You may have heard that popular artist Thomas Kinkade died last week. You may love him or hate him but there's no denying his art appealed to many folks who have an emotional connection to his paintings. There was a sense of warmth, nostalgia and memory about them. Although I can tell an impressionist from cubist I'm no art critic, but there is one form of art I've always been excited about - refrigerator art. Unless you are a grandparent or a parent, refrigerator art is not on your must see list. There's no refrigerator art gallery. Sotheby's doesn't hold auctions when famous refrigerator artists die. But I love it just the same. Refrigerator art is the lexicon of secret communication between small children and their parents. Drawings of scribbles... faces with spikey hair... tanks with ginormous gun barrels... children with three fingered hands and giant thumbs... House's with smoke stacks and green smoke... all of them part of the secret world - the inner world of a child. When such offerings are proffered the parent feels as special - perhaps more special - than the child. He or she is being "let in" to the child's inner life with a simple joyful connection. "Look Daddy! Look at what I did! Look at what I can draw!"
As a parent I valued such art and displayed it proudly. My children are nearly grown now so their offerings don't go on the refrigerator any more - although they are no less precious to me. Yet when I visit another parent's home and observe a small child's artwork on the fridge, I know with a wink and a nod that the father and mother of that house feels the same way. Perhaps this is self-evident, but the value of the artwork is not due to its quality. It's the giving, the sharing and the giver that makes it special. It's not what they have to offer that matters but the act of offering coupled with how precious they are to the recipient. It's the "letting me in" nature of the gift that matters. That's why these treasures are powerful. It's why they are sometimes saved long after they have faded and frayed and their authors have gone on to have families of their own. A mom or a dad remembers the joy and the pleasure of a small child's gift to a parent.
So it is with our lives and our worship. Jesus wants us to come to him as little children - unpretentious, unabashed, offering what we are and what we have. But we can easily get it twisted. We sometimes think that it is the gift that he values and not the giving and the giver.
On a clear summer morning in 1987 I was a youth pastor still wet behind the ears as I drove a tiny Azuzu compact up highway 58 across what I remember as "Powell Mountain". As a Midwesterner from the flat plains of Illinois and Iowa, I had taken a position at an Assembly of God Church in Big Stone Gap VA. The landscape was alien. Huge majestic mountains blanketed in rich hard wood and conifers. Coal trains more than 100 cars long rumbled through the small towns making their ponderous journey beyond the mountains. The little towns of southwest Virginia nestle into the crooks and spurs of the mountains. As they take shape they send out tendrils of roads and buildings like the runners of a willful vine. In this part of Virginia no road is straight. Instead, roads are built along the path of least resistance. This makes them challenging to drive.... and arrestingly beautiful. You can be trundling along a narrow road with trees closing in around you, when suddenly the road bursts out onto a panoramic view so achingly lovely it will take your breath away. On that clear summer day I remember the view from the Powell Mountain overlook - pristine and magical and like nothing I'd ever seen before.
No less alien to me where the people. They spoke with a drawn out pace and drawl that I never mastered. The pace of life was slower and sweeter - not the hurley burley of Chicago where I had grown up. They were fierce in a way I had not anticipated - fierce in friendship and fierce in their love for God. And one of the fiercest was Mike Jenkins. He loved God with a passion. He was generous to a fault. His zeal was not the damaging, clannish zeal that exchanges love for power and self-worth. It was the zeal of a man who had lived for himself and found rescue in Jesus. He walked in gratitude and the love of Christ shown through him in a gentle radiance.
On this morning I was on my way to see Mike. He lived in between Big Stone Gap and Pennington Gap in a small town that I remember as "Dot". I could not find it on Google Maps so perhaps it's gone now - or perhaps I am mis-remembering. The town was so small I do not even recall what it looked like. But I remember Mike that day. He was a well-built man 8 years older than me. Tall, with long hair in faded blue jeans and a genuine smile. At the time I only barely knew him (I'd only been there about a month). Mike was a youth leader in our group and the only thing I knew about him was that he loved the kids and was willing, friendly and supportive of this new tenderfoot. I had traveled out to see his place and spend some time getting to know him. Although I did not have the sense to understand it at the time (I had yet to see myself through Jesus' eyes), Mike's story was partly my story and partly yours as well.
He began to share how he struggled with father issues and his view of God. He told of years of Drug dealing and addiction, trouble with the law, bad decisions leading to divorce and finally a hospital stay facing an amputation of his leg. God turned his life around at that rock bottom spot we all talk about but shudder to go through. So this man with the gentle blue eyes that crinkled (even then) at the corners when he smiled or laughed, had traveled a long hard road to find Jesus.
Is this always true? Does it always take suffering and consequences to make us accept his love for us? I'm not sure. I only know that the people I admire the most, like Mike Jenkins, have traveled a long road - and it is the traveling that seems to enhance the grace I see in their lives. Mike and I became friends. I was not a terribly good friend, thinking mostly about myself at that time in my life. But Mike supported me in every way he could during my 3 years in Big Stone Gap. When it came time for me to marry my lovely wife Ann, Mike stood for me as one of the groomsmen. He was steadfast as a leader too - a great example to the young lives in our church (including me).
Going Home
Last week while traveling back from a church service where he was speaking, Mike was killed in a car accident. When I saw this news, posted on Facebook by his wife Denise, all my memories of Mike and Denise and Big Stone Gap and the youth group came flooding back. It is a world I left far behind some 23 years ago. Still, I remember Mike so vividly praying at the alter with our teens, and laughing over some joke or funny story. I guess I never realized he was still a part of my life - that his testimony and his life in front of me steadied me and had an impact. In later years he became an evangelist and by the look of the pictures on his website (mjea.org) he continued to cut a wide swath for the Kingdom of God both here in churches, youth groups and prisons, and even in Kenya. I was blessed to see it - but not surprised. Mike's heart was in tune with Jesus' heart and it led him true.
Of course my deepest sympathies go out to Denise and to all Mike's family and friends. He will certainly be sorely missed, and the impact of his death goes deep and touches all of us who knew him. I'm sure his homecoming was an awesome and joyful heavenly event. I'm praying that his family and friends will rest in the arms of Jesus during while they mourn. It's my fervent prayer that in the years to come the pain that is so near right now will fade into that dull, fond ache of remembering a life well spent, and a knowledge that we will all be reunited someday. I love you Mike.
One of my heroes growing up was Nicky Cruz. In 1964, a year before I was born, my Father worked with Nicky Cruz at Teen Challenge in New York City. Nicky's story was riveting. He was a leader in a violent street gang who lived by the knife and the gun. Yet he came to know God through the sacrificial love of a country preacher called to share the gospel on the mean streets. It was pretty compelling stuff and the topic of Wilkerson's book, "The Cross and the Switchblade". In 1970 the book became a movie starring the impossibly sincere Pat Boone as David and the toothy and irrepressible Erik Estrada in his screen debut as Nicky. The likeness to both is uncanny. The movie was a breakthrough in Christian media at the time.
Nicky was exotic to a youngster approaching adolescence. He was a man given over to violence, drugs, and crime. But he surrendered to Jesus, left it all behind and even led many of his gang to Christ. I love stories like that. I didn't know anyone like Nicky but the story seemed to resonate with the awesome power of Christ. Yet sometimes, in my more contemplative moments, I can see that I take exactly the wrong message from such testimonies. In my mind Nicky personified the "worst case scenario." God was able to pull him out of the worst kind of sin and set him firmly on the Rock. Cool stuff but what did it mean to me? It should have meant God can reach anybody and no matter how far you run he'll chase you down like Popeye Doyle. It should have meant that his love is boundless... that it reaches to the heavens and to whatever hell you choose to live in. That's what it should have meant - you can't outrun God. But our inner man has ways of twisting the truth...
Some of you may know that I'm an active part of the "Advance" project. By active part I mean I'm acting as a booster, making calls on the call team, attending desserts and considering how much lettuce to throw in the plate. The purpose of this post is not to extol the virtues of the "multi-campus" experience but rather to explore what it means to be a part of a body. I'm going to use myself as an example. Now using oneself as an example is risky business. There's always a chance someone will take your introspection as hubris. Please know that it's not my intent to hold myself up as some sort of exemplar. We all tell stories that spring from the well of our experience and relationships. So in a way anyone who picks up a pen is playing the sage. But that doesn't mean I have it all together. Far from it. A quick glance at past posts (like this one) will show you that I consider my journey quite incomplete - but when I arrive I will let you know.
Meanwhile let's spend a moment talking about Advance.
I waited a few weeks to post this. As an avid reader of history I am still unsure of my footing here. Moreover, I always hesitate to post anything that someone might take as "political". I assure you that there is not overt or covert "political" opinion here and I am not trying to persuade. As always my goal is to expose my heart in a way that, perhaps, might be helpful to others so we can all strive and struggle together. With that in mind:
Curt Lovegren came into the office on May 2nd and of course the chatter around the water cooler was all about the death of Osama Bin Laden. We had just heard Pastor Les revisit his "trees" analogy and he had been thinking about "living out of the tree of life". As we chatted he asked me, "How do you reconcile this event - this killing - with the tree of life. I mean it's difficult not to feel good about it, but surely that sense of justice is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?" That got me thinking....