God is Love

Hello my faithful readers.  I've made it to Houston finally, thanks to a lot of you!  So here's a video I enjoy.

Fundraising Letter

Over the past three summers I have been blessed to intern with the Impact Houston Church of Christ in Houston, TX.   Last summer (2010) I served Impact Houston as the High School Director and the leaders of Impact have asked me to return as the permanent High School Minister starting in January.  This was a nice surprise and an answer to many of my prayers.  Impact’s youth programs have grown over the past few years, and there is a real need for another person on our youth team focusing on high school students.    

As High School Director, my responsibilities will include transporting the kids to and from church, organizing different service projects and mission trips, coordinating and leading bible studies, and giving the kids opportunities to enjoy positive experiences that they would not otherwise have.

  As High School Director, I will not only be focused on kids in the youth group, but also on reaching out to kids not in our youth group.  Our Youth Director, Dennis, and I have been praying and making plans to grow the high school group and to help our kids succeed in their faith after they have graduated and moved on from our group. 

Since Impact is a mission church, it is supported by other congregations throughout the United States.  Impact’s budget is devoted to running the programs that reach out to the communities surrounding the church.  Nearly all the ministers that work at Impact are supported by other congregations as domestic missionaries.  As High School Director, I will be one of these domestic missionaries, thus I need to build a network of financial and spiritual support.  On the attached page, I have listed my estimate of monthly expenses while living in Houston.  For the year, I estimate that I will need $35,000. 

I would like you to be a part of this ministry with me.  I am hoping that you might financially and prayerfully support me in this effort.  I encourage you to come see the good work that is being done in Houston.  I also encourage you to keep up with the things that I am doing there by reading my blog:  followinghiscalltohouston.blogspot.com.  With God’s grace and strength, I hope to shine like the noonday in a dark world, just as it says in Isaiah 58:10.

If you would like to contribute in any way to my mission effort, you can contact me directly at 479-670-2363, or by email jcarso1.61803@gmail.com.  If you wish to send a check, you can make it out to either West-Ark Church of Christ or Impact Church of Christ, and put my name in the memo line to designate it for me, and send it to the respective address below.

Grace and Peace,

John Carson


Westark Church of Christ                         Impact Church of Christ
900 N. Waldron                                       1704 Weber St.
Fort Smith, AR 72903                              Houston, TX 77007

God is good.

I've had a lot of frustrating and joyful moments in the past month or so since my last post.  A month ago I didn't know if I'd ever get enough funds to make it to Houston.  I had many of my wonderful friends encourage me and support me in the setback I was experiencing, but there was one thing I kept hearing in their voices, and it's something I've always know deep down.

God is good.

And all of the sudden money started coming in.  I don't know if it's that people realized I was short or what, but money started coming in.  Then the missions committee at Westark found some more money that they could give me.  Just a few nights ago, I sat in the living room of an amazing young family listening to their ideas to raise more funds for my work at Impact, and that they want to give me 200 a month.  Today I sit across from my own flesh and blood, who intend to support me as well. 

So today on this Christmas Eve, I anticipate the birth of the Christ, the same Christ who calls me to be like him in this world.  And I remember that God is good.

Grace and Peace to you all.

Quick the Vampires are Coming!

       This past weekend Dan Bouchelle from the Missions Resource Network guest spoke at Westark.  I really enjoyed what he had to say, especially his Parasite vs. Bone marrow analogy about how missions is viewed by churches. 
      
       He used the idea of parasites feeding off a body, I'll use the idea of vampires, because I need to be hip since I work with teenagers.  Now vampires are invited in just like missionaries sometimes are, and in some places are probably treated like such.  Almost as if the missionaries suck away from blood or life from the church, and then go out and somehow go out and take life to non believers?  That doesn't make a lot of sense.  Bloodsuckers just kill period.

       Now, Dan may have blew some minds on Sunday, when he continued his metaphor by talking about bone marrow.  I know my ears perked up when I heard him say bone marrow.  Partly because it's a strange phrase, and that dislodged bone marrow once put me in a coma and almost killed me.  If that last sentence is the first time you've heard of bone marrow, I'd like to add that it's not supposed to kill you like vampires.  Bone marrow is the stuff that produces more red blood cells which keep you alive.  In the same way, missionaries like myself are sent out to produce life and goodness in the places that we go.  We carry the resurrection of Jesus that has shaped our lives so much out to the places we go.  In fact, all the church is supposed be like bone marrow, otherwise how will it grow?  

      

Runaway Fields, Oxen, and Brides

        I've just returned from a week of recruiting interns for our upcoming summer.  We traveled to Searcy, then St. Louis, and then finished off in Oklahoma City.  Every time I go off to recruit I get excited because I get to talk to people about Impact, and try to get them to come intern for a summer.  Sometimes people are easily convinced, and it makes my job easy, and then they come intern.  Other times people listen to our spill about Impact, and take some information, and leave and never come back. 

       There is a third group I often encounter and it is a fascinating group to deal with.  This group doesn't ignore me, or just take my free stuff and leave.  This group listens about Impact, and sees that there is something good and holy happening in Houston.  Yet they start coming up with different reasons to not come and intern.  The two most popular excuses being, "I need to take classes," or "I need to work this summer."  Both of which make me want to vomit.  I've done both of those things, and they're horrible.  There's also the favorite church answer, "I'll pray about it."  This frustrates me quite a lot, because I don't think you need to pray about joining in what God is doing.  You may need to decide about where you should join God's work. 

       It makes me think of this story in Luke 14, where someone says "Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the Kingdom of God," to Jesus.  Jesus goes on and tells of a master who is having a great banquet and invites many guests.  When the servant is sent out to tell the guests everything is ready, they begin to make excuses.  The first says I just bought a field and I must go see it.  As if the field is going somewhere.  The second says I just bought some oxen and I need to try them out.  What?  Shouldn't you try them out before you buy them?  The third says, I just got married.  Which may be the most reasonable excuse given.  Well the master doesn't like it and tells the servant to bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. 

      It makes me think of this one instance while recruiting last week.  Josef and I were talking to this kid about interning, and once he had heard enough and seem interested, he was leaving.  As he left we offered him a shirt. His response was, "I need it in a small."  Which was weird since he was about my size, and me and Josef shared a look that said, what a weirdo. 

      Turns out, this kid is the only one who returned an application that day.  Which humbled me, and got me to thinking about Luke 14.  Often times the smart kids, talented bible majors or youth ministry majors get invited and pushed towards our "feast" at Impact.  But those guys usually go somewhere that they'll get paid, so I'll take the guys who are a little weird, because everyone that works at Impact has to be a little weird.  To all the weirdos out there like me, please come intern, even if you wear tight shirts.  Because you'll probably be really good.   

Are We Zombies?

       I don't really like zombies, but I'm often times intrigued by our American culture's fascination with zombie movies.  I wonder if it's because we fear that we're becoming something that resembles a zombie.  Maybe we are a little like zombies in that all we do is try to satisfy our need to consume relentlessly, whether that be food, sex, things, money, or an array of other things.  The other part of it is that zombies are manifestations of our apcolyptic fears.  Hollywood knows that we feel vulnerable in a time where terrorism, war, and disease are nightly news stories.  We don't want to become zombies, we want to be alive and free to do whatever we want!  Sometimes I feel that our worship has turned us into zombies, going through the motions and giving our time to God only on Sundays.

     Last weekend I went with the Lions for Christ on their Fall Retreat to Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville.  The theme of the retreat was centered around this question, "What does it mean to be a resurrected people?"  Which is a intriguing question to me, because I'm not exactly sure what it means.  My boss from Impact, Dennis, was the speaker and he did a great job of speaking about and presenting discussions about this idea.

        My take on this thought is that we are a people who have entered into the resurrection with Jesus, and because of that we're supposed to live differently.  I had somewhat of an epiphany on this retreat, when we discussed a few of these questions and ideas.  The first being a combination of two questions, "How do we as resurrected people, treat non-resurrected people, and resurrected people?"  The other being a look at the the text from Isaiah 58, seen below.

¹ "Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
       Raise your voice like a trumpet.
       Declare to my people their rebellion
       and to the house of Jacob their sins.
 ² For day after day they seek me out;
       they seem eager to know my ways,
       as if they were a nation that does what is right
       and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
       They ask me for just decisions
       and seem eager for God to come near them.
 ³ 'Why have we fasted,' they say,
       'and you have not seen it?
       Why have we humbled ourselves,
       and you have not noticed?'
       "Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
       and exploit all your workers.
 ⁴ Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
       and in striking each other with wicked fists.
       You cannot fast as you do today
       and expect your voice to be heard on high.
 ⁵ Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
       only a day for a man to humble himself?
       Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed
       and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?
       Is that what you call a fast,
       a day acceptable to the LORD ?
 ⁶ "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
       to loose the chains of injustice
       and untie the cords of the yoke,
       to set the oppressed free
       and break every yoke?
 ⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
       and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
       when you see the naked, to clothe him,
       and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
 ⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
       and your healing will quickly appear;
       then your righteousness will go before you,
       and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
 ⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
       you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
       "If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
       with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
 ¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
       and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
       then your light will rise in the darkness,
       and your night will become like the noonday.
 ¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;
       he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
       and will strengthen your frame.
       You will be like a well-watered garden,
       like a spring whose waters never fail.
  
 When I think about how to treat resurrected and non-resurrected people, and Isaiah 58, I see the same answer in each situation.  My answer is that mercy trumps judgment.

Mercy trumps judgment when the wicked prosper.

Mercy trumps judgment when my faith is slandered.

Mercy trumps judgment when people take advantage of my kindness.

Mercy trumps judgment when people don't like the way I worship.

Mercy trumps judgment when when I see a homeless alcoholic.

Mercy trumps judgment when I see the hungry and hopeless.

Mercy trumps judgment.
      
       When we encounter people in darkness and their death in this world, it may not always be good, yet we still bring the resurrection which is mercy to them.  In our communities of resurrected people, when strife and differences arise, grace will bring us together and heal, not judgment.  When we choose to take care of the oppressed and the stranger, instead of pushing away, and judging, our worship becomes true as we see in Isaiah 58.  In some ways our worship is resurrected, brought from death to life, and from darkness to light.  When all these things happen our lights will rise in the darkness, and our night will shine like the noonday.

Between two trees

      One of the coolest things I've noticed about the bible is that it begins and ends with trees.  In Genesis, we find a lot of events surrounding the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  In Revelation, we are told that those whose robes are washed, are going commune around the Tree of Life.  So in some way we live between these two trees, and I like that.  Not just because I like trees, and they're fun to climb, but because it means that it all things are going to be restored to how they were. 
  
      There are these televangelists I used to see on Daystar sometimes, talking about the end of the world, and how it's all going down.  I don't really care about how close we are getting to the Tree of Life, or how we'll end up there.  I'm more with how many people we can get to that point.  I have a real existential angst about a lot of things in life, I don't really want to make money, and I don't get excited about a lot of things that people do.  I think the only thing that matters is bringing more and more people into the kingdom of God.  In the end, it's really all that's going to matter. 

      I think we should all have an eschatological vision that excites us for heaven, and drives us to bring more and more people along for the ride. In Matthew 19, Jesus speaks about renewing all things, and sometimes that means leaving everything you know, and all your family, because as he says, it's worth it.  It's too bad we don't do this more, I wonder what it would be like if we did sell all our possessions and just follow Jesus.  If we redacted the bible I'm not sure we wouldn't start with that passage. 


Anywho, in my opinion, there's very little that matters in relation to what we do between these two trees, unless it expands the kingdom of God.  I'm excited to speak a bit about the renewal of all things tomorrow when I preach about Jonah.