I hear that a lot after I talk to a group. I tell them about how following Jesus calls us to change the world. I tell them how Jesus came to inaugurate the new age, to make it “on earth as it is in heaven” and that he needs our help to do it. I encourage them to come on board. They are all excited and charged up… and then somebody wants to know what to do next.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove over at Rutba House in Durham posted 50 ways you can get started…

1. Fast for the 2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.
2. Contact your local crisis pregnancy center and invite a pregnant woman to live with your family.
3. Ask your pastor if someone on your church’s sick list would like a visit.
4. Join an open AA meeting and befriend someone there.
5. Adopt a child.
6. Mow your neighbor’s grass.
7. Volunteer to tutor a kid at your local elementary school. (Try to get to know the kid’s family.)
8. Grow your own tomatoes–and share them.
9. Ask a small group in your community to meet regularly for intercessory prayer.
10. Build a wheel chair ramp for someone who is home-bound.

Go here to read the rest of the list.

For the last several years, he has identified himself as a Muslim, despite a Catholic upbringing. We have discussed the claims of Jesus many times, focusing mainly upon who Jesus was and what following Jesus is like. It helped that the people who were helping him were all Jesus followers and that many of his Muslim “friends” were not just bad Muslims, they were just mean people.

Last weekend he told me that he has now decided he is going to follow Jesus. We had a long talk about what that means (No, I did not quote a single verse from Romans, sorry) and what that could look like. Oh, and he ate what he called “the world’s biggest pork chop”!

Last Thursday, we were supposed to meet, but he called to say he would not be able to make it. A friend of his was battling with addiction and wanted to be clean, but was scared, so he took her to Wake Med and helped her enter the de-tox program there. Sounds like a nice thing to do, right? Let me tell you what that involved:

• They walked 2 miles to go pick up bus passes from the Wake County Homeless Outreach Center, known as Cornerstone.
• They waited for almost an hour at the bus station to get a bus.
• They road out to Wake Med, where they sat in the waiting room for nine hours. Nine. hours.
• While in the waiting room, he allowed her to use up all his cell phone minutes to call her dad, who lives in South Carolina, to let him know what is going on.
• All this while dealing with an addict who is very much needing a fix.
• He missed eating both Lunch and Supper at the soup kitchen. He had no money to buy anything at the cafeteria.

The next day, we eat together at the soup kitchen. As he tells me about the trials of the day before, I tell him that was a big sacrifice on his part, and that I am proud of him. He waves it off.

“It wasn’t anything,” he said. “Besides, now I am a Christian. That means now I do stuff like that.”

photo credit: Son of Groucho

The big thing for me, though, is that Jesus did not seem to believe it. How many times does Jesus mention the Kingdom of God, comparing it to something small, like yeast or a mustard seed, or salt and light, things that work under the surface and change the nature of whatever they are introduced to?

To me, this is just one more way that Jesus changed how the world works. Love in the way of Jesus changes things, it works under the surface, it alters whatever it is introduced to, it changes the way things are and makes things the way they were meant to be.

Photo credit: panoramabanana

I came across a beautiful discussion of the Kingdom of God by Brian McLaren. While his views will not be a surprise to anyone who has read his The Secret Message of Jesus (which is a must read, and one of the 10 or so most influential books on me and my ministry), they are definitely different than what is taught in churches all across America.

The kingdom of God, Jesus said, was “good news for the poor.” There is a personal dimension to the kingdom of God, to be sure, in which we have a personal relationship with the King. But there is also a social dimension to the kingdom of God, a dimension that challenges normal human (and religious) assumptions about peace, war, prosperity, poverty, privilege, responsibility, religion, and God.

You can go here and read the whole article

By the way, I know I have been largely silent on the blog of late. It is not because nothing is happening, but because so much is happening. I hope to get caught up on my blogging soon. In the interim, feel free to peruse the archives and please, tell your friends about us.