Prayer Garden Walk Reflection

This reflection post is from guest blogger Tiffany C, one of our walkers of the 4K prayerwalk and garden fundraiser on 10/31/09. A gardener herself, she also started one of our neighborhood gardens in Monterey Park and helps maintain our current gardens. Pictures courtesy of Tiffany as well.

When I take the time to walk someplace instead of drive (if possible) I notice things that I wouldn’t if I was inside a car. When I sit in a car with the heater on or the air conditioner blowing, the windows up, and music playing, I am blocked off from the world around me; I don’t notice the details I am driving by. On the prayerwalk this past Saturday it was an opportunity to notice the details in the city. I saw beauty: roses, birds of paradise, pumpkins, pomegranates, and new growth on trees…Fall. I saw neighbors: people going on walks, working on their garden, washing cars. I saw community: churches preparing for a Fall festival, friends walking and talking with each other, and new friendships being made. As we prayed for the city of Monterey Park we were blessed with meeting new brothers and sisters in this city. It was a blessing to experience God’s children acting as one body, regardless of what church we go to on Sunday or our political affiliations.

I am so excited about what God is doing in this place. It is so encouraging to see people praying for neighbors they do not know, for students, and businesses. I am so excited about the neighborhood gardens that are growing. It is a blessing for me to be a part of planting these gardens and helping them grow. I can see how they are helping build community and friendships in addition to just growing a crop of vegetables. And I can’t wait to have a harvest that is bountiful so that we can share food to our neighbors, some of whom may be hungry. For where there is food people will gather.

Space to Care

On the right is a picture of the crumb of one of my favorite crusty breads, ciabatta.Those huge holes are like caverns to explore and collapse as you eat it, the aftermath of a perfect storm of bubbly yeast, heat and moisture interacting with the dough.

This week I was reminded of how much space we need to clear in our calendars to be caring. And by caring, I mean being available for others in a way that's an unhurried exchange. In yeast breads, flavor and crumb are formed best when there are long rise times. So it is with our appointments.

The nature of community work with Kingdom Causes seems never ending in my mind: there's always another contact, another church, another meeting, another project, another deadline, another grant to pursue. It may be just because it's all new to me, so I haven't fully settled into a rhythm yet. But it can easily feel overwhelming.

Still, this week I've had the chance to have dinner with my neighbors, meet with a friend I haven't met with in awhile, have an extended meeting with KCAMP's intern and a local pastor, and share breakfast (unplanned) with some guys who helped me grab soil from Home Depot for one of the gardens. In each of these meetings, it was unhurried time, an open-ended appointment. No dashing about to the next thing, the next deadline. There was space to care.

I suppose this sort of "scheduling my margins" is a foil for my other job, which is often about efficiency and immediate results. Folding in the space to care will be difficult, even though it's so necessary!

True Treasures

I had two experiences of drumming up support for Kingdom Causes this week: on Monday, a traditional golf marathon fundraiser, and last night, an opportunity to speak to one of the adult fellowships at my old church. The first had the usual pieces: e-mail blasts, personal phone calls (even Facebook chats) all to raise funds for this upcoming year. Normal fundraising stuff for a typical fundraiser.

I approached last night's talk like your typical missionary asked to come to a church: trying to figure out how to be the most inspiring so they would want to get involved or give. But at some point I revisited an exercise called the "treasure hunt" I learned from ABCD (Asset Based Community Development) training, which became the main "recruitment" piece of my sharing.

Basically, every person writes down on post-its 3 things that are related to things they know (head), things they are passionate about (heart), and things they know how to do (hand). We share with the whole group our "treasures," post them on a board, then organize them into like categories as stuff shared inevitably overlaps.

After we organized the many treasures, I basically told the group that when we think of reaching our community, we often forget that within ourselves God has already given us many interests, passions, and talents that can be used for his mission. We have such and such ministries you can get involved in with Kingdom Causes, but I'd rather they start with their God-given assets instead of having them fit "my" agenda. I did share about what we do now, but that was much shorter than I originally planned.

Henri Nouwen called fundraising as ministry a new way of relating people to their resources (as defined by time, talents, and money). It is actually a conversion process. I hope the treasure hunt exercise was a new way for the group to see themselves not merely as people needing more outlets for engaging their community, but that they already possess vast resources to shape whatever direction the Lord leads them.

Psalm 23 and Mission

Left: Photos of shepherd's crooks used for leading sheep (taken by Crag Face, 7/4/02


Yesterday I participated in a 1/2 day retreat with the Fuller class I'm auditing on spiritual formation. We were given Psalm 23 as our focus Scripture to meditate on.

"He makes me lie down in green pastures..." I realized it says "he MAKES me"...but the image it conjured up was my new role as a parent, "making" my baby's schedule, putting her to sleep at her bedtime though she at times seemingly protests. Am I being paternalistic? You bet I am! But at this fundamental stage of life, she needs me to shepherd her in this way.

And speaking of roles, this Psalm also reminded me that with all my roles, especially the ones where I take a leadership role, I must never forget the one role that will always be around, no matter what other roles fall to the wayside: being a sheep--a child of God. It is an eternal role I will never outgrow. Like my daughter, I must also be like her in that implicit trust she has when I take her out of her crib. I may not always be able to DO something for God, but I can always sit at his feet attentively.

The last thing about this verse is that only when the Lord my shepherd makes me lie down/besides still waters does he "restore my soul." I never saw this as a process before, just an unconnected list. But now I see I can not find refreshment of the soul if I have not stopped and ceased from all the activity in my life periodically.

There were some final questions I never got to at the end, but helped me to frame my thinking about next year with Kingdom Causes:

1. How has the Shepherd been preparing you to extend his reign through you in the role to which he has called you?
2. How has he been shepherding specific people in your place of ministry/work? How might he want to shepherd them?
3. How is he shepherding structures for which you have responsibility?

Community Building Intergenerationally

This was a new garden we set up in Monterey Park yesterday to add to the community gardens we've started in the summer. The grandmother of the woman who lives at this location mentioned to me that in the 68 (!) years she's lived in Monterey Park, there have been many gardens grown in her backyard. Ears of corn, squash, tomatoes and all manners of veggies were grown which also helped to feed the 4 kids that grew up at this house.

I also appreciated how the grandmother said with pride about her granddaughter how she was "doing her grandfather right" by growing food again after many fallow years. And that blessing sparked me to think that part of what these gardens do in building community is that they can bring the generations together. They should bring the generations together!

Anyway, when these beds are overflowing with veggies, we're growing to throw a "harvest party" for the neighborhood...young and old and of course, those young at heart!

Meeting with the Mayor

This past Thursday the Monterey Park pastors group met with the mayor of the city. It was refreshing to hear a committed Christian share his unlikely journey from a small town in Saskatchewan to having an office in the city council. I was impressed with his candor and honesty with the often grey and cutthroat world of political life, and how integrity and clear ethical boundaries were needed to survive without compromise.

But when we asked what it would mean for the churches to be more involved in the city, I don't think it was necessarily the "magic" answer that we may have expected. Perhaps we expected "the top" to have the best ideas and wisdom. Maybe we had thought it was going to be an easy "this is the most important priority for our city, please help us."

Instead, we got what is reminiscent of Jesus' words, "the first shall be last." Getting involved with various organizations like the PTA or city events was his main suggestion. Getting back to the grassroots, to our local neighborhoods. "But whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant" (Mark 10:43). Jesus said this in the context of the disciples jockeying for positions of influence. We too can be seduced by the desire for more influence and access to the corridors of the powerful, even as we seek the Kingdom in our city. So I liked that reminder that the way up is always down.

The Risen Christ Got There Ahead of Me

Eunice my intern and I started a "Missional Living" Sunday School class last week at my former church in Monterey Park. I spoke from Scripture how God is a missionary God, that mission is part of his inherent nature in the Trinity, and one significant implication for us is to recognize that God is already up to something before we arrive to "do mission." I'm excited to see how the class can be a space to excite people's imaginations for the Kingdom. I'm excited to see how the two pictures can make sense rather than seem like two unconnected worlds!

Read another devotion from Eugene Peterson today (an excerpt from Under the Unpredictable Plant) that relates to this truth about mission flowing from the heart of God:


In every visit, every meeting I attend, every appointment I keep, I have been anticipated. The risen Christ got there ahead of me. The risen Christ is in that room already. What is he doing? What is he saying? What is going on?

In order to fix the implications of that text in my vocation, I have taken to quoting it before every visit or meeting: "He is risen,...he is going before you to 1020 Emmorton Road; there you will see him, as he told you." Later in the day it will be, "He is risen,...he is going before you to St. Joseph's Hospital; there you will see him, as he told you." When I arrive and enter the room I am not so much wondering what I am going to do or say that will be pastoral as I am alert and observant for what the risen Christ has been doing or saying that is making a gospel story out of this life. The theological category for this is prevenience, the priority of grace. We are always coming in on something that is already going on. Sometimes we clarify a word or feeling, sometimes we identify an overlooked relationship, sometimes we help recover an essential piece of memory--but always we are dealing with what the risen Christ has already set in motion, already brought into being.

If we are all ministers of Christ, we are "always coming in on something that is already going on." To me, it's a relief to know that it's not all up to me to make something happen; the risen Christ is already there! Can I get an AMEN?!?