The Hand of Friendship

[The Great Multitude in White Robes] After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.

- Revelation 7:9

I sat down with God's people and collected myself for worship. Out of the corner of my eye I caught an old friend almost gasping for air in excitement as his eyes met mine. He rose to his feet and unapologetically climbed over others to sit beside me and give me his characteristic bear hug, cheek to cheek. 

As we worshipped God with abandon, I looked down and realized he was turned the other way, facing the latecomers as they walked in as unobtrusively as possible. He stuck out his hand to each one for a warm, extended handshake, pointing persistently at the seat next to him, but much to his disappointment, the strangers all shrugged their shoulders regretfully, pointing to a chair ahead, and disappearing back into the crowd. 

He refused to give up and continued to shake strangers hands as the mixed diversity of his company of friends grew, "from every nation, tribe, people and language." The world had arrived at his doorstep, and he was the first to open the door into the throne room of God for all to enter in.

Finally, a couple of men from Jamaica, as it turned out, sat down with us, much to his satisfaction. He clasped their hands with a firm, bracing handshake, and turned to me and smiled, pointing back at them until he was sure I understood the significance of the moment. I nodded and smiled, extending my hand in friendship.   

How Does Jesus Choose His Friends?

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

- John 15:16

Today we launched a new small-group for participants of our Volunteer Work Experience Program. Both clients and their support workers who expressed interest joined in an exploration of friendship with God and each other. We focused today on the friendships that have formed our lives and how God has all the qualities of the perfect friend we're looking for. 

Each of the members had an opportunity to dramatically show off their acting skills as we laughed through various scenarios depicting friendship at its best and worst; we brainstormed and identified the different qualities that mysteriously draw friends together and we played a game of 'Friendship Bingo' to determine the qualities that we look for in a friend. One member of the group was sure she had no friends at all until she looked closely at the friendship qualities on the Bingo card and friends from many walks of life came to mind filling the spaces. As it turned out, she was the first to cry, "Bingo."

We opened our Bibles for spiritual insight as we considered why we choose our friends, thumbing through the pages until we all found the verse we were looking for. I asked the members of the group how they feel when they hear Jesus say, "I chose you"? Tears formed in the eyes of one lady, "I was never chosen by others because of my disability", she said. "I was always left out. Everyone would choose the popular ones to be friends with. Nobody wanted to be with me. So when I hear Jesus telling me that he chose me I feel like someone wants me. I feel important. I am God's chosen friend, even if others don't choose me."

It may be true that at all times God is present, yet there are times when God's felt presence is touchable. We were all touched right then by her vulnerability and simple faith. We are not alone. We have been chosen by a Friend who promises never to leave us. 

God Bless And Watch Over Wonderful You!

For this is what the high and lofty One says -

he who lives forever, whose name is holy:

"I live in a high and holy place,

but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,

to revive the spirit of the lowly

and to revive the heart of the contrite."

- Isaiah 57:15

There is a man in our congregation who loves to send e-cards. When I see him in person I can expect that he'll eagerly ask if I took the time to read his cards online and for my review of his work, so I have been careful not to take these thoughtful cards crafted with careful consideration for granted. Today I opened up my e-mail to find two of his e-cards waiting to be opened, one lined up after another in my inbox. The first e-card displayed the message "God bless wonderful you." The second e-card calling to mind, "My God watch over you." 

For a moment I breathed deeply into God's presence and left the other distractingly urgent e-mails into the good hands of God.  I let the message sink in, a message I've grown up with and have gratefully never outgrown: God is good, God is great. God is fully immanent and transcendent, near enough to bless the lowly in spirit and sovereign enough to watch over wonderful you. I thanked God for His immanental transcendence and returned to my work with the revived heart of the humbled.  

Slow Burning Bush

Look at the nations and watch -

and be utterly amazed.

For I am going to do something in your days

that you would not believe,

even if you were told.

- Habakkuk 1:5

Do not put out the Spirit's fire

- 1 Thessalonians 5:19

Tonight we hosted our first Special Needs Ministry commissioning service for our mission team (including six adults with developmental disabilities) who are heading to Mexico this week, reaching out in ministry with our local partner church in Puerto Vallarta. They will be engaged in advocacy work, education and evangelism while they are there, and of course, they are also anticipating exotic food, fun on the beach, and for most of them, the exhilaration of their first international trip. 

I was pleasantly surprised how many people showed up for this event, revealing how deeply loved and highly valued the members of the team are to our church. I invited the mission team to join me up front and made note of the crowds, expressing to the team how popular they are. "Oh, c'mon Pastor Dallas", one of the team members blurted out behind me, "you're popular too, in your own way." 

Our Special Needs Ministry room was packed full of family members, friends and caregivers, to join us in prayer and to hear the mission team share from their expectant hearts.  One of the team member's hands shot up unhesitatingly; "I would like everyone to know", he said, "I love you all and you are all special to me."

I looked across our cramped room of familiar faces, many who have shared their lives with this man for years; some who are lesser known (but not insignificant through his undiscriminating eyes) and higher profile leaders in our expansive congregation (including the full representation of our executive leadership team and senior pastor). 

I knew that the people of our mission team had influenced many lives from diverse backgrounds in our church, reconfiguring the church itself, but as I looked out across the many faces of recognition, looking up to and not down on the team standing in front of them, eye-to-eye as the hands and feet of Jesus on behalf of our church to the world, I could see the wider embrace of the extended family of God. We gathered around our mission team and laid hands on them, commissioning our team in prayer, sending them out in the world with love and thanksgiving in our hearts for new creative possibilities in God's global mission.

After covering our mission team in prayer our associate pastor invited us all to take two full steps into the centre of the circle for a big group hug, preparing the team for the "heat of Mexico." We all held each other tightly in the sweltering heat, with laughter and the cleansing fire of the Spirit of God consuming the remnants of unbelief.   

Sticking Together

For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.

- Matthew 18:20

It can be challenging to work in an inclusive environment of mixed abilities and speak across able-bodied / disabled barriers. I'm always looking for creative multi-sensory activities that address diverse learning styles and abilities. One activity that never fails though is eating, and one thing we can all agree on is our love for sweets. 

Tonight I brought out a bag of M+M's and asked each person around our circle to pick out at least one and no more than five M+M's. After everyone had chosen their M+M's I placed colored topical cards on the table, with each color matching the M+M's and representing different topics (e.g. yellow=family, orange=sports, green=hobby, etc.). Each individual than had an opportunity to pick one M+M out of their hand and talk about that topic. 

One person opened up his clenched fist and with his other hand held up a brown M+M. My heart sank at the sight of the unmistakably brown M+M held high for all to see. Brown represented the topic "God", and I didn't know how he could possibly share anything meaningful about God, when due to the nature of his disability he was incapable of speaking.

There was an awkward silence and unsure how to fill the silence, I turned to others; "Do you have a question about God for him?" The lady sitting beside me shot her hand up eagerly, "Do you think God is awesome?" with emphasis on the word awesome to stress the outrageousness of her question. He looked up with deep trusting love in his eyes and smiled broadly at us; his confidence in the sovereign care of God apparent to all.

We all praised God for His awe-inspiring sovereignty and for being called together in God's wondrous presence. We all praised God, some quietly and others boisterously, for speaking to us through the most profoundly vulnerable, disabled person among us. From my heart, I praised God for exposing my disabling attitude and practices.

Brett Webb-Mitchell, author of Dancing With Disabilities, writes:

"A great many people with developmental, emotional or physical disabilities have been kept out of the church, because a great many people who appear 'normal' misunderstand the church. Families with and advocates for people with disabilities are often asked by church leaders, "What can they do in church?" or "What will they get out of it?" Some church leaders think of the church and God in pragmatic terms: You can only be a part of this exclusive club if you can do something, and you can't get something by doing nothing."

It was a misunderstanding on my part. My pragmatism had blinded me and I almost missed out on what God wanted to do for all of us, and what he wanted us to get, by sticking together in our dependence on God and inter-dependence with each other. 

With Five Years To Live

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

- Philippians 2:1-2 

In one of our small-groups we have been using a resource developed by our community pastors, entitled, Five Years To Live, addressing the question, "If you had only five years to live, how would you live them?" 

At the very beginning of our study, we created a "community tree" on a large roll of paper and cut out construction-paper leaves to stick on the sprawling branches. Each individual of our group shared what they would like to do in their remaining five years of life. Some members of the group are less verbal than others: one individual simply said, "Mom", and we knew that he would like to spend his time nurturing his relationship with his Mother, while another individual said she would like to visit New Zealand, "where the Lord of the Rings was filmed." 

After our sixth and final session we revisited our community tree under cover of smudged leaves, pushed down in purpose. We turned over our leaves to rewrite our purpose at this point in our personal faith-journey's and our community life - turning over a new leaf, so to speak - and asked each other again, after all we had shared and prayed for over the course of six weeks: what we would do if we only had five years to live?

Everyone had a turn to speak order and purpose into their lives, in their own unique way and timing. As we rambled around the circle, I looked at the blank backside of my leaf and thought about the purpose God had created me for. When it came my turn I gave some forgettable, half-hearted platitudes about loving others. Everyone stared at me politely, but as unconvinced as I was by my detached abstraction.

I turned to the man beside me and raised the question; "What would you like to do if you only had five years to live?" 

"Well..." he looked down at the foot pedals of his wheelchair and thought quietly to himself, "I would like to have a coffee with you and you", he pointed his finger emphatically at me and then another friend. "I'd like to get to know you better, 'cause you're good guys", he said with striking clarity and purposefulness - his arms flapping excitedly and grinning with missing front teeth.

With clearsightedness he invited me to rethink my purpose here. How sincere is my God-talk if I'm not willing to simply sit down over coffee with a friend and get to know others personally, as God in unoccupied availability does for us: slowing down to accommodate the otherness of the other. Love is not a removed abstraction for him. His purpose and identity are defined in relationship to others. Love looks a person straight in another's eyes, acknowledging their presence, up close and personal. 

When it comes time to pray for each other we need to listen creatively in our small-group of mixed abilities. One man who is non-verbal (though he speaks volumes into our lives) will simply point to a person in the room on his mind to express care and invite us to pray over that person. Tonight was my turn. He decisively pointed at me with purpose and a broad smile of full awareness. Love is that simple.   

 

A Pageant of New Life

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

- Colossians 1:27

Christmastime is here again and our Hand Bells Choir was ready to celebrate after a year of faithful practices and successful performances. And so we decorated our room with the life and colours of the season, while the tables were covered with homemade Christmas treats, sharing the taste, sights and sounds of Christmas. 

Lately, I've found myself growing nostalgic for the good old days of Christmas Pageants, and so I decided to draw on the talents and resourcefulness of our inclusive choir of mixed abilities, and stage my own makeshift pageant that evening. With crayon-coloured, cut-out paper Bible characters pasted on chopsticks, choir members chose their favourite character, and just like the very nature of our choir, no one was left out; "Who wants to play the starring role as the barnyard chicken? Oh, me, me...". 

When the stage was set and the curtain raised one of the choir members raised the applause sign and we all gave ourselves an enthusiastic opening round of applause. Another member raised her "ACT I" sign and I began narrating.  Awkwardly, but willingly, we stepped into the Story, which has given new meaning and life to all our unrehearsed stories. 

The members of our choir proudly held up their chopsticks, sometimes with an additional prompting or two; "And the Wise Men..." Our friend with the Wise Men chopstick stared vacantly at me. "Ahem...the Wise Men", the Wise Men suddenly popped up, "followed the star" and the wisemen bobbed up and down on chopstick after the elusive star. The Barnyard animals mooed and neighed and clucked and bayed, chasing shepherds while the choir of angels stood on high to sing the Hallelujah Chorus. 

I continued narrating among the ordered chaos, "And the world held its breath..." There at the centre of all the noisy action, a little, defenseless baby boy, vulnerably held high on a flimsy chopstick: Christ among us, "the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:2)

It was a fitting way to end the year with this welcoming choir who accepted and included me, simply for who I am, even after ringing the wrong bell (only to realize after the song) or pointing at the wrong note for other hand bell players who require pointing aids. God's love is stronger still, strong enough to carry us with our limitations, stronger even than the power of death. 

They accepted me even with my limitations and the disability of my heart, just as God has accepted us in Christ; they love because God loved us first; they included me because God has welcomed me and you and made us a welcoming people too - and together we made beautiful music for God. As I looked out over the floating chopstick bible characters animating the story and listened to the strangely harmonious chorus of our shared lives, I knew I had found a place of belonging in this community of hand bell players.    

With our final Act upon us, the pageant was coming to a close; "And they named him, 'Emmanuel', which means..." 

In front of me Mary stuck up her hand and blurted out, "Oh I know - God with us". 

"That's right" I nodded approvingly.

The living and loving God right here with us, here in the midst of simple, humble hearts, gathering together in the name of Jesus; Love incarnated in our human-all-too-human condition, with the promise of new life, the eternal life of God.