sondancing 1.8

A Quick Catch-Up

     

Since this publication has the subtitle. “the newsletter of sondance and the higgs family,” it’s about time to do some catching up on the comings and goings of the Higgs family. The photo at left was taken this summer on the front porch of our former home in Canby. When we first moved in almost 17 years ago, we took a family photo at the same location, one we used as one of our earlier LINC Ministries prayer/support cards. We were hoping to include both photos here so you could see the “subtle” changes to us all, but since Terri and I have been living pretty much out of suitcases for the past several months, the original photo is in a box somewhere. Use your imagination: Lilly was 5, Levi was 2, Terri had long hair and I had dark brown hair!

       Kids first: Lilly is in Kansas City preparing to travel to Jerusalem on Sept. 14 for a three-month internship/practicum at the House of Prayer there. What a cool adventure for her! Her parents are thrilled that God is leading her to pray and learn in such a spiritually (and politically) intense and strategic location.. She and other interns from literally all over the world will take a number of history and theology classes, prayerwalk the city, and engage in intercessory worship from a prayer room that overlooks the Wailing Wall and Temple Mount. Levi will remain in KC, where he is in his second year at the Forerunner Music Academy at IHOPU. If you get a chance, go to www.ihop.org and click on the prayer room webcast, which is free and broadcast 24/7.  What you will see – about a dozen singers and musicians leading a room of 100-200 people in “intercessory worship” – has been going literally non-stop for twelve years. It’s a pretty amazing place, with around 1000 students attending several different schools at the university, within a community of several thousand others (of all ages, but the majority young adults) who are committed to night and day prayer. 

     As for their parents, Terri and I are enjoying being homeless! That is true only in a sense – our Canby house did sell, and our move to Idaho won’t be until sometime in 2012, but for now we are staying at my Mom’s house in southwest Portland, preparing it for sale while she enjoys an active social life in a nearly retirement community. After the sale, it’s an empty nesters’ adventure! In the meantime, it is just a bit odd and fun having a makeshift office in the bedroom I grew up in.

     Terri recently surprised me with a table lamp she found in an Idaho thrift store. It’s a tripod style, made with three arrows, and when I saw it I was immediately reminded of what I wrote in an old LINCLetter about the “three sharp arrows” in my ministry quiver: character, prayer, and unity. God clearly led her to buy the lamp for me so I would always be reminded of those. Yet the lamp is also a reminder of the three mission emphases He gave Terri and I when we founded sondance: spiritual formation, family restoration, and community transformation.

     In his book The Torch and the Sword, Rick Joyner wrote of being admonished through a prophetic word: “You must resolve to walk each day in the domain over which the Lord has given you to rule. He has given you authority, but you must walk with Him in your domain. Only then will you be fruitful and multiply as you are called. Your domain is your garden.” Terri and I are in a transition season when our home and ministry “domains” or “gardens” are changing. While the exact timing remains unclear, there is nothing unclear about the changes – as we begin to spend more and more time in Idaho, our daily experience there includes new relationships and Kingdom connections that are all about our mission of spiritual formation, family restoration and community transformation. We don’t have to force things, God just brings stuff our way, and it is SO EXCITING to live that way!! The same is true regarding our “domain” outside of Blaine County, Idaho. More on that next month.

sondancing 1.7

Reduction

     Reduction has been in the headlines quite a bit lately – federal spending reduction, national debt reduction, government size reduction, health insurance cost reduction, overseas troop reduction, foreign oil dependency reduction, even the reduction of Americans’ waistlines!

     I recently enjoyed lunch with a pastor in the Idaho community that will soon be our home. It was one of those divine appointments Terri and I have grown to expect and anticipate when we are in our new neighborhood. Bob has a background in youth ministry, has ministered in the area for almost ten years, and is very involved in the community rather than residing in a church bubble, so he has a very good understanding of the dynamics of the area. When I asked him about the relevant issues and concerns among teens there, he replied, “I think they are simply a reduction of those in most American communities.” I think he saw my eyes glaze over, so he elaborated: “You know, like when you cook down a sauce on the stove to make it more concentrated? That’s called a reduction. And the issues among youth here are, for the most part, not any different than elsewhere, they are just more concentrated.”

     At the time, I thought that was a pretty astute comment, and more I think about it, the better it sounds. I am into my fourth decade of working with youth, and although most of my time these days is spent with youth workers, I still get the importance of understanding youth culture. The issues and problems that youth face today cannot be minimized – family dysfunction, substance abuse, depression and suicide, and the mess that most always accompanies fatherlessness is all very real and very destructive.  And it all can render us overwhelmed, discouraged, or even hopeless - unless a little reduction is practiced.

     Matthew tells us in his Gospel that when Jesus looked out at the crowd that had gathered because of His preaching and healing (Matt. 9:35-38) “He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.”  I don’t have space here to unpack the meanings of the words “compassion,” “harassed” and “helpless,” but they are much more intense in the original language than in our English translations. Jesus clearly perceived, and was greatly troubled by, the very real and very painful wounds, hurts and needs of the multitudes. But as concerned as He was about the nature of their wounds, hurts and needs, He was even more concerned about the willingness and faith of His followers to meet those needs by ministering healing – spiritual, emotional, physical – in His name and authority and power. That’s why just a few verses later, we see that Jesus sends out the Twelve out to preach, deliver and heal. (Matt. 10:1ff)

     Our situation is not all that different today; most of us are surrounded by plenty of wounded, hurting, needy people. Identifying the source and nature of the wounds and hurts and needs can be important, but perhaps we make too much of that. Perhaps we need to do a little reduction: people are needy, Jesus alone can meet the deepest needs of the human heart, and He will use us as His instruments of healing in the lives of others - if we are willing. Jesus didn’t do a whole lot of counseling or diagnosing, but He did do a whole lot of praying and ministering and healing. And while I do want to understand the issues in our new community, that understanding is not as important as “living on assignment,” with the willingness and faith to minister in the name and authority and power of Jesus, 24/7/365. Terri and I are seeing an increasing number of opportunities to do just that, not only in Idaho, but wherever else God has us living - which during this season is lots of places, since our Canby home recently sold!

     Terri often reminds me of the importance Jesus placed on childlike faith. You could probably call it reduction faith - reduced to the basics . . . walk with Jesus always, talk with Jesus always, do what He says always. I think that’s part of what He is doing in our lives to prepare us for our assignment in our new Idaho community. And perhaps a little reduction might do us all well as we seek to be messengers of hope in our own neighborhoods, schools and cities.

     Thanks, Pastor Bob, for the reduction insight!

• • • • •

     Some of you will remember Pray! Magazine, which had a great run from the late 90’s through 2009 and included a number of articles from yours truly. Economic realities and a changing industry (i.e. electronic media) led NavPress to cease publication of the magazine a few years ago. The original editor, Jon Graf, has started a new publication, PrayerConnect: Connecting To The Heart of Christ Through Prayer,  that will feature a combination of print and electronic media forms. PrayerConnect is published by the Church Prayer Leaders Network and PrayerShop Publishing, divisions of Harvest Prayer Ministries, and is also cosponsored by three significant prayer movements (Terri and I are members of the first two of these): America’s National Prayer Committee - (www.nationalprayer.org), the International Prayer Council (www.ipcprayer.org) and the Denominational Prayer Leaders Network. PrayerConnect seeks to be the voice of these groups and a primary connecting point for people of prayer to find news of God’s moving around the world through prayer, plus events, information, and articles and ideas to help you grow in prayer.  Please check out www.prayerconnect.net and support this new ministry.

• • • • •

In the next issue of sondancing – more about the Campus Alliance Call For Prayer, and Lilly’s internship this fall in Jerusalem!

sondancing 1.6

Hope High School

   

  Like many of you, the home page on my laptop includes news feeds from various sources. It's handy because I can peruse the headlines from time to time, and read more if the Spirit leads. While spending an unexpected three hour delay in the Salt Lake City airport on a recent trip to Kansas City, I noticed an article from the New York Times feed on tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri, entitled "When Everything Is Gone, Including A Sense Of Direction."  The article was a primer on what happens when the Normalcy Bias I wrote about last month is shattered in an instant.

     Context is important for what happened next. I was stuck in Salt Lake, missing a meeting in KC, because of human error. So I was taking advantage of a great opportunity to (1) forgive (in the fullest biblical sense) those who made the mistake; (2) actively love those I was interacting with at the airport (as opposed to yelling at them); and (3) put into practice what I have been learning (with much help from Terri) about being fully present with the presence of Jesus always. While having lunch in the airport I noticed the article, read it, and then heard God clearly tell me to go to Joplin (2-1/2 hours south of KC) to pray and experience it first-person.  If “human” error doesn’t stick me in Salt Lake for three hours, I don’t look at my computer until later that night, and I likely don’t see the Times feed. And if I am reacting in anger to my situation, I likely don’t hear the Holy Spirit’s instruction, and I don’t end up at Hope High School.

     In terms of destruction, Joplin was worse than I expected. Around 500 commercial buildings and 8,000 residences were damaged or destroyed. From what I could see, a good number of the residences were not damaged or destroyed, but obliterated, with nothing left but a small pile of rubble and trees with most of their branches and bark stripped off. Neighborhood landmarks that provide a sense of direction were for the most part gone. As I wept and drove through the tornado pathway, the first thing that came to my mind was, “how did only 160 people die in this?” While midwesterners are used to, and prepared for, tornados, there must have been something else going on. And there was.

     One of the most powerful images tattooed in my mind from Joplin is the high school. Because it is a brick and steel structure, it fared somewhat better than most buildings in the area, although it is hard to see how it could ever be used again. The 200+ mph winds of the tornado had sucked the letters J, L, I and N off the school sign, but as you can see, somebody had used duct tape to add an H and E. Why would somebody name a severely damaged high school in the middle of a devastated community Hope High School?

     That question can only be answered by the person who did the tape work. But for me, it was a graphic illustration that in the midst of calamity, God is always present and at work. The prophet Habakkuk spoke about this. Immediately after describing the devastating implications of an immanent Babylonian invasion, he proclaimed a message of hope:

     “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights” (Hab. 3:17-19)

     The author of Lamentations had a similar message regarding the same invasion and accompanying destruction of Jerusalem, although this time the message was delivered after the invasion had occurred:

     “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. “

     While only in Joplin for a short hour, I saw tangible evidences of God at work through His people, and I have heard many stories since then of messengers of hope serving in the midst of disaster. Weeks later, Hope High School remains, for me, a prophetic sign of the hope that can (and will!) emerge in the emerging generations of youth that I have given my life to reach and disciple. Joplin strongly shook my Normalcy Bias, and I think there is more shaking to come for many of us in the weeks and months to come. But it is not shaking without purpose! He shakes “so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” (Heb. 12:27) What cannot be shaken are faith, hope and love - which must be seen in our lives as we incarnate a new, spiritual “normalcy:” “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. “ (Col. 3:1-3)