Over the last year, some of you have come to support our ministry financially. I am so grateful for each of you. If you do not know, this is what I do. Full-time. And I am only able to do it because of your financial support.

If you have been meaning to contribute to my support or to our work but have not gotten around to it, or thought your $10 a month was not enough to write a check for, now is your chance. We now have automatic bank draft abilities via PayPal. [You do NOT have to have a PayPal account] To learn more about how that works, go here.

By far, our biggest need is for recurring monthly contributions so we can budget and plan. If you do not currently contribute monthly, I hope you will go here and set up a monthly amount that is right for you and your budget.

But if you can’t commit to a monthly contribution, you can still send a one time gift, by check or PayPal. The information on how to do that is also right here. And any amount helps. It really does.

All donations to Love Wins are tax deductible, and while we know that is not the reason you give to us, you might as well take advantage of it. Just so you know, you have 9 days left in 2008 to get the deduction on this year’s return.

I thank God for all of you who pray for me and support me financially, as well as you who bless me just by reading this blog. I hope all of you have a most excellent Christmas and a wonderful new year.

I have known them almost a year and a half. They are a bi-racial couple, difficult at any time in the South, but when you are homeless, it is just one more barrier you face in interacting with the “normal” world. And more barriers are the last thing they need.

She is a high-school dropout, who is 21 and has already had two kids, one with him. He is in his mid-twenties and has already been dis-honorably discharged from the Marines. She has no job skills or work history and, while she looks like the cute white girl from next door, she has a distinctive “urban” accent when she talks. He walks the line between the acceptance he feels in street culture and the urge to stay with her and provide. They are not allowed custody of either kid–the kids are with his family in Benson.

Last week she spent 48 hours in the county jail because she broke his nose when she found him flirting with another woman. Yesterday I saw them together, like nothing ever happened. All was forgiven. Oh, and she told me she thinks she is pregnant again. Just what they need.

I do not know which frustrates me more: That they are so desperate to love and be loved by someone that they cling to each other when neither of them are any good for each other, or that she was excited at the prospect of being pregnant.

Just a heads up that my end of the year newsletter just went out to the folks on that list.

Once a month (more or less), I sit down and tell you about the work we are doing out here and tell you ways you can help us do it. If this sounds like something you want in on, go here and sign up. (We won’t ever share your info with anyone, we promise).

I had a gentleman write me a week or so back who was concerned because I once said

“Do not feed someone to ’share the gospel’ with them. Feed them because that is the gospel (or a big hunk of it, anyway).”

He was trying to tag me in “pin the tail on the heretic”. This happens sometimes. I responded like I always do, offering to sit down and have a cup of coffee together to discuss it. Unfortunately, he lives in Kansas and I live in North Carolina. I thought I would explain it here, because this question comes up a lot.

I think this gentleman and I have a disagreement when it comes to terms. He hears ‘gospel’ and thinks, as Billy Graham does, that “The Gospel is the Good News that, because of what Christ has done, we can be forgiven and can live forever.” (Why is gospel in upper case letters in that quote? Beats me…)

While I do not deny that because of what Jesus did and who he was we are able to be in communion with God forever, I think that is no more the gospel message than the reason my Grandfather proposed to my Grandmother was because of her blackberry cobbler recipe. At best, it is a secondary benefit. The Romans did not kill Jesus because he wanted to give people eternal life.

Read the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) and then tell me that the primary message of Jesus, the gospel he was preaching was that we can be forgiven and can live forever. You just cannot do it. No, in my opinion (and in the opinion of many scholars), the gospel Jesus preached¹ was the proclamation of a new age, being ushered in by Jesus. In other words, the good news is that things have changed. That God is doing a new thing. That another world is possible and all we have to do to get it is to be willing to die for it. The good news was the birth of a new way to live.

So what does this have to do with feeding people? Nothing… and everything. In this new age Jesus brought about, the Way² that the early Jesus followers claimed, Jesus gave us a new way to deal with almost everything. Especially in how we deal with each other. John Howard Yoder said it best:

When he called his society together, Jesus gave its members a new way of life to live. He gave them a new way to deal with offenders: by forgiving them. He gave them a new way to deal with violence: by suffering. He gave them a new way to deal with money: by sharing it. He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society: by building a new order, not smashing the old. He gave them a new pattern of relationship between men and women, between parent and child, between master and slave, and which was made concrete – a radical vision of what it means to be a human person.³

If you think the gospel is all about heaven, then screw this world. Let’s get busy getting ready for heaven. We can ignore AIDS, victims of genocide, the hungry, the homeless and human slavery, except possibly as an audience for evangelism. In other words, we feed them to have a chance to share the gospel.

However, if you believe that Jesus came to show us how to live, a way of life that includes, as a result, communion with God forever, then sharing a meal with someone is proclaiming the gospel, and it is the gospel.

Standard disclaimer: If you have problems with how I view things, I hope you will take the opportunity to sit down and have a cup of coffee with me and we can discuss it. I think, as Jesus followers, this is the model we see for solving disputes and reconciling with each other. Please feel free to email me to set up a time.

Notes:

1) Have you ever wondered how, if the gospel is “that because of the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has forgiven you and you will live forever”, how was Jesus going around forgiving sins before his death? If the good news was a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus, how was Jesus preaching the good news in Luke 20, since he had not yet died? How were the disciples teaching the gospel in Luke 9? According to Graham’s definition, there was, as of yet, no gospel to be had.

2) It is interesting that the first name for the society that formed around Jesus was The Way. (Acts 9). Not “The Heaven Goers, or “The Saved”, or “The Elect”. No, the name focused on what they did, instead of what they believed. Hmmmmm…

3) John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution (Scottsdale, PA: Herald, 1972) pgs 31-32

Dear Friends,

As much as I like writing these emails, they necessarily have to take a back seat to the actual work of ministry itself. I almost did not get this one out to you-not because of a lack of material or information, but because of the time demands created by being in this sort of intensive ministry.

Pardon the format, but If I did not write it this way, then this month it would not get written.

Updates:

Many of you have asked about James and Ruby. They are much better off than they were. James has almost fully recovered and is back to doing odd jobs, which takes a great deal of economic stress off of them (and us). While they are struggling less than they did, life for them is only returning to the normal level of chaos and confusion that is living one week away from being on the street. James is looking for a more permanent job, so if you know of someone who needs a handyman/mechanic type, let me know.

The Gathering (another thing many of you have asked about) is still going, and going great. We are still meeting, still trying to love each other and still working out what following Jesus in our world looks like. Hopefully after the first of the year we will make it more public, but right now we are still trying to own it before we can share it. Continue to pray for us and if you want to send a small check to help us pay rent on the meeting room, that is always appreciated.

I went to Cincinnati a few weeks ago to hang out with Bart Campolo and see how their ministry works up there. Bart and his family were very gracious and helpful and because of some of our discussions, it will eventually lead to improvements in the way we minister to our poor and homeless friends. I am, however, still having nightmares about the 22 hour bus ride.

Last Tuesday I spoke at Peace College during their chapel service for Hunger and Homelessness week. In addition, I am teaching at Raleigh Mennonite Church this weekend and on Monday of next week, I am giving the message in the chapel service at Campbell University. In short, I am speaking a lot, which is, as Martha Stewart used to say, a good thing. If you have a small group, Church, Sunday School class or anything else you need a speaker for, hit me up. I use complete sentences and everything.

Over the last month, I partnered with Connections Church in Cary to collect warm clothing for my friends who are feeling the recent cold front that has hit Raleigh. Last weekend about six of us passed out hoodies and socks to some very cold people.

Thanks Connections people!

In short, I am still here, still building relationships and helping some very broken people learn how to love in the way of Jesus. Doing ministry among and with people who seldom change is at times, discouraging. There are times I wish I could brag more about life changing encounters or financial turn-abouts. And while those things do happen, what is much more common is folks who were hurting yesterday still hurting today. The difference is that now they no longer have to hurt alone. That, I think, is no small thing.

Love wins. Always.

Hugh Hollowell

In our little experiment we call (for lack of a better term) The Gathering, one of the things we hold dear is the idea that those of us who claim to follow Jesus should eat together regularly. There are several reasons for this, among them being:

The first church ate together.

The first Jesus followers were always eating. Seriously; look at how much bread breaking they are doing, all of Paul’s railings on table etiquette, The Emmaus story, Acts Chapter 2, etc. These folks were eating. And this was not incidental to what they did; rather, this is what they did. It was not in addition to “church stuff’, this was church stuff.

Jesus tells us to do it.

Do this in remembrance of me. Do what in remembrance of me? When Jesus said this, he was at a Passover meal. That happens once a year; Did he mean “When you have the Passover meal”? The early Jesus followers did not think so, as I pointed out above. They were eating together as a part of worship all the time. No, the first church took it to mean “Whenever you have a meal in common, do it in remembrance of Jesus”. And so do we.

Eating together echoes Jesus stories

Jesus had a lot to say about food. Jesus fed the five thousand, with tons left over. Jesus fed the four thousand on another day, again with tons left over. Jesus turns water into wine, and there much left over. We are told by Jesus how to act at banquets (take the worse seat for ourselves). We are told who to invite (the blind and the beggar). The Kingdom of God is often compared to a banquet or a feast. The Passover meal itself tells us that God will provide liberation for his people. Matthew 25 tells us that, in some way, our eternal destinies are tied to what we do with food. The examples are near endless.

Sharing food says something about what we believe.

When we eat together, it is making an economic statement: There is enough. It says we depend on each other. It says we can all contribute. It shows us that God made a world of abundance. It says that in the Kingdom of God, no one has to go hungry.

These are a few reasons why we make it a point to share food on occasion. Yesterday was one of those occasions.

There were our usual folks, plus some folks we invited for the first time. We sat down together, white and black, rich and poor, male and female. Many of us brought things — all of our regulars contributed.

There were burritos, soft tacos, hard tacos. There was a ton of refried beans and Spanish rice. For desert, we had huge chocolate chip cookies. We sat and ate, and talked and laughed. For the newcomers, we shared a bit about what we are looking to do. We invited them to come and be a part of us, to share their lives with us and to join us on this journey of following Jesus. There were a lot of questions, most of which were answered better than I could have done it by the regulars.

Here we are, hanging out and chatting before we eat.

Note: I keep getting asked when we will open it up to ‘outsiders’. The answer is still “I am not sure”. It is a lot like going to Grandma’s house. You love doing it, you get a lot out of it, but if you put 20 strangers in the living room, it changes everything. Right now, we are selectively inviting folks. We are not sure what the future looks like yet. Please be patient, and as we build this, we will invite more of you. Meanwhile, we appreciate your prayers, love and support.