about. Years down the road, Williams inevitably became very ill, and it was clear he would not make it much longer. So the other guys piled in the car to go see him for what, they knew, would be the last time.

Their short journey in the car became a metaphor for the journey they had taken the last 60 years of their lives. They had grown together, lived together, traveled together, won together, and lost together. But in all those times and over 60 years, their friendship never changed. And now they were losing one of their own.

For many people in the public eye, we have authors like Halberstam to record their stories, and they do it with eloquence and grace that few of us can match. But what about your life? What about my life? How would it read if someone were to write your story near the end of your life?

Would you be seen as a great friend? Someone who was compassionate? Someone who people desperately wanted to be around because of the comfort you gave to everyone: the accepted and the marginalized?

Truthfully, your story is being written every day of your life. In your conversations, in your actions, in your reactions to struggles, pages upon pages are being written on the hearts of everyone around you. They are learning about your past, witnessing your present, and predicting your future.

Does your story reflect a life you want them to have? Does your story portray the great freedom that we can offer people through Christ?

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 says:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord.....

Our lives, unveiled and stripped down for all to see, just a like a great book would be, are on display for everyone. When we are living a story pleasing to God, we reflect Him and His freedom.

And, just like the four teammates were transformed over 60 years from rough-edged young ballplayers to loyal, honest men, so we too are being transformed with God and in God.

So, may the story you are writing be one of excitement, intrigue and happiness. But, more importantly, may it be a great novel that others study and investigate and wonder how so much meaning and fulfillment can fit in just a few short pages of life. God is co-authoring with you, and with you, he wants to write a masterpiece. A story that will reflect you, and one that will reflect Him.

Ryan

Summer plans

Last night, at the Gibson's house, we talked ever-so-briefly about some of our summer plans and how we want to have our groups look over the next three or four months.

Essentially, we are going to combine groups for the summer and involve as many people as possible in the planning and participation. Here are the details:

A sign-up sheet went around last night with blanks on each Sunday night beginning May 13. Each Sunday night thru August 12, we are asking two people to host the group (and facilitate the God time), and two different people to arrange the food. With the two groups combined, we have plenty of houses and apartments to go around, and plenty of people who will lead a discussion, a prayer time, singing, or whatever. Last night, we took care of the first five weeks of summer, but we will keep passing the list around until we fill up July and August.

If you are hosting the group one week, you won't be responsible for arranging food unless you absolutely want to; two other people will be in charge of that. All we ask is that you arrange for whatever we will be discussing/doing that evening that is substantive. Plenty of us are available to help, so just ask if you are unsure what to do.

The following weeks will not be at people's homes because of different conflicts or other events:
May 6 - Senior Sunday at Southeast
May 27 - Memorial Day Weekend
August 19 - End of summer party

So look for the list to be passed around in class and group the next couple of weeks and be thinking about when you might be able to host/provide food for everyone. Some people will have to go twice, but we will limit that as much as possible.

Now, on to another project we announced:

Last night, I mentioned an idea some of us have been thinking about since we had a Life Group about poverty not too long ago. We have a tremendous opportunity in this city to give of our time and resources to the thousands who don't have what we do. We obviously can't do it for everyone, but we can for some. That being said, the idea was proposed to adopt a little league team or youth baseball team in an underpriveleged area and provide the uniforms, the equipment, the coaching, the fans, the practice, and anything else they need for games. This would give kids a chance to play who never have been able to before, and give parents the opportunity to watch their children having so much fun, without worry about costs. I am doing some research on this this week and will then be asking for volunteers in the days to come. Unfortunately, the official Little League organization in America (the one out of Williamsport) started their season at the end of March, so we might have to get a but creative. But I will let you know....

Also, this Sunday night, April 29, we will have a game night at Ben and Rachel Crain's house for all that can attend. More information will come this week in class.

-Ryan

Wait a minute, I didn't park over here...

One of the things I have had the great fortune to be able to do in my life is experience wonderful church and worship services all over this country and the world. Last weekend in Chicago, I was able to attend a Saturday night Easter service at Willow Creek Community Church outside the city. The campus is a beautiful building with seats for thousands surrounded by fountains and greenery and water falling down rocks. Inside, there is a restaurant, bookstore, children's center, and coffee shop. The senior pastor is named Bill Hybels (or at Wiki) and he delivered a wonderful message about life transformation and the power of the resurrection. It was your typical Easter lesson that did not include much substance or controversey, but with the theater-style videos and the worship band, it was truly a great and inspirational service.

One of the things he mentioned stuck with me, and I think it was because it was something I had never thought of before. If you're like me, you have read the bible through on one of those yearly plans once or twice. Through a lot of the old testament, I would find myself reading just to finish and not appreciating the meaning behind the stories and the laws and the examples. Well, one of those was pointed out to me on Saturday night. Hybels briefly referenced Ezekiel 46:9. Here is what it says:

"When the people of the land come before the LORD at the appointed feasts, whoever enters by the north gate to worship is to go out the south gate; and whoever enters by the south gate is to go out the north gate. No one is to return through the gate by which he entered, but each is to go out the opposite gate."

Hybels asked why we thought God would set up this rule for His people? What difference does it make? Isn't it more inconvenient to do it that way?

Well, the previous eight verses discuss how God's people should enter the temple, what days it will be accessible, how the prince should act, what sacrifices to bring, etc. But in all of these things, God's chosen flock too often missed the point, and he begins to point it out to them in Isaiah 1:11 and elsewhere:

"The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats."

In all of their attempts to get it right and present their burnt offering for sin atonement, they completely missed the point. The point of this ritual, of the ceremony, is to be in the presence of God and be changed by His power. And that's the point of Ezekiel 46:9. It is a metaphor for them. God basically says, "When you are in my presence, I don't want you leaving the same way that you came in. I want you to be a changed person."

So he created an example for them to follow so they could literally not leave the same way that they came.

God tries to pass on a message to them and to us as well through this scripture. The way I read this, I can see how it directly applies to me today. Our church services and worship and bible studies have too often become ritualistic and structured and "by the book." Too much of the time, I find myself going through the motions, doing what God "wants," and then getting back to my real life. But Ezekiel 46 reminds me that whenever I enter into God's presence, whenever he is around, wherever he works in my life, I can't help but leave a changed person.

In your lifetime, people will come and go, but there are inevitably some that stick out in my mind as ones that have impacted my life to the point where I am a better person because of them. My wife and my parents, obviously; Daddy Jack, Bryan Mason, Adam Gray, David Gibson, Cliff Fridge, and on and on.

I am sure you have a list as well.

But imagine a person like that who was always with you, always encouraging you, always carrying you when you needed it. Could such a thing happen? It does happen. You can't help but be changed when God works, and when He empowers you.

One of the things Hybels kept mentioning Saturday night was, "why can't you leave tonight changed by God? Does it seem so hard to believe? Can you not imagine being a different person tonight?"

Admittedly, sometimes it is hard. Sometimes it does seem impossible. I'm beyond change.

But God's answer is always the same: "Bigger miracles have happened before. Why not come in the north gate and exit through the south. Let's just see what happens."

I don't know about you, but I am excited to see.

-Ryan