MEMO TO MYSELF, 20170330

NEVER ask someone, "How are you?" if you're not fully ready for an honest answer. If you simply want to express cordiality, say, "It's good to see you!" or "It's good to hear from you!" Those things can always be true.

Only ask "How are you?" when you really want to know.

Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

It has been a couple of weeks now since I wrote the last entry in this series. I was avoiding this, and am not sure why. I think I was afraid that reviewing the whole thing would leave me feeling overwhelmed. But I just did that, and it didn't. There's good stuff here; stuff that deserves hard, smart work.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to devote ourselves to the good deeds for which God has designed us."

That's Ephesians.

Closing thoughts? Only that I want to live in a way that invites others to come along, and then makes them glad they did.

As God grants me focus, it will be one heck of a ride.

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ

Yesterday I wrote:

Given my beliefs, abilities, interests, position and location, it seems that as of now, the best uses of Elwin Green in Homewood will be:

• Encouraging fellow members of the Body of Christ,

• Growing businesses, and

• Redeveloping Race Street

...and I promised to outline projects and processes related to those priorities. Today, I'll talk about the first one, encouraging fellow members of the Body of Christ.

But first, this point: all three priorities are place-specific. All are part of my evolving answer to the question, "What does it mean to live in a place?" (as opposed to just sleeping there at night, for instance). For me, living in Homewood means pursuing the three priorities in Homewood.

Underlying the first priority is a desire for the rest of my life: to live out my faith in unity with other believers who live within walking distance.

I feel like I'm being radical when I say that, for several reasons. First of all, Western Christianity has been so co-opted by individualism that the idea of living out one's faith in unity with other believers is culturally heretical. Second, living out my faith in unity with believers who live within walking distance means going outside the construct of congregating on Sunday morning with people who live here, there and everywhere. Third, it goes against the tendency to forego relationships with neighbors in favor of relationships with other people in our lives (co-workers, fellow students, etc.).

Radical or not, this is my plan for encouraging fellow members of the Body of Christ in Homewood, on the way to living out my faith in unity with them:

1. Declare the word of God to them by reciting Scripture, and
2. Pray with them.

More specifically...

1. Declare the word of God to them by reciting Scripture. Most believers, most of the time, experience Scripture as a hodgepodge of disconnected numbered sentences. We memorize and analyze fragments called "verses" with no sense of the whole from which they are taken. We listen to preaching that strings together fragments and numbered sentences to highlight a thesis or theme. In pursuit of these theses and themes, we entirely lose sight of the fact that with a couple of exceptions, each book of the Bible is one thing.

Then, as if fragmenting Scripture weren't bad enough, we flatten it. We forget, or never realize, that the passages we read were written by human beings, for human beings, not as purely doctrinal treatises, but as stories, poems, arguments, illustrations, proclamations, with questioning, cajoling, complaining, criticizing, complimenting...the full range of discourse and expression, of thought and feeling.

This fragmenting and flattening of Scripture, hideous enough on its own, is made even worse when we read Scripture publicly. In our desire to show reverence for the word of God, we read it in a way that fosters not only confusion, but boredom.

The reading or hearing of Scripture should never be boring.

I hope to counteract both tendencies - the tendency toward fragmentation and the tendency toward flattening - by inviting believers (first on Race Street, then in Homewood generally) to an interpretative reading of Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. I will recite Ephesians in its entirety, in a way intended to convey the excitement - indeed, the ecstasy - which I believe Paul experienced when he wrote it.

I plan to do that in April. Stay tuned for details.

2. To pray with them. After sharing Ephesians, I will invite believers in Homewood to our home on the last Friday evening of each month for a night of prayer, to last until 6 a.m., followed by breakfast.

That's it. I make no predictions concerning results. Planting and/or watering may be my business; bringing forth fruit is God's.

Viva in locum! (took me 'bout half an hour of resurrecting my junior high Latin to come up with that!)

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond

My mini-bio at the right ends with the slogan, "Christ, commerce, community." Those three words distill so much of my life and so much of what I want to do that my thinking about my priorities for 2014 has come down to three categories of action, related to those three words.

Given my beliefs, abilities, interests, position and location, it seems that as of now, the best uses of Elwin Green in Homewood will be:

• Encouraging fellow members of the Body of Christ,
• Growing businesses, and
• Redeveloping Race Street

Christ, commerce, community.

Theoretically, I could do an infinitude of other things - or at least, try to, venturing limitlessly into other areas. But those three are enough to occupy me, perhaps for the rest of my life (indeed, I intend to have the first two occupy me for the rest of my life, wherever I am. I expect some variation of the third to do so also, as I expect to remain on Race Street for the rest of my life; but that is less certain than the first two).

Christ, commerce, community.

Why write a blog post about this, rather than just noting it in my journal? Because all three of those priorities will require considerable involvement by other people, and because for all I know someone reading this may want to be involved.

Over the next week or so, I will outline specific projects and processes related to each category of action. So come back tomorrow if you'd like to learn how I plan to encourage the Body of Christ in Homewood in 2014.

Christ, commerce, community.

So let it be written. So let it be done.

*******************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Intermezzo with a child.

I was walking down the street toward the bus stop when I saw a boy who appeared to be between 6 and 8 years old coming toward me.

Apparently he had just finished a bag of chips, for he tossed the empty bag onto the vacant lot we were both passing.

I spoke as he came nearer.

"Excuse me, young man..."

He stopped, apprehensive. I oozed honey
.
"...could you do me a favor?"

"Yes?"

"Could you pick up that bag you threw on the ground and take it home and put it in the trash instead of leaving on the street?"

"Yes." He turned back and retrieved the bag. I released a final dollop of honey.

"Thank you very much!" And we went our ways - I, to wonder how to make such minor course corrections more common in Homewood; he, probably, to forget.

And so it goes.