The end and the beginning

My apologies for not blogging in a while, (for anyone who actually reads this) I have been busy with some wild stuff this semester and have finally had some time after the lunacy to sit down and get some thoughts down as the year has come to a close. Yes you heard right, my Junior year of college ended Thursday night as I took my last final. It's incredible to think, really, how fast the time has gone. Think about this for a second...I graduate from college in 1 year?! It has been incredible.

So what's been happening....

First, I have completed my move down to New Jersey for the summer where I will be living, leading worship at my church, and hopefully working. But it's more than that really. I've been praying about finding a job that connects me with the people here in Morristown. I've written a little before about being "missional" in how ministry is done. And I know it's a buzz word in the emerging church movement but I want to dwell on it and maybe define how I see it a little more and what that means for me this summer.

I think this blog has become about being missional. About living the life God has given to us to the fullest no matter what context one might find themselves in. By that I mean, living the life of freedom and truth that we have received through Jesus Christ and by living that life others around us want to know what makes us "tick" so-to-speak. So with that definition of being missional, I'm looking forward to that being the epitome of my summer. As I have asked God to put me in situations where I can be a light He has very seriously answered me and provided a means of working in some ways this summer. My most immediate opportunity is playing for a coffeehouse on a secular campus next week where I can sing some of my own songs that have been birthed out of this journey with Jesus. I'm praying for God's anointing on the music so that people would hear it and want to know what exactly it is they see coming from me and as a result I'm hoping people will begin to ask questions, and perhaps begin to feel their hearts being stirred by there Father and Lover who is calling them back to Himself.

I suppose this is the tune of my summer, and something that this year at school has prepared me for. While it is the end of an incredibly life changing year, it is the birth and beginning of something fresh, exciting and full of God's faithfulness and love.

The Next Step in a Journey...

I started realizing the inconstancies sometimes of blogging about my travels when, for right now, they aren't happening all of the time. However, here are some things that have been rolling over in my head and are looking to possibly happen for the future...

Ensenada, Mexico 2009! I'm headed down to Ensenada with my church for a week long missions trip to build houses and help be Jesus to the people of that city. It will be really exciting to see my friend Greg who has been following God's call down in Louisiana, but will be joining us in Mexico for the week trip. I've been to Mexico one other time in the past but I feel this is a time when I have started to understand my calling better. To a point where I know a little better about what it means to be missional with people and be Jesus to them.

Missional may sound kind of complex, but it's really just a buzz word that a lot of emerging churches are using to describe how we do ministry and church in the world. It is an approach the means more than just going up to someone and telling them they need Jesus. It's about showing a genuine interest in a persons well being. It's about building relationships with people and helping them with not just spiritual needs, but emotional and physical ones as well. It's about loving people period no matter where they are.

So when I say I'm going to be missional with the people of Ensenada, Mexico that's basically what I mean. It's a new place for me personally to be at. I'm not just going on a missions trip for the sake of going on a missions trip. I'm going because as Jesus said: "Since the days of John the Baptist, the Kingdom of God has been forcefully advancing." I have been called by God to go and preach the Kingdom of God to the world. To bring hope to all people that Jesus saves. So I'm excited to go!

I'm in Ohio right now on spring break visiting friends. I will definitely have some time this week to write some more about being missional and all that jazz. Looking forward to it.

-AM

My Heart Speaks Out

Its a cloudless morning.  The wind is blowing just enough to make my hair wave in the wind.  Echoes of songs sung in the chapel behind me are still sinking deep into my soul and causing my head to spin.  Eventually, the melody and words of worship sink so deep that they penetrate my very heart.  It breaks.  Shatters even.  I feel completely taken back as if a hot wind knocks me to the ground.  I sit there, on the precipice, over looking a sight that has caused others to weep more than once.  

I hear the words of a man, ragged from persecution and sadness, a prophet even, who was here before me wept intensely as this place was destroyed by war.  The old man's heart broke as mine had done.  He would no longer hear the sweet songs rising up to heaven, he would no longer hear the sound of celebration.  There was nothing before him but a wasted land and a wasted people.  Another man approaches many years later and stands perhaps in the same place that I know sat, completely heartbroken, this man's heart broke as well.  Though I would never say mine broke like his broke.  The people below were singing, celebrating, living their lives as normal individuals, but he saw deeper than that.  He saw a torn people, there, in that city.  He saw a torn land, plagued by war.  He saw every place like it that has ever existed in history.  This man sobbed, in a way that others could probably not.  He cried out:  "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!"

I hear these voices as I sit there overlooking that great city, Jerusalem.  I see some of it's brokenness and heartache.  I see it's desire for something more.  Then I wake up from my dream.  With the picture in my head and the burden in my heart.  You see, while I felt the pain in my dream of a city that was broken and chained, I knew that this was much more than just a city on my heart:  Standing there with its stone walls and ancient buildings.  No, that was just the symbol of what my heart had been pierced by.  There on that mount overlooking the city, I heard the cries of the lonely, the poor, and the oppressed.  I heard the cries of those who were bound in the chains of addiction and believed they were destined to live with them on forever.  I heard them all ask and beg:  Is there any hope for me?!

When King David looked at the beloved city of Jerusalem he was inspired to sing and encourage everyone to pray for it's peace.  I would encourage you to pray for its peace as well.  But I do not mean just the city.  I mean the symbol of what the city stands for.  Pray that the peace that passes all understanding comes upon people so that they will know hope.  Pray that those who know hope will hear the cries of those still in their chains and will run their with the hope and freedom that we know.

I'm sharing this today specifically, because I feel it so intensely right now.  I talk to a friend and can see they are hurting so much, but don't realize they don't have to live with that kind of bondage and pain forever.  You've all heard it said:  "To whom much is given, much is expected."  We have been given much hope.  Let us then give what is expected of us.

Psalm 122:6 says:  "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, may those who love you be secure."

Peace be with you,

-AM

Not Quite Ready for This

So, I don't really know how to say this but...I don't want to go back to the States.  At least not yet.  This trip has been absolutely amazing and I've had so much revealed to me that I don't want it to end I guess.  Even the fact that I missed the first two days of touring didn't change the outcome of things for me.  In fact, I really believe it made it better for me.  I gained a much deeper appreciation for being here in Israel and a much deeper understanding of what the scriptures actually would have been saying since they are written within the Jewish mindset.  Today I had completely free and was able to visit the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem which by far the best museum in remembrance of that terrible tragedy.  It was an extremely moving experience to see how much pain and suffering was endured by these people and helped shed some light into the feelings of Jews in todays world.  I cannot imagine how to deal with something like this, and from my perspective I wonder how they could be restored.

This is not the answer they want to hear but I just see such a need for Jesus among this broken people.  It hurts me to think about how Jesus' own people don't share in His healing.  They have been through so much and I think what is needed is much more sympathy and love towards them.  I know we have our stereotypes of Jewish people being no more than rich mongers who want to rip you off and keep everything for themselves.  That is not the heart of the Jewish people though.  I've seen a people who is deeply devoted to God which is the same God that we serve!  They refer to them in such glowing terms as their "Beloved."  One Orthodox Jew who I have been able to speak with on a couple of occasions told me about how Christians always think Jews are legalistic and are so caught up in the Law when in reality they love keep the Law that was given to them by their Beloved.  It invokes images of Psalm 1 where it says:  "For his delight is in the Law of the Lord and on His Law he meditates day and night."  I nearly started crying writing that just now.  It is so moving to me to have seen the true heart of a people who loves their God passionately.  But it hurts and breaks my heart to see them still waiting for the Messiah to come and save them when He has already come.

However, God loves His people, it is so apparent to me here in this place.  And so I would encourage everyone, whether you know a practicing Jew or not, to take special care to reach out to them with the love of God.  As Christ came and loved us so we should love others, especially His own people.

And so with my heart broken for a people and not really wanting to go home I must say I am not ready for this.  I'm not quite ready to leave because I still think God has more to teach me here.  So I know I will return because there are many things that are yet to be done.  

So thanks everyone for following this blog on my tour of Israel.  Be assured it will not be my last time here.  We leave 1am local time from the hotel to head towards Tel Aviv and be on our way to Istanbul at 6 am.  After a 2 hour flight and a short lay over we will be headed back on the 10 hour flight to JFK and New York City.  Be at peace, and pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Shalom,

-AM

Last tour day

Today was the final tour day here in Israel.  I wish it would never end.  We visited Masada, Ein Gedi, Qumran and finished the day floating in the Dead Sea.  Masada was the last stronghold of the Zealot Jews in about 70 AD when the Romans crushed the Jewish revolt in Israel.  At Masada every man, woman, and child were put to death because they realized they were defeated.  It is a sad story but it helped to shed some light on the mindset of the Israeli people in this current crisis in Gaza.  In Masada the Jews were surrounded on all sides with absolutely no other options.  Many feel the same oppression on all sides now:  Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.  Not to mention the threats to them as a nation that exist from Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terror groups.  They have always it seems had this sense of fear about them and the fact that if they did not fight for themselves, in fact, no one would.

I'm not condoning the hundreds of people dead in Gaza right now, but I think things are a lot more complex than many of us in the United States would like to admit.  On one side we only see Israel not being wanted to exist and that they need to fight for everything.  On the other side is the fact that the Israeli army is reportedly responsible for almost 1,000 deaths in the Gaza strip right now.  As I said before our primary concern should be to be praying for the peace of Jerusalem and not taking sides and viewing one side as better and more moral than the other.  Because the fact is that neither side has been completely in the right and you can't give one the moral high position over the other.

Just thought that would be something to think about as you process the plethora of news headlines that are thrown out there today from every single direction.

Peace to You,

-AM

The Mirror of the World

It was impressed upon me today something that I had been feeling ever since arriving in Jerusalem.  For the past few days I have been so moved by what I have been seeing through Psalm 122 and praying for the peace of Jerusalem as I mentioned earlier and also in meeting the people who live and work in Jerusalem.

Today as we went to the Mount of Olives and went to the Dominus Flavit church which is the place where Jesus is said to have wept for Jerusalem as he approached it.  We had some time to reflect in the chapel and sang “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Amazing Grace.”  It was very moving.  We stood out on the platform overlooking Jerusalem and I felt very very heavy as I looked out at the closed off Golden Gate to the Temple Mount.  Dr. Notley shared how Jerusalem and it’s pain and violence has affected not only Jerusalem and Israel, but really that the divisions and quarreling that have happened there are a reflection of the distress of the world and especially individual human hearts.  As I looked on at the Beautiful Gate that is blocked off and filled in I saw that really as the reflection of the human condition:  The brokenness, the bitterness, the fighting, the anguish; it all plagues or has plagued every person as it has Jerusalem.  What made me lose it was realizing how when Jesus returns He will come from the Mount of Olives and enter through the Beautiful Gate into Jerusalem.  And likewise Jesus is trying to enter each one of our divided hearts.  But humanity has blocked off the gate to so much.  My heart broke as Dr. Notley articulated how I have felt since we arrived in Jerusalem.  It was truly prophetic words from God.

As my heart broke, I felt compassion for the broken like never before.  It made me realize that this is truly the condition of the entire world and not just that of Jerusalem.  And the Holy Spirit is starting to stir in me my reason for being a vessel of His healing.  I’m not sure what God is telling me in all this, but He wants to bring me into something deeper and here I will wait and just listen for Him to make His will known.  I’m excited!

Tomorrow is a trip to the Dead Sea and Masada for our final day of touring.  More from there later.

Shalom (Peace and Wholeness to you)

-AM

Quick Update

Just a quick update for today.  We stayed right around the old city of Jerusalem for the entire day viewing parts of King David's original city and walking around the temple mount.  It was amazing because one piece of rock and some stairs are still left over from the 1st century temple of Jesus' time.  I was able to stand at the exact spot that Jesus most assuredly walked on every time he came to the Temple.

The most moving moment of the day came when we had the opportunity to pray at the Western Wall on the western side of the Temple Mount.  I kept hearing all of the people around me praying and crying out to God and all I could do was stand there in the rain with my cardboard yarmulke on and pray that God would continue to do what He has promised:  Build His Church and call His children to Himself.

That's all for now.  We are headed up to the Mount of Olives tomorrow and to the Holy Sepulcher which is over the area of Jesus' death and resurrection.  More to come tomorrow.

Peace,

-AM